Blog title: Discovering Johannes Nider on the fly: A binding fragment from Thalbach Image: Gothic typeface in two columns, heavily abbreviated; one section effaced, the whole thing looking a bit worse for the wear

I deciphered some heavily abbreviated scholastic Latin pasted in a binding and found Johannes Nider’s Praeceptorium divinae legis hiding in the flyleaves of a Thalbach devotional book.

silencesandsounds.blogspot.com

#fragmentology #bookhistory #incunabula #medievalists #blog #research #nuntastic

This was a great conversation, which somehow I'd missed back in 2020. Recommended! #medievalsky #bookhistory #fragmentology

Woman in darkened room speaks at lectern. Brightly lit screen image of a Paris manuscript behind

Group of people look at single folio on a table. Manuscript fragment on screen behind

Four people seated at a round dinner table (L-R Melanie Brunner, Kıvılcım Yavuz, Elaine Treharne and Axel Műller)

Elaine and Kıvılcım look at a range of manuscript fragments on a table

Highlights from @etreharne.bsky.social's visit to Leeds this week: a wonderful talk about mortuary rolls and a palaeography workshop for students and alumni, focusing on some of the Ripon Cathedral fragments cared for by @lulgalleries.bsky.social #medieval #manuscripts #fragmentology #palaeography

In other #fragmentology news, here is this year's @fragmentarium.bsky.social resequencing project by my Simmons School of Library Science students: the Hours of St. Alexis! fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-2... 🧵

A cut-out of a page with handwritten text in brown ink, used as pastedown of a paper cover. The text is in Dutch and starts with 'Jason die u vlies, uyt Cholchis, hebt gevoert'

A cut-out of a page with handwritten text in brown ink, used as pastedown of a paper cover.

The inner covers reveal fragments of an 18th century, Dutch poem in epic alexandrines. It's probably a typical, highbrow laudatory poem.

Antwerp, EHC K 59511:1719,fragm.

[2/2]

#fragmentology #bookhistory

The leaf now has its very own @fragmentarium.bsky.social record, it has been added to the Simmons project, and FSU has updated their record accordingly. The moral of the story: with a #DH project, it's never too late for an update! #Fragmentology #GottaCatchEmAll fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-e...

...then I'll make it all public so you can enjoy this GORGEOUS mid-to-late fifteenth century Book of Hours from Northern France! I'm so proud of these students. #Fragmentology ftw!

Join our team, @mideastmedieval.bsky.social, @imems.bsky.social & colleagues at #IMC2026.

Explore #fragmentology from methodology applied to manuscripts, case-studies on textile fragments or pieces of relics; Latin to vernacular; early to late medieval; East to West.

#medievalmonday #medievalsky

Photo of the fragment of the incunable

A small fragment of a very early edition of Flavius Josephus's works printed in the Low Countries in around 1475.

The elegant pen-flourished initial probably saved this fragment...

(GW M15163 - @enssib.bsky.social collection)

#incunabula #incunable #fragmentology #fragments #bookhistory

When asked just what do I do, I often utter darkly, “I rescue manuscripts before they become someone’s découpage project.” I never truly believed that anyone selling a fragment would encourage such a practice — then I saw this on eBay. Perfect entry for “10 Word Horror Story” contest. #fragmentology

Infographic to explain so called “frisket sheets”. Generated by Google’s Nano Banana Pro. Impressive!

The example is from my collection.

#bookhistory
#fragmentology
#recycling

#Middelnederlands @fragmentarium.bsky.social #fragmentology

Delighted to see this and it was such a great experience working with my co-authors Lisa Colton and Jared Hartt! #fragmentology

Found a joyful fragment in my collection: a 15th-century parchment leaf once reused in a bookbinding! 🎶
It preserves Tantum ergo Sacramentum — the Eucharistic hymn by Thomas Aquinas — complete with neumes and traces of blind-stamped leather.
#BookHistory
#Fragmentology

#fragmentology

Something lovely for #FragmentFriday - an offset from a now detached medieval manuscript leaving a "ghost" negative image on the left board. It also features a comb lining made of cloth on which the offset is also present.

RB 15c, Venice, 1492

#fragmentology #offsetting

FIELD TRIP! This morning in Rare Book School #fragmentology, we wandered over to UVA's Alderman Library to get up close and personal with the AMAZING Rosenthal Fragment Collection. Major thank-yous to the SpecColl staff for facilitating access!

What a week we've had studying #fragmentology at Rare Book School! And since I wouldn't ask my students to do something I wouldn't do myself, here's MY final project: a fully discoverable @fragmentarium.bsky.social record of my Gottschalk bifolium! fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-i...

Medieval Manuscript Fragments: Cataloging & Discoverability | Rare Book School Course Length: 30 hours Course Week: 20–25 July 2025 Format: in person, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA Fee: $1,495 The study of medieval manuscript fragments has developed into its own ...

Off to Charlottesville to teach a week-long #Fragmentology intensive @rarebookschool.bsky.social. There's nothing like RBS: a community of like-minded bibliophiles learning together for eight hours a day! It is invigorating and inspiring (& exhausting). Can't wait! rarebookschool.org/courses/libr...

[F-pp5u] Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Don. B III 13: Iohannes Cassianus, De institutis coenobiorum (Fragment). A leaf with a single column of 23 lines in Rhaetian minuscule: it kinda looks like a Northern Beneventan. There is an ornate initial I.

#FragmentOfTheDay: This 8C Rhaetian survivor was recovered in Donaueschingen and is now in Stuttgart. Marina Bernasconi Reusser virtually reconstructs this John Cassian with leaves from Frauenfeld, Solothurn, and Sarnen: fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-p.... Have you seen other fragments? #fragmentology

As a fun experiment, PhD student Nicky Voornevelt bought a set of manuscript fragments at an auction. One piece turned out to be in print.
.
.
.
It's a fragment of the Mainz Catholicon! 😱😱😱 #BookHistory 📚💙 📜 #Fragmentology

[F-dmut] Frauenfeld, Kantonsbibliothek Thurgau, X 82, Wrapper. A parchment cover for a book, taken from a breviary. Two columns of 14th-century script can be seen, with red rubrics. On the bottom, in the middle, is the large embossed ownership mark/seal reading: Colleg: Can: Reg: Creuzling. on what used to be the spine is the shelfmark sticker X 82 Thurgau, indicating the current location in the Kantonsbibliothek Thurgau. Enjoy Leeds y'all!

#FragmentOfTheDay: This breviary leaf was used to wrap a 1481 print. For those of you unsure, the book was kept in the house of Austin Canons of Kreuzlingen. It looks like Martha, edition AH 28 #19. fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-d... #Fragmentology

Frauenfeld, Kantonsbibliothek Thurgau, X 96, front and back pastedown-flyleaf. Virtual reconstruction of two parts of a bifolium that are still in situ in an incunable, revealing two columns of text per leaf, in a fourteenth-century scholastic script. On the left (verso) leaf, a rubric over the second column reads "Quotuplex sit futurum". On the right (recto) leaf, at the top, in the middle, is the title (in blank ink) P(er)eiar(meneias). The Recto A column begins with a five-line rubric lombard S for the incipit: Secundum Simplicium loyca est instrumentum intellectus dirigens ipsum in omnibus suis operationes; operationes autem sunt tres, ut patet tertio De anima.

#FragmentOfTheDay: 14C, Commentary on the De Interpretatione - #Perihermeneias, incipit: Secundum Simplicium loyca est instrumentum intellectus... bifolium bisected and glued to a binding. Any idea who wrote it? #Fragmentology fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-x...

*very* back in my element today with MS. Bodl. 238 #fragmentology

Frauenfeld, Kantonsbibliothek Thurgau, FRG 216: A printed piece of paper, rolled on the side, folded in, missing the top and a woodcut in the top left corner. Some text describes when the major movable feasts occur, followed by a list of lunar-solar conjunctions and oppositions for the year, and then a list of opportune times for medical procedures January through December. At the bottom, a woodcut shows a figure holding a book and a ribbon, on which is written "Fortunate puer celi cui celi parent. Expectate venis"

#FragmentOfTheDay: This printed #Bloodletting Calendar can be dated to 1531 by combining the date of Easter with the phases of the moon. This is hugely important, using it on any other year could have unpleasant side effects. Pair with a Petite Sirah. #Fragmentology fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-j...

Orselina-Locarno, Biblioteca Madonna del Sasso, MdS 51 Aa 4/F1-4. The exposed spine of a 16C book, showing four strips of Caroline bound in there. A colorchecker classic and a ruler are also in the plane of the picture.

#FragmentOfTheDay: fragments appear in pre-industrial bookbindings. Fragment covers and pastedowns usually signify a cheap binding. But secrets lurk on the unseen spine. 10C rule of St. Benedict from Madonna del Sasso, Ticino. #Fragmentology fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-y...

#fragmentology #manuscriptstudies

Lectionary (Fragment), Frauenfeld, Kantonsbibliothek Thurgau, FRG 209 (https://fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-mnm7). A bifolium with orange rubrics, single column text, 22 lines per page. Plain initials between two and three lines in height. The script is early Caroline, and the influence of the earlier, Alemannic script can be seen, notably in the -ri ligature. The inverted T can be seen on the other side, verso (left), lines 7-8, where the abundant goes submarine at the end. Lines 8-9 have an abundat, but that one stays Caroline. Have fun!

#FragmentOfTheDay: This glorious early-9C lectionary from a box in the Cantonal Library of Thurgau. Pair the closed and open As, looping, straight and inverted Ts with a 2020 Quintessenz Pinot Noir Gächlingen Reserve, AOC Schaffhausen. fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-m... #Fragmentology

Chicago, University of Chicago Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, Codex Ms 686, Box 2, Ms 55. A leaf from a medieval manuscript next to a color control card. The leaf has been ruled in dry point with writing above the top line. In something that looks like an Upper Rhineland early-13th century script, a series of poetic lines with some literal glosses to the right. Rubrics are to the left, and two initials are set off. Also, a rubric to the left marks some of the rhyming couplets.

#FragmentOfTheDay: Somehow the latest batch from the University of Chicago HHG SCRC slipped into the couch. Here's a ca.-1200 fragment of a Latin poem on Simony. Anyone seen anything like it? #Fragmentology
fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-a...

Tübingen, Konviktsbibliothek Wilhelmsstift, KH 3214, back cover. book wrapping made of a fifteenth-century Missal. The center of the book is dominated by a large initial D, blue against a gold background in an alternating green and red frame. A floral motif runs across the top and the left. Above the initial D is the rubric: Dominica prima post octavas Penthecosten. to the right of the D the rest of the incipit appears vertically in alternativing red and blue letters, so that we read "Domine in tua". The text then begins on the line below the initial with "misericordia speravi" (although abbreviated), and there are five lines of text in total.

#FragmentOfTheDay: A large initial D on this fragment, the first on Fragmentarium from the Konviktsbibliothek Wilhelmsstift in Tübingen. May we have many more. #Fragmentology fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-x...