What are these Easter bunnies (or hares) hurrying towards?

Detail of hares, from Roman de la Rose, France, c. 1325-1375, Add MS 31840, f. 3

 An updated list of all the early and medieval manuscripts digitised in full by the British Library! Every quarter, we try to publish a list of all the medieval manuscripts uploaded to the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts website. The most recent list can be found here: Download List of Digitised BL AMEMM Manuscripts by Shelfmark, March 2016. And, by special request from our friends on Twitter, a list of manuscripts with the most recent digitisations at the end can be found here: Download List of Digitised BL AMEMM Manuscripts with More Recent Uploads at the End, March 2016.

 
Riddle about an elephant, from Aldhelm’s Riddles, England (Canterbury?), c. 970-1020, Royal MS 12 C XXIII, f. 100v

Particular highlights uploaded in the past three months include:

5 illustrated copies of the book of Apocalypse (or Revelation)

All 4 of the British Library’s copies of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

More than 3 manuscripts of the Roman de la Rose

2 collections of material related to the cult of St Cuthbert

One 1,000-year-old collection of riddles (Royal MS 12 C XXIII).

The one and only copy of the Dialogue de la Duchesse (Add MS 7970)

 

Miniature of Christ appearing to Margaret of York, from the Dialogue de la Duchesse, Low Countries (Brussels), c. 1468-1477, Add MS 7970, f. 1v

With several different digitisation projects under way, new manuscripts are regularly uploaded to Digitised Manuscripts. In order to get the latest news about our digitisation, please consult our Twitter page, www.twitter.com/blmedieval, where we announce the most recent uploads to Digitised Manuscripts.

Happy Viewing!

Related Content:

Previous List of Hyperlinks

Anglo-Saxon Digitisation Project Now Underway

New Digitisation Project and Positions

More information on Apocalypse Manuscripts

It’s Women’s History Month and to celebrate we are running a series of posts about medieval women. Today’s focus is an enigmatic poet who lived in 9th-century Constantinople. Kassia (b. 805/810, d. 843x867) was courageous, highly educated and beautiful. She was so beautiful, in fact, that the Emperor of Constantinople - Emperor Theophilus (d. 842AD) - wanted her as his wife. Not taken with the idea of becoming Empress, Kassia rejected his advances and chose instead to become an abbess and poet.

Kassia came from a noble family and was well-educated. In a letter to her, Theodore the Studite (d. 826) - one of the most important theologians of the 9th century - wrote that he was ‘astonished’ by her erudition, especially in one so young. He went on, ‘the fair form of your discourse has far more beauty than a mere specious prettiness’.

Theodore the Studite (right) from the Theodore Psalter, Eastern Mediterranean, 1066, Add MS 19352, f. 27v

Yet it was her prettiness that caught the eye of the Emperor in the year 830 CE. In this year, according to a number of Byzantine chroniclers, Kassia appeared in a ‘Bride Show’. These were events in which commissioners were sent throughout the empire to find possible wives for the Emperor and would bring them back to Constantinople to be displayed (some historians dispute whether they actually happened). According to the chroniclers, at one such show, Theophilus saw Kassia and, struck by her beauty, remarked ‘Ach, what a flood of base things come through woman’. Kassia, surefooted, replied, ‘but also from woman better things spring’. Her response – both witty and candid – espouses the Christian idea that through the Virgin Mary, Jesus brought redemption to mankind.

After rejecting the hand of the Emperor, Kassia became a nun at a convent in Xerolophos, Constantinople’s seventh hill. There she became a prolific poet and composer. Of the hundreds of hymn composers from the Eastern Church, only four women can be positively identified and only one of these – Kassia -- had her works incorporated into official service books for use in church worship. She also wrote secular works. The British Library holds a collection of her epigrams. In it she displays her sharp mind and sharp wit. She speaks disparagingly of thoughtlessness, writing, ‘There is absolutely no cure for stupidity.’ She went on, ‘knowledge in a stupid person is a bell on a pig’s snout’.

Kassia's Epigrams from Works of Demetrius Cydones and others, Eastern Mediterranean, 16th Century, Add MS 10072, f.94r 

Kassia was also courageous. 9th-century Constantinople was rocked by fierce debate over the legitimacy of religious images, but just as she was unafraid to reject the advances of the Emperor, so too Kassia stood up to defend the veneration of the icons. In one of her verses she writes, ‘I hate silence when it is time to speak’. And her courage was not only demonstrated in her writing, but in her actions too. In another of his letters to her, Theodore thanks Kassia for helping one of his disciples who has been imprisoned by the authorities for his defence of icon-worship.

An image of the destruction of icons from the Theodore Psalter, Eastern Mediterranean, 1066, Add MS 19352, f. 88r 

Kassia’s best known and most popular work is a hymn for Holy Wednesday, in which she gives voice to a nameless woman from the gospels. The woman appears in an episode in the gospels, whereby Christ, dining in the house of a wealthy man, is anointed by a woman (Matthew 26: 6-13; Mark 14: 3-9), whom Luke describes as having led a sinful life (Luke 7: 36-50).

The anointing of Christ's feet from Xanthopulus and Ephraem the Syrian, Eastern Mediterranean, 4th quarter of the 14th Century, Egerton MS 3157, f. 45v

A fine copy of Kassia’s poem survives in a 16th-century manuscript held by the British Library, where Kassia imagines the woman’s lament.

Kassia's Hymn for Holy Wednesday, from a collection of Hymns and Canons, Eastern Mediterranean, 16th century, Add MS 39618, f. 8v

The text reads as follows:

Woe is me, for the love of adultery surrounded me with darkness:

A lightless night of sin.

Accept the springs of my tears,

As you who disperse the waters of the sea From the clouds.

Bow down to the sighs of my heart,

As you bent the heavens, by your inapprehensible incarnation.

I kiss your purest feet and wipe them with my own tresses.

I kiss your feet whose tread Eve heard in Paradise

Where, frightened, she hid herself in fear.

Who can count the multitude of my sin and the depths of your judgment?

Wherefore, O my Saviour and the Redeemer of my soul

Do not turn away from your handmaiden, as your mercy is boundless.

                    (Translation modified and adapted from Anne M. Silvas, cited below.)

 

Hear what Kassia’s poem probably sounded like in this video. Happy Women’s History Month!

Mary Wellesley & Peter Toth

Further Reading:

Anna M. Silvas, ‘Kassia the Nun c.810-865: an Appreciation’, in Byzantine Women: Varieties of Experience 800-1200, ed. Lynda Garland (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 17-39.

 

Also In Our Series: 

Justifying Women Writers: A Medieval Poet Speaks Out

Related:

The Books of Remarkable Women

 

 

by Alison Hudson

20 March was an important day in the medieval English calendar: it was St Cuthbert’s Day.

St Cuthbert meets King Ecgfrith of Northumbria and others, from Bede’s Prose Vita S Cuthberti, England (Durham), c. 1175-1200, Yates Thompson MS 26, f. 51

St Cuthbert (d. 687) was one of the most important saints in medieval England and beyond. He was an influential figure during his own lifetime, first as a hermit whose advice was sought by kings and abbesses, then as Bishop of Lindisfarne. After his death, he became the focus of a major cult. When Cuthbert’s tomb was opened 11 years after his death, his body was reported to be incorrupt. To the monks of the community at Lindisfarne, Cuthbert’s incorrupt state was proof that he was a saint.

Music from an office for St Cuthbert, Southern England (Canterbury), late 10th century, Harley MS 1117, f 43v

Accounts of Cuthbert’s life, death, and miracles were written soon after by an anonymous member of the Lindisfarne community and by the Northumbrian scholar Bede, who wrote both a verse and a prose account of Cuthbert’s life and miracles. Bede also wrote extensively about Cuthbert in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Cuthbert’s community eventually moved to Durham in 995, where Cuthbert’s shrine became a major pilgrimage centre.

Four manuscripts containing some of the earliest accounts of Cuthbert’s life—written by Bede—have also recently been uploaded to the Digitised Manuscripts website: Harley MS 526, Harley MS 1117, Cotton MS Vitellius A XIX, and Cotton MS Claudius A I.

These manuscripts demonstrate how influential Cuthbert’s cult remained, even over wide geographic areas and chronological spans. The earliest of these manuscripts, a copy of Bede’s verse Life of Cuthbert in Harley MS 526, was not even written in England. It was copied in Northern France, showing how Cuthbert’s cult had become known and celebrated in different regions of Europe by the 9th century.

Opening page from Bede’s Metric Vita S. Cuthberti, Northern France, late 9th century, Harley MS 526, f. 1

Similarly, Harley MS 1117 and Cotton MS Vitellius A XIX were written in the far south of England, probably in Canterbury, in the late 10th century, well outside the heartlands of Cuthbert’s community.

Detail of an initial from Harley MS 1117, f. 4

While West Saxon sources, like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, frequently downplayed or omitted Northerners’ influence on the south, the creation of multiple fine manuscripts containing Bede’s writings on Cuthbert and offices for celebrating Cuthbert’s feast in Canterbury show that southerners still paid great attention to certain figure-heads from the north.

Opening page from Bede’s Prose Vita S Cuthberti, England (Canterbury), late 10th century, Cotton MS Vitellius A XIX, f. 1v

Cotton MS Claudius A I, a late 11th- or 12th-century copy of Bede’s prose Life of Cuthbert has also been digitised. It was probably copied in England, and includes accounts of many other famous saints, from Egypt to Cyprus to Arles. Incidentally, some unrelated pages bound in this manuscript contain a copy of a poem about Cuthbert’s contemporary Northumbrian churchman, Wilfrid, possibly handwritten by their 10th-century author, Frithegod, himself. Like the lavishly illustrated copy of Bede’s Vita S. Cuthberti in Yates Thompson MS 26, which has already been digitised, Cotton MS Claudius A I reflects the continuation of this cult from the 8th century, even after the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Opening page from Bede’s Prose Vita S Cuthberti, England, c. 1075-1125, Cotton MS Claudius A I, f. 125v

In addition to the manuscripts listed above, the British Library has already digitised several manuscripts connected to Cuthbert and his later cult, such as the St Cuthbert Gospel (Additional MS 89000), which was discovered when Cuthbert’s coffin was opened in Durham Cathedral in 1104, and the Lindisfarne Gospels (Cotton MS Nero D IV). So please click over to our Digitised Manuscripts site and have a look at some of these manuscripts, on the 1,329th anniversary of the death of the man who inspired them all.

 

by Becky Lawton

This week sees the arrival online of the manuscript containing the ‘Wulfstan’s Letter Book’, which has been digitised as part of our Anglo-Saxon manuscripts digitisation project. The manuscript (Cotton Vespasian A XIV) is a compilation of three sections, written in the 11th and 12th centuries.

 

Page for February from a calendar, South Wales?, c. 1150-1200, Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 1v

The first section of this manuscript is believed to have been written in south-eastern Wales, and contains a calendar, a Latin-Old Cornish glossary containing over 300 words and a collection of saints lives. The page above is taken from the calendar page for February, and it features the feast day for St Brigid at the top of the page. Dedicated followers of the blog may remember some interesting aspects from the Life of St Brigid from a post on her feast day, 1 February.

 

An extract from the Libellus Responsionem in Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, England, c. 1130-1170,  Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 109r

The second section of the manuscript is a selection of extracts from ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English Church and People’, completed by Bede in 731. The extracts in this manuscript were copied in the mid-12th century; but a copy of Bede’s text made in the late 8th or early 9th century was uploaded to Digitised Manuscripts last month.

 Extract of a letter from Alcuin to King Æthelred of Northumbria, from the Letter Book of Archbishop Wulfstan, England, c. 1002-1023, Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV , f. 114r

The final section in this manuscript is commonly known as the ‘Wulfstan Letter Book’. This text is a collection of letters written by Alcuin of York (c.735-804), which was compiled by Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d.1023) in the early 11th century. Alcuin was raised and educated at the church of York before moving to the court of Charlemagne in Francia in the 790s. Alcuin did not forget his fellow Englishmen, and sent many letters back to Anglo-Saxon England. Chief among his correspondents were the monks at York and King Æthelred of Northumbria, who is the recipient of the letter on the page above. Alcuin wrote to Æthelred to advise him on how to combat the Viking invasions of the time and how best to rule his kingdom. Archbishop Wulfstan also had connections to York, lived during a time of Danish invasions in England, and his king was also named Æthelred. Wulfstan may have found the advice in Alcuin’s letters helpful in his own day, and perhaps had them copied for this very reason.

   Extract of a letter from Alcuin to King Æthelred of Northumbria, Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 117r

On some pages it is possible to see sections that have been highlighted by a pointing hand or underlining. It is commonly thought that these annotations were made by Archbishop Wulfstan himself, owing to his close associations with the manuscript.

 Extract of a letter from Alcuin to King Æthelhred of Northumbria, Cotton Vespasian A XIV, f. 116v.

Many of the phrases which were underlined or pointed to contain advice on good kingship and how to rule a good, Christian kingdom, in order to prevent the Viking invasions. Wulfstan’s specific interest in these passages may reflect his concerns for the behaviour of his own king and the state of the kingdom of England.

 Verses written in Archbishop Wulfstan's own hand, Cotton MS Vespasian A XIV, f. 148v

After compiling his collection of Alcuin’s letters, Wulfstan added a number of other items to the manuscript. On f. 148v is a poem, which includes Archbishop Wulfstan’s name six times. This poem is thought to have been written in Wulfstan’s own hand, rather than by a scribe.

 

Related Content:

Discover a beautifully illuminated single volume Latin Vulgate Bible produced at Alcuin's monastery of Tours in the 9th century.

A Carolingian Masterpiece: the Moutier-Grandval Bible

 

Today we are beginning a series of posts about medieval women. Our first post shines a spotlight on a highly educated, shadowy female poet. Contrary to popular belief, there were quite a number of famous medieval women writers and readers, and the British Library is lucky enough to look after a range of texts made for, written by, and even copied by women writers, from ninth-century Mercian prayer books (such as Harley MS 7653) to the Book of Margery Kempe (Add MS 61823, perhaps the earliest surviving autobiography of an English person) to the works of Christine de Pizan in the lavishly illustrated Book of the Queen  (Harley MS 4431) to a collection of Latin, French, and Italian prayers translated and copied by the twelve-year-old future Elizabeth I as a New Year’s present for her father, Henry VIII (Royal MS 7 D X). Elizabeth really went the extra mile when it came to presents: not only did she translate and copy the text herself, she even embroidered the manuscript’s cover with Tudor roses and her father’s and stepmother’s initials.

Embroidered front cover from the ‘Prayerbook of Princess Elizabeth’, England, 1545, Royal MS 7 D X

However, medieval women writers did not always have an easy time, according to a poem written by a medieval woman about women writers in the newly digitised manuscript Add MS 21499, ff. 77v-78r.

Detail of a line with a female pronoun from the poem ‘Laudis honor’, England (Bury St Edmunds?), 12th century, Add MS 24199, f. 78r

The author of the poem appears to be female, because she uses the female pronoun ‘grata’ in the penultimate line. In her learned poem, which is full of classical allusions, she claims that she has been exiled by ignorant rulers who disapprove of her writing, and asks the muse Clio to leave her as she won’t need her help any more. ‘Art is my crime, and my genius’, she laments. (The poem is edited and translated in The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard, by Constant J. Mews, translated by Mews and Neville Chiavaroli (2nd edn, 2008), pp. 164-66).

 

Detail of the poem ‘Laudis honor’,  Add MS 24199, f. 78r 

 The poet also suggests that the (male) leaders who have banned her writing might just be jealous of her talent, since she could see no theological reason for banning women from writing:

‘Now if only I knew what wickedness our writing might be....

Much writing will not stop me from being good,

Writing allows me, not forbids me to know God.

We believe and know rationally that God exists

And also that what we do God does not forbid...

Your mind desired to condemn what it could not do...

Compose verses, you slanderer of verse, so that I may think

That you of course can create but do not want to.

I would be acceptable to you if my writing were acceptable:

Equal genius usually reconciles two people!’

The identity of this brave and outspoken poet is unknown, although it has been suggested that the writer might be Heloise, the noted female writer from early 12th-century France.

Detail of a later medieval miniature depicting Heloise teaching, from the poems of Pseudo-Heloise, Low Countries (Bruges), c. 1450-1483, Royal MS 16 F II, f. 137

In 1129, Suger, the powerful abbot of Saint-Denis, sanctioned the expulsion of Heloise and her nuns from their convent in Argenteuil on charges of misconduct, which might have inspired a poem about exile such as the one in Add MS 24199. The classical allusions echo the language of some of Heloise’s letters to her former lover, Abelard; but the writer may equally have been an anonymous female scholar who refused to be silenced.         

This woman's poetry did find more appreciative audiences. The copy of this poem which has been digitised has been associated with Bury St Edmunds, an all-male house in East Anglia. The poem is an enigmatic testament to an extraordinary woman whose identity remains uncertain and a reminder of how often women’s voices have been muted through history.

Alison Hudson

Related content:

The Books of Remarkable Women

Christine de Pizan and the Book of the Queen

The exhibition Celts opens at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh on 10 March 2016. The British Library has lent the Coronation Gospels (Cotton Tiberius A II) to the exhibition. This ninth-century copy of the Gospels in Latin is usually known as the ‘Coronation Gospels’ owing to the erroneous belief of its early modern owner, Robert Cotton, that early English kings took coronation oaths on the manuscript. The Coronation Gospels’ artwork and later history demonstrate the interconnectedness of secular leaders in early medieval Europe. As such, they form part of the exhibition’s exploration of how different cultures came into contact and influenced each other.

Opening of Jerome’s letter to Pope Damasus, from the Æthelstan Gospels, Northern Europe (Lobbes?), 9^th century, Cotton MS Tiberius A II, f. 3

The exhibition in Edinburgh focuses on diverse artistic influences exhibited by the decoration of the Gospels, particularly in their fine initials and in their portraits of the evangelists. However, the manuscript’s later history also contributes to the exhibition’s theme of diversity and intra-European contacts. 

Opening of St John’s Gospel, Cotton MS Tiberius A II, ff. 164v-165

 

Connections and contacts can be seen in the way the Coronation Gospels travelled between various owners across Europe. The manuscript was made somewhere in northern Europe in the ninth century, possibly at the monastery of Lobbes, in modern-day Belgium. By the early tenth century, it had arrived in England, where it belonged to King Æthelstan (d. 939), according to an inscription made in the mid-tenth century at Christ Church Canterbury.

Detail of page mentioning King Æthelstan, Cotton MS Tiberius A II, f. 15v

The manuscript may have arrived in England thanks to Æthelstan’s close connections to Continental leaders. At the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, an English scribe wrote the names Odda (the Old English spelling of Otto) and Mihthild (Matilda) (f. 24r). Those were the names of Otto I, who was king of East Francia from 936 and who was crowned emperor in 962, and his mother (who died in 968).

Detail of inscription mentioning Otto and Matilda, Cotton MS Tiberius A II, f. 24

Æthelstan had extensive dealings with Otto, who married Æthelstan’s half-sister, Eadgyth or Edith, in 929 or 930. The inscription may suggest that this impressive copy of the Gospels was a present from Otto to his brother-in-law, Æthelstan, who was a great collector of books. The British Library houses some of Æthelstan’s other books, including another Continental manuscript that Æthelstan gave to St Peter’s Abbey in Bath (Cotton MS Claudius B V, which may also be viewed in full on the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts website) and a late ninth- or early tenth-century Breton Gospel-book which Æthelstan apparently gave to St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury (Royal 1 A XVIII).

In addition to being a great collector of books, Æthelstan was also a great re-gifter of manuscripts. At some point before his death in 939, the king gave the Coronation Gospels to Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, according to further inscriptions recorded in the book (ff. 15r and 15v). The first inscription takes the form of a poem praising Æthelstan’s piety, describing the book’s ornate cover, and hinting at a grim fate for anyone who should be tempted to steal the book away from Canterbury.  

Page containing the poem ‘Rex pius Æðelstan’ written in a continental hand, Cotton MS Tiberius A II, f. 15

Although the poem seems to have been written at (or least for) Christ Church Canterbury, which is mentioned by name, the handwriting shows it was copied, and possibly composed, by someone trained in mainland Europe, providing evidence of continued interaction between writers and artists with backgrounds in different regions and styles.

The British Library is delighted to be supporting the National Museum of Scotland’s Celts exhibition. Catch it while it is on, between 10 March and 25 September 2016!

Alison Hudson

Thanks to the generosity of the American Trust for the British Library and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation the British Library is able to offer a five-month volunteership for an American doctoral student to participate in the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts section of the Western Heritage Department.

Miniature of Aristotle teaching Alexander the Great, from Nicolas Oresme (translator), Les Ethiques d'Aristote, Low Countries (Bruges), c. 1460 - c. 1480, Egerton MS 737, f. 1r

The student will be involved in all aspects of the work of the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts section, including responding to inquires, providing talks for students and patrons, selecting and presenting manuscripts for display in our exhibition gallery, and cataloguing, and will thereby gain insight into various curatorial duties and aspects of collection care.  During the volunteership at the Library, the student will enjoy privileged access to printed and manuscript research material and will work alongside specialists with wide-ranging and varied expertise.  The student’s primary focus would be on supplementing the online Digitised Manuscripts website by researching and adding descriptions of medieval manuscripts.  The position is designed to provide opportunity for the student to develop research skills and expertise in medieval and Renaissance art and history, and presenting manuscripts to a range of audiences.  

Qualifications

The programme is only open to US citizens who are engaged actively in research towards, or have recently completed a PhD in a subject area relevant to the study of pre-1600 illuminated manuscripts. 

Terms

The term of the placement is for a period of five months.  The placement is voluntary and therefore unpaid.  However, the successful applicant will be reimbursed in respect of actual expenses in the performance of his or her duties, such as direct travel expenses to London and commuting expenses to the British Library, accommodation, and immediate living expenses such as food (but not clothing), subject to a maximum of £8,000 in total.  The volunteer will be responsible for making his or her own travel and accommodation arrangements.

If the applicant does not hold the right to work in the United Kingdom, the Library will sponsor the volunteer for a visa using the UK Border Agency’s points-based system under Tier 5 Charity Workers.  The successful candidate will be required to submit the relevant application form to the local processing centre.  The processing fee will be reimbursed by the Library.  No placement may commence until the appropriate right to work documents have been obtained and verified.

How to apply

Please send an application letter setting out your qualifications and the months you would be able to be in London, a résumé, and two reference letters to Dr Kathleen Doyle, Lead Curator, Illuminated Manuscripts, The British Library, by email to [email protected], or by post to 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, by 18 April 2016.  A telephone interview may be held, and questions may include a discussion about the date and origin of a manuscript.

Kathleen Doyle

Starting this summer the British Library will collaborate with another major research library on an exciting new project to enhance access to and promote 800 pre-1200 Latin manuscripts, half of which are held by the British Library.  There will be three fixed-term posts in the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts section of the Western Heritage department to work on this project.

 

Detail of an initial depicting King David, from a Psalter, Southern England (Winchester), late 11th century, Arundel MS 60, f. 13r

The first is the post of the Project Curator, who will manage the digitisation and promotion of 400 pre-1200 manuscripts, and will manage a cataloguer, a project support officer, and in the second year, a web content curator. The project curator will be responsible for: overseeing the successful completion of the digitisation; coordinating all aspects of the project with the project partner, under the supervision of the project board; editing the catalogue records and summaries of the manuscripts; and interpreting the manuscripts using innovative and traditional means through online resources and engagement with academic and general users. This post will be for two years and nine months, and will start on 6 June, dependent on the necessary security clearances being obtained. Interviews for this position will be held on 21 April.

The second position is that of the Project Cataloguer, who will be responsible for providing summary catalogue descriptions of the 400 Latin manuscripts, at a rate of one manuscript per day, together with short descriptions of each for an interpretative website.  This is a two year post being on 27 June, dependent on the necessary security clearances being obtained. Interviews for this position will be held on 9 May.

A further part time position will be that of the Project Officer, who will assist curators in the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Section with all aspects of preparation for and delivery of the digitisation project and other smaller digitisation projects, including the Southeast Asian manuscripts project. This will include arranging for delivery to the Studio, checking images and uploading manuscripts to the Library’s online catalogue, contributing to the development of learning materials, preparing blog posts, answering enquiries and a range of other curatorial duties.  This position will be .7 full time equivalent, or 3 ½ days per week.  This is a two year post being on 27 June, dependant on the necessary security clearances being obtained. Interviews for this post will be held on 19 May.

Full details of each position and how to apply are available on the Library’s website, https://britishlibrary.recruitment.northgatearinso.com/birl/pages/main.jsf.  In each case, the positions are only open to applicants with the right to work in the UK.

Kathleen Doyle