Cataloging Manuscript Pages – A Highlight: Pope Clement VII’s ruling on the Marriage of the de Herreras

Papal Bull of Clement VII

Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections hold a number of remarkable medieval and early modern manuscript pages that are currently cataloged only in paper records. In order to make these documents and their unique information available to scholars and researchers, we have expanded our efforts to add information about these materials to our online resources. The records will include high quality digital images of these manuscripts. These images will not only allow researchers to view the manuscripts in their entirety, but also ensure the information in them survives in the event that they deteriorate further, or become lost or destroyed in the future.

 

Since January, we have cataloged a wide range of single page and other short manuscripts which are diverse with respect to their provenance, date, language, and content. The earliest manuscripts that we have, though few, are not even medieval – they are Greek papyrus fragments which date to the 1st and 2nd century CE, and likely come from Egypt. In a collection of fifty-nine medieval manuscripts donated by Sigmund Harrison in the 1980’s, we have pages of religious texts such as breviaries, missals, and copies of the bible. These are written in Latin and are dated from the 11th century CE to the 16th century. Additionally, the Harrison collection contains a medical text on the common cold written in Latin, a liturgical calendar with the names of local saints, a page from a German accounting book, four pages from an Italian accounting book index, and French legal documents.

Currently we are cataloguing manuscripts in the Felix J. Usis collection. Six papal bulls comprise only a part of this extraordinary collection. A papal bull, a legal document issued by a pope, is named after the bulla by which the document is sealed. Originally, bullae were made of clay or wax, but in time, the definition was extended to refer to pendent metal seals.

Two of these papal bulls date to 1529 CE and were issued by Pope Clement VII (born Giulio de’ Medici). Clement VII, known for refusing to annul King Henry VIII’s marriage to Queen Catherine, here played a role in the marriage of another couple. This time, however, his permission to marry was requested and granted. The documents connected with the two papal bulls suggest that a local clergyman wrote to the pope on behalf of Antonio de Herrera and Barbara de Herrera to see if it would be alright if they married one another. Why did they need permission? They were cousins.

The papal bull contains Clement’s response. Typically it was not permitted for blood relations to be united (copulari) in marriage. In this case, however, the cousins were related only in the third and fourth steps of blood relation (tertio…et quarto…consanguinitatis gradibus). Therefore, these two de Herreras might marry one another. The Pope added that anyone petitioning him for a similar reason should receive the same answer.

 Jennifer Hoit

Greek, Latin & Classical Studies

Bryn Mawr student-curated exhibition described in a new book

Through our Special Collections, Bryn Mawr offers a unique opportunity for students to use great literature in the form in which it first appeared, antique cookbooks, the working papers of important scholars, letters between the earliest administrators of the College, ancient pottery, original Japanese prints, and hundreds of other objects in their classes and research. Every year the curators work with dozens of classes and hundreds of students on projects that range from single classroom visits to semester-long collaborations.
In Fall 2007, fourteen undergraduate students joined a class that gave them a unique opportunity to work with medieval manuscripts for the entire semester, drawing on Bryn Mawr’s substantial collection of these beautiful hand -made volumes. As part of the class, students planned and created an exhibition with the books that ran in the Rare Book Room the following Spring. Marianne Hansen, Curator and Academic Liaison for Rare Books and Manuscripts, worked with the class throughout the semester and through the duration of the show. She spoke on her experience at a professional meeting (Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association), and her paper has just been published in a new book on the use of special collections and archives in undergraduate education.

You can read the article without borrowing the book by looking it up in the open access repository of the scholarship and publications of the Bryn Mawr community (on Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College), at http://repository.brynmawr.edu/lib_pubs/11/. Click the download button to read:

Marianne Hansen. “Real Objects, Real Spaces, Real Expertise: An Undergraduate Seminar Curates an Exhibition on the Medieval Book of Hours,” in Past or Portal?: Enhancing Undergraduate Learning Through Special Collections and Archives. Eleanor Mitchell; Peggy Seiden; Suzy Taraba, editors. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. 2012.

Three Little Maids

In my first few weeks of work as a Graduate Assistant in Special Collections this year, I catalogued and accessioned a collection of Gilbert and Sullivan memorabilia donated to the College by Ivy Reade Relkin, ’50. It was easy to date and identify most of the objects based on manufacturers’ markings, but this painted bronze figurine had none; its condition suggested that it might be significantly older than the other objects in the collection. A hand-written note enclosed in the donation file indicated that the figurine was a souvenir given at the opening night of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado, at London’s Savoy Theatre in 1885. The Mikado was an instant success, and remains one of the most popular pieces of musical theater ever written; if this figurine, which depicts the “Three Little Maids,” really was distributed at the play’s very first public performance, it would be an exciting find.

I decided to see whether the assertion in the note could be confirmed. My research led me first to the Harvard Theatre Collection, a department of the Houghton Library of rare books and manuscripts.  The bronze figurine was new to them. “We are in the midst of processing our own sizeable collection of G&S material compiled by our late curator, Frederic Woodbridge Wilson,” a curatorial assistant wrote in response to my inquiry. “[Wilson] was, all kidding aside, quite fond of figurines, and yet I cannot find a single item that would be similar to yours or presented on a similar occasion. In fact, we haven’t any figurines at all…we have cookies, candy bars, playing cards–all manner of souvenirs and memorabilia–and not one figurine!”

At Harvard’s suggestion, however, I began to explore the extensive — and friendly — world of Gilbert and Sullivan aficionados. I discovered a collection of Gilbert and Sullivan-themed ceramics at Cal State Northridge, a web archive with links to G&S “clip art” as well as to librettos and plot summaries, and the website of a group that produces the duo’s comic operas in Central Texas. I contacted various collectors and was referred from enthusiast to enthusiast; finally, one correspondent expressed certainty that the figurine had not, in fact, been distributed at the Savoy Theatre on the Mikado’s opening night.  He added, “I’ve never seen it described as a production souvenir before, though I suppose it’s possible—perhaps in Vienna where Mikado was performed on several occasions, by the D’Oyly Carte and others, in the late 1880s.” A second G&S maven confirmed the opinion: “It was not a first night souvenir [nor was it] ever a D’Oyly Carte souvenir. It’s actually a Vienna bronze made in the mid 90s.”

The Gilbert and Sullivanists had reached a consensus: the “Three Little Maids” figurine was not a memento from Mikado’s opening night. It was however, an early example of the kinds of playful collectibles that continue to circulate among enthusiasts, who form a community that is as vibrant in 2012 as it was in the late nineteenth century.

S. Backer

“Double Take” exhibition extended; gallery talk scheduled

Double Take: Selected Views from the Photography Collection at Bryn Mawr College, 1860s-present

Exhibition hours: Monday through Friday, noon to 4:30 pm
Through February 17, 2012
Rare Book Room, Canaday Library

Gallery talk
5 pm, Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Rare Book Room, Canaday Library

Zoe Strauss, Philadelphia, PA (Melissa’s Handstand), 2004, color inkjet print; Gift of Robert and Marianne Weldon (2010.35.2)

Bryn Mawr College’s exhibition Double Take: Selected Views from the Photography Collection at Bryn Mawr College, 1867-2009 has been extended through February 17, 2012. Culminating, chronologically, with a group of recent photographs by Philadelphia’s Zoe Strauss, the subject of a current exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the exhibition spans nearly the entire history of the photographic medium, presenting a wide variety of works in unexpected pairings and groupings.

Exhibition curator Carrie Robbins and exhibition intern Nathanael Roesch—both graduate students in history of art at Bryn Mawr—will engage in an informal discussion of the exhibition at 5 pm on Wednesday, February 15, 2012, addressing the Bryn Mawr photography collection as well as the manner in which this exhibition was conceived, selected, and installed. Brian Wallace, Bryn Mawr’s new Curator and Academic Liaison for Art and Artifacts, will introduce Robbins and Roesch.

More information on, and selected images from, the exhibition may be found at http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/double_take_exhibition.html.

The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women’s Education announces its first undergraduate essay competition!

Want to win $500? Got something to say about studying at a women’s college? Then enter the inaugural undergraduate essay competition for a chance to express your views and win a prize!

Bryn Mawr College was recently awarded funding from The Albert M. Greenfield Foundation to initiate an exciting new venture in digital humanities – the launching of the Digital Center for the History of Women and Higher Education. The Digital Center will comprise of an online portal to promote and support original research, teaching, and the exchange of ideas about the history of women’s education, both in the United States and worldwide.

Given recent media attention to the issue of single sex-education (see President McAuliffe’s recent piece in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/10/17/single-sex-schools-separate-but-equal/bucking-the-trend-at-womens-colleges) we want to hear what current students think about the impact of studying and living at a women’s college in the twenty-first century. Does it matter whether an institution is single-sex or co-ed? What is the impact for young women attending a single-sex college? What do you think is the future? We want to know!

So, for this competition we invite you to address the following topic in 1,000 words or less:

‘Why single sex education matters today’

Agree? Disagree? Have a persuasive argument either way? Write it down and be in to win.

The winner will receive a $500 cash prize, kindly sponsored by Friends of the Bryn Mawr College Library, and the winning entry will be posted on The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center’s website. The deadline is Friday 27th January 2012 and all entries should be emailed to me, the Director, at jredmond@brynmawr.edu

This competition is open to current undergraduates of Bryn Mawr College only, but please check back for alum related events and get in touch if you are an alum with an idea for the Digital Center

Get involved! Have your say!

Learn more about the Greenfield Digital Center on the History of Women’s Education at http://greenfield.brynmawr.edu/.

Bryn Mawr College’s Collection of Roman Terra Sigillata

This post was authored by Nickie Colosimo, graduate student in archaeology at Bryn Mawr College.

Over the summer, I have been privileged to work in Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections thanks to an NEH internship awarded to me for the study the College’s Roman Terra Sigillata.  Terra Sigillata, a slightly inaccurate term meaning ‘stamped clay’,  refers to a fine quality ceramic with a red-slipped glossy surface that could be decorated, but also include plain vessels as well.  The ware was first produced in Italy and then later in France and the Rhineland, having a very long lived production period which extended from ca. 40 BCE to the early fourth century CE.  Currently, the Collections at Bryn Mawr houses over 600 fragments of Roman terra sigillata, many of which were lacking information that could make this collection useful to the College and outside scholars.  I spent my internship this summer analyzing the various fragments to determine aspects such as the center of production, vessel shape, date of manufacture, identification of the potter and workshop, method of decoration, etc.  Despite their incompleteness, these fragmentary vessels are still able to provide insight into the importance of terra sigillata during the Roman Empire.

The Production of Terra Sigillata

Arretine Terra Sigillata Chalice (Krater, Bowl) Rim Fragment, Late Tiberian - Claudian (30-54 CE), P.1662

Manufacture of terra sigillata was on a massive scale and the vessels were widely exported all over the Roman Empire.  The production of Arretine Ware began in the main Italian production center called Arretium (modern Arezzo) ca. 40 BCE where many workshops have been located and which subsequently provided the term widely used to identify terra sigillata made in Italy.  Nevertheless, there were other production centers in this region, including Pozzuoli and Pisa, where many of the late Italian terra sigillata vessels were manufactured. The fabric tends to be fairly pale or buff in color and vessels tend to be thin-walled.  The slip is more often matte and more orange than red, allowing one to distinguish it more easily from vessels originating in Gaul.  Arretine vessels show a desire to mimic metal vessels in their angular and rigid designs. In 1895 Hans Dragendorff published a classification system of the various forms of terra sigillata, which has been expanded by subsequent scholars. A typical form from the major production period of the Arretine Ware is Dragendorff Form 11, a chalice or pedestalled bowl (formerly referred to as a krater), which died out around the middle of the first century CE.

East Gaulish Terra Sigillata Bowl Body Sherd, Late Antonine (180-192 CE), P.2420

Production of the ware shifted to the Roman provinces on the continent during the mid 1st century CE. This ware is commonly referred to as Samian Ware, another misnomer in the study of terra sigillata as it refers to the island of Samos where early scholars mistakenly believed this ware originated.  In fact, terra sigillata was manufactured in South, Central, and East Gaul throughout the first through fourth centuries CE.  The major periods of production rotated through these areas, beginning in South Gaul, then moving onto Central and finally to East Gaul.

South Gaulish Terra Sigillata Bowl Body Sherd, Claudian, ca. 50 CE, P.2428

The South Gaulish production sites of La Graufesenque, Montans, and Banassac largely replaced the Arretine Ware in the Empire during the mid to late first century CE.  In the early period, the vessels from this region are much darker than those of the Arretine Ware with a rather dull and brownish-red slip and a bright red-orange fabric. South Gaulish vessels in the Flavian period, however, had a fabric carrying tiny white flecks and a more glossy dark red slip.  Like the Arretine Ware early South Gaulish wares were angular and clear cut, requiring the detailed care of production to mimic the metal prototype vessels.  Over time vessel shapes in South, Central and East Gaul became rounded, heavier, and coarser, suggesting a desire for forms easier and quicker to produce.  The most characteristic form of this period is the carinated bowl, Dragendorff Form 29, which ceased to be produced ca. 85 CE and which was replaced with the very popular and long lived decorated hemispherical bowl, Dragendorff Form 37.

Vitalis of Matres-de-Veyre, Central Gaulish Terra Sigillata Plage Base Fragment, Late Flavian-Hadrianic (ca. 90-130 CE), P.2600

Central Gaulish terra sigillata reached the height of its production during the second century CE, taking over as the dominant production center.  Two major sites in the manufacture of terra sigillata include Lezoux and Les Martres de Veyre. The fabric is hard and dense with an orange-pink color covered in a lustrous orange slip which turns duller over the course of time. Dragendorff Form 37, the hemispherical decorated bowl, continued to be a popular form though it was much heavier and thicker than previous versions.

East Gaul took over the exportation of terra sigillata and became quite popular from the early second century CE onwards. There are a great number of production sites in this region which makes it difficult to speak of a specific fabric, slip, and decorative style. The most popular sites include Trier and Rheinzabern.  During this period, most of the standard forms tended not to be made quite the same as before.  Additionally, the application of relief molds in the production of terra sigillata phased out, but the use of barbotine and incision continued to be implemented widely.  The production of terra sigillata eventually came to an end, although a glossy red pottery similar to Samian Ware continued to be produced in the Mediterranean region in the 4th and 5th centuries, though it does not seem to have been on the same scale or as highly organized as before.

Decoration and Potter’s Stamps
Terra sigillata vessel shapes were highly standardized forms such as cups, plates, and bowls used for serving rather than preparing food.  Plain ware terra sigillata was produced on pottery wheels much like other wares of the time.  Techniques of decorating terra sigillata include four processes: incising, barbotine, appliqué, and relief-molding.  Plain vessels sometimes received incision and barbotine decoration, though appliqué figures were slightly rarer.  It is the relief-molding, however, that is the most characteristic decoration of Roman terra sigillata.  The process of using relief molds to manufacture vessels first requires a series of stamps or punches that were used to impressing decorative motifs into the bowl-shaped molds which could include floral, faunal, figural, and abstract motifs.  The molds were fired and later would have soft clay pressed into it to form the actual terra sigillata vessel.  These new bowls would be trimmed, receive a foot ring, dipped into a prepared slip, dried, and fired.  As mentioned above, terra sigillata was produced in mass quantities. Excavations of kilns at La Graufesenque, a major production site in South Gaul, have produced tallies of single kiln loads reflecting numbers between 25-30,000 vessels at a time. Such endeavors demonstrate that the production of this ware demanded both an intense commitment on the side of the potter and workshop, but also those engaging in firing, transporting, selling, and buying.

Another aspect of terra sigillata that reveals the sophistication of this ware and it’s manufacture is the potter’s stamp. In many instances, potters impressed their name stamp upon the floor of the vessel or among the decoration, often accompanied by letters such as “F”, “FE”, and “FEC” (meaning, “made it”) or “M” and “MA” (referring to “manu” or “by the hand of”). Stamps often included the owner of the workshop, no doubt a free Roman citizen or freedman, but also could include the name of the slave.  A base fragment from an Arretine cup in the College’s collection has a slave’s name, Nicephorus, placed over that of his owner L. Calidius Strigo from Arezzo.  Combinations such as this one were quite common on terra sigillata and provide insight into the personnel of these various workshops.

The purpose of these stamps is not entirely clear. Scholars have suggested various reasons including the desire to quantity the output of individual potters in a workshop, to suggest a higher quality lacking in other unstamped and therefore unidentifiable products, and even to identify items made for a specific contract. Whatever their intention, potter’s stamps remain helpful to modern scholars not only in understanding the date of production and representative personnel of these workshops, but also patterns of production and consumption in the ancient Roman empire. This is apparent even in Bryn Mawr’s Collections in which we see the works of potters such as M. Perenius Tigranus, who owned a workshop in Arretium, Italy, appear in Antioch, Turkey.  Partnerships between two workshops was possible and exemplified in the Bryn Mawr Collection in the form of a Arretine cup base fragment, the potter’s stamp of which identifies two slaves by the name of Mahes and Zoelus and therefore shows a partnership of two potteries owned by Ateius. Though the nature of this collaboration cannot be certain, it shows an evermore complex picture of the production of terra sigillata.

The Roman Terra Sigillata of Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr’s collection of terra sigillata has diverse origins, including all the major productions centers in Italy and Gaul, as well as a wide distribution pattern from ancient cities like Carthage, Antioch, Ostia, Vidy, and Silchester.  A number of fragments were collected in Rome in 1907 and others were donated from the collection of C. Densmore Curtis by Mrs. Lincoln Dryden.  A further large part of the collection is due to the scholarship and generosity of the Haverford Classics Professor Howard Comfort, who donated the terra sigillata personally collected over his career.  These various donated groups have been partly analyzed by Bryn Mawr graduate Kathleen W. Slane in her 1971 Honor’s Thesis and 1973 Master’s Thesis.  My internship this summer has supplemented Slane’s analysis of Bryn Mawr’s terra sigillata, completing the processing of these sherds and providing useful information to make these items meaningful to the College and to Special Collections.  For many of the fragments, I have been able to narrow down a production center, vessel shape, date, decorative motifs, and, with the aid of potter’s stamps, potters and their workshops.

As part of his gift to Bryn Mawr College, Comfort included published material from Antioch, Turkey, and Angers, France.  This provides Bryn Mawr’s Special Collections with material from two known contexts, an aspect that is rare among the other terra sigillata fragments.  Comfort provided the analysis of the terra sigillata that was unearthed throughout the city during excavations in Antioch from 1937-1939 under The Committee for the Excavation of Antioch and its Vicinity. The material from Angers was found beneath the Church of St. Martin during the excavations of G. Forsyth and W. Campbell in 1930-1933.  The fragments from both of these sites show that the inhabitants of these cities were importing Roman terra sigilalta made in Italy and France from the Augustan period to at least the Antonine period, revealing that Arretine and Gaulish Ware was distributed widely and for much of the Roman Empire.  The fragments of terra sigillata from both of these sites point toward the extensive production and distribution of this ware during the Roman period.

The collection covers all the major production centers of terra sigillata and includes examples of all the major vessel forms representing cups, bowls, and plates.  From Italy, Arezzo, Pisa, Pozzuoli, etc. are all well represented and many of those contain potter’s stamps.  The prolific workshops of potters like M. Perennius Tigranus and Cn. Ateius are present, but also some of the less well known potters who are known only from their stamps, such as “SES” or C. Se( ).  Other vessels come from the continent and production centers in South, Central and East Gaul.  There are examples from the most important workshops such as La Graufesenque, Montans and Banassac and a varied group of potters including Calvus, Scotius of La Graufesenque, Cosius, and Primus. The Central Gaulish region is represented nearly entirely by Lezoux, with only a few other vessels of uncertain production sites.  Potters from Central Gaul have also been identified and include Doecus, Advocisus, the well known potter Cinnamus, and several others.  Eastern Gaul production sites include Trier and Rheinzabern, but due to the large varied nature of the production sites any further identification is uncertain at this time.  One potter from this region was identified, Maternianus of Westerndorf.

The Roman terra sigillata of Bryn Mawr College is an expansive collection of material from which both students and scholars of this community and others could benefit greatly.  Interested individuals could analyze this material from any angle and find it profitable. Bryn Mawr’s terra sigillata reflects production and distribution patterns, the complexity of pottery workshops and their personnel, the variety of decoration, a healthy collection of vessel forms, and many other topics. This material is a valuable resource regarding the ancient Roman empire and a boon to the Special Collections at Bryn Mawr College.

East Greek Wild Goat Style and Corinthian Pottery in the Art and Artifacts Collection

This blog post was written by Hollister Pritchett, graduate student in archaeology at Bryn Mawr College. Holly was awarded an NEH Internship to work with select pieces of Greek pottery in the Bryn Mawr Art and Artifact Collections in the summer of 2011. One style of pottery that she is focusing on was produced in Ionia (also called East Greek), an area located in what is now present-day Turkey, while another style was produced in ancient Corinth, situated on the Greek mainland.  Both styles of pottery were produced during the Greek Archaic period (ca. 800-480 BCE). Read on to learn more about her project:

 

South Ionian Wild Goat Style Fragment with Goat and Goose, Archaic (590-570 BCE), P.831

The East Greek Wild Goat Style, which flourished from approximately 680-570 BCE, originated mainly in the region of Miletus, an ancient Greek city located on the southern coast of modern Turkey. Generally the fired clay is light brown to reddish in color and the visible surface is covered in a cream slip.  In decoration, the Wild Goat Style is an animal style with the fauna arranged in files around the vase. The animals that appear on the vases include spotted deer and hare, dogs, and geese. The species that is depicted most frequently, however, is the goat; the head bent to the ground to graze and its long horns curling back over the animal’s shoulder. The ornamentation used to fill the empty spaces is typically abstract forms, for example, triangles, hooked swastikas, and half-circles. The lowest portion of the vases is usually decorated with a chain of alternating lotus flower petals and buds, although on some vases the decoration is a chain of pointed rays instead.

South Ionian Wild Goat Style Oinochoe (Wine Jug) Body Fragment, Archaic (630-610 BCE), P.840

The Wild Goat Style pottery was exported to other regions; excavations have turned up numerous examples from places that include cemeteries on the island of Rhodes, the ancient city of Tarsus in south-central Turkey, the Levant, and from Naukratis, an ancient Greek city situated at the Nile Delta in Egypt.

 

 

Middle Corinthian Amphoriskos (Storage Vessel), Archaic (ca. 600 - 575 BCE), P.51

 

Similarly, Corinthian pottery, flourishing ca. 725-550 BCE, can also be decorated with files of animals. Animals that typically appear are lions (with their heads in profile) and panthers (always looking out at the viewer).  Other species include geese and owls, mythological animals such as sphinxes and griffins, and unlike the Wild Goat Style, renditions of human figures.  The fired clay ranges in color from light brown, to yellow, to yellowish-green, although it also can be pinkish, and the exterior slip is usually cream. Corinthian fine-ware pottery tends to be colorful with pale clay and black glaze enhanced by added red and white. The filling ornamentation, unlike the abstract forms of the Wild Goat Style, is floral, for instance, lotus palmettes, while rosettes with incised details are by far the most common.  Often every available space on a vase can be filled with rosettes, crowding around the animals.  The lower portion of many Corinthian wares is decorated with a chain of pointed rays, and combined with similar clay color and slip it can sometimes be difficult to discern whether a fragment is Corinthian or Wild Goat.  Corinthian pottery was widely exported; vases have been discovered in excavations in all areas around the Aegean Sea.

Middle Corinthian Amphoriskos (Storage Vessel) Detail, Archaic (ca. 600 - 575 BCE), P.51

The pottery in the Bryn Mawr Collections includes both complete vases as well as fragments. I study them thoroughly with respect to clay color, coarseness of the clay, paint, and decorations. My work includes creating complete entries in the Bryn Mawr data base EmbARK, inputting keywords, which will enable students and other users to access the records, as well as including descriptions and measurements. Both styles of pottery have their own specific repertoire of shapes and it is possible in many cases, after examination, to determine the type of vase from a fragment, for example, an oinochoe (a wine jug) or a kotyle (a cup).  Additionally, by researching and examining the stylistic variations of the pottery’s phases, dates can also be assigned to each vase and fragment.  I have also studied some of the various methods and techniques of ceramic analysis, with the intention of choosing select pieces to be sent to a lab in order to determine the location of manufacture, which in turn can aid in the study of pottery distribution, trade patterns, commerce, workshops, and emigration.