Category Archives: Fragments

Binders, Bookbinding, Fragments, Teaching

Medieval Manuscript Fragments in the Classroom

November 30, 2022 Erik Kwakkel 4 Comments

When readers in Western Europe turned their eyes to printed books, around the middle of the 15th century, handwritten books became old-fashioned, unwanted, and ultimately obsolete. Bookbinders began to disassemble medieval manuscripts and recycle their strong parchment leaves as binding materials. Thousands were systematically destroyed over the next two centuries, which is why one often encounters medieval leaves inside hidden 16th and 17th-century bindings (see image at the top, showing Leiden, UBL, 583 E 24). Elsewhere on this blog I have written about this systematic destruction (here), how to peek into the binding with MA-XRF (here), and how even today manuscripts are disassembled for profit (here). The following discusses a specific way of storing fragments and how that benefits teaching with these charming bits and pieces.

Snippets of joy

Fig. 1 Selection of fragments from personal collection of author (13th-16th centuries. Photo EK

There are several reasons why fragments are perfect for teaching. Compared to the alternative – using full manuscripts – fragment leaves, and especially snippets of leaves, are less bulky and much easier to handle (Fig. 1). Fragments can withstand the curiosity of students better, especially when they are inexperienced with delicate medieval materials. A manuscript fitted in an original or early-modern binding can be awkward to handle: there is a certain tension between seeing the material details discussed in class, while ensuring the manuscript remains undamaged. Opening manuscripts fully flat is not recommended and Special Collections librarians go through great lengths to make sure that the book is supported properly during class. All this is easier with fragments, which usually comprise just a single sheet. All the while, they still show the essence of a manuscript, facilitating almost the same range of class discussion – though minus the thumbing through an actual book.

Another advantage resulting from their small size is that multiple fragments can be handled with ease at the same time, which is unpractical with full manuscripts. I often work with groups of four students positioned at a single table and with two manuscripts that table is usually full – considering other clutter, from laptops and rulers to notebooks. Having five or even ten fragments on the table is no problem and it provides each student the chance to handle a medieval “book”. Usually, such a spread of objects provides a more profound connection to the topic of discussion that day, simply because there are more examples available to show the variety of choices scribes made for each stage of production. This makes fragments ideal to discuss medieval book design principles (parchment, page layout, dimensions) and styles of handwriting (script styles, execution levels, individual style differences).

Framing the fragment

Fig. 2 Leiden, UBL, BPL 2454 (13): Fragments of a Middle Dutch Apocalypse fitted in melinex. Photo EK

Success in the classroom depends, however, on a key factor: how they are prepared for use. Do they still need to be removed from an envelop? This is unhandy and asking for trouble, especially when putting them back in at the end of the class. Are they flattened or still curly and buckled (Fig. 1)? Flat objects show their full contents, while those with folds hide certain information. Each library has its own ways of preparing fragments for consultation. It is not uncommon to fit them in plastic, including Melinex (Fig. 2). While this provides protection, it also makes it hard to see certain details because the fragments are covered by a “mist”. Moreover, taking images can be challenging because of the reflective surface.

New solution at UBC

In 2022 I spent some time with the conservation specialist and her student assistant at the university library of The University of British Columbia, where I work, to figure out how to store the medieval fragment collection and how to prepare individual fragments for use in the classroom. The aim was to do so in a way that would safeguard the objects from damage (you can’t just stick them in a sturdy box, like you would with a full manuscript), while at the same time providing an optimal pedagogical experience. After initial discussions during the summer, on a snowy day in November 2022 I went down to the conservation lab to provide input on a prototype the two experts built. The solution was both simple and elegant – and also very cool-looking (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 Prototype: small snippet from an incunabulum fitted in cardboard frame. Photo EK

Fig. 4 Detail of previous image, showing Japanese paper used to attach fragment to frame. Photo EK

Fitted in a cardboard frame with a thin insert of Japanese paper (Fig. 4), the fragment becomes a well-protected object that students can easily handle and even hold up to their eyes. There is no need to touch the actual fragment any more, or remove it from an envelop, preventing further wear and tear. At the same time, the surface is still clearly visible (much more so than in Fig. 2). For storage, this design is ideal too. One box can fit a variety of fragments, all fitted in the same size frame (the idea is to have two or three standard cardboard sizes, matching the boxes they will end up in). The framed fragment is subsequently fitted in a firm plastic folder for added protection; these folders will have an insert in which a description of the item can be fitted, which some of my students are doing as Directed Studies projects.

While UBC may not the first to frame its fragments in this way, it is the first time I have worked with this elegant solution. It makes teaching with the often unwieldy materials even more of a delight, also knowing that the delicate materials are safe. Moreover, it makes life easier for librarians too, as they can simply take a box into the seminar room and put the folders of fragments I requested on the tables. Students, in turn, have everything they need at their finger tips. Not just the actual fragment, but also a description and other materials that relate to the fragment in question, such as older storage envelops with notes. Framed fragments enable us to conveniently observe destroyed books from up close, while it improves their use in the classroom and chances for long-term survival.

Binders, Fragments

X-Rays Expose a Hidden Medieval Library

December 18, 2015 Erik Kwakkel 55 Comments

Readers of this blog probably know that early-modern book bindings contain hidden treasure: fragments cut from medieval manuscripts, ranging from small snippets to full pages. The fragments were placed inside bindings to reinforce the bookblock and to provide support for the boards (see this post I wrote about it, and this one as well). This recycling process – plain-old slicing and dicing, really – was common practice, old-fashioned as handwritten books had become after the invention of print. In fact, medieval pages are found in as many as one in five bindings of printed books from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. While the stowaways are normally hidden from our eyes, we sometimes get to meet them face to face when a binding is damaged (Fig. 1).

Leiden_UB_583_x_x — Fig. 1 – Leiden, University Library, 583, printed work (16th century) with medieval fragments inside (12th century) – Photo EK

But what to do with the thousands of fragments that are hidden from us in bindings that are still in pristine condition? This simple question became the drive behind the development of a method to examine fragments without removing or damaging the bindings. The method, which was presented this week, encompasses medieval book history (executed by me) and Macro X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (developed by Joris Dik, Delft University).This post gives you an exclusive look behind-the-scenes at how we managed to digitally leaf through invisible pages and gain access to a hidden library.

The plan

Leiden, University Library, fragment from BPL collection - Photo Julie Somers — Fig. 2 – Leiden, University Library, fragment from BPL collection – Photo Julie Somers – Source

In the spring of 2014 I was asked to write a short piece about ideas or approaches that could potentially change a scholarly discipline, even if they were not yet feasible. I wrote about how we might be able to access a hidden medieval “library” if we were able to gain access to the thousands of manuscript fragments hidden in bindings (Fig. 2). Take their carriers– printed books whose bindings are enforced with the fragments – and give them a ride on the luggage belt at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. Let’s give them a bit of x-ray love, I suggested, half jokingly (here is the piece I wrote).

Then I remembered that a fellow member of The Young Academy, Joris Dik, developed an x-ray technology that enables researchers to look through paintings, in search of the earlier stages of the composition. Joris and I secured funding through The Young Academy to transport his Macro X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (or MA-XRF) scanner to Leiden University Library, an institution that greatly supported the unusual kind of research we were planning to undertake. We dubbed our endeavour the “Hidden Library” project and on October 4th, 2015 we started firing away at early-modern bindings in Leiden University Library.

The theory

Fig. 3 – Rembrandt, Old Man with a Beard (left) and self-portrait (right) hidden underneath – Composed from images in this source

The Macro X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (MA-XRF) technology was developed by Joris Dik and his team at Delft University, in collaboration with industrial, academic and museum partners. The machine was designed in such a way that it could be transported to a museum in a few crates. There it would be used to show hidden paint layers in paintings by Rembrandt and other old masters. For example, in collaboration with partners in Antwerp Joris Dik successfully showed an unfinished self-portrait by Rembrandt, which was hidden underneath a painting of an old man (Fig. 3) – here is a more recent Rembrandt discovery. A thin beam of X-rays is used to scan the object, charting the presence and abundance of various elements below the surface. Theoretically, the technology ought to make it possible to show medieval inks as well, even when they are covered by a layer of parchment, paper or leather – the most common materials that hide medieval binding fragments from our eyes. But would it?

The practice

Fig. 4 – The MA-XRF-scanner developed by Joris Dik and his team at Delft University – Photo EK

The answer to this question came very quickly after we hit the switch: yes. However, interdisciplinary research often comes with complications. Yes, we see text, but no, we could not read it. And so a series of experiments were undertaken by the team (which also included two research assistants, Anna Käyhkö and Jorien Duivenvoorden). For one thing, we learned that the distance between the head that released the x-ray beam and the fragment in the binding was key to our success (Fig. 5). A device was built that allowed us to adjust this distance between head and fragment with half a millimeter (the image was taken before it was completed).

Fig. 5 – The head of the MA-XRF scanner working at the 16th-century binding of Leiden, University Library, 617 F 19

Another variable we had to master was the length of time needed to scan the fragment. The head was moving back and forth in front of the scanner (Fig. 4), but how slow did this movement need to be? How long should the scanner scan before moving on to the next bit? When was it clear enough for me to read? Ultimately these nuts were cracked, meaning we were able to see a fragment through a binding. In fact, we managed to do it in such a way that the text was clear, legible and datable, as the following examples show (Figs. 6-8).

Example 1: fragment underneath paper — Fig. 6 – Leiden, University Library, 603 G 11 (16th-century): 15th-century fragment visible underneath paper cover – Photo Anna Käyhkö

Example 2: fragment inside a parchment binding — Fig. 7 – Leiden, University Library, 617 F 19 (16th century): 15th-century fragment seen inside a parchment binding – Photo Anna Käyhkö

Example 3: large fragment inside parchment binding — Fig. 8 – Leiden, University Library, 180 E 18: large fragment inside parchment binding – Photo Anna Käyhkö

We ultimately scanned around twenty different early printed books. This seems a modest amount, but the main aim of the Hidden Library project was to discover if we could indeed expose bindings to x-rays and reveal the medieval fragments inside. In that respect the project was a success.

Challenges for the future
Before we start thinking that this method will enable us, starting right now, to trace thousands of new fragments, we are forced to take a reality check. First of all, the second variable – of how long a binding needed to be scanned in order to reveal its hidden treasure – remains a practical road block between science and unveiling a medieval source that has never been tapped into systematically. The images you see in Fig. 6-8 were each produced with over 24 hours of scanning time. A shorter period makes fragments visible, but not legible, as seen in Fig. 9 (which shows the same fragment as in Fig. 6, yet exposed significantly shorter).

Fig. 9 – Leiden, University Library, 603 G 11, short exposure

Secondly, another problem is to distinguish between the text on the front and back of the fragment. Depending on the composition of the ink, it may or may not be possible to separate the two sides of a leaf. Iron, for example, will be returned from both sides of a leaf, producing a peculiar image like the one seen in Fig. 10. One has to look for elements that only show the side closest to the beam, which in this case is calcium. Consequently, this particular fragment is seen in its most optimal form when only calcium is shown, as is the case in Fig. 6.

Fig. 10 – Leiden, University Library, 603 G 11, iron returns text from both sides of leaf at same time

So yes, the new technique is amazing in that it shows us fragments – medieval text – that we could otherwise never see because they are hidden behind a layer of parchment or paper. However, the method is not yet perfect in that it comes with challenges that need to be overcome, of which the long exposure time is the most significant. To stay within the analogy of this post, while the door to a virtual medieval library has been opened by the MA-XRF technique, we need to find a way to enter and take a look around as quickly and efficiently as we would in a real library.

Credits
The interdisciplinary research introduced here was executed by Joris Dik (Delft University) and Erik Kwakkel (Leiden University) in close collaboration with the University Library Leiden. Fundamental in our research was the help of the library’s conservator, Karin Scheper (who is, by the way, a guest blogger for medievalbooks). Two research assistants worked with us for the duration of the project: Anna Käyhkö and Jorien Duivenvoorden. The project was financed by De Jonge Akademie (The Young Academy), a branch of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen (The Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences). Two formal publications, providing a more detailed description of the research and its results, are planned. Various national Dutch news outlets have paid attention to the project (newspaper, radio [start at 9.50 min] and television [start at 20 sec.]).

Book Culture, Fragments

Medieval Posters

September 4, 2015 Erik Kwakkel 15 Comments

In our modern society there are words everywhere around us, all the time. They are not only written in books – that fair and most devoted carrier of text – but also on walls, where they appear in all shapes and sizes. Judging from surviving paintings, it appears that in medieval times it was less common to have words – text – displayed on walls. Looking at Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s famous fresco Effects of Good Government in the City (1338-1340) one would assume medieval walls to be spotless, both indoors and outdoors (Fig. 1) – here is another example.

Fig. 1 – Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effects of Good Government in the City (Fresco, 1338-1340) – Source

Surviving artefacts suggest, however, that this medieval imagery is deceptive, that the streets we are shown in paintings were probably virtually cleaned by the painter. While rare, different types of posters survive that were once stuck to medieval walls. Curiously, they are often quite functional and bear striking resemblances to posters on our own walls

1. Advertisements
As I have shown in this older blog post, the world of the medieval book was riddled with advertisement; spam even. Medieval scribes and early-modern printers praised their own work in order to draw a crowd to their shops: “If you also want a beautiful copy like this, come and see me across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral”, the entrepreneur-scribe Herneis wrote in the back of a book with stories in Old French, which he had just completed (image here). Herneis tried to lure the reader of this spam message to the Rue Neuve Notre Dame, where a large group of commercial book makers were situated, namely all those who sold books in the French language. For Latin books you needed to go to the Rue St Jacques, in the Latin Quarter where students and teachers lived.

Because tradesmen of a certain kind usually had shops in the same neighbourhood, medieval citizens knew precisely where to go when they needed a book, a candle or a good chair – or all three, the perfect combination. This location sharing by individuals selling the same goods also came with a problem: how to convince the reader to step into your shop and not the neighbour’s? This is where the first poster comes in: the advertisement sheet (Figs. 2-3).

Fig. 2 – The Hague, Royal Library, MS 76 D 45 (dated 1447) – Source

Philadelphia, Free Library, Lewis_T206 (14th century) — Fig. 3 – Philadelphia, Free Library, Lewis_T206 (c. 1400) – Source and more

Both fragments seen here were once part of much larger sheets, which displayed many different types of scripts. It allowed the commercial scribe to show off how well he could write and just how many different scripts (medieval typefaces) he has mastered. The one seen in Fig. 2 even displays letters written in gold, as if to tempt the reader to take a closer look at all the pretty letters on display.

The back of advertisement sheets are empty and in some cases their corners display rusty holes, which suggests they were pinned to a wall. A German sheet from 1516 invites the beholder to “come in if you see something you like”, showing that this particular sheet acted as mini window displays outside of a shop. Because such sheets also presented the names of the scripts, as seen in Figs. 2-3, the client could simply enter and tell the scribe in what kind of script he wanted his book to be written out – for example in ‘fracta’, ‘rotunda’ or ‘modus copiistarum’. These posters show us just how advanced the book trade is even before the invention of print: a jargon had emerged that united artisans and connected clients to commercial makers of books.

2. Maps

Fig. 4 – Hereford Cathedral, Mappa Mundi (c. 1300) – source and more

Fi. 5 – Hereford Cathedral, Mappa Mundi, detail (Mandrake) – Source

Much better known posters are wall maps, though these too survive in small numbers. The perhaps best known specimen is the Hereford Mappa Mundi (Fig. 4), which was produced around 1300 and measures an astonishing 1.5 x 1.3 meters. This particular map was perhaps first put on display in Hereford Cathedral for the benefit of pilgrims, although 17th-century references suggest that by that time it was placed in the library, perhaps so it could be consulted for study purposes (source). The map contains, after all, over a thousand inscriptions and legends, such as that of the Mandrake, with roots for hair – and immortalised by the Harry Potter books (Fig. 5).

Remarkably, the Hereford map is made of a single sheet, meaning the piece of parchment at its heart was once draped around a monster of a calf. Much larger still is the older Ebstorf Mappa Mundi, which measures 3.6 x 3.6 meters and was produced in the late thirteenth century (Fig. 6). This beast of a poster, which would cover a full wall in a modern bedroom, was produced from the skins of no less than 30 goats.

Ebstorf Mappa Mundi (13th century) — Fig. 6 – Ebstorf Mappa Mundi (c. 1300) – Source

The Ebstorf map, which was sadly lost in the Allied bombing of Hanover in October 1943, was produced for contemplative purposes for the inhabitants of the Benedictine nunnery of Ebstorf. It allowed the beholder to observe God’s creation, the world, in all its details (more about its function here).

3. Library Catalogues
Surviving artefacts highlight the existence of yet a third category of medieval posters: wall catalogues. Again these are fairly large sheets, sometimes composed of several animal skins. The information on these objects is of a most practical kind, given that it showed readers where in the library they could find copies of certain texts (Fig. 7). As explained in this blog post, the catalogue was one of a series of instruments that helped readers find their way around the sometimes large collection of books in the monastery.

Leiden, Regionaal Archief, Kloosters 885 Inv. Nr. 208A (15th century) — Fig. 7 – Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken Inv. Nr. 208A (15th century) – Source

The object originally measured 800 × 590 mm and displays the contents of the library of Lopsen Abbey near Leiden, where it was pinned to the wall considering the holes in its corners. The inventory is divided into categories, such as “libri refectoriales” (books read during the meals) and “libri devoti et utiles” (books for personal, spiritual development), while books within these categories are simply numbered with Roman numerals. It shows that this is an inventory more than a catalogue. The absence of proper shelfmarks meant the reader had to go and hunt individual copies when he arrived at the lectern that held a certain category of books.

As you would expect from objects that were attached to damp walls, their backs may show signs of mould, as is the case in another wall catalogue surviving from the Low Countries (Fig. 8, lower left corner).

Deventer_Athenaeum_Library — Fig. 9 – Deventer, Athenaeumbibliotheek, fragment of wall catalogue, back – Photo EK, more here

There was likely much more on display on the medieval wall. The problem, however, is that even if such posters survive, it is difficult to determine that the items in question were just that. To be sure, certain damage needs to be observed, such as pin holes or mould. Quite often we just don’t know for sure if we are dealing with a display sheet, even though there are good reasons to suspect it. For example, the preserver of manuscripts at the Royal Library The Hague, Ed van der Vlist, recently found two heavily-damaged fragments (from the same item) that fit the bill quite well: a single sheet with a text on John the Baptist of which the back remains blank (Fig. 9).

The Hague, Royal library, MS 131 D 1B (15th century) — Fig. 9 – The Hague, Royal Library, MS 131 D 1B, front and back (15th century) – Photo Ed van der Vlist (KB)

However, while this item may well have been pinned to a wall at some point, the backside does not show any evidence of such an attachment: there is no damage or mould visible. Sadly, the example shows how a particularly fascinating type of written artefact from the age before print, the precursor of our modern poster, may be doomed to remain obscure and understudied.

Book Culture, Fragments

Rare Medieval Name Tags

April 24, 2015 Erik Kwakkel 54 Comments

A word of warning: this post may make you want to weep. Last week I blogged about tiny pieces of parchment, paper birch bark, and wood that were filled with short messages from individuals in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (check out Texting in Medieval Times). The snippets – from a soldier’s request for more beer to a duke’s shopping list – were made cheaply and with little care because the messages on them were not meant to be kept long. Although such ephemeral material doesn’t normally survive, it forms an important historical source: it provides a rare glimpse on everyday life in medieval times.

Fig. 1 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnummer 519, Inv. nr. 3384 (15th century) – Photo EK

More than in any other medieval document I have seen, such an intimate view of medieval life is provided by a type of written object I encountered for the first time this week (Fig. 1). When visiting the restoration lab at the regional archives in Leiden (Erfgoed Leiden en omstreken) my eyes were drawn to a photograph on the wall that showed a tiny strip of paper from the fifteenth century. I returned the next day to order up the slips from the vault and see for myself what they were all about. Here is the powerful story of a collection of medieval name tags, which may be best consumed with a tissue handy by.

Name tags
The fifteenth-century strips are written in Middle Dutch and kept in the archive of the medieval Holy Spirit Orphanage in the city of Leiden (Dutch: Heilige Geest- of Arme Wees- en Kinderhuis). Founded in 1316, the orphanage was connected to the parish of St Peter (more here). The building is still there and is situated less than 100 meters from the massive Church of Hoogland (Hooglandse Kerk), which can be seen towering over the city from miles away. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the charitable organisation was responsible for the care of foundlings and children.

Fig. 2 Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, slip 1 (15th century) – Photo EK

Fig. 3 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, slip 2 (15th century) – Photo EK

Fig. 4 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, slip 3 (15th century) – Photo EK

The paper slips, some of which are as small as 10×30 mm, add a real-world dimension to what we know about medieval orphanages. The examples above read: “This child is named Bartholomew” (Fig. 2: Item Dit kint heeit bartelmeis), “Job is his name” (Fig. 3: Job ist geheten), and “This child’s name is William” (Fig. 4: Dit kint hiet Willem). Each slip shows a pair of holes as well as the indent of a pin, which explains what we are looking at: name tags pinned on foundlings’ clothing as they entered the orphanage. As far as I know, this is the only surviving collection of medieval name tags, and it is a mystery why they were kept in the orphanage’s archive for five centuries.

Who wrote them?
The tag collection can probably be divided into two categories. Some were probably written by one of the masters of the orphanage. The ones seen in Figs. 2-4, for example, are done by an experienced, professional hand. Others, however, are written in a less experienced hand. These may well have been written by the parents. This is supported by the observation that these tags provide more details about the child (Figs. 5-6).

Fig. 5 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, slip 4 (15th century) – Photo EK

Fig. 6 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, slip 6 (15th century) – Photo EK

The one seen in Fig. 5 (again with a clear pin mark) reads: “This child is called Cornelius and belongs to a painter whose wife is a wool comber” (Dit kijnt heet cornelis dit hoet een schilder een schilder toe sijn wijf is een kemster). On the tag in Fig. 6 we read “This child is baptised and her name is Mariken” (Dijt kijnt is ghekorstent ende haerren name is mariken). Both show how some children – whether found in the street or dropped off at the orphanage – entered the orphanage with some family history attached, literally.

The only parchment tag provides a particularly detailed history (Fig. 7). It reads “My mother gave me an illegal father, which is why I was brought here as a foundling. Keep this note so that they can pick me up again later. I was baptised and born on St Remigius day.” (Mijn moeder min een onrecht vader gaf daer om ben ic voer een vondelinck gebracht, bewaert dit briefken v[…] opdat nae min weder halen sal ic ben gedopt ende op Remigius dach geboren.) As in the case of Fig. 5-6, it is very likely that the information on this note was provided by the parents, probably as they dropped off their child.

Fig. 7 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, slip 5 (15th century) – Photo EK

Accompanying booklet
The ten or so surviving slips are kept together with a fifteenth-century booklet, in which they may, in fact, have traveled through time. The title on the first page tells us what we are dealing with: “The Child Book: How the Children Came Here” (Fig. 8: Item dat kijnderbock hoe dat die kijnder hier ghecomen sijen).

Fig. 8 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, booklet (15th century) – Photo EK

The booklet forms the counterpart to the labels, for it registers the orphans and provides information about the location where they were found. We may presume that the foundlings entered the house, often as babies, were tagged, and then processed. However, the entries in the book also contains brief reports from individuals who found foundlings in public spaces and came by to drop them off at the orphanage. The stories on the fifty-odd pages are truly heartbreaking.

Fig. 9 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, booklet entry 2 (dated 1492) – Photo EK

On page 33 the following entry is found (Fig. 9). “Item, a child came to us without a name on the Thursday before the feast of St Peter in Chains. And we named it Peter, in the year 1502, for he was found in the Church of Our Lady under a bench.” (Item ons is en kijnt an ghekoemen sonder maem des donnersdacx voer sijnte pieters dach ad vynckula [St Peter in Chains] ende vij hietten pieter int jaer [1502] ende vas gheleit in onsser frouwen kerc onder een banck).

On page 7 a story with unhappy ending is penned down, by two scribes under the heading “anonymous” (sonder naem) (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10 – Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnr. 519, Inv. nr. 3384, booklet entry 2 (dated 1491) – Photo EK

The first writes “Item a child was found in the church of St Peter and we named it Luke, on the Sunday before St Luke [= 18 October] in the year 1491. It looked like a newborn child to us, and it had been placed on the altar of St Agnes.” A second hand, in a slightly browner ink, added a short line, sometime later: “Luke died around St Catharine’s day [= 25 November] in the same year.” (Scribe 1: Item een kijnt ende vas ghevonden in sinte pieters kerc ende wij hietent Lucas op die zonnendach voer sinte Lucas anno [1491] ende was een nuo borun kijnt als ons dachten ende lach op sinte aegten altaer. Scribe 2: Lucas starf omtrent sinte katrinen dach actum voerseit.) The second scribe then crossed out the entry in the register.

These narratives form a powerful accompaniment to the paper slips. They report how and where the foundlings were found, and when they came to the orphanage with a paper name tag pinned on their clothes. Handling the paper slips in the archives is a heartbreaking experience: to think that they were made for the sole purpose of providing information about a child whose life was about to change dramatically. The handwriting underscores the emotions that must have been felt by the parents: the text is written in a scruffy manner, often with mistakes in spelling and grammar. For them it must have been a difficult task to write down these mini histories, in more ways than one.

Postscriptum – More on the history of the orphanage in Kees van der Wiel, ‘Dit kint hiet Willem’. De Heilige Geest in Leiden – 700 jaar vondelingen, wezen en jeugdzorg (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2010), which also features some of the slips. With many thanks to Erfgoed Leiden for letting me photograph the name tags and use them for this post; and to Ed van der Vlist (Royal Library, The Hague) for his help with some readings. Just to emphasise, while I studied and transcribed them, I did not discover the tags, which featured in an exhibition some years ago.

Binders, Fragments

Texting in Medieval Times

April 17, 2015 Erik Kwakkel 28 Comments

We all do it a few times per day: shooting a friend a text message with our phones. Doing so has become routine and we don’t really think about it: just grab your device, hold it up, and type a few words quickly and on the fly. Both the speed and short lifespan of text messages are responsible for its most peculiar features: they are written in a special language of short words and a high volume of abbreviations, and they come with the built-in understanding that there will likely be typos included. Interestingly, this hurried and cursory manner of communicating was quite common in medieval times, while its roots can be traced back to Antiquity. This post shows how people sent each other short messages before the invention of electricity and the phone: hastily, cheaply and with a modest amount of attention. “My soldiers have run out of beer, please send some!”

Antiquity

Fig. 1 – British Museum, 1986,1001.64, aka Tab. Vindol. II.291 (dated to 97-103 CE) – Source

The idea for this post was sparked by an image of a wooden writing tablet that was written almost two thousand years ago (Fig. 1: I encountered it in a news letter from calligrapher Patricia Lovett). The tablet was dug up some time ago in a Roman army camp just south of Hadrian’s wall, in the north of England. Some 400 wood tablets with correspondence were found in the house of the commander, Flavius Cerealis, prefect of the Ninth Cohort. Remarkably, the tablets are only 1-3 mm thick, about the size of a modern postcard (more about the fortress here and about the correspondence here).

The one in Fig. 1 is particularly charming and personal. It invites the commander’s wife, Sulpicia Lepidina, to her sister’s birthday party. The latter writes: “On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival. […] Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send him their greetings. I shall expect you sister. Farewell, sister my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail.” (Source) Astonishingly, with this tiny scrap of no more than 223 mm wide we have in our hands a two-millennium-old text message sent between two sisters, concerning a matter as trivial as a birthday. As scholars have remarked, this is one of the oldest surviving specimens of a woman’s handwriting, which makes the tiny scrap even more memorable.

Fig. 2 – Wooden shaft with nib excavated at Vindolanda (late Antique) – Source

Produced with wooden pens with stuck-on nibs (Fig. 2), the 400 surviving text messages also include correspondence from the field, likely sent by courier. The sub-commander Masculus writes to Flavius Cerealis, his superior: “Please, my lord, give instructions as to what you want us to have done tomorrow. Are we to return with the standard to the crossroads all together or [only half of us. Also,] my fellow soldiers have no beer. Please order some to be sent.” (Tab. Vindol. III 628, more here). This great (oldest-surviving?) order for beer, no doubt meant to be thrown out, survives because the earth preserved the wood on which it was written.

Middle Ages

Leiden, Bibliotheca Thysiana, Archive found in book binding (15th century) — Fig. 3 – Leiden, Bibliotheca Thysiana, Inv. Nr. 2200 H, Archive found in book binding (15th century) – Photo EK

Similar short logistical messages survive from medieval times, although their manner of survival is different. Fig. 3 shows waste material discovered in a book binding by students of Leiden’s Book and Digital Media Studies MA-program, for which I teach. A total of 132 paper slips were pressed together to form a board made out of “cardboard”. Quite unusual is the origins of the material: the recycling bin of a small court near Heidelberg, belonging to an unknown duke. The material is not your usual archival material – charters, accounts and whatnot – but mostly concerns ephemeral material that is mostly lost from medieval times: “yellow sticky notes” that were sent from one servant to another, such as the one seen in Fig. 4. The scrap was written by the chamberlain (“hofmeister”) and it requests the amount of six guilders from the duke, whose servant is the recipient of the message.

Fig. 4 – Leiden, Bibliotheca Thysiana, Inv. Nr. 2200 H, Chamberlain note from 1461 (front)

Leiden, Bibliotheca Thysiana, Chamberlain note from 1461 (back) — Fig. 5 – Leiden, Bibliotheca Thysiana, Inv. Nr. 2200 H, Chamberlain note from 1461 (back) – Photo Giulio Menna

The back of the message (Fig. 5) also adds to our understanding of this hidden world of medieval text messaging. It shows to whom the note needed to be delivered (“kamermeister”) but also that it was folded into a small package for transportation (note the two folds). Another interesting note is a request to purchase some wild roses in Heidelberg, while making sure “to include some that are still in the bud.” (More about this case in this blog post.) Many of these slips were produced from recycled charters or account books. The messages were either written on their back (verso), or on a strip that was cut from their (blank) margin, as still visible in Fig. 5 (note the half words next to the word “kamermeister”). Why use a good sheet of paper if the message would be deleted immediately after use?

Time Capsule
Both the Vindolanda tablets and the medieval scraps that emerged from an early-modern binding form a time capsule with everyday conversations that do not normally survive from the past. We meet every-day people doing every-day things. Their manner of expressing themselves is untainted in that they do not try to be literary or witty, but merely convey a short message. They are part of a type of writing that was produced for short-term use and, ultimately, destruction. In that sense the messages from Antiquity and medieval times are not unlike the class notes I blogged about in the past, scribbled down by students and young children (Fig. 6) – more about notes and the bark sample in this post.

Fig. 6 – Birch bark strip used by the student Onfim, dated 1240-1260 – Source, blog, more

The parallel with the birch bark notepad is striking for another reason as well: it confirms that individuals in the past selected cheap materials for items that were meant for short use only. In that sense it makes perfect sense that the “text messages” discussed above were written on things that were just lying around: thin pieces of wood and slips of waste in a recycling bin.

While the caches from Vindolanda and Leiden are remarkable, there are actually plenty of time capsules still out there. The average archive in Europe will contain several boxes filled with medieval waste material, which usually include a wide range of recycled “transitory” material, such as letters and notes (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7 – Maastricht, Archives, Box 384 (medieval waste) – Photo EK

If the paper and parchment slips are the medieval equivalent of our modern text messages, written in a cursory fashion and forgotten about almost immediately after receipt, these archival boxes are like the memory chips of our phones. They allow us to read conversations deleted hundreds of years ago, connecting us to real medieval individuals doing real medieval things.

Postscriptum: as pointed out by Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond), similar to the genre discussed in this post is the ostrakon tradition from Antiquity, whereby short texts (quotes, notes and drafts) were written on pieces of broken pottery. Sarah forwarded this specimen with a quote from Homer; other examples are found in this Tumblr post I wrote some time ago.

Binders, Damage, Fragments

Destroying Medieval Books – And Why That’s Useful

October 31, 2014 Erik Kwakkel 31 Comments

Old furniture, broken cups, worn-out shoes and stinky mattresses: we don’t think twice about throwing things out that we don’t need anymore. And books? Here things are a bit different. Apart from the fact that you may find it morally abject to throw out a book, that noble carrier of ideas, the object retains its economic value much longer than many other man-made things. Old and worn books will usually have a second – third, fourth or fifth – life in them, for example on the shelves of the secondhand bookstore. Indeed, old age may even increase their value dramatically, as visitors of book auctions will know.

The final curtain call of any book, including medieval ones, is when its content is no longer deemed correct, valid, or useful. Between the end of the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century thousands and thousands of medieval manuscripts were torn apart, ripped to pieces, boiled, burned, and stripped for parts. While these atrocities were undertaken to various ends, the ultimate explanation for this literary genocide is the same: the old-fashioned parchment book had run its course. It was forced to bow and leave the stage, where the printed book was now stealing the show. This post sheds light on a dark chapter of wilful destruction – which came with surprising benefits for the culprits.

Culprit 1: The Bookbinder

15th-century fragment inside bookbinding (Rolduc Abbey library) - Photo EK — Fig. 1 – 15th-century fragment inside bookbinding (Rolduc Abbey library) – Photo EK

If you have followed my blogs – both here and on Tumblr – you known I have a soft spot for so-called manuscript “fragments”. Ranging from small snippets no larger than your pinky to full leaves, they were the product of the knives of bookbinders. When Gutenberg invented moving type, handwritten books became old-fashioned overnight. All over Europe they subsequently became the victims of recycling at the hands of binders, who cut them into pieces and pasted them inside bookbindings, where they often still remain. And so we encounter a little strip from a medieval Dutch Bible glued to the inside of a sixteenth-century binding (Fig. 1); and snippets from a medieval Hebrew text peeping out of a damaged binding (pic at the top). These examples show how medieval books were mutilated and stripped for parts, like cars at a scrap yard. Thousands of them disappeared this way – though fortunately not without a trace.

Culprit 2: The Tailor

Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling AM 666 b 4to (13th century) — Fig. 2 – Copenhagen, Arnamagnæanske Samling AM 666 b 4to (13th century)

The strength and durability of parchment made medieval pages ideal for supporting bookbindings. Tailors loved to recycle the material for the same reason. The pages in Fig. 2 form the lining of a bishop’s mitre, to which a layer of cloth was subsequently pasted. The practice is observed in other mitres as well (two examples are mentioned in the comments at the bottom of this blog). What’s really remarkable about the lining seen above is not so much that the poor bishop had a bunch of hidden medieval pages on his head, but that they were cut from a Norwegian translation of Old French love poetry (so-called lais). Lovers were chasing each other through dark corridors, maidens were frolicking in the fields, knights were butchering each other over nothing. All the while the oblivious bishop was performing the rites of the Holy Mass.

Fig. 3 – Dress made in Cistercian abbey of Wienhausen, Germany – Source

There are other examples where tailors (I’m putting mitre makers under this label for convenience) used leaves from medieval manuscripts to “stiffen” the cloth. Dr. Lähnemann, chair of German Studies at Newcastle University, has identified several such cloth items with hidden content in her work. An unusual case is seen in Fig. 3: a dress made in the late fifteenth century by Cistercian nuns in Wienhausen, Germany. It was not meant to be worn by people, however, but to be draped around a statue in the convent. It’s not unlike doll’s clothes you pick up in the toy store today, except that the remains of a Latin text are hidden inside.

Culprit 3: The Scribe
And then there were the scribes. Surrounded by used books and with a pen knife in their hand, makers of medieval books were bound to do some damage. There are several ways in which old pages could be put to good use in the monastic scriptorium or library. You can make bookmarks out of them, as I have shown in a recent post (here). A more hidden way of recycling concerns the so-called palimpsest, where the words were scraped off a page after which a new text was copied down on it. In the early Middle Ages entire books were palimpsested. There was a definite upside to this practice from the scribe’s point of view. It gave him, without effort, a pile of parchment to fill with something new: it allowed him to cut corners without having to cut corners, so to speak (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 – Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Guelf. 64 Weiss. (9th century) – Source

There was a downside as well. As seen in Fig. 4, the scraped away lower text never fully disappeared from sight: it tended to pop up unexpectedly throughout the new book. While the text at the forefront (the upper text) of this spectacular manuscript dates from the eight century, what’s hidden underneath it is much older. To produce this manuscript a fifth-century copy of Paul to the Romans was palimpsested, as well as parts of a sixth-century Gospel Book in Greek uncial letters (the blue text that is shining through).

The last words: the joys of destruction
While it is a thrill to look for bits and pieces of medieval text inside a bookbinding or below the surface of a page, destroying books – especially medieval ones – is bad. However, the cases of recycling shown here also point out how very useful the second life of the manuscript could be. To medieval scribes and post-medieval binders and tailors it must have been a joy to have piles of recyclable parchment books at their disposal. Moreover, to speak as an optimist, their slicing and dicing is proving most useful. Thanks to the destructive practices in the past we at least have some pages or strips left from given manuscripts – which would otherwise have completely disappeared. Seeing a few lines is often enough to identify a text and determine when and where it was copied. In this way fragments become blips on the radar: they add, often significantly, to the study of medieval literary and scholarly culture. While destroying medieval books is bad, it is most useful to have their sorry remains.

Note – More about fragments in bookbindings in this and this post. Take a closer look at a palimpsest here. More on using manuscripts in textiles here.

Book Culture, Damage, Discoveries, Fragments, Repost

Stamp of Approval: A Paper Snippet and the Spanish Inquisition

September 24, 2013 Erik Kwakkel 2 Comments

This blog entry focuses on a book fragment I encountered in Leiden University Library earlier this week while studying twelfth-century material with my research team. As discussed in an earlier blog, after the invention of printing many handwritten books from the medieval period were cut up to be recycled for use in bookbindings, for example to support the bookblock as seen here. Cutting up printed books was a far more infrequent practice, it seems; rare even. This is in part, of course, because such books were made of paper, a much more fragile material than the parchment sheets from medieval books, and therefore less suitable for holding together a bookbinding. This is the story of such a rare printed fragment. And what a story it is!

According to an accompanying library note, the fragment in question (as well as two other cuttings from the same book) were used to support the binding of a bible printed in Antwerp in 1614. All three of them contain traces of binder’s glue. They are the remains of a Dutch book that clarified the Latin Mass, given such phrases as “When the priest receives the Holy Sacrament, and what it means.”

Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, BPL 3254, unnumbered fragments (Photo: Erik Kwakkel)

A mere glance at the fragments reveals a most remarkable feature: they were never part of an actual book. If you look carefully, you notice how part of the text can be read as it is shown in the image, while another part can only be read if you turn the page 180 degrees. In other words, the fragments are parts of sheets that were uncut and unfolded. Come again? A printed sheet of paper coming off the press usually consisted of two, four or even eight pages on the one side, and as many on the other. When both sides were printed the sheet was folded into a quire, the building block of the book. That never happened in this case, likely because the sheet was rejected by the printer and thrown in the proverbial bin – after which it was likely sold to a bookbinder and recycled as waste paper. Uncut printed sheets were rare at the time, but even rarer today. Fortune has it that I recently encountered another specimen, kept in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington (check out this blog I wrote about it).

Washington, Folger Library, STC 25004 c. 2 (binding waste): uncut sheet from a 16th-century print shop (Photo: Folger)

The Leiden fragments are also special for another reason – one that sheds light on early-modern book culture in a different way. Note how the smallest snippet contains a brief section printed in a slightly larger typeface (see image below). It reads: “This book may be printed for the greater good of Christians” (“Dit Boecxken magh tot grooter oorboor der Christenen gedruckt worden.”) This intriguing colophon-like message has nothing to do with the contents as such, but reflects the book as an object. In what was likely the last page of the book, it tells the potential buyer that it was safe to purchase this book. Underneath it we read, in a different typeface: “Valtherus vander Stegen Canon. Antverp.” [Walterus vander Stegen, Canon in Antwerp]. What gives?

Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, BPL 3254 (fragment 1 of 3). — Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, BPL 3254, fragment 1 of 3, detail (Photo: Erik Kwakkel).

The name at the bottom forms the key to unlocking the mystery of this message. Walter van der Stegen (d. 1588) was canon at Antwerp cathedral and a member of the Inquisition. In that capacity he checked what printers were printing. He is known, for example, from the correspondence of the Antwerp printing house Plantin Moretus, with whom Van der Stegen was befriended (more about this here, at page 114; and here). As representative of the Inquisitor, Van der Stegen would give his blessing to certain editions, while making sure others did not see the light of day. The words in the Leiden fragment is his stamp of approval, almost literally: it indicates that the production of this particular book was granted by the Inquisition. Such approbations needed to be included in printed books after the Spanish authorities had regained control in the Low Countries. Latin books approved by Van der Stegen carried a Latin variant of the “stamp”. Here is one found in Justus Lipsius’ Collected Works, which bears the heading approbatio (giving approval):

Colophon in Justus Lipsius, Opera omnia (Antwerp: Johannes Moretus, 1600) — Colophon with Vander Stegen’s approval in Justus Lipsius, *Opera omnia* (Antwerp: Johannes Moretus, 1600)

Thus the tiny fragment and its two siblings bear unexpected evidence of some of the problems encountered by early printers: censorship and the affiliated fuss of seeking and printing Church approval; as well as the complexities of a new medium that involved printing several pages at the same time and on different sides of the paper – producing rejects, from time to time. What I find most astonishing, however, is that one of the three surviving snippets of the lost book should contain the approbation that gave life to the object it was once part of. The Inquisitor would have approved.

I wish to thank Paul Hoftijzer (Leiden) for his input regarding printed approbations.

Note: This post was originally written for, and posted on, my project blog MedievalFragments.

Binders, Damage, Fragments, Repost

A Hidden Medieval Archive Surfaces

May 3, 2013 Erik Kwakkel 2 Comments

On my Tumblr I recently posted two entries devoted to a remarkable discovery made in the Book History class I am co-teaching with Paul Hoftijzer for the Book and Digital Media Studies programme at Leiden University. It concerns 132 notes, letters and receipts from an unidentified court in the Rhine region, jotted on little slips of paper. They were hidden inside the binding of a book printed in 1577, which is part of the Bibliotheca Thysiana, a seventeenth-century library in Leiden, established by Johannes Thysius (d. 1653). The gems were discovered by during our class while students were systematically going through the binding remains in the library. The tiny slips made headlines in Dutch and Belgian printed media and featured in a popular news show on Dutch national radio. Why are they so special?

The hidden archive and the bookbinding it came from

The slips are first of all remarkable simply because such small written objects rarely survive from medieval society. Due to their limited dimensions they tend to fall in between the proverbial cracks of the transmission process. There are few places where such objects can slumber undisturbed for centuries. Their low survival rate is also connected, however, to the fact that they were meant to be thrown out after use. In fact, this is what actually happened, although through the process an early-modern bookbinder unintentionally saved them. When a printed book from 1577 was to be fitted with its binding, the binder grabbed the 132 paper slips from his equivalent of a blue recycling bin and moulded them, likely wet, into cardboard boards. This is when their long journey to our modern period started, as stowaways hitchhiking on sixteenth-century printed matter. Thysius bought the volume second-hand and had likely no idea of the hidden treasures it contained.

Title page of book that contained the archive — Title page of the book that contained the archive

The collection also stands out because of its sheer size. As I briefly explained in an earlier blog, recycling medieval written material was a frequent occurrence in the workshop of early-modern (as well as medieval) binders. However, the very high volume of leaves the binder used is exceptional. What is so striking about the paper slips is that they tell us everyday things that we normally rarely hear about in historical sources. Take the note from 4 December 1461 sent to a chamberlain by a steward, asking “Could you please send me 6 guilders, because we need it?” It concerns internal mail from within the unknown household, likely delivered by a servant: the back reveals a fold and the designation “chamberlain”. We can almost hear him dash through the house, note in hand. A number of slips are receipts from payments: for work done by a carpenter, for the purchase of wheat for the horses of guests, and alike. Messages like these bring us as close to real medieval society as you can get. They are the medieval voices we normally don’t hear, that tell the story of what happened “on the ground”.

Note from stewart to chamberlain (front) — Note from steward to chamberlain (front)

Note from stewart to chamberlain (back) — Note from steward to chamberlain (back)

My favorite slip is a tiny note written by (or on behalf of) Count Philip (d. 1508), who held court near the river Rhine. On 31 May 1486 he sent his servant to Heidelberg with a most charming request. “Could you please get me some wild roses?”, he writes, adding “But make sure to also include some that are not yet flowering.” It is a small miracle that we still have this 527-year-old paper slip, which is the equivalent of our yellow sticky note. (How many post-it notes do you keep after use?) Judging from the back, where we encounter part of a seal and an address, the note was cut from a letter. In other words, the paper used for this request was recycled twice: once in 1486, when the note was written; and once in 1577, when it was made into a board for a bookbinding.

Note from 1461 requesting for wild roses — Note from 1486 requesting for wild roses

That such a twice-recycled object still exists and that it provides such detailed information about real people asking for real things, turns the archive into both a valuable medieval source and an exciting object to work with. Holding the request for wild roses in your hand really makes you think about how the flowers will have been used, who looked at them, and what conversations were held in the room where they were placed. Students will continue to hunt for fragments in Bibliotheca Thysiana and one of them will write his MA thesis on the hidden archive. The voices it contains will hopefully be allowed to speak more and louder.

Note: This post was originally written for, and posted on, my project blog MedievalFragments.

Binders, Discoveries, Fragments, Repost

Life Beyond the Grave: The Leiden Apocalypse Fragments

September 14, 2012 Erik Kwakkel 2 Comments

A while ago, this blog devoted a post to medieval manuscript fragments, parts of sheets that were cut up and used to support bookbindings. New fragments appear on the radar frequently. Just yesterday, for example, new fragments of Old French verse texts emerged at the University of St Andrews. Leiden University Library, my go-to place for looking at manuscripts, has hundreds of them, in various languages. Four seemingly insignificant strips, which I studied a while back, can be used to show just how important it is to take fragments seriously and to have a look at them when you study a text tradition. The strips in question, now sealed in plastic, once belonged to a Middle Dutch copy of the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse. Apart from being disseminated as part of the Bible, the book also has a separate transmission, as is the case in Latin and other vernaculars. However, only six such manuscripts survive in Middle Dutch. This immediately elevates the Leiden fragments, which bear shelfmark BPL 2454 (13) and can be dated to 1350-75, to an important – seventh – witness of the tradition.

Fragment 1 — Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS BPL 2454 (13), fragment 1

The oldest surviving manuscript, kept in the St Petersburg Library of Sciences, can be dated to 1325-50. The Flemish book historian Willem de Vreese found it in a pile of Middle Dutch manuscripts that were left under a dripping pipe in a forgotten part of the library. He was given permission to defrost the chunk of ice and “liberate” the twenty or so medieval books – like Han Solo being freed from carbonite. The best known manuscript, however, is Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS néerlandais 3, made around 1400 in Flanders, most likely in Bruges.

Paris, BnF, MS néerlandais 3, f. 12r — Paris, BnF, MS néerl. 3, f. 12r

The Paris manuscript is of great interest because it is the only one that is illuminated. It contains twenty-two breathtaking full-page miniatures, considered prime examples of “pre-Eyckian” realism. Equally remarkable is the manuscript’s layout: each book opening contains a miniature on the right page, with on the facing page the corresponding text – a chapter from the Apocalypse. Text and image thus form a diptych. For the Apocalypse tradition this is very unusual. In fact, it is found in only one other manuscript, a Latin copy made in Tours shortly after 800 (now Trier, Stadtbibliothek MS 31).

Back to the Leiden fragments. While not much of the original manuscript survives (the smallest of the four strips measures 41×12 mm, the largest 16x107mm), they provide crucial information about the decoration program of the Paris manuscript. The strips connect to Paris in two ways. First, they are illuminated as well, setting the Leiden and Paris copies apart from the other five. More notably, however, the fragments seem to present another instance of the unusual diptych tradition: the page out of which the strips were cut contained on the back the text of Chapter 12, while the front side held an image pertaining to Chapter 11. Certain elements from f. 12r of the Paris manuscript, presenting the image to Chapter 11, can be clearly made out in Leiden. Note for example how the crawling figure attacked by devils in the lower part of the Paris page (displayed above) is found on one of the Leiden strips as well – moreover, the man with his eyes closed is the same one as the individual being decapitated in Paris.

We can learn quite a bit from these small snippets. Most importantly, the Leiden fragments suggest that the decoration program in Paris is not unique. The diptych presentation, it seems, may have been more widespread in Middle Dutch vernacular. Also, the diptych design not only made use of high-quality miniatures, but apparently also accommodated plain colour drawings, as on the Leiden fragments, which were much cheaper. Readers who purchased such books thus seem to have been given a choice. Given that Leiden is the oldest one, predating Paris by several decades, the Middle Dutch diptych tradition, modest as it may have been, could potentially have had a long life, one that at least goes back to the early second half of the fourteenth century. Most importantly for us fragment lovers, however, is that the tiny Apocalypse remains show there is life beyond the grave, like the message of the text itself.

Note: This post was originally written for, and posted on, my project blog MedievalFragments.

Damage, Fragments, Repost

Hidden Treasure, or How Destruction Creates Beautiful Things

March 22, 2012 Erik Kwakkel

If you have worked with medieval or early-modern books you will likely have encountered them: tiny pieces of medieval parchment sticking out of bindings, and parts of manuscript leaves glued to the inside of boards. This hidden treasure is what makes handling pre-modern books in their original bindings so thrilling and addictive.

Such fragments of medieval manuscripts form a most useful research object for the historian of the book, and, indeed, for the historian of human communication. They are the heavily damaged remains of objects that do not survive because they were cut up to be used as binding support. When Gutenberg invented moving type, handwritten books became old-fashioned overnight. All over Europe they subsequently became the victims of recycling at the hands of binders: like cars at a scrap yard, their bodies were mutilated and diminished until nothing was left. It is not easy to cut up parchment quires, but judging from the evidence staring at us through the cracks in the leather today, book binders excelled at it.

And bless their hearts for persisting! Rather than disappearing into the pots and pans of glue makers, the dismembered books were to have a second life: they became travelers in time, stowaways in leather cases with great and important stories to tell. Indeed, stories that may otherwise not have survived, given that classical and medieval texts frequently only come down to us in fragmentary form. The early history of the Bible as a book could not be written if we were to throw out fragment evidence. Moreover, while ancient and medieval texts survive in many handsome books from before the age of print, quite often the oldest witnesses are fragments. At the very least a fragment tells you that a certain text was available at a certain location at a certain time. Stepping out of their leather time capsules after centuries of darkness, fragments are “blips” on the map of Europe, expressing “I existed, I was used by a reader in tenth-century Italy! (But look at me now…)”

The frequent emergence of new fragments and the importance of their contribution to the history of medieval text and book production prompts the exciting question of what else may be out there for us to discover? It is thus important to take these damaged goods seriously and describe the fragments in as much detail as one would with a full manuscript. That said, it is not easy to make sense of the remains. Binders seem to have particularly enjoyed slicing text columns in half, as if they knew how to frustrate future researchers best. Identifying what works these unfulfilling quotes come from can be a nightmare. Dating and localizing the remains can cause insomnia. Nevertheless, they are thrilling experiences, and great tools for getting others, including the public at large, inspired. Next week the department where I teach, Book and Digital Media Studies at the University of Leiden, is taking 15 students to Rolduc Abbey, where dozens of fragments have emerged (including those pictured here). Whatever the outcome of our work on these remains will be, it will surely be a most satisfying experience.

Hebrew fragment peeking through a hole in the binding — Hebrew fragment peeking through a hole

So while we might feel sorry for all those cows that died in vain, on the whole, the knife of the binder created beautiful things: sources that can add significantly to our understanding of medieval text culture as well as very effective ambassadors for the intriguing object that is the medieval codex. To the fragment we say: “Live long and prosper!”

Note: This post was originally written for, and posted on, my project blog MedievalFragments.

Snippets of joy

Framing the fragment

New solution at UBC

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Erik Kwakkel blogging about medieval manuscripts