Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies present "The Medieval Manuscript in Time," a hands-on workshop by Christopher Baswell, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English at Barnard College and Columbia University.

No book is ever finished. Manuscript books especially may be left not quite copied for lack of an exemplar; or spaces may be left for decoration that is filled only later, or never. A book may have a brief period of suspension after a final step of binding, but the moment it is opened, it begins to transform. Users annotate (or deface) the text, add their own sketches or marks of attention, rearrange the book for new uses, or provide new means of access with chapter lists or forms of indexing. In this workshop, we will look at manuscript books in Harvard’s collections, with special attention to their incompleteness and their evolution. We’ll look especially at works we’d now call literature and history, but also law, religious practice, and beyond.

"The Medieval Manuscript in Time" will be offered in the morning and once in the afternoon, and space is limited. Please register for one session only. This is the listing for the afternoon session. Follow this link to register for the morning session: https://libcal.library.harvard.edu/calendar/main/medieval-ms-time-1

Workshop attendees are encouraged to attend Christopher’s public lecture, "Arthurian Immobilities: Disabled Kings and Nobles in the Lancelot Prose Cycle," October 16, 5:30 PM, at Houghton Library.