{"id":9440,"date":"2018-11-27T23:37:25","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T23:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?p=9440"},"modified":"2021-06-08T23:13:59","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T23:13:59","slug":"more-discoveries-for-otto-ege-manuscript-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/more-discoveries-for-otto-ege-manuscript-41\/","title":{"rendered":"More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NewOtto Ege’s
\nDismembered Manuscript 41<\/h2>\n

A Latin copy of the
\nDialogues<\/em> of Gregory the Great,
\nEpistles and Homilies<\/em> of John Chrysostom,
\nMeditations<\/em> of Anselm,
\nAnd Maybe More<\/h3>\n

Double columns of 40 lines with some embellishment<\/h4>\n

Produced probably in Flanders, perhaps circa 1450<\/p>\n

Plundered in World War I
\nFrom the Library of the Van der Cruisse de Waziers, near Lille in France<\/p>\n

Sold circa 1925 through the Bookseller Thorpe in Surrey, England<\/p>\n

Brought to the United States Intact, Then Dismembered and Distributed in Pieces<\/p>\n

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies<\/a>, Mildred Budny (see Her Page<\/a>) adds new evidence to her earlier reports of some leaves from medieval manuscripts dispersed by\u00a0Otto F. Ege<\/a> (1888\u20131951). Further research and newly revealed materials augment our knowledge of these manuscripts (and others).\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

This report updates our earlier blogpost on parts of Otto Ege Manuscript 41<\/a>.\u00a0 See also the posts for Ege Manuscripts 8<\/a>, 14<\/a>, 51<\/a>, and 61<\/a>, plus updates (More Discoveries for Ege Manuscript 61<\/a>), as well as the Report for our 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’<\/a>, with an illustrated Program Booklet<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

This report, drafted following a first visit in 2017 to view examples in the Otto Ege Collection now at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, benefits from updates following a new visit in October 2018, with my thanks for permission to examine and to photograph the materials, especially while they remain mostly uncatalogued.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Picking Up The Piecework<\/h3>\n

As more pieces of the manuscript come to light, and\/or become recognized for what they are, the process of virtually picking up their pieces toward a reasonable reconstruction of their original contents can or must proceed piecemeal.\u00a0 More discoveries advance that process considerably.\u00a0 Here we report new stages.\u00a0 Some of them, naturally enough, may revise the received understanding about the manuscript.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The First Leaf & The Contents Listed, Medieval Style<\/h3>\n
\"Ivory<\/a>

Ivory Plaque with Gregory the Great as Scribe Inspired by the Holy Spirit in the Form of a Dove. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (Inv. Nr. Kunstkammer, 8399), late 10th century, Lotharingia? Photograph by Vassil via Wikipedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

The transfer of the treasure-trove of materials from the Ege Family Collection to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University<\/a> brings into view significant evidence regarding many of the manuscripts which Otto F. Ege dispersed\u00a0\u2014 as well as some manuscripts, mostly unknown, which miraculously remain more-or-less intact.<\/p>\n

In some cases of dispersed manuscripts, the contents of the Beinecke trove can not only enhance, but also may reinforce, or even overturn, the hints, descriptions, and assertions about their nature, contents, and identities as presented by Otto Ege and other 20th-century accounts.\u00a0 Especially spectacular, for example, is the enlarged body of evidence which the trove contains for ‘Ege Manuscripts 14 and 51’ (see our updates, in preparation), in the forms of multiple leaves or multiple volumes (or remnants thereof).<\/p>\n

In the case of Otto Ege Manuscript 41<\/a>, an attractively decorated medium-format late-medieval copy of Christian texts in Latin by, or attributed to, Pope Gregory the Great<\/a> (pope from 590\u2012604) and other notable authors, the Beinecke trove includes the first leaf of the original volume, with its elaborate opening page for Gregory’s text and a revelatory medieval contents list.\u00a0 The emergence of the first leaf and the contents list into scholarly view both enables and requires a clearer recognition of the original structure of the volume, before its dismemberment and dispersal as fragments\u00a0\u2014 which have mostly disappeared beyond notice or recognition.<\/p>\n

Standing in the upper margin above the right-hand column of text on the first folio (or leaf), the contents list, written in brown ink in a late-medieval hand, cites the set of texts in their sequence. It names three authors, aligned with one or more of their works \u2014 or purported works, given some difficulties with attributions over the centuries.<\/p>\n

To an extent, the list clutters and perhaps defaces the opening page of Book I of Gregory’s Dialogues<\/em>, but that location probably ensured the survival of the list, instead of, say, being discarded while on a seemingly superfluous, “uninteresting”, and extraneous endleaf, as the case with many other medieval endleaves<\/a>. The potential value of the physical evidence on endleaves and bindings for our knowledge of medieval manuscripts, including their original production and history of use and\/or abuse, is highlighted in A Scholar’s Plea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1891<\/a>

Leaf 41, Recto, Top, 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<\/p><\/div>\n

The Contents Listed, 2oth-Century Census<\/em> Style<\/h3>\n

While still intact, the manuscript received a brief account as part of Otto Ege’s collection, housed at 1888 South Compton Road, Cleveland, Ohio, when it was reported in the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States<\/em><\/a> by Seymour De Ricci<\/a> and W. J. Wilson, Volume II (1937), at pages 1937\u201338.\u00a0 That Census<\/em> of medieval manuscripts in Ege’s collection comprises a “selection, made by S. de Ricci and supplemented by more ample notes by W. J. Wilson” (page 1937).\u00a0 As a self-proclaimed “selection”, the report necessarily represents a partial, presumably compressed, and perhaps partly cursory set of observations.<\/p>\n

The entry for Item 56 in Ege’s collection (at page 1945) surveys the manuscript, including its binding \u2014 apparently, alas, now lost, along with any endleaves.\u00a0 Because the report both supplies vital information and withholds some evidence for its interpretations, it should be viewed as it stands, in detail.\u00a0 Thus:<\/p>\n

S. Gregorius Magnus, Dialogi, libri IV; S. Johannes Chrysostomus, Epistolae et expositionis in Epistolam ad Hebraeos, etc.; S. Anselmus, Meditationes. Vel[lum]. (early XVth c.). 274 ff[olios]. (31 \u00d7 22 cm.). Written in Flanders. Orig[inal]. wooden boards and stamped leather, with the Van der Cruisse de Walziers arms added.<\/p>\n

Belonged ca. 1800 to Charles Van der Cruisse. \u2014 Obtained (ca. 1925) from Thorp, of Guilford. \u2014 This is apparently one of the mss. which disappeared during the War from the family library of the comte de Walziers, in northern France.<\/p>\n

Not enough, we might think, in terms of information, but, let’s say, Something is Better Than Nothing.\u00a0 Now, let’s see what it’s worth.<\/p>\n

3 Authors Assembled<\/h3>\n

Summing up these contents for convenience, there are 3 items, cited by author or purported author.<\/p>\n

S. Gregorius Magnus, Dialogi<\/em>, libri IV;
\nS. Johannes Chrysostomus, Epistolae et expositionis in Epistolam ad Hebraeos<\/em>, etc.;
\nS. Anselmus, Meditationes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That is:<\/p>\n

Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues<\/em>, [in] IV Books
\nSaint John Chrysostom, Epistles and Commentaries<\/em> on the Epistle to the Hebrews<\/em>, etc.
\nSaint Anselm, Meditations<\/em>.<\/p>\n

According to this list, the volume carried works by, or attributed to, these authors:<\/p>\n