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SJLahey

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🇹🇩 Oschinsky Research Associate, Cambridge University Library & Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge · Cataloguer of #MedievalManuscripts for the rare books trade · #PhD: University of Victoria, 2021 · olim: University of Toronto, Universiteit Leiden, UniversitĂ© d’Ottawa · Research: #Codicology #Palaeography #BookHistory #Quantitative humanities, Statistics, Manuscript Science, #DigitalHumanities | tfr

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SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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Are any of you at London Firsts tonight? If so, let’s meet up! (I’m here in the queue
) @bookhistodons

SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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14 May 1761: The Halifax Gazette () ran the 1st advertisement of bookseller James Rivington (1724–1802) of London, UK, who had opened ’s 1st retail bookshop in Halifax “next Door to Mr. Manning nigh the [Grand] Parade”.
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SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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Some : French lawyer & author Marc Lescarbot (d.1641) (‘ML’) had a client involved in an expedition to Acadia, New France. He invited ML, who accepted. 1606 July: They reached Port Royal (now in )
 with ML’s in tow: the 1st known library* in what is now .

  • Depending on your definition of ‘library’, of course. Let’s say, ‘Lescarbot’s books are regarded as the first known collection of European-style codices in what is now Canada’.
    @bookhistodons
SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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in 6 May 1236: Death of Roger of Wendover, Benedictine monk & 1st of a series of important chroniclers at St Albans. His best-known chronicle, Flores historiarum, survives in 2 —including the 1 shown in the đŸ“·â€”& an edition in Matthew Paris’ (c.1200–1259) Chronica majora.
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Detail of the upper left corner of a leaf in a medieval manuscript: folio 1 recto in Bodleian Library, manuscript Douce 207. 12 lines of handwritten Latin text copied in brown ink. The first 7 lines are indented to accommodate a decorative initial painted in blue and orange paint atop a background square of pink bordered with gold leaf. Within the initial sits a grey-haired, bearded scholar depicted side-on, gazing upwards. Clad in pink robes and cap, he grasps a stack of books with his left hand. Raising his right hand towards the heavens he points out a cluster of 7 blue stars twinkling just beyond the bounds of the initial in which he sits.
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    • SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    in : Happy birthday to the French publisher Louis Christophe François Hachette (1800 May 05–1864 Jul 31), founder of @HachetteLivre (estab. 1826). Initially called BrĂ©dif, the company became L. Hachette et Compagnie on 01 Jan 1846.

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    SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    in : Death of Eleanor Sleath (1770 Oct 15–1847 May 05), best known for her 1798 novel The Orphan of the Rhine, listed as one of the 7 ‘horrid novels’ recommended by Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
    (‘The Northanger Horrid Novels’ were believed to be of Austen’s own invention until Montague Summers began publishing on the seven, refuting the denial of their existence. Other scholars soon followed suit.)

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    SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    For , selections from the Sankt Florian Psalter—St Florian being the patron saint of . (I love the ‘jewelled’ line-fillers in this codex).
    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    A medieval manuscript leaf: folio 57 recto in Warsaw, National Library, Rps 8002 III. 2 columns of text in Polish, each of 26 lines, in black ink. Every 2nd or 3rd line opens with a slightly enlarged initial in gold leaf and colours: blue, red, and green. Whenever the text does not reach the end of a line, the empty space has been filled with an (aptly-named) ‘line-filler’, a decorative shape intended to complete the line. Usually line-fillers are formed of simple, abstract, pen-work. The examples on this page are more elaborate. Some are dense blocks of coloured ink, with intricate geometric patterns meticulously picked-out by leaving some areas uncoloured. Others consist of bars of burnished gold leaf adorned with repeating patterns of interlocking geometric windows, each filled-in with translucent pigments in emerald green or rose pink. The gold catches the light, making the golden initials and line-fillers appear to appear to spring up off the page.
    Detail from a medieval manuscript leaf: folio 51 verso in Warsaw, National Library, Rps 8002 III. 2 columns of medieval Polish, each with 17 lines of text in black ink. Every second or third line opens with a slightly enlarged decorated initial in gold and colours, mostly blue, red, and green. Whenever the text does not reach the end of a line, the empty space has been completed with a decorative ‘line-filler’. Most line-fillers are fairly simple, created of abstract pen-work, but most of the examples here are truly luxurious: bars of burnished gold leaf adorned with repeating patterns made of tiny, interlocking geometric forms. Each form is filled-in with translucent pigment in rich, vivid hues—deep cobalt blue, ruby red, jade green—and then highlighted with white, to create a 3-dimensional effect. The technique creates the illusion of line-fillers made from enamelled jewels, floating above the parchment.

    A splendid, luxuriously-ornamented page in a medieval manuscript: folio 3 recto in Warsaw, National Library, Rps 8002 III. 2 columns of medieval Polish in grey ink and gold leaf, with slightly enlarged capital letters in gold and colours. Column 2 has 26 lines of script; column 1, only 19 as it opens with an enormous initial ‘B’ formed of curling pink leaves and ribbons on a blue ground patterned with swirling golden vines. Within the B sits a bearded man, cross-legged, clad in voluminous robes. Extending from the B, spilling down the left margin and pooling in margin at the bottom of the page, is a dense, undulating wave of leaves and flowers painted in rich colours with splashes of gold. In the lower margin, life lurks amidst this foliage: a young woman sits, smiling, beneath a frond bearing a green parrot, and a stag reaches up to nibble at the leaves as 2 nude human figures frolic nearby: 1 dances with their back to us; the other blows a large horn.
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    • SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    Today I’m in the Parker Library (Corpus Christi Cambridge) working on, among other , this wee . Like many tiny common it’s small but fancy (making it ‘a Rolex’ vs ‘a Ferrari’ 😉).
    “Wait. What? 
” đŸ€”
    1/2
    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    Detail of a leaf in a medieval manuscript: folio 102 recto in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, manuscript 482. The photo is taken from the bottom of the leaf, angling slightly up the page. Visible are roughly 24 lines of Latin copied in brown ink in a clear, even hand. The 7th line up from the bottom is copied in a conspicuously larger hand. Following it are 6-lines of text with the first 5 lines indented to accommodate an enlarged decorative initial ‘A’. Rendered in gleaming gold leaf, the initial sits atop a ground painted in cobalt blue and rose, elegantly ornamented with a geometric pattern of delicate white strokes.

    A very small book being held up over a grey fabric cushion. The book—Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, manuscript 482—is clad in a slightly scuffed green binding, with two engraved metal clasps visible at its fore-edge. At left, part of a woman’s hand is visible, grasping the book around its spine; her fingers are hidden behind the book, but her thumb rests atop its front board. The juxtaposition reveals the book’s compact size: its height is perhaps 7 times the width of the woman’s thumbnail.
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    • SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    Today I’m back ‘home’ in Cambridge University Library—where mythical hazards lurk in the ! đŸ˜±đŸ‰
    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    Detail of a medieval manuscript leaf: folio 41 recto in Cambridge, University Library, manuscript Additional 732. Captured here are 14 lines of Latin text copied in black ink upon bone-pale parchment. The camera lens is angled upwards, bringing into focus the lower fore-edge of the leaf. Here, in the otherwise empty margin, someone has sketched a dragon! Shown in profile, the beast appears to be wearing a plate armour cuirass. A heraldic shield hangs by its side as it hisses at the text, displaying fearsome teeth.
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    • SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    As Cambridge University Library’s 2nd ever Oschinsky Research Associate, I was thrilled to spend today working with one of the same that Dorothea Oschinsky researched! 😃 Thank you, Gonville & Caius College Library!
    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    Detail of a page in a modern, printed book: page 460 in Dorothea Oschinsky’s Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting, published by Oxford’s Clarendon Press in 1971. The image shows two paragraphs of Latin text transcribed from a medieval manuscript: page 379 in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, manuscript 205.111.

    Detail of a leaf in a medieval manuscript: page 379 of Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, manuscript 205.111. Capturing only the first 13 lines of text, the camera lens is angled upwards from towards the bottom of the page. A corner of the adjacent page 378 is visible at the left of the frame. Both pages bear Latin text copied in a loopy, spiky script in coal-black ink sparsely ornamented with occasional splotches of vermillion. The rough, discoloured parchment surface has been carefully ruled with metal-point, creating faint lines or scoring to guide the scribe in copying straight and true.
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    • SJLahey , to Medievodons group
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    Spent today looking at in St John’s College (Cambridge) Library’s Rare Books Reading Room—a wonderful space (đŸ“· 1: St John’s Chapel). This manuscript (đŸ“· 2) belongs to a group I discussed in my uOttawa MA thesis (sup.: Andrew Taylor); how amazing to see it in person.
    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    Photo of a detail of a leaf in a medieval manuscript: folio 53 recto in Cambridge, St John’s College, manuscript A.7. 21 lines of French copied in black ink, in a precise, spiky hand, with the first 14 lines indented to accommodate an enormous decorative initial ‘E’ for ‘Edward’ (for this is England’s King Edward II). The letter is rendered in blue and white atop a black-painted square densely packed with fine, scrolling filigree vines in gold. At centre, superimposed atop the letter, is a painting of a king, his long brown hair and beard just beginning to grey beneath his golden crown. Clad in a pink, ermine-trimmed cloak over a vermilion robe, he sits enthroned—golden sceptre in one hand, golden orb in the other—gazing at the adjacent text with an expression of deep suspicion. Can the scribes be trusted? Only time will tell.

    litteracarolina , to histodons group
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    Teaching means I keep discovering new manuscripts week to week - like this gorgeous eleventh-century one from Italy, written in Beneventan script.

    @medievodons @histodons

    https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.lat.1202, IIIv

    SJLahey ,
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    @litteracarolina @medievodons @histodons 😍

    SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    At Cambridge Uni’s first Sandars Lecture of 2023, at Robinson College: https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/whats/sandars-2023-lecture-1
    After creating and then maintaining the Wikipedia page for years, I’m excited to finally attend in person! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandars_Lectures

    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    SJLahey , to dh group
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    “New translates 5000-year-old tablets instantly”
    https://bigthink.com/the-future/ai-translates-cuneiform/

    @digitalhumanities @bookhistodons @dh

    SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    Attention Bibliographers & book historians affected by the BL cyber-attack: Nikolai Vogler has built a stopgap ESTC—fully searchable, 150,000 pre-1700 records, many with links to EEBO > estc.printprobability.org

    via https://x.com/print_and_prob/status/1724971683650351470

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    SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    I have found my True Love, and it is this miniature, Mohawked, axe-wielding maniac and their, uh
 [hound? horse? rabid hedgehog? (whatever it is, I’m here for it)] scribbled by some medieval or early modern kid in a Cambridge University Library legal manuscript. ! đŸȘ“đŸ€ș

    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    A close-up photo of a doodle upon a leaf in a medieval manuscript: folio 240 recto in Cambridge, University Library, manuscript Additional 3505. Depicted are part of a heavily creased and discoloured parchment leaf marked with smudged and faded inscriptions and occasional tiny holes. Amidst this chaos, a late medieval or early modern child has used black ink to create a doodle of a Mohawk-haired, axe-wielding maniac. Grasping the huge weapon with both hands, mouth agape in a roar of rage, the tiny warrior prepares to charge across the page, alongside a long-snouted beast bristling with hair. The target of this fierce challenge remains unclear; perhaps it was frightened off centuries ago.
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    • SJLahey , to BookHistodons group
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    in &
    Happy birthday to

    ‱ Leonard Eugene Boyle, OP, OC (13 Nov 1923–1999), 🇼đŸ‡Ș & 🇹🇩 medievalist & palaeographer, & 1st Irish & North American Prefect of the Vatican Library in Rome (1984–1997).
    ‱ Martin Bodmer (13 Nov 1899–1971), Swiss bibliophile, scholar, book collector.

    And happy belated birthday to Wilfrid Voynich (12 Nov [O.S. 31 Oct] 1865–1930), Polish revolutionary, antiquarian, bibliophile of Voynich manuscript fame.
    @bookhistodons

    SJLahey , to Medievodons group
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    Pay attention! This is the important bit—right here.

    @bookhistodons @medievodons

    Detail of a leaf in a medieval manuscript: folio 143 verso in Cambridge, University Library, manuscript Additional 3097. The image focusses on the fore-edge of the parchment leaf. At the right of the image run 9 lines of Latin script copied in dark brown ink; only the first 3 or 4 words of each line are shown. The fourth of these lines opens with a paragraph mark rendered in faded red ink that has begun to crackle. At the left of the image stretches a generous margin. This margin is empty—but for a pen-and-ink sketch of a tiny, tonsured, rosy-cheeked monk. A mere 4 text lines high, he points with a shockingly elongated finger—a digit half the length of his body!—directly at the red paragraph mark, urging us to attend to this specific passage above all others.
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