pre-1600 manuscripts at the kenneth spencer research library

“The jewel of the Midwest is the collection of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas in Lawrence,” wrote Lisa Fagin Davis in a blog post in 2014.[1] Indeed, according to the “Directory of Collections in the United States and Canada with Pre-1600 Manuscript Holdings” compiled by Melissa Conway and Lisa Fagin Davis, the Kenneth Spencer Research Library ranks among the top fifteen libraries for holdings of medieval and early modern manuscripts.[2]

This project aims to increase awareness of and access to the medieval and early modern manuscripts produced before 1600 at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas by conducting new research on the manuscripts and making both digital catalogue records and facsimiles of manuscripts available online as open access resources. The position I currently hold for this project was created thanks to an endowment by Alexandra Mason, former Spencer Librarian, in honour of Ann Hyde, former Manuscripts Librarian at Spencer who specialised in medieval manuscripts.

For more information on what this project entails, see the interview with me on Inside Spencer: The KSRL Blog and the feature in the 2019-2020 University of Kansas Libraries Annual Review.

I post about manuscripts I research on Twitter and Instagram with the handle @manuscriptsetc.

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Notes

[1] “Manuscript Road Trip: Toto, I have a Feeling we ARE in Kansas”, in Manuscript Road Trip, 20 Apr 2014: https://manuscriptroadtrip.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/manuscript-road-trip-toto-i-have-a-feeling-we-are-in-kansas/

[2] Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 109:3 (2015): 273–420: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/682342

Handlist of Pre-1600 Manuscripts at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas is home to some 400 manuscripts that are dated to 1600 or earlier.

Manuscript Waste Not, or a Case in Fragmentology

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS 9/2:31 is one of the fragments in the “Paleographical Teaching Set” that was gradually put together in the second half of the twentieth century for facilitating teaching and learning of Greek and Latin paleography at the University of Kansas.

Her Book, Written by Her Own Hand

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C66 contains a copy of a translation from Latin into Italian of the De theologia mystica, also known by its opening words, the Viae Syon lugent, along with two much shorter tracts added later.

From the Library of the Charterhouse of St Barbara in Cologne

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C91 is a fifteenth-century collection of religious texts.

Signs in the Margins and Between the Lines

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C49 contains copies of two works which were originally composed a millennium apart: the translation of Sextus Pythagoreus’s Sententiae from Greek into Latin by Rufinus of Aquileia and the Enchiridion by Laurentius Pisanus.

Tracking the Two-Hundred-Year Ownership Trail of a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS D2 is a fifteenth-century paper manuscript that contains the Epigrams of Martial.

An Early Fragment of the Old French Bible?

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS D40 consists of two gatherings that contain parts of the Gospel of Matthew in French.

Vergil’s Aeneid and the Mathematics of Bookmaking

One of the first manuscripts I looked at after I started working at the University of Kansas in September 2019 was Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS E71.

The Art of Excerpting and the Encyclopedic Mind of the Middle Ages

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C65 is a mid-fifteenth-century collection of theological writings focusing on topics such as vices, virtues, sin and penance.

The Genealogy of Christ, Medieval Edition

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS 9/2:29 contains part of the Compendium historiae in genealogia Christi (‘Compendium of the History on the Genealogy of Christ’) compiled by Peter of Poitiers.

Charting a Late Fifteenth-Century Journey

Written in Humanistic cursive by a single hand during the last decade of the fifteenth century, Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS B21 contains a travel itinerary from Italy to France and back.

The Making of a Medieval Codex

We have very little information about the past history of Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C195. When, where and by whom it was made are unknown.

An Unstudied Fragment of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS 9/1:A22 contains an unstudied fragment of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae [‘History of the Kings of Britain’].

From Genoa to Crimea, the Wide World of Books

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C277 includes a translation from Greek into Latin of the Epistles of Phalaris by Francesco Griffolini of Arezzo (1420–1483?).

To Transcribe, or Not To Transcribe, That is Not the Question

Kenneth Spencer Research Library Pryce MS P4 has received renewed attention in the past weeks as we ventured into an international transcription competition: “La Sfera Challenge.”

What Is in a Medieval Chronicle?

The description of Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS B90 was titled “Contemporary Manuscript of the World Chronicle of Martin of Troppau” in William Salloch’s Catalogue 258 dated to 1968.

A Fifteenth-Century Compendium of Illustrious Men

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS D13 is a fifteenth-century manuscript that includes two works, both of which contain short biographies of classical historical figures.

A Previously Unknown Witness to a Medieval Dictionary and the Origins of Librarians

MS 9/2:16 is one of dozens of fragmentary medieval manuscripts that are part of the holdings of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

A Manuscript, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma

A small quarto manuscript, Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C189, previously belonged to Alpha Loretta Owens (1877–1965), a graduate of the University of Kansas.

Putting the Spotlight on the Once Influential Translation ‘On the Life of a Tyrant’ by Leonardo Bruni

It has been some years since any researcher looked at Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C68, a paper manuscript of 16 leaves arranged in a single quire.

A Sixteenth-Century Copy of the Life of Cardinal Dominicus Capranica

Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C247 is a thin parchment manuscript that was produced in the middle of the sixteenth century.

I post about manuscripts I research on Twitter and Instagram with the handle @manuscriptsetc.

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