medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Without disagreeing with others on the list about the evils of or condoning the practice of breaking up mss. and printed books, I wonder what is better when speaking of a stray leaf in a book store: purchase by a scholar who might make beneficial use of an exemplar for research or teaching, or purchase by an interior decorator who needs something to class up his/her client's living room?  I'm afraid that that is often the alternative, particularly with colored engravings or particularly decorative leaves.

There's really only one solution once a book has been broken: for individuals or institutions to buy up as much of dismembered text as possible, in hopes of maintaining it in as intact a condition as possible.  But few of us are disinterested or wealthy enough to do that.  So none of the alternatives is really good, when you come right down to it.  And at least if a scholar is purchasing it, it will be well-cared for and perhaps donated to an institution in time.  One hopes.
Anna Graham
Michigan State University

> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Lobbying the dealers' professional association might be useful, but
> not buying is the most effective measure.
> BTW There also was a practice of putting together paleographic
> collections of pages for teaching. Rutgers has one assembled by Otto
> Ege.
>
>

> Paleography study collection , [before 844]-1571 (bulk [12--]-1510).

> 20 items.
> Special Collections/University Archives MSS MC 886
> See Barbara Shailor's article in the Journal of the Rutgers
> University Libraries 60 (2003).
>
> So we academics & academic librarians are not innocent in this case.
> Not every leaf in such a collection was extracted from a binding.
>
> Tom Izbicki

> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: "Revd Gordon Plumb" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Monday, November 25, 2013 4:00:50 AM
> Subject: Re: [M-R] Dismembering of a Book of Hours
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> This is, of course, nothing new . BL 29704-5, fragments from a
> Carmelite Missal re-arranged by Margaret Rickert into the order they
> would have had in the original Carmelite Missal contain in one of the
> volume of cuttings the pencilled note "bought at Mr Hanrott's sale
> who had cut out and arranged the initials himself."
> And I have read of other accounts of nineteenth-century people
> spending an evening cutting up books of hours. It is extremely
> regrettable - but is it more so than the practice of some booksellers
> to buy a defective incunabulum in order to break it up into
> individual pages for resale. I have seen this too many times at book
> fairs to be surprised by it - though I am deeply offended by all such
> practices. But the people who buy these objects do not see them as
> cultural treasures - merely as a source of profit. And, sadly, I do
> not think that any amount of huffing and puffing by the academic
> world will bother them one iota - and if we think we can get the
> practice outlawed then I fear we are living in cloud cuckoo land!
> Gordon Plumb
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Anna Kirkwood Graham, J.D., Ph.D.
Romance and Classical Languages
B480 Wells Hall
Michigan State University

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