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      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Author
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      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention (from 2016)
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
    • Contact Us
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
    • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
      • Abstracts Listed by Year
    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention (2016-2019)
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
      • Panels at the M-MLA Convention (from 2016)
  • Events
    • RGME Activities for 2024 and 2025
      • 2023 Activities and 2024 Planned Activities
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series (2001-)
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
      • RGME Symposia: The Various Series
      • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
      • Meetings of the Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
      • RGME Online Events
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
  • ShelfLife
    • Journal Description
    • ShelfMarks: The RGME-Newsletter
    • Publications
      • “Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge” (1997)
        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
      • Semi-Official Counterfeiting in France 1380-1422
      • No Snap Decisions: Challenges of Manuscript Photography
    • History and Design of Our Website
  • Galleries
    • Watermarks & the History of Paper
    • Galleries: Contents List
    • Scripts on Parade
    • Texts on Parade
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    • Posters on Display
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    • 2023 End-of-Year Fundraiser for our 2024 Anniversary Year
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Pigment-Analysis of Corpus Manuscripts (March 1994)

September 10, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Reports, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

Cover for Preliminary Report of the January 1994 Workshop on 'Image Processing and Manuscript Studies'A Workshop/Visit
by the Pigment-Analysis Project
at University College London

At the Parker Library, 4 March 1994

in the Series of Research Group Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

[First published on our website on 9 September 2016]

In our Series on “The Evidence of Manuscripts”, this Workshop (also called a Visit) followed our larger Workshop or Seminar on “Image-Processing and Manuscript Studies” on 15 January, but it resulted from its own set of extended preparations by another Project, likewise funded by The Leverhulme Trust. For this purpose, members of that project, based at University College London, brought some portable scientific equipment for close observation of selected details involving red pigment in a few Insular and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.

'The London University' as viewed by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (published in 1827/280), via Wikipedia Commons.

‘The London University’ (now University College London) as viewed by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd (published in 1827/280), via Wikipedia Commons.

The subject of the Visit to the Parker Library: Non-destructive analysis of “Pigments in Selected Corpus Manuscripts” by UltraViolet-visible spectroscopy.

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Tags: Beowulf Digitisation Project, British Library, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Cheryl Porter, Corpus Christi College MS 12, Corpus Christi College MS 144, Corpus Christi College MS 178, Corpus Christi College MS 197B, Corpus Christi College MS 198, Corpus Christi College MS 23, Corpus Christi College MS 352, Corpus Christi College MS 389, Corpus Christi College MS 419, Cotton MS Claudius A III, Marcus Daniels, Matthew Parker, Medieval Pigments, Non-Destructive Pigment Analysis, Palaeographical and Textual Handbook, Parker Library, Parkerian Red Crayon, Pigment Analysis, Pigment-Analysis Project, Raman Spectroscopy, Saint Dunstan, Stephen P. Best, UltraViolet-Visible Spectroscopy, University College London, Video Spectral Comparator
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“Imaging Aids in the British Library” (December 1993)

September 5, 2016 in Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

Cover for Preliminary Report of the January 1994 Workshop on 'Image Processing and Manuscript Studies'A Visit
to the British Library
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

15 December 1993

In preparation for the Workshop
on Image-Processing and Manuscript Studies”
at the Parker Library on 15 January 1994

in the Series of
Research Group Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’

The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

[First published on our website on 5 September 2016]

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r. Frontispiece with Gregory the Great enthroned in a niche and reverent monks at his feet. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r. Reproduced by permission

A 1-day visit to the British Library in December 1993 prepared for the Research Group’s January 1994 workshop on optical imaging techniques as aids for manuscript studies.

Organised by Mildred Budny and Tony Parker and held at the Parker Library, that approaching workshop on Image-Processing for Manuscript Studies” aimed to consider developments in imaging through photographic and computerised methods, as a means of gathering information and feedback about techniques of image processing, both existing and planned, with a view toward applications, capabilities, limitations, desiderata, and future potential.

Participants at the workshop would include experts in manuscript studies, conservation, photography, imaging aids, computing, radio astronomy, engineering, forensics and medical imaging.  The speakers would come from the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, the University of Cambridge, the British Library, the University of Kentucky, the Questioned Documents Section of the Metropolitan Police Forensics Laboratory, Ipswich Hospital, and Keith & Pelling Ltd.  The other participants would come from both near and far.

Meanwhile, there were elements of information to gather and materials to prepare.

Fact-Finding, Demonstrations, and Explorations

Postcard with frontal view of The British Museum.

Viewing the Front of The British Museum via Postcard.

The Visit took place in the Manuscripts Conservation Studio of the Collection and Preservation Directorate of The British Library.  At the time, remember, The British Library (created on 1 July 1972 as a result of the British Library Act 1973) still remained in its “old” building, before the move in 1999 to the new building, specially built for the purpose, on the Euston Road, Number 96. That is, the British Library remained in the same building as The British Museum, out of which it had emerged as an entity of its own.  The Department of Western Manuscripts remained in its domicile, in the East Wing of the building (designed in Greek Revival Style by Sir Robert Smirke and completed in 1852), facing Great Russell Street and the Front Entrance.  The Manuscripts Conservation Studio occupied quarters in the Basement below.

During the years of her long-term research on manuscripts at The British Library for the Ph.D. (London 1984), Mildred Budny (a founder member and by now Director of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence) had been a frequent visitor to the Manuscripts Conservation Studio, at Tony Parker’s invitation, to learn about new equipment, new techniques, and new discoveries as part of the conservation work on many forms of materials, manuscript and other. As a result both of such visits and meetings elsewhere, conferences included, it was “natural” to learn, for example, about the Beowulf Digitisation Project (1992–) already as it was beginning to take shape and form.

Here, thanks to that Project (and other developments), you may see, right now, here and now, how the sole surviving medieval copy (partly burnt) of Beowulf begins:

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 132r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 132r. Reproduced by permission.

On the day, we could inspect the Real Thing, viewed with the relevant equipment, and guided by a founder of the Beowulf Digitisation Project in a formative period.  At the January Workshop on “Image-Processing for Manuscript Studies”, Kevin Kiernan also joined the presentations, although that time not in the presence of the manuscript itself, but represented by proxy, and moreover by computer transmission of images via the University of Kentucky to Cambridge. (You may take such representation for granted, nowadays, but we report an earlier stage in the worldwide transformation of the transmission of images of manuscripts, etc . . . )

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 140r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 140r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 163v. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 163v. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 139r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 139r. Reproduced by permission.

*****

Report of the Visit, Now with Illustrations

'Imaging Aids' on 15 December 1993. Photography © Mildred Budny

‘Imaging Aids’ on 15 December 1993. Photography © Mildred Budny.

Front cover of the assembled booklet with the Profile of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and the full set of 5 Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust, which funded the 5-year major Research ProjectA report of this December Visit appears as an Appendix to the “Preliminary Report” of the 15 January Workshop, printed and circulated as a Booklet after its event.  A similar Report for the December Visit to the British Library appears in the Fifth, and Final, Annual Report to the Leverhulme Trust (1993–4) on the 5-year Research Project at The Parker Library on “The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts” (Leverhulme Trust ref. F665).  On the series of Annual Reports, see our Publications.

We now transcribe the Report here, for you to see both on our website and in our Research Group font Bembino — our own copyright font, designed over more recent years by one of the participants of this Visit.  (You may download this font for FREE here.) You may also view the Appendix on its original page in the downloadable Booklet.  Here, we add some links and, by permission from The British Library, several images from the relevant manuscripts examined during the Visit.

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Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Beowulf Digitisation Project, Beowulf Manuscript, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius A III, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv, digitization of manuscripts, Gregory the Great, Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Imaging Aids, Manuscript Conservation Studio, Saint Dunstan, Saint Dunstan's 'Classbook', Seminars on Manuscript Evidence
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