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      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series (2001-)
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        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
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        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
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A “Beatus Manuscripts” Project

May 10, 2025 in International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Manuscript Studies

“The Methodology of Credulity:
Assessing the Manuscript Witnesses
to Beatus of Líebana, On the Apocalypse“

Reflections on
A Project Proposal

[Posted on 9 May 2025, with updates]

In honor of the session sponsored by the RGME at the 2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies and proposed and co-organized by our Associate Vajra Regan, I reflect with hindsight on the proposal years ago for a collaborative research project about the surviving “Manuscript Witnesses” to the influential medieval Latin Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Líebana (circa 730 – circa 735).

Proposed with a distinguished colleague circa 1999, that ambitious collaborative project did not come to fruition, so I turned to other ones claiming attention. For years its subject (rather than project) lay in the background, waiting, for a return to attention, amidst other projects and activities of the Research Group on Manuscript [and Other] Evidence (RGME) which advanced as this organization has continued on its path.

The 2025 RGME Session
on Beatus Manuscripts

The RGME Session on 10 May 2025 at the ICMS presents its focus thus:

“Rending the Veil:
The Rupture of Image and Text
in Medieval Apocalypse Commentaries”

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vitrina 14-2, fol. 287r. Facundus Beatus. Image via Biblioteca Digital Hispánica via https://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000051522.

The title and approach were proposed by Vajra Regan, who deserves credit for the inspired approach to the genre. Responses to the Call for Papers for this session focused on specific aspects or case studies. Their approaches are reported in our Home Page for our events at the 2025 Congress and in the Abstracts for the presentations in the Program of the Session. See:

  • 2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
  • Kambour (2025 Congress)
  • Frisbie (2025 Congress)

We give thanks to the co-organizers and contributors to this session and to the helpers behind the scenes for its preparations and accomplishment. We admire the participants’ choices of subjects for their presentations, which focus respectively on a specific manuscript as case-study or on different manuscripts’ approaches to a specific illustration across the corpus of Beatus Manuscripts.

The Once-Upon-A-Time
Project Proposal on Beatus Manuscripts

It is this multi-tiered exploratory experience — with manuscripts containing Beatus’ Commentary on the Book of the Apocalypse in the New Testament and the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, with studies about these manuscripts, their group, and their context, and with a developing awareness of a wealth of manuscript witnesses across time as my own research and that of the RGME — that leads me now to offer reflections with hindsight about an eager preparatory exploration of the manuscripts and their power as witnesses which generated a proposal for a major project.

The proposal envisioned an extended, several-year, multi-disciplinary study of the manuscripts themselves (where permitted), along with an international symposium to gather a range of relevant perspectives and approaches to them and their context, both individually and collectively as a genre attesting to the transmission and sometimes creative transformation of a compelling text which often traveled with resonant, sometimes disturbing, often challenging, images.

The details and aims for the plan are set out in the six-page proposal. Using Adobe Garamond for its font (in keeping with our preferred font before RGME Bembino, it has a title page and five pages of text outlining the “Project Proposal,” set out in sections:

The Material
The Nature of the Problem
The Scope and Aims of the Project
The Collaborative Process
The Stage of Development of the Project
Institutional Resources to be Consulted and Travel Plans
Results

With its strengths and weaknesses, the proposal can be viewed here.

It makes a statement about our reflective views on the subject of Beatus Manuscripts as a body of evidence, their challenges for research and comprehension, and possible approaches bringing a combination of perspectives and expertise in the pursuit of further knowledge about their potential as witnesses. In a way, it represents a statement of intention about a long-term project bringing together many fiends, centers, fields of expertise, and dedication.

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vitrina 14-2, fol. 6v. Facundus Beatus. Image via Biblioteca Digital Hispánica via https://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000051522.

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vitrina 14-2, fol. 7r. Facundus Beatus. Image via Biblioteca Digital Hispánica via https://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000051522.

AfterLife and Renewal

The proposal was not accepted, so its text has been set aside. It was said, whether accurate or not, by my collaborator that a reason, or the reason, for the rejection had to do with the choice of reviewer (an obvious choice), who had long expressed disagreement with my collaborator’s approach to the manuscripts, of which he had made a long-term study bringing a series of volumes on them as individuals and as a whole body of material.

The issues between those two scholars were not my concern. Both individuals (now dead) were RGME Associates; both contributed to various RGME Symposia in their own time and on different occasions.

With hindsight, I observe that it may well have been fortunate that the project did not go forward. Aside from the complex logistics across countries and disciplines outlined in the proposal, which may have proved unwieldy or intractable, there emerged other, more fundamental concerns. Unexpected arduous difficulties imposed in working with the same collaborator at her request to move her library from one state to another in 2002–2003, leading to months of ill health for me, taught that the responsibilities for such a project as the one which we proposed several years earlier would have placed most of the work upon me unaided. Meanwhile, I can be glad that the discussions and planning which led to the proposal brought me into contact more closely with the subject of the Beatus Manuscripts and its witnesses.

The occasion of the RGME’s Session on Apocalypse Commentaries in 2025 brings it forward as a record of our long-term interest in and commitment to the study of the manuscript witnesses. The renewal brings the chance to look afresh at the manuscripts, their scripts, their images, and their histories, especially as the arrival of digitization and online facsimiles for many of the witnesses has granted the ability to observe, compare, contrast, and learn ever more from their pages.

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vitrina 14-2, fol. 6r. Facundus Beatus. Image via Biblioteca Digital Hispánica via https://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000051522.

A Treasured Memory

The process of planning a collaborative project involved learning from each other about our different, but overlapping, approaches to the study of manuscripts and their contexts from fields ranging from history and art history, through codicology, palaeography, and book history, to textual and linguistic studies and the transmission of text, scripts, and illustrations from exemplar to exemplar, place to place, and time to time. The quest was exhilarating.

Especially worthwhile was the opportunity which I could arrange, with the approval of the then-Curator at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, William Voelkle (now a RGME Associate), to see two Beatus manuscripts side by side. We traveled to New York for the day from Princeton, New Jersey, for this purpose.  In the old Reading Room, as he turned the pages, we two collaborators could examine the two books at the same time, observing, conversing, and consulting with each other, all three of us. In decades of examining manuscripts at close hand, this experience remains one of the most memorable.

Thus we had the privilege of looking together at the Morgan Beatus (M. 644) of circa 940–945 and Las Huelgas Beatus (M. 429) dated by colophon to September 1220. I had seen one and other before, in the flesh, as part of my decades’ long study of manuscripts, but looking at both of them together, and with a colleague as well, represented a step forward for our collaborative work. Before digitization, long before online digital facsimiles of manuscripts, this opportunity was a rare treat.

While we were engaged with this opportunity, standing over the manuscripts and talking softly (but excitedly), another reader in the room walked by, exclaimed with delight, and asked if she might look over our shoulders as well. Welcoming her, we described something about the manuscripts, their significance, and our plans to study their group in greater depth. Her interest as a newcomer, happy that she had chanced upon and been welcomed into the exceptional encounter with the manuscripts, in our company, remains a happy part of the memory.

I rejoice that the occasion of the 2025 RGME Session on Beatus Manuscripts, with their complex interworking and/or interplay between text and images, brings to the fore my long-standing interest in their characteristics. Preparing for the session, I can return to the books about them which helped to inform and guide the proposal of yesteryear. These books include a bilingual Latin–Spanish edition of the complete works of Beatus lent by my collaborator and the majesterial multi-volume set on The Illustrated Beatus by the expert who had (it would seem) reviewed and declined our proposal. Over the years since the work to complete the proposal for submission, I have consulted each of these works for various reasons, but now they come out together to join in the renewal of exploration about Beatus Manuscripts, with more to discover.

For example, with this digital image of an opening of the Morgan Beatus, MS M. 644, as an example, we might imagine the living process of beholding the opened book directly, while the pages might (with permission) be turned to reveal another and another, at a given moment in time and space.

Beatus, Saint, Presbyter of Liebana, -798. Commentary on the Apocalypse (MS M.644). Spain, San Salvador de Tabara, ca. 945. fol. 222v. MS M.644.

 

Tags: Beatus Manuscripts, Facundus Beatus, Las Huelgas Beatus, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Morgan Beatus
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A Leaf with Latin Liturgical Chants at the DRAGEN Lab

April 7, 2025 in CANTUS Database, DRAGEN Lab, Manuscript Studies, Reports, University of Waterloo

Manuscript Fragments
at the DRAGEN Lab

Part 2:
Leaf of Latin Liturgical Chants

[Posted on 7 April 2025]

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

To accompany preparations for the 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo in November, we explore some manuscript and printed treasures at the University’s Medieval DRAGEN Lab (Digital Research Arts for Graphic and Environmental Networks). We thank the staff of the DRAGEN Lab and its director, Steven Bednarski, for permission to examine these materials and share the findings with you.

For information about the Colloquium and registration for it, please visit

  • 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

In a series, first we examine leaves from two different medieval manuscripts in Latin. Part 1 in this series exhibited a leaf for the month of February in an unknown Book of Hours. See

  • A Latin Kalendar Leaf for February from Northern France at the DRAGEN Lab.

Now in Part 2 we consider a leaf with musical chants from a liturgical book so far unknown.

Standing on its own, without identifying inscriptions or other marks to indicate its origin, date and place of production, early and subsequent ownership, or other features of its transmission, the leaf must or can speak for itself.

II. Leaf with Liturgical Chants

On the recto, the chants open with Scitis quia post buduum Pascha fiet, from the text of Matthew 26:2. The enlarged initial for this text is written in black ink like the text; other enlarged initials for other chants are in red.

The verso finishes mid-word at the beginning of a chant, Si[. . . ]tio Con-.

The first chant corresponds with an item in the Cantus Database, for which only one other source is cited, also preserved in Ontario albeit in a different university’s collection.

  • Number 1002741

= St. Catharines (ON), Brock University Library – Archives and Special Collections, RG 394 (fragment).

  • St. Catharines (ON), Brock University Library – Archives and Special Collections (CDN-STCbul)
“A single parchment leaf from a liturgical manuscript. Square notation in black ink on five-line red staves with F clefs. 5 staves per folio side with humanistic, rounded script in the intervening spaces. 264 mm tall x 185 mm.”

Recto

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Saint Jerome’s University, Latin Manuscript Fragment with Chants, Recto.

The Text:

Quid molesti estis huic mulieri?  Opus enim bonum operata est in me.

Nam semper pauperes habebitis vobiscum me autem non semper

/ [om. habetis in page-turn?] (Matthew 26:10–11)

[VARIANT? of Cantus

quid molesti estis huic mulieri bonum opus operata est in me ]

OR

Bonum opus operata est in me

nam semper pauperes habebitis vobiscum me autem non semper habebitis

Compare:

  • https://cantusdatabase.org/chant/671141, with one manuscript source.

Verso

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Saint Jerome’s University, Latin Manuscript Fragment with Chants, Verso.

/ qui est ex ueritate audit uocem meam (John 18:38)

Non haberes potestatem adversum me ullam nisi tibi datum esset desuper propterea qui me tradidit tibi maius peccatum habet (John 19:11).

Mulier; ecce filius tuus. Ecce mater tua. (John 19:26 and 27)

Si  tio Con-

*****

Do you recognize this leaf? Do you know of other leaves from the same manuscript or by the same scribe and workshop?

Please leave your Comments here or Contact Us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

*****

Tags: CANTUS Database, DRAGEN Lab, Latin chants, liturgical manuscripts, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Musical Manuscripts, University of Waterloo
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Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”

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

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

Workshop 4
“Manuscript Fragments Compared”

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

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

The Series

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

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

Workshop 4

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

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

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

Now see:

  • The Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible

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

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

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

Resources for the Quest

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

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

Registration

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

  • Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”: Tickets

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

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

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

  • [email protected] or [email protected] .

Information about the series

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

  • The Bridge of Signs

  • Handlist of Recources for Manuscript Studies and Fragmentology

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

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

*****

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We look forward to seeing you at our events!

*****

Tags: Collection of Richard Weber, Fragmentology, Jennah Farrell Collection, Latin Vulgate Bibles, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Otto Ege MS 14, Otto F. Ege, RGME Workshops on the Evidence of MSS Etc., Saint Albans Bible
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Episode 20. “Comic Book Theory for Medievalists”

January 16, 2025 in Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

“The Research Group Speaks”
Episode 20

“Comic Book Theory
for Medievalists:
The Poetics”

Jesse D. Hurlbut

Saturday 1 March 2025
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

[Posted on 20 January 2025]

Our series wherein “The Research Group Speaks” continues with its Twentieth Episode in an exploration of the phenomenon of dynamic interactions between words and images found in books from widely distant centuries, yet in compellingly similar modes of presentation.

BnF, Fr, 1141, fol. 140v, detail.

London, British Museum. Door-sill carved as a carpet. From Room I, door c, the North Palace of Ashurbanipal II at Nineveh, Iraq. 645-640 BCE. Photograph (2014) Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons..

This Episode follows Episode 19 in January 2025 “At the Gate: RGME Activities for 2025” to launch our Theme for this Year, “Thresholds and Communities”, with reflections on the theme and an introduction to the suite of our multiple activities for 2025.

Episode 20 takes a look at an engaging didactic genre of illustrated books, whether in manuscript or print, which displays an unfolding story as the pages take their turns.

Which genre is that? Comic books, par excellence, along with their popular forerunners in medieval narratives of many kinds in which sequential series of images accompany or take over the story.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: BnF MS Fr. 1141, Comic Book Theory, Comic Books, Dream Visions, Guillaume de Diguillevile, Jesse D. Hurlbut, Jimmy Corigan, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine, Words and Images
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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

NOW OLD:
Plans have changed.
See
2025 RGME Autumn Colloqium on Fragments

—————

[Note: This outdated post remains as a record
of the first intentions for the event
and its first six months of preparation
]

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. As of June 2025, the University of Waterloo is not a co-sponsor or host for the event, which retains its structure, but not that location or partner. See the newer link listed above.]

“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:

  • 2025 Annual Appeal
  • Donations

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

*****

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.

    Leave your comments or questions below

  • Contact Us
  • Sign up for our Newsletter and information about our activities.
    Send a note to [email protected] or [email protected]

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Join the Friends of the RGME.

Register for our Events by the RGME Eventbrite Collection.

Among them are the

  • 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia (online or hybrid)
  • Episodes of “The Research Group Speaks” (online)
  • RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.” (online, in person, or hybrid)
  • Meetings of the Friends of the RGME (online)

Please consider making a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Anniversary Appeal

We thank the hosts, co-organizers, advisers, and participants for generously contributing to this Colloquium.

*****

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)

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in Monochrome Version

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

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:

  • A Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 214” in the Collection of Richard Weber
  • More Leaves from an Old Armenian Praxapostolos
  • Portfolio 93 of Otto Ege’s “Famous Books in Eight Centuries” in the Collection of Richard Weber

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,

  • the Saint Albans Bible,
  • Otto Ege MS 14, and
  • the Chudleigh Bible.

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
“Fragments & Documents”

Sunday 29 June 2025

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

Information

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

Registration

  • Workshop 7. “Fragments and Documents”: Tickets
Preston Charter 12 Face with Seal. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Preston Charter 12 Face with Seal. Photograph Mildred Budny.

*****

Workshop 8
“A Reused Binding Fragment
from a Medieval Musical Manuscript”

Sunday 1 September 2025

This workshop will examine a puzzling vellum fragment (or is it a set of patchwork fragments?) in a private collection. It comes 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.

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

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

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

Information

  • Watch this space. Closer to the time, we will publish details about the fragment and its book, as a guide for our collaborative quest to learn more about them.

Registration

  • https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-8-a-reused-binding-fragment-from-a-medieval-musical-manuscript-tickets-1340074201009

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

*****

Workshop 9, Etc.
Subjects To Be Determined (We accept requests!)

Among subjects requested are:

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

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

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

Manuscripts as Thresholds
     For our 2025 Theme of “Thresholds and Communities”,
we consider how manuscripts might function as Thresholds and represent or foster Communities

Note our sessions and roundtable at the 2025 IMC at Leeds on the subject of
“Manuscripts as Worlds of Learning”

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

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  • our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
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Join the Friends of the RGME.

Please make a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

*****

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

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

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

The Latin Vulgate Bible Leaf
in the Collection of Jennah Farrell

Part 3: The Leaf Revealed in Full

Single Leaf from the Book of Numbers
now unframed

Laid out in double columns of 46 lines in Gothic Script

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

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

[Posted on 13 November 2024]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Side 1

This side faced forward in the former frame.

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

Side 2

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

Releasing the Leaf from the Frame

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

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

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

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

Both Sides Now in View

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

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

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

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

Would you like to help us to learn about it?

A Pair of Workshops for this Leaf

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

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

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

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

  • Workshop 1: Registration

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

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

  • Workshop 2: Registration

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

Beginners and experts welcome!

*****

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

  • The Bridge of Signs

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

Please join our expedition!

*****

Suggestion Box

Please Contact Us or visit

  • our FaceBook Page
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  • our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
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  • our Blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List

Would you like to help?

*****

Tags: Jennah Farrell Collection, Latin Vulgate Bibles, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts
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2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Call for Papers

July 14, 2024 in International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, POMONA, Societas Magica

2025 International Congress
on Medieval Studies:
Call for Papers

60th ICMS
Thursday through Saturday, 8–10 May 2025
(with Sessions variously
in Person, Online, or  Hybrid)

[Posted on 14 July 2024]

Building upon the successful completion of our activities at the 2024 ICMS (see our 2024 International Congress on Medieval Studies Report), we announce the Call for Papers (CFP) for next year’s Congress. For the CFP for all Sessions for the 2025 Congress, see its Confex Portal.

Here, first comes general information for your consideration, then we present our curated offerings of Sponsored and Co-Sponsored Sessions for your choice of proposals. Links for each Session show the direct lines to the Congress’s Confex System for your proposals for specific Sessions.

Process and Timetable for Proposals

For information about the Congress, see its official website.  There you can also find information and instructions about submitting your proposals.  See especially Submissions.  Your proposals for papers are due by 15 September 2024.

After the close of the Call For Papers, we will select the accepted papers and design the Programs for the Sessions, with the Papers placed in order and Presiders assigned. Some Sessions may also have Respondents.  Notifying you of the decisions about your proposals will come before the deadline for us to submit the Programs for our Sessions to the Congress Committee is 15 October 2024.

Then What?

Next, normally by the turn of the year toward the year of the Congress, on our website we publish the selected Programs for our Sessions and announce our other Activities, while we await the promulgation of the official Schedule for the 2025 Congress.  The Abstracts for the Papers accompany our announced Programs.  Then, with the publication of the Congress Program (or its traditional preliminary ‘Sneak Peek’), we can add the times and venues for our Sessions.  As the 2025 Congress approaches, new, unfolding, and revised information will guide announcements and updates on our website and social media.

RGME @ 2025 ICMS

For 2025, we prepare:

  • four Sessions, sponsored and co-sponsored
  • a customary Open Business Meeting at the Congress
  • and perhaps a Reception.

Four Sessions are our own (Item I).  Our co-sponsors for ICMS Sessions in 2025 are:

  • Societas Magica (with two co-sponsored Sessions)
  • Polytheism-Oriented Medievalists of North America (P.-O.M.o.N.A.)
  • Postal History at Kalamazoo

Among our co-sponsorships for the Congress over the years, 2025 marks Year 21 of our co-sponsorship with the Societas Magica, Year 4 with P.O.M.o.N.A.,  and Year 2 with  Postal History at Kalamazoo.

The Session co-sponsored with Postal History at Kalamazoo continues the tradition of our long-term series of RGME Sessions at the ICMS on “Medieval Writing Materials”, which began in 2014.  (See, for example, our Congress Activities and 2022 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program.)

Our 2025 Sessions

The RGME announces its proposed Sessions for the 2024 Congress and invites your proposals for papers.

Proposals should be made through the Congress’s Confex System. Here we provide session-specific links for each session. The deadline for your proposals is by 15 September 2024.

The Sessions are designed variously as in-person, online, and hybrid.  In the case of an In-Person Session, Congress directions state that “only people who plan to attend the Congress in person next May should submit proposals to it. If there is sufficient interest in this topic to support a corresponding virtual session, please fill out the webform to request an additional session.”

The official call for papers will be posted on the Congress website in early July, with links to submit proposals through the Confex system.

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)

RGME Logo in Color.

I. Sessions Sponsored by the RGME

1. “Deviant Images: Text/Image Relationships in Medieval Manuscripts” (ID: 5977)

In-Person Session

Organizer: Cortney Anne Berg (CUNY Graduate Center)

Aim

This panel provides a space to examine the ways that images and texts work together (or against each other) in medieval manuscripts. Scholars who study manuscripts often treat the images and the texts as separate phenomena without considering how a medieval reader would have interacted with the holistic object. Many studies of manuscripts treat the images as mere illustrations of the text, and this panel invites all scholars of manuscripts to explore the ways in which images work or do not work with the accompanying text.

Very rarely do images and texts provide the same information, and very rarely are images just illustrations to the text they accompany. Therefore, how can contemporary viewers understand the relationship between medieval images and the texts they accompany?

This panel invites papers that explore medieval manuscripts and how their images deviate from or conform to the text. We encourage inquiries that describe the important intersections between text and image, and attempt to reconstruct the relationship between the two, particularly as these relationships may or may not map to lived conditions. We also encourage inquiries that reveal interesting information about manuscript culture writ large. Although this panel seeks papers that deal directly with images not just as aids to the text or reading, any methodological approach from literature, anthropology, history, religious studies, art history, or any other discipline that can make interesting connections between text and image would be a welcome addition to this panel.

Keywords: Manuscript studies, art history, literature, medieval manuscripts, medieval studies

Proposals

Link to submit your proposals directly to this session by 15 September 2024:

https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=5977

London, British Library, Add. MS 62925, fol. 83r detail. Rutland Psalter in Latin, circa 1260, England (London?). Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/05/marginali-yeah-the-fantastical-creatures-of-the-rutland-psalter.html

2. “Rending the Veil:
The Rupture of Image and Text
in Medieval Apocalypse Commentaries”
(ID: 6459)

In-Person Session

Organizers:
Mildred Budny (RGME)
Zoey Kambour (CUNY Graduate Center and RGME Intern Executive Assistant)
Vajra Regan (Centre for Mediaeval Studies, University of Toronto)

Aim

This session explores the various discontinuities between images and texts in illustrated Apocalypse commentaries from the Middle Ages. These differences can manifest in several ways. For instance, an illustration might align more closely with the commentary rather than the biblical text. Additionally, variations can arise from established, highly localized traditions or contemporary innovations. Investigating these differences, whether within a single manuscript or across a complete cycle of illustrations, provides valuable insights into the institutional, political, and intellectual contexts of the manuscript’s production.

Methodologies

This session seeks to explore illustrated Apocalypse commentaries from the Middle Ages through an interdisciplinary lens; therefore, we are open to the methodologies of diverse disciplines including, but not limited to, art history/iconography, manuscript studies, religious studies, and digital humanities. By embracing a wide array of perspectives and analytical frameworks, we hope to foster a holistic understanding of medieval apocalyptic imagery and its multifaceted interpretations.

Keywords: Apocalypse, Beatus, Material Culture, Art History, Literature, Medieval, Manuscript Studies, Religious Studies, Digital Humanities, Manuscript Production

Proposals

Link to submit your proposals directly to this session by 15 September 2024:
https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6459

New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.644, fol. 222v-223r. Beatus, Saint, Presbyter of Liebana, -798. Commentary on the Apocalypse (MS M.644). Spain, San Salvador de Tábara, ca. 945. Image via https://www.themorgan.org/manuscript/110807.

3. “Women and Manuscripts:
Questions of Authorship” (ID 6310)

Hybrid Session

Co-Organizers:
Jaclyn A. Reed (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
Mildred Budny (RGME)

Aim

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits. Français 835, fol. 1r, detail. Frontispiece illustration of the scribal author for collection of texts by Christine de Pizan. Image via https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449047c/f9.item.

Women as authors of manuscripts do not always receive adequate attention or study. This past year, the Research Group on Manuscript [and Other] Evidence held an informal, virtual discussion session as part of its “Research Group Speaks” series (Episode 15) focusing on research of manuscripts or texts authored by women and found that the reception and interest were very high both among those wanting to participate and those wanting to attend. Building upon this momentum, we propose further explorations in a panel for the 2025 Congress.

This session will examine women’s relationships with and representations in manuscripts and other evidence, especially those that they personally authored or created. Authorship has sometimes been limited in scope to literary or narrative texts, which can leave out the types of manuscripts that women were more likely to produce such as commonplace books or other collections of receipts, medical treatments, or a variety of other household notations. We welcome methodological approaches that consider manuscripts or other evidence authored by women including, but not limited to, philology, manuscript studies, material culture, and history of the book.

Keywords: History of the book, Manuscript Studies, Material Culture, Representations of Women, Women’s Authorship, Women’s Literature

Proposals

For this Hybrid Session, we solicit participants who plan to attend the Congress in person, as well as participants who plan to attend virtually.

Link to submit your proposals directly to this session by 15 September 2024:
https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6310

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits. Français 835, fol. 1r. Opening of collection of texts by Christine de Pizan. Image via https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449047c/f9.item.

II. Sessions Co-Sponsored by the RGME

4. Moving the Mail: Letters, Couriers, and Post Offices in the Medieval World (ID: 6312)

In-person Session

Co-sponsored with Postal History at Kalamazoo

Organizer: David W. Sorenson (Allan Berman, Numismatist)

Aim

In a world in which communication was necessarily through the written word, getting it from sender to recipient could be a complicated process. While important correspondence could be sent quickly, ordinary letters might be less speedy, and while royal letters might be sent by an efficient official system, ordinary letters between, say, merchants or clergy, might be much less so. This session is intended as a means of examining the ways in which mail moved, whether in Europe or elsewhere.

Keywords: couriers, letters, correspondence, mail, post office, postal, medieval studies

Proposals

Link to submit proposals directly to this session by 15 September 2024:

https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6312

A courier stands before a figure receiving a letter, with a landscape in the background.

Private Collection, Courier delivering letter. German translation of Petrarch (1559).

Logo of the Societas Magica, reproduced by permission

Societas Magica logo

5. “Grimoires of the Greater West (2): Multicultural Solomonic Magic:
The Case of the Almandal”
(ID 6392)

In-person Session

Co-sponsored with the Societas Magica

Organizers:
Vajra Regan (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)
>[email protected]
Gal Sofer (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Matthew Melvin-Koushki (University of South Carolina)

Aim

The Almandal and Almadel of Solomon were among the most influential books of ritual magic in the late Middle Ages. These texts survive in multiple versions that intersect with different cultures and knowledge disciplines. The Almandal was adapted into Latin, most likely in the twelfth century, from one or more lost Arabic exemplars. The fragmentary state of the oldest extant version raises several questions. The text seems to present a work of ritual magic, but certain elements point to an astral magic component. The composite nature of the text has prompted researchers to inquire about the form of the archetype, the role of the Christian translator/editor, and whether the “Almandal” as we know it ever existed in Arabic.

The Almadel first emerged in the fifteenth century and represents a significant Christian revision of the earlier Almandal. Scholars have shown considerable interest in the Almadel for at least two reasons: first, it accrued a complex angelic cosmology that appears to have its origins in the Jewish tradition of the Liber Razielis (The Book of the Angel Raziel or The Book of the Mysteries); second, it exhibits a new, spiritual orientation, absent in the Almandal, thus providing a unique window into the early formation of what many now refer to as “Christian Theurgy.”

To date, scholarly attention has focused predominately on the Latin Almadel and its various vernacular translations (English, German, Italian). This imbalance may be attributed partly to gaps in the manuscript tradition that have isolated the Almandal and obscured its connection with the Almadel. However, over the last fifteen years, the discovery of several Latin and Hebrew manuscripts has helped to clarify the early tradition of the Almandal/Almadel while at the same time complicating previous assumptions about its origins.

This session seeks to reevaluate the history of the Almandal/Almadel in light of these and other discoveries. We invite papers on topics including, but not limited to:

  • The history of the text
  • Its Christian and Jewish reception
  • Connections to traditions such as the Liber Razielis, the Ars notoria, and Berengar Ganell’s Summa sacre magice
  • The role of these texts in the universities and their adoption and use by lay readers

We welcome papers that explore these themes and contribute to a deeper understanding of the Almandal and Almadel and their place in the history of ritual magic and religious practice.

Keywords: Manuscript Studies, Almandal, Magic, Societas Magica, History of the Book, Multicultural, Solomon, History of Magic

Proposals

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words by 15 September 2024. All paper proposals must be submitted via the official Confex proposal portal.

Link: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6392

Halle (Saale), Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, 14 B 36, fol. 243r: Image image of the almadel or “table of spirits”. Astro-magical texts on paper, circa 1400. Image C.C. BY 4.0, via http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/33754.

6. “Sendalphon, Send Me a Dream:
Dream Books, Spells, Divination, Incubation, and Interpretation” (ID #6171)

Online Session

Co-sponsored with the Societas Magica
and
Polytheist-Oriented Medievalists of North America (P.-O.M.o.N.A.)

Organizers:
Phillip Bernhardt-House (Independent Scholar)
Claire Fanger (Department of Religion, Rice University)

Aim

From ancient Mesopotamian cultures, dreams are associated with divine encounters and intervention, particularly with foretelling future events directly or symbolically.  Dream interpretation literature is rife with these understandings.  Magical operations eliciting divinatory dreams are widely encountered.  Particular sacred locations specializing in cultivating divinatory sleep for healing and other purposes, known as “dream incubation,” offered interpreters to assist those who sought such dreams.  This session will explore many examples of dreams in/as divination, the outcome of spells, and through particular practices of incubation, as well as their interpretations and practices related to them in manuscript and other sources of various periods.

Keywords: Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Spells, Divination, Manuscript Studies, Magic, Societas Magica, Dream Incubation

Proposals

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words by 15 September 2024. All paper proposals must be submitted via the official Confex proposal portal.

Link: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6171 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 7. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, Commentum Macrobii Ambrosii in somnium Scipionis. Dated 1469 Feb. 7. Image Public Domain via https://houghtonlib.tumblr.com/post/146944005911/macrobius-ambrosius-aurelius-theodosius-comentum.

Note on the Image
Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis (Commentary on The Dream of Scipio), by Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius (fl. c. AD 400) for a portion of De Re Republica by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC).

Image Public Domain via https://houghtonlib.tumblr.com/post/146944005911/macrobius-ambrosius-aurelius-theodosius-comentum.

Los Angeles, Getty Center, Ms. Ludwig XV 7 (83.MR.177), fol. 1. Image Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Note on the Image

Los Angeles, Getty Center, Ms. Ludwig XV 7 (83.MR.177), fol. 1.

Scipio and Guillaume de Lorris Lying in their Beds Dreaming

More information: SEE HERE.

*****

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Register for our Events by the RGME Eventbrite Collection.

Attend our next Events if your timetable allows. Our next Events:

  • Episode 17. RGME Retrospect and Prospects (Saturday 21 September 2024 online)
  • 2024 Autumn Symposium “At the Helm” (Friday–Saturday 25–26 October 2024 online)
  • Episode 18. “Women as Makers of Books” (Saturday 14 December 2024 online)

Consider making a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2024 Anniversary Appeal

Remember to send your Proposals for Papers for RGME Sessions at the 2025 ICMS by 15 September 2024.  See the instructions above.

We look forward to hearing from you and welcoming you to our events.

*****

Los Angeles, Getty Center, Ms. Ludwig XV 7 (83.MR.177), fol. 1. Scipio and Guillaume de Loris Lying in Their Beds Dreaming. Image Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: Almadel, Almandel, Apocalypse, Art History, Beatus, Correspondence, Couriers, Digital Humanities, Divination, Dream Incubation, dream interpretation, Dreams, Grimoires, History of Magic, History of the Book, Letters, Literature, Magic, Mail, Manuscript Production, Manuscript studies, Material Culture, Medieval manuscripts, Medieval Studies, Multicultural, Post Office, Postal, Religious Studies, Representations of Women, Solomon, Women's Authorship, Women's Literature
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Episode 16: An Interview with Jesse D. Hurlbut

February 14, 2024 in Announcements, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

The Research Group Speaks
Episode 16

Saturday 22 June 2024 online
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

“Trailblazing the Medieval Digital Humanities:
An Interview with Jesse D. Hurlbut”

Interviewer:  Mildred Budny, Director of the RGME

[Posted on 10 February 2024, with updates]

Jesse Hurlbut at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. Photograph Jesse Hurlbut.

Jesse Hurlbut at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. Photograph Jesse Hurlbut.

We invite you to attend Episode 16 in our series:

  • The Research Group Speaks

In this Episode, Jesse D. Hurlbut, RGME First WebMaster Emeritus, will speak informally about his contributions to manuscript studies, websites, digital access, and other interests.

Among them are his contributions to medieval manuscript studies, photography, and digital access; his teaching and research on French studies; his websites for himself and others (academic and non-profit organizations); his interests in promoting online communities for manuscript study and enjoyment; and more.

Update: Jesse returns for Episode 20 in March 2025 to report on his project on comic books and medieval manuscripts, as mentioned in this Episode.

  • Episode 20. “Comic Book Theory for Medievalists”

The Anniversary Symposium
in February 2024

Save-the-Date Poster for 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

This event follows upon the 2024 Anniversary “Manuscript (HE)ART”, held online on Saturday 24 February 2024, as the first in the RGME’s set of Symposia for the 2024 Anniversary Year:

  • 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut.. co-organized by Katharine C. Chandler and Jessica L. Savage

Taking its title from Jesse’s website Manuscript Art: Taking a Closer Look, the Symposium is designed to gather Jesse’s former students, colleagues, and friends, to consider subjects in manuscript and other studies of interest to him.

The Episode

Now, the Episode gives the chance to hear him, learn more about his interests, and join the conversation.  For example, in particular, he proposes to describe the early digital years. These recollections may record experiences viewed in hindsight and with foresight.

The Q&A to follow — or, if we wish, interlink — with the conversational interview gives the opportunity for feedback and participation.

Jesse Hurlbut holds his newly won manuscript leaf at the Kalamazoo Congress on 10 May 2014. (Photography by Mildred Budny)

Jesse Hurlbut holds his newly won manuscript leaf at the Kalamazoo Congress on 10 May 2014. (Photography by Mildred Budny)

Information about Jesse:

  • Jesse D. Hurlbut: Curriculum Vitae
  • Jesse Hurlbut (LinkedIn)
  • Manuscript Art: Taking a Closer Look

In His Own Words:

  • Interview with Medieval Scholar Jesse Hurlbut (Friday, 21 August 2009)
  • Beatus Vir (December 5, 2015)

Information about the Episode:

  • Episode 16. Trailblazing for the Medieval Digital Humanities: An Interview with Jesse Hurlbut
    You are Here.

Register for the Episode:

  • Episode 16: An Interview with Jesse D. Hurlbut; Tickets

Registration is free.

We offer the option for Registration with a voluntary Donation, which we welcome.

Donations, which may be tax-deductible, help us to continue with our activities and sustain our mission for an organization principally powered by volunteers. See:

  • Donations and Contributions

After registration, the Zoom link will be sent a few days before the event.

If you have questions or issues with the registration process, please contact

  • [email protected].
Jesse Hurlbut and others at the RGME Reception at the ICMS 9 May 2024. Photography Mildred Budny.

Jesse Hurlbut and others at the RGME Reception at the ICMS 9 May 2024. Photography Mildred Budny.

See you at the Episode!

*****

Future Episodes

Future Episodes are planned.  See:

  • “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series.

Other Events

We plan various other events for the 2024 Anniversary Year.

  • 2023 and 2024 Activities

For example:

  • 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut (online)
  • 2024 Spring and Autumn Symposia-plus-anniversary-symposium
  • 2024 Spring Symposium at Vassar College (hybrid)
  • 2024 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program (severally in-person, online, and partly hybrid)
  • 2024 International Medieval Congress at Leeds (hybrid)

Questions or Suggestions?

Please leave your questions or comments here (below), Contact Us, or visit

  • our FaceBook Page
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  • our Blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List

We invite you to join:

  • Friends of the RGME.

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!

  • Contributions and Donations
  • 2024 Anniversary Appeal

We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our events.

*****

Lisbon, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga: The mid 15th-century Saint Vincent Panels, attributed to Nuno Gonçalves. Image (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Nuno_Gon%C3%A7alves._Paineis_de_S%C3%A3o_Vicente_de_Fora.jpg) via Creative Commons.

*****

 

Tags: Interview, Jesse D. Hurlbut, Manuscript studies, Medieval Digital Humanities, Medieval manuscripts, RGME Webmaster, The Research Group Speaks, Trailblazing
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2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut: Program

October 18, 2023 in Announcements, Conference, Conference Announcement, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, RGME Symposia, Uncategorized

“MANUSCRIPT (HE)ART”

An RGME Anniversary Symposium
in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut
(RGME WebMaster Emeritus)

Co-Organized by
Katharine C. Chandler and Jessica L. Savage

Saturday 24 February 2024 online by Zoom
10:00 am – 4:00 pm EST (GMT-5)

Announcement Part 1: The Program

[Posted on 18 October 2023, with updates]

We announce the 2024 RGME Anniversary Symposium, as an expression of thanks to our RGME WebMaster Emeritus, Jesse Hurlbut, upon his retirement. This Symposium is the first in our Symposia for 2024, when the RGME celebrates an anniversary of 35 years as an international scholarly society founded in England, and 25 years as a nonprofit educational corporation based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Jesse’s contributions to the RGME as Associate and WebMaster date from 2005, a few years after our incorporation in 1999 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.  The generosity of his contributions to the RGME and many others in fields of manuscript and other studies across the years lead us, in the company of some of his former students and colleagues, to offer this Symposium in thanks.

For the background for this Symposium, see the companion post to this one:

  • 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut: Plan

The First WebMaster of the RGME

An accomplished medievalist, manuscript historian, photographer, blogger, and scholar of French language and literature, Jesse Hurlbut generously served as the first WebMaster of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (2005–2023). Following Jesse’s retirement on 30 June 2023, we wish to offer this event in thanks, to examine subjects related to his interests, work, and teaching in the world of manuscript studies. The Symposium brings together former students, colleagues, and friends to share their work and work-in-progress in various subjects or projects which his work, teaching, and example may have helped to inspire or refine.

Jesse Hurlbut and the Château de Chambord in 2023. Photograph by Patricia Stevenson.

The Purpose

Our Save-the-Date Poster expresses the plan in word and image for an Anniversary Symposium full of “MANUSCRIPT (HE)ART”.  (You may download it here.)

Save-the-Date Poster for 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 2023 Autumn Symposium Progam, Anniversary Symposium, Giving Thanks, Jesse Hurlbut, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, RGME Symposia
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