̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies

A scriptorium of commonplace books

bjb42 — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

‘Scriptorium’ is the culmination of a three-year project in the Faculty of English to digitise and preserve a type of manuscript book well known in 15th- to 18th-century Europe: the commonplace book or manuscript miscellany. And at the heart of the project, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), lies an innovative tool that will help you to read them.

A literary phenomenon

Commonplace books were the personal organisers of their day. Learned men (and, more rarely, women) would compile books containing recipes, accounts, sonnets, quotes, prayers, songs, legal treatises and medical instructions. Sometimes passed from one owner to another and continued over decades, if not centuries, commonplace books would be filled with snippets of contemporary information and culture. ̽��ֱ��keeping of such books was regular practice in the period, enabling their owners to record and remember what they had read, been told or overheard. Each is a unique collection of knowledge: an intellectual scrapbook, the filofax of its time.

A total of 20 commonplace books and miscellanies forms the backbone of the Scriptorium project. These books have been sourced from Cambridge college libraries and the ̽��ֱ�� Library, as well as from archives in country houses like Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Some have a known provenance, such as a 17th-century book of estate management written by William Heveningham, part of which was written during his 18-year incarceration in Windsor Castle for his role in Charles I’s execution. ̽��ֱ��Glastonbury miscellany (c. 1450), a 114-page collection of literary texts in Latin and English, started life as a Glastonbury monk’s accounts book and, after successive interventions by five more scribes, was still being added to a century later.

Daleks aid digitisation

Over the course of three years, the project team, led by Drs Richard Beadle, Raphael Lyne, Andrew Zurcher and Colin Burrow, adapted and developed painstaking techniques to minimise the risk of damage to texts during photography. ‘Daleks’, made from an aluminium bolt and two sewing needles, provided one means of safely applying adjustable levels of pressure on manuscript leaves, to lay them flat for photography. Project researchers, including Drs Christopher Burlinson, Angus Vine and Sebastiaan Verweij, also pioneered new descriptive methods and representational strategies for publishing rare manuscript materials online, including full and searchable analyses of each manuscript, and transcriptions of key selections.

Working in collaboration with the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET), and IT developer Mariko Brittain, the team also developed an expansible, automated manuscript image database that will continue to function and grow beyond the life of the funded project. And with conservation in mind, high-resolution manuscript images have been securely dark-archived in DSpace@Cambridge, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s digital repository.

Help with handwriting

̽��ֱ��art of deciphering old handwriting, known as palaeography, is a difficult decoding process that can be complicated by factors such as the scribe’s style, evolving letter-forms and unusual punctuation. Help in cracking this code is now available from the Scriptorium project’s fully interactive online English Handwriting course. ̽��ֱ��course makes full use of the wide range of hands, styles and idiosyncratic habits represented by the Scriptorium project manuscripts, which were chosen with an eye to their palaeographical range and complexity. This and other resources within the Scriptorium project are dovetailing with teaching and research in the Faculty of English, opening up the literature, history, theology and philosophy of earlier periods to a new generation of students and scholars in Cambridge and across the world.

For more information, please contact Dr Richard Beadle (rb243@cam.ac.uk), Dr Raphael Lyne (rtrl100@cam.ac.uk) and Dr Andrew Zurcher (aez20@hermes.cam.ac.uk) at the Faculty of English or visit Scriptorium (http://scriptorium.english.cam.ac.uk/).

A digital archive of 500-year-old 'filofaxes' offers extraordinary insight into early thought and writing practices.

̽��ֱ��keeping of such books was regular practice in the period, enabling their owners to record and remember what they had read, been told or overheard. 

By permission of the Syndics of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

15th-century manuscript

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Bringing together the Book of Kings

ns480 — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:43:03 +0000

Almost 1000 years ago, the Persian poet Firdausi created an epic poem of such unparalleled sweep and power that, after his death in 1020, it continued to live on as a seminal expression of Iranian art, literature and history. ̽��ֱ��Shahnama (Book of Kings) is the longest poem ever written by a single author and narrates the history of Iran from the first King until the Arab invasions in the early 7th century AD.

̽��ֱ��story goes that the sum of money Firdausi was paid by the Sultan for his work of 35 years was so pitiful that he gave it to an attendant at the baths and left the country. Little did he know that, for the next 800 years, his epic tale would be fêted by successive Persian rulers and aristocracy, whose scribes would fashion precious copies and illustrate them using the finest materials – lapis lazuli, gold, ultramarine. Many of these manuscripts survived, became scattered throughout the world and have now been brought together in an online environment by the Shahnama Project at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Dr Charles Melville, from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, was awarded a five-year grant from the AHRB in 1999 to photograph, catalogue and produce an electronic corpus of the thousands of paintings in the versions of the Shahnama still existing worldwide. A second stage commenced in 2006, with the award of a three-year grant from the AHRC’s Resource Enhancement Scheme to Dr Melville and John Norman of the Cambridge Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies (CARET) to develop the Shahnama Project website.

Thanks to the technological expertise and digital know-how provided by CARET, international researchers are able to use this uniquely interactive online resource to gather together a global record of extant Shahnama manuscripts. Visitors are already building their own workspaces for teaching and research, and will be able to use the site to engage in research dialogue with other users. With the addition of a sophisticated behind-the-scenes approvals process, the website will ultimately even allow visitors to correct the database directly. ‘Although it has been vitally important to collate and preserve these images digitally, the result is much more than a catalogue,’ said John Norman, Director of CARET. ‘It is a new type of research tool.’

One of the many fascinating aspects of the research is tracing the ‘transmission history’ of the texts and their illustrations. ̽��ֱ��oldest surviving copy of the poem dates from 200 years after Firdausi’s death. ‘Thereafter, seeing sections of the manuscripts side by side and comparing them over time, one can explore the context in which they were made and why they were commissioned,’ said Dr Melville.

By the end of the project, it is hoped that the corpus will include 10,000 images, representing about 70% of the surviving manuscripts. ‘My main aim was to stimulate and promote research in Persian history and culture. With this funding, we have had a fantastic opportunity to encapsulate a key element of this and to make it accessible for all to use,’ said Dr Melville.

For more information, please contact Dr Charles Melville (cpm1000@cam.ac.uk) or John Norman (john@caret.cam.ac.uk).

̽��ֱ��Shahnama Project is building a powerful online resource that will stimulate research and interest in Persian cultural history.

Thereafter, seeing sections of the manuscripts side by side and comparing them over time, one can explore the context in which they were made and why they were commissioned.

Dr Charles Melville

Syndics of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

A version of Shahnama: a battle between Iran and Turan

Arts and Humanities Research Council

̽��ֱ��Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) supports research within a wide subject domain, from traditional subjects such as history, modern languages and English literature, through to the creative and performing arts.
Established in April 2005 from the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), the AHRC has an annual budget of around £90 million to fund research and postgraduate study, as well as museums and galleries associated with higher education establishments. In 2006–2007, the value of awarded grants to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge was £4 million.

̽��ֱ��AHRC recognises not only the importance of sustaining the arts and humanities research base, but also of ensuring that the knowledge and understanding it generates is widely disseminated. ̽��ֱ��two Cambridge projects highlighted here – the Shahnama Project and Accessing Virtual Egypt – address this strategic priority in different ways. Indeed, the Council has established itself as a leading authority on research-based knowledge transfer (KT), with several new initiatives (including the KT Fellowship) launched specifically for the AHRC research community. Because the AHRC’s definition of KT is broad and flexible in implementation, its impact has extended to key societal and economic challenges.

Several new strategic initiatives have been planned for 2007–2008. In 2007, the AHRC launched a joint £5m programme on Religion and Society with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and a £5.5 million programme entitled Beyond Text: Performances, Sounds, Images, Objects. In 2008, work will begin with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on a Science and Heritage programme.

Alongside research grant activities, strategic programmes and KT, the AHRC is keen to highlight another priority: the support of postgraduate and early career researchers to protect the long-term sustainability and health of the UK’s arts and humanities research. A recent survey showed that 74% of AHRC award holders go on to pursue academic and research careers, with the majority of others pursuing careers in creative and cultural sectors, non-profit organisations and public services.

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