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

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Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020

April 4, 2020 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements, Bembino, Business Meeting, Conference, Conference Announcement, ICMS, Index of Medieval Art, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Manuscript Studies, Princeton University, Societas Magica

Keeping Up:

Updates for Spring 2020

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Scrying, Perchance? Image via Creative Commons.

This Spring, the cancellation of 2 of our major events planned for this year, and intended to take place in mid-March and mid-May, produces perforce a redirection of energies and activities.  Call it “Regrouping”.

We report updates.

1.  Our 2020 Spring Symposium:  “From Cover to Cover”

Planned for 13–14 March at Princeton University
But Cancelled or Postponed

As preparations were proceeding apace, the event was cancelled by Princeton University — along with other events — on 9 March, in response to growing concerns for the spread of COVID-19 on a global scale.  Although at short notice, it was possible swiftly to cancel reservations for the venue, catering, and other services before participants had begun their journeys.

What We Planned

  • 2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date
2020 Symposium "From Cover to Cover" Poster 2

2020 Symposium Poster 2

We aimed to consider, “From Cover to Cover”, activities dedicated to manuscripts, early printed materials, and beyond, from collecting and cataloguing to deciphering and beholding.  We prepared to gather specialists, teachers, students, and others engaged or interested in activities such as “Collecting, Curating, Conserving, Cataloguing, Deciphering, Reading, Reconsidering, Editing, Teaching, Displaying, Accessing, Beholding, and More”.

The focus was designed to center primarily upon medieval and early modern materials, both Western and non-Western.  The presentations would include reports of discoveries, work-in-progress, cumulative research, and collaborative projects by specialists from multiple centers, including independent scholars and younger scholars.

Included were workshops over original materials in manuscript and early print, a demonstration of materials and processes for medieval scripts, discussions about databases devoted to manuscripts and rare books, and sessions addressing multiple activities approaching medieval, early modern, and other textual resources.  Subjects would span a wide range geographically and chronologically, and take care to attend to the material and bibiographical evidence.

What We Can Do

There are requests for rescheduling the Symposium, or parts thereof, when conditions might permit.

Meanwhile, we can publish the Symposium Booklet.  At the time of cancellation, it had come close to completion for printing and distributing at the event and then afterward, as is our custom.  For example:

  • 2019 Anniversary Symposium on “The Roads Taken”
  • 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds”
  • 2014 Symposium on “Recollections of the Past”
  • 2013 Symposium on “Identity & Authenticity”

For all these and our other Booklets (see our Publications), the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence is the nonprofit publisher and distributor.  The design and layout conform with our Style Manifesto and employ our own digital font Bembino .

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German School, 15th century. Oil on Wood. Opened book with fanned pages. Image via Wikimedia, Public Domain.

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German School, 15th century. Image via Wikimedia, Public Domain.

The new 44-page Symposium Booklet contains the 2020 Symposium Program, Abstracts of the Papers and Masterclasses, and a set of accompanying Illustrations (some published for the first time).  The Booklet includes corrections and revisions offered by several of the authors as we completed the layout and editing, after the cancellation of the event.

It is the longest so far of all our Symposium Booklets. The 2019 Booklet for “The Roads Taken” has 28 pages, and the 2016 Booklet for “Words & Deeds” has 24 pages.  Only the Booklet for our multi-lingual digital font Bembino is longer, at 56 pages, including all the font tables for the different styles and languages. That Booklet and the font itself (now in Version 1.6) are freely available for download and use (commercial use included).  Here:  Bembino .

Our illustrated 2020 Spring Symposium Booklet is likewise freely available for download. As with other cases, for your convenience, we make it available in 2 versions, which may suit different printing arrangements, as wished.  The versions are:

  • printable in consecutive quarto-sized pages (8 1/2″ × 11″)
    2020 Spring Symposium Booklet as Consecutive Pages
  • printable as double sheets (11″ × 17″) which can be folded into the booklet, nesting the bifolia within each other
    — a design which does not require staples for closure and perusal
    2020 Spring Symposium as a Foldable Booklet

We thank our hosts, sponsors, contributors, owners and donors of images, editor, copy-editor, and layout designer. The publication is our gift to all who aimed to participate in the event and to follow its ‘ripples’ after the accomplishment of the Symposium. We offer it as a ‘souvenir’ of what our contributors, and the spirit of generous participation, intended for the event.

While we may explore plans to reschedule the event, or its parts, in some way or ways, the Booklet stands as a place-holder, and as a vivid glimpse of what could be and, indeed, can be. The gathering energy and enthusiasm for the event, as the weeks and days advanced toward it, remain a testimony to the constructive collective spirit which inspired it.

2020 Symposium "From Cover to Cover" Poster 1

2020 Symposium Poster 1

_____

With these observations, I am reminded of the Motto which I chose, years ago, for the 2-volume Illustrated Catalogue, co-published by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

For Books are not absolutely dead things,
but doe contain a potencie of life in them
to be active as that soule was whose progeny they are;
nay, they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction
of the living intellect that bred them.

John Milton, Aeropagitica (1644)

Perhaps same as it ever was.

_____

Cover Page for Sorenson (2020 Spring Symposium Paper as Draft for Comment), with an array of illustrations and the title "Introduction to Indian Manuscripts"

Cover Page for Sorenson (2020 Spring Symposium Paper as Draft for Comment)

P. S.  Already one of our speakers, David W. Sorenson, has provided a draft version of his intended Symposium Paper for feedback. It expands the Abstract which appears in the 2020 Spring Symposium Booklet.

The paper provides “A Quick Introduction to Indian Manuscripts for the Non-Specialist”, with examples and illustrations.

With permission, we offer here his pdf.

Please contact us with your questions or suggestions.  (Contact details below.)

*****

2.  Our Activities at the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Planned for 7–10 May at Kalamazoo
But Cancelled or Postponed

On 17 March, this year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in May was cancelled, and with it all the activities which we were to sponsor and co-sponsor there, including Sessions and other meetings.  The Congress organizers declared that “We invite the organizers of sponsored . . . sessions approved for the 2020 Congress to re-propose them for the 2021 congress.  If proposed, they will be approved automatically”.

Unlike some organizations, who have declared this intention to re-present for the 2121 Congress, we do not know automatically if such a course would be appropriate for us, or for each and every one of our sessions.  Time will tell.

2019 Anniversary Reception Invitation. set in RGME digital font Bembino.

2019 Anniversary Reception Invitation.

Poster for our Session co-sponsored with the Societas Magica on "Celtic Magic Texts", organized by Phillip A. Bernhardt-House and sponsored by both the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence amd the Societas Magica at the 2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

2018 Poster

The cancellation came in time before all reservations for the journey had been set into place.  Because our customary year-long preparations for the Congress had not reached the last weeks of its approach, we had not yet prepared the customary Posters for our Sessions or the Invitations to the Reception and Business Meeting, nor had the Agenda for that Meeting yet been drawn up.  Posters for previous Congresses show the standards.

However, we did in place have a series of posts on our website (You Are Here) announcing the plans for our 2020 Congress Activities, in stages with updates:

  • the Call for Papers for our approved Sessions, with descriptions of their aims and with selected Images (poster-worthy when the time would come) to exemplify their subjects and scope
  • the 2020 Congress Program, with the authors and titles of the selected Papers for each Session — including a permitted extra Session, given the strength of the responses to the Call, for our proposed Session “Seal the Real”
  • the 2020 Congress Program Announced, with the times and rooms assigned by the Congress Committee for our Program Activities, and with some of the Abstracts for the Papers.

In keeping with custom, we had begun, one by one (starting with the New Year), to post the Abstracts, as a foretaste for the presentations and discussions to come.

The cancellation of the Congress brought these stages to a halt, for a while, during which time we turned to other tasks — including the on-going follow-up from the cancellation or postponement of our Spring Symposium, and the completion of its Booklet.

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. mage via Creative Commons.

What We Planned

  • 2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Announced

We prepared for 5 Sessions with Papers, an Open Business Meeting, and a Reception.

These resemble the numbers and sorts of our activities in recent years at the Annual Congress.  For example:

  • 2019 Congress
  • 2018 Congress
  • 2017 Congress
  • 2016 Congress
  • 2015 Congress

This year’s plans also involved our 2 co-sponsors in recent years for Sessions and/or Receptions.

A.  Sessions

We prepared for 5 Sessions this year.

3 Sessions Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

1–2. Seal the Real: Documentary Records, Seals & Authentications

organized by Mildred Budny

Part I.  Signed & Sealed
Part II.  × Marks the Spot

3. Prologues in Medieval Texts of Magic, Astrology, and Prophecy

organized by Vajra Regan

Logo of the Societas Magica, reproduced by permission

Logo of the Societas Magica

2 Sessions Co-Sponsored with the Societas Magica
in the 16th year of this collaboration

4–5. Revealing the Unknown

organized by Sanne de Laat and László Sándor Chardonnens

Part I.  Scryers and Scrying in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
Part II.   Sortilège, Bibliomancy, and Divination

B.  2020 Open Business Meeting of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

1-Page Agendas customarily provided at the time.  This year we send it out already.  (See below.)

C.  Reception co-sponsored with the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University
in the 3rd year of this collaboration

_____

P. S.  Part of Mildred Budny’s on-going research on the subject of seals and signatures, which would have figured in her Response to Session II of our “Seals” Sessions, now appears on our blog, Manuscript Studies, presenting Preston Take 2.  (See the Contents List for the blog, as more discoveries await publication.)

_____

P. P. S.  It is not lost on us that some of our planned Sessions for 2020 were to consider aspects of the history of divinatory skills across time and place.  But when we collectively chose these, as well as other subjects, last year for our sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions this year, it was not easy to guess then that this year’s Sessions would not take place, after all, at their appointed time and place.

Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons. A young lady, brightly lit and beautifully dressed, looks outward as an older woman, beneath a dark hood, holds a set of cards and stares at them with intent.

Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

What We Can Do

A.  Abstracts for the 2020 Congress Papers

Detail of opened book with schematic text. Photography © Mildred BudnyOur custom is to post on our website the Abstracts for the Papers of our Sessions at the Congress.  (See our Abstracts for Congress Papers.)  This year is no different.

In the winter of 2019–2020, we had begun to post the 2020 Abstracts, one by one, as is our custom.  They are linked to our announced Program: 2020 Congress Program Announced. The Abstracts function as a foretaste of the ‘Menu’ of the Sessions, and can provide a record of their subjects, aims, and scope of the presentations.

Already in earlier years (as with the 2016 Congress and the 2014 Congress), as a sign of appreciation, we chose to adopt the tradition of posting Abstracts even when a contributor was unable to travel to the Congress and to present the paper in person.  The publication of such Abstracts states that, although proposed, accepted, and scheduled within the Session and Congress Program, the paper was not, in the event, presented.

Before March 2020, only once before, in more than 30 years of activities in many centers in the United States and elsewhere (see our Events and Congress Activities), has the Research Group had to cancel an event itself.  That case was only 1 Session among 7 sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions at the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies in May 2013.

This year, after the cancellation of both our 2020 Spring Symposium (see above) and the 2020 Congress, we first turned to completing the Symposium Booklet, and then to completing the posting of the 2020 Abstracts.

Those tasks are now accomplished.  For these Congress Abstracts, see

  • 2020 Congress Program Announced and Abstracts of Congress Papers Listed by Year.

For the Symposium Booklet, see

  • 2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date

Thus we honor the intentions of our participants and their readiness to contribute to our events.

Next, we might turn to contemplating further activities, and perhaps rescheduling some of these ones.

[Update:  In the summer and autumn of 2020, we advance with planning to hold the same Sessions, albeit with a few changes, at the 2021 Congress.  See the 2021 Congress Program in Progress.]

B.  Agenda for the 2020 Business Meeting

Meeting to be rescheduled:  Time and Place to be Determined

The Annual Agendas for our Open Business Meetings, customarily held at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, remain available for consultation.

  • 2019 Agenda
  • 2018 Agenda
  • 2017 Agenda
  • 2016 Agenda
  • 2015 Agenda

These 1-page statements serve as concise Reports for our Activities, Plans, and Desiderata.  After the Meetings, the Abstracts are available for download on our website.  Some of them remain among the most popular downloads here.

Normally, the Agenda is presented at the Meeting.  This year, we send it out ahead of time.  It incorporates the updates of Spring 2020 and their constructive measures.

  • 2020 Agenda

It is not yet clear when this year’s Meeting, which had to be postponed, will take place.  Under present circumstances, we may contemplate a virtual meeting, say via online conferencing in some form.

Please let us know if you wish to participate in the Meeting.  We invite your comments, questions, and suggestions.  (See below.)

C. More

We thank all our contributors to the 2020 events.  The continuing momentum for such activities is a tribute to you all.

Please Contact Us with your questions and suggestions, for example to items on our  2020 Agenda.

For updates, please visit this site, our News & Views, and our Facebook Page .

For our nonprofit educational mission, with tax-exempt status, your donations in funds and/or in kind (expertise, materials, time) are welcome. Join us!

Tags: 'Manuscript Studies' Blog, 2020 Congress, 2020 Symposium, Bembino, Bembino Digital Font, Business Meeting, Early Printing, History of Documents, Manuscript studies, Medieval Studies, Seals and Signatures, Style Manifesto
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Designing Academic Posters

May 29, 2017 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies

Steady on the Page

Gold stamp on blue cloth of the logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence. Detail from the front cover of Volume II of 'The Illustrated Catalogue'Continuing to reflect on the values of presenting materials, whether text, image, or both, upon a page or writing surface, we have decided to proclaim the principles which guide our approach to layout of posters. You may have noticed some of them at our events, on the Posts of Pages pertaining to them, and/or in the Poster Gallery on this website.

You may know already about our views about design and layout, for example in the Illustrated Catalogue (our own design throughout, apart from the front covers and the promotional booklet), in our Style Manifesto (we are not so shy, uncommitted, or wimpy, as to call it a “Style Sheet”), and in all of our Publications.

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

Version of April 2015

Principles and Principled

Now we offer a similarly clear, and polemical, description of principles which we believe should govern the processes, and products, of Designing Academic Posters. The 4-page Booklet, set in RGME Bembino, describes and illustrates the aims.

You may download our booklet in whichever form you prefer:

  • Designing Academic Posters set out in 4 individual letter-sized (or quarto) pages
  • Designing Academic Posters as Booklet laid out on 11″ × 17″ sheets for folding into a 4-page booklet in consecutive reading order

We adopted this dual form of publishing our Booklets for some earlier cases, as with the Report on some New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian.  Its 20-page Report appears both as

  • Armenian Pages set out in individual letter-sized (or quarto) pages
  • Armenian Booklet laid out on 11″ × 17″ sheets for folding into a booklet in consecutive reading order

Experience shows that some of you may prefer the second option, so we continue the provision.

Enjoy!

Examples from our Poster Gallery

2014 Poster/Program for the Colloquium on 'When the Dust Has Settled, Or, When Good Scholars Go Back . . . ', laid out in RGME Bembino

What do you think? We invite your comments. We’d be glad to improve.

Poster 2 for the 2016 'Words & Deeds' Symposium at Princeton University, with 2 images from the Otto Ege Collection, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photography by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by permission. Poster set in RGME Bembino

And another favorite:

Poster for 'In a Knotshell' (November 2012)with border

Please let us know your favorites!  We’d be glad to hear from you!

Comments here or Contact Us.

*****

Tags: Bembino, Bembino Digital Font, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, design layout, Research Group designs, Research Group Posters, Style Manifesto
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Update for 2016 Symposium Booklet

October 15, 2016 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements

Poster 1 for the 2016 'Words & Deeds' Symposium at Princeton University, with 4 images from the Otto Ege Collection, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photography by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by permission. Poster set in RGME BembinoPoster 2 for the 2016 'Words & Deeds' Symposium at Princeton University, with 2 images from the Otto Ege Collection, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photography by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by permission. Poster set in RGME BembinoUpdate:

We have fixed the broken link for downloading the Program Booklet, with Abstracts and Illustrations, for our Symposium in March on “Words & Deeds”, exploring a rich array of subjects. The subjects range from the Late-Antique Theater to Gutenberg, by way of (among others), the Abbey of Saint-Denis, charters, and amulets. For example, we celebrate, and illustrate, recent researches and discoveries among the medieval manuscript remnants from the collection of Otto F. Ege.

The 2016 Symposium Announcement and the  2016 Symposium Report provide additional details.

You may find the Booklet here.  Laid out on our copyright font Bembino, it conforms with the principles of our Style Manifesto and celebrates the contributions of experts in various fields of study and interest.

2016 Symposium Program Booklet Cover Page with Border

2016 Symposium Booklet Cover Page

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Tags: "Words & Deeds", 2016 Symposium, Abbey of Saint-Denis, Amulets, Bembino, Charters, Gutenberg Press, Late-Antique Theater, Otto F. Ege, Style Manifesto
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Interview with Our Font & Layout Designer

October 6, 2016 in Interview, Interviews, Reports, Uncategorized

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in Monochrome VersionInterviews:  Number 1

Here we begin a Series of Interviews with people involved in the origins, formation, development, and life of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

First comes an interview with our Font & Layout Designer, Leslie J. French.

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Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Leslie J French, Manuscript studies, Profile of the Research Group, Research Group designs, Research Group Logo, Research Group Posters, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, ShelfLife: Bulletin of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, ShelfMarks: RGMEnewsletter, Style Manifesto
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2016 Report for CARA

July 14, 2016 in Reports

Our Second Annual Report for the CARA Newsletter

Celebrating at the closing Reception of the 2016 Meeting in Boston of the Medieval Academy of America. Photography © Mildred Budny

Photography by Mildred Budny

This Report for CARA (Committee on Centers and Regional Associations of the Medieval Academy of America) has appeared in its 2016 June Newsletter (page 13).  We are glad to be part of the organization.

Like last year, this year our Director attended the Annual CARA Meeting, which regularly follows the Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting.  This year it took place in Boston.

The Report of our Group’s activities for 2015–2016 is now published in the CARA Newsletter, for which we thank Lisa Fagin Davis (our Associate), Executive Director of the Medieval Academy, and her staff.  We congratulate Lisa, shown at its closing Reception, for the success of the 2016 Meeting in Boston.

Here we reprint the Report, with the addition of active links to its items, plus some illustrations.  First we set the Report briefly in context.

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Tags: 2016 Words & Deeds Symposium, Bembino, CARA (Committee on Centers and Regional Associations), Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Manuscript studies, Medieval Academy of America, Midwest Modern Language Association, Societas Magica, Style Manifesto
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Manuscript Groupies

August 2, 2015 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Preview:

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

Conservation, Photography, Research, and Descriptions

by Mildred Budny

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

Bookish

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

[Update:  And here is the Illustrated Handlist.]

Jest for Fun

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

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

Photography by Mildred Budny

The Best Side

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

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

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

Take Two

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

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

Which would you prefer?

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

Group Portrait, Take 1

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

Group Portrait, Take 2

Seeing the Bright

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

All That Glitters Might Be Gold

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

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

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

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

Roll Credits

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Front

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to the Future

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

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

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

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

Hug Shots

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

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

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

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

Lost-and-Foundling Hospitality

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

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

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

*****

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

Photography © Mildred Budny

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

May 8, 2015 in Bembino

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

A New, Illustrated Version with Our Font Bembino

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

Opening Page in the New Version (May 2015)

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

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

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

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

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