The Early Book Society Newsletter
Spring 2007
Kalamazoo 2007
The Early Book Society is pleased to present six special sessions at the 42nd
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University,
Kalamazoo, to be held from May 10-13, 2007. This year, EBS sessions are
scheduled from Thursday through Saturday and will take place in different rooms
in Fetzer, Schneider, and Bernhard,
so please flag those sessions you wish attend in your conference program, once
you receive it. Please also plan to attend the annual business meeting of the
Early Book Society when we will distribute the membership lists and ask for
session themes or topics for Kalamazoo 2008. Plans for "Codices and
Community: Networks of Reading and Production, 1350-1550," the biennial EBS
conference at the University of Salford in Manchester in July 2007, will be
further discussed. Suggestions for future
venues for the international EBS conference are welcome. The business meeting will be held on Friday
evening at 8:30 p.m. in Fetzer 1060.
I. Session 29: Thursday, 10:00 a.m., Fetzer 2016
Scribal Profiling: Pattern Recognition, Visual Markers (and Adam Pinkhurst)
Presider: John Block Friedman, Kent State University-Salem
Would the Real Adam Pinkhurst Please Stand Up?
Linne R. Mooney, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
The Christ Church Canterbury Tales, a Late Manuscript with an Early Text
Jacob Thaisen, Adam Mickiewicz University
The Hodegon "Scriptorium" Reconsidered
Georgi R. Parpulov, Walters Art Museum
II. Session 129: Thursday, 3:30 p.m., Fetzer 1005
From Manuscript to Hypertext: Online Image Banks and Digital Projects I
Presider: Jeanne Krochalis, Pennsylvania State University
A Work in Progress: Digitization Projects at the Bodleian Library
Catherine Yvard, Bodleian Library
The Gower Project in Progress
Georgiana Donavin, Westminster College
Digital Scriptorium: Ten Years Old and Moving Right Along
Consuelo W. Dutschke, Columbia University
III. Session 219: Friday, 10:00 a.m., Fetzer 1005
From Manuscript to Hypertext: Online Image Banks and Digital Projects II
Presider: Orietta Da Rold, University of Leicester
Old and Middle English Texts Online: Reviewed Samples
Nila Vazquez, University of Murcia
The Promise and Perils of OCLC and Online Library Catalogues as Search Engines for
Image Banks of Early Books
Arnold Sanders, Goucher College
Using the Web for Collaboration on Manuscript Culture: A Report on the Imagining
History Project
Stephen Kelly, Queen's University, Belfast
IV. Session 405: Saturday, 10:00 a.m., Fetzer 2020
Images of Nature in Late Medieval Manuscripts (and Printed Books)
Presider: Janetta Rebold Benton, Pace University/Metropolitan Museum of Art
Representing Women's Work in the Late Medieval Countryside
Martha W. Driver, Pace University
Spiritual Arborescence: The Meaning of Trees in Late Medieval Devotion
Sara Ritchey, Wesleyan University
Learning to Read in the Hortus Conclusus: Images of the Education of the Virgin in Early Fifteenth-Century English
Manuscripts
Michael T. Orr, Lawrence University
V. Session 489: Saturday, 1:30 p.m., Bernhard 159
Chaucer after 1400: Makers, Editors, and Readers
Presider: Mary Morse, Rider Univ.
"So Wel Koude He Me Glose": Marginalia in Manuscripts of the Wife of Bath's
Prologue
Sarah Baechle, University of New Mexico
Readers' Notes from Then to Now: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Carl James Grindley, Hostos Community College, CUNY
The Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Hoccleve's Tribute to Chaucer as an Example of
Scotistic Conceptualism
Connie L. Meyer, Texas Christian University
Double Prosthesis onto the Corpus of Chaucer
Andrew Higl, Loyola University, Chicago
VI. Session 546: Saturday, 3:30 p.m., Schneider 1360
Dating and Placing Medieval Manuscripts
Presider: Martha W. Driver, Pace University
Dating Manuscripts: What Is at Stake in the Steps Usually (but Infrequently) Taken?
Denis Muzerelle, IRHT-Paris (Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes)
Tools for Dating and Placing Manuscripts
Olivier Legendre, IRHT-Paris
Dating, Placing, and Illumination
Patricia Stirnemann, IRHT-Paris
EBS in Salford and Manchester, July 2007
"Codices and Community: Networks of Reading and
Production, 1350-1550," the tenth biennial conference of the Early Book
Society, will be held at the University of Salford and Chetham's Library, Manchester,
from July 7 - July 11, 2007. The conference is hosted by Sue Powell, University
of Salford, with visits and sessions to be held at ChethamÕs Library (once the
home of Elizabethan mathematician John Dee) and the John Rylands Library,
Manchester, which is reopening after lengthy renovation in April, 2007. The international conference is open to all members of the
Early Book Society. Speakers and participants include: Mari Agata, Teru Agata,
Joyce Boro, Kirsty Campbell, James
Carley, Emma Cayley, Margaret
Connolly, Lynda Dennison, A.I. Doyle, Kara Doyle, Martha W. Driver, Laura Dull,
Michael Dzanko, Geraint Evans, Susanna Fein, Kristen Figg, Michael Foster, Joel Fredell, John Block Friedman, Alexandra
Gillespie, Katrin Graf, Kevin Gustafson, Joseph J. Gwara, Mark Hall, Jill C. Havens, Simon Horobin, Michael Hunter, Ann M. Hutchison, Jeanne
Krochalis, Anne Marie Lane, Kathryn A. Lowe, Suzanne Lyle, Brian Maidment,
Julia Marvin, William Marx, Lister Matheson, Meradith McMunn, Linne R. Mooney,
Charlotte Morse, Ann Eljenholm Nichols, Derek Pearsall, Matti Peikola, Oliver
Pickering, Susan Powell, Veronica O'Mara, Kari Anne Rand, Catherine A. Rock, Martha
Dana Rust, George Shuffelton, Anne F. Sutton, Helen J. Swift, Toshi Takamiya, M. Teresa Tavormina, Nila
Vazquez, Livia Visser-Fuchs, Daniel Wakelin, Edward Wheatley, Alison Wiggins, and
Robert F. Yeager. Conference information and registration forms will be sent
out in late February or early March. The final conference program will be
mailed to the membership in May. Recent authors should ask their publishers to
contact Sue Powell about displaying their books or publicity during the
conference. Inquiries about attending may be directed to Martha Driver
(MDriver@pace.edu) or Sue Powell (S.Powell@salford.ac.uk).
Expeditions and Activities in and around Salford and Manchester
On the first evening of the conference, the Lord Mayor of Salford has offered a civic reception at the
University. On Monday, day sessions will take place in ChethamÕs Library with
visits to the John Rylands Library, a tour of Manchester and a Chinese banquet
in Manchester to follow that evening. After the traditional champagne-croquet match on the lawns at the
University of Salford, the EBS conference banquet will be held at The Lowry, a
spectacular venue that includes an important art gallery, on Salford Quays. Sue
writes further that the BBC has just moved offices there. On July 11, EBS
conferees are invited on a day-trip to Stonyhurst College, where the librarians
(including Jan Rhodes, whose work on Bridgettine materials will be known to
many of us) will prepare an exhibition and speak about the collection. A
country pub lunch will follow. A fuller
description of travel to and around Manchester, and of activities in the area,
was presented in the fall 2006 Newsletter, which is also posted in the online EBS archiveshttp://www.nyu.edu/projects/EBS/NewsFall06.html. For more information about the
University of Salford, see: http://www.salford.ac.uk/.
Other helpful websites include: http://www.salford.gov.uk and
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk.
EBS Book Series
Texts and Transitions: Studies in the History of MSS and Printed Books draws on the ideals and aims of the Early
Book Society. Through Brepols, EBS publishes monographs dealing with late
medieval manuscripts and early printed books to about 1550, particularly those
that explore the transition from manuscript to print and questions to do with
readers and literacy, owners and patronage, the dissemination of texts, and the
reception of medieval texts. A 'text' may be either a word or an image, where a
picture serves also as a text that can be read and interpreted. The
focus is mainly on manuscripts and books produced in England or for the English
market, and closely related French and Continental works. The series includes
monographs of about 250 - 300 pages, collections of previously published essays
by one author (updated and revised), or in some cases essay collections with a
clearly unified theme or one main subject. Authors are encouraged to
include illustrations. Pictures are reproduced in black and white, though color
illustrations may be included in special cases. Authors are responsible for
purchasing photographs and securing the permissions to reproduce them.
The immediate organizers and general editors of the series are Martha Driver
(Pace University, NY) and Derek Pearsall (Harvard University, emeritus). The advisory board comprises
scholars expert in the various fields of late medieval and early modern
literature and culture and in the history of manuscripts and books. The members
of the board are: Julia Boffey (Queen Mary, University of London), Jennifer
Britnell (University of Durham), Ardis Butterfield (University College,
London), Philippa Hardman (University of Reading), Dieter Mehl (University of
Bonn), Alastair Minnis (Ohio State University), Oliver Pickering (Brotherton
Library, Leeds), John Scattergood (Trinity College, Dublin), and John Thompson
(Queen's University, Belfast). Those interested in inquiring about submissions
should contact Simon Forde at Brepols simon.forde@brepols.net, Derek
Pearsall Derek@apearsall.fsnet.co.uk or Martha Driver mdriver@pace.edu.
JEBS 10, forthcoming in summer 2007, will be sent to all members who have paid their
annual dues to Linne Mooney not later than April 15, 2007, or to Martha Driver
either by May 1 (by mail) or at the EBS business meeting at Kalamazoo on May 11.
Copies may also be ordered separately. (See further under Subscription
Information.) Among the many authors to be featured in the forthcoming issue
(which as of this writing in early February is still in progress) are Alexandra
Barratt, Joyce Boro, Margaret Connolly, Alexandra Gillespie, Sharon Goetz,
Carrie Griffin, Carl Grindley, Maidie Hilmo, Sanae Ikeda, Daniel W. Mosser,
Niamh Pattwell, Sue Powell, Nicole Rice, and Martha Dana Rust. Later in March, longer
papers (35 - 40 pp.), with endnotes and a full Works Cited list, will begin to
be collected for JEBS 11. These
are substantial essays on any aspect of the history of manuscripts and/or
printed books, with emphasis on the period between 1350 and 1550. Essays should
be sent for consideration in duplicate with an abstract to Martha Driver. A
limited number of illustrations may be included with complete captions and
permissions citations; Xeroxes of these should initially be sent with papers
for consideration to the editor. Notes on recent discoveries (4 -10 pp),
highlighting little-known or recently uncovered texts or images, may be sent to
Linne Mooney, Department of English and Related Literatures, Centre for
Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York Y01 7EP UK. Inquiries
are welcome LRM3@York.ac.uk. Please send brief descriptions (150-450
words) of little- or lesser-known collections and libraries of interest to the
Society to Martha Driver, Early Book Society, Department of English, Pace
University, 41 Park Row, New York, NY 10038. Members of the Early Book Society
who are recent authors may send review books for consideration to Susan Powell,
Reviews Editor, Department of English, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT
UK. Sue may be contacted at S.Powell@salford.ac.uk. For general
information, contact M.Driver@pace.edu.
While many EBS members have ordered JEBS 10, the current issue, with
their membership renewal, further copies must be ordered separately. If you are
ordering extra copies, you can pay with VISA (in U.S. dollars) using the order
form that can be downloaded from the Pace University Press site at
http://www.pace.edu/press. Libraries may purchase copies directly from Ingram Library Services (1-800-937-5300).
A membership renewal form for 2006-2007, which includes the cost of JEBS 10, may be found on the last page of this
bulletin. Members are asked, however, to pay their dues promptly. Membership is
for the academic year. Members in the U.K. and elsewhere who pay Linne Mooney
in pounds sterling should do so by mid-April, so Journal orders may be placed with Pace University Press
in a timely fashion. Americans and other members paying in U.S. dollars should
pay not later than the annual business meeting at Western Michigan (May 11,
2007), so the proper number of orders and address labels can be given the Press
on return. U.K. and Continental payments
are made to Linne Mooney, Department of English and Related Literatures, Centre
for Medieval Studies, University of York, King's Manor, York Y01 7EP UK.
E-mail:LRM3@York.ac.uk,
but before the April deadline, please, if you wish to include the Journal with your subscription for this year.
Martha Rust at New York University is the webmaster for the EBS site
housed at NYU http://www.nyu.edu/projects/EBS. The site currently includes an
electronic version of the Newsletter, announcements of interest to the EBS membership, the current
membership list for 2006-7, and the Honor Roll, a list that is updated
periodically of those who have paid their EBS dues for 2006-7. Suggestions for
other items members would like to see included on this site (announcements of
forthcoming books, of conferences or talks and exhibitions) may be sent to: martha.rust@nyu.edu or to mdriver@pace.edu.
Image Banks
We wish to alert our readers to several new image banks that may be of use to scholars. For those
interested in consulting images of works of art housed in museums in Flanders,
go to http://www.lukasweb.be/en/. This
is a site run by Reproductiefonds, an organization founded
by the Flemish government that oversees image management of museums in
Flanders. The site offers reproductions and also grants permission for reproductions
to scholars often without charge. The Free Library of Philadelphia has
announced the launch of a searchable website of medieval and Renaissance
manuscripts which is currently under construction. The site features
high-resolution images from western European codices and fragments, dating from
the eleventh century, held in the collections of the Free Library. Visit the
site at http://libwww.library.phila.gov/medievalman/. British
Printed Images to 1700 is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities
Research Council which by 2009 will make available online in fully searchable
form over 10,000 printed images from early modern Britain. For details see the
project website, http://www.bpi1700.org.uk
(or http://www.britishprintedimagesto1700.org.uk).
The Doomsday Book is now available online from the National Archives in a
searchable format. The website further allows scholars and students to print
images of the original pages along with an English translation. Go to: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is making digital images of
objects in its collections freely available to scholars beginning in early
2007. Those engaged in scholarly research are encouraged to log on through the
museum's site http://www.vam.ac.uk and
download high-resolution files for publication or educational use free of
charge. The database (which is still under construction) currently contains
more than 25,000 images from the V & A, along with images from the Museum of
Childhood and and the National Art Library.
Death of EBS Member Joanne S. Norman
contributed
by John B. Friedman, Professor Emeritus of English,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Visiting Professor of English, Kent
State University Salem
Many of you will recall her from
her papers and sessions at the Kalamazoo International Medieval Conference, the
St Louis Manuscripta Conference and
from her Metamorphoses
of an Allegory: The Iconography of the Psychomachia in Medieval Art (New York/Bern: Peter Lang, 1988), a work which is still widely quoted and used by many medievalists. At the
time of her death at age 63, Joanne Norman was Professor of English at BishopÕs
University in Lennoxville, Quebec. Joanne was the author of sixteen articles,
many on the Scottish Chaucerian William Dunbar, a fifteenth-century
court poet, and several book reviews. She served on
the Editorial Board of the Early Book Society (since 1997) and as editor for a
volume of the Proceedings of the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric.
She was past President of, and held other offices in, the Canadian Society of
Medievalists. Joanne Norman received her BA from McGill University, her MA from
the University of Toronto and her PhD from the University of Ottawa in
1979. It was at this time that I first met her, having been asked to serve as an external examiner at her
doctoral defense. I still recall how well she performed at her defense, then
quickly switched roles to those of a mother effortlessly managing an infant in
arms and then to that of a host making a gourmet dinner for her American
visitor to Ottawa. At the time of her death she was engaged in several scholarly
projects, most notably an edition of the fourteenth-century Latin
treatise Etymachia, together with
a study of its manuscripts and illustrations; an edition and a critical study
of both the text and illustrations of Cluny MS 1815, a sixteenth-century
manuscript of seven rondeaux presented to Louise de Savoie; as well as critical
works such as several studies of poetic conventions and rhetoric in the poetry
of William Dunbar. One area of her research--a study of the iconography
and historical context of fifteenth-century wall paintings, illuminated
manuscripts, and early printed books in France dealing with allegories of the
virtues and vices or seven deadly sins--was of particular interest to me.
In 1980, she entered on a photographic odyssey through France to identify and
classify church wall paintings representing the procession of the seven deadly
sins. It was in most cases not possible to procure
copies of the paintings by mail as the churches are small, impoverished, and
without full-time staff, and are located in towns without professional
photographic services. The
difficulties of this project only became clear once she was doing it, and she
sent me several funny letters and cards about it,
noting how it was impossible to study the works in question on Sundays. During
the weekdays she often had to locate the sacristan keeper of the keys to
arrange for electricity, usually not available, and to locate some sort of
ladder to gain closer access to the paintings. After this trip, I
received a truly magical trove of slides Joanne made from the paintings in
various obscure churches, slightly out of focus slides which were apparently
her Ņcast offsÓ and which I have labored to decipher for some twenty-five
years.
Joanne Norman was wonderful company, witty, generous with her time and knowledge, starchy
about the things she disapproved of in a way that only English Canadians of her
generation could be, and altogether a model scholar and colleague. Timor
mortis conturbat me as her favorite Scots
poet said.
Jean Preston's Legacy
The death of Jean Preston in August 2006 was noted in these pages in fall, 2006, so it was particularly surprising
and delightful to hear more about Jean from EBS member Julia Boffey this fall
who forwarded an article from The London Times (November 14, 2006). In
her small, tidy house in Oxford, Jean had a number of treasures including
several works by the Spanish Forger, but she also managed to acquire (for £200)
two small paintings, lost since the Napoleonic wars, from the altarpiece of the
church and convent of St Marco in Florence commissioned by Cosimo de Medici and
painted by Fra Angelico in 1439. The two panel paintings of unidentified
Dominican saints were originally purchased in California as a gift for her
father. Jean then inherited them and hung them in her guest room in Oxford.
Before Jean died, the paintings were identified by Michael Liversidge, a family
friend and former head of the History of Art department at the University of
Bristol. The Times
reports that Mr
Liversidge commented: "she knew they were good paintings but had no idea what
they were. When I told the lady the news she was more interested than anything
else and was pleased that her 'eye' had been correct." The paintings will be
sold at Duke's auction house, in Dorset, in March.
Contributions to the Nick Howe Fund
Donations
to the Nicholas G. Howe Memorial Fund
in memory of the personable and well-known Anglo-Saxon scholar who died last
year are requested by Richard Firth Green, Director of the Center for Medieval
and Renaissance Studies at The Ohio State University. The fund number is
#480256, and donations may be made online at https://www.giveto.osu.edu/igive
or donors may send a check either to The Center for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, The Ohio State University, 308 Dulles Hall, 230 W. 17th
Ave., Columbia, Ohio 43210-1361 or to M.J. Wolanin, Director of Development,
020 Mershon Center, 1505 Neil Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43210-2602. Several lovely
tributes to Nick were published in the October 2006 issue of Nouvelles
Nouvelles, the newsletter published by the
Center.
NEH Summer Seminar for College Teachers
The Reformation of the Book: 1450-1700
John N. King and James K. Bracken of The Ohio State University will direct a
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College and University
Teachers on continuity and change in the production, dissemination, and reading
of Western European books during the 250 years following the advent of printing
with movable type. In particular, they plan to explore the question of whether
the advent of printing was a necessary precondition for the Protestant
Reformation. This seminar will also explore the related problem of whether the
impact of printing was revolutionary or evolutionary. Employing key methods of
the still-emerging interdisciplinary field of the History of the Book, our
investigation will consider how the physical nature of books affected ways in
which readers understood and assimilated their intellectual contents. This
program is geared to meet the needs of teacher-scholars interested in the
literary, political, or cultural history of the Renaissance and/or Reformation,
the History of the Book, art history, womenÕs studies, religious studies,
bibliography, print culture, library science (including would-be rare book
librarians), mass communication, literacy studies, and more.
This seminar will meet from 18 June until 20 July 2007. During the first week of
this program, we shall visit Antwerp, Belgium, in order to draw on resources including
the Plantin-Moretus Museum. During four weeks in Oxford, where we shall reside
at St. Edmund Hall, we plan to draw on the resources of the Bodleian Library
and other institutions. Those eligible to apply include citizens of USA who are
engaged in teaching at the college or university level and independent scholars
who have received the terminal degree in their field (usually the Ph.D.). In
addition, non-US citizens who have taught and lived in the USA for at least
three years prior to March 2007 are eligible to apply. NEH will provide
participants with a stipend of $3,600. The application deadline is March 1,
2007. Full details and application
information are available at http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/king2/Reformationofthebook/. For further information, please contact rankin.86@osu.edu. See also: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/king2/ReformationoftheBook/.
Constabulary Notes from All Over
Beinecke Library Increases Security
The Yale Daily News
reports that after the sentencing of E. Forbes Smiley for the theft of 20
antique maps from Yale University collections, the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library will considerably increase its security. Other thefts from
the Beinecke include an 1890 letter penned by Lewis Carroll that turned up on
eBay earlier this year. Procedures
at the Beinecke were twice reviewed by security consultants, and an internal
review was also conducted. The reading rooms at the library are now videotaped
at all times, and the installation of a more extensive camera system is
planned. Richard Oram, chair of the security committee of the Rare Books and
Manuscripts section of the American Library Association, has pointed out that
improvements in library security are expensive and are not always willingly
undertaken by their supporting institutions. The Smiley case and others like it may also mean that
scholars will have a more difficult time accessing primary source materials.
The Smiley case has inspired other libraries to publicize thefts in the hope of
recovering stolen materials. Public knowledge and awareness of this sort of
crime may be the best defense against it. As Everett Wilkie, the former chair
of the ALA security committee, has noted, "The embarrassment of having a theft
has been overridden by the need to stop these people."
Cortes Map Returned to the Beinecke
A 1524 woodcut map illustrating Tenochtitlan, the island city of the Aztecs, was
returned to the Beinecke recently. As reported in the Hartford Courant (January 24, 2007), the map was among those stolen
from Yale by Smiley. The map was returned in December by Harry Newman, owner of
the Old Print Shop, who had purchased it. The map shows aqueducts, dikes made
of reeds, palaces and a royal aviary; it is the first map to show Florida and
to chart the Gulf of Mexico accurately. Prior to the map's return, Yale had
posted its picture online. At
first Newman believed his was a different map as the Yale map had visible
pinholes, but on closer examination, Newman noticed that the holes in his map had
been feathered over. If Smiley is the villain in this case, Newman may well be
the hero. As reported in the fall issue of this Newsletter, Harry Newman spent some $461,000 buying back maps
from his customers in order to return them to their former owners. Newman
purchased the Cortes map from Smiley for a price in "the mid-five figures," a
sum paid out by Newman in order to restore the map to Yale's collections. But the
story of the Cortes map becomes more convoluted still. Smiley also stole
Harvard's original copy of the map, presumably replacing it with two facsimile reproductions.
The New York Public Library is missing its facsimile, which may account for one
of these, but the whereabouts of the Harvard map and the source of the other
facsimile are as yet unknown.
German Book Thief Employed by Library
A library night porter working at the University of Erlangen in southern Germany
stole more than $900,000
(approximately £ 541,000) of rare books, mainly sixteenth-century botanical
works, including an edition of the New Herbal by Leonhart Fuchs, printed in
1543. The porter Reinhold K. (who cannot be named before trial) slipped the
books under his coat and stored them in his garage before passing them on to a
bookseller, Ludwig M, who is charged with commissioning the thefts. Because
many of the books were stolen over ten years ago, which is over the statute of
limitations for theft in Germany, the two may receive a light sentence if any
at all. Many of the stolen books represented stock that had not been checked by
the library for several decades, due to budget cuts. The London Times reported (November 24, 2006) that one of the stolen
books found in the porterÕs garage bore the penciled stock note: "Rev.22.1.62,"
indicating that the book had not been checked for over forty years.
An
unnamed 51-year-old professor at the University of Rostock was charged with
stealing rare books from the Bonn University Library, according to a report
from the German Press Agency (January 17, 2007). His modus operandi was to steal the books and replace them with
worthless copies, then to erase the library stamps on the rare materials. The
books were sold at auction with fake receipts as proof of provenance. Judges
remain certain the professor has stolen at least eight books dating from the
sixteenth century valued at approximately $325,000.
Further Skullduggery
The Associated Press reported last fall that the first edition of the Astronomicum Caesareum, written by Petrus Apianus (1495-1552) and
illustrated by Michael Ostendorfer (active 1520-49), with hand-colored
woodcuts, had been stolen from Peuerbach Castle in Austria. The thieves stole
the volume from an unlocked exhibition case and left another book in its place.
There has been some Internet debate over whether the stolen book was actually
the or the Cosmographia of Apianus, which was printed in several editions
between 1534 to 1584, a smaller volume that could be more readily replaced in
an exhibition case. If readers of
this Newsletter notice either of
these books offered for sale, please immediately contact: Norbert Donhofer,
President of the Association of Antiquarian Booksellers of Austria,
Grnangergasse 4, 1010 Vienna (T: +431 535 53 16; Mobil: +43 664 105 76 75; E: norbert.donhofer@do-mo.at).
More on Manchester Library Thefts
Norman Buckley, the assistant
librarian formerly employed by the Central Library in Manchester who stole 455 books
and manuscripts valued at £175,000 and sold several of them on eBay, was
sentenced to 250 hours of community service, the BBC reported on October 25.
Among the books stolen by Buckley were a sixteenth-century edition of the works
of Geoffrey Chaucer valued at £35,000 and a 1654 edition of John DonneÕs Elegies. An expert on antiquarian books spotted the work by Donne
on eBay and contacted the Manchester Central Library. Many of the books were
recovered subsequently by police at BuckleyÕs home in Hulme. As in the Smiley
case, in which the judge complimented Smiley for helping to recover some of the
maps he had stolen (and gave Smiley a comparatively light sentence), Judge
Clement Goldstone QC suspended a longer sentence because Buckley helped police
to find the books he had taken. This is an unfortunate legal trend that devalues
the crime of cultural theft.
(Thanks to Sylvie Merian, librarian at the Morgan Library, for forwarding many of these news stories.)
BNF Hebrew MS 52 Returned
In January just after the New Year, EBS member Pamela
Robinson forwarded a message from Denis Muzerelle, Curator of Latin Paleography
at the Institut de Recherche et dÕhistoire des Textes in Paris, describing some
of the peregrinations of the BNF Hebrew MS 52. In 2005, Michel Garel, former
curator of ancient Hebrew manuscripts in the Bibliothque Nationale de France,
was charged with the theft of, among other rare materials, MS Hebrew 52, a
Pentateuch copied in France about 1250 and bound in Italy in the fifteenth
century. The manuscript had been purchased by an unidentified Anglo-Israeli
collector and dealer and later offered for sale at Christie's auction house,
and then disappeared. At the end
of lengthy and secret negotiations, the Bibliothque Nationale de France was
able to recover this manuscript which was a bit worse for wear but home at
last.
CALLS FOR PAPERS
JOURNALS SEEKING SUBMISSIONS
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History
Editors Roger Dahood and Peter E. Medine seek submissions
year-round for this annual published by AMS Press, New York. Typescripts of
20-90 double-spaced pages on medieval and early modern history, language, and
literature, as well as translations, commentaries on texts, research notes, and
manuscript, codicological, and bibliographical studies are welcome.
Illustrations may accompany articles. For details, contact the editors at Dept
of English Modern Languages Bldg, #67, PO Box 210067, University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ 85721. E-mail: rdahood@u.arizona.edu,
medine@arizona.edu.
Aurora, The Journal of the History of Art
Lilian H. Zirpolo, co-editor and co-publisher, invites
submissions for vol. 8 (2007) of Aurora to
be published in November. The editors consider articles utilizing any
methodology and covering any art history topic from antiquity to the
present. The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2007. Consult
the website for further information: http://www.aurorajournal.org/.
Medieval Forum
This new
electronic journal for the promotion of scholarship in medieval English literature
invites submissions of articles and book reviews. Medieval Forum is dedicated
to providing a venue for the free exchange of ideas in a collegial, humanistic
environment. The editors particularly welcome work from independent scholars.
Please visit their website for submission guidelines (http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/).
For volume 20, Ecrire pour mon PrinceÉManuscrits commands au Moyen-Age, the
editor invites essays considering written works produced at the request of lay
and religious leaders. A summary of a few sentences is due by March 30, 2007.
Contributions are due by December 30, 2008. For volume 21, Chansons de geste, lgendes piques et
romans. De lÕoralit aux manuscrits, the editor is interested in receiving submissions that discuss medieval
literary manuscripts, which might include the Matter of Britain, the lais of
Marie de France, the Arthurian Cycle, or the writings of Christine de Pisan. A
short summary is due by June 30, 2007. Contributions are due by December 30,
2008. Texts in French, English, Italian, and Spanish are welcome.
Contact: Jean-Luc Deuffic at pecia@wanadoo.fr Websites: http://perso.orange.fr/pecia/ and http://blog.pecia.fr.
Fons
Luminis: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies
This new
peer-reviewed journal seeks submission of articles in all areas, especially
those with an interdisciplinary approach. Junior faculty and graduate students
are especially encouraged to submit by the 1 June deadline for the Autumn
issue. Inquiries and submissions should be directed to Victoria Goddard and
Andrew Reeves, Editors-in-Chief, at Fons Luminis, Centre for Medieval
Studies, 39 QueenÕs Park Crescent East, Toronto, ON M5S 2C3 Canada. E-mail: edsfl@chass.utoronto.ca.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MEDIEVAL PILGRIMAGE
Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage (Brill, forthcoming
2009) seeks contributors to write signed articles on all topics related to
pilgrimage between the Late Antique and the Reformation (300-1500). ;Articles
range from 150 to 2000 words in length and must be written in English.
Compensation (for longer contributions only) will be in the form of discounts
on Brill volumes. More information on this publication opportunity may be
found at the website: http://www.westga.edu/~rtekippe/.
For art history and related subjects, contact editor Rita Tekippe. E-mail: rtekippe@westga.edu. For other themes,
contact the executive editor, Larissa Taylor. E-mail: ljtaylor@colby.edu.
JOHN GOWER IN LONDON, 2008
The John Gower Newsletter invites Gowerians to submit topics for sessions and individual papers
for "The Age of Gower 1408/2008," a meeting to take place July 14-16,
2008 in London. Georgiana Donavin is organizing a session entitled
"John Gower and Hypertext" and would like to hear from anyone who has
a paper to present in that session. Other sessions will include Gower and
Theory and Gower and Interdisciplinary Readings, sponsored by The Gower Project,
and Performing Gower, organized by Martha W. Driver. Proposals for these
sessions are welcome, and further sessions and paper topics may be submitted
for consideration. For information contact Bob Yeager. E-mail: rfyeager@hotmail.com and/or Georgiana Donavin. E-mail: gdonavin@westminstercollege.edu
and see also the Gower website: http://people.westminstercollege.edu/faculty/gdonavin/gower/.
TEACHING
WRITING, LEARNING TO WRITE
This conference sponsored by the XVIth Colloquium of the Comit International de
Palographie Latine CIPL will be held in Senate House, University of London,
from September 2-5, 2008. The colloquium will address the psychology and
sociology of the medieval scribe. How did scribes learn to write in the Middle
Ages? What was the social and cultural significance of a script chosen for a
particular function ? How was script influenced by features of fashion? What
was the interface between scribe and reader and the graphic signs used to
communicate a message? Such questions have an impact on the transmission of
texts, the growth of literacy, and the history of reading. Papers may be on
any aspect of manuscript production (script, epigraphy, codicology, decoration)
that relates to the above theme. One-page proposals should be sent no later
than 15 June 2007 to Pamela Robinson,
Institute of English Studies, Univ. of London, Senate House, Malet St., London
WC1E 7HU, U.K. (pamela.robinson@sas.ac.uk).
Conferences, Colloquia, Talks, Exhibitions of
Interest to EBS Members
Mar 2-3Annual Meeting of the Medieval Association of the
Pacific at the University of California, Los Angeles. Contact: Blair Sullivan,
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1485
(310-825-1537; fax 310-825-0655). E-mail: sullivan@humnet.ucla.edu. Website:
http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/MAP/
Mar
14-17 Society for Textual Scholarship, the 14th biennial,
international, interdisciplinary meeting (at New York University). Contact: Nicholas Frankel, Virginia
Commonwealth University nrfrankel@vcu.edu or Marta Werner, Youville
College wernerm@dyc.edu.
Mar
29-31 American Catholic Historical Association meeting at
Marquette University. Contact: Steven M. Avella, Dept. of History, Coughlin Hall
315, Marquette University, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881
(414-288-3556; fax: 414-288-5099). E-mail: steven.avella@marquette.edu.
Mar 30-31 Thirty-Fourth Annual Sewanee Medieval Colloquium: The Seven
Deadly Sins in the Middle Ages, with lectures by Richard Newhauser (Trinity),
Anne W. Robertson (Chicago) and Peter Hawkins (Boston). To attend contact Dr
Susan Ridyard, Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, The University of the South, 735
University Ave., Sewanee, Tennessee 37383-1000. E-mail: sridyard@sewanee.edu
Mar 30-Apr 1Visuality and Materiality in the Story of Tristan and
Isolde, a conference at Duke University and the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, will address the Tristan materials and the reception of the story
in literature, art, and material culture within broader cultural contexts.
Contact: Jutta Eming emine@zedat.fu-berlin.de, Ann Marie Rasmussen annmarie.rasmussen@duke.edu or Kathryn Starkey kstarkey@email.unc.edu. Conference website: http://tristanconference.com/
Mar
31-Apr The
French of England: Multilingualism in Practice, c. 1100-c. 1500, the 27th
Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, in
conjunction with the Fordham-York French of England Project, at the Lincoln
Center Campus, Fordham University. Featured speakers include Emilie Amt,
Richard Britnell, Joyce Coleman, Julia Marvin, Andrew Taylor, and Robert F.
Yeager. Contact: The Conference Committee, Ctr. for Medieval Studies, FMH 405B,
Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458. E-mail: medievals@fordham.edu. Website: http://www.fordham.edu/mvst.html
Apr 11Representations of the Book and the Reader in
Medieval Art, Gallery Talk by Heather Horton, The Cloisters Museum, noon, and 2
p.m. Free. Fort Tryon Park, New York, NY 10040. Website: http://www.metmuseum.org
Apr 12-14 Medieval
Academy of America meeting, hosted by the Centre for Medieval Studies, University
of Toronto, at Victoria College. Contact: Andrew Orchard, Centre for Medieval
Studies, University of Toronto, 39 Queen's Park Crescent East, Toronto, ON M5S
2C3, Canada. E-mail: andy.orchard@utoronto.ca.
Apr 19-20 Chaucer
and Time, the Third London Chaucer Conference, held at the University of
London, Senate House, Bloomsbury, London. Contacts: Anthony Bale, School of
English and Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet St.,
London WC1E 7HX, U.K. E-mail: a.bale@bbk.ac.uk
Alcuin Blamires, Dept. of English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmith's College,
University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW, U.K. E-mail: ens01ab@gold.ac.uk, Rosalind Field, English Dept., Royal
Holloway, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, U.K. E-mail: r.field@rhul.ac.uk. Website: http://www.londonchaucer.org.uk
Apr 22 Beowulf
performed by Benjamin Bagby, The Cloisters, Fort Tryon Park, New York, NY
10040, at 1 pm. Tickets are $35. Call 212-650-2290.
May 6 Fifteenth-Century
Conference, co-sponsored by the Richard III Society and the Program in Medieval
Studies and English Department at the University of Illinois, at Montecello,
Illinois. Contact: Rob Barrett, Dept. of English, 208 English Building, MC-718,
608 S. Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801. E-mail: rwb@uiuc.edu
May 11-13 Juan
Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita y el Libro de Buen Amor, Congreso Homenaje a Alan Deyermond, organized by Louise
Haywood (University of Cambridge). Contact: Ayuntamiento, Area de Cultura,
Capuchinos, 23680 Alcala la Real, Jaen, Spain (+953-587041; fax: +953-587156.
E-mail: tecnicocultura@alcalalareal.es
May 17-19 The 4th
International Piers Plowman Conference, the University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia. Contact: The 4th International Langland Conference, 379 Penn
Road, Wynnewood, PA 19096. E-mail: langland@english.upenn.edu
Writing England: Books 1100-1200, University of Leicester. Drawing upon different
approaches and perspectives, this focused conference aims to investigate the
writers, compilers, manufacture, and reception of books in England between c. 1100
and 1200. Featured speaker is Ralph Hanna. Contact: Elaine Treharne, English
Dept., University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK. E-mail:
emt1@leicester.ac.uk Website: http://www.le.ac.uk/ee/em1060to1220/index.htm
British
Printed Images to 1700, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council, is sponsoring a conference devoted to visual cultures in early modern
Britain at Birkbeck College, University of London. The main theme is book
illustration. There will be facilities for the display of posters on any aspect
of the production and consumption of printed images in early modern Britain. Offers
of these are welcome. Contact: Professor Michael Hunter, School of History,
Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet St, London WCE
7HX UK. E-mail: m.hunter@bbk.ac.uk
July
14-15 Geography and the Book of
Nature: The Natural World in Transition, 1300-1600, organized by the
Section for Old and Middle English Language and Literature, Ruhr-Universitt
Bochum, Hattingen, Germany. Contact: Maik Goth, Sebastian Sobecki, or Luuk
Houwen. E-mail: book-of-nature-2007@rub.de
Website: http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/book_of_nature_2007/
July
16-18 Visual Representations of Medieval Spirituality:
Architecture, Drama, Literature, Liturgy, Manuscripts, Painting, Stained Glass,
Sculpture, sponsored by York Minster and Christianity and Culture (Centre for
Medieval Studies, University of York). Speakers include Helen Cooper, Eamon
Duffy, Ann Hutchison, Pamela King, Richard Marks, Nigel Morgan, Helen Phillips,
Michelle Sauer, Lynn Staley, Lorraine Stock, and Paul Szarmach. Contact: Dee
Dyas, Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of York, York YO1 7EP, U.K. (dd11@york.ac.uk). Website:
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/cms/medspirit).
July
17-20 Eleventh
York MSS Conference, French in English Manuscripts and French Manuscripts in
England. The theme of the conference is French influence on manuscripts
produced in England in the later Middle Ages. Contact: Linne R. Mooney, Centre
for Medieval Studies, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, U.K. E-mail: LRM3@york.ac.uk
July
17-22 Lost in Translation? The Tenth Cardiff Conference
on the Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages, the University of
Lausanne, Switzerland. Contact: Denis Renevey, Universit de Lausanne, Section
d'anglais, batiment Humense, CH - 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. E-mail: Denis.Renevey@unil.ch
Membership Form available at this site as either an .html form (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/EBS/MembershipForm.html) or a .pdf form (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/EBS/MembershipForm.pdr).
The Early
Book Society grew out of sessions planned for the International Congress on
Medieval Studies (Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo) by Sarah Horrall and
Martha Driver. Founded as an independent entity in 1987, the Society was formed
to bring together all those who are interested in any aspect of the study of
manuscripts and early printed books. EBS now has 475 members in the US, Canada,
Japan, Ireland, Great Britain, and on the Continent. Membership brings
announcements of EBS activities, including the biennial conference, as well as
the membership list and the Journal of the Early Book Society, both published annually, along with pre-publication
discounts on books of interest to members and access to the EBS chatline. Dues
are $40 or £24 for 2006-2007. All members are asked to pay by mail not later
than May 1, 2007, or in person at the annual business meeting at Western
Michigan (May 11), so that copies of JEBS may be ordered in a timely fashion. JEBSmay also be ordered separately from Pace UP (see
www.pace.edu/press for details). Those who have paid dues are indicated on the
EBS website: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/EBS/members.html. Please share a copy of this
announcement with an interested friend.
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