More better palaeography

Clash of the Titans!

The King’s College debate has produced (at least on the facebook group) many comments that reflect how people view palaeography as a textual discipline, where they think it is going and what practitioners might do to ensure its continuation. As the debate about the King’s cuts takes on a life within the broader picture of UK academics (such as in this letter, s.v. Universities, as well as this and that) and has hatched speculation that the move is a cover, I will leave that discussion to those who know something about UK higher ed, while turning to other matters related to the comments on palaeography.

Not too long ago, Albert Derolez tackled the notion of palaeography as an art, Continue Reading

A letter to the principal

I’m throwing the following up here, not because I think its the best, only, most excellent example of the form, but because I’ve been advocating letters to some in person. I could have circulated it via a palaeography-oriented list or site and had it there. However, on the electronic list to which I belong the letters circulated have primarily been from those in pretty established positions, people with inside clout. And seeing those can have the effect, not just for me but for other people that I’ve spoken with, of leading more junior people with the impression that it’s not their place, that the grown ups will take care of it, or that letters from the kid’s table won’t have any affect. Continue Reading

A Correction…

And, erm, then

…to my King’s Gets Press comments. I’ve been informed that Miles Templeman was more likely not a second choice, but a choice that was made on second thought (as my friend so nicely put it). That is the original Today programme likely had two palaeography supporters and at some point it was decided that a contrary point-of-view was necessary to produce something, as the line goes, fair and balanced. Consequently, Templeman was brought in. Whether based on an internal BBC debate or by the insistence of outside interests, I’ve no idea how all that works there. Continue Reading

King’s Palaeography Gets Press

friend from the U.K. alerted me to two examples of press coverage of the King’s decision.

The first runs 5:42 and is from the BBC’s Radio 4 programme Today. The palaeography chair is defended by Irving Finkel, an assistant keeper at the British Museum’s Department of The Ancient Near East. The elimination is supported by Miles Templeman, Director General of the Institute of Directors.

Before I get too sarky about what the heck “a marketing specialist” (whose credits include the “growth of such brands as Boddingtons and Stella Artois” as well as serving as a non-executive director for a “buy-out specialist”) has to do with palaeography, the humanities or anything related to higher education, I’m going to assume that the first-choice for this spot had another appointment. The programme’s textual lead does suggest that a professor of Roman history was to be present.

The second, “Writing off the UK’s last palaeographer”, is from The Guardian and features Irving Finkel again, as well as a quote from Jeffrey Hamburger.

On Apilist, the APICES mailing list, some important mails suggested Continue Reading

Prefacing the coming of the book

I smile when I think of the following being written in the 50’s (okay, the English appeared in 1976, but I don’t have the original, so imagine it in French as published in 1958):

As usual there is an important preliminary problem: how to arrange the book and where to set limits to the subject. We will not use those quite puerile subdivisions based on the artificial distinctions of dates, the kind of thing that is fed to schoolchildren to keep them happy: ‘On what day, month, and year did the Middle Ages end?’ (We would translate such a question thus: ‘What date, in the mind of its inventors, marked the birth and the death of that intellectual abstraction, with no claim to existence other than pedagogic convenience?’)

I <3 L.F.

More King’s and Palaeography

A number of letters protesting the decision by King’s College London have been made available by the Comité international de paléographie latine. Medieval news has further details as well as some comments from David Ganz in an earlier piece.

The once ‘strictly private and confidential’ consultation document was made public on 27 January 2010, and is chilling to read. [Edit 26. 2. 2010: The document is no longer available from the previous url and the navigation instructions on the Arts and Humanities Consultation seem to direct readers to a staff only area; try a copy here]

The cold language for palaeography supporters:
3. Paleography would cease as a distinct activity. At risk: 1 post by 31 August 2010.

Killing Palaeography

Towards the end of last week on some electronic mailing lists and more publicly on Mary Beard’s blog, A Don’s Life, the intention of King’s College London to eliminate palaeography and the only chair in the UK in the subject was reported. The news apparently had been circulating among some circles primarily in the UK for a week or so previous.

There is a facebook group that has over 1,700 members (and counting) as well as letters that have been posted to the principle such as that from Jeffrey Hamburger. The Medieval Academy of America has also sent a response.

are we there yet?

are we there yet?

This elimination, which would cease funding of the present position at the end of the summer, thereby rather suddenly pushing out the present holder, the very awesome David Ganz, is part of a larger sweep whereby all academic staff in the School of Arts and Humanities at King’s have to re-apply for their own jobs before the 1st of March, after which King’s will cut 22 positions in the humanities. Details on a similar cut in philosophy/computational linguistics can be found here with links to more general information. Continue Reading

Medieval Mediality

Via Jonas Wellendorf, a workshop on the media in which Old Norse literature was transmitted. The workshop is sub-project within the Swiss National Fund project ‘Mediality: Historical Perspectives’. Looks like a nice model for developing transhistorical discussions and frameworks. Some of our fascination with present media transformations often seems to assume the printed world as the default textual experience, rather than considering it the product and development of a specific space and time, and fails to recognize all of the different institutional frameworks and cultural practices (in different places and times) in the age of print itself. The print to electronic media transition dominates most debate, but recognizing the long (indeed longer [even if one periodizes strictly]) runs of oral media and the manuscript offer a rejoinder to our perspective.


And of course being a bit more in the thick of modern media studies can save medievalists from making the too facile equation between medieval literary media and the electronic age or manuscript as hypertext.

Bergen Fragment Workshop

Friday wrapped up a three day palaeography workshop with representatives covering many of the principle Nordic archives. Spearheaded by CMS’s Åslaug Ommundsen with Tuomas Heikkilä and Jan Brunius, papers dealt with specific details for tracing the origins and provenances of material in Nordic archives, and also gave participants insight into the state of research in various collections. It’s hard to overstate the effect that all of these ongoing efforts are having on changing our impression of the Middle Ages in the far northern reaches of Europe. And following the workshops gives an bird’s eye view of the slow amassing of evidence and how it evolves to establish a convincing perspective of the past.

More details and much of the workshop material can be found here.