Patrick Wormald (1947–2007): A Memoir by David Ganz
August 12, 2024 in Announcements, Bembino, Manuscript Studies, Memoirs, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)
Patrick Wormald (1947–2007):
A Memoir by David Ganz
2024 RGME Anniversary Recollections
Part 2
[Posted on 12 August 2024]
Patrick Wormald at one of Wendy Davies’s charter weekends of the Bucknell group at Bucknell, Shropshire, in the late 1980s. Photograph by Rosemary Morris.
Our series of 2024 Anniversary Reflections continues its tributes for people who have contributed to our formation, progress, and the mission over the years.
Part 1 focused on Giles Constable (1929—2021), RGME Honorary Trustee, Colleague, Friend, and Mentor.
Part 2 turns to our long-term Associate Patrick Wormald (1947–2007), Angl0-Saxon Legal Historian, with a Memoir by our Trustee David Ganz. We offer it as a booklet freely for download.
Anniversary Reflections
In 2024, with our year’s theme of Bridges, the RGME celebrates:
- 25 years as a nonprofit educational organization incorporated in Princeton, New Jersey, and
- 35 years as an international scholarly organization founded as part of a major research project on “Anglo-Saxon and Related Manuscripts” at The Parker Library of Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Among the ways to mark our anniversary, the RGME continues with its series of Memoirs (including these Parts 1 and 2 in 2024) and prepares an Episode in our online series “The Research Group Speaks” to consider
To register:
- Episode 17. Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections
Saturday 21 September 2024, 1:00–2:30 EDT (GMT-4) online via Zoom
The Episode aims to include recollections of people who have gone before us, and whose memory we wish to honor with informal conversation and a roundtable.
Memoir of Patrick Wormald
Angl0-Saxon Legal Historian
In preparation for the Episode in September 2024, David Ganz has offered this Memoir.
“The Schartz–Metterhulme Method:
A Memoir of Patrick Wormald (1947–2007)”
by David Ganz
David began its composition years ago, following the Memorial Service for Patrick in Oxford. He returned to it recently for us in preparing for our Episode 17. Additions for the publication include
- photographs of Patrick, generously provided by Rosemary Morris;
- David’s description of Patrick’s attention to and use of manuscript evidence and contributions to some RGME events;
- bibliographical references; and
- an Afterword by Mildred Budny.
The title takes its name from a short story with that name by Saki, the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916). First published in 1911, “The Schartz—Metterklume Method” appeared in the volume of Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914).
In conjuring up the world and horizons of historians at Oxford in an earlier generation when Patrick Wormald embarked upon his studies, giving shape to their pursuit across a lifetime at the University of Oxford and elsewhere, the Memoir by David Ganz offers perspectives from a near-contemporary of that life’s work, which continued to engage with various of those historians and their antecedents, not least Frederic William Maitland (1850–1906). The Memoir signals Patrick’s attention repeatedly to the evidence of manuscripts, as part of his research, teaching, and publications. Some of his publications long-planned found fruition posthumously after Patrick’s death too soon at the age of fifty-seven.
We publish this Memoir as an RGME Publication, following the principles of our Style Manifesto, set in our digital font Bembino, and freely available for circulation. (For information about download or printed copies, see below.)
Patrick Wormald on a charter weekend at Bucknell, Shropshire, in the late 1980s. Photograph by Rosemary Morris.