There are basically two thoughts that run through the head of a first-year PhD student: 1) “There is no way I have enough time do research, go to lectures and workshops, and have a life; 2) “If time is tight now, imagine what it will be like later.” The timing for the Material Witness workshop at the British Library’s conservation department last December was ideal, creating the perfect storm for my first-year concerns and their many derivations.
While it pained me to peel away from the promising mess I had made of my proposed PhD topic, I convinced myself that a day in the British Library’s Centre for Conservation could pass, sort of, as a well-deserved break (and free lunch). It certainly was a break from the usual as we immediately launched into a presentation by Dr Christina Duffy, an imaging scientist in the BL’s Collection Care department, on the latest advances in photographic and scientific approaches to manuscript study. Aaaah, beautiful pictures! Leading us through the moon-like surfaces of medieval pigment, the workshop had started off with a bang!
A physician’s folding almanac, England, c. 1430/1 (BL, Harley MS 937)
After enjoying some more wonderful digital close-ups, we were ready to move on to the Real Deal. From ancient papyrus fragments to an original scroll listing the monasteries to be dissolved under the reign of Henry VIII (Cotton Ch. III.5), Dr Kathleen Doyle, curator of illuminated manuscripts, and other British Library curators indulged us by bringing out some rare treasures for close inspection. My favorite item was a fifteenth-century physician’s folding almanac (Harley MS 937) still in its original binding. This small collection of notes was folded up and held together by two leather pieces that superficially resemble the bookmarks that you can buy at the checkout counter of any modern day bookstore. Yet, hidden within, were illuminated initials, marginal notes, rubrics and charts that still testified to this physician’s daily peripatetic responsibilities. Like the centuries-old Buddhist scroll from Dunhuang we would later visit in the conservation studio, this rare and delicate fifteenth-century item inspired a much-needed realisation: I was going to make time.
Despite all odds, across centuries, and over mountains and oceans, these objects - and many more like them - had somehow made their way to the British Library’s collection and consequently into my PhD experience. Probing and poking at medieval Spanish manuscripts in order to weed out some small glimpse of what thirteenth-century altars and liturgical objects might have looked like was no longer simply an abstract and distant aspiration. Handling these manuscripts at the British Library brought those future aims to life. More importantly, the workshop reminded me that it was, indeed, my sincerest pleasure and honor to have committed myself to the study of medieval art and text and to, in turn, ensure the survival of their stories to posterity.
Courtauld Institute of Art