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Posts from the ‘Medieval Manuscripts’ Category

Mar 21

lindisfarne_gospels

Lindisfarne Gospels

The Lindisfarne Gospels book is one of the greatest landmarks of human cultural achievement. Created by the community of St Cuthbert on Lindisfarne it is one of the best examples of creativity and craftsmanship from Medieval times.

The Lindisfarne Gospels Durham exhibition takes visitors on a journey of exploration, learning how and why this masterpiece was created, its influence on Medieval Europe and how artistic traditions from Britain and the Mediterranean mainland came together in North East England.

On show in Durham University’s Palace Green Library, completely redesigned and refurbished for this event, will be fabulous artefacts wrought from precious metals and minerals including gold, amber and silver and stone sculpture alongside medieval manuscripts including the St Cuthbert Gospel and the Durham Gospels.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the gospel book itself, written in honour of St Cuthbert and displayed alongside his treasures. However, the gospel book will for the first time since the 16th century be shown alongside the jewelled cross, the travelling altar and the sapphire ring, all found in St Cuthbert’s coffin. The exhibition, launched to coincide with St Cuthbert’s Day, will also display Europe’s oldest surviving bound book, the St Cuthbert Gospel, Anglo-Saxon artefacts and medieval manuscripts.

There are plenty of hands-on opportunities for visitors, especially families, to discover how Medieval manuscripts were created and to use technology to virtually turn the pages of the book to explore the beauty and detail of the book’s illuminated pages.

No visit to the exhibition will be complete without a visit to Durham Cathedral to see St Cuthbert’s Shrine and throughout the three-month exhibition a wealth of performances, activities and events will complete a memorable visit to Durham.

Lindisfarne Gospels Durham will be open to the public from 1 July to 30 September 2013. Tickets for the exhibition are sold online at www.lindisfarnegospels.com

Read more at www.lindisfarnegospels.com

Read about St. Cuthbert Gospel

Mar 20

binding-book-12th-century-university-liverpool

A 12th Century Book

A book in the library at the University of Liverpool was redated by Dr. Erik Kwakkel to the 12th century

Gregorius’ De cura pastorali was until yesterday believed to stem from the 13th century. After a visit by leading scholar, Dr. Erik Kwakkel, the small book was redated to the 12th century using new developments in the field.

Dr Erik Kwakkel, of Leiden University in the Netherlands, was visiting the University’s Special Collections and Archives to deliver a workshop and talk to postgraduate students on medieval manuscripts.

An a expert in the fields of palaeography and codicology, Dr. Kwakkel attempts to uncover what he terms the ‘cultural residue’ of works in order to gain an insight into their age and possible use. He explores manuscripts by examining aspects not central to the text itself, such as book chains, marks from candle wax, reader annotations or the type of material the work is written on etc.

Dr Kwakkel was given the opportunity to explore the extensive collection and determined that a copy held of Gregorius’ De cura pastorali was not made in the 13th Century, as originally thought, but actually dates back an additional 100 years – making it the oldest in the collection. He bases the new date on an examination of the binding.

“When you have the binding, you can see what it looked like in the Middle Ages. We have the full picture and we can see the book like a medieval person did… what makes it significant is that it still has its original bindings. These are extremely rare in the Middle Ages, particularly when we move back in time from the 13th Century to the 12th Century”.SpecColl 1WEB 300x198 A 12th Century Book

Among those attending the workshop were Medieval and Renaissance Studies MA students, Kate Watkins, Seamus Cartmell and James Duffy. Seamus said: “It’s interesting to think that it’s not necessarily what’s in the document, as much as its physicality – we have to listen to what it says. The book is a silent witness.”

On a mission
Erik told students that the presence of a chain on a book, or even the remnants of a chain, revealed that it was stored in a public place. Any annotations or marginalia were also likely to have been produced by readers across the ages, and not by the monks who originally produced each work.

He added: “I do this because I am on a mission. The medieval manuscript needs a bigger audience, much bigger than it has, and the next generation needs to be inspired. I do feel that graduate students need to feel there is something still to be researched.”

To further this aim, both Erik and Sarah are active on twitter @Erik_Kwakkel and @Sarah_Peverley

SOURCE:
Revealed: The Oldest Book in University Libraries. IN: University News from the University of Liverpool

Find out more about the Special Collections and Archives in the Library at the University of Liverpool

Read more about the work of Dr. Erik Kwakkel in “Turning over a New Leaf”, published in 2012 by the University of Leiden

Follow the project at Facebook

 

 

Nov 15

Malory1

Morte Darthur

The manuscript of by Thomas Malory of Morte Darthur from 1480 is now digitised   

What does one do when in prison? Write letters like Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945)? Write philosophical treatises like Thomas Moore (1478 -1535)? Or write history like Sir Thomas Malory (1405 – 1471), who composed a lengthy rewriting in prose of the full story of Arthur and Camelot – Morte Darthur – later printed by William Caxton in 1485.

It has been a matter of contention, who Sir Thomas Malory was. However, scholars tend to agree that he is identical with the Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel at Stretton-under-Fosse , who spent years in and out of prisons, while defending himself against a large catalogue of sordid crimes – rape, extortion and armed robberies. It appears from the text that at least parts of it must have been written while the author was incarcerated. For instance at one point it says: “For this was written by a knight prisoner Thomas Malleorre, that God send him good recovery”. Other parts must have been written while the author had access to a proper library filled with amongst other books, the great French “Vulgate Cycles”, containing prose rendering of the many and diverse tales of the Knights of the Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail. Or did he have protectors, which furnished him with entertainment while languishing in Newgate?

Morte Darthur British Library MS59678 357 196x300 Morte Darthur

Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur, England, c. 1471-1483, British Library, Add. MS 59678, f. 357v.

The “Morte Darthur” by Sir Thomas Malory as printed by Caxton has been the prime source for countless retellings. It inspired Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”, Mark Twain’s “Connecticut Yankee” as well as films like the “Excalibur” from 1981 (and through this later adaptions like the TV-series “Merlin”).

However, even though the manuscript was not lost – it just lay hidden in the Winchester College Library – the text was only known from the edition by Caxton until 1934.  The rediscovery of the manuscript ignited an intensive comparison of the texts, which revealed – amongst other things – how an early printer took liberties with his texts in order to fit the text to the page (much like graphic designers do these days if the authors are not careful in supervising them).

Recently the British Library digitised the Winchester manuscript  presenting the public with the possibility of reading the book in its original form and promising that “the experience of reading the book in its manuscript form is quite different from that offered by modern editions, even those based on the Winchester version of the text.”

SOURCE:

Rediscovering Malory: Digitising The Morte Darthur

Full digitised Version of Morte Darthur

READ MORE:

Read about Sir Thomas Malory

Read more about Sir Thomas Malory

The Malory Manuscript
By Lotte Helinga and Hilton Kelliher.
In: British Library Journal 1977

The Camelot Project
The Camelot Project is designed to make available in electronic format a database of Arthurian texts, images, bibliographies, and basic information. The project, begun in 1995, is sponsored by the University of Rochester and prepared in The Robbins Library, a branch of Rush Rhees Library.

 

 

Nov 12

Illumination from Roman de la Rose © BnF

Roman de la Rose

A hundred manuscripts of the medieval bestseller – le Roman de la Rose – are on show in Paris at the Biblioteque nationale Francaise.

Le Roman de la Rose was a me-dieval allegorical bestseller. Like aversified play it invited readers to ponder the drama of courtly love, while at the same time diverting them with pure unadulterated pornography.

More than 320 manuscripts exist of the Roman de la Rose, many of them luxuriously illuminated. Of these Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris houses more than 120. This winter a grand exhibition at the library has placed a hundred manuscripts on show together with pertinent objects from the Louvre, Musée de Cluny and other collections.

Visitors are first invited into a long gallery emanating a sense of spring time. Here they are introduced to the different personified characters in the allegory. The object is to give a feeling for the poem and its main plot.

Next – in the large hall of exhibition – the visitor is invited to feel as a guest in the enclosed garden. Here 30 of the most magnificent manuscripts are on show, presenting the development of the reception of the poem. At the same time, however, the visitor is guided to an understanding of the intricacies of the medieval art of love with its ideas of chaste friendships, vile women, hateful marriages and lustful affairs.

Finally in the small salon – organised as a medieval office or scriptorium – the story is told about the aftermath of the poem: how it was read aloud, how it was reproduced, illustrated and commented upon, and finally how it became the centre of a very famous literary quarrel.

Read about this quarrel and the rest of the story in

Medieval Histories 2012: 11:2

Oct 24

Lukas-Evangeliar-Otto-III
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Codices 780-1180

“Pracht auf Pergament” in München  shows a precious treasure of Early Medieval illuminated manuscripts     

The Bavarian State Library has decided to show its treasures to the public. 72 extraordinary codices from 780-1180 have been brought out of the vault. Together with three loans from Bamberg State Library the Kunsthalle presents an overwhelming number of some of the most precious manuscripts in Medieval History. Especially the nucleus of Ottonian manuscripts is remarkable.

Secular and ecclesiastical rulers commissioned liturgical manuscripts from the best writing schools and illumination centres. These gospels, pericopes and sacramentaries were richly decorated with luminous colours and gold. Their ingeniously tooled luxurious bindings are encrusted with numerous precious stones, cameos and ivory reliefs, including spolia dating from the Classical, Byzantine and Carolingian periods. Such manuscripts played important rules at festive masses or whenever important bishops, kings or other important magnates took part in religious ceremonies in Abbeys, Convents or Cathedrals. Their symbolic role was to signify the high status of the participants and the festive character of the celebrations.

Screen Shot 2012 10 23 at 6.32.36 PM 300x161 Codices 780 1180

The oldest manuscript on display dates the era of the last Agilolfing duke, Tassilo III, who was deposed by Charlemagne. He is also know for the famous chalice, which his wife donated to the Abbey of Kremsmünster in 777. Next follows a series of Carolingian codices from the production centers of Salzburg, Tegernsee and Freising. This may then be compared to the great achievements from the 10th century with their magnificent depictions of sovereigns.

Four of the sumptuous codices made in the imperial scriptorium at the Abbey of Reichenau are shown, including the gospels of Otto III and the pericopes of Henry II.

Further, Regensburg, which was another centre for the creation of such jewels, is represented by two magnificent liturgical manuscripts, the Codex commissioned by the Abbess Uta and the Sacramentary of Henry II.

Other selected manuscripts from the Bavarian State Library illustrate the continuity into the 11th century and beyond, thus demonstrating the development of Romanesque book illumination and its flourishing in the following century up to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1122–1190).

In five selected manuscripts, the page shown in the exhibition will be occasionally turned, in order for dedicated visitors to be able to see more illuminations during the run of the exhibition.

This is really a chance in a lifetime. Owing to their extraordinary fragility, these highly valuable works can hardly ever leave the library’s vault. This exhibition of original manuscripts therefore offers a unique opportunity.

But: Already over-spent your budget for travelling 2012? Hope is here. In connection with the exhibition the Library has digitized nearly all the codices. They may be studied here

Pracht auf Pergament
Kunsthalle der Hypo Kulturstiftung
München
19.10.2012 – 13.01.2013

Catalogue:
Pracht auf Pergament. Schätze der Buchmalerei von 780 bis 1180
Published by Bayerische Staatsbibliothek und Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung. Hiermer Verlag 2012

Photo: Evangeliar Ottos III., Reichenau, um 1000, Der Evangelist Lukas, Clm 4453, fol. 139v, © München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

Oct 19

small-Henry-VIII-weeps-at his mothers-bed-vaux-passional-©-LIGC-NLW-2012

Young Henry VIII

A remarkable find in the archives of the national Library of Wales shows the weeping Henry VIII together with his sisters at his mother’s empty deathbed

The illustration shows the presentation of a manuscript to a seated king. In the background two girls wearing black veils are sitting below an empty bed draped in black. A boy is weeping into the bedcover. According to the librarian, Dr Maredudd ap Huw, preliminary investigations suggest that these background figures may be the 13 year old Princess Margaret, 7 year old princess Mary and 11 year old Prince Henry (the future Henry VIII) shortly after the death of their mother in February 1503.

Henry VIII weeps at his mothers bed vaux passional © LIGC NLW 2012 300x294 Young Henry VIIIThe manuscript contains two French texts. First a passional – La Passion de Nostre Seigneur – inviting the reader to meditate on the sufferings of Christ during his arrest, trial, Crucifixion and Resurrection. This text was originally translated in 1398 for Isabeau de Bavière (Isabelle of Bavaria), queen of France. The second text is a poetic invitation to meditate on the futility of worldly pleasures in the face of certain death. The author was Georges Chastellain (1415-1475), who was chronicler to the Dukes of Burgundy.

The manuscript is illustrated with 34 large and beautiful Flemish-style miniatures in gold and colours with rich flower borders. The heraldry of the illuminations indicates that the volume may have been prepared for Henry VII of England. The manuscript is remarkable because it still has its original binding of wooden boards covered with crimson velvet retaining marks from brass bosses.

The richly illustrated volume, called the Vaux Passional (Peniarth MS 482D), was probably written in London around 1500 by one scribe and on parchment. A number of heraldic decorations in the manuscript still remain to be identified, before it may be decided by whom it was commissioned. However, the manuscript did belong to Lady Jane Guildford, whose mother was a native of Provence and lady-in-waiting to Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. Jane herself was close to the Royal Household of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth of York and acted as ‘lady governess’ to the royal princesses Margaret and Mary Tudor, who called her ‘Mother Guildford’.

According to a series of inscriptions in the manuscript it was passed on to her descendants, who were Roman Catholic recusants and may have venerated the manuscript for religious reasons. In 1921 it was presented to the National Library of Wales. It was in the process of the digitization of the manuscripts in the collection of the Library that the discovery of the illumination was made.

Vaux passionale henry VIII © LIGC NLW 2012 207x300 Young Henry VIII

As is usual with such miniatures no likeness may be expected. It is rather the scene, which makes the identification probable. However, it is remarkable that the manuscript ends with an illumination showing a young man with flaming red hair holding a mirror up in front of a dead woman in a white shroud, while an older man is watching from a chair in the background. Might that be another idealised picture of the prince?

Press Release from The National Library of Wales

The Vaux Passional

 

Oct 3

cartulaire-de-citeaux-vetus

Burgundian Charters

Charters from Medieval Burgundy on-line  

Medieval Burgundy is an archival treasure trove. Somehow thousands of legal and diplomatic documents like foundation acts, wills, pontifical privileges, charters and literally hundreds of cartularies have been preserved.

Digitisation of  – or parts of all this – started in 2004 as part of a larger project: “Chartes et pouvoir au Moyen Âge” which was conducted under the auspices of MSH – Maison des sciences de l’homme. (Of this project a digitised footprint seems to have disappeared…BL Royal Vincent of Beauvais library duke burgundy 300x296 Burgundian Charters

The project is important because the cartularies concerns such grand institutions as Cluny and Citeaux. So-far 20 cartularies including 15000 documents have been digitized from the regions of Côte-d’Or,  Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire and Yonne. At the site a collection of articles as well as digitized editions from the 19th and 20th century are available. The documents are available in txt, doc, pdf as well as image.The database also contains unpublished cartularies from Medieval Burgundy, which can be scrolled or flipped through.

Recently the team provided access to four editions from the 20th century, the cartulary of Sens, the charters of St. Etienne de Dijon, more charters from the abbey of Citeaux and the proceedings of the priory of Saint-Sympherien; thus adding to this very impressive collection.

Chartae Burgundiae Medii Aevi – The Site

Chartae Burgundiae Medii Aevi – The Database

 A review by Jonathan Jarrett of the project in comparison with others

A blog about the project

 

Oct 2

SAMSUNG
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Quills of Clerks

The Parliament in Paris houses a treasure of scribal drawings and doodles in the margins of their acts   

The National Archive of France houses a treasure of charters, documents and court proceedings originally part of the Royal Archive and the Archive of the Parliament of Paris. Parts of it dating from the 1254 it covers the period up to revolution. It the collections scholars may find a nearly endless series of pleads, deliberations and sentences passed by the supreme royal court plus recordings of all sorts of public administration.

jeanne d arc parliament 212x300 Quills of Clerks

Apart from the obvious value of these sources as regards the machinations of medieval and early modern government, the acts and documents hold a large number of tantalising drawings and illustrations.

The most famous one is of course the drawing attributed to Clement of Fauquembergue, who accompanied his report on the capture of Orleans with a “portrait” of Jeanne D’Arc – obviously rendered as a very feminine figure, she is fighting under the banner of IHS – Jesus – and is carrying a heavy sword.

Although most of the drawings are ornamental in character and entwined with capitals, some are regular portraits while other clerks professed to drawing dragons, lions, rabbits other beasts. The heyday of all these drawing were from second part of the 14th century.

drawings book 300x300 Quills of ClerksA small exhibition at Lille offers visitors a tiny view of what is only a small part of these very amusing pieces of art, which shows just how much illumination was not just something, which was carried out in the quiet scriptoriums of monasteries. Definitely there existed a secular art of doodling of which – alas – so little is preserved.

EXHIBITION:

Plumes de greffiers: La Lettre et l’image dans les archives du Parlement de Paris.
Université Lille 2 Droit et Santé, Biliothèque
01.10.2012 – 26.10.2012

READ MORE:

Images du pouvoir royal: Les chartes décorées des Archives nationales, XIIIe–XVe siècle
by Ghislain Brunel.
Paris: Somogy éditions, 2005

LINKS:

Parlement de Paris – Chronique des recherces dans des archives

Bibliographie du Parlement de Paris

 

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