Medieval Manuscripts

The Diocesan library in Pelplin contains several manuscripts which originate from its mother monastery in Doberan. They probably came here with the first monks from Doberan to the newly founded monastery in Pogódki (1258) which moved to Pelplin a few years later (1276). The stock consists of six manuscripts with a definite possession note of Doberan Monastery and seven further handwritings which are classified by research work as originating from Doberan. The article presents the manuscripts and the current state of research.

Ornament as Argument  explores notions of ornamentation and materiality in 10th and 11th-century Christian manuscript illumination. In particular, the book investigates the function and metaphoric meaning of so-called textile pages—images evoking the weave patterns of Byzantine and Islamic silk. An analysis of a broad range of objects situates textile pages in the context of medieval reading practice, visual exegesis, and worship. Based on various theological arguments that bear on the images and the book as an object in itself, the illuminations emerge as powerful textile metaphors. These concern material approaches to scripture, textile readings of the incarnation, and the physical book as body. Ornament as Argument thus contributes to a new understanding of the vital role illuminated manuscripts played in medieval material culture.

This paper, given at the 2020 Virtual International Medieval Conference (Leeds) addressed two later manuscript copies of Hrabanus Maurus's "carmina figurata," In honorem sanctae crucis and examined how visual alterations to the poems reflect contemporary religious movements.

introduzione al volume che l'insegnamento del vocabolario della propria disciplina non è sempre la principale preoccupazione di un docente universitario, e che ciò vale anche per chi «insegna la paleografia e le materie correlate, quali in particolare la diplomatica e la codicologia». Se, forse, in passato ci si poteva permettere di presumere che gli studenti possedessero gli attrezzi concettuali e terminologici necessari allo studio di una certa disciplina, nel caso particolare la paleografia, oggi nulla può essere dato per scontato. Evidente dovrebbe quindi risultare, più che l'utilità, la necessità di uno strumento che accompagni i discenti in un ambito tecnico quale la paleografia latina, tanto indispensabile allo studio del nostro passato quanto confinato in un orizzonte quasi esotico -il che potrebbe, in una prospettiva didattica, essere volto in vantaggio, poiché c'è un'inevitabile alterità nel passato e una quota di mistero sempre nuovo da indagare. Del glossario di Adelaide Ricci colpisce innanzitutto la semplicità: una virtù che tuttavia nasconde un lungo e paziente lavoro di chiarificazione, percorso che conduce alla chiarezza. È proprio la chiarezza terminologica a svolgere la funzione di autentica guida dei perplessi -o degli inesperti, quali sono non solo gli studenti, ma anche gran parte degli storici non specialisti della disciplina. Si trovano nel Glossario, per questa ragione, voci che dettagliano aspetti specifici dell'edizione di manoscritti (è il caso delle iniziali decorate e della loro nomenclatura), termini legati alla storia dei testi e alla loro redazione (alcuni, originale o redattore, apparentemente intuitivi, altri, come abitato o rasura, che appartengono al lessico più tecnicamente specifico della materia) e altri più generali ma che potrebbero talvolta causare fraintendimenti (come, nella struttura di un'opera, sommario, indice o intercolùmnio). Un pregio indiretto del Glossario di paleografia risiede nel suo mostrarci, attraverso la terminologia, la ricchezza della storia del libro nel suo farsi oggetto concreto di lettura e di studio; va quindi doppiamente apprezzato il fatto che questo volume si pone consapevolmente all'interno di questa nobile storia, che contiene e dalla quale è contenuto: in tale prospettiva si pone un'eccellente bibliografia ragionata, tanto semplice quanto intelligente, valida guida per gli studenti che opportunamente intendano proseguire nello studio della materia paleografica, una disciplina preziosa e, come tutte le altre, in evoluzione. Ai paleografi esperti, infine, il Glossario di Adelaide Ricci può servire come utile promemoria relativamente a un aspetto che ogni specialista tende paradossalmente a trascurare, per non dire dimenticare: la bellezza della propria terminologia specifica.

Resumo: Como um dos períodos mais ricos em termos de produção de documentos, o reinado de Alfredo, o Grande (871 – 899) se destaca em diversos âmbitos. Estando em um contexto de reformas, o reinado de Alfredo ressignifica as produções intelectuais em Inglês Antigo. Tal ressignificação acontece na criação de documentos oficiais como a Crônica Anglo-Saxônic e diversas obras clássicas em Latim são traduzidas ao vernacular. Uma destas traduções é a da Ecclesiastica Historia Gentis Anglorum, de autoria do monge Beda, o Venerável (673 – 735) publicada na língua latina em 731. A origem desta tradução está dentro do projeto alfrediano que visa contemplar a construção de unidades dos povos Ingleses na esfera do político, com Alfredo proclamando-se rei dos Anglos e dos Saxões e do cultural, com a criação e tradução de documentos no vernacular. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho é investigar a trajetória dos seis manuscritos que compõe a versão de Beda em Inglês Antigo e, principalmente, dissertar sobre sua origem e transmissão. Ao investigar isto, lemos como um único documento, envolvido em projeto de unidade, fragmenta-se em manuscritos que possuem trajetórias distintas no decorrer da história.

Palavras-Chave: Beda; Alfredo; Unidade; Transmissão manuscrita; Inglês Antigo.

Abstract: As one of the richest periods in terms of production of documents, the kingship of Alfred, the Great (871 – 899) stands out in various scopes. Being in a context of reforms, the kingship of Alfred resignifies the intelectual productions in Old English. Such resignification happen in the creation of official documents like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and a number of classical works in Latin are translated to the vernacular. One of these is the Ecclesiastica Historia Gentis Anglorum, authored by the monk Bede, the Venerable (673 – 735) and published in Latin language in 731. The origin of this translation is on the alfredian project which aims to contemplate the construction of unities of the English people in the sphere of the political, with Alfred claiming itself king of the Angles and the Saxons, and of the cultural, with the creation and translation of documents into vernacular. Thus, the purpose of this work is to investigate the trajectory of the six manuscripts which compounds the version of Old English Bede and, mainly, to dissert of its origin and transmission. By investigating this, we read how a single document, involved in a project of unity, fragments itself in manuscripts which have distinctive trajectories throughout history.

Keywords: Bede; Alfred; Unity; Manuscript transmission; Old English.

The present study is based on the juxtaposition of 27 Old Slavonic (Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian) manuscripts of the service Book of Apostolos from the 11 th to the 16 th century. The conclusions about the history of the service book Apostolos among the Orthodox Slavs were made on the basis of nine databases prepared and analyzed. The facts could be seen as evidence that the Slavonic book of Apostolos, which were translated by the Holy brothers Cyrill (Constantine) and Methodios had two main revisions (redactions): the Preslav redaction, which was made in the early period in Bulgaria, and Mount Athos revision is a result of a complete, consistent and purposeful correction of the text of the Apostolos, which was made in comparison with the Greek text current for that period. Also, a number of local revisions were made in Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia, especially before the Mount Athos revision.

Disputation and debate have accompanied human development from its beginnings. However, what we still call 'disputation', technically speaking, is a particular method of reasoning and analysing, involving either a debate between two people, or of one person with himself. It is this method which is the object of this study. The disputation was one of the main methods of teaching and research during the Middle Ages. Tracing its development shows how it influenced the way in which people examined abstract problems. Reasoning and arguing about contradictory positions remained a feature of intellectual life well into the nineteenth century, and the practice remains alive even today. For a long time the disputation was the main tool for analysing problems in a range of fields, especially in philosophy and theology. The main features were the analysis of opposite positions and thorough discussion of the various arguments for both sides, the collective search for the truth in special public disputations, the recognition that the truth may differe from the conclusion reached and the willingness to accept better arguments if they brought one closer to the truth. All this is typical of an intellectual attitude, the key features of which are critical thinking and honest collaborative research, that still marks the Western world. The history of the disputation can tell us something about the way in which we learned to think.

A transcription of Leonin's "Viderunt Omnes" (c. mid to late 12th century), showing excerpts of the original two sources with comparative variations and a modern transcription.

For a recording and score-video see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9WQlyVPrA

En l'an 818, l'empereur Louis le Pieux, fils de Charlemagne, mena une campagne pour pacifier les rebelles bretons. Alors qu'il se trouvait dans le campement principal de l'armée, Louis rencontra l'abbé de Landévennec. Grâce à une charte préservée dans la Vita Sancti Winwaloei de Uurdisten nous savons ce que l'empereur appritet fitlors de cette rencontre : dum Matmonocus abba ex monasterio Landevinnoch nostram adisset praesentiam, et illum sive de conversatione monachorum in illarum partium monasteriis consistentium sive de tonsione interrogassemus, […], cognoscentes quomodo ab Scotis sive de conversatione sive de tonsione capitum accepissent, dum ordo totius sanctae apostolicae atque romanae ecclesiae aliter se habere dinoscitur […], jussimus, ut et juxta regulam sancti Benedicti patris viverent. « … lorsque l'abbé Matmonocus, du monastère de Landévennec, arriva en notre présence, nous lui posâmes des questions au sujet du mode de vie des moines des monastères de ces régions, et nous lui demandâmes de leur tonsure ; après avoir appris qu'ils avaient adopté la façon de vivre et la tonsure des Irlandais (Scoti), alors qu'il est bien connu que la coutume de toute la Sainte Église Apostolique Romaine est différente, nous ordonnâmes qu'ils vivent selon les règles du Saint Père Benoît 1 . » relation ethnique spéciale entre eux-mêmes et les Irlandais à l'époque carolingienne 4 . De même, il ne semble pas qu'il y ait eu une quelconque connexion politique majeure entre les deux pays.

Script for video: https://youtu.be/3a7qkEcrLdg on concept of "manuscript" from codicological point of view. It is part of the series, "Deciphering secrets: the Illuminated Manuscript of Medieval Europe", offered from 15-7-2016 in www.coursera.org.

A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, Blackwell Companions in Art History, 2nd ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2019) (a collection of thirty-nine original essays from leading and upcoming scholars in the field, each historiographically analyzing one of a systematic and editorially determined range of subjects in the development of Romanesque and Gothic art history; eleven new essays were added to the revised original thirty essays of the first edition; this includes my introductory essay, "A Sense of Loss: An Overview of the Historiography of Romanesque and Gothic Art").

1. Introduction
A Sense of Loss: An Overview of the Historiography of Romanesque and Gothic Art
Conrad Rudolph

2. Artifex and Opifex – The Medieval Artist
Beate Fricke

3. Vision
Cynthia Hahn

4. Materials, Materia, "Materiality"
Aden Kumler

5. Reception of Images by Medieval Viewers
Madeline H. Caviness

6. Narrative, Narratology, and Meaning
Suzanne Lewis

7. Formalism
Linda Seidel

8. Gender and Medieval Art
Brigitte Kurmann-Schwarz

9. Gregory the Great and Image Theory in Northern Europe During the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Herbert L. Kessler

10. Iconography
Shirin Fozi

11. Art and Exegesis
Christopher G. Hughes

12. Whodunit? Patronage, the Canon, and the Problematics of Agency in Romanesque and Gothic Art
Jill Caskey

13. Collecting (and Display)
Pierre Alain Mariaux

14. The Concept of Spolia
Dale Kinney

15. The Monstrous
Thomas E. A. Dale

16. Making Sense of Marginalized Images in Manuscripts and Religious Architecture
Laura Kendrick

17. Definitions and Explanations of the Romanesque Style in Architecture from the 1960s to the Present Day
Eric Fernie

18. Romanesque Sculpture in Northern Europe
Colum Hourihane

19. Modern Origins of Romanesque Sculpture
Robert A. Maxwell

20. The Historiography of Romanesque Manuscript Illumination
Adam Cohen

21. The Study of Gothic Architecture
Stephen Murray

22. France, Germany, and the Historiography of Gothic Sculpture
Jacqueline Jung

23. Gothic Manuscript Illustration: The Case of France
Anne D. Hedeman

24. “Specially English”: Gothic Illumination c.1190 to the Early Fourteenth Century
Kathryn A. Smith

25. From Institutional to Private and from Latin to the Vernacular: German Manuscript Illumination in the Thirteenth Century
Michael Curschmann

26. Glazing Medieval Buildings
Elizabeth Pastan

27. Toward a Historiography of the Sumptuous Arts
Brigitte Buettner

28. Reliquaries
Cynthia Hahn

29. East Meets West: The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States
Jaroslav Folda

30. Gothic in the Latin East
Michalis Olympios

31. Art and Liturgy in the Middle Ages
Eric Palazzo

32. Architectural Layout: Design, Structure, and Construction in Northern Europe
Marie-Thérèse Zenner

33. Sculptural Programs
Bruno Boerner

34. The Art and Architecture of Female Monasticism
Jeffrey F. Hamburger

35. Cistercian Architecture
Peter Fergusson

36. Art and Pilgrimage: Mapping the Way
Paula Gerson

37. "The Scattered Limbs of the Giant": Recollecting Medieval Architectural Revivals
Tina Waldeier Bizzarro

38. Medieval Art Collections
Janet Marquardt

39. The Modern Medieval Museum
Michelle P. Brown

For an audio-video animation of the manuscript with the modern transcription see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo

An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.

This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.

Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 673 (= Sg) contains an early version of the Decretum Gratiani (pp. 3a – 201a) and an appendix with 20 further texts (pp. 201a – 203a) in part 1 and numerous patristic, homiletic, canonistic and other excerpts (pp. 203a – 246b) in part 2. The investigation of the appendix and of part 2 shows that they not only share some of the scribes, rubricators and annotators with the Decretum, but also some of its content. Indeed, the appendix and part 2 contain 58 texts which can be found, in one form or another, in the vulgate Decretum. 17 of these 58 texts appear in the Decretum in the first part, too, but always in different versions, thus excluding any direct textual dependency. For the canonistic texts, the compiler of the second part of Sg probably used the Panormia, the Collectio 3 librorum or the Collectio 9 librorum, and the Collectio 5 librorum. Other likely formal sources include Burchard’s or Ivo’s Decretum or the Polycarpus together with the Collectio 2 librorum / 8 partium. The most recent datable texts in part 1 (1146) and part 2 (1139) suggest that the latter was compiled or actualized at about the same time as the former.

Fondato intorno all'anno 613 dall'irlandese Colombano nella valle di Trebbia, il monastero di Bobbio ricoprì un ruolo centrale nella trasmissione di testi della classicità latina. 1 Oltre a ciò, il monastero irlandese è anche noto per i palinsesti in lingua gotica, i cui manoscritti, contenenti parte della cosiddetta Bibbia gotica, furono erasi e riutilizzati dai monaci irlandesi, con lo scopo di contrastare l'eresia ariana nel regno longobardo. Inoltre è proprio nel cenobio bobbiese che venne a realizzarsi il modello di scriptorium/biblioteca tipicamente medievale, che resterà più o meno invariato lungo i secoli. 2 Le ricerche sulla produzione grafica bobbiese dei secoli VII e VIII (prima, cioè, della diffusione della minuscola carolina) sono ad oggi molto ampie, a cominciare dagli studi condotti nel secolo scorso da W. M. Lindsay e da E. A. Lowe, che ha ampiamente rappresentato i manoscritti bobbiesi nei Codices Latini Antiquores (d'ora in poi CLA). 3 Eppure, nonostante questa consolidata base di studi, vi sono ancora molti interrogativi che rendono incerta l'attribuzione dei manoscritti al cenobio bobbiese durante i suoi primi due secoli di vita. La verità sta nel fatto che i CLA contengono un elevato numero di manoscritti per i quali Lowe solo ha suggerito in maniera ipotetica un'attribuzione bobbiese, sulla base del confronto con il famoso palinsesto Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana S 45 sup. A questo manoscritto è stata attribuita un'origine bobbiese per via della sua scrittura, una semionciale con manifeste influenze di derivazione insulare e

In influential handbooks of old norse-Icelandic or old west norse (hereafter own) and of comparative Germanic linguistics, an archaic 2nd person present singular form est of the verb vera/vesa "to be" is often given side-by-side with well-attested archaic twelfth-century forms such as 3rd person pres. sg. es and 2 preterite sg. vast (e.g. in Iversen �974: ��2, Lehmann �986: 2�5, noreen �923: 359, Prokosch �939: 22�). Est is assumed to have been replaced by the later form ert by analogy with the -r-common to the rest of the verb's paradigm, e.g. the 2 pres. pl. eruð, the past participle verit, etc. (finnur Jónsson �9��: 92, noreen �923: 359).

SOME MODERN SCHOLARS, such as Jeremiah Hackett and Agostino
Paravicini Bagliani, assert that the thirteenth-century work most commonly known as the Speculum astronomiae should not be attributed to Albertus Magnus. However, this article, based on a close analysis of forty-one of the surviving fifty-nine manuscripts containing the Speculum
in conjunction with a wide array of other primary sources, demonstrates
that the preponderance of the evidence is strongly suggestive that this is
a genuinely Albertine work. Furthermore, this article considers some of
the ways in which astrology fit into Albert’s larger theological and philosophical thought. Since Albert was a bishop and a theologian, it is necessary to see his astrological views as central to his theology, which is why he wrote about the subject almost every time he put pen to paper. Thus, this article not only argues for Albert’s authorship of the Speculum but also demonstrates how it fits within his larger body of writings on astrology and theology, while showing how these two subjects were linked for him.

This article examines in detail a psalter for the use of Sarum executed in Rouen c. 1490-1500, to which a series of unexpected additions have been made. These include sections painted in the style of the Netherlandish Dark Eyes Masters and added leaves in various hands copied after engravings by Martin Schongauer. The original content of the manuscript has thus been enhanced and re-shaped through a process of customization and recycling, which was not uncommon practice in England at the time, as it can also be observed in the so-called Hours of the Earls of Ormond (Harl. 2887).

« Nouveau survol des écrits de Pierre d’Ailly : de la tradition manuscrite aux premiers imprimés », dans Pierre d’Ailly: un esprit universel à l’aube du XVe siècle, ed. J.-P. Boudet, M. Brinzei, F. Delivre, H. Millet, J. Verger, M. Zink, Academie de Belle Lettres 2019, pp.  267-291

The Voynich manuscript is decoded by Alisa Gladyseva
Research years: 2015-2019
The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British code breakers, but nobody of them could decipher it. So in this unique book, the reader is invited to experience the joy appreciating of decoding the WHOLE Voynich manuscript which has eluded understanding for more than 500 years! It is a well- documented text  of 700 pages for degree gaining with extensive end-notes of step-by-step deciphering and morphological proving of every word, that was written in medieval Galician (Galician-Portuguese), using the Latin, and old Catalan names of flowers. It provides qualitative analyze, based on up-to-date innovative research.

Research years: 2015-2019. The book has a three main parts:

1. Decoding flowers names. Plants' names are a key for an Alphabet characters' definition.

2. Reading the WHOLE Voynich manuscript

3. Deciphering the double coded Alchemy text of the Voynich Manuscript.

Script for video https://youtu.be/nEoX5b7XvaE. Black inks' origins go back to India, fourth millennium BC. These primitive inks' main component was soot or smoke black, mixed with some agglutinating substance. This black ink is chemically very stable, but is easily washed off from parchment. Therefore, Medieval writers and copyists preferred another sort of black ink, known as metallo-acid ink or gallnuts ink. Metallo-acid ink works well on parchment, but its acidity can damage parchment. In fact, much European written heritage is endangered because of the metallo-acid inks' damaging many manuscripts.

Review of Catherine A. Bradley and Karen Desmond, eds, The Montpellier Codex: The Final Fascicle, Contents, Contexts, Chronologies, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2018), pp. 351, 2 colour + 17 b&w illust., £75. ISBN: 978-1-78327-272-3.

Apart from glosses, illuminations and diagrams, the margins of medieval manuscripts commonly feature annotation symbols – signs that were used to perform routine operations with text or provided a framework for its use. Two annotation symbol certainly familiar to anyone handling a medieval manuscript are the nota monogram, used in the Middle Ages to mark points of interest, and the r-shaped siglum, used to mark passages in need of rechecking because they contained an error or corruption. In this paper, I show that these two annotation symbols originated as elements in a particular package of late antique Christian annotation practices. From humble origins in Late Antiquity, the nota and the require rose to become the dominant forms of annotation symbols in the early medieval Latin West, surpassing in popularity other signs that came into being in the same period and context or which had even older and nobler pedigree. The prestige that the two signs attained by the Carolingian period is not self-explanatory, but rather points to the influence that specific late antique Christian practices had on the early medieval intellectual life.

From a literary point of view, the Early Middle Ages can be defined as an age of compilation. However, the nature of medieval compilation has often been misunderstood. This is because scholars have limited themselves to identifying the source-texts, ignoring deeper aspects such as the nature of tradition and authority, the scope of the compilation and the modes of reception, as well as the recontextualization process that compilation implies. When Hrabanus Maurus composed his "De institutione clericorum" in 818, he borrowed between sixty and seventy per cent of the matter from previous authors, and in fact far from pretending being original, what Hrabanus claims is not originality, but authority, although by the interweaving of his materials and with his relatively few adds he managed to create a different resulting product with a new personality. Using as a case study the "De institutione clericorum", this article addresses the problems posed by the compilation process in relation to the educational methods –mainly mnemonic training – and the spiritual practices of the Carolingian renaissance, specifically the lectio divina and the ruminatio.