3. “Technical Literature and Its Form and Layout
in Early Medieval Manuscripts”

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
(13 April 1990)
Invitation in pdf.

The previous seminar in the series considered
“Corpus Christi College MS 139″ A Twelfth-Century Historical Miscellany
(Parker Library, September 1990)

[First published on 22 August 2016]

“There will be some informal presentations on aspects of the subject, followed by a general examination of various manuscripts.”  Among them are volumes containing works by Martianus Capella, Alcuin, Aristotle, Boethius, Priscian, Bede, and others.

The speakers and their subjects:

• John Marenbom:  logical treatises
• Vivien Law:  grammatical works
• Leslie French:  mathematical texts

As promised in the invitation, we considered a variety of texts and layout at first hand.

We examined:

MS 206 (collection of dialectical and theological texts)
MS 153 (Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii and De Martiano)
MS 449 (Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary)
MS 144 (glossaries and fragments of Priscian’s Institutiones Grammaticae)
MS 221 (Alcuin’s and Bede’s Orthographiae)
MS 352 (Boethius’ De institutione arithmetica)
MS 291 (Bede’s De temporum ratione and other computistical texts)
MS 260 (musical texts)

[Note:  In time, all but one of these manuscripts came to figure in the Illustrated Catalogue (2 volumes, 1997) emanating from the long-term, integrated research work on selected Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts at The Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.  (The stages of the research work are recorded, for example, in the Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust, described in our Publications.)

The manuscripts are:

MS 206 = Budny Number 16
MS 153 = Budny Number 7
MS 144 = Budny Numbers 6 and 56
MS 221, Part I = Budny Number 15
MS 352 = Budny Number 20
MS 291 = Budny Number 49]

*****

Invitations were sent to:

David Wilson, Mildred Budny, Tim Graham, Leslie French, Christine Fell, R.I. Page, Vivien Law, John Marenbon, Charles Burnett, Patrick Wormald, Malcolm Godden, Donald Bullough, David Ganz, Simon Keynes, Catherine Hall, and Christopher Page.

Present:

[[
David Wilson, Mildred Budny, Tim Graham, Leslie French, Christine Fell, R.I. Page, Vivien Law, John Marenbon, Charles Burnett, Patrick Wormald, Malcolm Godden, Donald Bullough, David Ganz, Simon Keynes, Catherine Hall, and Christopher Page.

*****

The next Seminar considered “The Production, Make-up and Handling of Medieval Manuscripts”
(Parker Library, October 1991).

*****