2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’

February 1, 2016 in Bembino, Conference Announcement, Events

Initial C of Concede. Detail from a leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 15’, the ‘Beauvais Missal’. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by Permission

Words & Deeds

Actions Enacted, Re-Enacted & Restored

From Late-Antique Theater to the Legacy of Otto Ege
by way of, inter alia, Saint-Denis and Gutenberg

A Symposium of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Friday & Saturday, 25–26 March 2016
106 McCormick Hall
Princeton University

2014 Colloquium on “When Dust Has Settled” Program Announced

November 6, 2014 in Conference Announcement, Events, Exhibition, Reception

We announce the Program for the Colloquium to take place on Friday, 14 November 2014 at Princeton University.

[This post updates the Announcement for this event, published as Colloquium Announced.] Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Apocalypse manuscripts, British Library Cotton MS Claudius B.iv, British Library Royal MS 1 E.vi, Charles Rufus Morey, Department of Art and Archaeology, Ezra Pound, Flemish Psalter Illustration, Günther Haseloff, Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Index of Christian Art, Interlace Ornament, Knotwork, Medieval manuscripts, Moses and his attributes, Princeton University
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2014 Colloquium “When the Dust Has Settled” Announced

October 28, 2014 in Conference Announcement, Events

[Updates appear with the Colloquium Program Preview and the Program Accomplished, Program Booklet with Abstracts included.]

We announce a Colloquium, co-sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, to take place on Friday, 14 November 2014 at Princeton University. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Anniversary Celebration, Charles Rufus Morey, Index of Christian Art, Princeton University
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2014 Anniversary Reflections

August 17, 2014 in Anniversary, Bembino, Events, Favorites, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Detail of decorated initials and script, with focus upon 'Ecce . . . Bene', with photography by Mildred Budny

‘Ecce . . . Bene’. Photography © Mildred Budny

Who, What, Where, When, Why Not

[Published on 17 August 2014, with updates]

The Mission, History, People, and Activities of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence are reported on the Pages and Posts of our website and other Publications. During this landmark anniversary year, celebrating 15 years as a nonprofit educational corporation and 25 as an international scholarly society, we pause to reflect upon the course and nature of our essence and abilities as a collective entity. And we give thanks. Couldn’t do it alone! Come with us to see how that works, and plays! Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Insular Anglo-Saxon and Early Anglo-Norman Art at Corpus Christi College Cambridge, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Princeton University
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2014 Symposium on “Recollections of the Past”

July 15, 2014 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Bembino, Conference Announcement, Events

Recollections of the Past:
Editorial & Artistic Workshops
from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity & Beyond

Friday & Saturday 16 & 17 May 2014
138 Lewis Library
Princeton University

Save the Date Announcement for Symposium on "Recollections of the Past" (May 2015) in its completed version with border

“Save the Date” Announcement (complete)

RGME Symposium 2014 Program & Abstracts Page 1 with border

Symposium Program Page 1

Poster for "Recollections of the Past" Symposium (May 2014) with border

Symposium Poster

[First published on 15 July 2014, with updates. And now with the corrected Program Booklet:
RGME Symposium 2014 Program & abstracts corrected]

The “Save the Date” Announcement (Save the Date 16-17 May 2014) set the stage by describing the intentions and scope of the subject. To sum up:

This symposium explored the workings of workshops, as revealed through the traces of artists, craftsmen, scribes, authors, editors, printers, and patrons, across a wide range of subjects, regions, and materials, in transitions from classical antiquity and early Christianity through the long Middle Ages and thence to the early modern period and beyond. We seek to discern how these editorial agents of whatever kind shaped and reshaped materials — tangible and intangible — in transmitting the legacy of the past, often in the process to form works which perhaps seemed more viable in changing times, expectations, and systems of belief. Memory may hold a significant place among the materials, processes, and forces at work in the processes of collecting, shaping, and, in many cases, transforming complex bodies of evidence in a robust or precarious voyage from the past.

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence warmly thank the Sponsors, Donors, and Contributors to the Symposium, which formed part of the celebrations for our 2014 Anniversary Year. Other celebrations have included our Sessions at the 2014 International Congress on Medieval Studies in May, along with an Anniversary Reception. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: bokes of antiquity, Books of Hours, Caroline Lybbe Powys, Carolingian Studies, Church History, Codex Amiatinus, Courtly Love Ivories, Department of Art & Archaeology, Domestic Grand Tour, Early Modern Studies, Editorial Practices, erasable notebooks, Eusebian Canon Tables, History of Cambridge University, History of Workshops, Iconoclasm studies, Index of Christian Art, John Caius, Manuscript Illumination, Manuscript studies, Matthew Parker, Medieval Studies, Monkwearmouth-Jarrow, periodization of history, Princeton University, Qal'at Sim'an, Romanesque Sculpture, Saint-Sernin of Toulouse, Syriac Cave of Treasures
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2013 Symposium on “Identity & Authenticity”

January 1, 2014 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Conference Announcement, Events, Exhibition

Identity & Authenticity

Creating, Recreating, Transmitting & Preserving Identities Across Time & Place

We held a Symposium at Princeton University on 22 & 23 March 2013 with the theme of “Identity & Authenticity: Creating, Recreating, Transmitting & Preserving Identities Across Time & Place”. Here we publish the Symposium Posters, Program, and Abstracts of the Papers, with thanks to all our Sponsors, Contributors, and Participants.

Symposium

Friday & Saturday 22 & 23 March 2013
McCormick 106, Princeton University

Poster 1

Poster 2

The challenges of shaping, reshaping, maintaining, conveying, and validating identity, both personal and collective, are perennial human concerns. Our symposium explored subjects, regions, and materials from the early medieval period to the present day. Presentations considered, for example, Western European and Syriac manuscript discoveries, Byzantine liturgical textiles, medieval seal-matrices and “forgeries,” Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic magical recipes from the Cairo Genizah, the transmission of Islamic paper, the reliquary of John the Baptist owned by the Knights of Malta and the Tzars, the medieval-style Hammond Castle in Massachusetts, the challenges and opportunities of collecting medieval manuscripts nowadays, and digitization projects dedicated to manuscripts and archives for teaching and research.

Sponsors:

James Marrow and Emily Rose

John H. Rassweiler

Index of Christian Art

Barbara A. Shailor

The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

De Brailles Medieval Art (LLC)

Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity, Princeton University

We also thank the Department of Art & Archaeology of Princeton University for the rooms, media services, and facilities for the event.

Speakers and Moderators:

James Marrow at the "Identity & Authenticity" Symposium (2013), with photography by James Heidere

Having a Look

Opening Remarks

James H. Marrow (Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University)

Session 1. Investigating the Archives: Detecting Spheres of Influence

Moderator: Celia Chazelle (Department of History, The College of New Jersey)

Alan M. Stahl (Firestone Library, Princeton University), “The Virgin in the Garden: The Making of a Pilgrimage Site in Medieval Venice”

Eleanor A. Congdon (Department of History, Youngstown State University), “Who was Antonio Contarini? Solving the Prosopographical Riddle of a Venetian Merchant in the Datini Archives”

Ortal-Paz Saar (School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study / Tel Aviv University), “A Genizah Magical Fragment and Its European Parallels”

[Note: Now published as “A Genizah Magical Fragment and Its European Parallels”, Journal of Jewish Studies, 65:2 (2014), 237–262, described here]

Session 2. Imaging or Imagining Identity: Recreating a Medieval Legacy

Moderator: Colum Hourihane (Index of Christian Art, Princeton University)

Karl F. Morrison (Department of History, Rutgers University), “Assimilating the Libri Carolini in the Seventeenth Century”

John H. Rassweiler (The Rassweiler Collection, Princeton), “Some Experiences with the Validation of Medieval Seal-Matrices of the Common People”

Martha E. Easton (Department of Communication and the Arts, Seton Hall University), “Authenticity, Anachronism, and the Experience of the Past at Hammond Castle”

Session 3. Shaping and Preserving Identity in the Syriac Church

Moderator: Kathleen E. McVey (Department of History, Princeton Theological Seminary)

Philip Michael Forness (Department of History, Princeton Theological Seminary), “The Identities of a Saint: An Initial Inquiry into the Manuscript Tradition of the Homilies by Jacob of Sarug”

Jack B. Tannous (Department of History, Princeton University), “Syril of Scythopolis in Syriac: Observations on a Manuscript from the Sinai New Finds”

George Kiraz (Editor in Chief, Gorgias Press / Department of Middle Eastern and South-East Asian Languages & Literature, Rutgers University), “The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Archive of Mardin: Digitization and Challenges”

Session 4. Creating Digitally-Enabled Manuscript Resources for Research & Teaching

Moderator: James H. Marrow (Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University)

Thomas A. Carlson (Department of History, Princeton University / Beth Marduthuo Research Library, Piscataway), “Identity and Identification in the Digital Humanities: The Challenges and Experience of Syriaca.org”

Barbara A. Shailor (Department of Classics, Yale University), “A Mellon Foundation Project at Yale University: The World of Digitally-Enabled Scholarship for Research and Teaching”

Session 5. Discovering, Recovering, and Evaluating the Source Materials

Moderator: Colum Hourihane

David W. Sorenson (Quincy, Massachusetts), “Recent Studies in Islamic Paper and What They Can Tell Us About Texts (and Images)”

Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence), “A New Fragment of the Vitas Patrum from the Covers of an Early Printed Postille: An Early Case of Western Paper?”

Scott Gwara (Department of English, University of South Carolina – Columbia / King Alfred’s Notebook, LLC & De Brailes Medieval Art LLC), “Medieval Manuscripts in the Strangest Places”

Rossitza and Ida at the Day 1 Reception of the 2013 Symposium, with photography by James Heidere

Enjoying the Company

Session 6. Establishing or Re-Establishing Identities in the Byzantine World and Beyond

Moderator: Mildred Budny

Henry D. Schilb (Index of Christian Art, Princeton University), “Serbian and Christian Identity in the Embroideries of the Nun Jefimija”

Rossitza B. Schroeder (Visiting Fellow in Hellenic Studies, Princeton University / Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California), “The New Chosen People: The Old Testament in Late Byzantium”

Ida Sinkevič (Department of Art, Lafayette College), “The Afterlife of the Rhodes Hand of St. John the Baptist”

[Note: This has been published here]

Demonstration: Demonstrating Original Sources and Database Resources

Displays by:

Demonstration Session on 23 Mar 2013 at the "Identity & Authenticity" Symposium, with manuscripts on the table

Examining the Originals

Scott Gwara (De Brailes Medieval Art LLC)
David Sorenson (Specimens of Islamic Paper)
Eleanor Congdon (Specimens from the Datini Archive)
Thomas A. Carlson (The Syriac Reference Portal)

*****

The Symposium Booklet, edited by Mildred Budny and laid out in RGME Bembino, contains the
2013 Symposium Program & Abstracts of the Papers.

[The version uploaded on 29 September 2014 corrects a couple of typographical mistakes in the version circulated at the event.]

*****

Circulated online before the Symposium, the Program and Poster 2 are also available here on the online Calendar of the Program in Medieval Studies of Princeton University:

Medieval Studies Calendar Archive Princeton University

[Formerly here: “http://web.princeton.edu/sites/medieval/images/RGME%20Symposium%20Program.pdf”]

RGME Symposium Poster

*****

Photographs by James Heidere

*****

Tags: Antonio Contarini, Cairo Genizah, Church of San Cristoforo in Venice, Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity, cult of images, Datini Archives, De Brailles Medieval Art (LLC), Department of Art & Archaeology, digitally-enabled scholarship, digitization of manuscripts, Domenico Calvaca, embroideries of Jefimija, Hammond Castle, history of Islamic paper, History of Paper Manufacture, history of textiles, Index of Christian Art, Jacob of Sarug, late Byzantine monumental Old Testament cycles, Libri Carolini, magical recipes, medieval manuscripts in North America, medieval seal-matrices, medieval-style architecture, Mellon Foundation project, Patriarchal Archive in Mardin, Postille printed in Lyons 1527, Princeton University, Rassweiler Collection, Rhodes Hand of John the Baptist, seventeenth-century religious polemics, Sinai Syriac New Finds, Syriac Christianity, Syriac manuscript studies, Syriac Reference Portal, Syriac studies, Syriaca.org, Syril of Scythopolis, The Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Transmission of the Vitas Patrum, Virgin in the Garden, Vita Sanctae Marinae, Yale University
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2009 Anniversary Symposium “Gathering at the Threshold”

January 1, 2014 in Anniversary, Conference Announcement, Events, Photographic Exhibition

Gathering at the Threshold:
A Celebratory Symposium

In 2009 and 2010 the Research Group celebrated the twentieth anniversary of its formation as an entity in England and the tenth anniversary of its formation as a nonprofit educational corporation based in Princeton, New Jersey. The stages of our history and the variety of our activities are reported in the pages of our Profile and History.

The date of our “official birthday” as a New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation occurs in November. We celebrated our Tenth/Twentieth Anniversary of 2009 with a gathering of Trustees, Honorary Trustees, Honorary Associates, Volunteers, and newcomers.

Raymond Cormier Speaks at our 2009 Symposium. Photography by James P. Heidere.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Anniversary Celebration, Department of Art & Archaeology, Insular Script, Medieval Adaptations of Vergil's Aeneid, Origen, Pontius Pilate, Princeton University, Ruskin and Art History, Women's Wills
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1995‒2000 Symposia on “The Transmission of the Bible”

January 1, 2014 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Conference Announcement, Events

“The Transmission of the Bible”
A Series of Annual Symposia (1995‒2000)

[First published on our first website on 19 April 2006, with updates]

Beginning in 1995, the Research Group jointly sponsored a series of Annual Symposia on “The Transmission of the Bible,” organized by Mildred Budny and held at various centers in turn. The series began with the invitation by our Associate Jane Rosenthal to hold a symposium soon after the Research Group moved its principal base to the United States in the autumn of 1994. Both Princeton University and Douglass College of Rutgers University hosted two symposia in the rotation.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Barnard College, Columbia University, Department of Art & Archaeology, Fordham University, H.P. Kraus, Inc., Index of Christian Art, Late-Antique Studies, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Scriptorium: Center for Christian Antiquities, Transmission of the Bible
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Photographic Exhibitions & Masterclasses (1990–)

January 1, 2014 in Events, ICMS, Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

[Published on 1 January 2014, with updates]

Now in Bembino

Since 1990, sometimes as part of its Seminars, Workshops, and Conference Sessions, the Research Group has held photographic exhibitions on Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; the University of Oxford; and elsewhere.

Mostly using photographs by Mildred Budny, they include many of the Research Group Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” as well as these occasions:

“The Integrated Approach to Manuscript Studies” (Tokyo, 1992)

Exhibition held with variations at the University of Tokyo at Komaba, at Chuo University, Tokyo, and at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo (November and December 1992). The Exhibition Booklet is now downloadable here (2016).

“The Integrated Approach to Manuscript Studies” (International Congress on Medieval Studies, 1993 & 1994)

The previous exhibition held with further variations twice at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 1993 and May 1994).

These exhibitions formed part of the contributions by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and its Director to the Congress, as reported for our Session at the 28th International Congress on Medieval Studies and Session at the 29th International Congress on Medieval Studies. The 1994 exhibition was designed to accompany the Dedication ceremony for the new Richard Rawlinson Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies. The current activities of that Center are reported here: About Us at the Richard Rawlinson Center.

“The Monastic Library: Books from St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury” (Princeton University, 1995)

Exhibition held at Wilson College, Princeton University (March 1995).

*****

Since 2006, invited Master Classes taught by Mildred Budny, in Princeton and elsewhere, have provided instruction on aspects and techniques of responsibly photographing manuscripts, documents, and works of art for purposes of research, preservation, exhibition, and publication. Some of these classes accompany, and augment, our continuing work on Genealogies & Archives.

Front Cover Volume I: Text

Front Cover Volume II: Plates

Our publications or co-publications include photographs of the manuscripts themselves and related materials (many or mostly by Mildred Budny). Some publications contain so generous a number of photographs as to constitute a form of exhibition, as with the two-volume illustrated catalogue of Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. They are listed in our Publications.

While the world in recent years has turned widespread and extensively funded attention to the production, proliferation, and presentation of digital images reproducing manuscripts for online exhibition, the photographic work of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in its foundational collaborative and integrated study of manuscripts, before the dawn of the Digital Age, represents an example of the collaborative efforts to produce and reproduce images as accurately as possible so as to demonstrate the evidence and to encourage responsible interpretations from a wide and integrated range of specialists, students, and interested “bystanders” alike.

An example demonstrating these multiple approaches is our 2014 Seminar on “Manuscripts & Their Photographs”.

*****

Beregendarius document (detail of opening text) with photography © Mildred Budny

In August 2008, in exploring new developments and potential for our first website [launched in 2007 as www.manuscriptevidence.org, and then archived as http://www.manuscriptevidence.org/data/ during the transition to our second, updated website, launched in 2014 as manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/; You are Here], we were granted generous permission to photograph a group of medieval manuscript fragments and documents in a private collection, and to publish these images here, when the site allowed.

The photography is designed to show the whole objects, as well as details.

We invite, conduct, and report research on these materials. With their accompanying descriptions and assessments, the display may constitute a virtual exhibition.

We welcome questions or comments about the images. We hope that exhibiting them in this way will promote fuller knowledge of their nature, context, significance, and relatives.

We may also use this opportunity to discuss suitable techniques of photographing manuscripts and other artifacts responsibly, with respect to the directions of scholarly interests as well as curatorial and conservational concerns. Not always do these interests and concerns need to stand at odds with or against each other, especially with communication and collaboration. Such discussion may function, for example, as form of a tipsheet or masterclass.

*****

Poster for lecture on 'Manuscripts versus Photography: Image and "Imago" in a Digital Age' by Mildred Budny at Princeton University on 19 November 2010. Photograph by Mildred Budny of MS 10, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque des Annonciades,reproduced by permission.

Photograph by Mildred Budny of MS 10, Boulogne-sur-mer, Bibliothèque des Annonciades, reproduced by permission

As part of this process, we continue to present results and to discuss the issues involved in photographic recording of manuscript and related materials. An example is recorded at web.princeton.edu/sites/medieval/calendar_f10.html, with its accompanying Poster. We thank the owners of the image and of the photograph for permission for reproduction on the poster.

*****

Please watch this space for further developments, as we unveil a new, illustrated page in our history.

Floral Border with gold pigment, photography © Mildred Budny

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[Update]

And now, we offer fruits, with illustrations, of these interlinked processes of photography, research, photography, research, reflection, revision, and reports, in our series of blogposts (since 2015) on Manuscript Studies. Its Contents List (shown there) is growing.

Besides, along the way, we have also been able to open a series of Galleries on this website (since 2014) showcasing, generously from another private collection, a set of images of scripts and texts across the centuries and in a variety of languages:

Scripts on Parade
Texts on Parade

Have a look! More to come . . .

Please let us know if you recognize any of the manuscripts from which some of these fragments have come!

*****

Tags: Aoyama Gakuin University, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Digital Imaging, Manuscript Illumination, Manuscript Photography, Manuscript studies, Manuscripts & Early Printed Books, Medieval manuscripts, Princeton University, Richard Rawlinson Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies, University of Tokyo, Wilson College
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2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’