Workshop 6. “What’s In a Name?”
April 16, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Workshops
RGME Workshops
on
“The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”
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/)
[Posted on 16 April 2025]
Continuing our series of RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”, we move from the first series, Workshops 1–5 devoted principally to identifying selected Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible Manuscript Fragments.
The Name ‘Game’
By request, for Workshop 6 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.
Add-On
Since Workshop 5, a new discovery of a medieval Latin Bible leaf has come to light, so that we might briefly introduce it to our ongoing project on those materials.
The owner contacted us because of our blog on Manuscript Studies, which featured some leaves from the same Bible manuscript despoiled and distributed by Otto F. Ege, biblioclast. His work, its widespread legacy, and multiple projects dedicated to identifying and reconstructing (at least virtually) the fragments of manuscripts inspired us to prepare our 2025 Autumn Colloquium on “Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books”.
Can you guess which manuscript this fragment came from?
We show one side, as it stands in the glass frame which at present contains it. Visible within the window of the mat is the leaf with part of the running title (MA-) and the text laid out in two columns of thirty-two lines. In the intercolumn, a segmented frieze-like vertical series of J– or reverse L-shaped bar motifs in alternating red and blue pigment extends above and below the 2-line inset initial A (for Anno) for Chapter VII.
Private Collection. Leaf from a Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible, Manuscript, ‘Verso’.
Registration
After registration, we will send the Zoom Link shortly before the event. The Link will come from the RGME, not Eventbrite or Zoom.
With registration, we invite you to make a Voluntary Donation in support of our nonprofit educational organization powered principally by volunteers. Your donation for our Section 509(c)(3) nonprofit organization might be tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.
We thank you for your support for our organization and interest in our activities.
We hope to see you there.
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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/)