Dr Jason Chess
NK25\250001
The Origin and Development of Writing in Early Medieval Western Britain c. 300-1100
Independent Scholar
£2,000
In the last generation a rich new assemblage of writing on hard media from late Roman Britain has been discovered. This writing has never been analysed for its palaeographical significance. My monograph will use it to trace the writing-system used by early medieval Insular scribes back to late Roman Britain and describe how this rich Romano-British graphical inheritance developed in western Britain and Ireland in the period 300-600. I will also trace its subsequent early medieval career in the Celtic writing-provinces of Ireland and Western Britain, using manuscript and epigraphic evidence. I will show how the Romano-British writing-system developed in early medieval Wales under different influences, sub-Roman, Irish, Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon and I will argue that detailed palaeographical analysis of manuscripts and epigraphy have the potential to reveal the location and nature of early medieval scribal traditions as well as the circulation of scribes, glosses and scholia.
Dr Godfried Croenen
NK25\250030
Guillebert de Mets: re-assessing a Flemish libraire in early fifteenth-century Paris
University of Liverpool
£2,000
Paris saw a flowering in the production of manuscripts in the period c. 1360-1420, including texts needed by the university, liturgical books for clergy, books of hours, and manuscripts in the French vernacular. Art historians have intensively studied the oeuvre of the artists responsible for the illuminations but others involved in the book production, in particular the scribes and stationers, have received far less attention. Research into the Flemish scribe Guillebert de Mets, active in Paris in the early fifteenth century, has established him as an important figure, who was also a stationer who took commisions for books and subcontracted other craftsmen. So far 30 manuscripts copied (in part) by Guillebert have been identified. The proposed project will focus on how Guillebert worked together with and directed the work of other scribes and artists and will try to identify further books that can be connected with Guillebert’s activity in Paris.
Professor Orietta Da Rold
NK25\250020
Medieval Paper in Local Archives
University of Cambridge
£1,920
This project explores dated and localisable medieval paper documents held in local archives across England to contribute to the book project Paper in Time and Space in Medieval England. Building on N. R. Ker’s observation that paper holds untapped potential for dating and localising manuscripts, the research will analyse types of paper and their use in historical documents from medieval England. By directly examining paper records—including physical features such as watermarks and sheet size, and textual evidence—this study aims to establish a timeline of paper use and its geographical distribution from 1300 to 1500 focusing on the East of England, with comparative data from the Midlands and London. This research will expand our understanding of medieval paper’s role in book production and, more broadly, on the socio-economic dimension of the trade and usage of paper, offering new insights into its chronology and dissemination across England.
Dr Sara Harris
NK25\250029
The Index of Middle English Prose: Manuscripts in the Bodley Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford
Independent Scholar
£702.60
The book will be published by Boydell & Brewer in their IMEP series. It will identify and describe all Middle English prose texts (c.1200–1500) in the Bodley classmark manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The volume will contain an introduction on the history of the collection and an itemised contents list. The openings (incipits) and endings (explicits) of the prose items will be transcribed, accounts of their textual history, of versions of the same text in other manuscript collections, and of editions, will be included. References to published descriptions of the manuscripts, to their probable dates, and to their dialect and provenance will be given. The volume will contain nine different indexes. These will later be merged with those from volumes already published, in a cumulative, digital IMEP index.
Special Award
Dr Andrew Dunning
NK25\250032
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: Securing a future for a key resource in manuscript studies
University of Oxford
£24,931.07
This project is the first stage in the revitalisation of Neil Ker’s Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (MLGB) as a fully supported digital resource of the Bodleian Libraries. Building on earlier efforts to transform MLGB into a comprehensive, integrated dataset, this phase will address inconsistencies in the MLGB3 dataset and incorporate data from the printed editions and handwritten index cards, unifying these sources into a single, authoritative resource. The project team will develop a robust dataset with unique identifiers for manuscripts, works, contributors, and institutions, enabling precise scholarly citation, the reconciliation of provenance data for lost, fragmentary, and reconstructed books, and linking MLGB data to digitised manuscripts and external databases. New research will expand coverage to include rejected manuscripts and books from parish churches that appeared only in the printed edition. The Bodleian will host the resulting open-access resource using its mature catalogue infrastructure, ensuring its sustainability and enduring value.
Please note: Awards are arranged alphabetically by surname of the grant recipient. The institution is that given at the time of application.