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rivate Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.
Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)
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.
2021 Congress Program Announced
J. S. Wagner Collection, Early-Printed Missal Leaf, Verso. Rubric and Music for Holy Saturday. Reproduced by Permission.
Carmelite Missal Leaf of 1509
Set 1 of Otto Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 19 recto: Deuteronomy title and initial.
Updates for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
Private Collection, Castle Cartulary Fragment, Inserted Folded Sheet, Opened: Top Righ
Fragments of a Castle ‘Capbreu’ from Catalonia
Grapes Watermark in a Selbold Cartulary Fragment.
Selbold Cartulary Fragments
Smeltzer Collection, Subermeyer (1598), Vellum Supports Strip 2 Signature Surname.
Vellum Binding Fragments in a Parisian Printed Book of 1598
Set 1 of Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto: Lamentations Initial.
Some Leaves in Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio
Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.
A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex
View to the Dorm at the End of the Congress.
2019 Congress Behind the Scenes Report
Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.
A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment back side, lines 2-5.
The Pearly Gateway: A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary
Preston Charter 7 Seal Face with the name Gilbertus.
Preston Take 2
The Outward-Facing Cat and a Hand of Cards. Detail from Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020
New York, Grolier Club, \*434.14\Aug\1470\Folio. Flavius Josephus, De antiquitate Judiaca and De bello Judaico, translated by Rufinus Aquileinensis, printed in Augsburg on paper by Johannn Schüsseler in 2 Parts, dated respectively 28 June 1470 and 23 August 1470, and bound together with a manuscript copy dated 1462 of Eusebius Caesariensis, Historia ecclesiastica.
2020 Spring Symposium Cancelled or Postponed
2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date
At the Exhibition of "Gutenberg and After" at Princeton University in 2019, the Co-Curator Eric White stands before the Scheide Gutenberg Bible displayed at the opening of the Book of I Kings.
“Gutenberg and After” at Princeton University Library
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.
2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Announced
J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto, Initial C for "Confitimini" of Psalm 117 (118), with scrolling foliate decoration.
A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Latin Breviary
J. S. Wagner Collection. Detached Manuscript Leaf with the Opening in Latin of the Penitent Psalm 4 or Psalm 37 (38) and its Illustration of King David.
The Penitent King David from a Book of Hours
Bust of the God Janus. Vatican City, Vatican Museums. Photo by Fubar Obfusco via Wikimedia Commons.
2019 M-MLA Panel Program
Coffee Break at our 2002 British Museum Colloquium. Our Director, Dáibhí Ó Cróinin, and Giles Constable. Photograph by our Associate, Geoffrey R. Russom.
Revisiting Anglo-Saxon Symposia 2002/2018
The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permission
2020 ICMS Call for Papers: Seal the Real
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 1183. Photograph courtesy Kristen Herdman.
2019 Anniversary Symposium Report: The Roads Taken
Heidere Diploma 2 in the Unofficial Version, with puns aplenty. The Diploma has an elaborate interlace border around the proclamation.
Heidere Diplomas & Investiture
2019 Anniversary Symposium: The Roads Taken
Detail of illustration.
Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts
Poster announcing the Call for Papers for the Permanent Panels sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, to be held at the 2019 MMLA Convention in Chicago in November. Poster set in RGME Bembino and designed by Justin Hastings.
2019 M-MLA Call for Papers
Detail of recto of leaf from an Italian Giant Bible. Photography by Mildred Budny
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Details
Thomas E. Hill stands at the entrance to the Vassar College Library. Photography by Mildred Budny
Another Visit to The Library Cafe
Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Augustine Homilies Bifolium Folio IIr detail with title and initial for Sermon XCVI. Private Collection, reproduced by permission. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
Vellum Bifolium from Augustine’s “Homilies on John”
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'
Design & Layout of “The Illustrated Catalogue”
Rosette Watermark, Private Collection. Reproduced by Permission
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Libro de los juegos. Madrid, El Escorial, MS T.1.6, folio 17 verso, detail.
2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Poster Announcing Bembino Version 1.5 (April 2018) with border for Web display
Bembino Version 1.5 (2018)
Lower Half of the Original Verso of a Single Leaf detached from a prayerbook in Dutch made circa 1530, owned and dismembered by Otto F. Ege, with the seller's description in pencil in the lower margin. Image reproduced by permission.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’?
© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. the initial 'd' for 'Domini'.
2018 M-MLA Call for Papers
Fountain of Books outside the Main Library of the Cincinnati Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.
2017 M-MLA Panel Report
Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
2017 M-MLA Panel
Poster for 'In a Knotshell' (November 2012)with border
Designing Academic Posters
Opening Lines of the Book of Zachariah. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Reproduced by permission.
More Discoveries for “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”
Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.
Say Cheese
Alcove Beside Entrance to Garneau at AZO 2017. Photography © Mildred Budny.
2017 Congress Report
Duck Family at the 2007 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.
2017 Congress Program
Verso of the Leaf and Interior of the Binding, Detail: Lower Right-Hand Corner, with the Mitered Flap Unfolde
A 12th-Century Fragment of Anselm’s ‘Cur Deus Homo’
Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover) Detail of Spine of Cover with Volume Labels. Photograph © Mildred Budny.
A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius
Detail of the top of the verso of the fragmentary leaf from a 13th-century copy of Statutes for the Cistercian Order. Reproduced by permission.
Another Witness to the Cistercian Statutes of 1257
Initial d in woodcut with winged hybrid creature as an inhabitant. Photography © Mildred Budny
The ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments
A Reused Part-Leaf from Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels
Detail of middle right of Verso of detached leaf from the Nichomachean Ethics in Latin translation, from a manuscript dispersed by Otto Ege and now in a private collection. Reproduced by permission.
More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
Running title for EZE on the verso of the Ezekiel leaf from 'Ege Manuscript 61'. Photography by Mildred Budny
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 61’
Decorated opening word 'Nuper' of the Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 13, reproduced by permission
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Private Collection, Leaf from Ege MS 14, with part of the A-Group of the 'Interpretation of Hebrew Names'. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
A Reused Part-Leaf from Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels
Photography by David Immerman.
Radio Star
Close-Up of The Host of 'The Library Cafe' in the Radio Studio. Photography © Mildred Budny
A Visit to The Library Café
Booklet Page 1 of the 'Interview with our Font & Layout Designer' (2015-16)
Interview with our Font & Layout Designer
Initial I of Idem for Justinian's Novel Number 134, with bearded human facing left at the top of the stem of the letter. Photography © Mildred Budny
It’s A Wrap
The Brandon Plaque. Gold and niello. The British Museum, via Creative Commons.
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (January 1992)
© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Tiberius A III, folio 117v, top right. Reproduced by permission.
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (August 1993)
Invitation to 'Canterbury Manuscripts' Seminar on 19 September 1994
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)
Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in Monochrome Version
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (May 1989)
Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)
2016 Report for CARA
Heading of Blanked out Birth certificate after adoption completed.
Lillian Vail Dymond
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
2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’
Detail with Initial G of Folio Ivb of Bifolium from a Latin Medicinal Treatise reused formerly as the cover of a binding for some other text, unknown. Reproduced by permission
Spoonful of Sugar
Detail of Leaf I, recto, column b, lines 7-12, with a view of the opening of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 23, verse 3, with an enlarged opening initial in metallic red pigment
New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
Decoated initial E for 'En' on the verso of the Processional Leaf from ' Ege Manuscript 8'. Photography by Mildred Budny
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 8’
Cloth bag, now empty, for the original seal to authenticate the document, which remains intact, for a transaction of about the mid 13th-century at Preston, near Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. Photograph reproduced by permission.
Full Court Preston
The Date 1538 on the Scrap, enhanced with photographic lighting. Photography © Mildred Budny
Scrap of Information
Lower half of Recto of Leaf from the Office of the Dead in a Small-Format Book of Hours. Photography © Mildred Budny
Manuscript Groupies
Detail of cross-shaft, rays of light, and blue sky or background in the illustration of the Mass of Saint Gregory. Photography © Mildred Budny
The Mass of Saint Gregory, Illustrated
Penwork extending from a decorated initial extends below the final line of text and ends in a horned animal head which looks into its direction. Photography © Mildred Budny
Lost & Foundlings

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You are browsing the Blog for ‘Toulouse deformity’

2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Announced

January 18, 2020 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements, Bembino, Conference, Conference Announcement, Index of Christian Art, Index of Medieval Art, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Societas Magica

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies
7–10 May 2020

Program Announced
[NOW CANCELLED OR POSTPONED]

[Update on 12 July 2020:  Now see 2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies Call for Papers]

[Published on 18 January 2020, with updates.

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.

Update on 17 March.  The 55th Congress has been Cancelled. 

According to the website for the International Congress on Medieval Studies:

The health and safety of our attendees and our community are our first priority. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the most recent recommendations of the CDC and the WHO regarding social distancing and public gatherings, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 7-10, 2020).

As for the future, according to the Congress organizers:

We invite the organizers of sponsored and special sessions approved for the 2020 Congress to re-propose them for the 2021 congress. If proposed, they will be approved automatically.

Meanwhile, with the preparations for the Congress set aside, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence continues to advance with posting the Abstracts of the intended Papers for our 2020 ICMS Sessions, to stand alongside their Statements of Purpose as designed for the Call for Papers and announced in this post.

Our tradition regularly has been to post on our website the Abstracts before our Sessions in a given Congress, as a foretaste of the Menu.  Years ago, as a sign of appreciation, we adopted the custom of posting the Abstract of one or other contributor who became unable to attend to present in person (as with the 2016 Congress and the 2014 Congress).  Thus we honor the intentions of our participants to present the results (or interim results) of their research and reflections, even when they could not do so at the event.

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 March, in stark contrast, 2 of our major events for 2020 have had to be cancelled as a whole.  This change pertains both at the Congress and elsewhere.  First, our 2020 Spring Symposium, From Cover to Cover, intended for 13–14 March at Princeton University, has been Cancelled or Postponed.  Now, the 55th ICMS intended for May at Kalamazoo. 

For the former, we aim to complete the Symposium Booklet, with the Program, Abstracts, and Illustrations, as planned,and distribute it to contributors, registrants, and others, as a souvenir of the collective aims for the gathering.   Here we similarly honor our participants’ intentions by recording their Abstracts.]

*****

What We Planned

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. Image via Creative Commons.

With the achievement of our Activities at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS), described in our 2019 Congress Report, we prepare for the 2020 Congress. With the conclusion of the Call for Papers on 15 September 2019 for our sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions, we have assigned their Programs and reported them to the Congress Committee.

Now, as the new year begins, we announce the programs as well as our other activities at the 2020 Congress.  As the Congress announces its Sneak Preview of the 2020 Congress Program, we report the times and room assignments. Soon, as is our custom, we will publish the Abstracts for their Papers and Responses.

*****

Our events at the Congress, as always, are designed to represent, to explore, to promote, to celebrate, and to advance aspects of our shared range of interests, fields of study, subject matter, and collaboration between younger and established scholars, teachers, and others, in multiple centers.

This year, the response to the Call for Papers for our Session on Seals received so strong a response that we have been granted 2 sessions in the place of the one as accepted. Again this year we co-sponsor Sessions with the Societas Magica (2 Sessions this year). It will be the 16th year of this co-sponsorship.

Also, like the 2015–2019 Congresses, we plan for

  • an Open Business Meeting and
  • a co-sponsored Reception.

Again, like the 2016–2018 Congresses, we co-sponsor a Reception with the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University (formerly the Index of Christian Art).

Abstracts for previous Congresses appear in our Congress Abstracts, Indexed both by Year and by Author.  The Abstracts for this year’s Congress will join their company.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 'Toulouse deformity', Bibliomancy, Divination, History of Documents, History of Magic, Manuscript studies, Medieval Seals, Scrying, Seals and Signatures, Sortilège
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Curiouser & Curiouser

June 10, 2015 in Documents in Question, Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Document on Paper from Grenoble,
Dated 22 February 1345 (Old Style),
With a curious Seal

Mildred Budny reflects upon a fragmentary document, its enigmatic wax seal, and the mid-14th-century owner of the seal.

Today we showcase the fragment of a documentary record on paper which has traveled across time and space to find renewed attention.  Among its curiosities, it carries a seal in red wax depicting a male human head accompanied by creatures and part-creatures drawn from the animal, avian, and insect realms.  Now in a private collection, the document was recently purchased online from a seller in Isère, France, not far from its place of origin in or near Grenoble nearly seven centuries ago. Document in 5 lines on paper, dated 22 February 1345 (Old Style), with red wax seal. Image reproduced by permission.Reproduced here by permission, the fragmentary document written in Latin on paper records a transaction conducted apud Gratianopolis (‘at Grenoble’) in the Dauphiné” (now France), with the date of 22 February 1345 Old Style.  The left-hand side of the document has been roughly torn away, with the loss (of uncertain extent, probably about half) of the first part of the lines of text.

'Carte du Dauphiné' by Christophe (or Nicolas) Tassin, printed in 1630. Private Collection, reproduced by permission.

‘Carte du Dauphiné’ by Christophe (or Nicolas) Tassin, printed in 1630. Private Collection, reproduced by permission.

Govvernement du Grenoble. 'Plans, vues et cartes du Dauphiné' by Christophe Tassin (1634). Via gallica.bfn.fr: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53152793f/f2.item.r=Christophe%20TassinDauphine%20Dauphine.

Govvernement du Grenoble. ‘Plans, vues et cartes du Dauphiné’ by Christophe Tassin (1634). Via gallica.bfn.fr.

Seal the Deal

Written in an expert cursive documentary script in brown ink by a single scribe, the 5-line record is ‘signed’ or attested by the double names of Henricus in full (‘Henri’) and the abbreviated Joha[nnes?] (‘Jean’?), accompanied by a tall monogram or cypher to their right.  Both the single names and the cypher are flanked or surrounded by dots, setting them off as names and/or signs as such.

The names and cypher are written in 2 lines by a single hand, perhaps different from the main scribe, in a more compressed upright script.  The names are flanked by dots.  The cypher, both flanked and surmounted by dots, perhaps combines their initial letters h and J in an elegant flourish.

If the names pertain to a single individual, during this period the combination implies a person of some importance worthy of a first and a second name together.  Both the names and the cypher manifest an accomplished hand.  If written by their named individual, they manifest his scribal training to proficiency and, perhaps as well, a commensurate degree of literacy.

Detail of red wax seal on Latin document issued at Grenoble and dated on 22 February 1345 Old Style, with human head in profile facing left. Image reproduced by permission.The names may hold some clue(s) to the meaning of the Device (that is, images) on the Seal, which bears no Legend (that is, inscription) to aid, compound, or delight the process of its decipherment. Perhaps deciphering the one in time may speed the decipherment of the other.

Whoever their owner, the complexity of the design on the Device and the manifest skill of its execution demonstrates an imposing, and perhaps comparably idiosyncratic, identity for this Henricus Joha[. . . ], whose second name could be Johannes (or the like).  It is worth recognizing, however, that, given late medieval naming practices in many regions, the abbreviation for a second name or surname could stand for a place-name, an occupational name, a nickname, or some other appellation, rather than a personal name.

The seal in red wax affixed directly to the page to the lower right of these 2 names depicts within a now-fragmentary roundel the image of a male human head seen in profile with a straight nose, both beard and moustache, and either a conical helmet (albeit without any rim) or an elongated, distorted skull formation.  As it stands on the page, sealed in wax, the head faces downward, but when it is seen upright, the head faces left.

On the page to the left of the names Henri and Jean[?] there appear the remnants in red of a rimmed element and other elements pertaining either to the offset of this seal (for which no folds on the document bear obvious witness) or perhaps to another attestation of unknown identity, now mostly effaced.

Paper Trail

The paper itself carries no watermark, unfortunately, but the surviving remnant of the document is a small portion of the original sheet of paper.  The lines within the paper, however, are very different from those found on later samples, so that the specimen merits interest as an unusual survivor in the history of the development of European paper.

Back-lighting, as seen here, reveals the structure of the lines more clearly.  More posts about this subject, plus a gallery of specimens of European paper across centuries, are in preparation for our website.

Back-lit view of the paper of the Grenoble document of 22 February 1345 Old Style, showing the lines of the paper. Image reproduced by permission.

Wax Lyrical

The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permissionClose-up of the seal with side-lighting. Image reproduced by permission.Close-up of the seal with lower side-lighting. Image reproduced by permission.Different levels of side-lighting, shown here, reveal more of the details of the Device on the seal.  Its features are curious, to say the least.

At the base of the human neck appears the frontal face (or ‘mask’) of a lion-like creature, which grips in its jaws the base of the long neck of a wide-eyed, winged goose-like creature, seen in profile, crouched beneath the human head.  Fanned plumes or a crest rise(s) above and in front of the head or, it may be, helmet.  Details to the fore of the face seem difficult to discern, perhaps an indication of some wear and age to the seal matrix.  Such ‘blurred’ or fragmented features could suggest that the matrix had received much use, perhaps from being handed down within a family.

A knob-like extension at the crest of the head-or-helmet leads to the base of some formation lost in the damaged ‘apex’ of the field. Behind the rounded back of the head stretches a skinny lizard-like creature, seen from above, rising or crawling above the goose’s head toward the ‘top’ of the scene.  Damage to the seal (or imperfection in its impression) at the right of the lower half of the ‘lizard’ perhaps removed some element in the scene.  The goose’s closed beak clamps onto the remnant of lizard’s right hind-leg.  A curious combination.

The depicted food chain appears to defy biology.  But it does pique curiosity.  Human Neck —> ‘Lion’ Mask —> ‘Goose’ —> ‘Lizard’.  Huh?

Homo sapiens sapiens - Deliberate deformity of the skull, "Toulouse deformity"

«_déformation_toulousaine_»_MHNT (Author Unknown / restoration and digitization. Didier Descouens / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)

Skull-Duggery

Curious, too, is the elongated shape of the skull, which might or might not be ‘natural’.  The shape appears deformed, like the cranial deformation of human heads or skulls observed in many parts of the world across the centuries or millenia, whether biological or artificial. Widely ranging examples include many ancient Peruvian skulls (from circa 6000–7000 BCE onward), ancient Egyptian examples from the sphere of the Pharoah Akhenaten (1375–1358 BCE), manifestations in art and the archaeological record through many periods of Mesoamerican Mayan culture, and recognized cases of skulls among East Germanic and Huns peoples in migration in the early medieval period in the West.

[Update: Newly discovered is a ‘Conehead’ skeleton, approximately 2,000 years old, of a woman of the Sarmati tribe excavated at Arkaim, near Chelyabinsk, in the southern Urals.]

Such practices reshaped the heads of some humans, for whatever reasons, perhaps or apparently involving prestige.  Both the evidence and the issues remain subjects of fascination and controversy. For example, not all cases which have been considered as representatives of the habit still qualify, as with a Proto-Neolithic skull from Shanidar (circa 300,000–30,000 BCE), previously believed to comprise the earliest known example but now differently reconstructed. But the amplitude of the bodies of evidence for alteration of the shape of skulls through human intervention provides a source of wonder. The practice of intentional cranial deformation, in different manifestations across the centuries in many parts of the world, could produce a ‘permanently visible symptom of social affiliation’. So prominent a feature is hard to miss.

It seems that, in certain contexts, head shape demarcates membership and hierarchies within social or ethnic groups among larger societies, with some apparent manipulation of shapes in the pursuit of demonstrating, or cultivating, affiliations with groups or individuals in power.  The wide range of observable cases of skull deformation globally has been the focus of medical study and classification, for example by Eric John Dingwall (1931) (freely available in full online) and by Amit Ayer, Alexander Campbell, et al. ‘The Sociopolitical History and Physiological Underpinnings of Skull Deformation’ (2010).

Not all cases of strange skull shapes are deliberate, of course, but, whatever the case here in the wax seal, the outcome — if it represents head-shape rather than helmet (which might, presumably, be removed at will) — would be permanently, irrevocably visible for all to see.  Perhaps for some it would have been a source of awe, if not admiration.

Such aspirations for altering physical characteristics of a specific, and visible, part of the human body seem to have governed, for example, the practices of Chinese foot-binding.  The late survivors of that practice make it possible to interview, as well as to photograph in the flesh, some living witnesses.

In a way, the seal of Henry J. itself might give us a glimpse, close-up, of his particular, if not peculiar, characteristics, along with some choices of his own about elements outside his body (animal, etc.) to express his identity on the page.

A Medieval Case of the ‘Toulouse Deformity’?

« Crane déformé 1905 MHNT » par Didier Descouens — Travail personnel. Sous licence CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Déformation toulousaine – Muséum de Toulouse. « Crane déformé 1905 MHNT » par Didier Descouens (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

Curiouser for the presence of our seal on a Grenoble document is the persistence of such a custom, altering the shape of the human cranium by artificial distortion, in parts of Southern France until rather recently, as described and illustrated, for example, in the Wiki articles on Artificial Cranial Deformation or Déformation volontaire du crâne.  This ‘deliberate deformity of the skull’ is known as the ‘Toulouse deformity’.  In this style or type of cranial deformation, a tight cap is placed upon the head, or a band is wrapped around the cranium to compress it into a circular shape, which expands upwards into a cone.

The study of ‘Later Artificial Cranial Deformation in Europe’ (1931) observes that such practices in recent centuries centered upon France.  Perhaps the elongated conical shape of the head on the wax seal formed in 1345 bears witness to the custom as a revival or survival of earlier practices, in their transmission variably across time within or across regions.

It’s a Stretch

It seems not inappropriate to consider in this connection the condition — not entirely a predicament — of being ‘stretched tall’, in which Alice found herself to appear in Wonderland (1853), under the heading of Curiouser and Curiouser.

©The British Library Board, Add. MS 46700, pgs 10-11

©The British Library Board, Add. MS 46700, pgs 10-11. Reproduced by permission

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice, (she was so surprised that she quite forgot how to speak good English,) “now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!”

The author’s original manuscript of the first version of the text, now in the British Library, illustrates Alice’s elongated form as envisioned by her creator ‘Lewis Carroll’ (1832–1898), whose pen-name itself is a confection.

The similarly elongated neck on the seal enters a world of fantasy and imagination with its combination of creatures somehow integrated with the human world, both seemingly easily and not so much.

Skull-asticism

Whether the image on the seal represents, or is intended to represent, a given human individual rather than some fanciful being, the combination of creatures clustered around his head suggests a puzzle or word-play.  Within the complex, wide-ranging world of medieval seals and their molds or matrices, there were multiple forms of presenting, or combining, images of one kind and/or another, with or without text.  Many other medieval seals, too, draw upon non-heraldic structures — that is, elements not specifically assigned (as yet) in the time-honored code of heraldry, according to specific rules for devising heraldic coats of arms of rank for persons, families, dynasties, towns, cities, and other organizations.

Non-heraldic forms on seals can indicate in less formally codified, but not necessarily less rigorously chosen, elements to indicate, or to suggest, the identity, name, occupation, preoccupations, predilections, or other characteristics of the owner of the seal.  Many cases, which we in the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence have had the opportunity over recent years to study in detail on site over time, occur within the remarkable selection of medieval seal matrices and documents assembled in the Collection of our Associate John H. Rassweiler and now presented in part as the Rassweiler Collection Online.

The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permissionThe ensemble in Henricus J.‘s seal confirming a transaction in Grenoble in 1345 may, for example, function as a form of rebus, with an allusion to the owner or his identity in some way, or as the visual illustration of some proverb, in a motto for his or anyone’s consideration.  Such practices are not uncommon in shaping the Devices of medieval European seals.

Or, could we say, such practices may be most uncommon, although widespread.  Common and Uncommon:  that combination could be right for this seal’s Device.  Its designer may have smiled to think of the curious combination.

Within the genre, this Device seems remarkably ingenious.  The script of its owner’s ‘signature’ could indicate that he was well educated.

Dare we say Cerebral?

Its answer, or solution, may yet come to light.

You Think?

More research might illuminate the context of this document, reveal more of its original text, identify the person(s) involved in its record and attestation, and provide the key to its curious seal.  Perhaps you could help with suggestions and information.

We invite you to contribute to the exploration – and its adventure.

Please leave a  Comment here, Contact Us, or join the conversation on our Facebook page.

P. S.  In the conversations about this Post, one of our friends called it a case where ‘Codicology Meets Craniology’.  Cool.

*****

[Published on 10 June 2015, with updates]

Tags: 'Toulouse deformity', 22 February 1345 Old Style, Alice in Wonderland, Artificial cranial deformation, Cranial deformation, Grenoble, History of Paper, Medieval Dauphiné, Medieval Latin documents, medieval seal, Red wax seal
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