London Medieval Manuscripts Seminar: Programme 2016/7

Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Medieval Manuscripts Seminar: Programme 2016/7

 11 October 2016

 Andrew Dunning, British Library

Manuscript Collaboration between Malmesbury and Cirencester Abbeys

From the 1130s to the 1240s, a continual exchange in manuscripts supported the communities of the Benedictine abbey in Malmesbury and the Augustinian abbey in Cirencester. Robert of Cricklade, a canon at Cirencester, wrote of his admiration of William of Malmesbury and his efforts to have copies of several of his works made for the abbey library. Also at Cirencester, Walter de Melida, a scribe and textual critic, used Malmesbury manuscripts for copies of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus and Alan of Tewkesbury’s collection of the letters of Thomas Becket. After the death of Cirencester’s most famous author, Alexander Neckam, in 1217, the prior of Malmesbury provided Walter with a statement of his admiration for Alexander’s Corrogationes Promethei, likely supporting an effort to assemble Alexander’s complete works. In the 1240s, Alexander’s nephew, Geoffrey Brito, compiled a miscellany of his uncle’s works, Sol meldunensis, dedicating it to Geoffrey, abbot of Malmesbury, with an invitation for further contributions. The manuscript appears to have been passed between the two abbeys, with new features added along the way.

22 November 2016

Mary Wellesley, British Library

Graphical Reverence and Script Hierarchy in the manuscript of the N-town Plays

The paper examines the macaronic text of the Magnificat from the ‘Visit to Elizabeth’ pageant in London, British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian D. VIII  — the sole surviving copy of the Middle English play cycle, The N-town Plays. It explores what the scribe’s use of a script hierarchy has to tell us about performance and reading, and the interplay between liturgy and drama.

 31 January 2017

Ainoa Correa Castro, Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, King’s College London

The scribes of the Silos Apocalypse (London, British Library, Add. MS. 11695) and the scriptorium of Silos in the late eleventh century

In the late eleventh century Fortunio, abbot of the newly restored Benedictine community of Silos, near Burgos, commissioned the time- and cost-consuming task of replicating for the monastery one of the most significant best-sellers of the peninsular Middle Ages: a Beatus. In doing so, he was continuing a long-lasting Iberian, Mozarabic, tradition originating in the late eighth century. In this seminar the Silos Apocalypse will be examined with the purpose of unveiling who were the scribes who intervened in its copying, what can be known about their professional connections, what was their cultural context, and how this codex fits within the written production of Silos in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.

 7 February 2017

Arianna D’Ottone Rambach, Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Palaeography, Codicology and Numismatics – Sapienza, University of Rome

Arabic Palaeography: Mediterranean contacts and influences

Bilingual and digraphic manuscript-witnesses, papyri, manuscripts and gems, in Greek and Arabic, and Latin and Arabic, offer the opportunity to explore cultural interactions between Mediterranean written practices, and connections between book cultures. A recently discovered, and unique document in Arabic, written in Latin letters, will be also presented and put in context from both the historical and linguistic points of view.

 14 March 2017

David Rundle, University of Oxford

English Humanist Script in England: the first ten years

In the last half century, the outline of the early development in Florence of humanist bookhand, littera antiqua, has been amassed in detail. Central to this was the work of A. C. de la Mare, who also reconstructed the history of that script in England. This paper revisits that topic and reveals the identity of the first known humanist scribe at work in England. The intention, however, is not simply to add to the sum of knowledge about humanism’s reception beyond the European mainland but also to question the established narratives about its spread from its Italian centre to the periphery.

 28 March 2017

Ralph Hanna III (Emeritus Fellow, Keble College, Oxford)

Cambridge, University Library, MS. Dd.1.17

 

Venue: Dr Seng T Lee Centre for Manuscript and Book Studies,
Senate House Library, University of London,
Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
All meetings at 5.30 p.m., Tuesdays, followed by a wine reception.
Organiser: Julia Crick, King’s College London.

Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff. 5. 35: Some Structural Observations

Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff. 5. 35 contains The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and Piers Plowman. Both works were copied by a single scribe, and are relatively uniform in terms of layout, decoration, abbreviation, and use of catchwords. These two texts are also found in close proximity in several other manuscripts (Cambridge University Library Dd. 1. 17 and San Marino, Calif., Huntington Library MS HM 114), suggesting that despite differences in genre, form and style, the combination was a somewhat popular and apparently logical one for medieval audiences.

This manuscript features two separate sets of quire markings: a series of quire numbers, likely made by a later binder, loosely resembling Roman numerals; and a series of leaf signatures, apparently scribal, visible on the bottom outer corner of the recto of the first folios of many quires, consisting of a letter marking the quire number and a Roman numeral indicating the number of the folio within that quire. Continue reading

An ex libris puzzle in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ee. 4. 30

Cambridge University Library, MS Ee. 4. 30 is a copy of Walter Hilton’s contemplative treatise The Scale of Perfection. Dating from the late fifteenth century, the manuscript is a good quality production by a single scribe, with some careful decorations. It was produced in the London Charterhouse, a major centre of book production and circulation.

Cambridge University Library, MS Ee. 4.30, fol. 4r. Copyright Cambridge University Library

Cambridge University Library, MS Ee. 4.30, fol. 4r. Copyright Cambridge University Library

Indeed, the presence of an ex libris inscription in the manuscript indicates its provenance, one which follows the standard Latin phrasing from this house: ‘Liber domus salutacionis Matris Dei ordinis cartusiensis prope London’ (‘a book of the house of the Salutation of the Mother of God, of the Carthusian Order, near London’). This formulation appears in several other volumes from the Charterhouse, including at the very end of Cambridge University Library, MS Ff. 1. 19 (fol. 134v), where it is heavily abbreviated. However, in MS Ee. 4. 30 the formulation appears in an unusual and, as far as I have been able to determine, unique format. The inscription appears one letter at a time in the central lower margins of each recto in Part One of the Scale text (fols. 4r – 62r), meaning that the reader has to decipher the text gradually. Continue reading

Sanditon: 200 Years

‘Sanditon: 200 Years’ is a conference that will take place at Trinity College, Cambridge from March 29-31, 2017. The conference will mark the bicentenary of the composition of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel, Sanditon, in a year that also marks the bicentenary of Austen’s death. Austen began to write Sanditon in January of 1817. The manuscript closes with the date of March 18. Austen died four months later.

The manuscript of Sanditon is held at King’s College, Cambridge and will be available for participants in the conference to view, along with items from the Dorothy Warren and David Gilson Jane Austen collections, also held at at King’s.

This conference will be devoted to discussing a diverse range of subjects relating to Jane Austen’s last work. Papers on thematic, historical, stylistic and biographical topics are invited. Particular attention will be given to the manuscript of Sanditon and Austen’s compositional processes, as well as to the reception and textual history of Sanditon in terms of editions, adaptations and continuations.

For further details, including the call for papers, see conference website: https://sanditon200years.wordpress.com

Conference organizer: Dr Anne Toner (Trinity College, Cambridge)

Medieval Latin Song from c. 800 to c. 1200 AD

Saturday 2 July, Pembroke College, Old Library

A one-day interdisciplinary conference dedicated to Latin song that was not routinely performed in the liturgy from the Carolingian era through to the New Song repertories recorded from c. 1100 onwards. The opening address is given by Professor C. Stephen Jaeger and the concluding paper by Professor David Ganz. Invited papers will be given by scholars of medieval music based at the Universities of Cambridge and Würzburg, including Professor Susan Rankin and Dr Sam Barrett.  Particular attention will be paid to the earliest manuscripts transmitting medieval Latin song, both notated and unnotated, the place of music in early medieval education, the song culture at Sankt Gallen in the Carolingian era as seen through the lens of its surviving manuscripts, and reassessment of Aquitanian sources for new virtuosic song repertories. For the full programme and registration, see:

https://performinglostsongs.wordpress.com/conference/programme/

In the evening from 7:30pm, a concert of recently reconstructed songs from Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy will be given by Sequentia, directed by Benjamin Bagby, with Hanna Marti and Norbert Rodenkirchen. A pre-concert talk on the processes of reconstruction will by given by Sam Barrett at 7pm.  Those registered for the conference may purchase tickets at the concessionary rate.  To book tickets, go to:

https://performinglostsongs.wordpress.com/conference/registration/

Cambridge Medieval Palaeography Workshop, Easter 2016

2014-07-25 12.05.36The Cambridge Medieval Palaeography Workshop is a forum for informal discussion on medieval script and scribal practices, and on the presentation, circulation and reception of texts in their manuscript contexts. Each workshop focuses upon a particular issue, usually explored through one or more informal presentations and general discussion. All are welcome. Easter Term meetings will take place in the Milstein Seminar Room, Cambridge University Library between 2-4 PM.

Friday 6 May 2016.

Dr. Irene Ceccherini: ‘The Network of Cursive Handwriting: Late Medieval Italian Notaries, Merchants, Scribes and Scholars between Documents and Books’

Friday 20 May 2016.

Dr. Katya Chernakova: Title To Be Announced.

Dr. Eyal Poleg: ‘The Late Medieval Bible’

Friday 27 May 2016.

Professor David Ganz: ‘When is a ‘Script’ not Several Scribes?’

For more information, see the attached poster.

Convenors: Teresa Webber, Orietta Da Rold, Suzanne Paul, Sean Curran and David Ganz. For further details, email Orietta Da Rold (od245@cam.ac.uk)

The John Coffin Memorial Lecture in Palaeography 2016

Daniel Wakelin (Jeremy Griffiths Professor of Medieval English Palaeography, University of Oxford)

‘Let me slip into something less comfortable’: Gothic Textualis by Accident and by Design

Date: 11/05/2016 – 17:30 – 19:00
Institute: Institute of English Studies
Venue: The Chancellor’s Hall, First Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Professor Wakelin is a leading expert in the palaeography and reading culture of the later Middle Ages. He is the author of numerous studies, among them Humanism, Reading and English Literature 1430-1530 (2007) and Scribal Correction and Literary Craft: English Manuscripts 1375-1510 (2014), which was joint winner of the DeLong Prize for book history in 2015. His John Coffin Memorial Lecture concerns the supposed ‘decadence’ of late gothic textualis, especially the more formal grades, whether it entailed effort or conscious design, and instances when individuals misunderstood it or slipped.

http://www.sas.ac.uk/support-research/public-events/2016/john-coffin-memorial-lecture-palaeography-2016

 

Lyell Lectures 2016

‘Public Reading and its Books: Monastic Ideals and Practice in England c. 1000-c. 1300’, to be given by Dr Teresa Webber (Trinity College, Cambridge), in the Weston Library Lecture Theatre (the former ‘New Bodlean’ Library), Broad Street, Oxford, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5pm, from 3 May to 19 May, as follows:

3 May ‘Public Reading in Monastic Observance: the framework of norms

5 May ‘Reading the Gospel

10 May ‘Reading the Bible’

12 May ‘Celebrating the Saints’

17 May ‘Reading in Chapter’

19 May ‘Reading at Collation: Monastic Ideals and the Practice of Public Reading’

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whats-on/upcoming-events/2016/may/lyell-lectures-1

The Elision of Mark Pattison in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum holds both the original manuscript and first edition proofs for Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure (Object Numbers MS 1-1911 and PB 9-2008). The novel was published in 1895 and follows the tragic tale of Jude Fawley, whose impassioned ambition to become a scholar is repeatedly thwarted by a troublesome blend of social impediments and regrettable personal decision-making. The novel transpired to be Hardy’s swansong in literary fiction, and is an astonishingly rich vision of the troubled philosophical and political conditions in the fin de siècle.

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Early Modern Lexicography – ‘The Engelhus-Vokabular’

I’m currently working on a doctoral thesis on an analysis and editing of a 15th century dictionary written by the school-master, chronicler and theologist Dietrich Engelhus (ca. 1362-1434). The dictionary contains lemmata in both Latin and Greek (using the Latin alphabet), followed by a multitude of explanations such as definitions, translations into Middle Low German, examples of use, derivations and grammatical information.

Cod. Guelf. 956 Helmst., 221v

Cod. Guelf. 956 Helmst., 221v

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