Over the past few weeks, several exciting developments have allowed us to take significant steps forward in our research. Having received the manuscript from the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), we are now able to access the book both physically and digitally. With the help of reference books such as Michelle Brown’s “Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts,” I feel that I am becoming more and more comfortable with the process of studying and identifying different elements of the manuscript.

Recently, I have become particularly interested in medieval methods of bookbinding and the techniques that the makers of our manuscript used to assemble its pages. I am hoping that identifying such methods will shed light on various contextual elements of the manuscript, such as how much it may have cost, how it was intended to be used, and who it may have been created for. Though my initial conjectures about its format were made based on photographs, I am planning to visit the text in person in the very near future so that I can get a closer look at its physical elements.

Now that we have digital access to the text, the opportunity to transcribe its pages had increased significantly. Though familiarizing myself with this process is proving to be a bit of an uphill battle, simply having the pages available has allowed me to practice and slowly grow more comfortable with deciphering latin text. Overall, this is a very exciting phase in our manuscript journey, and I can’t wait to see what we will discover.

Anna