The British Library is collaborating with the University of Cambridge to offer a fully-funded PhD studentship on the subject of ‘Reading and Writing in Medieval Women's Religious Communities’. The successful applicant will be supervised by Dr Jessica Berenbeim (Cambridge) and Dr Eleanor Jackson (British Library), and start in October 2024. 

Nuns attending Mass inside a church: Yates Thompson MS 11, f. 6v

The student will have the opportunity to investigate the culture of female religious communities in the Middle Ages through a study of their surviving manuscripts. Medieval women living together in monasteries and other kinds of convent communities owned or produced an astonishing number and variety of manuscripts. These include literary works in poetry and prose, archive and record books, music manuscripts, financial and administrative accounts, maps, books for religious services, paintings in the form of manuscript illumination, documents such as charters, and sculpture in the form of seal impressions.

We are inviting applicants to propose a project that explores any aspect of women’s conventual life, with the specific aim of bringing together kinds of sources that have rarely been discussed in combination. The themes and structure of the project are entirely open, provided the proposal is interdisciplinary and combines different types of manuscripts—broadly defined, as above—in novel, creative, and productive ways. At least some element of your research should concern institutions in the British Isles, but the project as a whole may be comparative. In your proposal, you would aim to draw principally on the British Library’s collections (although we understand that some research in other collections will almost certainly be inevitable). Some indication of the BL’s holdings can be found on these sites:

• Manuscripts and Archives Collections Guides
• Digitised Manuscripts
• Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
• Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue

Foundation charter of Flixton Priory of Augustinian nuns by Margery de Crek: Stowe Ch 291

The British Library has one of the world’s most extensive and diverse collections of manuscripts from medieval women’s communities. In your research for this project, you would work on these collections alongside the BL’s curatorial staff, and undertake specialised training at both the BL and at Cambridge, where you would be part of a large and collegial community of medievalists in a wide range of fields. The British Library is currently developing a major exhibition on Medieval Women, which is due to open in October 2024. Starting your doctoral research just as the exhibition is opening, you will be able to develop a close familiarity with the display, support the programme of private views and visits to the exhibition, and build on its research findings.

The studentship is fully funded via the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. Applications are now open on their website, where you can view the full Collaborative Doctoral Award advert and find details of how to apply. The closing date for applications is 4 January 2024. 

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If you have been following the news recently, you may have seen that we've been doing specialist imaging on the draft manuscripts of William Camden's Annals of the Reign of Elizabeth I, with sensational results. This research has been undertaken by Helena Rutkowska, a collaborative DPhil student in partnership between the University of Oxford, Open University and the British Library, with the imaging generously funded by the British Library Collections Trust, carried out by Eugenio Falcioni, and co-ordinated by Calum Cockburn.

The specialist imaging of Camden's Annals, using transmitted light, being carried out at the British Library

Camden's Annals has long been regarded as one of the most important, contemporary accounts of the reign of this famous Tudor queen. The work was originally requested by William Cecil, Lord Burghley (d. 1598), and was then completed by command of King James I of England and VI of Scotland (d. 1625). William Camden (d. 1623), an antiquarian scholar and Clarenceux King of Arms, is credited with authorship of the work, but he was probably writing in collaboration with others, including Sir Robert Cotton (d. 1631), founder of the famous Cotton library. The first three books, covering the period to 1587, were published in Latin in 1615, with the remainder of the work published after Camden had died, in 1625.

Helena's research has focused on the ten volumes of manuscript drafts of the Annals (Cotton MS Faustina F I–X). These manuscripts reveal a continuous process of revision of the text prior to publication, with multiple crossings out, amendments and additions. Most notably, there are dozens of pages on which the original text has been pasted over, with new wording written on top. By using transmitted light, the Library has now been able to reveal what is under those pastedowns, and to read the original text of Camden's Annals for the first time in 400 years.

The draft manuscripts of Camden's Annals contain numerous revisions, with many parts of the original text pasted over and over-written

The new discoveries will be outlined in Helena's doctorate, and we also plan to make the images available online. Early analysis has made some startling revelations, including earlier accounts of Elizabeth's excommunication by Elizabeth I in 1570, the death of King Philip II of Spain in 1598, and the implied involvement of James VI in a plot to assassinate the English queen. There are also subtle changes in the manuscript drafts which suggest that Elizabeth did not nominate James on her deathbed as her successor, unlike the version that made its way into print. Helena suggests that this all indicates that Camden was self-censoring his work, for fear of upsetting his patron, King James, and to paint him (and his mother, Mary Queen of Scots) in a more flattering light.

The British Library is delighted to have been able to support this groundbreaking research, and we look forward to discovering what else has been covered up in the manuscripts of Camden's Annals.

We are very grateful to the British Library's Collections Trust for supporting this project. You can read more about Helena Rutkowska's research in this article by Dalya Alberge, published in The Guardian on 14 July.

 

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This year marks the 570th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, on 29 May 1453. The city at the Bosporus, on the border between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, bridging Europe, Asia Minor and the Balkans, was originally called Byzantium. The exact date of its foundation is unknown, but according to legend it was founded in 667 BC.

 Constantine the Great from the Synopsis of Histories (Eastern Mediterranean, 1574): Harley MS 5632, f. 2v

The city was already an important trading and military centre, but its significance rose when, on 11 May, AD 324, Emperor Constantine the Great selected it to be the new capital of the reunited Roman Empire, and called it the New Rome. Six years later, to honour the emperor, it was renamed Constantinople after him. From the 5th century onwards, Constantinople was enriched with enormous fortifications, churches and monasteries, and the world-renowned imperial library.

A view of Constantinople from Mandeville’s Travels (Bohemia; 1st quarter of the 15th century): Add MS 24189, f. 9v

Despite the tumult after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476, Constantinople remained the seat of the Emperor of the East and the centre of the political, religious and intellectual life of the Byzantine Empire for many centuries. Admired and envied by the West, it was visited by travellers, kings and pilgrims. In 1204, the Crusader army, originally destined for Palestine, turned against the city, occupied and sacked it, and made it the capital of the Western Emperor of Constantinople for the next half century.

A golden bulla of Baldwin II, the last Western Emperor of Constantinople (Biervliet, 1269): Add Ch 14365, obverse

Although it was retaken by the Palaeologan dynasty in 1261, Constantinople never regained its previous status. From the 14th century, it faced the rising Ottoman Empire in an ever-weakening state. Sultan Mehmed II arrived at the gates of the city in April 1453 and started besieging the city.

The Emperor Constantine XI tried to secure help from the West, but the timing was very unfortunate. Europe was riven by warfare: the Hundred Year War was consuming France and England, Spain was involved in the last phase of the Reconquista, and the Holy Roman Empire was divided by internal wars. Apart from some volunteers and assistance from Venice, Genoa and the Pope, the Emperor was left on his own against the formidable  army of the Sultan. The British Library holds eye-witness accounts of what happened next, one of which is inserted in a 16th-century chronicle now attributed to Macarius of Melissa.

A page from the chronicle of Macarius of Melissa preserving the final speech of Emperor Constantine XI (Venice, 16th century: Add MS 36539, f. 79r

This manuscript records the Emperor's final speech to his army on the night of the fateful battle. According to the author, who was present, Constantine declared:

‘My noble peers, illustrious generals, noble fellow-soldiers, you know well that the hour has come and that the enemy of our faith wishes to hem us in more cruelly with every means … Into your hands I give this most illustrious and renowned city, the Queen of Cities and your homeland … There is no time to say more to you. I only entrust my humble sceptre to your hands. Brothers and fellow-soldiers, be prepared for battle in the morning with grace and courage …'

The battle started around midnight on 29 May. The defenders were able to hold the walls for a while but when the general of the Genoan troops was wounded by an arrow, its defence was shaken. Parts of the army started to flee and the emperor was apparently left on his own. Chronicles from both East and West all agree that Constantine fought hard in the battle.

A page from the chronicle of Macarius of Melissa preserving the last words of the Venetian soldiers witnessing the fall of Constantinople (Venice, 16th century): Add MS 36539, f. 85r

Some hours later the defence collapsed completely. Macarius noted the last words of the Venetian soldiers upon seeing the fall of the city: ‘Shudder Sun and groan Earth, the city is taken’. The Sultan then entered the city and a desperate search to find the emperor began. Eventually Constantine who identified under a heap of corpses by the imperial eagle embroidered on his shoes.

Detail of a grant by Sultan Mehmed II to the Genoese inhabitants of Galata, with the sultan’s monogram and the beginning of the Greek text (1 June 1435): Egerton MS 2817

A few days later, Sultan Mehmed II was in Constantinople when he issued one of his first edicts from his new capital, ensuring the trading rights of the Genoa merchants of Galata. The siege put an end to a long period in the history of this great city. No longer Byzantium or Constantinople, it started a new life as Istanbul.

 

Peter Toth

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