Alfred and Isabel Reed Medieval Manuscripts Online

Leaf from a French Book of Hours,
fifteenth century (RMMF19)

It gives me great pleasure to announce that images and descriptions of the Dunedin City Library's holdings of medieval manuscripts from the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection are now available on Flickr:

Profile

http://www.flickr.com/people/dplmedmss/

Collections (7)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dplmedmss/collections/

Sets (71)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dplmedmss/sets

 

The images include a selection from each bound manuscript, and the recto/ verso of each individual leaf and fragment. I did not resize the images, so visitors can get access to the original files.

The site was created with the aim of promoting and providing on-line access to one of New Zealand's largest collections of medieval manuscripts. Collection highlights include: a leaf and bifolium from a ninth-century Bible in Carolingian script (RMMF 1a and 1b), which are among the oldest manuscript leaves in the country; a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the Wycliffe Gospels (MS 6) and a leaf from a Wycliffite Lectionary (RMMF 20) dated to the same time period; a portion of a fourteenth-century Bible (MS 4a), identified by Christopher de Hamel as having been written in the Cistercian Abbey of Byszewo (or Koronowo), near Gdansk, the first manuscript of Polish origin to be identified in New Zealand; leaves from the fourteenth-century 'Bohun Bible' (RMMF 13a and 13b); a fifteenth-century Dutch Book of Hours (MS 12) from the library of Alexander Boswell, 8th Laird of Auchinleck, and a second Dutch Book of Hours (MS 10) brought to New Zealand by Walter B. D. Mantell in 1840, one of the earliest medieval manuscripts to be transported to the colony.

 

I would like to acknowledge and thank Christopher de Hamel, Margaret Manion, and the family of the late Vera F. Vines, for granting permission to reproduce the relevant descriptions in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (London, 1989). This information has been updated to reflect recent scholarship (most notably by de Hamel, Alexandra Barratt, and Richard Gameson). References are provided. I would also like to thank Paul Hayton, former electronic services co-ordinator for Dunedin Public Libraries, and Will Noel for his guidance.