May 19, 2010, Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Digital CollectionsMedieval and early modern manuscripts collection now accessible online The Ransom Center has launched an online database for its medieval and early modern manuscripts collection. The database includes more than 7,000 digital images and can be accessed via the Ransom Center’s website. The medieval and early modern manuscripts collection contains 215 items dating from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries. It comprises items from various collections, including those of George Atherton Aitken, W. H. Crain, Carlton Lake, Edward A. Parsons, Sir Thomas Phillipps, Walter Emile Van Wijk, Evelyn Waugh, John Henry Wrenn and others. The Ransom Center is in the process of digitizing all of the collection items, which will be added to the database as they are completed. At present, digital images are available for 27 of the items for a current total of 7,288 pages. The database contains item-level descriptions for all 215 items, and the collection is searchable by keyword and any combination of the following categories: name, country of origin, century, language, format (such as charters or diaries), subject, and physical features (such as musical notation or wax seals). Please click the thumbnails below to view full-size images. The Belleville Book of Hours (mid-15th-century), once belonged to Marie de Belleville, daughter of Charles VI of France and is the finest illuminated manuscript in the collection. Books of Hours were used for private devotional purposes. The single leaf entitled “De Elevatione” (ca. 1530-40) is in the hand of Martin Luther and signed by Luther and his associate Johannes Bugenhagen. The Ferial Psalter and the Dominican Processional are both 15th-century musical manuscripts. Ferial psalters are divided into eight sections: seven for the psalms for matins through the week and the eighth containing the psalms for vespers. The Tegernsee Miscellany (named after the Bavarian monastery where it originated) is the oldest Western manuscript at the Ransom Center and dates from the early 11th century. It contains several different texts; among the most interesting are excerpts from an illustrated work on natural history by the Venerable Bede, an astrological treatise, and recipes for making medicines.
