Two Possible Gilbertine Fragments at the University of Manitoba

Abstract

This article concentrates on the fragments used to bind a copy of Vitruvius’s De Architectura printed in Strasburg in 1550 and now held at the University of Manitoba. It begins by exploring the possibility, on textual grounds, that these fragments were made for use by the Gilbertine order. Very few manuscripts connected to this order have been identified, and few seem likely to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries in England. Whereas the Reformation meant that many service books lost their liturgical value, many of these books were dismembered so that their raw materials could be used to bind other books in England and on the continent. John Bale reports that whole shiploads of books were being sent from England to the continent for this purpose in the decade before the University of Manitoba’s copy of De Architectura was printed in Strasburg. Whether or not these fragments are Gilbertine in origin, they remind us that the bindings of other books, including continental books, might be the best place to look for manuscripts that originated with this order. The University of Manitoba’s binding fragments not only demonstrate the challenges and opportunities presented by the widespread cultural practice of using manuscript leaves to bind printed books but also provide insight into other cultural practices. This article ends by comparing the fragments used to bind De Architectura with other fragments now held at the University of Manitoba. These include binding fragments as well leaves owned by St John’s College (Manitoba) that were formed from the twentieth-century dismemberment of books. Taken together, these objects represent the range of fragments held by North American institutions. They therefore provide a broader context in which to contemplate the changing cultural value of medieval fragments from Reformation Europe through to contemporary North America.