Codicology and Paleography

Dimensions and Page Notes

Folios display 20 lines of text per page, justified text blocks, which begin below the top rule line. Red Ruling on pages varies in intensity, very faded on many leaves. The pages are 175 x 125 mm.

Initials

Illuminated intitials on most pages, initial height varies from one to two lines.

Script and Variations

The script is a Gothic Textura. Biting of letters throughout text. Text itself shows inconsistent use of minims, suggesting that it is closer to a Textualis Semi-Quadrata, which may be evidence of scribes associated with Flanders. Script shows inconsistent use of letter forms such as I and R. Red ink rubrication is bright and fresh.

Sewing Holes and Binding Evidence

Sewing holes are evident on the University of South Carolina leaf, Wadsworth Athenaeum leaf, and others. The Smith College leaf has piece of gutter still attached. University of Toronto has a thread attached to the leaf, but the thread looks recent, possible evidence of rebinding. There is evidence in some of the images that specific pages are from the hair-side of the animal; folicles are visible on several pages including: Dennison leaf, Ohio leaf, Cleveland leaf. 

Provenance: Mounting Tape and Matting

Evidence of the characteristic mounting tape used by Otto F. Ege in assembling his "Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts 12th-15th century" is evident on almost every folio. In addition to this white cloth tape, there is evidence of sticky residue from tape on several pages as well (Cleveland Public Library leaf, for example). All of the leaves which were contained in FOL 48 were matted using this tape. Some of the leaves are still attached to their Ege mounting; for example, the Albany leaf is still attached to the original Ege matting, and includes his original information/classification card. The Ohio University leaf still taped to matting. 

Catchwords

Catchwords which designate the end of a quire can be found on the Ontario College of Art and Design leaf ("Et" horizontally), as well as the Cincinnati Public Library leaf ("didatus" vertically). Catchwords allowed those assembling the quires to bind them in the correct order.

Signs of Wear and Damage

Some general signs of wear and damage can be found on many of the leaves. A portion of the leaf is missing/possibly torn from Cleveland Institute of Art leaf; the way the mounting tape is placed suggests that this damage was present before Ege mounted the leaf to his characteristic matting. There are pages in which the ink has faded substantially (SUNY Stony Brook leaf, for example). The gold leaf used for illumination is flaking off on several of the pages. Many pages show "bleed-through" of ink from recto to verso (SUNY Stony Brook, New Zealand, and Ontario leaves). Cockling of the parchment is evident on some of the leaves; this could be evidence of water damage or improper storage of some of the leaves in the time since being disbound by Ege (Cleveland Institute of Art and Yale University leaves as examples).

Some Overall Conclusions on Condition

For the most part, known surviving leaves of this manuscript show very little soiling or destructive wear, suggesting that it was either little used or well cared for, or both. This is is keeping with LIS464 class conclusions that it was made for the private use of a wealthy woman in the Châlons-sur-Marne region of northern France, near Rheims. The content containing materials related to St. Margaret, patron saint of pregnancy and childbirth, suggest that this book could possibly have been used primarily as a talisman, rather than as a devotional book used daily. This evidence helps account for the relatively "clean" condition for what was once a unified codex, now over 500 years old.

Resources

Bischoff, Bernhard. Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Brown, Michelle P. A Guide to Western Hisorical Scripts, from Antiquity to 1600. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

Clemens, Raymond and Timothy Graham. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007.