An interdisciplinary conference co-organised by Thijs Porck of Leiden University and Monika Opalińska of the University of Warsaw was held on 4 and 5 September at the Regionaal Archief, Alkmaar (The Regional Archive in Alkmaar). This gathering brought together scholars with expertise in a variety of disciplines (such as paleography, linguistics, philology, book history, book binding, chemistry and physics) primarily to consider the import of recently discovered (in Elbląg, Poland and Alkmaar, The Netherlands) manuscript fragments which, as solid evidence directs,[1] were once part of a single eleventh-century Old English glossed psalter that is traditionally known as the N-Psalter.[2] The event was fresh and memorable for a number of reasons which I will turn to now.
First, for the first time in just over four hundred years fragments from the N-Psalter currently housed in separate archives – the Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem (The North-Holland Archive in Haarlem) and the Regionaal Archief, Alkmaar – could be viewed in the same place. This privilege was made possible by the collaboration of the staffs of both archives namely Paul Post and Lisette Blokker from the Regionaal Archief, Alkmaar and Hannah Goedbloed and Julia Owczarska from the the Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem. To see why this was an exceptional experience some context is needed. For a thorough and detailed explanation of the discovery-trajectory of the various N-Psalter fragments as well as an edition of the ones newly found in Elbląg and Alkmaar see Monika Opalińska, Paulina Pludra-Żuk and Ewa Chlebus and Thijs Porck respectively. But in brief, around the year 1600 in Leiden an eleventh-century Old English glossed psalter manuscript (the N-Psalter) produced in England was cut up and used by a professional book binder as supports for the spines of various volumes. In the latter half of the twentieth century, fragments from this manuscript were found (in the Pembroke College Library in Cambridge, the Haarlem Stadsbibliotheek and the Schlossmuseum of Sondershausen) already detached from their respective host volumes. Then, in 2020, two fragments from this psalter were discovered in Elbląg (in the C. Norwid Library) still in situ of their host volume – Caspar Waser, Grammaticae Hebraeae (Grammar of Hebrew), Basil, 1600. Shortly after this, in 2022, the twenty-one Alkmaar fragments were discovered (in the Regional Archive) also in situ of an undated four-volume edition of a Thesaurus Graecae linguae (Thesaurus of the Greek language) by Henri Estienne. Excitingly, one of these Alkmaar fragments proved, after a reconstruction, to be from the same bifolium as the Haarlem fragment.[3] Also, in 2023, a further six N-Psalter fragments were found in Elbląg in another book which, like the Grammaticae Hebraeae, once belonged to Samuel Meienreis – a scholar and theologian from Elbląg (then part of Prussia) who studied theology in Leiden around 1600.[4] It was, therefore, a unique event to view pieces of the same manuscript not seen together in just under half a millennium. There are ongoing plans (a collaboration between Thijs and Monika) for a digital reconstruction of the N-Psalter which will bring together all its known fragments.[5] This is, of course, also exciting!
Conference participants examining both the Alkmaar and Haarlem N-Psalter fragments which were ‘reunited’ for the first time in c. 400 years.
Second, the conference provided an opportunity to hear from various specialists about the broader implications of these recently discovered fragments. This ranged from a contextualization of the environment in which early medieval glossed/bilingual psalters, such as the N-Psalter, were created to the history of book buying and book binding in Leiden to a description of the non-invasive chemical and physical methods used to analyse the Elbląg fragments to an analysis of textual affinities in the psalms from medieval English Books of Hours that utilised word-level n-grams. For example, Jane Toswell highlighted the pronounced value placed on psalters in early medieval England which led to the creation of the N-Psalter and its counterparts that contain the psalms in both Latin and Old English. For anyone who would like to know more about the wider circumstances which led to the existence of these dual psalters, her book, The Anglo-Saxon Psalter,[6] is essential reading. Paulina Pludra-Żuk and Ewa Chlebus offered an explanation of how the Elbląg fragments got from Leiden to Poland – namely via the book collection of Samuel Meienreis. Paul Hoftijzer contextualised how Leiden was a renowned centre for book binding and book auctions in the seventeenth century. Oliver Bock outlined an interesting possibility (originally posited by Helmut Gneuss) that the N-Psalter may possibly have belonged to Gunhild (sister of Harold Godwinson, the last King of England before the Norman conquest) who fled to Flanders after 1066 and, in 1087, donated her Latin Psalter with Old English glosses to the church of St Donatus in Bruges shortly before she died.[7] Herre de Vries explained some of the more technical aspects used by the book binder of the Alkmaar fragments’ host volume – especially the use of a particular stitching technique known as the ‘herringbone’ stitch which is more work than other techniques but, as a result, a stronger stitch. Barbara Wagner (a chemist) and Piotr Targowski (a physicist) described the mechanics of MXRF (Macro X-Ray Fluorescence) Scanning and OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) which they used on the Elbląg fragments. Thijs Porck and Iris Kuijk outlined their findings from using an endoscopic camera inside the spines of some volumes bound in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Magdalena Charzyńska-Wójcik delineated the utility of word-level n-grams (harnessing cosine values) to generate more robust and comprehensive data on textual traditions evident in Medieval English Books of Hours. William Duba gave an overview of the development and functionality of the Fragmentarium Digital Laboratory. This platform (based in Switzerland) has been developed to enable scholars and students from around the world to work on manuscript fragments. William noted that there has been exponential growth in documents published on Fragmentarium between September 2017 and September 2023. The conference drew to a close with a dynamic round table discussion that centred around the preservation, conservation and cataloguing of medieval fragments. There was also a wonderful opportunity, under the guidance of Lisette Blokker, to examine some of the medieval fragments in situ of their host volumes in the Regionaal Archief, Alkmaar’s collection. For another excellent and detailed synopsis of the conference, which includes photographs of (among other things) the Elbląg fragments’ MXRF results see Monika’s blogpost here.
Third, given that it was evidently a common practice for professional book binders in seventeenth century Leiden to use strips of parchment cut from medieval manuscripts (no longer in use) to reinforce the spines of volumes bound in their respective workshops, it is highly likely that more fragments such as those in Elbląg and Alkmaar may still come to light. So, ideally, the conference in Alkmaar may be a precursor for other interdisciplinary conferences to come in the burgeoning field of Fragmentology.
Lastly, there are some final observations to make. In terms of the Old English corpus more broadly, with all the extant N-Psalter fragments included ‘complete or partial Old English glosses of a little under nine hundred Latin words have surfaced’.[8] This certainly deepens our knowledge of Old English vocabulary. Moreover, in terms of Old English glossed/bilingual psalter study more specifically, as Thijs has also shown, there are Old English readings of the Latin Psalms in the Alkmaar fragments that are not shared by the other dual (Latin and Old English) psalters from the period.[9] My own project, ‘Landscape, Place, Space and the Mind in the Old English Psalms: A Study Centred on the Paris Psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds latin MS 8824)’, draws on the concept of the psalterati[10] (men and women required to internalise all 150 psalm texts) to extrapolate how the psalms in both Latin and Old English shaped how these people conceptualised their environment. Furthermore, the psalms were valorised not only throughout the Middle Ages[11] but also beyond. John Milton, for example, translated Psalms 1-8 and 80-88 into English verse[12] and the title of Oscar Wilde’s posthumously published letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, De Profundis, is from the opening of Latin Psalm 129[13] (in both the Romanum (Roman) and Gallicanum (Gallican) version of that text).
These recent discoveries, then, broaden our knowledge of the linguistic context in which the psalms became embedded in the minds of the psalterati. So, I am most grateful to the organisers, Monika and Thijs, as well as the other speakers for the opportunity to hear a range of expertise about such an important discovery for not only the field of Fragmentology but psalter study – especially the Old English and Latin psalms.
[1] See, Monika Opalińska, Paulina Pludra-Zuk and Ewa Chlebus, ‘The Eleventh-Century “N” Psalter from England: New Pieces of the Puzzle’, The Review of English Studies, 74:314 (2022), 203-21 and Thijs Porck, ‘Newly Discovered Pieces of an Old English Glossed Psalter: The Alkmaar Fragments of the N-Psalter’, ASE, 49 (2024), 1-66.
[2] Customarily the fifteen extant early medieval Old English glossed/bilingual psalters are referred to by sigla (A-N and P). See Mechthild Gretsch, The Intellectual Foundations of the English Benedictine Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 18-21 and M. J. Toswell, The Anglo-Saxon Psalter (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 219-82.
[3] See Porck, ‘Newly Discovered Pieces of an Old English Glossed Psalter: The Alkmaar Fragments of the N-Psalter’, p. 17.
[4] Note that Monika Opalińska has a forthcoming article about Meienreis and the provenance of the N-Psalter fragments. See M Opalińska, ‘Samuel Meienreis and his books from Leiden: tracing the provenance of the N-Psalter fragments’, Annals of Art, 72:6 (2024), special issue PSALMICA.
[5] See Porck, ‘Newly Discovered Pieces of an Old English Glossed Psalter: The Alkmaar Fragments of the N-Psalter’, p. 33, note 97.
[6] See note 2.
[7] See also, Porck, ‘Newly Discovered Pieces of an Old English Glossed Psalter: The Alkmaar Fragments of the N-Psalter’, pp. 31-2 and Opalinska et al, ‘The Eleventh-Century “N” Psalter from England: New Pieces of the Puzzle’, pp. 206 and 216-7.
[8] Porck, ‘Newly Discovered Pieces of an Old English Glossed Psalter: The Alkmaar Fragments of the N-Psalter’, p. 13.
[9] ‘Appendix B’ in Ibid., pp. 59-63.
[10] For an explanation of this concept, see M. J. Toswell, The Anglo-Saxon Psalter, pp. 4-10.
[11] See Toswell, The Anglo-Saxon Psalter, Chapter 7, pp. 365-402 and ‘Structures of Sorrow’ in Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature ed. by Jane Tolmie and M. J. Toswell (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 21-44.
[12] See Ibid, p. 44 where Toswell refers to Milton’s original translation of the psalms and Edward Chauncey Baldwin, ‘Milton and the Psalms’, Modern Philology, 17 (1919), 457-463, p. 457.
[13] Britannica Academic, s.v. "De Profundis," accessed September 24, 2024, https://academic-eb-com.elib.tcd.ie/levels/collegiate/article/De-Profundis/484488.