Piece of English Renaissance history going for a song

A song might be pushing it: a whole opera or monumental mass. It is on sale at Christie’s at an asking price of £25,000 – £35,000. But, in comparison with other lots, that is a small change. And, like Henry IV’s Paris, it is certainly worth a mass.

I have Peter Kidd to thank for bringing my attention to the manuscript in question. It is a codex signed by a scribe whose character was as colourful as his books: Pieter Meghen, from the Low Countries, who worked for Erasmus, both in making books and in transporting letters, and whose calligraphical skill was not hindered — perhaps, indeed, it was assisted — by the fact that he was one-eyed (as he calls himself in this book: ‘monoculus’). Nor did his heavy-drinking stop him producing an attractive littera antiqua much in demand in Erasmus’s circle and particularly in England. One of Meghen’s earliest patrons was the Englishman Christopher Urswick, almoner to Henry VII and Dean of Windsor. The manuscript now up for sale in London on 2nd June appears to be the earliest dated manuscript made by Meghen for Urswick — and it is previously unnoticed.

That it seems to have hidden away from scholars is all the more remarkable as Meghen is by no means a forgotten figure and his association with Urswick specifically has been studied by no less a scholar than the late Joe Trapp of the Warburg. The texts that it presents in some elements confirm very comfortably with what we know already about Urswick and his collecting: it includes, for instance, a fourteenth-century text, the Speculum Edwardi III attributed to Simon Islip and now thought to be by William de Pagula (though there is reason to doubt that — but that is another story), which had some vogue for early Tudor ecclesiastics like Urswick. And, as in other Tudor manuscripts, it is coupled with other patristic and humanist works. Here, though, the humanist represented is one not otherwise known in either Urswick’s library or in Meghen’s oeuvre but who did enjoy a small popularity in England: Niccolò Perotti. Another author included is Baldwin of Canterbury who, again, is not an author Meghen transcribed elsewhere but who makes an interesting link back to an early generation of humanist book-production in England as a copy of works by him, now in Brussels, was made by Meghen’s countryman, Theoderic Werken, in 1453 for William Gray. Gray, bishop of Ely, boasted, with some stretching of the truth, of royal blood and for part of his career attempted to live up to his claim by his ostentatious lifestyle which included collecting manuscripts.

The book on sale at Christie’s, to judge by the images (for, as readers will know, I am exiled to Florence for a month — I can not complain), shows Meghen at his most accomplished, providing a very regular upright bookhand which would look starched if it were not for the playful majuscules and descenders that Meghen could not, on occasion, resist including. With all this, it also has a set of miniatures. A fine manuscript and one that adds to our knowledge of both the scribe’s career and the milieu of English Renaissance activities at the very start of the sixteenth century, while Thomas More was still mastering Greek. The asking price is not unreasonable, especially when compared to other items in the sale — I think in particular of a manuscript of Mandeville’s Travels, 64 folios without significant illumination, which surely can only justify its putative cost of £150,000 – £200,000 because vernacular texts have a certain cachet among manuscript collectors. There is a premium on early examples of the English language, which means that the history of our nation’s more learned culture is relatively bon-marché. Rush, while stocks last.

Codicology at Palazzo Rucellai

Tomorrow, I set off for a month’s teaching in Florence. It is a new course, organised at the Palazzo Rucellai, intended for high-flying graduate medievalists who want to learn more than is often available about the skills that are core to our subjects: palaeography, philology, codicology. It will be an adventure for everyone — for Stefano Baldassarri, the mastermind behind the project, those of us who are designing the modules for it, and most especially for the students themselves.

The contribution I have been asked to give is on ‘codicology and incunabula’. As those of you will know who have followed this blog with an assiduity that is uncommon and perhaps unwise, my expertise lies in the manuscript world — I am guilty, perhaps, of a little of the disdain that Vespasiano had in spades for the new-fangled culture of print.  But providing a course that ranges across both allows for interesting juxtapositions and reflections on what each subject can learn from the other. And having the course in Florence invites me to consider the differences in national approach to the subjects and in particular to the tradition of manuscript and incunable description.

As both an introduction and a coda to the course, I have concocted a brief bibliography on the topics. It is by no means meant to be full, nor am I anticipating that the students hunt down all of the 100 plus works during their four weeks in Tuscany. I hope rather — and this is why I call it a coda — that they will refer to it long after they have left Alberti’s palace and the winds have blown them, like the Rucellai’s boat, far from their temporary home. I am putting it on-line here, both for their benefit of the students and for the interest of any wandering scholar who might happen upon here and wish to find some intellectual nourishment.

Immigration and the Medievalist

This short post is the child of coincidence, a concoction of three facts. One: I was at a conference on Friday discussing how the benefits of migration could be discussed in school history classes. Two: this morning a light early-morning surfing beached me In the Middle, as it were, reading a post about how some would wish the Medieval Academy of America to cancel their conference in 2011 as its location, Arizona, which has passed a law intended to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Three: this morning is a Sunday and, for the first time in months, my other life (the one which sees me stand for election to various levels of government) has not supervened.

I will admit that, in the heat of the British General Election, the Arizonian debate had passed me by but catching up on the news now, I appreciate how depressed decent Americans can be by what’s happened there. Yet, my immediate reaction — my liberal politician’s reaction — to the suggestion the Medieval Academy should be cancelled was that would give no advantage to the progressive cause. Of course, a conference of such size has financial clout and its absence could be seen as a sort of sanction, and we could enter a wider argument about the efficacy of sanctions. But my outsider’s response to the debate dovetails with my own take on the discussion with which I was involved on Friday.

My attitude, shared by others at the conference, was that we should not so much be looking to make migration a theme in school history classes as appreciating that Europe’s identity is a migrant identity, a tale of shifting communities within and across its geographical area. In short, ‘migration’ is not a modern invention to be discussed solely in its late twentieth-century manifestations. Indeed, much better to move the class-room talk away from matters where even young minds will have been affected by home-life diatribes (on either side of the issue). Instead, let’s discuss the normality of migration — with its tensions as well as its benefits — be it, in Britain, the arrival of the Saxons, or the displacement of the Huguenots, from Louis XIV’s France or the influx of Irish into nineteenth-century Liverpool.Allow the students themselves to extrapolate from their learning to the present-day situation.

Similarly, would it not be appropriate to make Tolerance and Migration central themes of the Medieval Academy meeting to be held in Arizona? The medieval experience of immigration is not irrelevant to the present debates and highlighting that, within and outside the conference hall, should be made to feed into the ferment of discussion that is taking place in and about Arizona. Now, more than ever, is surely the time to have a large gathering there, engaging with rather than shunning the local community. It nearly makes me wish I could get on a plane and join them there. Nearly.