47th International Congress on Medieval Studies

10–13 May 2012

[First published on our first website on *15 December 2011, with updates there and here]

Our four Sponsored and Co-Sponsored Sessions at the 2012 Congress examined the material culture and production of written records in Western Europe and beyond, and the dispersal, recovery, and preservation of those works in various forms and widespread locations.  Besides these interlinked subjects, our highlighted genre was “Dream Books”, appearing in multiple manifestations in both manuscript and print.

One Session was the second in our series at the Congress on “Medieval Writing Materials”.  Its series (2011–2014 and, intended, 2016) is listed in our Sponsored Conference Sessions.

This year, for the first time, after the debut of a single illustrated Poster for one of our sponsored Sessions at the 2011 Congress, an illustrated Posters accompanied both of our own Sponsored Sessions.  Since 2015, the full series of illustrated Posters for Congress Sessions and other Events appear in our Gallery of Posters on Display.

At this Congress, we co-sponsored sessions with the Societas Magica, as in previous years (in the seventh year of this co-sponsorship), and, for the first time, with King Alfred’s Notebook LLC.  Also, three of our Trustees and many of our Associates presented papers at the Congress in a variety of sessions.

Here we describe our Sessions, list their Programs, and publish Abstracts for their papers, along with our Posters for two sessions.   Inspired by the responses to our single Poster at last year’s Congress, for one Session (Sessions at the 2011 Congress), these Posters include donated images and layout, with images courtesy of David Sorenson and with layout in our copyright digital font Bembino.   You may learn more about this font and download it for FREE here: Bembino.

This year, for the first time, illustrated Posters accompanied both of our own Sponsored Sessions, building upon last year’s first such Poster.  And now, for the first time, the full series of illustrated Posters for Congress Sessions and other Events, which flows from this inspiration, appear in our Gallery of Posters on Display.

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I.  Sessions Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

1.  “Material and Craft Aspects of Manuscript Production”

Organizer:  Sean M. Winslow (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)

This session focused on physical codicology and the study of the craft of book production.  It examined and compared a range of areas and periods of production across the medieval world and its heritage, so as better to distinguish modes, regions, and styles in crafting the manuscript book throughout its development, transmission, and transformation across time and place.  The papers considered the materials, construction, and processes involved in bookmaking and the craft aspects of production, including the archaeological evidence for manuscript production.

Presider:  Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Presenters:

• Sarah J. Biggs (The British Library and the Courtauld Institute of Art)
  “Pigments, Painters and the Parc Abbey Bible:  A Multispectral Imaging Study”
  Abstract: Biggs (2012 Congress)
• Jacob Thaisen (Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, University of Stavanger)
  “How Middle English Scribes Avoided Eyeskip When They Copied Texts”
  Abstract: Thaisen (2012 Congress)

Sarah’s post (07 May 2012) for the British Library blog on Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts gives an illustrated glimpse of her talk and this session:  Beneath the Surface. With permission, we reproduce the frontispiece of Le Parc Bible, a real beauty of a book.  Sarah’s Abstract tells more about it. The manuscript is now digitised online.

©The British Library Board, Additional MS 14788, folio 6v, with the opening of Genesis. Reproduced by permission

2.  “Medieval Writing Materials:  Manufacture, Use, and Trade”

Organizers:  Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence) and
Eleanor A. Congdon (Department of History, Youngstown State University)

The survival of medieval records of any kind depends upon the media which carry them, comprising two general classes:

(1) the media upon which records were written and
(2) the materials used to write them.

This session considered both classes, as an aid to discourse between different fields of research in rapid development.  The writing surfaces themselves present researchers with challenges ranging from the steps and equipment of manufacture to the ranges of trade and use, including redeployment at the hands of collectors.  Likewise, the scribing tools, pigments, and ingredients which allow the media and pigments to bind together offer further avenues for exploration.  Examining these subjects in combination may prove invaluable for the study of medieval records in many areas.

Presider:  Alan M. Stahl (Firestone Library, Princeton University)

Presenters:

• David W. Sorenson (Independent Scholar, Quincy, Massachusetts)
  “Varieties of Islamic Paper:  Laid-Lines Only”
  Abstract: Sorenson (2012 Congress)

• Eleanor A. Congdon (Department of History, Youngstown State University)
  “Venetian Trade in Writing Materials in the Datini Letters:  Paper, Pigments, and Other Chemicals”

This 2012 session formed the second in our series at the Congress on ‘Medieval Writing Materials’.  The others:

• 2011
• 2013 and
• 2014.

The fifth in the series is planned for the 2016 Congress.

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II. Session Co-Sponsored by
the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
and King Alfred’s Notebook LLC

3.  “Medieval Manuscripts in North American Collections: Texts, Illuminations, Collection

Organizer:  Scott Gwara (Department of English, University of South Carolina, and King Alfred’s Notebook LLC)

The dispersal of Western European manuscript materials in North American collections entails painstaking examination, and sometimes serendipitous discovery, so as properly to assess and, if possible, to identify the nature, origin, and provenance of these materials.  The unexpected richness of the medieval manuscript resources on this continent continues to challenge the individual scholar or collector as well as scholarly awareness at large. Our session contributed to this ongoing investigation — and celebration — of the trashed or treasured books and scraps which have found their way, by one means and another, into various hands, both private and public, prepared to give them a home or shelter of some kind.  We rightly expected the revelation of unsuspected surprises.

Presider: Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Presenters:

• Scott Gwara (Department of English, University of South Carolina)
  “Composite Books of Hours in American Collections”
  Abstract: Gwara (2012 Congress)

• David Sharron and
  Stacey Morris
  (Special Collections, James A. Gibson Library, and Department of History, Brock University, St. Catherine’s, Ontario)
  “The Budding Medieval Document Collection at Brock University and the Study of a Letter from the Scottish Throne in 1579”

• Anna Dysert (Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University, Montreal)
  “In hoc iquo libro:  A Study of Osler Library MS 480 (De anima in arte alchemiae)”
  Abstract: Dysert (2012 Congress)

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III.  Session Co-Sponsored by the Societas Magica and the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

4.  “Dream Books”

Organizer: László Sándor Chardonnens (Department of English Language and Culture, Raboud University Nijmegen)

The compelling nature of dreams, both mysterious and fantastical, which persistently combined with the notion of a revelatory potential between these envisioned events and conscious life, ensured a widespread interest during the medieval period (as at other times) in any means of understanding or “reading” dream phenomena.  This session examined the characteristics, approaches, and transmission of such knowledge, emphasizing the interaction between the texts and their material contexts of manuscripts and early printed books across a wide range of periods, languages, and cultures.

Presider: David Porreca (Department of Classics, University of Waterloo)

Presenters:

• Valerio Cappozzo (Department of Modern Languages, University of Mississippi)
  “Editing the Somniale Danielis:  Vox Populi and Dream Culture in Medieval Italy”
  Abstract: Cappozzo (2012 Congress)

• Dimitri Drettas (Centre de Recherche sur les Civilisations de l’Asie Orientale, Paris)
  “Classified Dreams:  Oneirocritical Manuscripts from Dunhuang (Ninth to Tenth Century) and Their Place in the Mantic Culture of Medieval China”
  Abstract:  Drettas (2012 Congress)

• László Sándor Chardonnens (Department of English Language and Culture, Radboud University Nijmegen)
  “Dream Divination in Manuscripts and Printed Books:  Patterns of Transmission”
  Abstract:  Chardonnens (2012 Congress)

Our Sponsored Session on “Predicting the Past: Dream Symbology in the Middle Ages” at the 2015 Congress returned to this subject, with the participation of 2 of the speakers here.  Then, for the first time at a Congress, and from our tradition of providing program Booklets for Symposia, Colloquia, and other Events elsewhere, we prepared a 4-page booklet for this Session, now available for download through the 2015 Congress Report.

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Shaping Plans for the Future

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence held its Meeting of the Board of Trustees at the Congress.

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The full Congress program is archived as 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies.

The Societas Magica sessions are listed as Sessions Sponsored by the Societas Magica at the Forty-seventh International Congress on Medieval Studies May 10-13, 2012 .

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