{"id":1555,"date":"2014-08-07T02:56:06","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T02:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?page_id=1555"},"modified":"2018-01-16T21:07:54","modified_gmt":"2018-01-16T21:07:54","slug":"budny-2014-congress","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/abstracts\/budny-2014-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Budny (2014 Congress)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mildred Budny
\n(Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/em>)<\/h2>\n

“Variability or Multiple Identities?
\nA Question of Style, Constraints, and Potential”<\/h2>\n

Abstract of Paper Presented at the 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies<\/strong> (Kalamazoo, May 2014)<\/p>\n

Session on \u201cIndividual Style or House Style? \u00a0Assessing Scribal Contributions, Artistic Production, and Creative Achievements\u201d<\/strong> described here: \u00a0Sessions at the 2014 Congress<\/strong><\/a>
\nSponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/strong>
\nOrganized by Mildred Budny
\n2014 Congress Accomplished<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

[First published on our first website on 19 March 2014, with updates both there and here on our second website<\/em>]<\/p>\n

I.\u00a0 The Quest and Its Questions<\/h4>\n

Perennial in the encounter with materials from the past, near or remote, is the quest to identify the work of individual hands in media of whatever kind, whether signed or unsigned. \u00a0Particularly challenging may be the cases for which little or no external evidence survives (or is yet recognized), so that the quest must proceed principally on the basis of stylistic features and their analysis, which in practice is more or less rigorous. \u00a0Such challenging conditions pertain to witnesses from many periods or regions, not least the early Middle Ages. \u00a0Closely related to these tasks, and often overlapping or combined with them, explicitly or implicitly, is the drive to attribute a given work or body of works to a known individual, named or unnamed, whether acting as scribe, author, annotator, artist, craftsman, teacher, student, patron, designer, or owner. \u00a0Especially tempting for some practitioners of identifications may be the hope, wish, or determination to accomplish this attribution or authentication where notable figures \u2014 including financial valuations \u2014 are involved. \u00a0Well known are the controversies surrounding attributions or re-attributions attached to the names of, for example, Shakespeare or Rembrandt.<\/p>\n

With selected cases of identification drawing mainly from early medieval manuscripts (scripts in Latin and the vernacular, decoration, illustration, and layers of accretion provided by different hands), this paper surveys a range of methods currently employed or deployed or ignored in the aim to identify an individual hand, follower, or workshop (or forger thereof) in given works, or fragmentary works, particularly those of distinction, mastery, and sometimes collaborative production. \u00a0The methods employed in the widespread efforts hold various degrees of precision and confidence levels. \u00a0Too often some methods are unclarified or garbled, whereby assumptions or wishful thinking may masquerade as valid, appropriate, and rigorous interpretation, even where scientific or forensic techniques are invoked in the examination of the evidence itself. \u00a0An important part of these problems may reside in the increasingly wide range of disciplines, both humanist and scientific, required for a proper analysis of the materials \u2014 including the very substances as well as the textual or visual contents \u2014 and in the need to co-ordinate, as well as to understand, the strengths and limitations of the extensive areas of specialization required for integrated scholarly research and substantive results in a digital age.<\/p>\n

II.\u00a0 Cases in Point<\/h4>\n

Cases for consideration include attributions (some controversial or wrongly ignored) concerning the body of work from:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0 The 9th-century Royal Bible Master<\/strong> of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury \u2014 a versatile scribal artist responsible for the medium-format Vespasian Psalter Gloss<\/strong> in Old English (London, British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian A.i), as well as for most of the surviving portions of the large-format Royal Bible<\/strong> (British Library, Royal MS 1 E.vi etc.), with a virtuoso display of different scripts, forms of decoration, and elaborate illustration.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a9The<\/a>

\u00a9The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 6r, with the closing arcade for the Eusebian Canon Tables. Reproduced by permission<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\u00a9<\/a>

\u00a9 The British Library Board, Cotton MS Vespasian A I, folio 21v, opening of Psalm 17 in Latin, with added interlinear gloss in Old English. Reproduced by permission<\/p><\/div>\n

2) The 11th-century Artist of the Added Mark Frontispiece<\/strong> in that same Bible, responsible also for<\/p>\n

some scenes in<\/p>\n