Erik von Scherling (1907–56) and Rotulus

Rotulus, vol.IV, no.1871 [Source]

Erik Edzard Floris Folkard von Scherling was the younger son of the Swedish Consul at Rotterdam, where he was born on 20 May 1907. When he left school he went to work for the bookseller Jacob Ginsberg in Leiden, where he specialised in Oriental books, and learnt Latin and Arabic.

All Ashburnham Manuscripts Catalogues Available Online

In a couple of previous posts (here and here) I discussed the privately-printed catalogues of the hugely important collection of medieval manuscripts formed by Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham at his stately home, Ashburnham Place:

A bit like his contemporary Sir Thomas Phillipps, he could be extremely irascible, but while Phillipps was usually helpful to scholars wishing to see his manuscripts, Ashburnham did not want visitors. The serial publication of Phillipps's catalogues, in parts, was famously disorganised (as detailed in the first volume of A.N.L. Munby's Phillipps Studies, 1951) making complete copies very rare. The publication of Ashburnham's catalogues was not messy, but distribution was limited, and it is not easy to find copies outside major research libraries.

In my previous posts I said that only the Libri and Appendix portions of the catalogue were available online, but I now find that a three-volume set at Cornell, including the previously-unavailable Barrois manuscripts catalogue, and the Index volume, has been digitised and is available through the Haithi Trust.

Ege leaves at the Glencairn Museum

In November I visited the Glencairn Museum with Bill Stoneman. It is a fascinating place, in a charming setting in Bryn Athyn (outside Philadelphia), with wonderful collections—including medieval sculpture, stained-glass, and ivories, of high enough quality to be the subject of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum—and we were looked-after all day with great hospitality by our kind hosts.

Our main purpose, of course, was to see the manuscripts, of which there are about 75 leaves and cuttings, and a single codex. A few of the finest items were in the Leaves of Gold exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2001, and are in its catalogue.

The 13th-Century Bibles from Norwich

Almost exactly four years ago I posted a reference to an unidentified Bible from Norwich Cathedral, which I found in an 1899 auction catalogue:

In the process of making additions to the new edition of N.R. Ker's Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (about which there will be a future blogpost) I realised that "Clingham" (which I had not been able to identify, and does not appear to be a place-name), must be a mis-reading of "Elingham". Ellingham is about 15 miles south-east of Norwich:

An Unpublished Medieval Scribe's Advertisement-Sheet

Looking through images on the website of the Free Library, Philadelphia, I encountered a fragment of a sheet of samples of script and decoration, later cut up for use as a pastedown, but originally presumably made by a 15th-century German scribe to advertise his skills to potential clients:

Despite the fact that it is identified on the website, it is, as far as I can ascertain, unpublished.[1]

The Early Provenance of the Beauvais Missal

Having previously discussed parts of the provenance of the Beauvais Missal in various places, it may be worth pulling all this information together in one post with what is known of its earlier provenance, with some new material.