[HN Gopher] Fragments of a rare Merlin manuscript from c. 1300
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Fragments of a rare Merlin manuscript from c. 1300
Author : derbOac
Score : 124 points
Date : 2025-03-31 01:27 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cam.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cam.ac.uk)
| ggm wrote:
| I believe one of the early maps of the americas by Amerigo
| Vespucci was found in a similar way. Re-using paper to hand
| making the binding, padding the covers, wrapping the bound
| signatures before the outer leather or board was added was
| surprisingly common. John Le Carre uses it in "the perfect spy"
| as a mechanism to pass secret information to an amateur book
| binder.
|
| It speaks to me of Robert Grave's fictitious account of Claudius
| deciding rather than hiding them, to leave his (fictional)
| autobiographical scrolls just lying around, let history decide
| what to keep and what to dispose of.
| staplung wrote:
| As you pointed out, reusing parts of old books or manuscripts
| was quite common. Evidently, there was quite a lot of it going
| on in England just after the dissolution of the monasteries by
| Henry VIII. Their libraries had a lot of books that were
| "unwanted" and there was also a lot of new stuff getting
| _printed_ that needed binding. Parchment is a very sturdy
| material (consider that it 's essentially a bag meant to hold
| in the internal organs of an animal that may weigh hundreds of
| kilos).
|
| Anyway, I guess the novelty here is that they were able to read
| much of the older work without dismantling the Turducken book
| (one article I read used that term).
|
| Was a little surprised to see that the researchers seemed to be
| holding the book with bare hands. Would have guessed those
| sorts of things are usually handled with gloves but maybe this
| was about pioneering the technique on something considered less
| valuable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_waste
| ggm wrote:
| I've noticed recently historical works being handled
| differently depending on the materials. I think there's been
| a revision in the protocols: Maybe the white cotton gloves
| are mechanically harmful sometimes? I doubt they let somebody
| do it who just fixed their bike chain, but if you wash your
| hands before touching it's possible for parchment, it's not
| that big a deal.
|
| https://library.pdx.edu/news/the-proper-handling-of-rare-
| boo...
| staplung wrote:
| Oh, interesting. Makes sense, I suppose. The article you
| linked doesn't recommend it but if you wash your hands with
| detergent (e.g. a drop or two of liquid Tide) you'll pull
| all the oil right out of your skin. No fingerprints! It
| only lasts for a few minutes however and I doubt that
| removing the oil from your skin is really doing you any
| favors, long term but maybe there's some extremely narrow
| Venn diagram intersection where you need to commit the
| perfect crime but are unwilling to carry nitrile gloves but
| are willing to carry around a bottle of laundry detergent
| and wash your hands every few minutes. ;-)
|
| Anyway, thanks for the link.
| rags2riches wrote:
| I think some of the harm of wearing gloves is in the loss
| of sense. Fingertips are very sensitive, which must be
| helpful when handling something delicate. They mention
| tearing in the link. I guess they just found you're more
| likely to accidentally tear the pages when wearing gloves.
| permo-w wrote:
| can confirm that this is the logic. odd source of
| confirmation, but nonetheless:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZDx8dmCXM&pp
| mdiesel wrote:
| In the highly educational show Cunk on Shakespeare, she's
| told not to wear gloves when looking at an early book since
| doing so tends to result in people being more heavy handed
| with the pages.
| permo-w wrote:
| yes true!
|
| link for anyone curious:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZDx8dmCXM&pp
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| It's important to note that Cunk, whilst highly
| informative in many domains, is essentially winging it
| when it comes to Shakespeare.
| colanderman wrote:
| Somewhere I read that the cotton gloves are just for show,
| because onlookers get in a tizzy if they see things being
| handled without them. Gloves limit dexterity, so it's
| apparently less damaging to use bare hands.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| there is oil on your skin and perhaps waxes.. if those stay
| on the paper after handling the paper, then those elements
| will contribute to accumulation of dirt and new kinds of
| rot
| RataNova wrote:
| I love how these layers of reuse in bookbinding turn ordinary
| archival work into a kind of historical archaeology
| sema4hacker wrote:
| I find these modern web page layouts, with peek-a-boo sections,
| independently scrolling columns, and other unnecessary fancy
| features to be frustrating to read, which is somewhat ironic
| since the story is about a difficult to read 13th century
| manuscript.
| graemep wrote:
| I suppose it is appropriate to a site with discussing medieval
| manuscripts - a lot of them prefer aesthetics to readability!
|
| A cynic might say something about it being a university website
| and appropriateness to academia. Not me of course!
| luhsprwhk wrote:
| Disappointment alert: It wasn't fireball scrolls or a recipe for
| healing potions. It's a medieval rom-com.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Hey, audiences have been hungry for that sort of lost work:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortigern_and_Rowena
| riffraff wrote:
| I interpreted the title as a manuscript _by_ Merlin rather than
| _about_ Merlin and was deeply confused for a bit.
| barotalomey wrote:
| Okay. Merlin is a medieval work of fiction. He's not a
| historical figure.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| Or so he was until we've found that manuscript of his!
| RataNova wrote:
| The fact that a 13th-century Arthurian manuscript was quietly
| hiding inside a 16th-century book cover for centuries is wild
| enough on its own, but the way they virtually unfolded it without
| causing damage feels almost as magical as the story of Merlin
| itself
| grandchild wrote:
| Once you know that _usually_ people use white cotton gloves when
| handling museum artifacts, I find it a bit distressing that the
| person halfway down the article is not wearing any while holding
| the priceless 700-year-old pages.
| Oarch wrote:
| I believe this is no longer encouraged.
| namaria wrote:
| "According to the Library of Congress, wearing gloves while
| handling antiquarian books may do more harm than good. Portland
| State University Library Special Collections follows their
| advice to handle most rare and valuable books with clean, dry
| hands."
|
| https://library.pdx.edu/news/the-proper-handling-of-rare-boo...
| "Hands in gloves lack the tactility and manual dexterity of
| bare hands. Handling a book with gloved hands could lead to
| accidentally torn pages when the gloves catch on fragile edges,
| or a dropped book if the gloves prove to be loose or slippery.
| Cotton gloves in particular have a tendency to lift fragments
| from pages, including pigments. Their fibers can catch in
| cracks that are invisible to the naked eye, further damaging
| friable pigments and inks. This also means that cotton
| gloves retain a lot of dirt, making them not so clean after
| all! In this same vein, gloves cause the hands to sweat, and
| this moisture can penetrate the gloves to wind up on the books.
| Ew!"
|
| https://blog.library.si.edu/blog/2019/11/21/no-love-for-whit...
| jrimbault wrote:
| From what I understand the gloves are only used on case-by-case
| basis. For some items they are more damaging than the oils from
| our (washed and dried) hands.
| AdamN wrote:
| Apparently archivists had a realization that clean and dry
| hands are the most precise for handling delicate objects and
| that actually mistakes are made with any sort of glove. It's
| only dealers using white gloves at this point to give a sense
| of mystique to what they're selling and to give the buyer the
| sense that only the owner can really touch the object.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| To clarify, the use of gloves depends a lot on the item.
| Books are made to be handled by people and are usually
| resilient to contact with clean human hands. However there
| are other museum pieces that are far more sensitive to oil
| which still merit the use of gloves. For example, here is a
| video [0] of Adam Savage discussing a piece from the Met
| Museum which is handled using gloves because they want to
| preserve it.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/u_-oUvv28dE
| DC-3 wrote:
| Yeah bro I'm sure you know more about handling precious
| manuscripts than a Cambridge University archivist.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I feel like you should give the presumption of confidence to
| the archivist at one of the most prestigious universities in
| the world.
| mellosouls wrote:
| A really nicely presented exposition of the benefits of an
| institutions intra-departmental work.
|
| Here's the manuscript itself for page-by-page viewing:
|
| https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-VANNECK-BOX-00005-A-FOLIO...
| zombot wrote:
| Too bad all the photos in the article are all so small. I would
| have enjoyed them in larger size.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Friend, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page they
| include a link to Cambridge Digital Library which allows you to
| look at the full resolution images:
|
| > The digital results of the project are now available for
| everyone to explore online via the > Cambridge Digital Library.
| [0]
|
| [0] https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/merlinfragment/1
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Was this 'unfolding' similar to how the burned library at Pompeii
| had some ashen scrolls revealed?
| clauderoux wrote:
| "La suite vulgate du Merlin" might translate as: "the vulgate
| follow up of THE Merlin", which I find quite curious. Modern
| French would rather say: "DE Merlin". It was as if Merlin was not
| a proper name but the name of some creature of the Merlin
| species, or some kind of properties.
| layer8 wrote:
| It could be short for "du conte de Merlin".
| dartos wrote:
| The page refreshes when I scroll 80% down....
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