{"id":83,"date":"2011-03-22T19:08:39","date_gmt":"2011-03-22T19:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rring.wp.trincoll.edu\/?p=83"},"modified":"2011-12-13T20:49:52","modified_gmt":"2011-12-13T20:49:52","slug":"encountering-trinitys-medieval-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/2011\/03\/22\/encountering-trinitys-medieval-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Encountering Trinity’s Medieval Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>[Posted by\u00a0Scott Gwara, English department, University of South Carolina]<\/p>\n

Part 1: a medieval kalendar (that’s no mis-spelling)<\/p>\n

I have been spending the past few years traveling all over the US reading medieval manuscripts.\u00a0 I estimate that I have seen and handled 2500 of them so far, in perhaps 70 collections.\u00a0 I have a few research goals\u2014probably too many\u2014but chief among them is an inchoate, mammoth project, A History of Medieval Manuscripts in North America<\/em>.\u00a0 That’s what brought me to Boston recently.\u00a0 I spent most of my time at Harvard, but I enjoyed a stop at Trinity (and Smith). You have fabulous manuscripts.\u00a0 I wanted to offer a little irregular series of notes on them.\u00a0 This collection represents a special treasure in the Watkinson Library, fascinating, valuable, and immensely useful for teaching History of the Book.\u00a0 My advice: take Professor Elukin’s book history course this Fall<\/strong>!\u00a0 How many times will you get to handle and study YOUR medieval treasures?\u00a0 You will never regret this decision: the experience will stay with you for a lifetime.<\/p>\n

Having spent four solid days in the Houghton Library at Harvard, I was ready for the adventure of a smaller library.\u00a0 Harvard’s Richardson Collection is simply stunning but it is fairly well mined.\u00a0 You’re not going to find many surprises there, though I was honestly blown away by the intelligent way the collection was assembled: pure Harvard.\u00a0 William King Richardson came from Boston money, attended Harvard (class of 1880) and took a second BA at Oxford, graduating in 1883.\u00a0 He wanted to a PhD in Classics at Harvard, but you have to belong to the indigent classes to become a teacher, and Will was clearly unfit, despite a double first at Oxford (thanks to his Harvard preparation).\u00a0 The family money was well spent on 54 manuscripts and thousands of early printed books (over 100 incunables) and fine bindings.\u00a0 The manuscripts are nearly all complete texts, with fine bindings, wide white margins, and lovely illumination.\u00a0 They include a Wycliffite Bible in Middle English, a “heretical” bible with a furtive reputation.\u00a0 The last one that sold a year ago went for $2 million. \u00a0Impressive to me was MS Richardson 16, an Italian manuscript on the art of war, Tacitus’ De instruendis aciebus<\/em>.\u00a0 Great illuminations in gold and colors showing how to arrange phalanxes.\u00a0 Unfortunately, none of the online images shows these amazing diagrams.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Trinity is just the place to find an overlooked treasure \u2026 like MS 8, an exquisite Paris Book of Hours. \u00a0A Book of Hours is a prayer book.\u00a0 It’s called a Book of Hours because the key text is the “Hours of the Virgin,” basically a selection of Psalms (usually three of them) and related utterances recited at eight “hours” of the day.\u00a0 The eight hours are Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline.\u00a0 Sometimes a Book of Hours is called a Horae. The Latin word for hour is hora, a first-declension (feminine) noun with an \u2013ae plural.\u00a0 So, Horae = “Hours” or “Book of Hours.”\u00a0 I know it sounds weird, especially to a Latinist.\u00a0 But it is a horae, pronounced hor-eye.<\/p>\n

Let me share a few things with you about this amazing manuscript in the short time I have.<\/p>\n

The first thing I saw upon opening the book was a Paris kalendar (spelled with a k-), which is (typically, for a Paris kalendar) completely FULL of names.\u00a0 All feasts in a medieval kalendar are in the genitive case. \u00a0They say, “of St. Thomas” rather than “St. Thomas” because the word “feast” is implied: “feast \u2026 of St. Thomas.” \u00a0Have a look at the list of feasts: can you see how they alternate red and blue, with an occasional gold entry?<\/p>\n

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Most kalendars are graded<\/em>: more important saints have feasts in different colors.\u00a0 Some can be quadruple-graded, four colors indicating a subtle importance for certain special feast days.\u00a0 Now, don\u2019t be fooled: you can\u2019t just count the colors (blue, red, gold) and say, “this is triple-graded.”\u00a0 Execute this test first.\u00a0 Look at Christmas, indicated here by the four gold lines on the left (try not to be distracted by the gorgeous illumination of St. John on the right):<\/p>\n

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So \u2026 Christmas is gold (not easily readable because the gold is still as bright as the day it was applied).\u00a0 Christmas is a major feast, so gold is, in this instance, the highest grade.\u00a0 Therefore, any<\/em> feast in gold receives extra attention in the liturgy. \u00a0(NB: sometimes gold is not the highest grade.)\u00a0 Now examine how the colors are ordered.\u00a0 Are they grouped randomly or do they vary red-blue-red-blue-red-blue, and so on?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Clearly, a kalendar doesn\u2019t usually alternate important with less-important saints.\u00a0 This layout is decorative<\/em>. \u00a0Ergo, this calendar, for all its splendid pomp, is double-graded. \u00a0If you want to check for a further Paris connection, look for St. Genevi\u00e8ve, patron saint of Paris (d. 512). \u00a0Her Feast falls on 3 January.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have a picture of this, but I’m willing to bet it’s in gold.<\/p>\n

A few more details about kalendars in Books of Hours.\u00a0 Have a look at this kalendar from a fragmentary Trinity manuscript:<\/p>\n

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Question: how is it graded, and what color is the highest grade? Look at Christmas:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Okay, it\u2019s a bit dirty and stained, but you can see these feasts are RED: Nativity, St. Stephen Protomartyr, St. John the Apostle, and Holy Innocents.\u00a0 Correct answer is “double-graded.”<\/p>\n

However, THIS kalendar has some skipped dates.\u00a0 It’s not entirely full.\u00a0 We can often discover where a fragmentary Book of Hours comes from by looking at the unusual saints venerated on specific dates.\u00a0 You see, many saints were pretty local.\u00a0 St Peter would be venerated throughout Europe, but St. Osmund is uniquely English, and pretty much associated with York.\u00a0 The place to go for the information is the online Grotefend:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de\/gaeste\/grotefend\/grotefend.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

Just look at all the saints listed in this resource.\u00a0 If we ever wanted to narrow down our search for a specific saint, this is the starting point.\u00a0 It’s easy and fun.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t this manuscript fragment simply amazing?\u00a0 All Trinity owns is the kalendar and a few text leaves, but they’re so useful and make a wonderful exercise for localizing saints.\u00a0 So that’s all for now on kalendars.<\/p>\n

Next installment: illuminations from MS 8.\u00a0 You’ll want to see these.\u00a0 They are unbelievably beautiful.\u00a0 For now, however, I will simply leave you with a taste of the sublime \u2026 Gabriel at the Annunciation unfurls a scroll with the words “Ave gratia plena,” while God the Father (got cut off at top) sends down the Holy Spirit (a dove) at the Incarnation. \u00a0This is one of the most beautiful illuminations I have ever seen. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Posted by\u00a0Scott Gwara, English department, University of South Carolina] Part 1: a medieval kalendar (that’s no mis-spelling) I have been spending the past few years traveling all over the US reading medieval manuscripts.\u00a0 I estimate that I have seen and handled 2500 of them so far, in perhaps 70 collections.\u00a0 I have a few research […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/rring\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}