Leaves from
‘Otto Ege Manuscripts 8, 14, 19, and 41’
In a Newly Discovered Portfolio
of Fifty Original Leaves (“FOL”)

Otto Ege’s
Dismembered Manuscript 41

A Latin copy of the
Dialogues of Gregory the Great,
Epistles and Homilies of John Chrysostom,
Meditations of Anselm,
And Maybe More

Double columns of 40 lines with some embellishment

Produced probably in Flanders, perhaps circa 1450

Plundered in World War I
From the Library of the Van der Cruisse de Waziers, near Lille in France

Sold circa 1925 through the Bookseller Thorpe in Surrey, England

Brought to the United States Intact, Then Dismembered and Distributed in Pieces

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) adds new evidence to her earlier reports of some leaves from medieval manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). Further research and newly revealed materials augment our knowledge of these manuscripts (and others). 

This report updates our earlier blogpost on parts of Otto Ege Manuscript 41.  See also the posts for Ege Manuscripts 8, 14, 51, and 61, plus updates (More Discoveries for Ege Manuscript 61), as well as the Report for our 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’, with an illustrated Program Booklet. 

This report, drafted following a first visit in 2017 to view examples in the Otto Ege Collection now at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, benefits from updates following a new visit in October 2018, with my thanks for permission to examine and to photograph the materials, especially while they remain mostly uncatalogued.

Picking Up The Piecework

As more pieces of the manuscript come to light, and/or become recognized for what they are, the process of virtually picking up their pieces toward a reasonable reconstruction of their original contents can or must proceed piecemeal.  More discoveries advance that process considerably.  Here we report new stages.  Some of them, naturally enough, may revise the received understanding about the manuscript.

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