16-07-2020, 08:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 16-07-2020, 08:51 PM by LisaFaginDavis.)
There are several ways medieval manuscripts might be produced.
The most common, and logical, way is to create the quire by nesting the bifolia, stitching them together in the gutter, and then writing the leaves in sequence: 1r, 1v, 2r, 2v, 3r, 3v....7r, 7v, 8r, 8v (for a quire of four bifolia = eight leaves = sixteen pages). Then you stack your quires in a binding frame and sew them together along vertical cords.
The mixing of scribal bifolia in the VMS (especially in the first 7 quires) is very, very odd, and suggests, as many have noted, that the bifolia are no longer in their original order. The foliation in the manuscript could have been added anytime from 150-200 years later than the manuscript and reflects the current order. The missing folio numbers almost certainly indicate leaves that went missing after the foliation was added.
It also seems clear that the signatures were added AFTER the leaves were mis-ordered. (another topic entirely, but i suspect that whatever disaster caused the damp-stains in the upper outer corner of the first few quires was the reason for the first rebinding, which was probably when the bifolia were mis-ordered and the signatures added)
All of this means that it is LIKELY that the text reads from recto of one leaf to its verso, but not necessarily from one verso to the next recto.
The situation on bifolium 57/66 is particularly odd. The botanicals on the outside of the bifolium (57r/66v) are written by my scribe 5, while the inside (57v/66r) is partly by scribe 1 (57v) and partly by scribe 5 (66r). Similar situation for the Rose, where scribe 2 writes on one side and scribe 4 the other. Usually when there is a change of scribe in a medieval manuscript, it happens in the middle of a page (as on 115r) or at the start of a new quire (as in quire 13). Contrary to the usual practice, then, this suggests a different mode of collaboration, in which a bifolium might be written first, before being stitched into a quire - one scribe writes one side, then (after it dries!) hands it over to someone else to write the other side. For the Rose, this seems sensible. For 57/66, this could suggest that 57r and 66v (both botanicals by scribe 5) are textually related (and that the bifolium may have been inverted - but if so, it would have to have been inverted before the signature on 66v was added), with the bifolium 58/65 (by scribe 3) misbound along with whatever was on the missing three bifolia (ff. 59-64).
But until we can determine the original sequence of leaves and bifolia and quires, all of this is conjecture!
The most common, and logical, way is to create the quire by nesting the bifolia, stitching them together in the gutter, and then writing the leaves in sequence: 1r, 1v, 2r, 2v, 3r, 3v....7r, 7v, 8r, 8v (for a quire of four bifolia = eight leaves = sixteen pages). Then you stack your quires in a binding frame and sew them together along vertical cords.
The mixing of scribal bifolia in the VMS (especially in the first 7 quires) is very, very odd, and suggests, as many have noted, that the bifolia are no longer in their original order. The foliation in the manuscript could have been added anytime from 150-200 years later than the manuscript and reflects the current order. The missing folio numbers almost certainly indicate leaves that went missing after the foliation was added.
It also seems clear that the signatures were added AFTER the leaves were mis-ordered. (another topic entirely, but i suspect that whatever disaster caused the damp-stains in the upper outer corner of the first few quires was the reason for the first rebinding, which was probably when the bifolia were mis-ordered and the signatures added)
All of this means that it is LIKELY that the text reads from recto of one leaf to its verso, but not necessarily from one verso to the next recto.
The situation on bifolium 57/66 is particularly odd. The botanicals on the outside of the bifolium (57r/66v) are written by my scribe 5, while the inside (57v/66r) is partly by scribe 1 (57v) and partly by scribe 5 (66r). Similar situation for the Rose, where scribe 2 writes on one side and scribe 4 the other. Usually when there is a change of scribe in a medieval manuscript, it happens in the middle of a page (as on 115r) or at the start of a new quire (as in quire 13). Contrary to the usual practice, then, this suggests a different mode of collaboration, in which a bifolium might be written first, before being stitched into a quire - one scribe writes one side, then (after it dries!) hands it over to someone else to write the other side. For the Rose, this seems sensible. For 57/66, this could suggest that 57r and 66v (both botanicals by scribe 5) are textually related (and that the bifolium may have been inverted - but if so, it would have to have been inverted before the signature on 66v was added), with the bifolium 58/65 (by scribe 3) misbound along with whatever was on the missing three bifolia (ff. 59-64).
But until we can determine the original sequence of leaves and bifolia and quires, all of this is conjecture!
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