Gabriele Passabì

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

This breaks my heart.

oh, of course, cheers to all the Francises and Franceses! #history #medievalsky #Manuscripts

To conclude, albeit not with a MS, no one captured Francis’ life more vividly than Giotto. His fresco cycle in the Basilica of Assisi doesn’t just illustrate the life of the saint, it helped shape how generations imagined the "God's jester". A life and and legacy now set in colour and stone.

The manuscript is now divided between the Vatican Library, the Morgan Library (NY), the Hermitage (St. Petersburg), and the Bancroft Library at Berkeley. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/466277

As devotion to Francis grew, so did his impact on art.This stunning leaf comes from a mid-14th c. manuscript of the Golden Legend, a royal commission for Charles II of Hungary and Queen Elizabeth made in Bologna. One wonders if the saint of poverty ever imagined his story told on golden parchment.

Francis’ radical poverty influenced reformers centuries later. John Wycliffe, for example, engaged deeply with Franciscan texts. The manuscript CCCC MS 296, once believed to be the work of Wycliffe himslef, includes the rule and testament of Francis, though framed within a critique of the friars.

Codex 338 also preserves Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, the first surviving work in a dialect (Umbrian) beginning to resemble modern Italian, which makes it one of the oldest poems in Italian literature. The Canticle also stands as the foundation of Francis’s vision of creation and "ecology".

Francis’ own hand does not survive unfortunately, but the earliest manuscripts do preserve his words. Chief among them is the Assisi Codex 338, which contains the earliest Franciscan writings, including the Rule of the Friars Minor, Francis's testament and his letters.

Fol. 250r

Fol. 132v

Fol. 120r

Thus began Franciscanism, if not the formal order, at least its lived experience of Christianity. Because of this contact, Franciscans worldwide see the Missal as a relic. Pilgrims travel to Baltimore each year to view the three passages Francis is believed to have opened. You can see them below.

One of the most famous manuscripts connected to Francis is the St Francis Missal (Baltimore, Walters Ms. W.75). Tradition holds that Francis randomly opened this book in 1208 in Assisi looking for an answer as to what was God’s plan for him. Three times, the text urged him to renounce the world.

Today is the feast of St Francis, one of the most celebrated figures of the Christian tradition and a turning point in the medieval West. A radical and poet, a mystic yet deeply engaged with his society, now patron saint of Italy and of ecology. Here’s a look at some of the MSS associated with him.

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians.

Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd

Please let us know if there are gaps.
#Skystorians 1/2

"If anything made her a little intimidating in later life, it was her absolute, uncompromising refusal to pretend to be anything she was not, or to like anything that she did not, for the sake of pleasing others. She was entirely unapologetic about being herself and about what mattered to her".

Hwæt! 🐉

Ever wondered what the epic poem Beowulf sounds like spoken in Old English?

#NationalPoetryDay

That is not nice, no.

Thank you very much!

A thousand years on, the Abbey of Cava still stands as a monument to the written word in medieval southern Italy. Here’s to a millennium of history - and to the centuries still to come. 🥂 #Cava1000 #medievalsky #history

A finel decorated book of hours in

Later in the 15th–16th c., pilgrims brought back new treasures for the library, such as decorared volumes (like the stunning Cod. 45, a late 15 c. Book of Hours) and the first printed books. Today, the Abbey’s collection boasts 124 early print editions, including a rare copy of Petrarch’s Trionfi.

A gem from the Cava scriptorium is De septem sigillis by monk Benedetto of Bari (Cod. 18, 13 c.). Benedetto of Bari drew himself with two heads, one young & another old, handing his book to Abbot Balsamo of Cava. Nothing says “I worked on this my whole life” like literally showing your whole life.

One of the most famous manuscripts preserved at Cava library is Cod. 4 (11 c.). It contains the Codex Legum Longobardorum, the earliest and best preserved collection of Lombard laws. It also comes with astonishing illustrations proving that legal texts were not always just dense walls of words.

Where there’s power, there’s money - and where there’s money, in a monastery usually there are books. The Abbey of Cava preserves the largest medieval archive and one of the most important monastic libraries in southern Italy, which today looks like this:

The Abbey of Cava began with Alferius, a courtier-turned-hermit in a deep gorge of Mount Finestra near Salerno. By 1025, Prince Guaimar III made it official and issued the foundation charter. Since then the abbey rose fast as a major monastic hub in the region. Below: King Roger’s confirmation.

This year marks 1000 years since the foundation of the Abbey of Cava dei Tirreni (1025)! Holy Trinity at Cava was one of southern Italy’s most important Benedictine abbeys in the 11th–12th centuries and home of one of the largest libraries in the region. A millennium history deserves some 🎉

Very true!

My book is now £14.99 with this discount! Cheaper than a cheeky Nandos!

Here we Goooo! I haven’t been able to post about this until we went live, so today I’m posting highlights from the Les Enluminures Text Manuscripts Fall Update! This is our annual Big September Issue.

The Emperor and the Elephant: Christians and Muslims in the Age of Charlemagne by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Now in #paperback, The Emperor and the Elephant by @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social is a new history of Christian-Muslim relations in the #Carolingian period that provides a fresh account of events by drawing on Arabic as well as western sources.

Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Marc Bloch will be admitted to the Pantheon in Paris! The date for the "Panthéonisation" is set for 16 June 2026. Meanwhile, @sorbonneparis1.bsky.social has launched a website to keep track of the many conferences to celebrate the event. Some of them start this month.

marcbloch.pantheonsorbonne.fr

Thank you very much, Fanny! I look forward to discussing it with you!

Thank you very much, Fanny! I look forward to discussing it with you.