12 August 2014
The Journey of a Greek Manuscript
One of the most exciting aspects of working with manuscripts is finding signs of former owners, and learning about how they used their manuscripts. Today’s manuscript, a copy of the Gospels in Greek, can only be linked to one certain owner, but there is quite a bit to say about its earlier history nonetheless.
Additional MS 24376, a fine copy of the Four Gospels in Greek (only lacking the last few words of John), can be dated to the fourteenth century on palaeographical grounds. As is often the case, however, the scribe simply wrote the text, and left gaps for illuminated headpieces and initials at the beginning of each Gospel, and for full-page miniatures of each of the Evangelists. For whatever reason, however, this was not done immediately, and even today the manuscript does not have any illuminated headpieces.
Beginning of Gospel of Matthew, from Four Gospels (Gregory-Aland 696; Scrivener evan. 600; von Soden ε 328), 14th century, Eastern Mediterranean (Constantinople), Add MS 24376, f. 6r
On f 6r, the gap for the headpiece is clear, and a later illuminator would have been expected to add the “B” of βἰβλος, the first word of the Gospel of Matthew.
A number of inscriptions which would doubtless help us to say more about the manuscript’s history on f 1r have sadly been erased. However, one inscription on f 1v remains, which states that the manuscript was purchased in Constantinople in 1528:
Detail of an ownership inscription, Add MS 24376, f. 1v
It is clear that shortly after this the manuscript moved north, as full-page miniatures were added some time in the late sixteenth century. These were created by a South Slavonic artist, and the figures in the miniatures are named in Slavonic. However, the text of the Gospels being written by the Evangelists remains Greek, as here in this illumination of Mark:
Miniature of St Mark the Evangelist, Add MS 24376, f. 103v
It’s worth noting that this full-page illumination lacks the traditional border that is more common in Byzantine Gospel manuscripts, and extending the decoration across the entire page is quite unusual. The manuscript likely stayed in the region of Northern Greece and the Southern Balkans after its illumination, as it was acquired by the British Museum along with a number of other manuscripts at the sale of Henry Stanhope Freeman, who had been Vice-Consul at Janina – now in Greece, then in Albania.
Yet there’s one more twist to the tale of this manuscript. At the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, there is a miniature not of Matthew, but of the Annunciation:
Miniature of the Annuciation, Add MS 24376, f. 5v
At some point, an owner must have noticed this and inserted a picture of Matthew to make up the loss, as f 292r consists of a woodcut on paper, inserted at a late stage. Where, when, and why this happened, however, remains unknown.
Woodcut of St Matthew the Evangelist, Add MS 24376, f. 292r
- Cillian O'Hogan
08 July 2014
Up Close and Personal with the Holy Grail
A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes the impact of the thousand words themselves can also be stunning, even without the picture.
Space was left for a half-page illustration on the first page of Merlin, but we can only guess what might have been planned, since the picture was never added; from Merlin, England, 1300-1325, Add MS 32125, f. 206r
One of my favorite British Library manuscripts has recently been made available on the Digitised Manuscripts website. This book (Add MS 32125, which includes copies of the monumental Arthurian romances The History of the Holy Grail and Merlin) is not embellished with gold leaf or lavishly painted illustrations, but it remains a jewel nonetheless. Digital photography, meanwhile, allows us a unique aesthetic experience of the book.
Two corrections do not mar the beauty of the text: on the second line, a word is crossed out and further cancelled by the three dots written below, while on the third line the erroneous text was written-over, after being physically scraped off with a knife (literally “rasored out,” or “erased”); from Estoire del Saint Graal, Add MS 32125, f. 200v
The manuscript is not a large one – less than ten inches by seven – and such a close-up view gives a perspective on the page that would be impossible in person. We can see the richness of the colors of the ink and parchment (far from simple black on white), and their texture as well, as the letters almost seem to have a three-dimensional quality sitting on the page: the text almost glows. And the beauty of the letters is no accident. ‘Gothic’ handwriting, of which this book is an extremely legible example, sometimes even sacrificed clarity to aesthetic concerns, emphasizing the regularity of letters’ vertical lines at the expense of making those letters easily distinguishable from one another.
Detail of a pointing hand drawing attention to a moment of textual interest, where a fifteenth-century reader has helpfully recopied his predecessor’s fainter note, still slightly visible underneath; from Estoire del Saint Graal, Add MS 32125, f. 82r
This book is not a favorite of mine simply because of its visual appeal, however. It also offers a highly unusual opportunity to enjoy the dialogue between the text of two of the Middle Ages most important Arthurian romances, and their medieval reading audience. Often, romances from the so-called ‘Vulgate Cycle’ (see, for example, Royal MS 14 E III and Royal MS 20 D IV are deluxe productions, fit for a king and kept in pristine condition by their royal owners (for more on these manuscripts, see our posts Lancelot and the Quest for the Holy Grail, and Arthurian Manuscripts in the British Library). This partial copy, however, is on a more modest scale, and must have seemed more approachable to its fifteenth-century readers, who have not hesitated to write notes in the margin or sketch in a tempting blank space.
Drawings of trees added by a medieval reader; from Estoire del Saint Graal, Add MS 32125, f. 205v
Even better, these marks offer clues about the way medieval readers understood the romances they enjoyed. The twisted trees drawn at the end of the Grail story are not just distracted doodles or spooky blasted oaks. They are literally ‘family trees’, inspired by the closing words of the text itself: ‘And so now’, the author writes, ‘the story is silent about all the lineages which have come from Celidoine’, founding father of a hereditary line culminating in the Grail knights Lancelot and Galahad, ‘and returns to another ‘branch,’ which is called The History of Merlin’, the story beginning on the following page.
Detail of one of this manuscript’s several inhabited initials, ‘Ore dit li contes’, ‘Now the story says...’; from Estoire del Saint Graal, Add MS 32125, f. 191r
Above, a more professional version proves that this medieval reader was correct in being so struck by the text’s ‘branches’. A passage on the lineage of Sir Gawain is introduced by an inhabited initial that recalls traditional depictions of a fertile family tree sprouting from the genitals of a sleeping ancestor – but here the foliage sprouts not from the patriarch’s groin, but from his mouth, since the branching of the family-tree is partially conflated with the branching of the story itself.
Detail of a marginal grotesque tooting his own horn – surely with excitement at his new digital form!; from Estoire del Saint Graal, Add MS 32125, f. 127r
- Nicole Eddy
12 June 2014
The Poetry of Fragments
In a previous blog post we talked about the Constitution of Athens, one of the most spectacular papyrus rolls preserved from antiquity. But the truth is that most papyrus fragments are much smaller, and often preserve only part of the text they originally contained. Even the Constitution of Athens papyrus is incomplete, after all!
Fragment of the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens (Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία), Papyrus 131, roll 1 verso
While this can be frustrating, it also presents an exciting challenge to papyrologists. Sometimes fragmentary texts can be reconstructed based on attestations of the same work in other papyri or in the manuscript tradition. If it is a literary text, or a formulaic legal document, some educated guesswork can help figure out what the wider context might be. Particularly exciting are those instances where a scholar can reunite parts of the same original document, now scattered across the world. An excellent example of this is the recent article by Antonia Sarri in Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, who shows that a papyrus in the British Library (Papyrus 2553) and one in Columbia University Library (P. Col. VIII 211) are two halves of the same letter.
A great deal of Greek poetry has only been preserved in papyrus fragments. In the case of some authors, such as Archilochus, Simonides, and Sappho, discoveries even in the last few decades have added greatly to what we know of their works, and in some cases have caused scholars to have to rethink some long-held beliefs about the nature of early Greek poetry. The British Library has only a single fragment of Sappho, a very early arrival from the great collection of papyri found at Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy. I 7).
Fragment of a poem by Sappho concerning her brother Charaxus, Papyrus 739
But as fragments of Sappho go, it’s a pretty good one – we can be fairly sure of the text of two stanzas, and have a decent chunk of three more. In the poem, Sappho prays for the safe return for her brother and hopes that they can be reconciled. This is presumably Charaxos, whose falling-out with his sister is described by Herodotus (2.134-5), and who is named in the new Sappho poem published earlier this year.
While the text is exciting in itself, there is something very special about viewing the original papyrus, which helps to give a sense of just how serendipitous our knowledge of Sappho’s poetry is. Sappho joins Homer and Sophocles on our Digitised Manuscripts roster of poets on papyrus: we hope to add many more in the future.
- Cillian O'Hogan
19 April 2014
Lorsch Manuscripts in the British Library
Seven manuscripts that were compiled in the 9th-century in the scriptorium of the former monastic library of Abbey Lorsch are today held at the British Library. These codices have now been digitized – together with five further works connected to the Abbey – and included in the Virtual Monastic Library of Lorsch, at Bibliotheca Laureshamensis digital. Amongst the 70 institutions world-wide that today hold Lorsch manuscripts, the British Library has one of the larger collections, together with the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, the National Austrian Library, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome.
Miniature of the Evangelist St Mark, at the beginning of a Gospel lectionary (the 'Odalricus Peccator Gospel Lectionary'), Germany (Lorsch), first half of the 11th century, Harley MS 2970, f. 2v
The Abbey of Lorsch –today in a small town in Hesse in Germany – was one of the key centres of knowledge in the medieval period. During the reign of Charlemagne and his successors it reached the height of its prosperity and created an exceptional library as well as a proficient scriptorium. Library catalogues from the 9th century testify that the collection comprised nearly 500 manuscripts, an impressive figure. The medieval library held works on theology, historiography, monasticism and asceticism, grammar as well as school books. Of the monastic buildings in Lorsch only few have remained, but its heritage and significance are such that it was recognized as a UNESCO-World Heritage site in 1991.
The Abbey and its library were dissolved under the reign of the Elector Palatine Otto-Henry (1556-1559) and integrated into Heidelberg’s Bibliotheca Palatina. From there the largest surviving collection of Lorsch manuscripts was brought to the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. In the later medieval period, several codices were brought to the monastery of Arnstein. Four of these are now in the British Library.
Based on the work of two German palaeographers, Bernhard Bischoff (1906-1991) and Hartmut Hoffmann (1930), more than 300 manuscripts from the Abbey can be identified, now in 13 countries. The online reconstruction of the library collection is a cooperation project by Heidelberg University Library, the Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlösser und Gärten Hessen and the UNESCO-World Heritage Site Abbey Lorsch. The project Bibliotheca Laureshamensis digital was launched in 2010 and will be completed in 2014, the 1250th anniversary of the foundation of the Abbey (in 764). The aim of the project is to unite virtually all of dispersed manuscripts in one online platform and thereby make this remarkable collection once again accessible and researchable. Alongside the digitization, on the website all of the codices are fully described and can be searched in a separate database.
Incipit page at the beginning of Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate, De Synodis and Contra arianos, Germany (Lorsch), 1st half of the 9th century, Harley MS 3115, f. 1v
An overview of the manuscripts from the collection of the British Library which have been integrated into the Virtual Monastic Library of Lorsch can be found here. A PDF file of the manuscript descriptions can also be accessed directly from the corresponding manuscript in the Virtual Library.
All of the British Library’s Lorsch manuscripts are theological texts, including exegetical tractates by Church fathers from late Antiquity, as well as by the Anglo-Saxon Bede, and Theodulf of Orléans. Two other manuscripts were added to the list of Further Manuscripts: the fragment Arundel MS 501, fol. 13, which was ascribed to Lorsch by Nigel F Palmer, and Cotton MS Vespasian D V, ff. 155r-156r, which contains a poem by Henry of Avranches on Starkenburg castle, which was a property of the abbey in the 13th century.
A full list of the manuscripts recently uploaded is below, along with links to their digital versions on the Bibliotheca Laureshamensis site. These manuscripts have also been included in the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts portal, and can be found there by searching on the main page.
Add MS 17980: Bede, In Lucam
Add MS 37328: Augustine, De opere monachorum, De agone christiano
Arundel MS 37: Bede, In Ezram et Nehemiam
Arundel MS 386: Commentary on Psalms 101-150
Arundel MS 501, f. 13: Hrabanus Maurus, Enarratio super Deuteronomium (ll.xxxvi-xxvii)
Harley MS 2970: Gospel lectionary
Harley MS 3024: Theodulf, De spiritu sancto
Harley MS 3032: Hesychius, In Leviticum
Harley MS 3039: Augustine, De Genesi contra Manichaeos
Harley MS 3115: Hilary, De Trinitate; Contra Arianos
Harley MS 5915, ff. 10r-10v: Justin, Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum
Cotton MS Vespasian D V, ff. 155r-156r: Poem by Henry of Avranches
- Alexandra Büttner, Bibliotheca Laureshamensis - digital Virtuelle Klosterbibliothek Lorsch
17 April 2014
Internship in the Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Section
The British Library is pleased to be able to offer an internship in the Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts section of the History and Classics Department for a doctoral or post-doctoral student in history, history of art, medieval language or other relevant subject.
Detail of a miniature of a woman reading moral proverbs at the beginning of the
'Proverbes moraux', from Christine de Pizan's Book of the Queen, France (Paris), c. 1410 - c. 1414, Harley MS 4431, f. 259v
The intern will be involved in all aspects of the work of the Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts section, including responding to enquiries, providing talks for students and patrons, selecting and presenting manuscripts for display in our exhibition gallery, assisting in exhibition preparation, and cataloguing, thereby gaining insight into various curatorial duties and aspects of collection care. During the internship at the Library, the intern will enjoy privileged access to printed and manuscript research material, and will work alongside specialists with wide-ranging and varied expertise.
A major focus of the internship will be to enhance the online Digitised Manuscripts and Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts websites by creating and supplementing catalogue entries for medieval manuscripts and accompanying images, working under the supervision of the Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts. The internship will also provide an opportunity for the student to assist in presenting manuscripts to a general audience in our major Magna Carta anniversary exhibition, exhibitions in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery, and to develop research skills in medieval and Renaissance history and art history.
The programme is only open to students 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 or other medieval manuscripts, who have eligibility to work in the UK.
The term of internship is either full time (36 hours per week) for six months, or part time for twelve months, depending on how many hours the successful candidate can offer. Applicants are asked to specify which work pattern they would prefer in the application. The salary is £8.80 per hour. The internship will start in July 2014 after relevant security clearances are obtained.
The selection process will include questions about the date, origin, and decoration of a particular manuscript to be shown at the interview.
For further information about the position, please contact Kathleen Doyle, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at [email protected].
To apply, please visit www.bl.uk/careers quoting vacancy ref: COL000490 and upload a CV and Cover Letter. The Cover Letter should include answers to the following three questions:
1. Please give examples of your experience in cataloguing medieval manuscripts.
2. Please provide examples of your experience in writing about your research for a general audience.
3. Please give an example of how you have adapted your own communicating style to deal with different people and situations.
Closing Date: Thursday 15th May 2014
Interview Date: Monday 2nd June 2014
25 March 2014
Codex Sinaiticus Added to Digitised Manuscripts
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the great treasures of the British Library. Written in the mid-4th century in the Eastern Mediterranean (possibly at Caesarea), it is one of the two oldest surviving copies of the Greek Bible, along with Codex Vaticanus, in Rome. Written in four narrow columns to the page (aside from in the Poetic books, in two columns), its visual appearance is particularly striking.
Add MS 43725, f 229v, Luke 2:13-2:45.
The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the text of the New Testament is incalculable, not least because of the many thousands of corrections made to the manuscript between the 4th and 12th centuries.
Add MS 43725, f 218v, correction to Mark 2:22.
The manuscript itself is now distributed between four institutions: the British Library, the Universitäts-Bibliothek at Leipzig, the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, and the Monastery of St Catherine at Mt Sinai. Several years ago, these four institutions came together to collaborate on the Codex Sinaiticus Project, which resulted in full digital coverage and transcription of all extant parts of the manuscript. The fruits of these labours, along with many additional essays and scholarly resources, can be found on the Codex Sinaiticus website.
Add MS 43725, f 68r, decorative colophon at the end of Isaiah.
As part of our ongoing project to make all the British Library’s pre-1600 Western manuscripts available online, we are pleased to announce that those parts of the Codex Sinaiticus held by the British Library can now also be seen on Digitised Manuscripts (Add MS 43725), complementing the 550 Greek manuscripts already available online, including the New Testament volume of Codex Alexandrinus. Over the next twelve months, a further 350 Greek manuscripts will be added to Digitised Manuscripts, in a project funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation, and a range of other donors.
On the Digitised Manuscripts page for Codex Sinaiticus, you will also find an updated catalogue entry, including an extensive bibliography. We hope the availability of this priceless manuscript online will facilitate further study and research.
20 March 2014
Update to the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
Here in the British Library’s department of Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts, we work tirelessly to make our collections accessible and better known among scholars and the public. While much attention focuses on our Digitised Manuscripts resource, let’s not forget about the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.
Text page fragments in uncial script, from Cyprian’s Epistles, North Africa (Carthage?), 4th – 5th centuries, Add MS 40165A, f. 1r
Recently updated, CIM (as we like to call it) now boasts a total of 4,277 manuscripts and some 36,163 images. These range from a 4th/5th-century copy of Cyprian’s Epistles, perhaps brought to England by Theodore of Tarsus and Hadrian of Canterbury (Add MS 40165A), to a collection of facsimile manuscript pages produced in 1873 by John Obadiah Westwood, a palaeographer and entomologist (Egerton MS 2263) – with a lot in between.
Since the last update in August 2013, we have been cataloguing Anglo-Norman manuscripts from the Additional collection. Although some of them only contain only decorated initials, the contents are wide-ranging and filled with surprises.
Here are a few favourites (with more to come, so stay tuned!):
The earliest English cookbooks? (Add MS 32085 and Royal MS 12 C XII)
Puzzle initial, from the legal text 'Sentencia Super Easdem Cartas', England, late 13th or early 14th century, Add MS 32085, f. 11r.
Both manuscripts contain a varied collection of miscellaneous texts – from prophecies to arithmetical puzzles, from charters to a lapidary – bound together after they were copied. They have one ingredient in common: collections of recipes in Anglo-Norman French, believed to be the earliest surviving examples of English cuisine. If you fancy trying your hand at medieval cookery, check out Constance B. Hieatt and Robin F. Jones’s edition and translation.
Some of the recipes are mouth-watering (but no roasted unicorn, sadly), and the names are especially appetising:
Teste de Tourk (Turk’s Head): a type of quiche filled with rabbits and poultry; add eels to ‘enhance’ the flavour!
Nag’s tail: the ingredients include pigs’ trotters and ears, grease and wine.
Sang Dragoun: dragon’s blood is a colourful name for what appears to be rice pudding.
Tardpolene: alas, no tadpoles, but just soft cheese, dates and almonds.
Scientific and chiromantic texts (Add MS 18210)
This scientific compilation contains Latin texts by Galen, the ‘Dragmaticon’ of William of Conches (tutor to Henry II), as well as some texts on telling the future. Two are unique to this manuscript: one on spatulomancy/scapulamancy (divination through the use of a shoulder-bone), and another on haematoscopy (prognostication through the examination of blood). A less visceral means of forecasting is recorded in a treatise on geomancy, where one must interpret the patterns formed by tossing handfuls of rocks on the ground. A handy table is provided as a guide:
Table of patterns, from a treatise on geomancy, England or N. France, c. 1275- c. 1325, Add MS 18210, f. 93r.
Who wouldn’t want the stones to predict ‘proesces ioie et leesce et richesces et si signifie grant profit’ (nobility, joy, gladness, riches and great profit)?
We have also continued to update and augment entries with further details on the contents, provenance and bibliographies relating to illuminated manuscripts. Tune in for some further highlights later on.
Don’t forget that it’s possible to find manuscripts in the Catalogue by means other than their shelfmarks. One can conduct advanced searches by keyword, date range, language, provenance, scribe, artist – and so on! You can bring together manuscripts of the same period in order to compare decorative styles, or see examples of a specific artist’s work at a glance. One of the best features is that you can search for keywords within the images (try searching for ‘snail’ and see what comes up!).
The Catalogue also includes virtual exhibitions of British Library manuscripts, and an illustrated glossary (most useful for getting to grips with tricky terminology). Enjoy!
- James Freeman and Chantry Westwell
15 March 2014
The Life of a Mystic
Perhaps the first autobiography ever written in English, this book contains the incredible life story of the female mystic, Margery Kempe, who lived in what is now Kings Lynn, Norfolk from c. 1373 to c. 1440. The work survives in only one known manuscript, British Library Add MS 61823, written at about the time of her death. The manuscript’s survival story is nearly as eccentric and action-packed as that of its heroine (on which, see below). It was owned by the Butler Bowden family and the story goes that when Colonel W. Butler Bowden was looking for a ping-pong bat in a cupboard at his family home near Chesterfield in the early 1930s he came across a pile of old books. Frustrated at the disorder, he threatened to put the whole lot on the bonfire the next day so that bats and balls would be easier to find in future. Luckily a friend advised him to have the books checked by an expert and shortly afterwards Hope Emily Allen identified one as the ‘Book of Margery Kempe’, which was previously known only from excerpts printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1501, and by Henry Pepwell in 1521 (where the author is described as ‘a devoute ancres’). A true miracle!
Opening page of the Book of Margery Kempe, Add MS 61823, England (East Anglia), c. 1440, f. 1r
Margery Kempe was the daughter of a merchant named John Brunham and at about the age of twenty she married John Kempe, a brewer and chamberlain of Lynn. After the birth of her first child, she suffered depression, from which she was cured by a vision of Christ. She had another thirteen children before she finally persuaded her husband to agree that they should live chastely! She then donned white robes and sought permission from her bishop, who sent her to see the Archbishop of Canterbury, but there is no record that she took formal vows. In 1413 she left on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, living off charity along the way. In Jerusalem, she visited Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, where she was overtaken by a fit of uncontrollable crying , which, together with her roaring in church, brought her fame as a mystic, but also provoked hostility, especially in England on her return. She was constantly in conflict with the establishment in her town, rejecting the conventional values and materialism of her fellow citizens and breaking her links with her family and society.
Text page from the Book of Margery Kempe, Add MS 61823, England (East Anglia), c. 1440, f. 6r
As recorded in the book, she set off again on pilgrimage in 1417 to Santiago de Compostela. On her return from Spain she was accused of heresy several times and imprisoned in Leicester on a charge of Lollardy, and was reportedly mistreated while in prison. Having argued her innocence before the church authorities on several occasions, she finally was given a letter by the Archbishop of Canterbury, allowing her access to confession and communion. She returned to Lynn, beset by physical hardships, and lived an intense spiritual life, filled with visions, conversations with Christ and noisy lamentation. Her husband, perhaps wisely, stayed away, but when he suffered an injury, she nursed him until his death, after which she travelled to Germany with her daughter at the age of almost 60 to see the Holy Blood in Brandenburg and the relics in Aachen. The last record we have of her is in 1438. Her book was completed by this time and a ‘Margeria Kempe’, who may be its author, was admitted to the prestigious Trinity Guild of Lynn. She is thought to have died shortly after this, but there is no record of her death. The scribe who wrote down this version of Margery’s story identifies himself as Salthows, priest at Lynn in Norfolk and scholars believe this is not the original copy of the work, but was made a little later than the original, perhaps under the author’s supervision.
Detail of the Mount Grace Priory ownership inscription from The Book of Margery Kempe, Add MS 61823, f. iv verso
The verso of the first page of the manuscript contains the rubric, ‘Liber Montis Gracie. This boke is of Mountegrace’, and has been annotated by four scribes, probably monks associated with the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire. Some of the notes in the margins give us an idea how the book was read by these monks and suggest why it was preserved by them. One such note provides marginal headings, pointing to key passages in the text, such as ‘nota de clamore’ when Margery utters her first cry, and here a note with the word ‘mirabile’ (miracle):
Marginal note in Latin marking a miraculous event in The Book of Margery Kempe, Add MS 61823, f. 40v.
In this passage, Margery is described as being at the Church of St John Lateran in Rome, where she meets a very learned priest, a ‘Dewcheman’ (German) who ‘undirstod non Englycsh ne wist not what sche seyd’, and she could speak ‘non other language than Englysch’ so they had to speak to each other through an interpreter. Then, on Margery’s advice, the priest prayed for 13 days, at the end of this ‘he undirstod what sche seyd in Englysch to hym and sche undirstod what that he
seyd. And yet he undirstod not Englisch that other men spokyn’ – a miracle indeed! But for Margery this was not an occasion to celebrate: ‘sche sobbyd boistowsly and cryed ful lowde and horybly’. One wonders what the learned priest’s reaction could have been.
Religious eccentric, feminist icon, literary genius, early social reformer – Margery Kempe has been described as all these things by critics approaching her text in different ways. However we view her, there is no doubt that the work provides an invaluable insight into 15th century urban life and into the religious practices of the period.
- Chantry Westwell
Medieval manuscripts blog recent posts
- Humfrey Wanley, Library-Keeper of the Harleian Library
- New Anglo-Saxon acquisition on display
- Insular Manuscripts: Networks of Knowledge
- How many alphabets?
- Anglo-Saxon charters online
- If you’ve got it, flaw-nt it
- Chronicles and cartularies – fact and fiction
- Where's Walter?
- Curator, Early Modern Collections
- Frying pans, forks and fever: Medieval book curses
Archives
Tags
- Africa
- Alexander exhibition
- Ancient
- Anglo-Saxons
- Animals
- Black & Asian Britain
- British Library Treasures
- Calendars
- Classics
- Decoration
- Digital scholarship
- Early modern
- Elizabeth and Mary exhibition
- English
- Events
- Exhibitions
- Fashion
- Featured manuscripts
- French
- Gold exhibition
- Greek
- Harry Potter
- Humanities
- Illuminated manuscripts
- International
- Ireland
- Latin
- Law
- Leonardo
- LGBTQ+
- Literature
- Magna Carta
- Manuscripts
- Maps
- Medieval
- Medieval history
- Medieval women
- Middle East
- Middle east
- Modern history
- Music
- Olympics
- Palaeography
- Polonsky
- Printed books
- Rare books
- Research collaboration
- Romance languages
- Royal
- sacred texts
- Sacred texts
- Science
- Scotland
- Slavonic
- South East Asia
- Visual arts
- Women's histories
- Writing