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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.

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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.

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​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

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

Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.

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

Pages from the Past Collection

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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

Book of hours for Dominican use.

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Example of the sort of Book of Hours that would have been familiar to most bourgeois 15th century Frenchmen and women in its original state. Perhaps…

Psalter

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Contents: Fragment contains parts of Pss. 68 and 70 with hierarchy accorded to the psalm "Salvum me fac," implying use in a liturgical context.

Antiphonal

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Contents: Contains material for services at Ascension and the vigil of Pentecost; Music: Neumes

Psalter

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Contents: Contains part of Ps. 48.

Legal Text

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Contents: Notes and corrections to the text.

Bible, verbal index to

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Contents: Contains part of the letter S, including this series, "Succedentia, Succedens, Successus" and this series, "Succingere, Succingi,…

Psalter

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Contents: Contains Ps. 105 (recto), Ps. 106 (verso)

Doctrinale

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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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