![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjSure enough, the three sessions I thought were most interesting in the whole conference were all scheduled in the same time-slot. Saturday, 3:30-5:00. This time I leaned in the direction of topics potentially relevant to deep-background research on mystical topics for future books. (I think I'm going to need to do some more serious alchemy to make use of all the background research I've done.)
Session 450: Rolls and Scrolls after the Codex: New Approaches to an Old Technology
Sponsor: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Organizer: Hindley, Adair, Hurley
Presider: Raymond Clemens
Praying in Gold: Luxury Scrolls of the Office of Holy Communion - Stefanos Alexopoulos, Catholic Univ. of America & Robert S. Nelson, Yale Univ.
Begins with a physical description of the scroll (a Greek text, I assume Orthodox in origin), especially decorative elements. (This scroll was acquired by the sponsoring institution.) Discusses various dating possibilities based on paleographical grounds, with comparative texts. Focus on the decorated capitals, similar styles appear in outline only two centuries earlier, but this ms uses the decorative style as a revival and has the primary lines in gold, with color highlights. Other dating elements come from the structure and number of the prayers included.
This type of scroll of prayers began in monastic settings but then was adopted for private use, taking communion using pre-consecrated elements. From the 13-15th c. 30-35 scrolls of this type survive, nearly all of them unique in structure. But there is a small number of luxury scrolls like the present object, distinguished by the quality of the materials, the excellence of the hand, the presence of gold, and significant amounts of unused parchment (margins and end). Typically have ornamented head-pieces (missing in the present item). There are 5-6 of these luxury scrolls that are textually identical, a strong contrast to the typical examples. There is no introductory material (canon, psalms, hymns, Lord have mercy, etc.) and the sequence and nature of the prayers is nearly identical.
Alexopoulos proposes that these elements indicate that these luxury scrolls represent the earliest and original text of the Office of Communion scroll of this type. [I believe this is: not that the objects are the oldest, but that the preserve the original format.]
Further provenance information is suggested by the near-identity of certain decorative elements to manuscripts from the "Atelier of Palaiologina". (These comparative items include both manuscripts and rolls.) OK, I must have missed something because now I think they're saying that the decorative elements of the scroll being studied are similar to the "Atelier" group but that the hand is significantly different. I think I'm catching up: the Beineke scroll (the one the paper is about) is not part of this 'very early identical luxury scroll" group because it has additional content, despite being otherwise similar in structure. So the identical scrolls provide a context but aren't a direct comparison.
Nor thunder nor lightnyng, slepynge ne waking, ne wyndys ne blastys on londe ne water: Separating Birth Girdles, Charms, and Prayer Rolls - Katherine Hindley, Yale Univ.
A look at how increasing literacy affected attitudes toward written charms and prayer rolls. Believe that the term "birth girdle" is often mis-applied to some scrolls, and that objects might shift between this category might and that of prayer roll. The "birth girdle" refers to objects referencing the relic of the girdle of the Virgin Mary, which could be borrowed by women in labor and wrapped around them for protection. Surviving examples cover the period up to printing.
These objects are long scrolls with prayers and illuminations and symbols. One that is confirmed as a birth girdle (based on instructions written on the object itself) is well-worn and includes symbols of the passion as well as prayers. Another has decoration around the instructions written on the back that resembles the decorative studs and bands seen on actual belts.
Medieval charms often "collapse" the distance between the biblical text and the immediate ailment being treated. Various examples are presented of charms that substitute the patient's name for the holy person being referenced in the text.
The instructive texts are oriented lengthwise on the scroll, thus being readable only when oriented horizontally as a belt. But the major prayers are written across the width of the scroll, so if they are not readable when used as a girdle, is it really (or only) a girdle charm? Furthermore, some of the "birth girdle" rolls address a grammatically male user. Other scrolls provide lists of the hazards they guard against. But some that explicitly note protection in childbirth are not physically possible to use as a belt, and don't specifically refer to wearing it as such, only to "bearing it". So, although they ware elongated scrolls of protection, that doesn't make them prototypical "birth girdles".
In addition, some of the scrolls include references to owners, and all of the listed owners are male. As context, other non-scroll protective texts do include references to female owners or intended female users.
Conclusion: there's a continuum of usage, from purely amuletic to purely devotional. The label of "birth girdle" is misleading and inaccurate as a description of intended use, in most cases.
Unrolling the 'Ripley scrolls': Alchemy, Art, and Patronage in Fifteenth-Century England - Jennifer M. Rampling, Princeton Univ.
Survey of alchemical literature and imagery through a tour of the famous "Ripley scrolls". Earliest: late 15th c., latest ca. 19th, many appear to be intended as exact copies of earlier scrolls while some add new elements. Artistic skill varies enormously.
Who made them and for whom? Why were they hand-copied well past the point when printing was common? And why scrolls rather than codexes, when codexes were the norm?
Was this format relevant to how they were used? One scroll used as illustrative shows a sequence of individual symbolic scenes, oriented vertically (i.e., with the text across the width of the scroll) as if they were a sequence of pages head-to-tail. Evidently technically this makes them "rolls" rather than "scrolls". The texts are specifically intended to be obscure, requiring knowledge and understanding to interpret correctly. The attribution to the 16th c. alchemist George Ripley is false, thus making the "Ripley scrolls" neither Ripley's nor scrolls.
(The paper summarizes the general process of the alchemical production of the philosopher's stone.) Alchemy was a complex, expensive, and detailed process. But the symbolism and description on the rolls varied greatly in detail.
English alchemical texts of the later medieval/early modern period were in both English and Latin. Henry VIII licensed alchemists. Alchemy texts were of interest to scientists/philosophers, courtiers, as well as clerical scholars. Later texts were often "presentation texts" given by an alchemist to a prospective patron to demonstrate his knowledge and ability. These presentation texts date later than the earliest "Ripley scrolls". Were they perhaps an early version of "presentation text" intended as a symbol of the knowledge offered by the alchemist to his patron? One scroll concludes with a human figure who appears to represent the author (carrying a spear-sized pen, wrapped about with a scroll. In some early versions, this "authorial" figure stands to one side and faces an empty space, or in a few cases, a royal figure. Might this represent the alchemist-author and his prospective royal patron? There is a similar image in an alchemy codex that explicitly addresses a royal patron. IT is similar in content in some ways to the rolls, but the imagery is disrupted and rearranged due to the context format. Instead of vertical connection between the various images, they are now disjoint on separate (codex) pages.
So the answer "why a codex" may be "due to the ability to connect the imagery in a continuous process" (the alchemical process). Other genres of rolls, e.g., genealogies, take advantage of the layout to organize the contents in ways that wouldn't work in a codex. But another motivation for alchemy in particular may be due to the way one can conceal all but the specific content being viewed, tying in to the air of secrecy surrounding the practice of alchemy.
Session 450: Rolls and Scrolls after the Codex: New Approaches to an Old Technology
Sponsor: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Organizer: Hindley, Adair, Hurley
Presider: Raymond Clemens
Praying in Gold: Luxury Scrolls of the Office of Holy Communion - Stefanos Alexopoulos, Catholic Univ. of America & Robert S. Nelson, Yale Univ.
Begins with a physical description of the scroll (a Greek text, I assume Orthodox in origin), especially decorative elements. (This scroll was acquired by the sponsoring institution.) Discusses various dating possibilities based on paleographical grounds, with comparative texts. Focus on the decorated capitals, similar styles appear in outline only two centuries earlier, but this ms uses the decorative style as a revival and has the primary lines in gold, with color highlights. Other dating elements come from the structure and number of the prayers included.
This type of scroll of prayers began in monastic settings but then was adopted for private use, taking communion using pre-consecrated elements. From the 13-15th c. 30-35 scrolls of this type survive, nearly all of them unique in structure. But there is a small number of luxury scrolls like the present object, distinguished by the quality of the materials, the excellence of the hand, the presence of gold, and significant amounts of unused parchment (margins and end). Typically have ornamented head-pieces (missing in the present item). There are 5-6 of these luxury scrolls that are textually identical, a strong contrast to the typical examples. There is no introductory material (canon, psalms, hymns, Lord have mercy, etc.) and the sequence and nature of the prayers is nearly identical.
Alexopoulos proposes that these elements indicate that these luxury scrolls represent the earliest and original text of the Office of Communion scroll of this type. [I believe this is: not that the objects are the oldest, but that the preserve the original format.]
Further provenance information is suggested by the near-identity of certain decorative elements to manuscripts from the "Atelier of Palaiologina". (These comparative items include both manuscripts and rolls.) OK, I must have missed something because now I think they're saying that the decorative elements of the scroll being studied are similar to the "Atelier" group but that the hand is significantly different. I think I'm catching up: the Beineke scroll (the one the paper is about) is not part of this 'very early identical luxury scroll" group because it has additional content, despite being otherwise similar in structure. So the identical scrolls provide a context but aren't a direct comparison.
Nor thunder nor lightnyng, slepynge ne waking, ne wyndys ne blastys on londe ne water: Separating Birth Girdles, Charms, and Prayer Rolls - Katherine Hindley, Yale Univ.
A look at how increasing literacy affected attitudes toward written charms and prayer rolls. Believe that the term "birth girdle" is often mis-applied to some scrolls, and that objects might shift between this category might and that of prayer roll. The "birth girdle" refers to objects referencing the relic of the girdle of the Virgin Mary, which could be borrowed by women in labor and wrapped around them for protection. Surviving examples cover the period up to printing.
These objects are long scrolls with prayers and illuminations and symbols. One that is confirmed as a birth girdle (based on instructions written on the object itself) is well-worn and includes symbols of the passion as well as prayers. Another has decoration around the instructions written on the back that resembles the decorative studs and bands seen on actual belts.
Medieval charms often "collapse" the distance between the biblical text and the immediate ailment being treated. Various examples are presented of charms that substitute the patient's name for the holy person being referenced in the text.
The instructive texts are oriented lengthwise on the scroll, thus being readable only when oriented horizontally as a belt. But the major prayers are written across the width of the scroll, so if they are not readable when used as a girdle, is it really (or only) a girdle charm? Furthermore, some of the "birth girdle" rolls address a grammatically male user. Other scrolls provide lists of the hazards they guard against. But some that explicitly note protection in childbirth are not physically possible to use as a belt, and don't specifically refer to wearing it as such, only to "bearing it". So, although they ware elongated scrolls of protection, that doesn't make them prototypical "birth girdles".
In addition, some of the scrolls include references to owners, and all of the listed owners are male. As context, other non-scroll protective texts do include references to female owners or intended female users.
Conclusion: there's a continuum of usage, from purely amuletic to purely devotional. The label of "birth girdle" is misleading and inaccurate as a description of intended use, in most cases.
Unrolling the 'Ripley scrolls': Alchemy, Art, and Patronage in Fifteenth-Century England - Jennifer M. Rampling, Princeton Univ.
Survey of alchemical literature and imagery through a tour of the famous "Ripley scrolls". Earliest: late 15th c., latest ca. 19th, many appear to be intended as exact copies of earlier scrolls while some add new elements. Artistic skill varies enormously.
Who made them and for whom? Why were they hand-copied well past the point when printing was common? And why scrolls rather than codexes, when codexes were the norm?
Was this format relevant to how they were used? One scroll used as illustrative shows a sequence of individual symbolic scenes, oriented vertically (i.e., with the text across the width of the scroll) as if they were a sequence of pages head-to-tail. Evidently technically this makes them "rolls" rather than "scrolls". The texts are specifically intended to be obscure, requiring knowledge and understanding to interpret correctly. The attribution to the 16th c. alchemist George Ripley is false, thus making the "Ripley scrolls" neither Ripley's nor scrolls.
(The paper summarizes the general process of the alchemical production of the philosopher's stone.) Alchemy was a complex, expensive, and detailed process. But the symbolism and description on the rolls varied greatly in detail.
English alchemical texts of the later medieval/early modern period were in both English and Latin. Henry VIII licensed alchemists. Alchemy texts were of interest to scientists/philosophers, courtiers, as well as clerical scholars. Later texts were often "presentation texts" given by an alchemist to a prospective patron to demonstrate his knowledge and ability. These presentation texts date later than the earliest "Ripley scrolls". Were they perhaps an early version of "presentation text" intended as a symbol of the knowledge offered by the alchemist to his patron? One scroll concludes with a human figure who appears to represent the author (carrying a spear-sized pen, wrapped about with a scroll. In some early versions, this "authorial" figure stands to one side and faces an empty space, or in a few cases, a royal figure. Might this represent the alchemist-author and his prospective royal patron? There is a similar image in an alchemy codex that explicitly addresses a royal patron. IT is similar in content in some ways to the rolls, but the imagery is disrupted and rearranged due to the context format. Instead of vertical connection between the various images, they are now disjoint on separate (codex) pages.
So the answer "why a codex" may be "due to the ability to connect the imagery in a continuous process" (the alchemical process). Other genres of rolls, e.g., genealogies, take advantage of the layout to organize the contents in ways that wouldn't work in a codex. But another motivation for alchemy in particular may be due to the way one can conceal all but the specific content being viewed, tying in to the air of secrecy surrounding the practice of alchemy.
