I have two people to thank for independently solving my Provenance Puzzle #2: my friend the San Antonio tax attorney and bibliophile Farley Katz, and Christopher Frey of Antiquariat Inlibris Gilhofer in Vienna.

The armorial stamp, shown at left, is of the Austrian nobleman Joseph Anton von der Halden (1665-1728) from Vorarlberg, who was created Baron in 1686. The letters around the border of the stamp, "I A E V D H F Z A H Z A V O", stand for "Ioseph Anton Eusebius von der Halden Freiherr zu Authenried Herr zu Anhofen und Ochsenbrunn."

This stamp is found on fourteen folio volumes that came to the Lillian Goldman Law Library as part of the Roman-Canon Law Collection of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. They are all bound in stamped pigskin over wooden boards with rounded spines.

Farley Katz provided his solution via the wonderful Can You Help? website sponsored by the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) and operated by Dr. David Shaw. It enables users to post images and descriptive information for bookplates, armorial stamps, and other provenance evidence that they cannot identify, in the hopes that others can provide answers. It's crowd-sourcing for provenance research. Farley's solution to Provenance Puzzle #2 can be found here.

Christopher Frey provided an additional source for von der Halden: Alexander Schneder, "Die Von der Halden in Vorarlberg. Eine genealogische Studie", in Jahrbuch der Heraldisch-Genealogischen Gesellschaft 'Adler', Jg. 1951/54, Folge 3, vol. 3 (Vienna 1954), p. 30-43.

Quoting from Frey's email to me: "We once had a set with these exact armorial stamps - Leibniz's Codex juris gentium diplomaticus (Hannover, 1693), which later ended up in the library of King Ernst August I of Hanover (1771-1851). King George V of Hanover later presented the set to the historian Onno Klopp, who followed the King into exile to Vienna. The set then turned up in the library of the Vienna Discalced Augustinians, from where we acquired it." It turns out that Frey's firm sold this set to our next-door neighbors, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Additional help came from Susan L'Engle of the Vatican Film Library, St. Louis University, and from Klaus Graf.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

Thanks to the following individuals for their assistance in the preparation of this exhibit:

Moshe Bar Asher
Academy of the Hebrew Language

Binyamin Elizur
Academy of the Hebrew Language

Ezra Chwat
National Library of Israel

Margot Fassler
Yale University

Shana Jackson
Lillian Goldman Law Library

Ivan Marcus
Yale University

Laura Saetveit Miles
Yale University

Michael Rand
Academy of the Hebrew Language

Anders Winroth
Yale University

 Thanks also to our colleagues in the blogosphere who helped spread the word about the exhibit, including:

• Archivalia
• BibliOdyssey
• Book-Aesthete
  
• Edinburgh Legal History Blog
  
• Grafosphera
• Iurisdictio-lex malacitana
• Legal History Blog
• Medieval News
  
• PECIA: Le manuscrit médiéval - The medieval manuscript
  
• PhiloBiblos
  

Finally, thanks to all the members of the Medieval Academy of America who attended an open house for the exhibit on March 19, 2010, during the Academy's 2010 Annual Meeting, and especially to those who provided additional information on the manuscripts on display: Elizabeth Brown (CUNY), George Brown (Stanford University), Lisa Fagin Davis (Simmons College), Consuelo Dutschke (Columbia University), Dennis Dutschke (Arcadia University), Joseph Dyer (University of Massachusetts-Boston), David Ganz (King's College London), Susan L'Engle (St. Louis University), William Mahrt (Stanford University), Hope Mayo (Harvard University), Richard Rouse (UCLA), Matthew Salisbury (University of Oxford), Alison Stones (University of Pittsburgh), Rod Thomson (University of Tasmania), Linda Voigts (University of Missouri-Kansas City), and Mary Wolinski (Western Kentucky University).

-- Benjamin Yousey-Hindes & Mike Widener, curators

 "Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Unknown
Date: c.1475-1525
Found in: Caccialupi, Giovanni Battista. De pesionibus tractatus uere aureus. Rome: F. Minizio Calvo, 1531.

The vast majority of medieval manuscript fragments found in the Law Library's bindings are in Latin, but not all of them. In addition to the two Hebrew fragments elsewhere in this exhibit, there is a large, later fragment in what appears to be a form of German, and two very late fragments in French. All three of these fragments are awaiting definitive identification. One of the French fragments (perhaps a deed of sale for a piece of property?) is seen here being used as a "wrapper," a means of protecting a printed text without applying a hard cover.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Maimonides's Mishneh Torah / Vidal of Tolosa's Maggid Mishneh
Date: c. 1300-1500
Found in: Milan (Duchy). Constitutiones dominii mediolanensis. Novara: Francesco Sesalli, 1567.

Between 1170 and 1180 the famous rabbi, physician, and philosopher Moses Maimonides (d. 1204) compiled a comprehensive compendium of Jewish law (halakha) that he named the Mishneh Torah. While many people opposed the Mishneh Torah when it first circulated, Maimonides defended it as a necessary distillation of existing legal reasoning into a practical code. Regardless of the attacks, the Mishneh Torah rapidly became one of the core texts within Jewish law.

Binyamin Elizur, Head of the Department of Ancient Hebrew at the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem, informs us that the small text on the left of the leaf comes from Maimonides's Mishneh Torah. The portion visible here is from the section on "Financial Damages" (Nizke Mammon), chapter 1, subsection 9. The larger writing to the right is the corresponding passage from the Maggid Mishneh, an exegetical commentary on the Mishneh Torah written by the Catalan rabbi Vidal of Tolosa (1283-1360). According to Elizur, the noteworthy and unusual thing about this fragment is that Vidal's commentary is written in large letters, while Maimonides's text is written in small letters on the side. He speculates that the leaf may have originally contained only the commentary, and that passages from the Mishneh Torah were added in the margin later. He notes that the script, both large and small, appears to be Sephardic semi-cursive from the 14th or 15th century.

Dr. Ezra Chwat of the Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Israel, notes that the publication date of the host volume, 1567, "is precisely on the spike of redeployment of Jewish manuscripts" as they were confiscated by the Inquisition in Italy; see Mauro Perani & Enrica Sagradini, Talmudic and midrashic fragments from the Italian Genizah: reunification of the manuscripts and catalogue (Firenze: Giuntina, 2004), pp. 124-125.

Dr. Chwat has added this fragment to the online catalog of Hebrew manuscripts maintained by the Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Israel; the record (in Hebrew) can be viewed here.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Sextus liber decretalium (Bologna or Padua)
Date: c. 1320-1330?
Found in: Bologna (Italy). Statutorum inclytae civitatis ... Bononiae, vol. 2. Bologna: Giovanni Rossi, 1569.

Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) held a doctorate in canon and civil law and, like Gregory IX seventy years earlier, sought to update and expand the body of canon law jurisprudence. He did so by commissioning a new collection of decretals, which he sent to the universities in 1298 with instructions that it be incorporated into the canon law curriculum. The Sextus liber decretalium (the Sixth Book of Decretals, often simply called the Liber sextus) thus took its place beside the Decretum and the Decretales Gregorii IX as a core element of the Corpus iuris canonici. The standard gloss of the Liber sextus was written by Giovanni d'Andrea in the early 1300s.

In the fragment of the Liber sextus seen here (from Book 5, Title 2, Chapter 20) Boniface himself discusses techniques for questioning suspected heretics. Giovanni d'Andrea's gloss surrounds the main text. The manuscript was probably copied in Bologna as the script is characteristic of Bolognese gothic book hands.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Richard Rouse (UCLA) assigns an Italian origin to the manuscript and calls attention to the line fillers, which look like exclamation points. Susan L'Engle (Saint Louis University) believes the manuscript is from Bologna or Padua, 1320-1330?, and notes the "Italian script, text keyed to gloss by letters of alphabet, an Italian practice."

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Decretales Gregorii IX, with gloss (Bologna or Avignon)
Date: c. 1240-50
Found in: Massa, Antonio. De usuris. Rome: Valerio Dorico, 1557.

The landscape of medieval jurisprudence changed radically in the 12th century, when the monk Gratian's revolutionary collection of canons and decrees known as the Decretum began to circulate, quickly becoming the core textbook for canon law. During the decades that followed, scholars and students identified many issues that current canon law was unable to resolve, and because of this, more and more bishops sent queries to the papacy seeking guidance for cases in their diocesan courts. The letters that the popes sent back to these bishops were known as "decretals." Since there was no system of court reporting, jurists who wished to keep abreast of the law would copy any decretal they came across. These informal private collections rapidly gave way to more systematic compilations that found their way into the canon law curriculum. Concerned by the lack of an "official" body of updated canon law, Pope Gregory IX instructed the canonist Raymond of Peñafort to assemble an authoritative supplement to the Decretum. The Decretales Gregorii IX (commonly referred to as the Liber extra) was made official canon law in September 1234.

The fragment visible here contains the end of Book 1, Title 14 and the beginning of Book 1, Title 15 in the second column, along with the standard academic commentary on that passage (known as the "gloss") in the first column. The standard gloss for the Decretales Gregorii IX was written by the jurist Bernard of Parma in the 1260s. The beginning of Title 15 (on anointing the sick) is marked by illuminated initials in both the gloss and the main text. Inside the front cover of the wrapper (not visible here), a medieval reader has carefully marked a passage (from X 1.14.14) using a drawing of a small hand (a notation called a manicula). The passage reads, in translation, "For it is preferable, especially in the ordination of priests, to have a few good ministers than many bad ones, for if a blind man leads another blind man, both will fall into the pit."

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Richard Rouse (UCLA) believes the manuscript originates in Italy or Avignon; Susan L'Engle (Saint Louis University) believes the manuscript is from Bologna and dates it 1240-1250.

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Codex Iustiniani (Italy, probably Bologna)
Date: c. 1275-1325
Found in: Savoy (Duchy). Statuta Sabaudie. [Turin: Bernardus de Sylva, 1530.]

It was probably not mere coincidence that a leaf of the Corpus iuris civilis was used to cover this volume of legal statutes from the Duchy of Savoy. After all, Roman law as represented in the Corpus iuris civilis was the most influential source of legal thinking for medieval and early modern lawmakers. The Corpus iuris civilis was issued in three parts (the Codex, the Digest, and the Institutes) under the Emperor Justinian in 529-534. Issued from Constantinople at a time when the Roman Empire no longer had control over most of Western Europe, Justinian's laws were introduced in Italy in the 550s, but fell out of use over the following decades. Late in the 11th century the Corpus iuris civilis was rediscovered and students in Bologna began to learn about the law of ancient Rome. The sophistication and scope of Roman law made it hugely popular, and along with canon law it was quickly adopted as the European common law (the ius commune).

The fragment displayed here is from the Codex Iustiniani, which was a collection of all the surviving imperial legislation issued since the time of the emperor Hadrian (d. 138). It contains all of Book 11, Title 1-3 and the beginning of Title 4. These passages contain regulations pertaining to the compulsory transport of public property by private ship-owners. Like the Bible (no. 2), the Liber extra (no. 17), and the Liber sextus (no. 18), the Corpus iuris civilis was heavily glossed in the Middle Ages. The gloss here has not been identified, but may be that of the Italian jurist Accursius (d. 1263) who compiled the most well-known gloss of the Corpus iuris civilis in the 1220s.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Richard Rouse (UCLA) for clarifying the origin of the manuscript fragment, and to Susan L'Engle (Saint Louis University) for the following: "Very little gloss, so probably pre-glossa ordinaria. Initials are blue, stroked in red, typical of Italy/Bologna. Sentence capitals in 1-line red."

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Cicero's "Dream of Scipio" (Italy)
Date: c. 1275-1325
Found in: Jame, Pierre. Aurea et famosissima practica. [Lyons: A. Dury, 1527.]

The parchment used to cover this volume features a portion of Cicero's "Dream of Scipio" ("Somnium Scipionis"), the sixth book of his De re publica (completed in 51 BCE). Cicero wrote De re publica as a Roman version of Plato's Republic, and the "Dream of Scipio" is the only substantial piece of the work to survive. In the dream, the grandfather of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus appears and tells Scipio about the composition of the heavens, the fleeting nature of worldly fame, and the immortality of the soul (the latter two topics are mentioned in the visible fragment).

The "Dream of Scipio" survives because the late-antique Neo-Platonist philosopher Macrobius (fl. 395-423) wrote a commentary on the dream, to which an early copyist appended a complete copy of Cicero's text. Macrobius's commentary - which contained an elaborate system of dream classification - was highly respected in the Middle Ages. It served as one of the most important avenues of transmission for Platonist ideas, and as a foundational source for the Scholastic movement and medieval science in general. The "Dream of Scipio" is mentioned in the French dream-poem the Roman de la rose (13th century) as well as Geoffrey Chaucer's dream-poems (14th century). Approximately fifty manuscripts of Macrobius's commentary are known.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Richard Rouse (UCLA) for clarifying the origin of the manuscript fragment.

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Aquinas's Commentary on the Metaphysics
Date: c. 1375-1475
Found in: Barbier, Jean. Viatorium utriusque iuris. [Strassburg: Johann Pruss, 1493.]

The philosopher and theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1226-1274) lived at a time of great intellectual development in European society. The works of Aristotle were being translated into Latin and widely disseminated at the same time that the first Christian universities were being founded. The nature of the relationship between reason and faith was being explored and debated across the continent, and Aquinas would ultimately become one of the most influential thinkers on this topic. Born in southern Italy, Aquinas entered the University of Naples before joining the Dominican Order and travelling to northern Europe where he studied under Saint Albertus Magnus (d. 1280), a pioneer in the application of Aristotelian philosophy to Christian thought. Late in his life, Aquinas wrote commentaries on twelve of Aristotle's works.

The manuscript leaves used as pastedowns at the front and rear of this volume contain part of Aquinas's Commentary on the Metaphysics (Book 7, Lecture 13) written in the early 1270s. Excerpts from Aristotle are underlined in red, and the rest of the text is Aquinas's detailed discussion of that passage. The radically abbreviated 15th-century script employs many symbols (sigla) that stand in for groups of letters or even entire words. At the left edge of the fragment we can see small "pricking holes," between which the scribe would have ruled parallel lines to help him write the text straight across the page. The Commentary on the Metaphysics was first printed in Paris in 1480, then again in Venice in 1493.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Sermon (Italy or Germany)
Date: c. 1325-1475
Found in: Bottoni, Bernardo. Casus longi super quinque libros decretalium. [Basel: Michael Wenssler, not after 1479.]

Preaching was an important part of Christian life throughout the Middle Ages. Early saints preached to the non-believers, communities listened to sermons from their priests on Sundays, monks and nuns heard sermons in their convents, and friars preached in the streets. In the words of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216), "Among the many ministries that belong to the pastoral office, the virtue of holy preaching is the most excellent."

The main text of the fragment seen here is from an as-yet unidentified collection of sermons. The passage on top is about the "tears of Christ" (lachrimae Christi), a common topic for medieval sermons. The large, red capital "D" near the bottom of the page begins a new sermon with Luke 18:10: "Duo homines ascenderunt in templum ut orarent: unus pharisaeus et alter publicanus," that is, "Two men went up into the temple to pray: one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." If you look carefully at these sermons, you may be able to see that the text has been "pointed," marked with very fine strokes to indicate places to breathe and pause. The fact that the text is pointed confirms that, as we might expect, the sermon was meant to be read aloud.

At the top of the fragment is another interesting feature: a late-medieval inscription. According to this note, this printed book was given to the Carthusian monastery of St. Albans near Trier by "Frater Paulus de Muntzdail." We know from other sources that Brother Paul held a doctorate in canon law and that, before moving to Trier to become a Carthusian, he served as the provost of the Church of Saint Mary in Flanheim, and the rector of the parish church in Kreuznach near Mainz. He died in 1487.

    -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Richard Rouse (UCLA) for clarifying the origin of the manuscript fragment.

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Unknown (Italy)
Date: c. 1350-1450
Found in: Corpus iuris civilis. 12 vols. Lyons: Guillaume Rouillé, 1581.

Each of the twelve small volumes of this 1581 edition of the Corpus iuris civilis is neatly covered in parchment featuring passages from a single unidentified work. The most noticeable feature of the text is the nearly constant citation of passages from different books of the Bible, including Kings, Daniel, Proverbs, Tobias, Ecclesiastes, and Chronicles (Paralipomenon).

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Richard Rouse (UCLA) for clarifying the origin of the manuscript fragment.

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Legendary (Italy)
Date: c. 975-1075
Found in: Rolandinus, de Passageriis. Flos testamentorum. Padua: Matheus Cerdonis, 1482.

From the earliest days of Christianity, the faithful (and not-yet-faithful) were inspired by the words and deeds of particularly holy people, many of whom came to be regarded as saints. Hagiography (stories about the lives of the saints) was a popular genre of literature throughout the Middle Ages, and the Divine Office even contained daily readings about the Church's early martyrs.

Among the oldest and most beautiful fragments in the Yale Law Library's collection, the pastedowns of this incunable are taken from a manuscript recounting the lives of early saints. At the front (not displayed) we find part of the "Fabulous Deeds" ("Acta fabulosa") of the apostle Saint Bartholomew, written by the Pseudo-Abdia Babylonio, probably in the early 10th century. At the rear, we find the end of the "Acta fabulosa" and the beginning of "The Passion of Saint Alexander, Pope and Martyr" ("Passio Sancti Alexandri martyris papae"). Looking out from his inhabited initial, a beautifully-rendered Saint Alexander gestures towards his tale with an outstretched hand. Note that the beginning ("CUM OMNIUM") is also marked off by a special "display script," in this case an all-capital script called Uncial, which after the 8th century was generally only used for headings like this one.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Richard Rouse (UCLA) for clarifying the origin of the manuscript fragment. From Elizabeth A. R. Brown (CUNY), Hope Mayo (Harvard University), Alison Stones (University of Pittsburgh), and David Ganz (King's College London): "Hope Mayo says [the fragment] could go as late as [the 12th century], but probably earlier. [The fragment is from a] Legendary. Could be a big book -- one needs to see verso + the fragment at the beginning [of the volume]." Here are images of the verso of the fragment shown above and of the companion fragment in the front pastedown of the volume.

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Unknown
Date: 1350-1425
Found in: Repetitiones decem legum. [Paris: André Bocard for Jean Petit, 1507.]

The nature of the fragments used here as pastedowns is not entirely clear. The front pastedown (the first of the two images above) contains a list of benediction prayers for the Mass, some for the feast of the Virgin Mary (also known as the feast of the Assumption), and others more commonly associated with the feast of All Saints. Looking for clues on the other side of the leaf we find that the half-page of text there is severely effaced and of little help. Meanwhile, the rear pastedown (the second image) is a page from a completely unrelated manuscript (it appears to be a prayer book of some kind). We can say, however, that the front manuscript fragment is written in a low-quality version of the cursive book hand known as Anglicana, and appears to be English in origin. This judgment is supported by the fact that the title page bears an early inscription by "Cuthberti Shirbroke de Rockeland," a cleric and doctor of canon law from a noted Norfolk family.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Mahzor
Date: c. 1300-1500
Found in: Parsons, Robert. Elizabethae reginae Angliae edictum promulgatum Londini 29. Novemb. anni M.D. XCI. [Rome?: s.n.], 1593.

Alongside the many pieces of the Christian liturgy preserved in the Law Library's bindings, we find a reminder that medieval Europe was home to many vibrant Jewish communities as well. Michael Rand, of the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem, has identified the fragment seen here is a folio from a mahzor, a Jewish service book used on the high holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) and the pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot). According to Rand, the folio features a liturgical poem (piyyut) of a type called yotzer. This yotzer was used to celebrate Shavuot (which falls seven weeks after Passover and corresponds to the Christian feast of Pentecost). It is titled "Ayelet Ahevim Matnat Sinai" and deals with the revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. The yotzer bears the name "Shim'on" in the acrostic, which has led some scholars to speculate that it was composed by the 10th-century poet Shim'on bar Yitshaq of Mainz. Rand points out that this particular poem was employed in the Ashkenazic, Roman (i.e. Italian), and Romaniote (i.e., Byzantine) prayer rites, and the formal script found here (called "square script") appears to be Italian.

This fragment has been added to the online catalog of Hebrew manuscripts maintained by the Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Israel; the record (in Hebrew) can be viewed here. Thanks to Dr. Ezra Chwat of the National Library of Israel for cataloging the fragment and providing additional information about it.

     -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Fragment: Breviary (England)
Date: c. 1225-1325
Found in: [Year Books, Edward III.] Regis pie memorie Edwardi Tertii a quadragesimo ad quinquagesimum. London: Richard Tottell, 1565.

Here we find a good example of how 15th- and 16th-century bookbinders used fragments of medieval manuscripts as "strengtheners." Strengtheners are strips of parchment or paper that were wrapped around the inner edge of the first and last sections of a book in order to protect them at the point where the paper might otherwise rub against rough portions of the binding. The Law Library has about twenty-five early books with visible fragments of medieval manuscripts used as guards in this way. While most are not large enough to be displayed well, some of the fragments can be identified. As we learn more about the bookbinding trade in the first several decades of print, even small fragments will become valuable pieces of evidence about the distribution of manuscripts in the late Middle Ages.

The strengthener seen here is from a breviary with both sides featuring elements of the Divine Office for Holy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter). On the left side we see a decorated initial "A" beginning the first reading for the service of Matins (Lamentations 1:1-2). On the right side we see pieces of the music and text for short liturgical chants called "antiphons," which were used to introduce the Psalms during Lauds. Notice how the initials in the antiphons have been lightly decorated with little faces.

   -- Notes by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, Stanford University

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to Richard Rouse (UCLA) for clarifying the origin of the manuscript fragment.

Larger versions of this and other images are available from the Medieval binding fragments gallery of the Rare Book Collection's Flickr site. If you can provide additional information about the manuscript fragment displayed here, you are invited to send an email to <mike.widener[at]yale.edu>.

"Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings" is curated by Benjamin Yousey-Hindes and Mike Widener, and is on display through May 2010 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.