Fragmentology

Hannah Ryley, Re-using Manuscripts in Late Medieval England: Repairing, Recycling, Sharing (York Manuscripts and Early Print Studies, 4), York: Medieval Press 2022, 240 pp., ISBN 9781914049064.

Margaret Connolly — 2023-12-31

Finding the Prior Leaf

William Duba — 2023-12-31

Fragments of Latin-script medieval manuscript books evoke the whole to which they once belonged, encouraging us to build a mental model of the now-broken whole. Discussing fragments thus requires a way to describe not just the surviving objects and how they relate to their current context, but also how they related to the original. At the most basic level, relating individual pieces to an original codex requires identifying the fragment’s physical role and orientation in the codex. Then, if the text of the fragment is known, extrapolation can be used to reconstruct leaves, gatherings, and codicological units. An extrapolative method is documented and validated using experimental data and examples from the Fragmentarium web platform.

Carolingian Bible Fragments in Dublin

Elizabeth Mullins — 2023-12-31

Fragments from an early-ninth century Carolingian Old Testament are used as sewing guards in two incunabula currently held in the Special Collections Department of the James Joyce Library, University College Dublin. The host volumes are part of the four-volume 1481–1482 Nuremberg printing of Alexander of Hales’ Summa. The provenance of the UCD incunabula establishes that the two volumes bearing the Carolingian fragments were in the Bavarian abbey of Benediktbeuern in the fifteenth century. The fragments in these books can be associated with similar material in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich and in the Sir George Grey Collection in Auckland Central Library.

Binding Waste as Evidence for the Reconstruction of a Lost Aristotelian Manuscript

Pieter Beullens — 2023-12-31

This note discusses the hypothetically reconstructed content of a fourteenth-century Latin manuscript of Aristotle's Parva naturalia, from which two bifolia survive as flyleaves in an incunable binding. The note argues that the lost manuscript contained a collection of Aristotelian treatises in combination with short texts by Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas, which had a limited circulation in German-speaking regions.

A Folio from the Somnium Viridarii

Chris Schabel — 2023-12-31

The auction of a folio from an otherwise unidentified manuscript of the Somnium Viridarii coincides with a recent re-examination of the textual tradition, thus providing an opportunity to position the fragment within that tradition and to determine its philological value. The Somnium Viridarii, a dialogue on papal vs. royal power surviving in eight other manuscripts, was completed in 1376 by Évrart de Trémaugon and quickly translated into French for King Charles V as Le songe du Vergier, extant in at least 25 medieval witnesses. The critical edition of the section contained in the fragment from the oldest known manuscript reveals that the folio is independent from the complete codices and contains a text that is at least as clean as the best of those other copies.

An Offset Fragment in Uncial from Montpellier

Leonardo Costantini — 2023-12-31

This paper examines a hitherto unknown eighth-century offset fragment of the Vulgate (Luke 24:7–10), probably of Insular origin, found on the lower board of MS Montpellier, Bibliothèque Universitaire Historique de Médecine, H 226.

Fragmentology 6

William Duba — 2023-12-31

Editorial for Fragmentology 6

Fragmente und Fragmentierungen. Neue Zugänge zur mittelalterlichen deutschsprachigen Überlieferung.

Robert Schöller — 2023-12-31

Report on the 28th colloquium of the Wolfram von Eschenbach-Gesellschaft

Index of Shelfmarks

William Duba — 2023-12-31

An index of all shelfmarks and accession numbers cited in reference to manuscript or early print material in Fragmentology 6 (2023).