Corpus Christi College MS 173B Archives -

Research Group Events in Japan (November-December 1992)

September 17, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

Research Group Visit to Japan
Seminar, Workshop, Lectures, and Symposium
November and December 1992

In November and December 1992, 4 members of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence visited Japan at the invitation of our Japanese Associates, Professors Shuji Sato and Tadao Kubouchi. The visit included a Research Group Seminar, a Research Group Workshop, a Research Group Symposium, a Research Group Photographic Exhibition, and Lectures at various locations. The visit was organised with the help of very many members of the Japan Society for Medieval English Studies and others.

The lectures, seminar, and workshop considered in depth specific subjects surveyed in the symposium; demonstrated the approach of the Palaeographical and Textual Handbook; and examined themes, challenges, and advances in Anglo-Saxon manuscript studies. The photographic exhibition accompanied the seminar, workshop, and symposium.

A Set of Events, with Lectures and a Seminar, Workshop, and Symposium, took place at several centers in Japan in November and December 1992.

They formed an extension of the Research Group Series on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” (1989–1995)
held mostly at the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

The previous seminar in the Series considered

“Research on Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Cambridge and Oxford”
(with a Travelling Exhibition of Photographs)
Pembroke College, Oxford, 20 June 1992)

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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (June 1994)

September 12, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

“Marginalia in Manuscripts”
Parker Library
24 June 1994

Invitation Letter, Plus Marginalia, for 24 June 1994

RSVP Form for 24 June 1994

In the Series of Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts”
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Invitation in pdf, with 1-Page Invitation Letter and 1-page RSVP Form

The previous Seminar in the Series considered
“King Alfred and His Legacy”
(English Faculty Building, Oxford University, 20 April 1994)

[First published on 12 September 2016]

This seminar was “devoted to marginalia in medieval manuscripts.” A complicated and fascinating subject.

Now, at the distance of more than 20 years, Mildred Budny reviews the event, with some highlights, and considers its annotated Invitation Letter as a case in point.

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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (5 June 1992)

September 8, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MSS 23 and 223:
A Workshop” on
The Corpus Prudentius and the Saint-Bertin Prudentius

Prudentius MSS Seminar Invitation 2 June 1992 with border

Invitation Letter for 2 June 1992

RSVP Form

5 June 1992
In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Invitation in pdf.

The previous Seminar in the series considered
“Anglo-Saxon Writing Materials and Practices”
Parker Library, 11 January 1992

[First published on 8 September 2016]

Focused on the 2 early medieval manuscripts at the Parker Library with collections of the works of the Spanish poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348 – after 405 CE), this workshop considered the evidence of Corpus MS 23 and MS 223 in the light of their relatives and their contexts, and in the company of gathered specialists, who had come from England and abroad.

The month of June in 1992 — during the 3rd year of the 5-year Research Project on “The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts” funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and during the 5th year of full-time research at the Library by its outside-funded Senior Research Associate, Mildred Budny, specifically directed toward an integrated approach toward the Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts in the collection — was the first, and only, time during the full Series of Research Group Seminars (and Workshops) on the Evidence of Manuscripts (1989–1995) that 2 workshops or seminars were held in the same month.

The work of the Research Project is described in the detailed Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust. As listed among our Publications, the Reports were reprinted and circulated, together with the then-current Profile (updated as appropriate during those years) of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

*****

The Plan

© The British Library Board. Additional MS 24199, folio 18r. Reproduced by permission.

Issued in the name (and with the abbreviated signature) of R.I. Page, the 1-page Invitation Letter sets out the parameters.

We plan to hold a workshop on Friday, 5 June, concerning Corpus Christi College, MSS 23 and 223, which contain collections of works by Prudentius, with many glosses. MS 223, a medium-format copy made in Northern France in the late ninth century, apparently belonged to the Abbey of St. Bertin. It reached England by the late tenth century, to judge by entries by various Anglo-Saxon hands. MS 23, Part I, a luxurious large-format copy made in Southern England in the late tenth or early eleventh century, apparently belonged to Malmesbury Abbey by the mid-eleventh century. It contains a magnificant cycle of illustrations for the Psychomachia, rendered in coloured outline drawing and accompanied by some Latin and Old English titles. Both its place of origin and function, whether as a ‘classbook’ or meodu-borde book, remain controversial.

Both manuscripts have been the subject of detailed study in the course of our research at the Parker Library. We hope to produce a facsimile of MS 23, and we are preparing studies of particular aspects, to analyse its texts, layout, language, codicology, palaeography and art. As part of this exploration, the workshop will discuss the problems of both manuscripts and related subjects. We hope you might attend to give your advice and help.

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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (March 1990)

February 11, 2015 in Events, Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“Facsimiles, Diplomatic Texts and Editions”
19 March 1990

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
Mainly at the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

This seminar demonstrated the current state of The Palaeographical and Textual Handbook, in course of preparation as a teaching text for manuscript studies.

Invitation in pdf here. Note the addition of the sign of an opened pair of scissors to cue the motion for separating the RSVP slip from the single-page Invitation Letter. The sign represents part of the evolution of the form for the Invitation Letters of the Series.

[First published on 11 February 2015, with updates]

The seminar presented the work in progress at the Library on a series of sample facsimiles of pages from early medieval manuscripts, with transcriptions and commentaries, to teach postgraduate students the elements of manuscript study. We began with an account of its aims, with a demonstration of the range of representations of the selected pages or facing pages.

The series proceed from photographic facsimile of the original at original size (with scale and colour guide), through computerised representation of the layout of the texts upon its page(s), to transcription, edition, and translation, with commentary. Then we sought “comments from some of the younger members who remember more clearly their problems on first approaching materials in manuscript . . . and from others, particularly from those whose expertise lies outside textual material, but who use it in their work.” The original manuscripts were also available for comparison.

We examined the cases selected so far for this approach:

MS 12 (the Cura Pastoralis in Old English, with glosses by the ‘Tremulous Worcester Hand’)
[= Number 13 in the Illustrated Catalogue and now online]

MS 111 (Old English manumissions)
[= Number 38 in the Illustrated Catalogue and now online]

MS 173 (Annal of 755 from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)
[= Number 11 in the Illustrated Catalogue and now online]

MS 183 (Bede’s Life of Saint Cuthbert in prose and verse)
[= Number 12 in the Illustrated Catalogue and now online]

MS 197B (Latin Gospel Book)
[= Number 3 in the Illustrated Catalogue and now online]

MS 326 (Ealdhelm poem in Old English and opening of De laude virginitatis)
[= Number 21 in the Illustrated Catalogue and now online]

MS 422 (verse Solomon and Saturn)
[= Number 44 in the Illustrated Catalogue and now online]

Invitations were sent to:

David Wilson, Christine Fell, Mildred Budny, Nicholas Hadgraft, Patrick Wormald, Richard Sharpe, Leslie Webster, David Parsons, Kathryn Lowe, Carol Hough, Richard Gem, Timothy Graham, James Graham-Campbell, Donald Bullough, Leslie French, Andy Hopper.

Present:

Carmen Acevedo
Mildred Budny
Donald A. Bullough
Christine Fell
L.J. French
Timothy C. Graham
Nicholas Hadgraft / Nicholas Hadgraft
Alice Harting–Correa (afterward Alice Correa–Bullough)
Carol Hough
Kathryn Lowe
John Mollon
R.I. Page
Chris Turner
Leslie E. Webster
David M. Wilson

A typescript report of this Meeting of the Seminar was prepared by Mildred Budny. It survives in the Research Group Archives.

Accounts of the progress on the Handbook appear in the Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust. (See our list of Publications.) A summary account of The Palaeographical and Textual Handbook appeared in print:

Mildred Budny’s description of
‘The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence: Contributions to the CORPUS Project’
Old English Newsletter, 28:1 (Fall 1994), A-8–A-23, at page A-9 and Plate 4 on A-20
now available online

*****

The next Seminar considered
“Sixteenth-Century Interventions in Anglo-Saxon and Related Manuscripts”
(Parker Library, 13 April 1990).

Most of the Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts considered manuscripts, types of text, approaches to scripts and layout, and challenges for transcribing, editing, translating, and analysing the evidence upon the pages, chosen for the Handbook, which engaged our collective attention throughout the rest of the Research Project and, to a limited extent, beyond.

With the requirement at short notice to find a different base for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence following the completion of the Project, rather than the base that had been contracted, some intended publications fell into disarray for a while. The Handbook was one of them. Now, in digitising and recording more of the Research Group’s records on our website, we can present a clearer representation of the vision of that plan. Watch this space.

*****

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Research Group Events in Japan (November-December 1992)

Research Group Visit to Japan
Seminar, Workshop, Lectures, and Symposium
November and December 1992

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (June 1994)

“Marginalia in Manuscripts”
Parker Library
24 June 1994

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (5 June 1992)