Today I attended an online workshop on the research on medieval manuscript fragments in the Nordic countries. I myself was merely a listener and not one of the presenters, and it was very inspiring and interesting to be updated on the status quo. It brought my mind back to the manuscript fragments I have been researching during my time in Odense, Denmark, and to which I still turn my attention from time to time. At the library of the University of Southern Denmark (SDUB), new fragments are still being brought to light, and fragments that have been known to the researchers already are receiving renewed attention and have more of their details revealed. As I have mentioned in previous blogposts on the subject - such as here, here, and here - the research on fragments require that the fragments be revisited from time to time as the researcher's experience has been improved. This is true for all research, of course, but perhaps especially so in the case of medieval manuscript fragments that can often be hard to read and that carry many of their secrets in the open, impossible to interpret except by the trained eye.
As we gain experience and become more observant of the smaller details, more adept at reading script nearly obliterated by time and wear, we also become able to gather information from sources we previously thought were completely mute. I was reminded of one such fragment during the workshop, namely a small, badly worn, scrappy liturgical manuscript used as the binding of a seventeenth-century book. I first learned of the book while I was employed at the University of Southern Denmark back in 2017-18, and as there were then several other fragments whose information was less inaccessible, I did not give this fragment its due attention.
A few months ago, however, my friend and colleague, Jakob Povl Holck, research librarian at SDUB, sent me some pictures of the tattered volume and told me about the information he had actually managed to glean. While we previously were certain of one thing only - that the fragment had belonged to a liturgical manuscript - Jakob had managed to extract quite a few details. These details are now in the processes of being reviewed, and I choose to be very secretive about the results. But what I can say, and what I am very happy to say, is that from a very small and inauspicious beginning, this fragile piece of parchment has proved to be a much more interesting remnant than previously thought.
Fyens Stiftsbibliotek m04 An43.2 p
Kept by Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek
Photo courtesy of Jakob Povl Holck
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