Summary of Findings

Fragments of the Past

These manuscript fragments each have a story to tell – and now, after 500+ years, they have found a new voice.

Between these pages are tiny pieces of history, frozen in time.

The manuscript fragments vary in size, script, age, condition, and content. From tiny fragments barely larger than a fingernail to full-page fragments used as pastedowns in large books, what each of these fragments has in common is that they were once considered trash – and yet they offer us unique insight into the medieval world.

Through these fragments, history comes alive again in a new age. They may be small, but they are also mighty: What if one of these fragments is from a previously unknown work which had previously been lost to time? Or from a wholly unique work which exists nowhere else in the world? What if it represents another copy of a rare work? Or what if, by digitizing these fragments, scholars around the world can collaborate to piece back together a manuscript which had been cut into various pieces and scattered across the globe?

What a gift it would be.

Books are the carriers of civilization.

Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
Barbara W. Tuchman

Converging
Commonalities

While no two fragments are alike, there were some commonalities shared among nearly all the fragments we found.

Consider the following:

Nearly all the fragments found, with the exception of four, were used to support the bindings of a book. They were either pasted along the length of the spine, or they were pasted in between each of the sewing supports, attaching the book block to the covers.

12 out of 16 books containing fragments were bound in limp parchment bindings – that is to say, the books hadn’t been rebound in at least 500 years, so the fragments supporting their original bindings remained in place.

The vast majority of fragments are in Latin, as Latin was considered the language of the learned across Europe. Latin is also considered a sacred language of the Roman Catholic Church to this day.

The Decretals

At least three large manuscript fragments from two different texts are examples of medieval legal texts.

The Decretals of Pope Gregory IX

In 1230 CE, Pope Gregory IX created a new collection of canon law to organize and clarify the laws of the Roman Catholic Church. These two manuscript leaves were used as a pastedown within the front and back covers of an unknown book. Obscured by bits of glue, paper, and cardboard, they have been sent for restoration so that we might better study them.

Fragment Analysis

Despite their current condition, these beautiful manuscript fragments have quite the story to tell. Written in the characteristic medieval style of legal texts – with the text itself at the centre of the page, and commentary surrounding it – these fragments were quite clearly used by at least two different students: they have left handwritten notes clarifying and highlighting important bits of the text! The second leaf contains what could be an edit or a redaction, where a second strip of parchment was placed over the original text so the scribe could correct an error – or perhaps revise history.

Language

Latin

Writing Support

Parchment

Script

Gothic Textualis

Dimensions (L X W)

12.5 cm x 32.5 cm

Approximate Date

Late 13th or early 14th century

The Decretals of Yves of Chartres

Found within the bindings of a 1550 edition of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, this long, thin fragment is from the Decretals of Yves of Chartres – another set of texts on canon law written in the late 11th century.

Though it is written in Latin, the text of this fragment is heavily abbreviated, such that it may seem like a strange language. There is evidence of rubrication, and the red and blue inks decorating the initials are still vivid 700 years after they first touched the parchment. There is also at least one instance of a student adding study notes to the text.

Language

Latin

Writing Support

Parchment

Script

Protogothic?

Dimensions (L X W)

32 cm x 5 cm

Approximate Date

Early 13th century

Divine Hymns

Histories and law texts were not the only types of content that we found.

Liber Conformitatum of Bartholomew of Pisa (1510)

These two manuscript fragments of sacred music were pasted within the front and back flyleaves of a delicate book dedicated to St Francis of Assisi bound in worn, brown leather.

On the verso side, the fragments show red staves of music notation with rubricated instructions and notes written in Latin. The instructions are heavily abbreviated to convey as much meaning as possible within limited space. On the recto side, there is text with beautiful pen-flourished initials in red and blue.

The music and text are likely from the Liturgy of the Hours, which was sung in common in medieval monasteries and churches.

Language

Latin

Writing Support

Parchment

Script

Gothic Textualis

Dimensions (L X W)

(3.5 cm up to 4.2 cm) x 12.5 cm

Approximate Date

15th century

Three for One

If there is more than one fragment in a book, there is no guarantee they are all from the same text. This copy of the Epistles of St Ignatius of Antioch held THREE different fragments!

The Epistles of St Ignatius of Antioch (1562)

This small, unassuming book – a translation of the Epistles of St Ignatius of Antioch – houses not one, but three different manuscript fragments! Two are sewn into the bindings just inside the front and back covers, and a third is pasted along its spine. The two fragments inside the covers have not yet been identified, but the fragment pasted along the spine is from Julius Caesar’s De Bello Civili 2.4 – interesting to find a pagan work supporting the spine of a Christian one.

Language

Unknown; Latin

Writing Support

Parchment (2); Paper (1)

Sewing Supports

Spun thread

Script

Gothic Cursiva (2); Humanistic Miniscule (1)

Dimensions

15.4 cm x 4 mm
15.5 cm x 2.5 cm
15.5 cm x 2.3 cm

Approximate Date

Mid-15th century

Tiny Treasures

Hidden inside a 1680 copy of the Medical Works of François Dubois de le Boe were 12 small fragments cut from what could be the same text. Unlike the other fragments, however, these ones are written in medieval Dutch!