International Workshop: The Manuscript Triangle France-England-Scandinavia 1100-1300
Time: 4.11.2009 09.30 - 6.11.2009 15.00
Location: Scandic Bergen City, Håkonsgaten 2, 5015 Bergen
Contact: Åslaug Ommundsen
Read more: The arrival of writing project
NRA, Lat. fragm. 489c
Organised by CMS under the 'Arrival of Writing' project, with co-funding from the NOS-HS (Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences). Participation by invitation only.
The medieval manuscripts and book fragments in Nordic collections are invaluable sources to the Nordic medieval book culture and its international networks. During this workshop a wide range of topics will be discussed, relating to the triangle France–England–Scandinavia and the period of 1100-1300: Parisian book production in the twelfth and thirteenth century, glossed books of the Bible and other glossed books, large twelfth-century Bibles, large high quality English missals, law books, Cistercian manuscripts, and more. Through these discussions we will learn more about how we can extract the most information from the manuscript material which still remains from the Middle Ages.
Programme, a list of participants and other information can be found here:
Since the workshop discussions will be based on photographs, folders or leaflets will be available on this website both for preparations and as an aid during the discussions. We will appreaciate it if the participants download, print and bring their own copy. The titles which are already available have been activated, while the rest will follow shortly.
On the first day of the workshop Patricia Stirnemann will open with an introduction on Parisian book production, followed by the first fragment discussion opened by Gunilla Björkvall. The sessions on the first day will focus on fragments from glossed books of the Bible, twelfth century Bibles and law books. The final discussion will be on fragments from liturgical books.
The following pdf-files will be useful for the first day:
Björkvall, Glossed books (pdf)
Ommundsen, Glossed books (pdf)
Ommundsen, Fragment group (pdf)
On day two we move on to more liturgical books with a discussion on English missals lead by Michael Gullick, followed by a session introduced by Gisela Attinger. Before lunch there is time to discuss both what we have observed about the usefulness of initials so far. For this discussion is also available the leaflet "Various initials", which contains a selection of initials of the kind one would typically find in the National Archives in Oslo. The sessions after lunch are dedicated to the Cistercians.
Attinger, Fragment group (pdf)
On the third day Denis Muzerelle will teach us about the Graphem project, we will discuss the possible identification of Icelandic scribes in the Latin fragment material, and we will take a look at patristic literature, before the concluding discussions.