Inside My Favorite Manuscript

Episode 22: Laura Estill on Dramatic texts, Commonplace books, and Profane & debauched atheists

In Episode 22 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey talk with Laura Estill about Bodleian MS Sancroft 29. Archbishop of Canterbury William Sancroft (1617-1693) was an avid reader and collector of extracts from various works. MS Sancroft 29 is one of many manuscripts in his hand that survives; it is a dramatic commonplace books, that is, it contains bits and pieces of many plays that Sancroft read most of them from the century before Sancroft lived, including Shakespeare. We learned so much about the reception of drama in the seventeenth century, and we hope you enjoy listening to our conversation.
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode22
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Episode 21: Yvonne Seale and Heather Wacha on cartularies, the long life of manuscripts, and the Premonstrantensian Order

In Episode 21 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey sit down with Yvonne Seale and Heather Wacha to talk about Soissons, Bibliothèque municipale, 0007, aka the Cartulary of Prémontré. Prémontré was the parent house of the Premonstratensian Order, an the cartulary contains legal documents related to the house and its holdings. In our conversation we talked about the house itself, people and events mentioned in the documents, and how the cartulary was written (and how it was changed later).
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode21
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Episode 20: Paul Dilley on Papyrus, Manichaeism, and Multispectral Imaging

In Episode 20 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot talks with Paul Dilley about one of the Medinet Madi Coptic Manichaean Codices. These seven papyrus manuscripts dating to the 4th and 5th centuries were discovered in Egypt in 1929, and they tell the story of a religion that was intended to draw from Christianity, Buddhism, Gnosticism, and other religions to create something new, but it was later crushed by Christian Roman emperors who considered it heresy. Our conversation ranges from the conservation of papyrus and the details of the beliefs of Manichaeism, to papyrus conservation and multispectral imaging.
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode20
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Episode 19: Elizabeth Fredericks on the Orkney Islands, the author’s process, and a very special bingo card

In Episode 19 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey chat with Elizabeth Fredericks about the manuscript for George Mackay Brown’s novel Greenvoe. The manuscript, which is now at the University of Edinburgh, was written on sometimes random bits of paper, and offers a fascinating look into the author's process for writing his first novel. Mackay Brown was born in Orkney and lived most of his life there, so we also talk about the Scottish and Orkney influences on the novel.
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode19
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Episode 18: Olivia Baskerville on the Great Survey, the Greek New Testament, and the history of England

In Episode 18 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, we have a two-fer! Dot and Lindsey chat with Olivia Baskerville about her two favorite manuscripts: The Domesday Book and the Codex Sinaiticus. The Domesday Book, completed in 1086, documents a tax survey taken of most of England and parts of Wales after the Norman Conquest, while Codex Sinaiticus is an early complete copy of the New Testament, written in Greek in the 4th century and sold to England by the Soviet Union in 1933. While very different in form and content, both manuscripts have played important roles in English culture, and we'll spend most of our time talking about the politics surrounding their creation and use over the course of England's history.
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode18
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Episode 17: Kathryn Maude on politics, the queen as evangelist, and the 11th century Encomium Emmae reginae

In Episode 17 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot and Lindsey chat with Kathryn Maude about the 11th century Queen Emma, who was married to and had children with both the English king Æthelred the Unready and his successor the Danish king Cnut the Great. The resulting political situation was complicated, and the Encomium Emmae reginae can help us understand the lines that Emma was attempting to walk as her sons grew into adulthood and prepared to take the throne. The text survives in two copies, the earliest one of which is British Library Add MS 33241, believed to be the copy that was presented to Queen Emma herself. Kathryn walks us through the manuscript and we talk about both the politics and the materiality of this fascinating text.
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode17
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Episode 16: Alex West on the poetry of ascetics, Sundanese, and palm leaf manuscript culture

In Episode 16 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot sits down with Alex West to talk about Bodleian Library MS Jav. b.3. (R), the only surviving copy of the Sundanese poem Bujangga Manik (written ca. 1500). We start with the story, a tale of an ascetic who travels around the island of Java searching for spiritual transcendence, and along the way we discuss the manuscript, religious, and artistic cultures that formed the poem.
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode16
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Episode 15: Jo Koster on prayer, manuscript digitization, and women’s literacy in the middle ages

In Episode 15 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot chats with Jo Koster about women’s literacy in the later middle ages, focusing on women as writers and consumers of prayer. We focus on Bodleian Holkham Misc. 41, a prayerbook written by a woman for her religious community, but our conversation ranges into issues of manuscript digitization and the pressures of scholarship (and we have a brief visit with Lindsey, who wasn’t able to make it to the recording but lurks in the background).
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode15
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Episode 14: Aaron Macks on medieval calendars, the beauty of simplicity, and manuscripts as data

In Episode 14 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot chats with Aaron Macks about Harvard University, Houghton MS Typ 213, a gorgeous book of hours written and illustrated in Italy towards the end of the 15th century. We talk about the scribe and artist, the illuminations, the calendar, and discuss the practicalities of working with manuscripts as data.
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-ep14
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Episode 13: Maja Bäckvall on the Prose Edda, funky Norse illustrations, and the MCU Thor movies

In Episode 13 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Lindsey and Dot chat with Maja Bäckvall about Uppsala University DG 11, one of four surviving copies of the so-called Prose Edda written by Snorri Sturluson in the 1220s. The Uppsala copy was made in Iceland in the first quarter of the 14th century. We talk about what exactly the Prose Edda is, how this copy differs from the others, we look at the illustrations, and we also make Maja talk about THOR (the movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe).
Complete show notes are on our blog: https://tinyurl.com/imfm-episode13
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