Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

April 22, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, RGME Library & Archives

Two Leaves
in the Book of Numbers
from the Chudleigh Bible

Latin Vulgate Bible
Northern France
Sant-Vaast Abbey?
Circa 1220–1230

Text written in Gothic Bookhand
Laid out in Double Columns of 56 lines
with Running Titles, Rubrication,
Text-Initials in Red and Blue,
and Marginalia within Frames

[Posted on 17 April 2025, with updates]

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 1 from the Chudleigh Bible: Recto, Detail. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Continuing our series of posts describing discoveries for the study of manuscript fragments (see Manuscript Studies Blog: Contents List), we introduce two leaves which belonged to the Book of Numbers in the medium-format Latin Vulgate Bible now known as the Chudleigh Bible. The name derives from one of its former owners, the eleventh Baron Clifford of Chudleigh.

Charles Oswald Hugh Clifford (1887–1962), Lord Clifford of Chudleigh (Devon, England)
See also:
“We Remember Charles Oswald Hugh Clifford”

The place Chudleigh itself is an ancient wool town in Devon in Southwest England.

First we introduce the two leaves. Then we describe the original manuscript, insofar as it is known from surviving fragments and the descriptions in catalogues (of sales, collections, and genres of medieval French manuscript production). A preliminary list of surviving leaves, including not only the seemly more significant and financially valuable leaves with illustrations, is offered, as a compliment or companion to existing lists.

Further blogposts will offer more information about both forms of experience for the manuscript and its identifiable fragments, whether indirectly by catalogue or other surrogate representative, or more directly by in-person inspection. The goal is to build towards a fuller recognition of the survivors, their characteristics, and their locations.

I. Two Leaves from the Book of Numbers

These two leaves come to the RGME as a donation by our Associate, Richard Weber. Previous blogposts have reported portions of his collection of manuscript fragments, starting with Set 93 of the Portfolio of Famous Books assembled by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951).

1. That first post has set in motion a continuing study of that portfolio and its different components representing manuscript and printed materials alike. One development recently focuses upon a collaborative study of the dismembered volume of Dante as we prepare for the 2025 Autumn Colloquium on “Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books: Encountering and Reconstructing the Legacy of Otto F. Ege and Other Biblioclasts”. Richard has generously agreed to speak about his collecting interests for that event.

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

2. The Weber Leaf from Otto Ege Manuscript 22 inspired us to examine closely the evidence of origin, provenance, and genre of book for this leaf and other survivors of the same volume, set against Otto Ege’s labels of attribution based upon incomplete and misrepresented knowledge. The resulting Research Booklet, freely available, presents the evidence. You can find it here:

The Weber Leaf from the Warburg Missal: Otto Ege Manuscript 22

3. Richard shared photographs of his leaf from the Saint Albans Bible in response to our new series of Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”, which took inspiration from the loan of a leaf from that Bible from the Collection of Jennah Farrell to the RGME for photography, study, and publication. We decided to turn to crowd-sourcing and mentoring in these workshops as a collaborative, collective way to learn about manuscripts together, including beginners, experts, and others in between. It was a good choice.

RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

As the Workshops developed, they considered fragments from different Latin Bible manuscripts pertaining to similar periods, styles of production, and various sizes or formats. By Workshop 5, we could survey their range and the progress which the workshops and their collaborative approach had attained.

Workshop 5. “Identifying Medieval Latin Bible Manuscript Fragments”

At this Workshop, Richard Weber generously offered to give a couple of medieval Latin Bible leaves to the RGME for our Research Library & Archives.

Soon, the leaves arrived, which Richard had had beautifully framed in a pair of matching frames with windowed mats and easily removable backs. Protecting the leaves, these frames both showed each leaf to advantage and allowed for access from the back of the frame to allow us to see the other side of the leaf and its full extent.

Companion sheets of paper report details of the leaves, their seller, and the original manuscript, the Chudleigh Bible.

For this gift, we created a bookplate recording Richard’s donation. We give thanks for his characteristic generosity and thoughtfulness.

The Two Leaves

And so, we introduce a pair of non-consecutive leaves from the Book of Numbers in the Chudleigh Bible. The modern Arabic numbers written in pencil at the center directly below the columns of text label them as “38” and “43” respectively. Presumably they designate the folio numbers for them in a consecutive sequence entered before the separation of the leaves from each other.

So far we have not identified any surviving leaves which formerly stood between them or adjacent to them within the same Biblical Book.

Leaf 1: Folio 38

This leaf must have directly followed the opening leaf of the Book, as it starts partway within Chapter 1. That leaf would have carried the opening initial for the Book, with L for Locutusque. Its present location is unknown, but the contents of its illustrated initial have been recorded to indicate a depiction of the figures of God, Moses, and Joshua at an altar. (p. 69 and 72 note 8)

Recto

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 1 from the Chudleigh Bible: Recto.

Verso

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 1 from the Chudleigh Bible: Verso.

Leaf 2: Folio 43

Recto

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 2 from the Chudleigh Bible: Recto.

Verso

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 2 from the Chudleigh Bible: Verso.

Note that there has been some correction/adjustment in the Chapter Numbering. In the intercolumn for the left-hand column there stands a second XVI on the verso, duplicating the same number on the recto. It has been crossed out with a horizontal stroke. The numbering continues below with XVII and XVIII for the left- and right-hand columns respectively.

Contents: Text

Leaf 1 (recto and verso)

Numbers 1 36 [De filiis Benjamin per generationes et familias ac domos] cognationum suarum recensiti sunt nominibus singulorum a vigesimo anno et supra, omnes qui poterant ad bella procedere, 37triginta quinque millia quadringenti.

Numbers 2 1 Locutusque est Dominus ad Moysen et Aaron, dicens

Numbers 3 1 Hæ sunt generationes Aaron et Moysi in die qua locutus est Dominus ad Moysen in monte Sinai.

7 et observent quidquid ad cultum pertinet multitudinis coram taberna // culo testimonii,

Numbers 4 1 Locutusque est Dominus ad Moysen et Aaron, dicens

14 ponentque cum eo omnia vasa, quibus in ministerio ejus utuntur, id est, ignium receptacula[, fuscinulas ac tridentes, uncinos et batilla.]

Leaf 2 (recto and verso)

Numbers 15 9 [dabis per singulos boves similæ tres decimas consper]sæ oleo, quod habeat medium mensuræ hin

Numbers 16 1 Ecce autem Core filius Isaar, filii Caath, filii Levi, et Dathan atque Abiron filii Eliab,

28 Et ait Moyses : In //hoc scietis quod Dominus miserit me ut facerem universa quæ cernitis, et non ex proprio ea corde protulerim :

[Possibly struck through incorrect marking for chapter 16 at]

Numbers 16 36 Locutusque est Dominus ad Moysen, dicens

Numbers 17 1 Et locutus est Dominus ad Moysen, dicens

Numbers 18 1 Dixitque Dominus ad Aaron

11 Primitias autem, quas voverint et obtulerint filii Israël, tibi dedi, et filiis tuis, ac filiabus tuis, jure perpetuo : qui mundus est [in domo tua, vescetur eis. ]

*****

As part of the RGME’s Research Library & Archives and our ongoing project on medieval manuscript fragments, we begin the study of this leaf and its context, as part of the quest to identify and virtually reconstruct its former volume. Another blogpost will report more information about these two leaves.

Now we survey reports about the original volume and some of its identified survivors.

II. Once Upon a Time:
A Single-Volume Vulgate Bible

Formerly, as described in its sales catalogue descriptions while still intact, the manuscript comprised a single volume of 411 vellum leaves, with its text laid out in double columns of 56 lines each. Initials opening Books of the Bible contained historiated scenes and decorative elements; some 90 or 91 of them were historiated.

The volume as such was sold at auction in London several times first by Sotheby & Co and then by Christie’s. Its appearance on the market began at the hands of its former owner, Charles Oswald Hugh Clifford, the eleventh Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. By that ownership it acquired its modern name.

I. As a Single Volume

For an overview of the former “Parent Volume” from which came dispersed leaves, see Peter Kidd, McCarthy Collection, Volume III: French Miniatures (London, 2021), No. 17 (pp. 69–73).

Notice of the manuscript, with some black-and-white images of its illustrated elements, appeared in print three times, corresponding with its sale by successive owners, starting with Lord Clifford of Chudleigh himself.

1) Sold by Sotheby & Co, London,
7 December 1953, lot 51 (pp. 00 in catalogue)

Catalogue of fine Western and Oriental manuscripts and miniatures . . . : which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby & Co. . . . at their large galleries 34 & 35 New Bond Street, W.1

Bought by Maggs Bros., London, for £680.

2) Sold by Sotheby & Co, London,
Wednesday, 8th July 1970 as Lot 104 (pp. 78–79 in catalogue)

Catalogue of important Western manuscripts and miniatures . . . : which will be sold by auction by Sotheby & Co. . . . at their large galleries, 34 and 35 New Bond Street, W.1 . . . ; day of sale: Wednesday, 8th July, 1970

The entry cites 139 illuminated initials, some of which are historiated. It mentions some defects, including many margins “to some extent stained” and damage to some initials, of which “5 are badly damaged and 15 slightly damaged.” Some losses were discernible, with “the first two leaves largely defective” and “a few leaves missing at the end of the Interpretations [of Hebrew Names]”.

Facing the catalogue entry, the companion page of “Illustration” shows 8 cropped images with historiated initials (sometimes two in succession on the same page), encompassing 10 initials altogether. Their locations in the manuscript are not indicated.

“The text is the normal text of a thirteenth-century Bible, i.e. the modern Vulgate with the addition of Esdras III, which is called Esdras II, the modern Estras II being called Nehemiah. Acts follows the Pauline Epistles. . . . Marginal annotations in red and plummet are fairly numerous. Many are enclosed in red cartouches.”

3) Sold by Christie’s, London,
Thursday, July 11, 1974, lot 18 (pp. 00 in catalogue)

Important Western manuscripts and miniatures from various sources: which will be sold at auction by Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd. . . . 8 King Street, St. James’s, London, SW1Y 6QT . . . on Thursday, July 11, 1974.

While still intact, the codex was reported in print:

Robert Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris: A Study of Styles. California Studies in the History of Art (1997), as Number 17 (page 30), described as made in Northern France and related to Parisian examples.

II. As Individual Leaves or Groups of Leaves

Thereafter leaves appeared in various catalogues, including these (which I have not yet seen):

Quaritch cat. 1147 (1991), no. 15
Maggs Bros, Fine Books and manuscripts, cat. 1167 (1993), no. 2
Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures, 6 December 2005, lot 16

For some others, see below.

Sometimes the manuscript might receive notice on its own account. For example:

Christopher de Hamel, Scribes and Illuminators. Medieval Craftsman Series (Toronto, 1992), page 43 and plate 36.

The Collection of Robert McCarthy
(No. 17)

A set of leaves assembled from different sources belong to the McCarthy Collection in London. They have been described by Peter Kidd in his catalogue of the French Miniatures in the collection, with color illustrations from them (initials or their pages only).

Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, III: French Miniatures (London, 2021), no. 17 (pp. 69–73)

Leaf 17a. End of Exodus and beginning of Leviticus (initial on recto)

Leaf 17b. End of Nehemiah and beginning of I Esdras (initial on verso)

Leaf 1c. End of Psalm 25 and beginning of Psalm 26 (initial on recto)

In his blog, Peter Kidd listed more leaves, with their sources:

Manuscript Provenance: McCarthy Catalogue, Volume III (French Illuminations).

The list cites the sales catalogues for the opening leaves from Joshua, Sapientia/Wisdom, II Samuel, Ecclesiastes, and the Epistle to the Philippians. See below.

Some Specimens

We gather a list of specimen leaves which have circulated through the marketplace on their own or in groups. To some extent, this list follows the order of the Books in the Vulgate manuscript; sometimes a catalogue listing groups into one entry a set of several leaves from the manuscript.

In time, in combination with other resources such as the list of illuminated leaves by Peter Kidd (see above), this list might aid a full virtual reconstruction of the manuscript, not only of its illustrated leaves, but also leaves of text like the Weber/RGME leaves from within the text of the Book of Numbers.

Old Testament

Leaves of Text from the Book of Numbers (Folios 38 and 43)

See above, with images of both recto and verso for two leaves, bearing the pencil numbers 38 and 43 on their rectos.

Currently on Sale: A Leaf from Ezekiel 41–44 (Folio 269)

https://www.abebooks.com/paper-collectibles/Leaf-Chudleigh-Bible-Latin-manuscript-parchment/31517694881/bd#&gid=1&pid=1 (Seller Inventory # ABE-1685363877355)
— for sale for $1,022.24 from the United Kingdom

Highlights of the seller’s description, wrongly identifying the text as I Samuel:

Single leaf with three columns of 53 lines of a delicate French university bookhand, small initials in red or blue with undulating lines in same forming line-fillers, larger initials in same with contrasting penwork, running titles a or b in red with blue penwork twirls at their sides, slight cockling and discolouration at edges from use, small holes in corner of one leaf, else excellent condition, 285mm x 190 mm. (written space: 187 by 125 mm.) Text is 1 Samuel 2-3.

Openings of Prologue and Book of Joshua

These two openings stand on the recto of the leaf.

Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Auktion 148, 3 November 2020, lot 8 (page 9 and color illustration of recto.)
(See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A148_locked.pdf)
Pirages, Catalogue 78: New Acquisitions (2021), no. 11 (pages 12–13, with color illustration of recto).
(See An Illuminated Vellum Manuscript Leaf from the Chudleigh Bible)

Opening of the Book of Esdras

Sold at Sotheby’s, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts, 8 July 2014, lot 13

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/medieval-renaissance-manuscripts-l14240/lot.13.html

“. . . with a 12-line historiated initial ‘E’ in light pink and blue with white penwork decoration on contrasting grounds, enclosing Josias celebrating the Passover with the inhabitants of Jerusalem against a burnished gold ground (for the opening of the Book of Esdras), . . . capitals stroked in red, rubrics in red, running headers and chapter numbers alternately in red and blue, 2-line initials in red or blue with contrasting pen-flourishing, with wide margins, small stains, else in excellent condition. . . .

“This is an appealing leaf from the profusely decorated Chudleigh Bible, sold by Baron Clifford of Chudleigh in our rooms, 7 December 1953, lot 51, reappearing again, 8 July 1970, lot 104. . . .

“The Bible fits into a group of illuminated manuscripts associated with the abbey of St.-Vaast in Arras and was perhaps made there, although cross-references with the Alexander atelier in Paris are also apparent [citing Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris, p.30, n.17; see also L.M.C. Randall, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, I, 1989, p. 43].

“The monumental size and the abundant use of burnished gold attest the high prestige of a grand commission.”

Opening of Prologue for the Book of Malachi

Sold at Sotheby’s, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts, 8 July 2014, lot 14 (see previous item from Esdras)

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/medieval-renaissance-manuscripts-l14240/lot.14.html?locale=en

Three Leaves with Historiated Initials:
Openings of Prologues for the
Books of Tobit, Zephaniah, and I Samuel

Sold at Christie’s sale of Script and Illumination: Leaves from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, 3 December 2019 (Online Sale 12584), lot 9.

https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/script-illumination-leaves-medieval-renaissance-manuscripts/three-leaves-3-historiated-initials-chudleigh-bible-north-eastern-8/22915

Highlights of the seller’s description:

Three leaves from what would doubtless have been a monumental and prestigious 13th-century illuminated Bible. The style of illumination is derived from that of the early Parisian Moralised Bible ateliers, and particularly the Alexander atelier, which takes its name from the inscription at the top of a Bible, now Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. lat. 11930–11931. That said, this particular production fits into a group of illuminated manuscripts associated with the abbey of St-Vaast in Arras and was perhaps made there: a testament to early regional collaboration in manuscript illumination.

The illuminated initials are:

(i) ‘C’ opening the prologue to the book of Tobit; historiated initial ‘T’ with Tobias plucking the white spots out of Tobit’s eyes, relieving him of his blindness (surely one of the earliest depictions of cataract surgery?), opening the book of Tobit;

(ii) ‘T’ opening the prologue to the book of Zephaniah; historiated initial ‘U’ with Zephaniah, opening his book;

(iii) ‘U’ opening the prologue to the first book of Kings (I Samuel); historiated initial ‘F’ with Hannah, kneeling in prayer before the priest Eli, her husband Elkanah standing behind her, opening 1 Samuel (or 1 Kings).

Opening of II Samuel

Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Auktion 146, 5 November 2019, lot 22 (pages 16–17, with color illustration of verso)
(See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A146_locked.pdf.)
Beginning of II Samuel; presumably text of End of I Samuel on recto

Prologue and Opening of Sapientia/Wisdom

Initials on recto.

Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Wertvollebücher, Manuskripte, Autographen, Grafik. Auction 150, 2 November 2021, lot 19 (page 15, with color illustration of recto).
(See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A150_locked.pdf)
Prologue and Beginning of Ecclesiastes; initial on recto

Opening of Ecclesiastes

Initial on verso.

The Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Auktion 152, 8 November 2022, lot 5 (page 9, with color illustration of verso)
(See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A152_locked.pdf)
Beginning of Ecclesiastes on verso; presumably End of Canticum Canticorum on recto.

New Testament

Opening of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians

Initials for Prologue and Epistle on recto, preceded by closing text of Epistle to the Galatians.

Sold at Sotheby’s, Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern, 19 July 2022, lot 3

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/books-manuscripts-from-medieval-to-modern/st-paul-giving-his-letter-to-the-ephesians

Opening of the Epistle to the Philippians

Initial on recto or verso?

The Philippians leaf was in the collection of John Feldman [1957–2021] in 1989, “depicting Paul preaching in the Synagogue at Damascus” ‘ See Kidd, Medieval Manuscripts Provenance (above).
Beginning of Epistle to the Philippians (recto or verso?)

Epistle to the Hebrews 8–18

Sold at Sotheby’s, Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern, 19 July 2022, lot 4

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/books-manuscripts-from-medieval-to-modern/part-of-hebrews-8-11-on-a-leaf-from-the-chudleigh

Companion Textual Apparatus

Interpretation of Hebrew Names
(Leaf with Glossary for Da–Du Entries)

Sold at Addison & Sarova, Auctioneers (Macon, Georgia), 2017-11-18, lot 1

https://addisonsauction.hibid.com/lot/35711434/chudleigh-bible-leaf–manuscript-on-vellum?ref=catalog

*****

Watch for another blogpost with more information about this research.

Do you know of other leaves from this manuscript? Do you know of other work by its scribal hands?

We look forward to hearing from you.

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

Leave your comments or questions below
Contact Us

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*****

Tags: Chudleigh Bible, Collection of Richard Weber, Latin Vulgate Bibles, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, RGME Research Library & Archives
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Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”

February 16, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Workshops

RGME Workshops
on
“The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”
(Formerly: “Examining Original Sources”)

Workshop 4
“Manuscript Fragments Compared”

Sunday 23 February 2025
1:00- 2:30 p.m. EST (GMT-4) by Zoom

We cordially invite you to join us for our next RGME Workshop on the “Evidence of Manuscripts Etc.” The series gives the opportunity collectively to examine original sources, in manuscript and other written forms. Beginners and experts are welcome; we can learn together.

The Series

Originally this series was planned as a two-part series of workshops to consider the medieval “Farell Leaf” on loan to the RGME Library and Archives from the Collection of Jennah Farrell. After rich discussions concerning the fragment and evidence for its production and provenance, most probably as part of the Saint Albans Bible (dismembered in 1964), our workshops have turned into a series for teaching manuscripts and related studies.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Single Leaf from the Book of Numbers in a Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript: Recto, top. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Workshop 4

Workshop 4 introduces a comparative study. The plentiful genre of medieval Latin Vulgate Bibles is a rich field in Manuscript Studies. Work on cases of deliberately disbursed manuscripts has yielded in the last two decades a selection of stand-out works. Among them is the Saint Albans Bible, known through numerous studies in print and online. Examples include

“Breaking Bad: The Incomplete History of the Saint Albans Bible” (1 Nov 2019)
The Book, The Leaf, The Knife, and Some Bother
The St Albans Bible (20 June 2021)

Since Workshop 3, another leaf from the medium-format Saint Albans Bible has come to our attention. It stands in the collection of our Associate, Richard Weber – from whose collection our blog on Manuscript Studies has reported other discoveries. Its portion from the Acts of the Apostles offers comparison with the Farrell Leaf from the Book of Numbers, with a view toward the presentation of both Old and New Testaments within its former single volume.

Now see:

The Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible, Recto: Top Right. Photograph by Richard Weber.

In our workshop, the case of that manuscript is joined by another fragmented Bible, dismembered instead by the biblioclast Otto F. Ege: namely his large-format Ege MS 14, represented by a leaf now on loan to the RGME for teaching purposes. Over the years, our blog has contributed discoveries to knowledge of that manuscript (see Manuscript Studies). For our workshop, Richard Weber reports his leaf from that manuscript as well.

Private Collection, Leaf from ‘Ege MS 14’. Part of the Book of Jeremiah, Recto, Detail. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Resources for the Quest

The different agents of destruction for these two books provide instructive case studies for the different but overlapping resources available in print and online for the detective work of fragmentology, in the quest to trace the steps of re-distribution of leaves from these Bibles, with a view toward identifying the locations of survivors and virtually reconstructing their original books, insofar as possible.

We welcome participants to join the quest and come forward with questions, updates on any work they have been doing on the Farrell Leaf, or suggestions for potential avenues of study in future workshops.

Registration

Registration is required and free. We are grateful for Voluntary Donations accompanying your Registration to help support our nonprofit educational organization powered principally by volunteers.

Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”: Tickets

Note that our Workshop series now appears on our Eventbrite Registration Portal:

RGME Workshops on “Examining Original Sources”: Tickets: Tickets

If you have issues with the Zoom Link or connecting, please contact

director@manuscriptevidence.org or rgmesocial@gmail.com .

Information about the series

Workshop 5 is planned for Sunday March 2025 at 1:30-2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom.

Please join us if your timetable allows. We look forward to welcoming you.

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

Leave your comments or questions below
Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

our Facebook Page
our Facebook Group
our X/Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
our Instagram Page
our LinkedIn Group

Join the Friends of the RGME.

We look forward to seeing you at our events!

*****

Tags: Collection of Richard Weber, Fragmentology, Jennah Farrell Collection, Latin Vulgate Bibles, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Otto Ege MS 14, Otto F. Ege, RGME Workshops on the Evidence of MSS Etc., Saint Albans Bible
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RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

January 4, 2025 in Manuscript Studies, Workshops on "The Evidence of Manuscripts"

RGME Workshops
on
“The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

[Posted on 31 December 2024, with updates]

Private Collection, Pieces of a Vellum Leaf from a Medieval Manuscript: Recto. Photography by Mildred Budny.

In 2024 the RGME launched its series of Workshops dedicated to “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

The series began in October 2024. So far they take place online as sessions of one and one-half hours, including scope for questions and answers. They are designed to teach and to crowdsource research on original materials, which may be newly discovered and so far unknown.

The workshops are free of charge. All are welcome to attend, join the discussion, and participate in the study of manuscripts and other original sources.

With this series, we revive an approach to collaborative events “On the Evidence of Manuscripts” which we nutured in our early years.

Our Early Series of Seminars
on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” (1989–1995)

RGME Logo in Black-and-White.

In its early years while based at the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence held a series of Seminars, Workshops, and Symposia (organized or co-organized by Mildred Budny) variously at the Parker Library and at other centers in England, Japan, and the United States. At libraries, the sessions took place over relevant manuscripts in the collection, supplemented by photographs. Elsewhere, the sessions were usually accompanied by displays or exhibitions of photographs (mostly by Mildred Budny).

Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia, and Symposia

In England, many of these sessions belonged to the series of Research Group Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts.” Often they took place at the Parker Library in the company of the manuscripts under examination, sometimes also with early-printed books.

RGME Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts”

View Toward the Entrance to the Parker Library in mid-1989. Photograph © Mildred Budny.

Harking back to our first series of events as the RGME, in the series of RGME Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” (1989–1994), this new series brings forward for collective study (‘crowdsourcing’ and collaboration) the original specimens as witnesses in our own RGME Special Collections and the RGME Lending Library

Foreground

“The Bridge of Signs”

View of the Pont Neuf, Paris. Photograph by Claudio Mota via https://www.pexels.com/photo/pont-neuf-bridge-in-paris-9999874/.

Registration for the Workshops

To register for individual workshops in the series, please visit the RGME Eventbrite Collection for “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

RGME Collection: Workshops

Workshop 1
“Introducing the Farrell Leaf”
Sunday 17 November 2024

The first Workshop considers practices of manuscript studies and introduces the first specimen for collaborative examination. We meet the medieval Latin Vulgate Bible leaf from the Book of Numbers in the Jennah Farrell Leaf, now on loan to the RGME “Lending Library”.

For background information about this leaf based on the characteristics of the leaf itself and the owner’s knowledge about its provenance with reference to the previous owner, see

our Blog on Manuscript Studies
and its Manuscript Studies Contents List.

Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript: Verso, top. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Workshop 2
“Follow-Up for the Farrell Leaf”
Sunday 15 December 2024

At this workshop, comparing notes about our investigations which followed Workshop 1, we agreed that, most probably (and perhaps almost certainly), this leaf formerly belonged to the Saint Albans Bible, dispersed only in recent decades and now having its surviving leaves widely separated through the marketplace. On this bible see, for example:

King David in the Waters Blessed by God, in a pair of leaves sold at Christie’s on 10 July 2019 and now in the McCarthy Collection

Fuller confidence in this proposed identification of the Farrell Leaf as part of the Saint Albans Bible might have to await the discovery or recognition of one of the leaves which formerly stood immediately adjacent, that is, directly preceding this leaf or directly following it, with a continuous flow of the text from leaf to leaf.

We continue our explorations.

Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript: Verso, top. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Workshop 3
“The Farrell Leaf and its Context”
Sunday 12 January 2025

Next, we consider the Farrell Leaf in its context:

in its original manuscript,
in relation to other leaves bearing the work of its scribe and scribal artist,
among other representatives in its time of the genre of Vulgate Bible manuscripts of medium format, and
as a witness to its production and deconstruction, whereby individual leaves became scattered through the sales room, sometimes multiple times over before reaching ‘Forever Homes’.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf: Verso, Bottom of Columns. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Registration:

Workshop 3. The Farrell Leaf and its Context: Tickets

*****

Workshop 4
“Manuscript Fragments Compared:
The Saint Albans Bible and Otto Ege MS 14”
Sunday 23 February 2025

Continuing our exploration of the Saint Albans Bible, from the previous Workshops (1–3), we now expand our scope to set its complex characteristics as a fragmentary, dispersed Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript in a wider context. Also, we can reveal another leaf from the same Bible, which came to our attention following Workshop 3.

We thank our Associate, Richard Weber, for sharing information and photographs about the leaf in his collection from the same manuscript, but from the New Testament portion.

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible, Recto: Top Right. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Note that, with permission, our blog has published discoveries for other leaves in Richard Weber’s collection. See:

At our Workshop, we may survey our progress for the Saint Albans Bible, as we collectively continue to explore the extent, range, and nature of its surviving parts, or to conjure up other parts for whom whereabouts are unknown from other sources as well as from the evidence of the leaves themselves or reports about them or the original manuscript. We can report the progress of the work to shape a list of known survivors, their present locations, their contents (which part of the Bible or the companion apparatus such as the glossary of Interpretations of Hebrew Names), span of text upon the individual fragments, and the citations about the manuscript and its fragments in books, articles, blogs, or sales catalogues.

In taking into consider other relatives of the genre, our quest can be twofold, taking into account

1) the genre of medieval Vulgate Bible manuscripts containing the full text of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, within a single volume; and

2) such manuscripts which have befallen the fate of dismemberment and distribution of individual leaves or groups of leaves through the saleroom or other means.

Accordingly, first we might consider the possible survivors of other works by the same scribes, artists, and workshop.

Next we can take note of other Vulgate Latin Bibles of the period which may have suffered the same fate through fragmentation, dispersal, and restorative efforts to recognize the fragments wherever they might survive, study their evidence closely, and, insofar as possible reconstruct the fragments at least virtually.

Private Collection, Leaf from ‘Ege MS 14’. Part of the Book of Jeremiah, Recto, Detail. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

As a model for the latter, we turn to the case of the large-format Lectern Vulgate Bible which Otto F. Ege dispersed as his Manuscript 14, following his numeration of the specimen leaves which he selected for his portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Manuscripts of Western Europe (FOL). This manuscript we have been chasing for years in our research, as reported in our blog on Manuscript Studies. See its

Manuscript Studies: Contents List

A new Loan to the RGME brings a leaf from that Bible to the service of our RGME Workshops. Let us introduce it to you in the Workshop.

Information

Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”

Registration

Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”: Tickets

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Workshop 5
“Identifying Medieval Bible Manuscript Fragments”
Sunday 23 March 2025

We consider specimens from, for example,

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from Otto Ege MS 14, recto. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Workshop 5 picks up where Workshop 4 left off, within the comparison of two medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscripts of different sizes and functions, as represented by some of their fragments. Formerly each comprised a single-volume Bible, with both Old and New Testaments.

These two manuscripts, the medium-format Saint Albans Bible and the large-format Otto Ege MS 14, merit further examination as we add another fragment into view. This discovery is a leaf from the Book of II Corinthians in the Collection of Richard Weber.

This leaf joins our quest to learn more about the original manuscripts and their context. We thank Richard for his generosity in sharing information of materials in his collection for our research and teaching.

After Workshop 4, Richard sent to the RGME a pair of single leaves from another dismembered Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript, this time a medium-format specimen in double columns of 53 lines. It belongs to the Chudleigh Bible, produced in northwestern France in the 13th century and dismembered after its sale in London in 1970. We will introduce the leaves at Workshop 5, to set their study in the context of our ongoing quest to learn more about the fragments Saint Albans Bible and Ege MS 14 and their original manuscripts.

This workshop could, for now, round out our introductory set of workshops on medieval Bible manuscripts, as other sorts of manuscript fragments have also come forward for study and teaching.

Would you like to join us in writing up the reports or blogposts about these leaves as they have come to light?

This workshop continues the demonstration of detective techniques for learning how to identify manuscript fragments which might come to light with little or no companion information. Using different manuscripts and their fragments as case studies, we advance with the quest to learn more about looking at the original sources. More surprises and discoveries may emerge.

Registration

Workshop 5. “Identifying Medieval Bible Manuscript Fragments”. Tickets

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from Otto Ege MS 14, recto, middle. Photograph by Richard Weber.

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Workshop 6
“What’s In a Name?
Guides to Nomenclature for Manuscript Studies”
Sunday 27 April 2025

Jan Van Eyck, The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, 1434–36, Bruges, Groeningemuseum (detail), image from the Closer to Van Eyck project (https://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/)

By request, we will consider ‘best practices’ with regard to the use of Nomenclature for Manuscript Studies.

We explore the range of terms in use (in English and other languages) for different parts of books, from the outside in. In this way, we consider the merits — or otherwise — of terms in use for different parts of manuscripts, books, bindings, and other features of the material evidence of written sources. How helpful and comprehensible are the systems of terminology?

Examples of reference works online and in print will be examined, with observations on their usefulness for various purposes, types of books, problems, and approaches.

Do you have specific questions? We can help.

Extra

After our Workshops 1–5, another medieval Latin Vulgate Bible leaf has come to light. The owner has given permission for us to study the leaf as part of our ongoing project on medieval manuscript fragments.

Private Collection. Leaf from a Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible, Manuscript, ‘Verso’.

We will introduce the leaf so that it can begin to join the world of knowledge about dispersed medieval manuscripts which come to light in the work for virtually reconstructing their original codices, insofar as the identified and located fragments can allow.

Information

Workshop 6. “What’s In A Name?”

Registration

Workshop 6. “What’s In a Name?” Tickets

*****

Workshop 7
“Fragments & Documents”

Sunday 29 June 2025

This workshop will continue our exploration of fragments and open our investigations to the realm of documents, which resemble manuscript materials in certain respects, but also present significant differences from them. Our Workshop will consider the differences and similarities as we compare and contract techniques and methodologies from manuscript studies, fragmentology, and diplomatics.

Information

Examples may include the “Preston Series”.
See:
Manuscript Studies: Contents List for Preston Charters

Registration

Workshop 7. “Fragments and Documents”: Tickets

Preston Charter 12 Face with Seal. Photograph Mildred Budny.

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Workshop 8
“Face the Music, or,
Where Manuscript Meets Print in a Hybrid Book:
An Early-Modern German Herbal
with a Reused Binding Fragment
from a Medieval Musical Manuscript”

Sunday 26 October 2025

This workshop will examine a puzzling vellum fragment (or is it a set of patchwork fragments?) in a private collection. The fragment(s) come(s) from a single musical manuscript in Latin on vellum laid out in double columns with text and notation on 4-line staves. The reused medieval material forms the outer covering of a 17th-century printed book in German on laid paper.

We will work to decipher the visible parts of the text and music, identify the readings/lections and chants, and, if possible (given the fragmentary nature), determine the probable genre of original manuscript, such as lectionary, breviary, or missal. Perhaps we might find other survivors from the same despoiled medieval manuscript.

Plus we will exclaim over the features of the printed book, which includes illustrations and marginalia in forms of annotations demonstrating attention of several kinds.

What brought this medieval musical fragment and early modern printed book together? Even if we might never know all the answers, won’t it be fun to question how and why? There is a story here.

We love the puzzle, and give thanks to the collector for lending the book to the RGME for study and teaching.

Information

Workshop 8. A Hybrid Book where Medieval Music Meets Early-Modern Herbal
We invite you to join our collaborative quest to learn more about the different parts of the ensemble.

Registration for the Workshop

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-8-a-hybrid-book-with-astrological-herbal-and-medieval-missal-tickets-1340074201009

The Manuscript Fragment and the Printed Book

Private Collection, Front Cover with Reused Medieval Musical Fragment on Vellum. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Title Page

[Bartholomaeus Carrichter (1510–1574)], Horn des Heyls menschlicher Blödigkeit, oder Kreütterbuch, darinn die Kreütter des Teutschenlands auss dem Liecht der Natur nach rechter Art der himmelischen Einfliessungen beschriben / durch Philomusum Anonymum [Bartholomäus Carrichter], with a foreword by Michael Toxites, born Johann Michael Schütz (1514–1581), (Strassbourg: Anton Bertram, DCVI/1606).

Private Collection, Kreutterbuch, title page. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

For the first edition of 1576, printed in Straßburg, see an online digital facsimile of a copy in Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek. For an edition of 1619 also printed by A. Bertram, see the copy in the Wellcome Collection.

Like the 1619 edition, this folio volume has 10 unnumbered pages, 180 numbered pages, and 5 unnumbered leaves, with a woodcut title page and outline illustrations.

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Workshop 9
“Books as Thresholds and Communities”

Sunday 21 December 2025

As the year 2025 draws to a close, we reflect on our Theme for the Year, “Thresholds and Communities” particularly as it applies to our explorations of books and their makers, users, collectors, readers, and others — through our series of workshops and other events — and as we prepare for next year and its new theme. Now we consider how manuscripts and printed books or other written materials might function as Thresholds and represent or foster Communities

Thresholds and Communities: RGME Theme for the Year 2025

We draw inspiration from our year’s activities, conversations, and insights. We may reflect on the multiple ways that they offered encounters with books of many kinds, from different ages and places, and with many voices, sometimes in harmony. With such perspectives, we might brace for, prepare for, and choose to welcome the new year.

Poster 2. 2025 Autumn Colloquium. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

Because the 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium in late November will consider the subject of Fragments (manuscript and printed) from many perspectives, we may discuss some discoveries from that event and follow up with more materials which it helped to bring to light.

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments

For example, do you have any manuscript or printed fragments that you would like to share or learn about? Bring them along, please, to our Zoom Meeting. Let’s see what we might learn together, and share the delight of discovery.

Part of the voyage, we have learned, brings the refreshing reconstitution or renewal of scattered and seemingly disparate fragments, to form new forms of communities fostered by books and the meanings or stories of human lives across time which they can convey.

Information

Workshop 9 on “Thresholds and Communities”

Registration

Workshop 9. Tickets

See you there!

Illumination from Hildegard’s Scivias (1151) showing her receiving a vision and dictating to teacher Volmar. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Workshop 10. Sunday 29 March 2026
” ‘Transformations and Renewals’ in our Ongoing Studies”

For this workshop, we show examples of our selected theme for the year in action for the close study of material evidence in books. On the theme, see:

RGME Theme for the Year 2026: “Transformations and Renewals”

For an exploration of the theme as applied to and manifested in books, see our Episode 24 (Sunday 18 April 2026) on “Transformations and Renewals by Way of Books”.

In Workshop 10, we take note of multiple discoveries so far in our series. From workshop to workshop, discoveries have come to light through our own continuing research and the revelations of materials in private or public collections which correspond to some specimens highlighted in one or more workshops.

We survey multiple discoveries for a variety of manuscripts, manuscript fragments, printed books, and combinations of printed books with reused manuscript fragments as a re-created form of hybrid book mixing media, periods of production, genres of book, and sometimes also languages in their different layers or components between, upon, and around the covers.

There is much to report. Examples, depending upon time allotted, might include more specimens from the dismembered Chudleigh Bible, an update about the dismembered Saint Albans Bible (the subject of our first four Workshops), new results from on-going RGME studies of missals dismembered by Otto F. Ege (notably the Cistercian Missal of “Ege MS 2,” as featured in our recent 2026 RGME Colloquium at the Grolier Club, and the Warburg Missal of “Ege MS 22“), and discoveries of more cases of hybrid 16th-century printed books from Germany with medieval Latin missal fragments (such as Medieval Missal Fragment as Early-Modern Cover).

We take note of the successful function and generously shared results of our RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.” so far, as we celebrate the tenth in their series and look toward the future, with thanks to participants, audience, collaborators, collectors, students, advisers, and lovers of books.

Bring your questions, favorite cases, puzzles, and observations to the conversation!

Registration

Workshop 10. “Transformations and Renewals” in our Ongoing Studies

J. S. Wagner Collection, Ege Manuscript 22, Folio clvi, verso: Top Left. Reproduced by permission.

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Workshop 11
Sunday 9 August 2026
“Early-Modern Archives in Old and New England”

For this workshop we consider the challenges and opportunities of studying a rich selection of archival materials produced in the early seventeenth-century. Mildred Budny will explore cases of women’s wills, centered upon a holograph specimen of 1604 for the widow Sarah Overton of Southold, Long Island, and antecedents among Anglo-Saxon noblewomen’s wills of the tenth century, including the Will of Æthelgifu . Hannah Goeselt will analyze the legacy of a manuscript documenting the proceedings of the House of Commons for the year 1628 as it survives in American contexts, notably in the Massachusetts Historical Society Library. These cases may serve to highlight the nature of inventories, estate lists, wills, documentary records, literacy, and early collecting in colonial North America.

We welcome the chance to learn about other cases and projects concerning such materials. Please let us know about your interests in them. Contact us!

Boston, Massachusetts Historical Society Library, Ms. N-1325, “House of Commons Proceedings, 1628”, fols. 73v-74r. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

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Workshop 12, Etc.
Subjects To Be Determined (We accept requests!)

Among subjects requested are:

Cataloging Manuscripts: Readers’ Perspectives
Or, A User’s Guide to the Catalogue You Always Wanted
Now also see:

RGME Episode 26 (Saturday 25 July 2026)
“Catalog(u)ing Collections and Materials:
Processes, Challenges, Requests, and Opportunities”
Part 1 of a Series
The Research Group Speaks: The Series

Manuscripts and (or Versus) Photography
A User’s Guide

‘Hybrid Books’: What Are They?
Examples and Case-Studies

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

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Private Collection, Pieces of a Vellum Leaf from a Medieval Manuscript: Verso. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Tags: Chudleigh Bible, Collection of Jennah Farrell, Collection of Richard Weber, Farrell Leaf, Latin Vulgate Bibles, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Otto Ege MS 14, Otto F. Ege, RGME Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts, RGME Workshops, The Saint Albans Bible
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The Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf in the Farrell Collection, Part 3: The Full Leaf

November 14, 2024 in Announcements, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Workshops, RGME Lending Library, RGME Library & Archives

The Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf
in the Collection of Jennah Farrell

Part 3: The Leaf Revealed in Full

Single Leaf from the Book of Numbers
now unframed
Laid out in double columns of 46 lines in Gothic Script

Size of leaf =
maximum circa 29.3 cm. tall × 20.1 cm. wide
(circa 11 9/16 in. × 7 15/16 in. )

< ruled writing area
circa 18.7 × 12.5 cm. (circa 7 3/4 × 4 7/8 in.)>

[Posted on 13 November 2024]

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Manuscript Leaf in Frame. Photograph by Jennah Farrrell.

Now that the manuscript leaf has been removed from its modern frame (see Part 2 in this series of blogposts), we display photographs of both sides of the leaf uncropped, showing its full extent at present.

We do so especially to prepare for the pair of online Workshops which we plan so as to crowdsource information, expertise, and collaboration. We invite a shared exploration to learn and teach more about the leaf, its original manuscript, its context within its genre of book and other relatives from the same center, period, or region, and perhaps also its travels from its date and place of origin in medieval Europe to its present collection in the United States.

About the frame and information about the collection from which Jennah Farrell acquired the leaf in its frame, see Part 2 on Provenance:

Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf in the Collection of Jennah Farrell, Part 2

Part 1 introduced the leaf in its frame, in the state in which it reached the RGME Lending Library for photography, conservation, research, and teaching:

A Latin Vulgate Leaf from the Book of Numbers (Part 1)

Now for Part 3 we focus on the leaf itself, including the evidence which its outer portions and its entire back side, formerly hidden, can reveal.

Side 1

This side faced forward in the former frame.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Single Leaf from the Book of Numbers in a Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript. Full extent of the leaf, unframed: Recto. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Side 2

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Single Leaf from the Book of Numbers in a Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript. Full extent of the leaf, unframed: Verso. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Releasing the Leaf from the Frame

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Manuscript Leaf: Back of Frame. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Removing the leaf from its frame employed a set of tools 1) to unscrew the mounting hinges and hanging wire, 2) release the backing paper glued to the back edges of the wooden frame, 3) detach the heavy staples which clamped a sheet of foam board to the framing mat, and 4) lift the mat to release the leaf.

Tools to Open the Frame and Left-over Pieces from the Frame containing the Farrell Bible Leaf. Photography by Mildred Budny.

The pieces of the frame are now kept together: stained wooden frame, sheet of glass, windowed mat, foam board, backing paper, staples, and hanging nail. The leaf is now kept in a clear archival L-sheet housed in an archival document binder.

Both Sides Now in View

Released from the frame and its mat, the leaf can be seen to have about 5 cm. more from top to bottom and about 4 more cm. from side to side. Revealed are the full extent of the margins and parts of the foliate decoration of the ornamental bars which extend from the chapter initials in three columns of the four in the layout of two columns per page or side of the leaf.

Revealed too is the marginal correction for the text entered in the outer margin on the verso and the remnants of the stitching line at the inner edge or gutter of the leaf, where an uneven cut along the full length of the leaf severed it from its formerly conjoint leaf in its original manuscript.

Can you tell which side of the leaf is the front, or original recto, and which is the back, or original verso?

Do you recognize, or would you like to discover, which manuscript the leaf came from when it was cut out of its book and separated from its relatives, to enter the world as a single leaf on its own, suited for framing and display such as on a wall?

Would you like to help us to learn about it?

A Pair of Workshops for this Leaf

We plan two RGME Workshops on Looking at Manuscripts, the first in a new series, to introduce the leaf and learn how to identify its probable date and place of origin, as well as its former manuscript and its context among relatives. Our challenge is to discern what the leaf might itself have to say about these different stages, and what we might discover about its original identity, its former manuscript, and its dispersal.

Both workshops will be held online by Zoom, for which registration (free) is required.

1) Workshop 1 introduces the leaf and sets the groundwork.

Sunday 17 November 2024 at 1:00-2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

Workshop 1: Registration

2) Workshop 2 follows up the lines of investigation as we might collectively compare notes and refine our inquiries more fully to understand the leaf and its relatives.

Sunday 16 December 2024 at 1:00-2:30 pm EST (GMT-5)

Workshop 2: Registration

After you register, the Zoom Link will be sent to you a few days before the event.

Beginners and experts welcome!

*****

About our new series of Workshops on Looking at Manuscripts, see:

The Bridge of Signs

We have been waiting for the opportunity, occasion, and resources to bring to our community for workshops, online and/or in-person, collectively to explore original source materials. With the RGME “Lending Library” as well as our own materials in the RGME Library & Archives, and with our time-tested habits of online events as well as in-person workshops, we launch our new series in a mobile approach to bring together original sources and a community interested in studying them and teaching with them.

Please join our expedition!

*****

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Tags: Jennah Farrell Collection, Latin Vulgate Bibles, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts
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A Latin Vulgate Leaf of the Book of Numbers

September 12, 2024 in Manuscript Studies, RGME Lending Library

A Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf
in the Collection of Jennah Farrell

Part of the Book of Numbers
laid out in double columns of 46 lines in Gothic Script

Visible area within mat:
maximum circa 24.1 cm. tall × 16.3 cm. wide
(circa 9 7/8 in. tall × 6 7/8 in. wide)
< ruled writing area circa 18.7 × 12.5 cm.
(7 3/4 × 4 7/8 in.)

[Posted on 11 September 2024]

After introducing you to the RGME “Lending Library”, we turn to a “New Loan” mentioned in that blogpost. Sent to the RGME for study, the loan comprises a single vellum leaf from a medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript which the present owner acquired in its frame among a former owner’s belongings.

The new owner approached the RGME Director on the strength of one of our blogposts. The leaf has been sent on loan to the RGME in June 2024. With permission, we report results as we continue to study the leaf and its context. Later we will remove the leaf from its modern frame and reveal more discoveries.

First Steps

Private Collection. Framed Bible Leaf in its Wrapping for Transit to the RGME in July 2024: View upon arrival in unpacking the leaf. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Work on the leaf after it had safely arrived, in secure packing, had to wait while disruptions to the RGME website and a cluster of other unexpected issues intervened, requiring attention. Resuming work (as you can see, our website is back in accessible working order), we begin our report on the leaf with this blogpost. It sets the scene and shows first photographs of the leaf still in its frame, to introduce the leaf to you.

At present, the leaf remains in its frame, while we study its visible features and explore its context. Then we will, with permission, remove the leaf from the frame, to photograph and study its other side and outer edges now hidden below the windowed opening of the mat and by the back of the frame.

The Visible Text: Recto or Verso?

The leaf stands in the windowed glass frame in which it reached its current owner. On partly puckered vellum, the text in Latin presents part of the Old Testament Book of Numbers in the Vulgate Version.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Manuscript Leaf in Frame: Front, emerging from packaging upon arrival for study. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

The back of the frame has few identifying features. Besides the metal hanging wire and its pair of mounts, its black paper covering has the traces of a removed label formerly centered at one end and a companion nail taped off-center to the opposite end.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Manuscript Leaf: Back of Frame emerging from packaging. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Through the glass of the frame, most of one side of the leaf can be seen, with its outer edges on all sides covered to some extent by the windowed mat.

The visible extent of the leaf within the mat measures a maximum of circa 24.1 cm. tall × 16.3 cm. wide (circa 9 7/8 in. tall × 6 7/8 in. wide). The ruled writing area measures circa 18.7 × 12.5 cm. (7 3/4 × 4 7/8 in.). As presented to view, the full extent can be seen of the two columns of script and most of the appendages and additional elements which accompany it as navigation aids. The latter include the running title, inset chapter numerals, and decorative embellishments.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Manuscript Leaf in Mat. Photograph by Jennah Farrrell.

The Text, Decoration, and Layout

Written in Gothic script, the text in Latin is laid out in two columns of 46 lines each: columns a at the left and b at the right. To the left of each column stands a decorative vertical bar extending the full height of the column and reaching into the upper and lower margins of the page, with foliate extensions branching sideways in both directions.

Inset decorative 2-line text initials, set in sub-rectangular gold frames, attach to the right-hand sides of the columnar bars, with one per column. With the identifying Roman chapter-numbers written in Capitals against decorated backgrounds at the ends of the preceding lines, these initials open Chapters XIX and XX in the Old Testament Book of Numbers.

In the top line of each column, an extended letter rises to a leftward-facing head in profile: animal in column a and male with extended pointed cap in column b.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Manuscript Leaf in Mat: top left. Photograph by Jennah Farrrell.

The running title at the top, set within parallel lines ruled in drypoint, identifies the text with “RI” in Capitals. Expecting the first part of the word “NUME” on the facing verso of the original manuscript, this would be the recto.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Manuscript Leaf in Frame: Top right. Photograph by Jennah Farrrell.

The text on the page starts in Numbers 18:27 of the Latin Vulgate version: “. . . [oblati]onem primitovorum. Tam de areis quam“. “XIX” marks the start of Numbers 19: “Locutus est dominus ad moysen“. There then follows a long list of rules about becoming ‘unclean’ after touching a dead body.

“XX” marks the start of Numbers 20: “Veneruntque filii israel“. The page ends in 20:5 “. . . et aquam non [/ habet ad bibendum]”, expected to continue on the verso. The last line has “malagranata“, the Latin for “pomegranates”.

The left-facing man’s head at the top of col.b does not appear to be at a significant point in the text. It stands in the middle of 19:13 against an extended tall-s of “asp[er]sus“. The text:

[13] omnis qui tetigerit humanae animae morticinum et aspersus hac commixtione non fuerit polluet tabernaculum Domini et peribit ex Israhel quia aqua expiationis non est aspersus inmundus erit et manebit spurcitia eius super eum

[13] Every one that toucheth the corpse of a man, and is not sprinkled with mixture, shall profane the tabernacle of the Lord, and shall perish out of Israel: because he was not sprinkled with the water of expiation, he shall be unclean, and his uncleanness shall remain upon him.

Show-Through and the Other Side

Show-through from the verso reveal features of ink and pigment which diverge from those on the recto. For example:

1) parts of the running title likewise in Capitals (the letters NUME would be expected);

2) a vertical bar down the intercolumn edging column b, but not one for column a

3) an inset 2-line initial with sub-rectangular frame in column b at the start of lines 23–24 (presumably the q for Quod for Numbers chapter 21); and

4) foliate extensions across most of the lower margin, but not reaching into its span below the inner or outer margins, unlike the formation from the bar for column a on the recto.

Let us see what becomes revealed with the leaf is removed from its frame. That step comes later, to be revealed in another blogpost.

Meanwhile, we could take as educated ‘predictions’ of what to expect such evidence as the show-through of features from the verso and the place in the course of the known text where column b on the recto breaks off mid-phrase. This process could serve as a useful teaching exercise.

For example, the other side holds evidence which can become available to view once outside the frame. It could correct or confirm our conjectures about its features as we examine the visible recto before then.

How accurate are these conjectures? Let’s see!

More to Come

Watch this space. A next blogpost would reveal more as our research continues.

Update: See our next blogpost and join a pair of Workshops on “Looking at Manuscripts”, dedicated to this Leaf. Would you like to help us to identify it? Come and learn how!

Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf in the Collection of Jennah Farrell: Part 2

Comments? Join the Journey!

Do you recognize this manuscript? Are you familiar with other leaves from it? Please let us know.

Please Contact Us or visit

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Would you like to help? Donations and contributions, in funds or in kind, are welcome and easy to give. Given our low overheads, your donations have direct impact on our work and the furtherance of our mission. For our Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, your donations may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law. Thank you for your support!

We look forward to hearing from you.

*****

Tags: Collection of Jennah Farrell, Latin Vulgate Bibles, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Old Testament Book of Numbers
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A 13th-Century Pocket Vulgate Bible at Smith College

August 13, 2023 in Manuscript Studies

A Thirteenth-Century Pocket Vulgate Bible
at Smith College:
“The Dimock Bible”
(Mortimer Rare Book Collection MS 240)

Hannah Goeselt
RGME Guestblogger

[Posted on 30 October 2023]

Note: For this Blogpost, we welcome Guest Blogger, Hannah Goeselt, who reports on a manuscript which first caught her attention when examining manuscripts at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, as part of her undergraduate studies. Now, having recently finished an MS at Simmons University in Library and Information Science (Cultural Heritage Informatics), she offers a guided tour to this book deserving wider attention and further research. We thank her for her contribution and invite you to join this guided tour.

As part of the tour, Hannah showcases the manuscript for its interest in its own right, and also, as she says, “to use it as an example of how one might go about using some of the online research tools out there to assist in manuscript studies”. Accordingly, she includes “everything from the De Ricci census, Conway–Davis directory, Schoenberg database, and Digital Scriptorium (with Smith’s own consortium database)”, as well as the Grolier Club, “which played an important part in assessing the content of the auction catalogs mentioned in Schoenberg”. Brava!

Over to you, Hannah . . .

Our Guest Manuscript:
Mortimer Rare Book Collection MS 240

Smith College, MRBC MS 240, fol. 191v. Historiated initial for the Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians, with outward-looking male face. Photography by Hannah Goeselt.

While taking survey of material pertaining to manuscripts from Otto F. Ege (1888–1951) in collections across the campus of Smith College, I was drawn to this thirteenth-century Pocket Bible, with the pressmark “MRBC MS 240″, and thought it’d be worth initiating a sort of “meet-and-greet” with this codex. I have a fondness for 13^th-century Latin Vulgate Bibles, often noted for their similarities and their contribution to forming our current concept of the Bible’s format. And yet within all that seemingly mass uniformity, on second glance they all contain their own unique qualities and histories.

At the Mortimer Rare Book Collection (MRBC) at Neilson Library, several jewels of medieval manuscripts among keep this book company, alongside a host of fragments. Notable examples are

a large-scale Vulgate Bible written in a single column layout,
a lovely mid-thirteenth-century French Psalter with early-modern devotional marginalia,
a Book of Hours associated with Philip the Good, Duke Philip III of Burgundy (1306—1467, duke from 1419).

All three of these have featured on posts in Peter Kidd’s blog on Medieval Manuscripts Provenance:

“A 13^th-Century Bible from Beauvais at Smith College”
https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-13th-century-bible-from-beauvais-at.html
“A French 13^th-Century Psalter at Smith College”
https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-french-13th-century-psalter-at-smith.html
“An Unrecognised Book of Hours Made for Philip the Good [Part I]”
https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2015/12/an-unrecognised-book-of-hours-made-for.html

They, along with many others, are available on the Digital Scriptorium website. However more recently the collections have also been added to the Five College Compass website, where MS 240 has joined them with a full digitization:

https://compass.fivecolleges.edu/object/smith:1365930 (apart from its folio 1r, which I show here).

For users of the Smith College Libraries database (Students, Faculty, Staff, Community Borrowers), this is internal Permalink for the manuscript.

Let us, for the duration of this post, call it the Dimock Bible, as referred to in the Directory of Collections in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings (pages 52 and 62) by Melissa Conway and Lisa Fagin Davis, and due to the family name associated with its recent ownership. Within the library record, we see that the cataloger of this manuscript has done wonderful work in linking the manuscript to two very important sources that will help us in our search for more information.

Upon opening, we are met by the first page of the Bible text, which opens the preface to the bible unit itself by its translator Jerome (circa 342–347 – 420), who produced the Latin Vulgate Version. This image is omitted in the digital facsimile, though one can see a painted offset on the verso of the preceding leaf.

First page of the Dimock Bible, with two columns of text which begin the preface "Frater Ambrosius" describing the Latin translation/

Smith College, MRBC MS 240, fol. 1r. Opening of Jerome’s preface ‘Frater Ambrosius’ for the bible unit. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Cardinal Alderano Cybo, Digital Scriptorium, Dimock Bible, Elizabeth Jordan, Emily Clara Jordan Folger, Erased Ownership Inscriptions, George Edward Dimock, GuestBlogger Hannah Goeselt, Image-Enhancement, Latin Vulgate Bibles, Manuscript studies, Mary Augusta Jordan, Medieval manuscripts, Medieval Seals and Seal Matrices, Mortimer Rare Book Collection MS 240, Nota-bene Marks, Otto F. Ege, Pilgrims' Badges, Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts, Seal Impression, Seal Matrices, Seymour de Ricci, Smith College, Stephen the Deacon Protomartyr, Things Found In Books, Thomas Becket, Vassar College, William Edwin Bools
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Another Leaf from a Portable Manuscript Bible in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez

May 18, 2022 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Another Latin Bible Manuscript Leaf
in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez

Single Leaf from a Latin Vulgate Bible
Folio “74[?]” with Part of the Book of Daniel

Daniel 9:11 ([. . . et declinaverunt / ] ne audirent)
– 11:30 (et cogitabit [ / advesum eos . . . ])

Double Columns of 56 lines

Written in Gothic Script
with Running Titles, Initials, Pen-flourishes, and Annotations
including a Modern Folio Number

Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez, Vulgate Bible Manuscript Leaf purchased in London around 2000: Recto with opening of Daniel Chapter X.

[Posted on 17 May 2022]

Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez, Framed Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 20’, Front-Facing Page (“Recto”).

Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez, Framed Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’.

Following our blogpost reporting Two Ege Manuscript Leaves and Two Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez, we learn of another leaf in the same collection, with a different provenance. Those two Ege leaves and labels pertain to three manuscripts dismembered and distributed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). That is,

with a leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 14” and its Ege Label,
an Ege Label from “Ege Manuscript 54”, and
a leaf from “Ege Manuscript 20”.

They all pertain to books of the Latin Vulgate Bible, either as full Bibles in large or small format, or as the Book of Psalms in a separate volume (or Psalter) in small format. They came to their collector in stages, by purchase at auction at the Dallas Public Library in 1998, or as a gift in 2003 from its former Librarian, Lillian Moore Bradshaw (1915–2010), with a mix-up at some stage between labels and leaves.

Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez, Otto Ege Label for “Ege Manuscript 54”.

The Next Leaf

The next leaf reaching our attention came from a small-format Vulgate Bible manuscript. In correspondence, Ernesto Lopez reports that he purchased the leaf in London, England, around the year 2000.

The unframed leaf and its seller’s label tell the story of a pattern of transmission of a dismembered medieval manuscript leaf which, at some stage in transmission after dismemberment, lost a record of connection to the original book. Here we examine the label and both sides of the leaf, as revealed in the collector’s photographs, generously supplied for study and for presentation here to a wider world.

The Seller’s Label

With the leaf is a folded rectangular paper label with printed or print-out text in two halves above and below the fold-line which would permit the label to stand upright, say in a case or on a shelf. The upper half of the sheet, above the fold line, identifies the seller, the Parthenon Gallery in London, purveyor of “Ancient coins, antiquities & fossils”. This gallery is still located in the same place, at 25, Bury Place, WC1A 2JH.

Within a rectangular frame, the lower half of the label calls the specimen “Early Medieval”. Details cite the item as comprising “Illuminated manuscript pages [sic] from an early medieval bible written on vellum, with Latin written in a miniscule hand”; identifies the contents as part of the text of “I Machabees, relating the episode of “The Temple taken”; and dates the item to “Circa 1280 A.D. Not after 1300.”

At the bottom of the frame, at the left, there stands the printed identifier “9037 R 0”, in arabic-numbers-plus-letters (or-letter). At the right, layered pieces of gauze tape cover the price identifier, which is partly visible in show-through, beginning with the currency-identifier for pounds sterling (£).

The Leaf

Side 1

To begin with, we saw a photograph of only one side. The cropped edges of the photograph do not offer indications of which side of the leaf it is, whether recto or verso. We decided to examine the image for what it might show.

The Text

Despite the label, this leaf does not belong to any part of the First Book of Maccabees (I Maccabees). Instead it has part of the text in the Book of Daniel.

The text on the page starts within Daniel 10:14 ([ . . . sunt populo / ] tuo in novissimis diebus, quoniam adhuc visio in dies). The page ends in the middle of 11:30 (et faciet: reverteturque, et cogitabit [ / advesum eos . . . ]).

The enlarged initial signals the beginning of Chapter 11:1, which reads: Ego autem ab anno primo Darii Medi stabam ut confortaretur et roboraretur. Rendered in blue pigment, the initial E stands outside the column of text. Above and below the letter extend pen-flourishes in red pigment, which reach most of the height of the column. In places, the flourishes form the outlines of foliate motifs, sometimes branching, with rippled contours in some places.

Show-through from the opposite side of the leaf indicates that a similar enlarged chapter-initial, with pen-flourishes, stands in the intercolumn, pertaining to a place in column b, about one-quarter of the way down its course. Chapter 12 would begin with an initial I: In tempore autem . . . Chapter 10 would begin with an initial A: Anno tertio Cyri regis Persarum . . . On the strength of those different letter-forms, it is tempting to guess that that opposite side of the leaf carries the last part of Chapter 9 and the first part of Chapter 10.

Even the running title points to the Book of Daniel. Centered at the top of the page , the bichrome red-and-blue capital letters designate the first part of the name: “DANI-“. Given the orientation, this portion of a bi-partite title on a verso would be complemented by the second portion on the formerly facing recto of the next leaf in the book.

An addition in ink in the left margin supplies a missing word confortare, with a signe-de-renvoi linking it with its place in the text, within Daniel 10:19

et dixit: Noli timere, vir desideriorum: pax tibi: confortare, et esto robustus. Cumque loqueretur mecum, convalui, et dixi: Loquere, domine mi, quia confortasti me.

The signes-de-renvoi take the form of an identical pair of triple dots in triangular formation in red pigment. One twin stands at the upper left of the correction. The other hovers in the interline at the place within the column of text where the insertion is to be supplied. A wash of red pigment enhances the bow of the somewhat enlarged letter c, like various minor text initials in the columns of text.

At first, when I examined the photograph of this page, some features, including forms of the pen-flourishing, reminded me especially of a couple of Vulgate Bible manuscripts dismembered by Otto Ege and distributed in more than one of his several Portfolios of specimen leaves from manuscripts and printed books.

The pair of manuscripts , which I come on occasion to think of as “Otto Ege Manuscript 9 + Manuscript 54”, featured in my recent blogpost exploring the Two Ege Manuscript Leaves and Two Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez. Their numbers derive from the different positions of cataloguing the two manuscripts in Scott Gwara’s Handlist of Ege’s Manuscripts. They figure on the one hand as its Handlist Number 9 (for its position among the numbered specimens in the Fifty Original Leaves Portfolio, or FOL) on the one hand; and, on the other, as its Handlist Number 54 (for both versions of the Original Leaves from Famous Books Portfolio, respectively in Eight and Nine Centuries, or FBEC and FBNC). For citations, please see that earlier blogpost.

The overlap or perhaps sometimes confusion between the two manuscripts results from the distribution of their respective specimens sometimes in FOL and sometimes in the versions of Famous Books , as substitutions might arise in the course of assembling individual sets of one or other Portfolio. For example, the manuscript normally deployed for Number 9 in FOL sometimes did service in FBEC or FBNC. The other manuscript sometimes or normally deployed instead for FBEC (as Leaf 1) or FBNC (as Leaf 2), has Gwara’s assigned Number 54.

If this seems complicated, welcome to the world of Ege Manuscript Studies! Fortunately, careful and precise examination of the individual cases can aid the process by bringing a strong dose of recognition of their specific characteristics.

Ege’s Labels for these two manuscripts, curiously interlinked or intermixed in Ege’s distribution patterns, identify them differently as

a Bible written written in France, specifically Paris, in the middle of the XIIIth Century (FOL), or
a Bible written by Dominicans in Paris circa 1240 (FBNC)
— as seen above, in one of the Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez.

For the two books Gwara prefers an attribution of “France, ca. 1250” (No. 9 for FOL and FBEC); and “Northern France, ca. 1250” (No. 54 for FBEC and FBNC), with cross-references between both numbers. Gwara’s list notes different numbers of lines for those two items, with script in double columns respectively of “53 lines” and “57 lines”.

The variation in numbers of lines per column and page in a single volume with closely-spaced text is not unaccustomed in small-format Vulgate Bible manuscripts of the period, so that the span of 56 lines on the Lopez Leaf under examination here, like some stylistic variations in script and pen-flourishes, need not in themselves rule out a possible association or connection with that Ege manuscript.

The point is that the general resemblance only, without closer inspection, brings to mind rather similar manuscripts from Ege’s collection whose features I have been recently been surveying, in the quest to sort out the partly divergent evidence of the Ege Labels and Leaves with a Dallas Public Library in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez.

More information comes to light on the other side of the leaf from London.

Side 2

Next, upon request, we could see the other side, revealing the full expanse of the leaf, insofar as it survives, and with a scale to indicate size.

Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez, Vulgate Bible Manuscript Leaf purchased in London around 2000: Recto with Scale.

This page shows some tell-tale features pertaining to the structure, location, and forms of use of the leaf within its former book. They include annotations which provide medieval references in ink in the outer margin and a modern folio number in pencil at the bottom right. The edge of the gutter, or stitching line, remains at the right-hand contour, while the wider expanse of the outer margin on the opposite edge appears to represent its full original extent.

In that outer margin stand the blue Chapter numeral X; a mark designating the roman numeral lvii or lxii (“lvij” or “xlij”) opposite line 4 of the text; an abbreviated mark awaiting decipherment to its right; a vertical set of three marks at intervals down the page, in the form of triple dots in triangular formation atop a leftwards-curving tail (let’s cite it here as “;”); and the arabic numeral 74, 75, or 76[?] in the lower outer corner.

At the top of the page stands part of of a bipartite running title in bichrome Gothic Capitals, forming the second half of the name for the Biblical Book of [DANI-/]EL.

Evidently, this side of the leaf is the original recto.

Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez, Vulgate Bible Manuscript Leaf purchased in London around 2000: Recto.

The text begins within Daniel 9:11.

[11 Et omnis Israël prævaricati sunt legem tuam, et declinaverunt / ] ne audirent vocem tuam: et stillavit super nos maledictio et detestatio quæ scripta est in libro Moysi servi Dei, quia peccavimus ei.

The marks opposite line 4 in the outer margin, lvij or lxij, plus a larger abbreviation to its right, might signal the passage for reading. The ‘;’ markings at intervals opposite more lines lower down might be related to the readings from Daniel for the 21-day fast. See:

https://likeabubblingbrook.com/daniel-fast-scripture-readings/

The listed readings in that resource do not exactly line up with this version, but it is the closest which we have found so far.

*****

Further research might identify which Vulgate Bible manuscript gave this specimen, somehow to reach the antiquary shop in London. As yet, it is unclear by which time and where the leaf acquired its modern folio number within the original volume, became separated from the book, and acquired its inventory number, selling price, and label, giving an attribution to a different text, and a particular passage, from a different Biblical Book in the Old Testament. We might assume, say, given the plural “pages” in the label, that its text was drafted to identify a group of specimens from the specific manuscript, laid out in an array from which a purchase might be selected. From them one, but not this one, could correspond to the specified passage about the Temple in I Macabees.

Perhaps the formula which the label assigns to the date-range of the specimen, like the citation of “I Machabees”, will provide a clue to its former location in a source-manuscript, according with a form of identification not unlike some employed by, say, Otto Ege, in labeling the dismembered pieces for distribution and perhaps offering a selling-point. For now, we might begin to look for Vulgate Bible specimens in double columns of around 56 lines, with comparable dimensions, and with corresponding folio numbers, all of which are identified as dating from “Circa 1280 A.D. Not after 1300.”

The modern folio number points to a different manuscript than the one which first came to mind when I saw a photograph from its “first side”, perhaps probably because that manuscript was fresh in mind. Some Ege manuscripts have modern folio numbers, entered before the books were taken to pieces. (See, for example, More Leaves from “Otto Ege Manuscript 51”.) But not, apparently, any leaves from Ege MS 9 or MS 54. The quest is open.

I invite your advice.

*****

Do you know of more leaves from this manuscript? Do you recognize the hands of these scribes, artists, and annotators in other parts of this book or in other manuscripts?

You might reach us via Contact Us or our Facebook Page. Comments here are welcome too. We look forward to hearing from you.

Watch our blog on Manuscript Studies for more discoveries. Please visit its Contents List.

*****

Tags: Book of Daniel, Book of I Macabees, Latin Vulgate Bibles, manuscript fragments, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Otto Ege Manuscript 20, Otto Ege Manuscript 54, Otto Ege Manuscript 9, Otto Ege Manuscripts
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Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

Text written in Gothic Bookhand Laid out in Double Columns of 56 lines with Running Titles, Rubrication, Text-Initials in Red and Blue, and Marginalia within Frames

I. Two Leaves from the Book of Numbers

The Two Leaves

Leaf 1: Folio 38

Recto

Verso

Leaf 2: Folio 43

Recto

Verso

Contents: Text

Leaf 1 (recto and verso)

Leaf 2 (recto and verso)

II. Once Upon a Time: A Single-Volume Vulgate Bible

I. As a Single Volume

II. As Individual Leaves or Groups of Leaves

The Collection of Robert McCarthy (No. 17)

Some Specimens

Old Testament

Leaves of Text from the Book of Numbers (Folios 38 and 43)

Currently on Sale: A Leaf from Ezekiel 41–44 (Folio 269)

Openings of Prologue and Book of Joshua

Opening of the Book of Esdras

Opening of Prologue for the Book of Malachi

Three Leaves with Historiated Initials: Openings of Prologues for the Books of Tobit, Zephaniah, and I Samuel

Opening of II Samuel

Prologue and Opening of Sapientia/Wisdom

Opening of Ecclesiastes

New Testament

Opening of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians

Opening of the Epistle to the Philippians

Epistle to the Hebrews 8–18

Companion Textual Apparatus

Interpretation of Hebrew Names (Leaf with Glossary for Da–Du Entries)

Questions? Suggestions?

Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”

RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.” (Formerly: “Examining Original Sources”)

Workshop 4 “Manuscript Fragments Compared”

Sunday 23 February 2025 1:00- 2:30 p.m. EST (GMT-4) by Zoom

The Series

Workshop 4

Resources for the Quest

Registration

Information about the series

Questions? Suggestions?

RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

Our Early Series of Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” (1989–1995)

Foreground

Registration for the Workshops

Workshop 1 “Introducing the Farrell Leaf” Sunday 17 November 2024

Workshop 2 “Follow-Up for the Farrell Leaf” Sunday 15 December 2024

Workshop 3 “The Farrell Leaf and its Context” Sunday 12 January 2025

Registration:

Workshop 4 “Manuscript Fragments Compared: The Saint Albans Bible and Otto Ege MS 14” Sunday 23 February 2025

Information

Registration

Workshop 5 “Identifying Medieval Bible Manuscript Fragments” Sunday 23 March 2025

Registration

Workshop 6 “What’s In a Name? Guides to Nomenclature for Manuscript Studies” Sunday 27 April 2025

Extra

Information

Registration

Workshop 7 “Fragments & Documents”

Sunday 29 June 2025

Information

Registration

Workshop 8 “Face the Music, or, Where Manuscript Meets Print in a Hybrid Book: An Early-Modern German Herbal with a Reused Binding Fragment from a Medieval Musical Manuscript”

Sunday 26 October 2025

Information

Registration for the Workshop

The Manuscript Fragment and the Printed Book

Title Page

Workshop 9 “Books as Thresholds and Communities”

Sunday 21 December 2025

Information

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Two Leaves
in the Book of Numbers
from the Chudleigh Bible

Text written in Gothic Bookhand
Laid out in Double Columns of 56 lines
with Running Titles, Rubrication,
Text-Initials in Red and Blue,
and Marginalia within Frames

II. Once Upon a Time:
A Single-Volume Vulgate Bible

The Collection of Robert McCarthy
(No. 17)

Three Leaves with Historiated Initials:
Openings of Prologues for the
Books of Tobit, Zephaniah, and I Samuel

Interpretation of Hebrew Names
(Leaf with Glossary for Da–Du Entries)

RGME Workshops
on
“The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”
(Formerly: “Examining Original Sources”)

Workshop 4
“Manuscript Fragments Compared”

Sunday 23 February 2025
1:00- 2:30 p.m. EST (GMT-4) by Zoom

RGME Workshops
on
“The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

Our Early Series of Seminars
on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” (1989–1995)

Workshop 1
“Introducing the Farrell Leaf”
Sunday 17 November 2024

Workshop 2
“Follow-Up for the Farrell Leaf”
Sunday 15 December 2024

Workshop 3
“The Farrell Leaf and its Context”
Sunday 12 January 2025

Workshop 4
“Manuscript Fragments Compared:
The Saint Albans Bible and Otto Ege MS 14”
Sunday 23 February 2025

Workshop 5
“Identifying Medieval Bible Manuscript Fragments”
Sunday 23 March 2025

Workshop 6
“What’s In a Name?
Guides to Nomenclature for Manuscript Studies”
Sunday 27 April 2025

Workshop 7
“Fragments & Documents”

Workshop 8
“Face the Music, or,
Where Manuscript Meets Print in a Hybrid Book:
An Early-Modern German Herbal
with a Reused Binding Fragment
from a Medieval Musical Manuscript”

Workshop 9
“Books as Thresholds and Communities”

Workshop 10. Sunday 29 March 2026
” ‘Transformations and Renewals’ in our Ongoing Studies”

Workshop 11
Sunday 9 August 2026
“Early-Modern Archives in Old and New England”

Workshop 12, Etc.
Subjects To Be Determined (We accept requests!)

The Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf
in the Collection of Jennah Farrell

A Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf
in the Collection of Jennah Farrell

A Thirteenth-Century Pocket Vulgate Bible
at Smith College:
“The Dimock Bible”
(Mortimer Rare Book Collection MS 240)

Hannah Goeselt
RGME Guestblogger

Our Guest Manuscript:
Mortimer Rare Book Collection MS 240

Another Latin Bible Manuscript Leaf
in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez

Single Leaf from a Latin Vulgate Bible
Folio “74[?]” with Part of the Book of Daniel

Daniel 9:11 ([. . . et declinaverunt / ] ne audirent)
– 11:30 (et cogitabit [ / advesum eos . . . ])

Written in Gothic Script
with Running Titles, Initials, Pen-flourishes, and Annotations
including a Modern Folio Number