{"id":8269,"date":"2016-09-08T04:54:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T04:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?p=8269"},"modified":"2019-08-13T20:30:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T20:30:15","slug":"seminar-on-the-evidence-of-manuscripts-5-june-1992","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/seminar-on-the-evidence-of-manuscripts-5-june-1992\/","title":{"rendered":"Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (5 June 1992)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MSS 23 and 223:
\nA Workshop” on
\nThe Corpus Prudentius and the Saint-Bertin Prudentius<\/h2>\n
\"Prudentius<\/a>

Invitation Letter for 2 June 1992<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Prudentius<\/a>

RSVP Form<\/p><\/div>\n

5 June 1992
\nIn the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts<\/a>
\nThe Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge<\/p>\n

Invitation<\/strong><\/a> in pdf.<\/p>\n

The previous Seminar in the series considered
\n\u201cAnglo-Saxon Writing Materials and Practices”<\/strong><\/a>
\nParker Library, 11 January 1992<\/p>\n

[First published on 8 September 2016<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Focused on the 2 early medieval manuscripts at the Parker Library with collections of the works of the Spanish poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens<\/a> (348 \u2013 after 405 CE), this workshop considered the evidence of Corpus MS 23<\/a> and MS 223<\/a> in the light of their relatives and their contexts, and in the company of gathered specialists, who had come from England and abroad.<\/p>\n

\"Front<\/a>The month of June in 1992 \u2014 during the 3rd year of the 5-year Research Project on “The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts” funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and during the 5th year of full-time research at the Library by its outside-funded Senior Research Associate, Mildred Budny, specifically directed toward an integrated approach toward the Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts in the collection \u2014 was the first, and only, time during the full Series of Research Group Seminars (and Workshops) on the Evidence of Manuscripts<\/a> (1989\u20131995) that 2 workshops or seminars were held in the same month.<\/p>\n

The work of the Research Project is described in the detailed Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust<\/a>. As listed among our Publications<\/a>, the Reports were reprinted and circulated, together with the then-current Profile<\/a> (updated as appropriate during those years) of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

The Plan<\/h3>\n
\"\u00a9<\/a>

\u00a9 The British Library Board. Additional MS 24199, folio 18r. Reproduced by permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

Issued in the name (and with the abbreviated signature) of R.I. Page, the 1-page Invitation Letter sets out the parameters.<\/p>\n

We plan to hold a workshop on Friday, 5 June, concerning Corpus Christi College, MSS 23 and 223, which contain collections of works by Prudentius, with many glosses.\u00a0 MS 223, a medium-format copy made in Northern France in the late ninth century, apparently belonged to the Abbey of St. Bertin<\/a>.\u00a0 It reached England by the late tenth century, to judge by entries by various Anglo-Saxon hands.\u00a0 MS 23, Part I, a luxurious large-format copy made in Southern England in the late tenth or early eleventh century, apparently belonged to Malmesbury Abbey<\/a> by the mid-eleventh century.\u00a0 It contains a magnificant cycle of illustrations for the Psychomachia<\/a>, rendered in coloured outline drawing and accompanied by some Latin and Old English titles.\u00a0 Both its place of origin and function, whether as a ‘classbook’ or meodu-borde<\/em> book, remain controversial.<\/p>\n

Both manuscripts have been the subject of detailed study in the course of our research at the Parker Library.\u00a0 We hope to produce a facsimile of MS 23, and we are preparing studies of particular aspects, to analyse its texts, layout, language, codicology, palaeography and art.\u00a0 As part of this exploration, the workshop will discuss the problems of both manuscripts and related subjects.\u00a0 We hope you might attend to give your advice and help.<\/p>\n

As usual, “we aim to run the workshop on informal lines, as a round table, with the following main speakers”.\u00a0 The intended sequence:<\/p>\n

\"Malmesbury<\/a>

Malmesbury Abbey viewed from the graveyard to the South Porch. Photograph by Adrian Pingstone via Wikipedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Gernot Wieland will discuss these two collections of Prudentius’ texts and their glosses.<\/p>\n

Patrick Wormald will examine the possible connection between MS 223 and Grimbald of St. Bertin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mildred Budny and I [=R.I. Page] will comment on the structure, layout, illustrations, glosses and titles of MS 23.<\/p>\n

Richard Gameson will report on the evidence which its decorated Type II initial holds for the place of origin.<\/p>\n

Jane Rosenthal will comment on the cycle of illustrations in the light of its Continental and Anglo-Saxon context.<\/p>\n

As always, “we hope that others will contribute to the discussion from their areas of specialisation and interest”.<\/p>\n

The Manuscripts and Some Relatives<\/h3>\n

Not forgetting the Objects Lesson.<\/p>\n

“Both manuscripts will be available for examination during the workshop.\u00a0 Others too will be on hand to illustrate various points”.\u00a0 Their list:<\/p>\n

MSS 57<\/a>, 198<\/a>, 326<\/a>, 356<\/a> and 411<\/a> with outline drawings, [Wormald’s] Type II initials and\/or monumental display capitals<\/p>\n

MS 173<\/a>, Part B, as an example of an Anglo-Saxon ‘classbook’<\/p>\n

MS 193<\/a> as a Continental import to England with added flyleaf sketches<\/p>\n

and MSS 44<\/a>, 178<\/a>, and 383<\/a> with sixteenth-century entries and restorations comparable to those on the first, confected ‘bifolium’ of MS 23.<\/p>\n

As usual, “other manuscripts may emerge for inspection as they occur to us in the course of the session”.<\/p>\n

Some relatives elsewhere were represented by partial facsimiles in print, as with Richard Stettiner<\/a>, Die illustrierten Prudentiushandschriften<\/em> (1895), and Helen Woodruff, The Illustrated Manuscripts of Prudentius<\/em><\/a> (1930). By such means were represented, for example, the other surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts or fragments of Prudentius’s works with illustrations. The principal survivors are London, British Library, Additional MS 24199<\/a>, from Bury Saint Edmunds<\/a>; and Cotton MS Cleopatra C VIII, folios 4\u201337, from Canterbury.
\nThe former case is now (like many other manuscripts of many kinds) represented online in full digital facsimile in colour<\/a>. By May 1992, a black-and-white facsimile of the illustrated pages of the latter case appeared in print in Thomas H. Ohlgren, Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration: Photographs of Sixteen Manuscripts with Descriptions and Index<\/a> (1992), Number 15 (plates 15.1\u201353). (About this publication and its relationship with some of our photographic work and publications, see the 1992 Congress<\/a>.)\u00a0 As always, in manuscript studies, and the studies of manuscript fragments, we work with the materials we have, or can find.<\/p>\n

Given the conditions of access to the Parker Library in former years or decades, the 2 June 1992 Workshop was the first occasion that some of the participants could look at the Corpus manuscripts directly \u2014 even some experts who had studied them in detail already only from a distance and through those black-and-white plates of Stettiner and Woodruff.<\/p>\n

And so to work on the day \u2014 a sunny, bright, and windless summer day.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a9<\/a>

\u00a9 The British Library Board. Additional MS 24199, folio 18r. Reproduced by permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\u00a9<\/a>

\u00a9 The British Library Board. Additional MS 24199, folio 20v. Reproduced by permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\u00a9<\/a>

\u00a9 The British Library Board. Additional MS 24199, folio 21r. Reproduced by permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

*****<\/p>\n

The Participants<\/h3>\n

Invitations were sent to:<\/p>\n

David Wilson, Christine Fell, R.I. Page, Mildred Budny, Leslie French, Tim Graham, Nigel Wilkins, Nicholas Hadgraft, Catherine Hall, Jane Rosenthal, Gernot Wieland, David Farmer, Patrick Wormald, Richard Gameson, Malcolm Godden, Vivian Law.<\/p>\n

Present (according to notes and to the returned RSVP forms in the Research Group Archives:<\/p>\n

David Wilson, Christine Fell, R.I. Page, Mildred Budny, Leslie French, Tim Graham, Nigel Wilkins, Nicholas Hadgraft, Catherine Hall, Jane Rosenthal, Gernot Wieland, Herbert Broderick, David Farmer, David Ganz, Richard Gameson, Malcolm Godden, Vivian Law.<\/p>\n

The Representative<\/h3>\n
\"Remnants<\/a>

Remnants of the Abbey of Saint-Bertin, September 1993. Photograph \u00a9 Mildred Budny.<\/p><\/div>\n

Patrick Wormald, although expected to speak, was unable to attend.\u00a0 (As at another of our Seminars, on Corpus MS 201<\/a>, in June 1993, where he was also represented by proxy.)\u00a0 At short notice, David Ganz agreed to stand in his place, and so spoke about “Carolingian Manuscripts from St. Bertin”.\u00a0 He provided a full-page handlist which gives “a first list” of them culled from “Manuscripts now in St. Omer”.\u00a0 The Research Group Archives contains this and the other handouts, as well as notes on the day for several of the presentations.<\/p>\n

David introduced his own presentation by saying, with a wry smile, that he was “Patrick Wormald”, or, anyway, would set “to impersonate him”.\u00a0 Rather than reporting what Patrick might have said, however, David presented his own preliminary (and cumulative) research, with the proviso at the foot of his handout that “This list derives from the Catalogue des MSS des Departments Vols III & IV and I have not examined the volumes in Boulogne or St. Omer”.\u00a0 He left us with the tantalising question as to whether Grimbald \u2014 who had come from Saint-Bertin to England at the invitation of King Alfred<\/a> for teaching purposes and ended his life (at age 83 on 8 July 903) as abbot of the New Minster<\/a> at Winchester<\/a> \u2014 had owned or handled or imported MS 223, the Corpus Saint-Bertin Prudentius, itself.\u00a0 Doodles and scribbles, perhaps, among these processes?<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

\"Prudentius<\/a>For the Record<\/h3>\n

All but MS 383 among the listed manuscripts have their own entries, and plates, in the Illustrated Catalogue<\/strong> of Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge<\/a> (1997), reporting results of the long-term, collaborative, and integrated research at the Parker Library.\u00a0 This co-publication is the largest so far of the Publications<\/a> by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.\u00a0 In sum, these manuscripts on the table at the Seminar hold these places in the Illustrated Catalogue:<\/strong><\/p>\n