{"id":6769,"date":"2016-06-17T00:29:31","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T00:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?p=6769"},"modified":"2016-06-26T04:53:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-26T04:53:35","slug":"a-reused-medieval-psalter-bifolium-and-its-french-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/a-reused-medieval-psalter-bifolium-and-its-french-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Cover-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

Photography \u00a9 Mildred Budny<\/p><\/div>\n

A Medieval Bifolium
\nFrom a Medium-Format Vulgate Latin Psalter
\nReused as the Cover
\nof the Binding
\nof an 18th-Century Paper Notebook
\nWith Receipts in French
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Budny Handlist 5<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
<\/h5>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Continuing our reports of discoveries about manuscripts and written materials in our blog on Manuscript Studies<\/a>, <\/em>
\nMildred Budny examines a reused medieval fragment in its reused state, still attached to its modern notebook containing many receipts in French.<\/em><\/p>\n

Exhibit:\u00a0 Layered Take
\nMedieval to Modern<\/h3>\n

Our take today:\u00a0 a fragmentary parchment bifolium reused as the covering for the front and back pasteboards of a notebook of paper leaves containing various texts \u2014 and many blank leaves.\u00a0\u00a0 Their texts at present begin with a Liste de comptes 1800 \u00e0 1809<\/em>, as described in the contents list inscribed in pencil on the recto of the first surviving leaf \u2014 now numbered 45<\/em>.\u00a0 The losses of 44 leaves, at least, make it difficult (to put it mildly) to determine the starting date for the reuse of the medieval bifolium and the use of the paper notebook.<\/p>\n

The first text (folios 45v onward) has the title Livre de mes recettes commence en l\u2019an huit le fructidor.<\/em>\u00a0 Year VIII, Month Fructidor.\u00a0 The title is inscribed in ink on the verso of that endleaf.\u00a0 In the French republican calendar, Year VIII<\/a> corresponds to the span of 23 September 1799\u00a0\u2013 22 September 1800, while the month of Fructidor<\/a> (named from the Latin fructus<\/em>, ‘fruit’) in that particular year extended from 19 August to 17 September.\u00a0 The inscription in the first person indicates a specific, personal touch.<\/p>\n

The ink pagination intermittently at the top center of the paper leaves now ends with number \u2018186\u2019 on the last verso.\u00a0 Both the re-numberings of the pagination and the stubs of excised leaves at the front of the volume demonstrate that originally the book was larger and presumably had other texts at its front.\u00a0 The paper paste-downs at both front and back carry entries in pencil and pen.\u00a0 The cover retains its pair of leather ties.\u00a0 A fuller study might yield better information about the purposes and uses of the notebook.<\/p>\n

The composite Handlist 5<\/span><\/strong> comprises Part A<\/strong> and Part B<\/strong>, respectively medieval and modern. According to the owner’s recollection, this volume was acquired in France, probably by purchase, between circa 1999 and 2007, when I first saw and photographed it.\u00a0 My enquiries about the recent provenance extended across several years as I conserved, photographed, and researched the assembly of materials in the Handlist as it grew and transformed.<\/p>\n

In this composite entity acquired in France, at least the modern Part was produced in France, and perhaps also the medieval Part.<\/p>\n

The Medieval Layer<\/h3>\n

Part A<\/strong> is a reused vellum bifolium, or double-page spread, from a religious medieval manuscript; its span of text presents discontinuous parts of the Psalms in Latin.\u00a0 It found reuse in the modern period as the exterior wrapping for the cardboard covers of a paper notebook (Part B<\/strong>).\u00a0 Partly despoiled, or censored, the notebook contains receipts in French pertaining at least in part to Dijon and its region.\u00a0 With some leaves removed, the extant receipts begin during the French Revolution and continue until partway into the Napoleonic Wars.<\/p>\n

The artefact remains composite, with the reused medieval leaf still in situ<\/em>.\u00a0 There seems no pressing reason to remove that bifolium from its Afterlife, and so, in extended conversations, its owner and the consultant\/conservator\/photographer\/researcher (Yours Truly) decided to leave it As Is, as a monument in its own complicated terms.<\/p>\n

Parts of the Whole<\/h2>\n

I. The Medieval Layer<\/h3>\n

Part A<\/strong><\/span>. Bifolium from a Medium-Format Vulgate Latin Psalter or Breviary
\n= Unnumbered folios ‘I’\/’II’ now forming the exterior skin of the front and back covers
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"Front<\/a>

Handlist 5, Front Cover<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Back<\/a>

Handlist 5, Back Cover<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Parts of Psalm 77 on Leaf I and Psalm 88 on Leaf II<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Medieval Bifolium (Folios I\/II)
\nVisible span circa 380 \u00d7 226 mm, plus hidden turn-ins on all sides<\/strong>
\n < written area circa 160 \u00d7 124 mm ><\/strong>
\n Double columns of 19 lines<\/strong>
\n with inset 1-line initials in red pigment<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Perhaps Southern France, late 13th or early 14th century<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Reused, and still in situ<\/em>, as the cover for the pasteboards of an early modern paper notebook (partly despoiled) with accounts in French = Part B<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 The original fold line of the medieval bifolium, with its original stitching holes, lies more-or-less centered at the spine of the new volume. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"End<\/a><\/p>\n

II. The Modern Layers<\/h3>\n

Part B<\/strong><\/span>. Paper Notebook for ‘Recettes’ Etc.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Opening<\/a>

Handlist 5, Part B, opened at the front<\/p><\/div>\n

Notebook now of 99 paper leaves (with some first leaves removed), plus paper pastedowns at both front and back,
\nemploying the medieval vellum bifolium of Part A<\/span><\/strong> as the ‘leather’ covering for the pasteboards of its binding, plus two pairs of added leather ties (presumably 18th-century)<\/p>\n

Various texts in sections written in ink mostly in the late 18th \u2013 early 19th centuries, with some blank leaves and with a set of entries in pencil by a single bookseller’s hand in the late 20th or early 21st century on folio ‘1’r (as counted at present)<\/p>\n

Paper Notebook circa 226 \u00d7 178 \u00d7 27 mm
\n< written area variable >
\nTable du contenu<\/em> on front endpaper
\nfor items numbered 8, 17, 22, 23, 27, 189 [all removed]
\nSeller’s inventory in pencil on first page for folios ’45’ onward,
\nwith an incomplete Liste de comptes 1800 \u00e1 1809 <\/span><\/em><\/h4>\n

France, mid-18th century and later, in and for Dijon and its region<\/h4>\n
\"Opening<\/a>

Paying It Forward<\/p><\/div>\n

The Inside Front Cover<\/h3>\n

Headed Table du Contenu au paiment[?] registre<\/em>, (‘Table of Contents for the register of payments[?]’), the first itemized List on the inside front cover records only Numbers 8, 17, 22, 23, 27, 41, and 189.\u00a0 Mostly the items concern Bois<\/em> (‘wood’), usually specified as comprising purchases, and sometimes with the seller’s names.\u00a0 We might wonder \u2014 especially because those pages have been excised and, apparently, lost\u00a0\u2014 what the other unlisted Numbers concerned, as well as what the listed Numbers related.<\/p>\n

\"Top<\/a><\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>

View of the River Sa\u00f4ne at Saint-Jean-de-Losne in Burgundy. Photograph by Christophe Finot via Wikipedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

The list begins with Bois de Borne <\/em>(No. 8).\u00a0 To its lower right hovers the number, or year, 1748<\/em>, written in somewhat lighter ink and at different sitting, apparently by the same hand.<\/p>\n

The next items register purchases of Bois d’Argilly<\/a> \u2014 communal wood pertaining to the inhabitants of Argilly<\/a> and elsewhere in the C\u00f4te-d-Or\u00a0\u2014 from a seller named Lagrande (No. 17), wool from Monsieur Pomerol (No. 23), and wines and wood from Monsieur Tapenon (Nos. 27 and 41); and a payement<\/em> (‘payment’) for Monsieur Pomerol (No. 22) directly preceding the record of the wool purchase from him, maybe for that purchase or some other earlier one(s).\u00a0 The final item names Pont de Saint-Jean-de-Losne<\/em> (No. 189), referring to the (or a) bridge in Saint-Jean-de-Losne<\/a>, also in the C\u00f4te-d-Or.\u00a0 At least the selected list gives some sense of the locations and forms of transactions for some of the many Numbers which the excised leaves (folios 1\u201344?) at the front of the Notebook represented.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Number 189 and Counting<\/h3>\n

Opposite this pastedown \u2014 which would have been less easy to remove from the book than leaves standing free \u2014 there survives one stub from the cluster or quires of paper leaves which formerly stood at the front of the book, all before the first surviving leaf.\u00a0 We might consider the surviving first leaf to be folio ‘1’, now numbered 45, <\/em>but that number 4<\/em>5 was altered from some earlier version, by changes made in ink at the top center of the recto.\u00a0 So let’s stick with folio ‘1’ for the survivor, which gives a fresh, Revolutionary, start for the extant group of leaves in the Notebook.<\/p>\n

Partway down from the top on the recto of this stub (opposite Item No. 17 on the pastedown), there appears most of the number 189<\/em>, partly trimmed at the right where the rest of its leaf was severed at knifepoint.\u00a0 The intervening leaves were removed completely, exposing the inside spine of the volume.<\/p>\n

Although somewhat smaller in size than the numbers in the itemized List, this number closely resembles the color of their ink and the forms of the number 189<\/em>.\u00a0 The survival of these features appear to indicate that the List relates to the full (or almost entirely full) series of lost items from the front of the book\u00a0\u2014 although its Numbers imply that there were many more items between those which the List records. It remains possible that, depending upon the length of its entry, Number 189 may have been followed by one or more items on its leaf.\u00a0 This leaf was manifestly last in the series pertaining to its List.<\/p>\n

There seems little way of knowing what were all the contents on the leaves removed from the notebook.\u00a0 Their nature might reveal why\u00a0\u2013 and those reasons could be worthy of a novel.\u00a0 The scale and eloquence of the story remain to be seen.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we might consider what remains.<\/p>\n

Receipts, Dates, Locations<\/h3>\n

2 Farms and 1 House<\/h4>\n

\"List<\/a><\/p>\n

The entries deemed worthy of note by the seller, before giving up (‘Etc’ . . . ), are 2 farms and a ‘small house’:<\/p>\n