Manuscript Sources Research Articles

The manuscript diagrams of Theodosios’ Spherics

This paper is a study of the visual characteristics of the medieval manuscript diagrams found in Theodosios’ Spherics. It provides a new taxonomy of eight types of diagrams found in the manuscript sources, and examines the way in which geometric information is encoded in the manuscript diagrams using a number of visual encodings. It then argues that these diagrams can be used to address ongoing research debates about whether the striking visual characteristics of medieval diagrams in mathematical texts are the result of deliberate choices by the premodern authors, the result of accidents of transmission, or both. Along the way, the paper identifies a further type of transmission error that is prevalent in the medieval transmission of mathematical diagrams.

Rabbenu Tam and Count Henry the Liberal: New Sources

ABSTRACT Recent scholarship has demonstrated the political and intellectual connections between Rabbi Jacob ben Meir (‘Rabbenu Tam’) and Henry the Liberal, Count of Champagne, and his court. Further evidence found in Hebrew manuscript sources serves to fine-tune earlier conclusions and provide new insights regarding the unique nature of the relationship. Rabbenu Tam's rulings on matters of secular governance suggest a positivistic stance toward Henry's rule vis-a-vis baronial authority in the 1150s and 1160s, at a time when Champagne was rapidly developing politically and economically.

Lully’s music in northern Europe: evidence of early circulation in Swedish libraries

Abstract At Jean-Baptiste Lully’s death in 1687, music from his stage works was already circulating within and outside France, and was used and praised by ‘all connoisseurs’ in Europe (according to Dutch music publisher Amédée Le Chevalier). This was at a point when many of Lully’s works were still not printed and the Parisian music dealers had not yet started their business with his music. Surviving manuscript sources from the dissemination of Lully’s music before his death are few and fragmentary and have sometimes survived at a geographical distance from Paris. This article investigates a handful of previously unconsidered music sources, copied or printed in France in the 1670s and early 1680s, which were acquired by various members of northern aristocratic families and have survived in Swedish libraries. Viewed as a whole, these seemingly disparate sources can throw light on the details of the early circulation of Lully’s music, as well as on musical practices of the elites in late 17th-century Europe.

The Manuscript Source of Philippe II d'Orléans's Cantates françaises: A New Light on Early Eighteenth-Century Transnational Networks of Connoisseurship and Collecting

AbstractThe rediscovery of a unicum manuscript source of cantates françaises by Philippe II d'Orléans in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, provokes a re-evaluation of not only the provenance of the collection to which it belongs, but also the role played by diplomacy, sociability and cultural exchange in the history of the cantate française. The manuscript's contents all reflect Philippe's use of international connections to acquire music and engage musicians in the period 1701–1706. The manuscript forms part of a corpus of French scores that belonged to Marie-Thérèse de Lannoy de La Motterie, an aristocratic amateur harpsichordist with an interest in both French and Italian music, and in cantates. As wife of Joseph Lothar von Königsegg und Rothenfels, representative of the Austrian emperor to Philippe, then regent of France, she was engaged in the cultural life of Paris during the period 1717–1719, not only acquiring cantate prints but also a copy of Philippe's own works in the genre. Her collection reflects both her personal interests and her diplomatic cultivation of the social circles around Philippe in which music connoisseurship was an important skill. The manuscript thus highlights the important role played in the international transmission of cantates françaises by diplomatic and familial connections of noble amateurs, especially those curious about musical developments beyond their own regional practices.

Unmeasured preludes for the French Baroque guitar

Abstract This article examines the préludes non mesurés composed for the guitar in the second half of the 17th century. From François Martin’s collection of suites in 1663 to Robert de Visée’s second book of guitar music in 1686, guitarists published nearly 50 preludes, several of which are rhythmically free or entirely unmeasured. Indebted to the lute and harpsichord repertories, the guitar prelude was nevertheless shaped by the notational and performance practices of the instrument. A review of the printed sources reveals four types of guitar prelude current in the second half of the century: the fully measured prelude; the precisely notated but rhythmically free prelude; the unmeasured prelude; and the strummed, unmeasured prelude with variable rhythm. This last type, which instructs the performer to strum each chord an indeterminate number of times, has no exact analogue in the other instrumental repertories of the era. Comparisons are also made to unmeasured or rhythmically free preludes in manuscript sources including the ‘Gallot’ manuscript. Together, these pieces attest to a brief but avid interest in unmeasured music on the Baroque guitar.

Collaboration, Compilation, and Confession in Folger MS E.a.1*

ABSTRACT Over a forty-year period, at least five men and women transcribed texts into a quarto manuscript miscellany (Folger MS E.a.1). Anne Denton (née Willison) seems to have started compiling the manuscript around the time of her 1564 marriage to Alexander Denton of Hillesden, Buckinghamshire. Denton’s involvement with the book ended with her death two years later, but her “friends” continued to add to the volume over the next four decades. The eclectic collection is drawn from manuscript sources and printed books on a wide range of topics. Folger MS E.a.1 documents a sixteenth-century gentry family’s religious engagements and reveals the ambidextrous nature of some religious manuscript miscellanies. It also sheds new light on the emergence of an international quasi-Catholicism that challenges current scholarly categories, most notably “recusant.”

THE GENESIS, THE IDEALOGICAL AND MYSTICAL ESSENCE AND POETIC OF ALISHER NAVOY'S NAZMUL-JAVAHIR WORK

Currently, significant work is being carried out in our country to study the rich literary and historical heritage left by our ancestors, as well as manuscript sources. A collection of four poems by Alisher Navoi entitled “Nazmul-Javahir” can be called “Poetic Masterpieces” or “Poetic Masterpieces”. These quatrains are dedicated to hadiths - the wise words of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), transmitted by Hazrat Ali and expressed in verse. Alisher Navoi highly appreciated the linguistic and literary abilities of Hazrat Ali. In his work Mahbubul-Kulub (Beloved of Hearts), he mentioned Hazrat Ali in the first category when he spoke about the people of Nazm. This work by Navoi is about education from head to toe. In “Nazmul-javahir” Navoi elu widely propagates the ideas of goodness, humanity, justice, and morality through his conclusions and generalizations based on the experience of village life. He tries to raise people to spiritual heights, gives instructions on what material and spiritual harmony should be.

Гимнография Спасу Нерукотворному в древнерусских богослужебных рукописях студийского периода

The article considers the ordinance for August 16 in honor of the waftage of the Holy Mandylion of Edessa to Constantinople. An archeographical overview of the worship texts was compiled, drawing upon manuscripts dating from the dominance of the Studite Typikon: Old Russian Book of Sticheron from the XII to XIV centuries and Middle Bulgarian unnotated Menaia from the second half of the XIII to the beginning of the XIV century. The study engaged eleven manuscript sources from the Studite period, nine of which were notated with znamenny chant notation and two were unnotated. The fixed composition of the service and the repertoire of hymnographic texts are analyzed. With the help of source analysis, the changes in the composition of the ordinance were revealed. The paper examines and formulates the main trends of the fixed compositions of worship. Conclusions are drawn regarding the degree of veneration of the Mandylion relic: during the Studite period, the service to the Holy Sudaruim is not characterized by a high liturgical status and is typically combined with the afterfeast period of the Assumption of the Virgin or order of divine service in honor of the Martyr Diomedes or the venerable Joachim of Sarandapor. The stability of the service composition in manuscripts from the Studite era is identified. Emphasis is placed on the stability of the musical interpretation of the poetic texts of the ordinance.

Recreating the Eye of the Beholder: Technopaegnia , Encrypted Reading, and a New Version of "Easter-wings"

Abstract: George Herbert's "Easter-wings" is perhaps the best-known shape poem in the English language. As such, it has been the subject of intense and sustained scholarly scrutiny. With very few exceptions, however, critics have shown surprisingly little interest in contextualizing the poem in light of the Hellenistic tradition of shape poetry from which the Renaissance figure poem ultimately descends. In particular, no previous scholarly examination of the poem has taken into account the genre's penchant for encrypted reading and plural signification. In doing just this, the present essay uncovers another semantically coherent, arresting, "new" version of "Easter-wings" that has been hiding in plain sight all along, a combined "Easter-wings" that remains visible today in the poem's two surviving manuscript sources. Enlisting qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyzing Herbert's corrections in the palimpsestic backdrop of the only authorially supervised manuscript copy of The Temple , it finds that these authorial revisions exist with the primary (and hitherto unrecognized) purpose of better supporting a combined reading of the poem. Finally, by discussing some of the more pressing challenges facing future editors of The Temple , this essay also draws on and contributes to ongoing scholarship in textual criticism, material texts, and the history of the book.

Editors, Journals, and the Relational Geographies of Geographic Knowledge Production

Important in the dissemination of knowledge are the networks of editors and their editorial board members. These are crucial gatekeepers in maintaining contacts with their professional fields as well as identifying others to evaluate manuscripts submitted for possible publication. We examine the countries of editorial board members of twenty-nine major Anglophone journals and the regional sources of manuscripts and reviewers. The data reveal some journals have large numbers of board members and many submissions and others have much smaller numbers of both. North America (United States and Canada), Western Europe, and China were the major sources of English-language manuscripts submitted from 2017 to 2021. These results are useful for junior and senior scholars who seek to publish in major geographic journals.

Marcus Musurus and the Aldine Septuagint. With a reconsideration of the recently-recovered BH UCM 22 (442 Rahlfs)

The following pages perform an evaluation of Marcus Musurus’ partial review of 1-2 Kings in two manuscripts (London, British Library, add 10968 [L] and Madrid, BH MS. 22 [M]). On the one hand, the nature and contexts of both codices reviewed by Musurus (the books he worked upon) provide valuable information on the long-debated issue of Aldus’ (and particularly Musurus’) access to Bessarion’s former Greek library, as it also stresses the need to reconsider the contexts of copying and revision of these codices. Especially M, which production, revision, and sending to Spain will be reconsidered. On the other hand, textual collation will confirm the use of several manuscript sources as part of Musurus’ well-known and praised philological work (the books he worked with), making the very revision of M, finally recovered, a part of the editorial process of the Aldine Septuagint.

Melancholy, Spiritual Experience, and Dissent in England, c. 1650–1700

Abstract The involvement of melancholy had the potential to undermine the authority of early modern individuals’ religious experiences, reframing their spiritual afflictions as the mere product of a distempered body. This article refines our understanding of the shifting relationship between melancholy and spiritual experience in the second half of the seventeenth century in England. Focusing on the views of Presbyterians and Independents, it explores how various interests and voices shaped attitudes to the disease throughout the challenges of growing anti-enthusiasm and post-Restoration nonconformity. By emphasizing the voices of sufferers themselves and including examination of a range of overlooked texts, it demonstrates that women and laypeople often diverged from learned views when describing their spiritual struggles. Complicating existing narratives, it suggests that sufferers from both groups avoided using melancholy as an explanatory factor in accounts of religious experience in the 1650s to ’70s, before increasingly incorporating the condition in the 1680s and ’90s. The involvement of melancholy remained fraught, however, and under continual negotiation. Bringing manuscript sources into conversation with published texts, the article argues that differences of opinion existed both between and within Presbyterian and Independent communities, as well as between those who suffered from melancholy and those who did not.

«Combustion Tables» in Twelfth-Century Latin Europe: A Preliminary Study

The Latin manuscript sources studied in this article jointly document the existence and erstwhile circulation of a highly atypical set of computational tables for planetary longitudes, coupled with extensive tables for ascensions, which served astrologers in Latin Europe as early as the 1130s. An associated text of c.1220 refers to the tables for the five planets as « combustion tables » (tabule combustionis), which reflects the way the tables in question use the time and position of the last conjunction between a planet and the Sun - known in medieval terminology as combustio - as an anchor for calculating the planet’s true ecliptic longitude at a later date within its synodic period. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the combustion tables as well as the associated solar and ascension tables originally circulated alongside the pseudo-Ptolemaic Iudicia, an astrological work of probable Arabic origin (pre-1138). Overall, the surviving manuscript material raises the possibility that the tables and the Iudicia were at one point a single work that supported astrological computations and judgments at an early stage of their respective development in Latin Europe.

Шейх ал-ислам Закариййа ал-Ансари в книге «Вафиййат ал-аслаф» Ш. Марджани

The article is a study of a fragment from the Arabic manuscript source “Wafiyyat al-aslaf wa tahiy-yat al-akhlaf” from the heritage of a Tatar theologian and 19th-century historian Shihab al-Din al-Marjani (Shigabutdin Marjani). The fragment is dedicated to the biography of a Shafi’i faqih Zakar-iyya al-Ansari (d. 926/1520), the supreme judge of Egypt of the Mamluk era, awarded the honorary title “Shaykh al-Islam”. Based on the manuscript from the collection of the academic library of Ka-zan Federal University, the Arabic text of al-Ansari’s biography was restored in modern orthography and then translated into Russian with comments and a brief analysis in the historical and theological context. Tatar theologian Shihab al-Din al-Marjani provides the basic information about the life and contribution of Sheikh al-Islam Zakariyya al-Ansari to Islamic sciences and emphasizes that he was one of the renovators of the Islamic faith (mujaddid) of his era. The authors of the article, on the one hand, tried to fill a gap in domestic Islamic studies regarding information about the outstanding Shafi’i jurist Zakariyya al-Ansari; on the other hand, they pointed out the importance of studying and translating a unique domestic manuscript source on the history of Islam – the biographical dic-tionary “Wafiyyat al-aslaf wa tahiyyat al-akhlaf” by Shihab al-Din al-Marjani, which has not yet been published or translated in full. For the first time, a fragment from this source with translation is introduced into scholarly discourse.

The Baron von Münchhausen of British Travel Writers: Edmund Spencer and his Travels in Circassia

Abstract The article is devoted to a critical analysis of the legacy of Edmund Spencer – a nineteenth century British travel writer and author of numerous books and articles on Circassia and the Caucasus. The widespread use of Spencer’s work by historians notwithstanding, until now there has been no published biography of the author, which led to a proliferation of claims about his background and the timing and circumstances of his visit to Circassia. This article contributes to the correction of this omission by presenting the results of the latest biographical research on Edmund Spencer, based on manuscript and printed primary sources. Despite doubts expressed by some historians about the existence of such a person, the article conclusively proves that Edmund Spencer was indeed a real historical personage. Furthermore, since until now no attempt has been made to evaluate the reliability of Spencer’s works on Circassia as historical sources, the article examines references to Spencer in contemporaneous manuscript sources, such as the British, French and Russian diplomatic, military and intelligence correspondence and reports, finding that available documentary evidence refutes the author’s claim of a visit to the interior of Circassia. The attitudes of Western scholars of the period and of foreign visitors to Circassia raise further serious doubts about the authenticity of Spencer’s travelogues. The article calls into question Spencer’s account of his travels in Circassia as a source of geographic, ethnographic and sociological knowledge, concluding that it was a nothing more than a fabrication.

Crusade, Culture, and Conflict: The Evidence of Monastic Miscellanies

Abstract “Later” crusading has become a vibrant field in recent years, with a concern for our core theme, “patterns of conflict and negotiation,” at its center. Often, and rightly enough, those patterns have been focused on matters of high politics and diplomacy, military affairs, papal propaganda, and more. The approach adopted here complements these efforts by modulating their perspectives. This article explores patterns of conflict and negotiation as they played out in the realms of crusading experience, culture, and memory in the wake of the fall of Constantinople (1453) and the siege of Belgrade (1456). It does so through the lens of those particularly rich, but also challenging, fifteenth-century manuscript sources known as “miscellanies.”

Peculiarities of aristocratic education at the beginning of the 19th century

AbstractThis paper examines the education of the Hungarian aristocracy in the period from 1790 to 1848. Since the progressive-minded members of this social class, which was highly qualified by European standards, played a significant role in promoting culture and education, especially since the Reform Era, I wanted to find out what educational characteristics underpinned their education. I explored the question of what trends prevailed in the different directions of home education and how the political, social and intellectual challenges and changes in the first half of the 19th century affected private education. In the course of the research, I applied the traditional method of educational history, source and document analysis and the analytical (deductive) research strategy. After studying the Hungarian, German and English literature on the subject, I examined and evaluated the primary sources available in Hungary - diaries, memoirs, journal articles, autobiographical writings, records of foreign travellers, archival and manuscript sources. In addition to asserting their primary power interests and their role as patrons, a small but crucial group of aristocrats took an active role in raising the level of national culture and education. They championed the cause of education, founded educational institutions and thus became mediators of culture for other strata of society. Their education, enlightened thinking and European erudition undoubtedly contributed to their recognition of this role and task and their commitment to it.

Space invaders? slavery, gender, and the remapping of Eighteenth-Century Portuguese imperial geographies

ABSTRACT This article explores the site of the Rossio square in Lisbon as a contested urban space between the dispossessed and the Portuguese imperial authorities over the eighteenth century. Focusing on the aftermath of the Lisbon earthquake, it examines how enslaved and freed women of African and Afro-Brazilian heritage from the Portuguese colonies used and reconfigured the Rossio through their direct confrontations with the imperial authorities. Reading against the grain of traditional manuscript sources, this article demonstrates how contestations of the Rossio not only illuminated and underscored the dependence of the metropolis on the labour of Afro-diasporic enslaved and freed women, but also enabled these women to create alternate geographies of empire and power that pushed back against imperial spatial constructions.

Some Issues Concerning the Phenomenon of Ancient Script Forms Being Preserved in Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts

Abstract The phenomenon of preserving ancient character forms (wenzi cungu xianxiang 文字存古現象) can be observed in certain recently unearthed bamboo slip manuscripts from the Warring States. These characters have preserved early character structures or word usage habits, thus reflecting an interactive relationship between the copyist and the source text. Based on the number of early characters observed in a copied manuscript, Warring States bamboo manuscripts can largely be divided into three categories. One category containing relatively more words with early word forms can be dubbed as “transcripts containing characteristics of ancient text preservation,” with the Tsinghua manuscripts *Xinian 繫年, *Hou fu 厚父, *Sheming 攝命, and *Si gao 四告 being the most emblematic of this category. The value of research into ancient character forms preserved in Warring States bamboo-slip manuscripts is important in many ways, such as providing evidence for character identification; helping to determine the origins of ancient manuscript source texts and their time of transcription; and demonstrating how documents may have been transmitted. All these aspects are evident in the relevant Tsinghua manuscripts. However, in assessing whether ancient character forms were indeed preserved in Warring States manuscripts, two problems must be accounted for: first, some characters that have previously been identified as having characteristics of different scripts may have earlier origins or lack any obvious script-specific features; second, some ancient-looking characters cannot necessarily be used as a standard to determine the occurrence of ancient script forms.

Wayside shrines as forms of religiosity as illustrated by the parish of Szczepanów in the 19th century

The article discusses the role of wayside chapels, statues, and crosses in the religious life of the parish in Szczepanów. By utilizing manuscript sources from the parish archives, cartographic sources, and detached structures, the author was able to determine the number, distribution, and functions of small sacral architecture. In the 19th century, dozens of structures were recorded, funded by the local residents and communities as expressions of gratitude for graces received and as memorials to places associated with the cult of St. Stanislaus. Among the prevalent religious motifs were the Passion of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and various saints, including the patron saints of the benefactors and St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, portrayed as a bishop performing the miracle of resurrecting the deceased knight Peter (Piotrowin).