Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

April 22, 2025 in Uncategorized

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]

Continuing our series of posts describing discoveries for the study of manuscript fragments, 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.

First we introduce the two leaves, then 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). Further blogposts will offer more information about both forms of experience for the manuscript and its identifiable fragments.

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 comprises the opening leaves from Joshua, Sapientia/Wisdom, II Samuel, Ecclesiastes, and the Epistle to the Philippians. See below.

No. 17. The Chudleigh Bible:

The Joshua leaf was 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)
Prologue and Beginning of Joshua; initial on recto
The Wisdom leaf was 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
The Joshua leaf was 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)
Beginning of Joshua on recto
The II Samuel leaf was 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 End of I Samuel on verso
The Ecclesiastes leaf was 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 Psalms on recto
‘The Philippians leaf was in the collection of John Feldman [1957–2021] in 1989, “depicting Paul preaching in the Synagogue at Damascus” ‘
Beginning of Epistle to the Philippians (recto or verso?)

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.

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 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)

Opening of Ecclesiastes

Beginning of Ecclesiastes on verso; presumably End of Sapientia/Wisdom on recto.

The Ecclesiastes leaf was 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)

New Testament

Opening of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians

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).

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?

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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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2025 RGME Visit to Vassar College

March 2, 2025 in Uncategorized

2025 RGME Visit
to Vassar College

Medieval & Renaissance
Manuscripts & Cuttings
at
The Archives & Special Collections Library
and
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Monday 5 May 2025
11:00 am – 4:30 pm
In person and Online by Zoom

Approach to Main Library, Vassar College. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

[Posted on 1 March 2025, with updates]

Inspired by the 2024 RGME Spring Symposium at Vassar College, we return in May for a visit to its collections.

This time, we will see some of its Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts, fragments, and cuttings. These manuscript materials at Vassar are held in the

We will visit both, with lunch in between. An RGME Roundtable discussion will follow the afternoon visit.

In addition, at each location, undergraduate students or a new member of the faculty for the Art Department will speak about their work on some of the manuscript materials. They will present new discoveries, with the chance to see the original materials themselves.

Save-the-Date Poster for 2024 RGME Spring Symposium at Vassar College. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

Prequel:
Our 2024 Spring Symposium

Some of these materials were considered in presentations at the 2024 Spring Symposium; some were displayed at the special exhibition, where we could see them on view. See:

Books of the Middle Ages and and Renaissance (April 19–June 23, 2024)

At the first Reception of the Symposium, Vassar undergraduate students described their work on several of them to prepare for this exhibition.

Coinciding with the Symposium was the publication of the new catalogue of these materials.

Catalogue of Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts at Vassar College, Including the Nicholas B. Scheetz Collection and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, compiled by Peter Kidd (Vassar College, 2024)
ISBN 9798218363758

2025 RGME Visit to Vassar

Our 2025 RGME In-Person/Hybrid Visit will take place on Monday 5 May.

We invite you to attend either:

in person (places are limited due to space) or
online.

The RGME will provide online and interactive access by Zoom, to allow a wider audience to join us for an interactive Zoom Meeting.

For Registration information, see below.

A Centerpoint for the RGME’s 2025 Activities

The plan for this visit connects with the RGME theme of collectors and collecting for our events this year, and also for our work on manuscript fragments.

For the various events, held online and in various locations as in-person/hybrid events, see:

RGME 2024 and 2025 Activities

2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia: “Agents and Agencies”

Spring (Part 1 of 2)
“Makers, Producers, and Collectors of Books:
From Author/Artist/Artisan to Library” (28–30 March online)

Autumn (Part 2 of 2)
“Readers, Fakers, and Re-Creators of Books:
From Page to Marketplace and Beyond” (17–19 October online or hybrid)

2025 Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo. (21–23 November hybrid)
“Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books:
Encountering and Reconstructing the Legacy
of Otto F. Ege and Other Biblioclasts”

Plan/Program

Overview

The afternoon before, on Sunday 4 May, logistics permitting, there might be an opportunity for Martha Frish’s presentation on “The Symbols of Vassar Architecture”, in an update from her Post-Symposium Presentation last year. (See 2024 Spring Symposium.)

Monday 5 May

In the morning we will visit the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center (on its closed day), to see some of its manuscripts and manuscript cuttings.
Lunch will be held in its Sculpture Garden (or inside in case of inclement weather).
After lunch, we will visit the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library (Main Library), to see some of its manuscript materials held in the Archives & Special Collections Library.
Then we will move to the Seminar Room in Special Collections to hold a Roundtable discussion. We may continue conversation about the materials, compare notes, and reflect on the day.
For drinks and dinner, we would go to a local restaurant, for repasts at our own expense.

Speakers include:

John P. Murphy

Ronald D. Patkus

Rachel Wise

Benjamin Garrity (Vassar Class of 2027)

Tara Peterson (Vassar Class of 2025)

Both John P. Murphy and Ronald D. Patkus will speak about the materials in the Art Center.

Rachel Wise, Professor of Art, will speak about her study of one of the most important manuscripts in its collection.

Ronald Patkus will speak about provenance for materials in both the Art Center and Special Collections.

Two Vassar students will speak about the art of materials in Special Collections:

Benjamin Garrity (Class of ’27) will speak about the Loeb Book of Hours.

Tara Peterson (Class of ’25) will speak about the Spanish Forger.

The showcased items in the two collections comprise: an album of collected initials; selected Books of Hours; and a leaf illustrated in medieval style by the prolific and renowned Spanish Forger. On hand, by request, at the session on Special Collections, might be its leaf from the Saint Albans Bible, a dismembered manuscript being researched by the RGME because of a current loan. (See below.)

Program

Morning
10:30–11:30
Art Center, Seminar Room

We would meet by 10:30 am in the Entrance Lobby of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center . Note that the Art Center is otherwise closed on Mondays.

Our visit allows us to see some of its manuscripts and manuscript cuttings. They include materials not normally on show.

Both John P. Murphy and Ronald D. Patkus will speak about the materials. Rachel Wise, Professor of Art, will speak about her study of one of the most important manuscripts in the collection.

They will demonstrate 1) an album of cuttings of choice portions from manuscripts (such as illuminated initials) and 2) a Book of Hours. These monuments are:

1. Album of Cuttings, 15th century (Loeb 864.2.242-864.2.258)

Seventeen cuttings with illuminated initials, removed from an Alphabetical Index (so far unidentified). Germany, 15th century.

Other contents include drawings of architectural features, copies of paintings, and copies of manuscript illuminations and marginalia from medieval manuscripts now in Oxford, London, and Salisbury Cathedral. Some of those manuscripts have been the subjects of RGME seminars.

Catalogue, pp. 246–249 (with plate on p. 246)
See also Object: Manuscript

John Murphy will speak about the initials, Ronald Patkus about provenance, and then we will have discussion.

2. Book of Hours, 15th century (Loeb 1994.2.2)

Book of Hours of Jean Olivier, Bishop of Angers (bishop from 1532–1540), for the Use of Rome, in Latin and French. France: Paris? Circa 1510–1540 or 1510–1520.

Artist: Jean Pichore (French, active c. 1501–1520)
Catalogue, pp. 266–269 (with plate on p. 267)
See also The Melun-Epinoy Hours

Rachel Wise, Professor of Art, will speak about the art of the manuscript, Ronald Patkus about provenance, and then we will have discussion.

The Melun-Épinoy Hours, opened to Annunciation scene. c. 1501–1520. Image: Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College

12:00–1:00 pm
Lunch

Lunch will take place in the outdoor Sculpture Garden. In case of inclement weather, we will go inside.

Afternoon

After lunch we will move to the Frederick Ferris Thompson Memorial Library (Main Library).

The first afternoon session, showcasing materials in Special Collections, will take place in the Class of 1951 Reading Room.

The second afternoon session, featuring a RGME Roundtable discussion, will take place in the Seminar Room of Special Collections (which closes at 4:30 pm).

1:00–2:00 pm
Spotlight on Special Collections

Class of 1951 Reading Room

Selected materials from Special Collections will be available for examination and discussion.

Ronald D. Patkus will speak about the materials. Students of both Ronald and Rachel Wise will speak about their work 1) on a leaf by The Spanish Forger, a notorious and prolific producer active in the late-nineteenth and/or early twentieth century, probably in Paris; and 2) on the Loeb Book of Hours.

3. Leaf 42, 14th and 19th/20th centuries

Single leaf as a cutting, reused.

Text on one side from an Antiphonary. Italy, 14th century
Painted image on the other. The image depicts an encounter outside a walled city between a solder and a lady, each with retinue. France, late 19th or early 20th century.

Artist: The Spanish Forger. (Active France, late 19th or early 20th century)
Catalogue, pp. 107–109 (with plate on p. 108)

4. Book of Hours, 15th century (MS. 6)

Book of Hours for the Use of Paris, in Latin and French
Catalogue, pp. 21–14 (with plate on p. 13)

Students will speak about their work on these materials; Ronald Patkus will speak about the provenance; and there will be scope for discussion.

2:00–2:30 pm
Break

3:30–4:00 pm
RGME Roundtable
“Looking at Manuscripts and Collections”

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Vulgate Bible Leaf, Recto. Photography by Mildred Budny.

This occasion offers the opportunity to share reflections about the materials demonstrated on our visit to both the Art Center and Main Library. Several of us might describe our research on some of them or relatives to them. We might consider their bearing on subjects which the RGME considers this year in its variety of events and projects.

1. Manuscript Fragments:
Challenges and Opportunities for Research

For example, recently the RGME has been examining the Farrell Leaf and the Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible, dismembered directly after sale in 1964 and widely distributed thereafter frequently through sale rooms. The original manuscript, a single-volume Latin Vulgate Bible, was produced in France, probably Paris, circa 1330-1340. See our Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

A leaf from the same book belongs to Vassar College. It is part of the Nicholas B. Scheetz Collection of Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts (Scheetz MS 27).

It could be useful to compare notes about these relatives which formerly stood within the same covers of a single-volume Latin Vulgate Bible.

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

2. Provenance: Evidence, Conjecture, and Clues

In informal conversation, the RGME Director, Mildred Budny, and Vassar Senior, Betsy Subiros, will compare notes about their ongoing work on objects in collections which have unidentified, uncertain, or doubtful provenance. The comparisons consider materials in the Art Center and the Special Collections of the RGME.

Drinks & Dinner

Afterward, we would go to a local restaurant for drinks and/or dinner (at our own expense). There, we could continue conversation in the company of people interested in books, their care, their study, their ability to teach, their stories, and their delight.

Information for Visiting Vassar

For information on travel, directions, campus maps, accommodation, dining, and other features in the area, see:

Visit Vassar

A photo of the Thompson Library at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, taken by me [Noteremote] on November 2, 2007. via Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thompson_Library_(Vassar_College).jpg.

Registration

You can register for the RGME Vassar Visit through the RGME Eventbrite Portal. See:

RGME Eventbrite Collection

There you will be able to register to attend either in person or online.

We encourage you to make a Voluntary Donation when you register. It will help to support our small nonprofit educational organization powered principally by volunteers.

1) In-Person Visit

For in-person attendance, space is limited. In registering for in-person attendance, for the catering you will be given the opportunity to indicate any dietary requirements.

2025 RGME Visit to Vassar College IN PERSON

2) Online Visit

For online attendance, once you register, the Zoom Link will be sent to you shortly before the event.

2025 RGME Visit to Vassar College ONLINE

Thank you for your interest and support. We look forward to welcoming you.

*****

Thanks

For arranging this visit, we thank:

Ronald D. Patkus, Head of Special Collections and College Historian, Adjunct Associate Professor of History on the Frederick Weyerhaeuser Chair
John P. Murphy, Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center.

We thank the speakers for their contributions to share their work on manuscript materials at Vassar College. Thanks go to Rachel Wise, Professor of Art, and students Ben Gerrity, Tara Peterson, and Betsy Subiros. We give thanks to the staff and others at Vassar College for this visit.

We look forward to the visit. You are invited to join, whether in person or virtually.

*****

Questions or Suggestions?

Please let us know.

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We look forward to seeing you and welcoming you to our events.

*****

Tags: Archives & Special Collections of Vassar College, Books of Hours, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Manuscript Cuttings, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, RGME Visits to Collections, The Spanish Forger, Vassar College, Virtual Visits to Collections
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The Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible

February 22, 2025 in Manuscript Studies, Workshops on "The Evidence of Manuscripts"

Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible
in the Collection of Richard Weber

Double columns of 46 lines in Gothic Script
with Decorated Initials, Bar-Extensions,
and Running Titles
Acts 26:14 (est tibi) – Acts 28:9 (insula habe[/-bant] )

Northern France, circa 1330

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

[Posted on 21 February 2025]

In connection with our new series of RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”, our Associate, Richard Weber, revealed another leaf in his collection. This discovery joins the posts about different items in his collection which have been reported in our blog on Manuscript Studies.

Our workshops began by examining a leaf on loan to the RGME with part of the text of the Book of Numbers in a Latin Vulgate Bible in double columns of 46 lines in Gothic script, with decorative elements. See the reports of our discoveries about that leaf:

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

The collaborative work in our workshops, crowdsourcing the quest to identify the leaf, has revealed that it most probably came from the dismembered Saint Albans Bible, produced in Northern France in the 1320s or 1330s and formerly owned by Saint Albans’ Abbey. Our search among online resources, such as blogposts and vendors’ sites, and in printed works, ranging from books and journal articles to catalogues of sales or individual collections, followed up clues leading from one collection or sales room to another.

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

The process of discovery persuaded us, from the resemblances between the leaf in hand and features of some surviving leaves from the Saint Albans Bible, that this leaf very likely came from the same manuscript — if not from another much like it by some of the same scribes and artists. We believe that proof positive (or the like) for this conjectured identification might come were one or both of the leaves which formerly directly preceded and directly followed the leaf to emerge into the light so as to demonstrate an exact match in the flow of text from one to the next.

And so we continue our search among the survivors, as we track the leaves from both the Old and New Testaments in the Saint Albans Bible, especially from the Book of Numbers. In view might be, were time and resources available, the creation of a virtual reconstruction of the manuscript, as has been accomplished or begun for various other manuscripts which now survive in fragments scattered across many locations.

Learning from our workshops that the Farrell Leaf is identifiable most probably as part of the dismembered Saint Albans Bible, our Associate, Richard Weber, reported the presence of another leaf from the same manuscript in his collection. With his permission, for which we give thanks, we introduce it to you and our Workshop Series, starting with RGME Workshop 4: “Manuscript Fragments Compared”.

The Weber Leaf
from the Saint Albans Bible

Acquired on May 23, 2023, from The Raab Collection (Nathan “Nate” Raab and Karen Pearlman Raab), this leaf preserves part of the Acts of the Apostles in the Saint Albans Bible, which was dismembered for resale in 1964. The leaf comes from the last part of the Book of Acts. It breaks off mid-word in its final chapter, about one-third of the way through it.

The Apostle Paul, His Travels, and His Travails

The text on the leaf presents the text from within Chapter 26 to within Chapter 28 of Acts in the Latin Vulgate Version. It opens within verse 14 ([persequeris durum /] est tibi contra) of Chapter 26, completes the chapter, turns to the full span of Chapter 27, and opens the last chapter of the Book up to its verse 9, whereupon it breaks off mid-word (insula habe[/-bant infirmitates]). That is, the span of text encompasses Acts 26:14–32 (the latter portion of the chapter); Acts 27:1–44 (the full chapter); and Acts 28:1–9 (the first third).

The leaf contains most of the extended first-hand account by the Apostle Paul (circa 5 – circa 64/65 AD) of his life’s adventures in his defense before King Herod Agrippa II of Judea (27/28 – 92 or 100 AD). From his own viewpoint, we hear about his transformation from soldier and Roman citizen to apostle in locations stretching from Tarsus in Asia Minor to Jerusalem, Antioch, Thessaloniki, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Malta, and finally Rome.

The scope, range, and variety of his exploits or adventures are illustrated vividly in some medieval manuscript illustrations. Notable among them is the full-page, multi-tiered cycle of scenes rendered by an exceptional master artist in the large-format Carolingian version of the Latin Vulgate Bible prepared at Tours for presentation to the monarch Charles the Bald (823–877). On this imposing Bible, see, for example, Latin 1.

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 1, fol. 386v. Image Public Domain via https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8455903b/f780.item#.

The Leaf, Its Contents, and Its Presentation

Sections of the text are demarcated by

1) enlarged, decorated initials rendered in polychrome or in ink,
2) ornamental vertical bars extending from the 2-line inset polychrome Chapter Initials to foliate terminals,
3) ornamental or figurative motifs embellishing the enlarged pen-initial in the top line of all but one column,
4) polychrome chapter numerals,
5) polychrome running titles in the upper margins, rendered partly in alternating pigments and partly in pen-line flourishes, and
6) a marginal ‘insertion’ of script to correct an omission in the text.

Let us have a closer look.

The Recto

The recto of the Weber Leaf

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

Lively decorated letters rendered in ink rise to considerable heights in the first lines of each column of text, one to each column. In column a, E for Ego opens Verse 15 of Chapter 26. In column b, T completes the opening word UT of Chapter 27:1.

The two-part running title at the top spaces its words at a distance from each other. It keeps the first part (Actus) more-or-less centered above the two columns and places the second, abbreviated word (Ap[osto]lor[um]) offset extending partway into the margin.

The distant, offset half of the running title appears like an afterthought, although apparently as the work of the same scribal artist and during the same campaign of operation (if not at the same sitting). Could it represent a correction to supplement the ‘mistake’ of putting the first component, Actus, on the recto of an opening, rather than on the verso?

On the verso of a two-page opening, with the verso of one leaf facing the recto of the next, customarily a bipartite running title for one set text on both pages might have the first half or portion of a single title on the verso and the continuation in the second half or portion on the recto. What if this leaf received the Actus as if it were a verso, so that its match or completion, Apostolorum, was deemed to need to be fitted in? We wonder what the verso originally facing this leaf had for its running title.

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

The Verso

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible, Verso. Photograph by Richard Weber.

This side of the leaf retains the use of a tall ink-drawn letter in the top line, but only for one column. The initial U or V for Valida opening 27:18

The running title keeps to its short form of one word (or syllable) only. Presumably the second part of the title appeared facing it on the recto of the next leaf. We are uncertain what intentions were in place for this enigmatic running title comprising DE (“Of”, “About”), which seems to stand in a suspended state awaiting the completion of a name or phrase on the formerly facing recto. Here is another mystery awaiting resolution, if possible, with the discovery of the next leaf in the sequence in the original book.

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

The first stem of the animated pen-initial U atop Column a (the left-hand column of the pair on the page) on the verso rises to a backwards and downwards curve containing the shaggy neck and head of a wide-eyed creature with opened jaws with exposed teeth and fangs. One might wonder if the apparent ferocity of the creature emulates or evokes the stormy text of the verse which this initial opens (27:18), as it reads: Valida autem nobis tempestate jactatis sequenti die jactum fecerunt (“And we exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship.”) Might we think of this creature as presenting the Jaws of a Tempest?

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

The Seller’s Description

Richard shares with us the description which accompanied the leaf in preparation for its sale by The Raab Collection in 2023. This description deserves to join the growing group of sellers’, collectors, scholars’, curators’, and others’ descriptions of individual leaves or groups of leaves which are present, for a time, in their hands and before their eyes.

As such they can constitute direct witnesses to surviving portions of the manuscript. Our work toward a collaborative virtual reconstruction of the original will also assemble the descriptions as a contribution toward fuller knowledge of the manuscript and its stages of ownership, study, and wider understanding.

We quote:

The Saint Alban’s Bible started life in Paris in the 1320s or 1330s. Likely, three artists worked together in an atelier, or workshop, to create the high quality product. The workshop to which Christopher de Hamel attributes the creation is that of the famed Parisian artist, Jean Pucelle, one of the most important and influential artists for the Gothic style. While the Saint Alban’s Bible is not in the hand of John Pucelle, it is in the hands of his associates, the Saint Louis Master, whose name has been identifed as Mahiet (Kuroiwa, “Working with Jean Pucelle”). On the margins of another manuscript illustrated by the Saint Louis Master, housed in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris, a marginal note from Pucelle to an illuminator, Mahiet, confirms the Saint Louis Master’s identity. Through the association of the Saint Albans Bible with Mahiet and Pucelle, a complex network of Parisian bookmakers opens up, and their works can be traced.

From its manufacture on the Rue de la Parcheminerie, the Bible was likely a gift from Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham to the Abbey of Saint Albans after his 1320-1330s visit to Paris (de Hamel, “Leaf of a Bible Manuscript”). Leaves have ended up in collections such as the Tokyo National Museum of Western Art, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of British Columbia, with others in private hands. The post-medieval lives of manuscripts, as they fragment and change hands, demonstrates their endurance as status symbols and works of art— as a whole and as a part.

The text gives part of Paul’s recount of his life story to King Agrippa who is almost persuaded to become a Christian. The imprisoned Paul’s ship runs aground and he is shipwrecked in Malta on his way to face trial in Rome. The barbarians of Malta show Paul and the shipwrecked crew kindness by building a fire, but a viper emerged from the ashes and bit Paul’s hand, though he did not die.

Provenance: 1. From an incomplete Bible sold at Sotheby’s, 6 July 1964, lot 239, to the dealer and book-breaker Philip C. Duschnes [1897–1970], who dispersed it. Other leaves had already been removed, with some ending up in the collections of E.H. Dring (1864-1928), one reappearing in Bernard Quaritch, cat. 1036, 1984, no. 76).

Then identified in 1981 as from the medieval library of St Albans Abbey, Hertfordshire, and perhaps to be identified as one of ‘duas bonas biblias’ acquired by Abbot Michael de Mentmore (C. de Hamel in Fine Books and Book Collecting, 1981, pp. 10–12).2.

More details:

Leaf from the St Albans Abbey Bible, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (Paris), c. 1330] Single leaf, with double columns of 46 lines in a fine gothic bookhand (Acts 26:14–32; Acts 27:1–44; Acts 28:1–9), with hairline penwork ornamenting the V with a grotesque animal head biting the ascender, versal numbers (27, 28) in alternate liquid gold and blue capitals with contrasting penwork, running titles in same, two 2-line initials (one each side of leaf) each in faded pink with white ornamentation on gold background and enclosing foliage, one medieval correction in the margin indicated by a signe-de-renvoi, modern pencil numerations (3, 73), 295 by 200mm or 12 by 8 inches.

*****

Join the Quest

Would you like to join the quest? Do you know of other leaves from the Saint Albans Bible? Do you know of other works by the same scribes or artists? Are you curious about books and ways of looking at them?

Join our Workshops!

*****

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

Tags: Acts of the Apostles, Book of Numbers, Collection of Jennah Farrell, Collection of Richard Weber, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Medieval Vulgate Bibles, Saint Albans Bible
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2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

January 5, 2025 in Announcements, Conference, Conference Announcement, Event Registration, Events, Manuscript Studies, RGME Colloquia, University of Waterloo

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium
at the University of Waterloo

“Break-Up Books
and Make-Up Books:
Encountering and Reconstructing
the Legacy of Otto F. Ege
and Other Biblioclasts“

Friday to Sunday 21–23 November 2025
in Hybrid Format (pending funding)
or Online by Zoom

Colloquium ‘Home Page’
for information and updates

[Posted on 5 January 2025, with updates]

“Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries”
— Ezekiel 6:8

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto.

By request, in collaboration with the University of Waterloo, the RGME prepares a special 2025 Autumn Colloquium on the phenomena of widely dispersed remnants of dismembered manuscripts and other written materials scattered at the hands of biblioclasts such as Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), for a variety of purposes more and less laudable. We will showcase work being done in various centers and by many individuals on these materials, as part of long-term, laborious, significant, and sometimes dispersed research to identify, reclaim, and, insofar as possible, virtually reconstruct the originals and place them in context.

We seek to gather perspectives on the challenges and opportunities presented by the dispersed manuscript or other materials which survive, albeit disordered or reordered, after passing through the hands of collectors-turned-biblioclasts, for whatever reasons.

A main focus, given the number and variety of projects dedicated to them, will be the manuscripts and other materials dispersed by Otto F. Ege and his collaborators, notably his wife/widow Louise and the New York book-dealer and book-breaker Philip C. Duschnes (1897–1970). Yet, not least because many of their remnants have joined or become intermixed with fragments dispersed by others and through diverse processes in varied collections, it is worthwhile to consider that complex factor for their effective study as well.

We seek to showcase the work of these projects, compare notes about issues and methods of research, and set the legacy of those biblioclasts in the context of others working as predecessors, contemporaries, or followers, as they also redirected the course of manuscript and related studies by disrupting and dislocating its evidence.

The ‘delivery methods’ of dispersal range from assemblages of sets of fragments as specimens in Portfolios, Leaf-Books, Albums, Scrapbooks, or Loose Leaves which might circulate in mats with or without labels, on their own, or in groups sans identifying information. In effect, many of these remnants were cast out on their own as no-name ‘orphans’ whom expertise, serendipity, and circumstance might recognize as ‘foundlings’ or find forever homes, whether virtual or actual. (See The “Foundling Hospital” for Manuscript Fragments.)

Our Colloquium highlights the processes of recovery by multiple, interlinked, and interlocking means, as we gather representatives from the fields of manuscript studies and fragmentology to share their stories, processes, progress, and accomplishments.

New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Otto F. Ege Collection, Leaf in Ege’s Mat from ‘Ege MS 14’. Opening page of the Apocalypse / Revelations in a large-format Lectern Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Scope

The University of Waterloo and the RGME propose to co-host an international Colloquium with hybrid functionality, for access by a wide audience with interests in multiple subjects. Our two educational organizations in Canada and the United States respectively combine experience and skills to produce a scholarly event with companion publications pre- and post-event, to promote and disseminate research work and discoveries in multiple, interrelated fields of study.

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf with music and notation for liturgical chants: Recto.

Our plan takes its starting point from the wish to gather expertise and perspectives from a different collections of manuscript materials — such as at the Medieval DRAGEN Lab (Digital Research Arts for Graphical & Environmental Networks — and the rich variety of new and long-term projects (both institutional and individual) dedicated to research on the medieval Western manuscripts despoiled and dispersed by Otto F. Ege and his collaborators.

These initiatives include the new project by the Cantus database (Cantus: A Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant – Inventories of Chant Sources) to produce a database of the musical manuscript fragments in Ege’s Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Western Manuscripts (FOL). This notorious Portfolio was issued in multiple sets now widely dispersed in public or private collections through North America and beyond. Like others of Ege’s Portfolios, some sets are lost, or lost track of; some have themselves become fragmented, as parts have been removed, as specific manuscript specimens were further disjointed from their relatives, original or newer companions in the biblioclasts’ assemblages. Some of these ‘orphans’ or cast-offs have lost their identifying Ege mats or labels, further to complicate the issues of identification, recognition, and retrieval.

The RGME’s long-term project of research in these fields focuses on the variety of Ege’s Portfolios overall. Dedicated to specific genres of books, such as Famous Books or Famous Bibles, they include not only manuscript fragments but also a multitude of printed materials ranging from incunabula (up to the year 1500) to the twentieth century; all were selected and arranged by Ege and his circle as specimens of the graphic arts and book arts for instruction and display. (For examples, see our blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List for Ege materials.)

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

Research on the surviving evidence on many fronts and in multiple centers can bring expertise to bear upon specific genres (such as manuscripts containing music). So, too, it reveals the processes of workshop practices over decades in the destruction, re-constitution, and further distribution of the original books. For example, such elements have bearing upon the provenance of individual fragments and potential impact upon that of other fragments whose provenance might not otherwise be known.

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

Given the progress of these and other projects in various centers concerned with Ege’s legacy, the time is right to bring their representatives (established scholars, curators, collectors, and others, as well as younger scholars) together to compare notes, showcase their work, and strengthen contacts between individuals and centers across borders.

By examining the book-breaking practices overall by “Ege & Co.” in the wider context of biblioclasts over time, including many of Ege’s contemporaries, predecessors, and followers, we might gain fuller knowledge of the individually as well as collectively destructive habits and their legacy. Likewise by comparing notes, surveying the results so far of different projects, and, it might be, identifying more of the seemingly lost fragments in unknown or unexpected places, our Colloquium could cross thresholds and open more gateways to wider knowledge.

Such larger contexts provide wider horizons and more comprehensive awareness of the destructive tendencies towards books in given times and places. They can demonstrate, by examination and comparison, the particular characteristics or ‘style’ of the collector, book-breaker, book-seller, and the resulting forms as altered pieces or bodies of evidence for the lost and damaged originals. Among notable predecessors for the genre can be counted the albums of “visually appealing” manuscript fragments created by Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) or the cuttings prepared by John Ruskin (1819-1900) and others.

Examining the complex legacy of these various re-creators of medieval manuscripts and other written materials and the range of projects dedicated to them from perspectives and fields of many kinds, sometimes integrated across a broad spectrum encompassing expertise in the arts and sciences, can advance knowledge in individual projects as well as in wider discourse relating to the transmission of written evidence from generation to generation and century to century, with losses, discoveries, and reconstitutions along the way.

Our focus for the co-sponsored Autumn Colloquium is the legacy of book-breakers, book-destroyers, and book-recreators active in multiple centers in Europe, the British Isles, and North America (at least), with the fragments produced by their activities and transmitted to diverse locations worldwide, often without appropriate identifying information. Our task, as receivers of the evidence from such disruptions, is to make sense of the evidence, identify it appropriately, recognize its characteristics as bodies of witnesses with a complex history, compare information about diverse projects (in many centers) relating to these materials, gather feedback, and disseminate the results to a wide audience.

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto, detail.

Purpose

This 2025 Colloquium stands within the long tradition of symposia, colloquia, workshops, and other scholarly events of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, now entering its second quarter-of-a-century as a nonprofit educational corporation based in Princeton, New Jersey. The RGME is dedicated to the study of manuscripts and other written records across the centuries. This year our theme is “Thresholds and Communities”.

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf with music and notation for liturgical chants: Verso.

For the 2025 Autumn Colloquium on 21–23 November, the RGME collaborates with the University of Waterloo and its range of programs and projects, including the Cantus Database and the DRAGEN Lab.

The Advisory Committee for the Colloquium comprises:

Mildred Budny, Director, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Debra Lacoste, Cantus Database, University of Waterloo; The Institute of Mediaeval Music; Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission, Dalhousie University
David Porreca, Associate Professor; President, Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo; Co-Director, Medieval Studies Undergraduate Program; Department of Classical Studies and Department of History, University of Waterloo

Spanning three days with half-days on Friday and Sunday, the Colloquium will include a series of sessions with presentations and Q&A, roundtable discussions/panels, hands-on workshops, and exhibitions of several kinds.

To augment the scholarly sessions of presentations and discussions, we plan for displays of original materials in manuscript or other forms and demonstrations of the sounds of music represented in medieval manuscript fragments. Among them is a SoundWalk which allows passersby to access audio recordings of specific musical passages preserved on medieval leaves in collections including the DRAGEN Lab and the Cantus Database.

A Reception ending each day’s sessions will lead from the scholarly program to further conversations.

Participants

Participants represent a wide range of interests, approaches, subjects, centers, and materials.

Speakers, Respondents, Panelists, Hosts, and Presiders

Rejoined Pieces of a Leaf from a Book of Hours. Private Collection, reproduced by permission.

Rejoined Pieces of a Leaf from a Book of Hours. Private Collection. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Participants include (in alphabetical order):

Alison Altstatt (University of Northern Iowa)
Steven Bednarski (DRAGEN Lab, University of Waterloo)
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
John P. Chalmers (Retired)
Katharine C. Chandler (University of Arkansas)
Lisa Fagin Davis (Medieval Academy of America)
Juilee Decker (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Augustine Dickinson (University of Hamburg)
Scott Ellwood (Grolier Club Library)
Steven Galbraith (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Hannah Goeselt (Massachusetts Historical Library)
Scott Gwara (University of South Carolina and King Alfred’s Notebook LLC)
Elizabeth Hebbard (Indiana University Bloomington and Peripheral Manuscripts Project)
Josephine Koster (Winthrop University)
Debra Lacoste (University of Waterloo, Cantus Database, and Dalhousie University)
David Porreca (University of Waterloo)
Eleanor Price (University of Rochester)
Agnieszka Rec (Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library)
Irina Savinetskaya (Syracuse University)
Kate Steiner (Conrad Grebel University College and University of Waterloo)
Anna Siebach–Larsen (University of Rochester)
Richard Weber (Independent Scholar)
N. Kıvılcım Yavuz (University of Leeds)

And others . . .

Some Results

RGME tradition produces illustrated Program Booklets for major events such as this Colloquium, with participants’ abstracts and selected accompanying illustrations, to grant insider glimpses for our audience (at the event and after) not necessarily familiar with the wide range of subjects and materials under discussion.

A recent example from our 2024 Autumn Symposium “At the Helm” can be downloaded from the RGME website:

2024 Autumn Symposium Booklet

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto, with the Opening of the Liturgical Kalendar for the Month of February.

We explore sources of funding and sponsorship for the event as a whole. Information about the results would emerge as these explorations advance. Our aim is to have an in-person event with online access (for speakers and audience) for a fully hybrid colloquium; the online functionality would occur by Zoom Meetings (rather than Webinars with closed access). If funding proves elusive for the in-person facets as well, the event will take place online by Zoom.

We hope to welcome you to the Colloquium.

*****

Note: For information about the RGME Autumn Colloquium as it develops, please continue to visit this ‘Home Page’.

For related RGME events, please see, for example:

2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia

Registration

To register for RGME events, please visit:

RGME Eventbrite Collections

To register for the Autumn Colloquium, we offer portals to attend online or in person respectively.

1) Register for ONLINE Attendance

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium: Tickets for ONLINE Attendance

2) Register for IN PERSON Attendance

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium: Tickets for IN PERSON Attendance

Registration Fees

Circumstances lead us to charge a modest registration fee to attend this 3-day event. The extra costs for preparations in several formats and from different locations require a registration fee to help to offset them.

When you register, we ask you please to add the Eventbrite handling fee for the transaction, as a contribution to the RGME’s costs for this event.

1) General Attendance: $60 US per person

2) Student Discount for Official Students: $35 US per person. When registering for the discount, please let us know your registered affiliation as a student.

The registration fee is waived only for Speakers and Presiders, for whose contributions we give thanks.

We also encourage you to consider adding a Voluntary Donation in support of the RGME, a Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization principally powered by volunteers. See:

We thank you for your support and your interest in the Colloquium.

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Questions? Suggestions?

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto, with the Liturgical Kalendar for the Month of February: Top.

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Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Verso.

Tags: Albums of Manuscript Fragments, Biblioclasts, Broken Books, CANTUS Database, Dispersed Manuscripts, DRAGEN Lab, Early modern printing, Fragmentology, Leaf-Books, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Otto Ege Portfolios, Otto F. Ege, Philip C. Duschnes, RGME Colloquia, University of Waterloo
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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

*****

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.

*****

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
“Examining a Reused Binding Fragment
from a Medieval Musical Manuscript”

Sunday 29 June 2025

This workshop will examine a fragment or set of patchwork fragments from a musical manuscript in Latin laid out in double columns with text and notation on 4-line staves. It forms the outer covering of a printed 17th-century printed book.

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.

*****

Workshop 8, Etc.
Subjects To Be Determined (We accept requests!)

Among subjects requested are:

Cataloging Manuscripts: Readers’ Perspectives

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

Leave your comments or questions below
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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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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.

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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.

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Tags: Collection of Jennah Farrell, Latin Vulgate Bibles, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Old Testament Book of Numbers
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The Weber Leaf from “The Warburg Missal” (Otto Ege Manuscript 22)

July 5, 2022 in Manuscript Studies

The Weber Leaf
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 22’
(The Warburg Missal)

Collection of Richard Weber

Latin Missal made in Germany circa 1325
Written in Gothic Script (Textualis)

Folio Number Absent

Double columns of 31 lines
Circa 360 × 257 mm < written area circa 289 × 190 mm >

with Rubrications,
Inset Initials in Red or Blue,
and Musical Notation in Hufnagelschrift (“Horseshoe-Nail Notes”)
on 4-Line Staves

[Posted on 5 July 2022]

Front Cover for Report by Leslie J. French for Wagner Leaf from Ege MS 22 (2021)

With thanks to the collector, Richard Weber, we examine a leaf from one of the manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). It comes from ‘Ege Manuscript 22’, a Latin Missal written in double columns of 30–32 lines in Gothic Script, with musical notation.

An earlier blogpost by Mildred Budny and the companion Report Booklet (2021) by Leslie J. French examine another Leaf from the same manuscript, set it in its former context, and re-assess the attribution of the book.

See:

Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal in the Collection of J. S. Wagner.
A Leaf from the Warburg Missal (“Ege MS 22”) containing part of The Mass for Corpus Christi and its Relation to Other Leaves.

Already, too, we have examined some other materials in the Collection of Richard Weber, with several blogposts — with more on the way.

Now we turn to a leaf from Otto Ege’s dispersals that stands outside a specific set of a Portfolio, but with its original Ege Label and mat. Normally, ‘Ege Manuscript 22’ would belong to the Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from from Medieval Manuscripts, as a specimen leaf in position Number 22 out of the 50. See, for example:

In this case, the Leaf must speak for itself.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Collection of J. S Wagner, Collection of Richard Weber, Gloria, Kyrie Elieson, manuscript fragments, Medieval Manuscript Fragmenta, Otto Ege Manscript 19, Otto Ege Manuscript 22, Otto Ege Manuscripts, The Warburg Missal
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Folio 4 with Latin Blessings for Holy Water and an Exorcism for Salt

June 19, 2022 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Folio 4 from an ‘Italian Missal’ in Latin

Private Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal. Folio 4r, Detail. Photography Mildred Budny. Reproduced by permission.

Single Leaf on Vellum
Circa 222 × 158 mm
<written area circa 150 × 104 mm>

Single columns of 18 lines,
starting below the top ruled line,
with rubricated elements

Blessings of Holy Water and Salt
and the title for an Exorcism of Salt
[qui inimici ru-/]gientis seuitiam seperas . . .
Exorcisimus ad catecuminum salis faciendum. [/]

Italy? Southern France? circa 1400–1450

**Budny Handlist 10**

[Posted on 20 June 2022]

We post a report of a leaf from a Private Collection which we examined and photographed a few years ago, as part of a larger study for an Illustrated Handlist.

The leaf was recorded briefly, with a description supplied by its owner, in C. U. Faye and W. H. Bond, Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (1962), page 284, number 5. There it is described as part of an “Italian Missal”. The owner acquired the leaf by an unknown route, perhaps by gift already framed, before the preparation of that description for the Census.

At the owner’s request several years ago, we removed the leaf first from its plain wooden frame and then from its stained and darkened backing mat, onto which parts of the original script had offset. The leaf was photographed at several stages and examined in detail. We show views of the leaf while still on the mat and afterward.

The Leaf Before

Here are both sides of the leaf as it was mounted to the backing mat.

The Front, or Forward-Facing, Side of the Leaf as Mounted for the Frame

For the frame, the leaf faces front with lines in script in black ink and red pigment.

positioned as the front-facing page for the viewer. Private Collection. Folio 4v facing front on the former mat. Photography © Mildred Budny. Reproduced by permission.

The Other Side, Partly Lifted

Turning over the leaf, we can see the pair of hinged gauze mounting tapes which attach the edge of the leaf to the mat.

Folio 4r still attached to the mat. Photograph © Mildred Budny

Private Collection. Folio 4r still attached to the mat with a pair of hinged gauze tapes. Photography Mildred Budny. Reproduced by permission.

The Leaf apart from the Mat

The Original Recto

The recto has a modern folio number, an upright arabic 4, entered in dark brown ink at the top right. The different expanses of the upper and lower margins imply that the short upper margin was trimmed at some stage, whilst the lower and outer margins appear to retain all or most of their original extents. The accumulated dirt along the upper edge attests to an extended duration when the former manuscript, closed, stood upright on a shelf or in storage.

Private Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal. Folio 4v with Guide. Photography Mildred Budny. Reproduced by permission.

This side of the leaf shows offsets or show-through of enlarged initials at the right-hand side of the column, as well as rubricated script at points within it. The initials, in reverse, show the forms of a P and a D.

Most of these elements can be accounted for by the rubrications and the enlarged initial P on the other side of the leaf, so that they constitute show-through. For the other, we must recognize that its offset must derive from contact with a formerly adjacent leaf.

The Original Verso

Private Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal. Folio 4r. Detail. Photography Mildred Budny. Reproduced by permission.

On this page, an enlarged and decorated initial P, partly inset within two indented lines of text, comprises an enlarged Capital P (for Presta) rendered in blue pigment, with penline flourishes and extensions in red pigment. In both curved and parallel straight lines, those flourishes fit between the initial and the indented letters, fill the bow and ‘footrest’ of the P, and extend in the margin above, beside, and below the initial.

A staple of the flourishing appears to be the sets of narrowly spaced parallel lines. Characteristic, too, are the short, arrowhead-tipped elements which, separately, press into the cusps of parts of the flourishing below the right-hand side of the bow of the letter and in a whorl of three around the circular extension at the upper left of the letter.

The Text

The set of texts on the leaf provide directions for Exorcisms and Blessings of Salt and Water. At an appropriate point, a sign of the cross (rendered within the outlines of a box-like frame, all in red) stands within the text to indicate its sign, or signing, as part of the ritual.

Specimens of such texts in medieval sources of various dates and from various places are edited, for example, in these bibliographical resources:

Benedictio Salis et Aquae in the Vetera Liturgia Alemannica = J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 138, cols. 1039–1052 (downloadable here).
Missale Romanum Mediolani (1474), Vol. II = Henry Bradshaw Society, Vol. XXXIII (1907).

The text on the leaf provides snippets of the ritual for these functions. We provide a transcription, with silently expanded abbreviations, and with indications of the rubrications in red.

Recto

[Oratio . . . qui inimici ru-/]
gientis scuitiam superas. qui ho-
stiles nequitias potens expu-
gnas. te domine trementes et sup-
plices deprecam; ac petitumus. ut
hanc creaturam salis et aque di-
gnanter accipias. benignus il-
lustres. pietatis tue more san-
ctifices. + At ubi cumque sue-
nt aspersa per in uocationes sancti
tui nominis omis infestatio in
mundi spiritus abieiatur. terrorque . +
uenenosi serpentis procul pellatur.
et presentia sancti spiritus nobis misericordiam
tuam poscentibus ubique adesse di-
gnitur. Per dominum nostrum in uinitate +
eiusdem spiritus sancti deus per omnia secula
seculorum. Alia oratio
Presta domine tuum saltare reme-

Verso

dium super hand creaturam salis et
aque. Ut ubicumque interserit. ad
anime et corporis proficiat sani-
tatem. Per dominum. Alia oratio qui dicitur
i[n] fine benedictionis aque.
Presta quos domine deus super hanc creatu-
ram aspersionis aque sanitatem
mentis integritatem corpus : tu-
telam saltis. securitatem spei. cor-
roborationem fidei hic et in eter-
num in secula seculorum. Amen. Sequitur.
Dominus vobiscum. Responsio. Et cum spiritu tuo.
kyrie. kyrie. kyrie. item. Benedicat et exaudi-
at nos deus. Responsio. Amen. iter. Procedamus
cum pace. Responsio. Innomine [sic, for In nomine] christi. item. Bene-
dicamus domino. Responsio. Deo gratias. Exorci-
simus at catecuminum salis facien-
dum.

The Former Manuscript

Parts of the text, or some texts in the sequence, can be found in other sources. For example, comparisons for the text of the Roman Missal for the Liturgical Use of Milan (printed in 1474), show a similar version of the Presta which appears on the verso, although its version begins somewhat differently.

Presta michi domine deus per hanc creaturam aspersionis aque atque sanitatem mentis integritatem corpus : tutelam saltis : securitatem spei. corroborationem fidei : fructum charitatis nune et in futuro. Amen.

See Robert Lippe, Missale Romanum Mediolani (1474), Vol. II: A Collation with other Editions Printed before 1570. Henry Bradshaw Society, Vol. XXXIII (1907), at page 385.
The Milan Missal of 1474 was printed at Venice by Antonius Zarotis, with the date of 6 December 1474 (Incunabula Shorttitle Catalogue Number im00688450).

The long prayer on the recto belongs to the blessing of water.

See Traditional Rite of Blessing of Water.

It begins with an exorcism (or purification) of salt — but not the one intended for catechumens. as specified in the rubricated title at the bottom on the verso of the leaf.

Both the long prayer on the recto and the two following prayers also occur in that order in the Sacramentary portion of the composite Leofric Missal, but not followed by the exorcism of salt.

Frederick Edward Warren, ed., The Leofric Missal, As Used in the Cathedral of Exeter During the Episcopate of Its First Bishop, A.D. 1050-1072, Together with Some Account of the Red Book of Derby, the Missal of Robert of Jumieges, and a Few Other Early Manuscript Service Books of the English Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1883, page 250.

There is a close match for the sequence of texts on the leaf, with only a few variations, in an another source from Milan later than the printed edition of 1474. That is:

the Rituale Sacramentorum ad Usum Mediolanensis Ecclesiae (“Ritual of the Sacraments for the Use of the Church of Milan“) of 1815, at pages 282–283.

The text on the Recto of the leaf starts on page 282 in the Oratio: “[inimici ru-/]gientis saevitiam superas . . .” The Oratio begins thus: Deus invictae virtutis Auctor . . . A brief section of text intervenes between this opening and the top of the extant recto. Such an initial D, low in the column, formed the offset at the right-hand side of the column on the recto.

The “Alia Oratio Presta domine tuum salutare . . .” ends the recto and continues on the verso into the Aquam Benedictam “Presta quaesumus domine.” Then come the Versicles and Responses extending to “Deo gratias”, but not the “Pax . . .”

Since the following text following refers to “hanc creaturam salis”, it may be the exorcism for which we have only the title.

The correspondences with texts in Missals associated with Milan, in northern Italy, might strengthen, but not confirm, the suggested origin of the leaf as part of an “Italian Missal” — or some similar liturgical handbook — in Latin from such a region.

For now, pending further information (such as the discovery of more parts of the same manuscript), let us continue to refer to it as containing (or, by virtue of the title, implying) a set of Ordines which address 1) the Blessing for the preparation of Holy Water and Salt, and 2) the Exorcism (or Purification) of Salt for Catechumens. The former has a place in the Sacramentary portion of a Missal, whereas the latter would pertain, insofar as we have been able to discover, to a different form of book instead — such as a Collectar.

The folio number 4 indicates that the leaf occupied an early position within its book, whether or not that modern numeration took into account leaves (such as endleaves) which a modern observer might deem extraneous. As companion materials, the texts to which this leaf belonged could have formed prefatory matter for a book of one or other genre designed to guide instruction and performance of liturgical practices at whatever stages required for the place of its production.

Perhaps other leaves from the same book as well as further research will resolve the mystery. This lone leaf joins the company of all too many single, dispersed, leaves which have lost track or trace (apart from, say, an offset from an adjacent leaf) of their former siblings. By close inspection of their material and textual evidence, it can partly become possible to retrieve some elements of their former connections and contexts.

Welcome to the ‘Foundling Hospital for Manuscript Fragments’, as invited in one of the early posts for our blog.

The ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments.

*****

Do you know of more leaves from this manuscript? Do you recognize the hand of the scribe, scribal artist, and rubricator 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.

*****

Private Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal. Folio 4r, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

*****

Tags: 'Foundling Hospital' for Manuscript Fragments, Blessings for Holy Water and Salt, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, Collectar, Exorcism for Salt for Catechumens, Exorcisms and Blessings, Italian Missal, latin Missal, manuscript fragments, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Offsets and Show-Through, Sacramentary
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A Detached Folio 108 with Part of Vulgate Psalm 118 (117)

June 18, 2022 in Manuscript Studies

A Leaf on Vellum with Part of Vulgate Psalm 118 (117)

Collection of Stephen Soderlind

Single leaf from a large-format manuscript in Latin
Single Columns of 14 Lines
Circa 29 1/2 × 19 1/4 inches <written area circa 25 1/4 × 14 1/4 inches>

Psalm 118 (117):18–22 (Domus Aaron sperauit . . . super filios uestros)

Folio “108”
Single column of 14 lines in Gothic Bookhand
with embellishments in red pigment
(bounding lines, ruled lines, and initials)

Collection of Stephen Soderlind, Single Leaf in Frame as purchased: Front of Frame. Reproduced by Permission.

[Posted on 18 June 2022]

Continuing our series of brief reports about stray manuscript leaves which emerge in various collections — as the leaves move from one to the next, and as collectors reach out to us with images, information, and questions about their materials, and wish to share them with a wider world — we report a new find from an estate sale.

The large leaf now belongs to the Collection of Stephen Soderlind. It arrived in a plain frame with a windowed red mat , which overlay the outer edges of the leaf and held it in place, as if cropped.

Within the window, the arabic number 108 in a modern hand at the top right above the single column of text appears within view. Without the chance to see the other side of the leaf, hidden within the frame, it remained uncertain whether the number serves as the folio number (for one side of the leaf) or the page number (for this side of the leaf in particular, reserving another number for the other side).

The back of the frame holds little information.

Collection of Stephen Soderlind, Single Leaf in Frame as purchased: Back of Frame. Reproduced by Permission.

Released from the frame, the wrinkles and creases in most parts of the leaf are characteristic of vellum subjected to humid conditions for an extended period, without the stretching under pressure while drying requisite to produce, or reinstate, the smooth surface of vellum or parchment. The wrinkles visible through the glass of the former frame indicate that the leaf as displayed and stored therein pertain to that stage in the life of the leaf, if not already before.

Closer examination yields further information about the leaf and its genre of book. We examine both sides of the leaf, consider some features in detail, and open the discussion for analysis of the probable place and date of origin. We invite your observations and suggestions.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Below Top Line, Collection of Stephen Soderlind, Gothic Bookhand, Latin Vulgate Psalms, manuscript fragments, Psalm 118
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A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’ in the Collection of Richard Weber

June 14, 2022 in Manuscript Studies

Another Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 214”
(A Dutch Prayerbook)

Richard Weber Collection. Single Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 214”? Verso, Top Left. Image reproduced with permission.

Collection of Richard Weber

Single leaf from a small-format Prayerbook in Dutch
Circa 168 × 119 mm <written area circa 129 × 88 mm>
([. . . /]-te sprekene na die sentencie . . .
heest maer puerlijck am die [/ . . .])

Single column of 22 lines in Gothic Bookhand
with embellishments in red pigment
and a painted, framed, decorated initial in ‘rustic’ style

Flanders, circa 1330

Formerly part of ‘Ege Manuscript 214′
(Gwara , Handlist 214)

[Posted on 13 June 2022, with updates]

Another leaf from a medieval devotional manuscript in Dutch dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951) has come to light. It belongs to the Collection of Richard Weber. Sharing information and images, Richard Weber reports that he purchased it on its own from an online vendor (eBay – oldworldwonders).

Earlier blogposts have begun to report materials from his collection; more are in preparation. For example, so far:

More Leaves from an Old Armenian Praxapostolos.

An earlier blogpost considered portions of Ege’s dispersed Dutch manuscript in other collections.

A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214?”.

That blogpost focused upon one of the remnants, a single leaf now in a Private Collection. As seen below, the recto stands at the left, with the verso at the right. With the text set out continuously, as paragraphs run together, the script presents seemingly solid blocks of text in successive columns. The initials marking the beginning of phrases or sections are enhanced with vertical strokes of red pigment.

, owned and dismembered by Otto F. Ege” width=”1024″ height=”671″ /> Private Collection. Detached Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’ (Dutch Prayerbook), Both Sides of the Leaf

Some other leaves from the manuscript carry elements of decoration or illustration.

‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’

In Scott Gwara’s Handlist of Manuscripts Collected or Sold by Otto F. Ege (2013), that manuscript, with some traceable remnants, is his Number 214 (Appendix X, pages 177–178). There he cites a few traceable remnants from it and their appearances in several catalogues. Our blogpost surveyed those resources. See A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214?”.

An update to that same blogpost reports other remnants, as identified by Peter Kidd. It quotes his email communication of 15 July 2019 about his discoveries for various Ege manuscripts, including this one. Peter Kidd reported that, for Ege Manuscript 214, that “There are leaves with miniatures at the National Gallery of Art in D.C., the Art Museum in Indianapolis, and (recently acquired) at Oberlin” College, along with the “unilluminated leaf at BU”, that is, at Boston University, School of Theology Library — listed in Scott Gwara’s Handlist. It is:

Boston, Massachusetts, Boston University, School of Theology Library, MS Leaf 7.

Some of the identified remnants have some form of illumination. The style is sometimes attributed to the “style of Simon Bening”, that is, Simon Bening (circa 1483 – 1561), one of the most famous and celebrated painters of the 1500s.

A sales catalogue entry for a portion of the manuscript is informative, albeit concise and lacking an illustration.

Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (London, Tuesday 26th November 1985), lot 88. The entry reports:

55 leaves, some detached, others still sewn to old bands with pieces of calf spine, 22 lines, written in dark brown ink by 2 scribes in a late gothic liturgical hand, rubrics in red, capitals touched in red, many initials in red or blue, SIX LARGE ILLUMINATED INITIALS (3- to 4-line) in delicate rustic designs in liquid gold on coloured grounds, fine condition (166mm by 120mm).

Also:

Comprising biblical readings and prayers, including three ascribed to the Commisasrius “meester Godschalc rosemond van Eundhoven, Doctoer in der godeyt” [that is, “Eindhoven in South Holland, about 45 miles south east of Utrecht“], there are offers of indulgences ascribed to popes Alexander VI (1482–1503), Julius III (1503–1513) and Leo X (1513–1521).

The sale included “fifty-four lots of single leaves and miniatures from the collection of Otto Ege”. Various of them comprised the “Residue” of despoiled manuscripts, sometimes with bindings or bits of bindings, left over after the their dismemberment and the distribution of leaves otherwise. It is apparent that the portion from Ege Manuscript 214 was such a case.

The companion Price List of “hammer prices” for the sale indicates that lot 88 was purchased by “Williams” for £330.

The “New” Leaf

The leaf in the Collection of Richard Weber, shown here, has one embellished initial, which occupies a 3-line inset frame. Rubrics in red occur on the other side of the leaf. It is perhaps not too much to ask if this leaf has strayed from the group of fifty-five leaves sold at Sotheby’s.

Recto

This page has a line or more of rubricated text at both top and bottom. The upper rubrication names as authorities “Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory, and other teachers” or Church Fathers.

-te sprekene na die sentencie van Sente
Autustini Sente Gregorius ende ander
doctoren . . .

Richard Weber Collection. Single Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 214”, Verso. Image reproduced with permission.

Verso

This page opens with a decorated initial A, heading a full block-like column of text relieved by two enlarged minor initials (lines 13 and 18) enlivened with a vertical stroke of red pigment.

Als een mensche hem tot onsen / lieuen heere god keere wil so moet . . .
. . . om sijn schade of scande die hii daer mede / vercreghen heest maer puerlijck am die / [. . .]

Richard Weber Collection. Single Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 214”? Verso. Image reproduced with permission.

Initial A (of Als)

The inset three-line initial which opens the verso occupies a squared and bordered frame filled with red pigment, which overspreads the outer contour. The background within the initial is likewise filled with red pigment, with the addition of lighter, yellowish, drops or speckles. The red pigment resembles the pigment employed in the rubricated letters and embellishments for minor initials. It may be that the frame for the inset initial was given its red pigment in the same state of operation in preparing the leaf, from script to finishing touches.

The Capital Letter A is rendered in mid-tone brown pigment with dark brown outlines for shading, and with speckles overall in light brown pigment. The letter takes the form of interlocked branch-like or twig-like elements with outspread terminals. The highlights, speckling , and shading enhance the effect of three-dimensional sticks or twigs, hollows, and bark. A fair description of this design, whilst skillfully executed, could be “rustic”.

Richard Weber Collection. Single Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 214”? Verso, Top Left. Image reproduced with permission.

*****

We thank Richard Weber for sharing information and images of this leaf, and for answering queries about its features, source, and other aspects.

*****

Do you know of more leaves from this manuscript? Do you recognize the hands of the scribe and scribal artist 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: Collection of Richard Weber, Dutch Prayerbook, Illuminated Initials, manuscript fragments, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege Manuscript 214, Peter Kidd, Scott Gwara
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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

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?

2025 RGME Visit to Vassar College

Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts & Cuttings at The Archives & Special Collections Library and The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Monday 5 May 2025 11:00 am – 4:30 pm In person and Online by Zoom

Prequel: Our 2024 Spring Symposium

2025 RGME Visit to Vassar

A Centerpoint for the RGME’s 2025 Activities

Plan/Program

Overview

Monday 5 May

Program

Morning 10:30–11:30 Art Center, Seminar Room

12:00–1:00 pm Lunch

Afternoon

1:00–2:00 pm Spotlight on Special Collections

Class of 1951 Reading Room

2:00–2:30 pm Break

3:30–4:00 pm RGME Roundtable “Looking at Manuscripts and Collections”

1. Manuscript Fragments: Challenges and Opportunities for Research

2. Provenance: Evidence, Conjecture, and Clues

Drinks & Dinner

Information for Visiting Vassar

Registration

Thanks

Questions or Suggestions?

Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible in the Collection of Richard Weber

Double columns of 46 lines in Gothic Script with Decorated Initials, Bar-Extensions, and Running Titles Acts 26:14 (est tibi) – Acts 28:9 (insula habe[/-bant] )

Northern France, circa 1330

The Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible

The Apostle Paul, His Travels, and His Travails

The Leaf, Its Contents, and Its Presentation

The Recto

The Verso

The Seller’s Description

Join the Quest

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

“Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books: Encountering and Reconstructing the Legacy of Otto F. Ege and Other Biblioclasts“

Friday to Sunday 21–23 November 2025 in Hybrid Format (pending funding) or Online by Zoom

Colloquium ‘Home Page’ for information and updates

Scope

Purpose

Participants

Speakers, Respondents, Panelists, Hosts, and Presiders

Some Results

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)

2025 RGME Visit
to Vassar College

Medieval & Renaissance
Manuscripts & Cuttings
at
The Archives & Special Collections Library
and
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Monday 5 May 2025
11:00 am – 4:30 pm
In person and Online by Zoom

Prequel:
Our 2024 Spring Symposium

Morning
10:30–11:30
Art Center, Seminar Room

12:00–1:00 pm
Lunch

1:00–2:00 pm
Spotlight on Special Collections

2:00–2:30 pm
Break

3:30–4:00 pm
RGME Roundtable
“Looking at Manuscripts and Collections”

1. Manuscript Fragments:
Challenges and Opportunities for Research

Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible
in the Collection of Richard Weber

Double columns of 46 lines in Gothic Script
with Decorated Initials, Bar-Extensions,
and Running Titles
Acts 26:14 (est tibi) – Acts 28:9 (insula habe[/-bant] )

The Weber Leaf
from the Saint Albans Bible

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium
at the University of Waterloo

“Break-Up Books
and Make-Up Books:
Encountering and Reconstructing
the Legacy of Otto F. Ege
and Other Biblioclasts“

Friday to Sunday 21–23 November 2025
in Hybrid Format (pending funding)
or Online by Zoom

Colloquium ‘Home Page’
for information and updates

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
“Examining a Reused Binding Fragment
from a Medieval Musical Manuscript”

Workshop 8, Etc.
Subjects To Be Determined (We accept requests!)

A Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf
in the Collection of Jennah Farrell

The Weber Leaf
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 22’
(The Warburg Missal)

Latin Missal made in Germany circa 1325
Written in Gothic Script (Textualis)

Double columns of 31 lines
Circa 360 × 257 mm < written area circa 289 × 190 mm >

with Rubrications,
Inset Initials in Red or Blue,
and Musical Notation in Hufnagelschrift (“Horseshoe-Nail Notes”)
on 4-Line Staves

Single Leaf on Vellum
Circa 222 × 158 mm
<written area circa 150 × 104 mm>

Single columns of 18 lines,
starting below the top ruled line,
with rubricated elements

Blessings of Holy Water and Salt
and the title for an Exorcism of Salt
[qui inimici ru-/]gientis seuitiam seperas . . .
Exorcisimus ad catecuminum salis faciendum. [/]

Single leaf from a large-format manuscript in Latin
Single Columns of 14 Lines
Circa 29 1/2 × 19 1/4 inches <written area circa 25 1/4 × 14 1/4 inches>

Folio “108”
Single column of 14 lines in Gothic Bookhand
with embellishments in red pigment
(bounding lines, ruled lines, and initials)