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      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
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      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
    • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
      • Abstracts Listed by Year
    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
  • ShelfLife
    • Journal Description
    • ShelfMarks: The RGME-Newsletter
    • Publications
      • “Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge” (1997)
        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
      • Semi-Official Counterfeiting in France 1380-1422
      • No Snap Decisions: Challenges of Manuscript Photography
    • History and Design of Our Website
  • Galleries
    • Watermarks & the History of Paper
    • Galleries: Contents List
    • Scripts on Parade
    • Texts on Parade
      • Latin Documents & Cartularies
      • New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
    • Posters on Display
    • Layout Designs
  • Donations and Contributions
    • 2019 Anniversary Appeal
    • Orders
  • Contact Us
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    • Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases: A Handlist of Links
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Manuscript Groupies

August 2, 2015 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Preview:

An Illustrated Handlist of a Group of
Medieval and Early Modern
Manuscripts, Documents, and Printed Materials

Conservation, Photography, Research, and Descriptions

by Mildred Budny

Detail of opened book with schematic text. Photography © Mildred Budny

Bookish

As we unveil more of the research results for an extended study of a group of medieval and early modern manuscripts, documents, and printed materials, its Illustrated Handlist deserves an Introduction.  Here, instead, is a Preview or Trailer.

[Update:  And here is the Illustrated Handlist.]

Jest for Fun

Details of the materials in the Handlist, their conservation, and cumulative research results are reported, in stages, on other parts of this website (for example here), as well as in an illustrated Album, now in preparation for print.  Here is a light-hearted Preview, in the form of:

A Brief Introduction,
Partly Playful but Also Earnest,
Illustrations Included

Photography by Mildred Budny

The Best Side

To set the scene, a pair of informal Group Portraits shows the Best Sides of some hand-written leaves in the Handlist.
(P.S. Each Side counts as a Best Side in our book . . . )

These specimens — AKA ‘Models’ for the Portraits — come from several different parts of the Handlist.  Our Models here belong among Parts I and II of the Handlist, along with the other ‘Single Leaves’ and ‘Documents’ — in these cases all on vellum or parchment and mostly in Latin.

Some of them have richer decoration than others, depending upon their own resources, their talents, their training, their agents, their stylists, their make-up, the set-designers, the Director (in this context, that would be me), and the parts they have been assigned, or have decided, to play.  Play is the operative word today.

Take Two

And so here we have Group Portraits I & II (with Lady), unretouched.  Don’t we love seeing the Stars when they don’t have extra makeup, bodyguards, etc., and can show their real, natural selves?

For my part, I like both these Portraits.  For one thing, they show different Sides.  For another, they both look fabulous, just the way they are.  That’s my view(s), anyway.

Which would you prefer?

Six Manuscript Fragments in the 'Illustrated Handlist', View 1. Photography © Mildred Budny

Group Portrait, Take 1

Six Manuscript Fragments in the Illustrated Handlist, View 2. Photography © Mildred Budny

Group Portrait, Take 2

Seeing the Bright

Lower half of Recto of Leaf from the Office of the Dead in a Small-Format Book of Hours. Photography © Mildred Budny

All That Glitters Might Be Gold

As for asking for their autographs, well, these Models already show their signature handwriting.  Some elements are even in gold.  Real gold, at that.

By the way, as a photographer (See Here Too), I observe that the gold leaf worn, for real, by three of our Models gleams especially effectively in these informal Portraits. Did you know that gold is diabolically difficult to photograph well on manuscripts?  No kidding.  No matter if you didn’t know that already, now you do.

Happily, the gold shows brightly in these snapshots, better even than in some more formal settings.  Didn’t plan it.  It just happened.  A bonus!  Remember what I said about their Good Sides?  Er, no, I mean, their Best Sides?

When it comes to photographing touchy, sensitive, demanding Subjects (As If! Who’s the Subject, as in Servant, here?), the Golden Oldies can be extremely demanding. It feels special when, without elaborate Special Effects, they can be allowed to reveal their unique inner light.  Now that takes Talent Scouting.

Roll Credits

To give credit where credit is due, I will readily name names.  In each version of the Group Portrait, here are, from left to right, in Rows 1 and 2 (upper and lower):

  • Handlist 7.   From the Book of Ezekiel in a ‘Pocket Bible’ made in France
    (part of the dismembered ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 61’)
  • Handlist 4.   From a Processional for Singing Nuns on Palm Sunday
    (part of the dismembered ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 8’, also known as the Wilton Processional)
  • Handlist 13.  From a Prayerbook, the Gregory Mass Revealed
  • Handlist 12.  From the Office of the Dead in a small-format Book of Hours
  • Handlist 22.  The ‘Scrap’ (Also Known As a Scrap of Information, and
  • Handlist 11.  From the Hours of the Virgin in a Tiny Book of Hours.
Detail of an initial M on the verso of the leaf. Photography by Mildred Budny

M for ‘Manus’ (‘Hand’), Bouquets Included

Their relative sizes are clear at a glance, don’t you think?

As they line up, it is as if they take their bows and acknowledge our applause.  After all, it took centuries to get their acts together! And they look really good for their ages.

We should be so lucky.  (We live in hope.)

Back to Front

You may wonder that, in each Group Portrait, some leaves show their recto (‘front’), while others show their verso (‘back’), seemingly inconsistently.

As in: Verso/Recto/Verso/Recto/Recto/Verso in Take 1, and the reverse in Take 2.

Well, to let you in on the secret, when the time came for their Group Portrait — it was an exceptional Photo Op, which, shall we say, required clearing with their Press-Agents and within my own schedule — they jostled for pride of place, like any or every celebrity or hopeful. It seemed helpful, anyway energy-conserving (for some, or one, of us at least), to allow them to choose their positions, while I worked on the lighting.

This opportunity came at an early stage in the processes of photography, conservation, and research (in varying order, sometimes as the interlinked stages of examination, consultation, photography, and research entered into cycles of immersion, reflection, revision, and renewal), and before more of the items arrived.  At that first stage, at the Photo Op, I had to recognize, not at all unwillingly, although a bit warily, that I had returned to photography of original manuscript materials after all, and after many things had rapidly changed, the world of photography included.

This return happened unexpectedly, and fortunately, after a gap of some years since the completion of the collaborative research project during which the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence was born, and the completion of its photographic work — some of which is showcased in the Illustrated Catalogue (1997), other publications, and other photographic exhibitions.  With this invigorating renewal, I began to experiment with different approaches to manuscript photography, both analogue (as before) and digital (as now, in addition to analogue), with different views of the artefacts, with different forms of backgrounds and lighting, and with a new sense of exploration.

Exploration for its own sake, and for what it might offer for manuscript studies.  With limited resources, true.  (Life is short.)

But also with resourcefulness, dedication, perseverance, curiosity — and, yes, a sense of fun.

Back to the Future

Some of the results appear on exhibition, in print, and on screen in various ways.  For example, Handlist 13 (Row 1), with its haunting image of the visionary Mass of Gregory the Great, is revealed in detail in a report, and it also features as the Star, Spokesman, and Poster Person (‘Poster Poster’?) representing principles and practices for photographic reproduction in our newly revised Style Manifesto.

Back on that set, during the Photo Op, without assistants to set the equipment, to soothe and distract the Models, to order pizza for them, to contend with their agents, to redirect the many requests for autographs, to arrange the bouquets, to hold back the paparazzi, and to book the tables for the post-shoot festivities, I had the pleasure of completing a first Test Shoot, in Takes 1 and 2, with narry a tantrum nor publicity agent in sight.  A fantastic, auspicious start.

These Models were the Best!  (No offense to the others!)  Great Cast.  Assigning their parts, or places, in the Handlist came later, as its script came into shape.  Likewise, discovering their identities mostly came later, as my and others’ research work yielded more discoveries — as with the ‘Stage Names’ for the original volumes from which some of the dispersed fragments came, as with the ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (on which see, for example, our 2016 Symposium, its Report, and its Illustrated Program Booklet).

If these Models were in print rather than manuscript, I might say that they were Type Cast, but that distinction belongs to some of the other Items in the Handlist.

Hug Shots

Years later, coming upon these snap-shots from the Photo Shoot, I wondered why I hadn’t taken more formal Portraits of the whole Group, that is, with others in the Handlist included.  This while I had been taking such care to photograph each one in various views — as you can see, for example, in the reports about them in turn, on their own terms.  (As in the revealing personal interview with the Gregory Leaf.)

The look back and into the future, at this stage of shaping the Handlist, allows for a moment of wistfulness, while welcoming those quick, provisional, snapshots (‘Polaroids’ in an even earlier age).  Wistfulness, not regret. It is possible to be clear.

You see, now I see that perhaps these quick snaps can suffice to show the happy occasion of a gathering in recognition.  Happy, we can say, it marks the resumption of detailed study of manuscript materials in the flesh, and also the celebration of companions gathered as ‘foundlings’ from among many ‘waifs and strays’ of medieval and early modern written materials ‘abducted’ from their original homes (books, documents, libraries, collections, locations) in Western Europe (not forgetting the British Isles), brought one way or another across the ocean to the United States, and welcomed into a new form of ‘foster home’ — whether, say, as a mobile or a ‘forever’ home.

Perhaps it is not really a mystery, although it remains a wonder.  Every artist/actor/writer/manuscript worth his/her/its salt/sugar/weight-in-gold needs an audience.  Nice when we can meet and greet, don’t you agree?

Lost-and-Foundling Hospitality

You can see that I continue to reflect on the fates of Lost and Foundlings among dispersed bits and pieces of written materials from earlier centuries, and to consider the possibilities of a Foundling Hospital of sorts, where we might welcome them, directly or indirectly, tangibly or virtually, and together find some companionable nourishment in embarking on our picnics with the past.

And now, next, let me introduce more of them, and their rescued companions, to you.  Watch this space!

As the posts emerge, they join the Contents List for this blog on Manuscript Studies. Arranged by subjects or categories, rather than in the chronological sequence of publication, the List allows you to select your choices as from a Menu. Even possible is Dessert First!

*****

Floral border from 15th-century Book of Hours, with photography copyright Mildred Budny

Photography © Mildred Budny

Tags: Book of Ezekiel, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Hours of the Virgin, manuscript fragments, Manuscript Photography, Mass of Gregory the Great, Mass of Saint Gregory, Office of the Dead, Otto Ege MS 61, Otto Ege MS 8, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, Pocket Bible, Style Manifesto, The Illustrated Handlist, Wilton Processional
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Style Manifesto

May 8, 2015 in Bembino

Red Version of the 'Seal of Approval' logo for the Style Manifesto of the Research Group on Manuscript EvidenceIn its Style Manifesto, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence defines the principles of its approach to publications. Foremost is the principle that form and content must be appropriate for function and audience.

A New, Illustrated Version with Our Font Bembino

Page 1 of the 'Style Manifesto' of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in the version of April 2014 (4 pages)

Opening Page in the New Version (May 2015)

As the Research Group launches its new, updated official website in May 2015, it issues the new version of its Style Manifesto.  Circulated as a booklet, it is available here.

It now takes the form of a 4-page booklet, laid out in our own multilingual font Bembino.  The Style Manifesto describes, demonstrates, and illustrates our continuing dedication to the principled, unified approach to our Publications.

These principles pertain, of course, also to the reproduction of images, including photographs of manuscripts and other forms of material evidence. In the new booklet, the horizontal pair of half-page plates present 2 views of the same late-medieval manuscript page (subject of our blogpost on The Mass of Saint Gregory, Illustrated), un-cropped and un-retouched.  These views represent photographs taken with the same lighting but different backgrounds, and with both a scale ruler and a color guide in view.

Such practices can supply guides to convey the integrity of the object and to aid the viewer to assess the accuracy, or otherwise, of images as presented variably in print or on screen.  They may encourage consideration of the specific circumstances and choices governing any given photograph, which might represent only some aspects of the original which other choices could supplement, just as different snapshots or portraits may reveal different aspects of the same sitter.  This position fosters the integrated approach which the Research Group seeks to promote.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Bembino, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Corpus Christi College MS 326, design layout, Manuscript Photography, Mass of Saint Gregory, publication guidelines, RGME Program Booklets, ShelfLife: Bulletin of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, ShelfMarks: RGMEnewsletter, Style Manifesto
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The Mass of Saint Gregory, Illustrated

April 7, 2015 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

A Solitary Leaf, Detached

[Published on 7 April 2015, with updates]
Mildred Budny (see Her Page) reflects on a medieval manuscript leaf and its clues as a detached artifact.  This post is one of the first in our blog on Manuscript Studies, for which there is now a Contents List.

Detail of the head of Christ. Photography © Mildred Budny

Christ’s Head, with Crown of Thorns

Detail of Veronica's Veil with the imprinted Face of Christ. Photography © Mildred Budny

Veronica’s Veil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the occasion of Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter (Western and Orthodox) 2015, we post a new set of photographs of a detached leaf from a 15th-century prayerbook of some kind, as yet unidentified.  Perhaps other parts of the book survive elsewhere.

The Image

Illustration of Gregory Mass, cropped to frame. Photography © Mildred Budny

The Mass of Saint Gregory

The small-format vellum leaf carries a full-page, framed illustration of the visionary Mass of Saint Gregory the Great (pope from 590 to 604).  It represents a scene derived from an early account of his life and transmitted through later sources.

Here, the part-length upright figure of Christ, surrounded by many of the Instruments of His Passion as well as the disembodied heads of Tormenters, Traitors, and Others involved in those processes, arises from the open top of a sarcophagus behind a draped altar, which stretches the full width of the scene, as He appears to the tonsured and richly vested celebrant of the Mass.  Seen from the back, turning his head toward the right, and lacking a halo, the part-length celebrant, who understandably raises both hands in wonder, might represent not only Gregory himself but also any metropolitan (or above) entitled to wear the pallium over his chasuble.  With such cues, the image appears to stand, and to resonate, within, across, and outside time.  The niche-like frame, with straight sides and a curved top, encloses the votive image with a rimmed gold band.

Both the details of the subject and the style of the skillful illustration point to a place of production probably in Flanders or Northern France in the early fifteenth century.  The subject of Gregory’s Mass enjoyed wide popularity in the late Middle Ages, especially at this time, with depictions in various media (including manuscripts) encouraging meditation upon Christ’s Passion and its implications.  Surveys of the transmission of the subject and suggested reading lists for further information appear freely online for example in German, French, and English, dedicated to somewhat different audiences and interests as well as languages — much as the subject itself could do in its medieval and early modern spheres.

An example of an illustration fit for a king, likewise with a bright blue background, painted circa 1500 in Tours, France, by the expert artist Jean Poyer, precedes the Seven Prayers of Saint Gregory in the Hours of Henry VIII, accompanied in its reproduction online by an exemplary curatorial description of the nature, history, and setting of the subject.  Although less richly and expertly painted, with fewer human “witnesses” present, and deprived of its former manuscript context as well as the name of its artist and its place of production, “our” leaf apparently belong to a similar version of the genre, and perhaps to a similar place in its own book.  Within Books of Hours, the illustration of Gregory’s Mass often, fittingly, accompanied the Hours of the Cross or the Seven Penitential Psalms as well as “Gregory’s Prayers”.

Surveys of the surviving medieval corpus of materials with representations of the subject and variations upon its theme, such as the Instruments of the Passion (or Arma Christi) on their own, include the German Gregorsmesse database and the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, whose resources and staff on site have aided the study and decipherment of this case.  Without identifying inscriptions, the interpretation of some objects among the Instruments and the Persons among the scattered heads depend upon their characteristics, attributes, and location, for example as some pairs of heads may depict a particular scene or episode.  For a contemporary audience, the various forms of headdress, expression, and demeanor would have conveyed clear clues which to some extent have disappeared from our own awareness of modes of social presentation, given the extent to which customs, fashions, and expectations have changed over the centuries.  Fortunately we might find help, for example, in expert guides (for example here) to the depiction of forms of dress in manuscripts in France and the Netherlands during the period of production and early ownership of “our” image.  Among many variants of the scene, cases with similar choices of objects and heads appearing in Gregory’s vision include this one.

The Instruments and Individuals

As in many cases, here the Instruments and Participants in the Passion seem to be scattered across, or clustered upon, the background, without identifying inscriptions, as if they challenge the viewer to discern their identities correctly, somewhat like a Riddle or Rebus.  Set for the Mass, the altar table carries an opened missal-type book, poised upon a lectern, with double columns of indecipherable text per page; two silver candlesticks supporting tall, unlit white candles; and a gold chalice standing upon a spread corporal, which partly covers a rimmed gold paten.  Below the short front of the plain white altarcloth, the pale foreground flanking the celebrant is decorated with branching, scrolling foliage, perhaps emulating an embroidered or brocaded altarfront.

Illustration of Gregory Mass, cropped to upper portion of scene. Photography © Mildred BudnyAs for the Instruments, how many do you see?

I count the centrally placed tau-shaped True Cross, surmounted by its Titulus, draped with a garment (presumably the Shroud or seamless Garment, not the purple Robe), and flanked by the Ladder for the Deposition at the left and the Column for the Flagellation at the right.  The Crown of Thorns rests upon Christ’s Head.  The rim of the Sarcophagus appears as an extension beyond the altar table.  Between the Cross and the Ladder stretches the Veil of Veronica, bearing the imprint of Christ’s closed-eyed frontal Head. Atop the Column perches the Rooster, facing left, for Peter’s Denial.  The Whips (Scourge and Switches) are crossed, right over left, halfway down the front of the Column, with a dangling pair of romal reins of another Whip (or two) which descends from the base of the Switches to the top of the Sarcophagus.  Between the unbroken rungs of the Ladder, which leans upon the Cross, rise the long shaft of the Lance and reed of the Sponge.  Between their tops hover three Nails for Christ’s Wounds.  Suspended, as if scattered, upon the background in counterclockwise formation, there appear three more-or-less identical balustraded Vessels (perhaps buckets, salt-cellars, censers, and/or covered Jars for the gall-with-vinegar and the anointing myrrh); a Hammer and set of Pincers for attaching and removing the Nails; three stacks of Silver Coins for Judas’s price of betrayal; three silver Dice for casting lots for the Robe; the Scimitar for severing the High Priest’s Servant’s Ear; a Lantern for the Arrest; and a Pitcher or Ewer upon a Platter or Basin for service perhaps severally at the Last Supper, the Washing of the Hands, and the gathering of Christ’s Blood.

Seven human Heads, male and female, hover in the background.  Those in profile appear to scowl or scoff.  Five heads wear headgear. The base of each neck has the rounded neckline of a garment.  A helmeted, short-haired, clean-shaven soldier (presumably Longinus) rises above the Veil.  Below it, a Mocker or Spitter confronts Christ’s Head, with a brimmed “bag hat”(capeline) and projected, pointed beard which abuts Christ’s hair.  To the right of the Column, more-or-less in line with the Veil, there appears a woman wearing a neat white wimple (perhaps Veronica, the Servant Girl at Peter’s Denial, or Mary).  In a row to the right appears a bearded, long-haired head tilted outward below the Ewer-with-Dish (probably Christ at the Betrayal, rather than Peter at either his Denial or the Notice Thereof) and the scowling Judas wearing a pendant moneybag at his neck.  In a vertical row beside the upright Sword; a glowering figure wearing a high hat with a bilobed top (probably the High Priest Caiaphas) and an imposing frontal figure  with an elaborate headdress or diadem (presumably Pilate or, rather, Herod).

Wearing a loincloth, a double-pointed beard, and long, straight hair, Christ opens his eyes and crosses his hands in front of his bare chest, with rays of light as a cross-nimbus streaming from his head.  Without visible Wounds, He emerges alive through or despite the Crucifixion.  Similar rays extend both from the version of his Head on Veronica’s Veil and the Head of Judas’ Companion.  Some other depictions of the Gregory Mass endow other figures than Christ (notably Gregory) with rays of light, so that this case could designate or imply Peter (compromised at the Denial, but rehabilitated and raised to sainthood through subsequent events).  However, the features of face, hair, and beard, the rays, and the positioning appear here to designate Christ at the Moment of Betrayal, with a prescient set of rays of light which also pertain to Veronica’s Veil.  Wedged between the Ewer, the branching Scourge, and the Lantern, this Companion seems to be hemmed in for the events of Holy Week leading to the Crucifixion and the Re-emergence from the Tomb.  Such tokens imply that the “narrative” of the imagery follows a sequence that moves, or might move, from moment to moment, from episode to episode, from implement to implement, and from import to impact in a cycle which follows varying directions and possibilities from top to bottom, left to right, right to left, around and about, and back again, as contemplation, reflection, and reconsideration might direct.

The choices among which Instruments to include, and how to represent them, opt for plenitude as to number of Instruments (among representatives of the genre) and for triplicate in series of objects.  That there are 3 Nails (for the spread Hands and the overlapping Feet), 3 similarly-shaped Vessels (perhaps for different types of materials more or-less-viscous and more-or-less vicious applied at different stages of the proceedings), 3 piles of the 30 silver Coins, and 3 Dice, reiterates an emphasis upon trifold entities.  That is, in sum, a Trinity.  Such emphasis could govern the focus for this illustration, its intended viewer, and, perhaps, within (or at) its full volume.

The Leaf

The leaf now belongs to a private assemblage of manuscript and early printed materials.  It was purchased, on its own, from a renowned bookseller about 25 years ago.  A black-and-white reproduction of the illustration appears in print here (first published in 1995), page 229.

Beginning several years ago, I have had the opportunity to examine, photograph, conserve, and re-frame the fragment, as part of a long-term project described elsewhere on this website.  This work included the preparation of photographs with different lights, backgrounds, cameras, and lenses, experimenting with different methods and responding to various aspects of the artifacts themselves as the research developed.

The time has come to illustrate the leaf, on both sides, and in detail, as a contribution toward the study of this artifact, its genre, and the group of medieval and early modern materials to which it now belongs.  In my Handlist of those materials, this leaf is Number 13.  [Future posts, starting here, describe the Handlist and its components.]

First, to show its scale and the brilliance of its colors, including gold, we exhibit an image of the leaf in full, with both a standard scale (both inches and centimeters) and color-guide.  The presence of the color guide within the image can demonstrate — even at first glance — the degree of fidelity of the color reproduction which this shared method of digital transmission permits (or not), as it passes from screen to screen, from device to device, and from viewer to viewer.

Full-page, framed illustration of the Mass of Saint Gregory on a detached leaf from a prayerbook. Photography © Mildred Budny

The Full Extent of the Leaf, plus Scale and Color Guide

Although the “interesting” part of the leaf — for those who (like Alice) prefer their books to have pictures — would be the illustrated side, it is worth showing the other side, too, for what it’s worth.

 The Front and Back, Revealed

Blank side of leaf with illustration of the Mass of Saint Gregory. Photography © Mildred Budny

Recto

Leaf with Gregory Mass illustration on black background. Photography © Mildred Budny

Verso

 

It is worthwhile to see what the leaf, in all its surviving glory, both has and does not have.  No text, not a bit, apart, that is, from the 20th-century seller’s code in pencil at the bottom left (‘4327Ø3315o67W0’), the schematic lines of “text” on the celebrant’s opened book, and the partly effaced Monumental Capitals of the Latin Titulus (“Label”) of the Cross, with the acronym INRI abbreviating Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (“Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews“).

Gregory Leaf on Black cropped to top of cross reduced

The Titulus

So, apart from that Titulus, the leaf itself carries no original text as such to indicate what language(s), form(s) of script, numbers of lines of text per page, and specific genre of prayerbook pertained to the manuscript to which this now-solitary leaf once belonged, nor the place which it held within the sequence of the book, apart from somewhere in the “middle” and within a binding. The size of the leaf implies that the main text occurred in single columns.  The language may have been Latin and/or a vernacular.  The professionalism of the painted illustration and the use of gold leaf and powdered gold among its pigments indicate a production of some quality and expense.  Some details of the execution — like schematic facial features and the overshot outlines of the outer contours of the frame as they rise from the left-hand side into, and partly over, the curved top of the frame — demonstrate an approach somewhat below the highest order of meticulous craftsmanship and artistry.

For a while when I first encountered the fragment, it could be viewed only behind the glass and mat of the gilded frame into which its owner had placed it. This setting allowed a view only of part of the illustrated side, “cropped” by the window of the mat to a narrow margin around the arch-shaped border of the scene.  (As you see at the top of this Post.)

The considered decision to remove the fragment from the frame, to release it from the non-archival mat and backing, to conserve and photograph it, and to re-frame it (with archival materials) allowed the opportunity to see the full extent of the leaf, that is, insofar as its historical spoliation permits.

Clues

Thus revealed are the surviving extents of the margins, the notched edge of the stitching line at the former spine of the leaf, and consequently the former layout of the leaf as recto and verso.  It is clear that the originally blank flesh side and the illustrated hair side of the animal skin were turned to the front and back respectively. Within the volume, the illustration faced the opening of its companion text, after the “blank” page at the end of the preceding text.

Orange pigment offsets onto the blank recto from the formerly adjacent leaf (now lost). Photography © Mildred Budny

Orange pigment offsets from the (lost) preceding verso

Detail of recto lower edge with red stain and inner edge with stitching groove. Photography © Mildred Budny

Stitching notches (bottom here) and red stain traces (at right)

Revealed, too, are some other tell-tale features. They reveal aspects of the processes of production and characteristics of the volume apart from the image itself.

For example, the offsets of a pair of curved segments of bright reddish orange pigment on the “blank” recto migrated from the formerly adjacent page, perhaps part of an initial in an upper line of the text.

The faint traces of reddish stain at the lower edge of the leaf indicate colored treatment which it must have shared with the other leaves in the rest of the closed book-block.

Production prickings to lay out the contours of the frame and yellow "gunge" on the recto of the leaf. Photography © Mildred Budny

Pricking holes lower on the frame

Detail of "blank" recto with show-through from the illustration and preliminary pricking holes to delineate the contours of the border. Photography © Mildred Budny

Pricking holes for the frame

The closely spaced pricking holes made to delineate the outer contours of the frame and some other parts for the illustration have pierced the leaf, with partly blackened edges from corrosion of the metallic traces left by the sharpened implement.  On the “blank” side, these holes emerge more clearly into view.  The yellowish “gunge” comes from an unknown stage in the history of the fragment.

The clear background revealed between the surviving portions of the gold leaf, where other portions have flaked or lifted away, indicates the uncolored form of adhesive used in its application.  In addition, the illustration employs powdered gold pigment, adding highlights and rays of light.

The pair of darkened stains at the outer edge of the leaf may bear witness to clasps for the volume. The notches along the inner edge, severed by an uneven cutting line from its former stub or adjacent leaf in its original bifolium, demarcate the stitching stations for the binding, in accordance with widespread medieval bookbinding practices, in this case 5 stations.

Detail of cross-shaft, rays of light, and blue sky or background in the illustration of the Mass of Saint Gregory. Photography © Mildred Budny

Layers of pigment, including powdered gold

Such traces could help to confirm the identification of other parts of the same volume, should they survive.  In the absence of a specimen text-page, this leaf must await other methods of discovery than, say, the convenient and widely employed searching method to reunite (even if only virtually) books and their fragments by number of lines per column and per page.

It is a pity that this leaf has been forcibly removed from its original manuscript setting, presumably for commercial purposes, but it is useful to recognize that, at least, the despoiler did not trim away all traces of the former margins and sewing line.  In such ways, the leaf itself, when revealed in the processes of conservation, photography, and uncropped reframing, can show clues about its former book that the cropped image alone fails to do.

Set “free” in such a way, it might direct our research more surely to its former “home”, even if that reunion might have to remain within our imagined or “virtual” reconstruction.  Such a process could befit the aims of the image, intended to evoke reflective meditation upon the nature and significance of its subject-matter across the instances of time and place.

Gold Leaf partly lifted. Photography © Mildred Budny

The Fragility and Tenacity of Gold Leaf

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Photography © Mildred Budny
High-quality images suitable for reproduction may be available upon request to director@manuscriptevidence.org.

Perhaps you know where other parts of the original manuscript may survive?  We would be glad to hear from you.
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Tags: Archaeology of Manuscripts, Budny Handlist, Instruments of Christ's Passion, Manuscript Photography, Mass of Saint Gregory, Medieval Manuscript Fragments
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