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Manuscript Collections

Special Collections maintains a small collection of manuscripts that date from antiquity to the present. The collection is intended to demonstrate the physical characteristics of the book before printing, and it contains a wide variety of scripts and materials from various time periods. From antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, the collection includes:

  • Eight cuneiform tablets from the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods
  • Around a dozen manuscripts in book form, ranging in date from ca. 1150 to ca. 1600
  • Over 200 leaves and fragments, including seventeenth century book collector John Bagford’s manuscript leaves and fragments, Fragmenta Manuscripta, dating from the eighth to the seventeenth century
  • A handful of leaves from the Koran, palm leaf manuscripts, and other examples of manuscripts from non-Western cultures

Finding Aids for Manuscript Collections

Cuneiform tablets.

Clay tablet with wedge-shaped writing

Special Collections holds eight cuneiform tablets whose exact provenance is unknown. Six of the tablets date from the Ur III period (2100-2000 BCE),…

Fragmenta Manuscripta Collection.

Medieval manuscript fragment on parchment with Latin text in brown and red links and early musical notation<br />

​Fragmenta Manuscripta is a collection of over 200 manuscript leaves and fragments dating from the eighth to the seventeenth century. Originally…

Literary and Historical Manuscripts

Special Collections holds modern manuscript materials in the form of books, correspondence, and personal papers. These materials were collected at…

Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.

Medieval manuscript page with black lettering, occasionally highlighted with blue or red

Special Collections maintains a small collection of European manuscripts intended to demonstrate the physical characteristics of the manuscript books,…

Pages from the Past Collection

Papyrus fragment with Greek letters in black ink

Pages from the Past is a collection of original manuscript and rare book leaves compiled and sold by a New York book dealer Alfred W. Stites from 1964…

Selected Items

Fragmenta Manuscripta 045: Psalter, glossed

medieval manuscript leaf fragment in one column written in brown ink, with initials in red and blue and two letter sizes (recto)

Single column with 36 lines visible, alternating text and commentary, writing on top of grid, with bounding lines, ruling with leadpoint on recto…

Fragmenta Manuscripta 207: Receipt, invoice

Early modern manuscript receipt on brown ink with three lines of text. Stamp of a thistle on dark brown ink is on the top left corner. (recto)<br />

Number of scribes, f. 1r-v: 1.
Script, f. 1r-v: Humanistic cursive.
Layout, f. 1r-v: No ruling or bounding lines.

Fragmenta Manuscripta 022: Civil law with gloss

Medieval manuscript leaf fragment in dark brown ink, two columns and two sizes of letters (recto)

Provenance: John Bagford (1650s-1716) to St. Martin-in-the-Fields; sale 1861 to Sir Thomas Phillipps, n.15758; his sale 22 May, 1913, lot 742; Sir…

Treatise on logic

Provenance: John Bagford (1650s-1716) to St. Martin-in-the-Fields; sale 1861 to Sir Thomas Phillipps, n.15758; his sale 22 May, 1913, lot 742; Sir…

Decretals with commentary

Provenance: John Bagford (1650s-1716) to St. Martin-in-the-Fields; sale 1861 to Sir Thomas Phillipps, n.15758; his sale 22 May, 1913, lot 742; Sir…

Roman de la Rose

Provenance: John Bagford (1650s-1716) to St. Martin-in-the-Fields; sale 1861 to Sir Thomas Phillipps, n.15758; his sale 22 May, 1913, lot 742; Sir…

Instructions to his son

Contents: H. G. Jones, "Peter Idley's Instructions to his son," Neuphilologische Mitteilungen74 (1973) 686-689.

Doctrinale

Contents: On recto, vv. 1668-1695 (with v. 1693 added at the end via an "a" and "b" text-ordering note), and on verso, vv. 1696-1721.

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