The SFU library can add one more special item to its catalogue with the recent acquisition of a medieval manuscript from London that dates back to 1296.
The manuscript is an anthology of legal texts, containing historical texts such as the civil law code of emperor Justinian, along with the laws of Frederick II, the then-emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
Written in Latin, it was apparently preserved by a French family for centuries until their recent decision to auction it at Christie’s, an auction house in London.
The acquisition, which cost $65,000, was successfully initiated and led by SFU humanities professor Paul Dutton to fill a gap in the library’s collection of early written materials.
The funding came in part from Dutton’s Jack and Nancy Farley Endowment, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dean John Craig, and the library itself.
Among the other manuscripts on offer at the auction was a ninth-century manuscript that was eventually sold for three million dollars. However, it was this manuscript that to Dutton seemed to best capture both the rise of medieval universities and students.
It comes from a period representing the peak of Medieval civilization during the 13th century, when Gothic culture was reaching its greatest heights.
The manuscript will serve SFU as a specimen medieval codex, or bound book, to represent and capture that period’s print culture. It will sit among other medieval texts in the Special Collections section of the library, such as an extremely rare leaf, or single page, of one of the original Gutenberg Bibles, to the many books from the Aldine Press of the 1500s, which were among the first printed volumes small enough to be portable.
The manuscript is in surprisingly good condition, but this is consistent with the qualities of parchment as a medium, despite being essentially untanned leather, said Dutton. He added, “[the manuscript] will long outlive our modern paper and digital [content].”
Dutton plans to make a detailed catalogue entry of the manuscript to further examine the contents of the anthology, taking some time to examine the notes made by actual students on the margins of the manuscript. This will allow visitors and researchers to more efficiently use the manuscript for research purposes. He will be assisted by the Special Collections staff in this process, who will also make sure it easily accessible for students and will be well maintained given its age.
While Dutton understands that the manuscript’s content — which describes the laws of the Holy Roman Empire along with a commentary — is not unique to this specific piece, the comments, notes, and even doodles made by students using the manuscript have never before been accessible to current academic medievalists.
