Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2025

Skins, structures and traces: Material culture investigations of Cambrai's medieval manuscripts

Résumé

The CaReMe project: Objectives and methodology

The CaReMe project, in collaboration with the ERC project 'Beast to Craft' (B2C) 1 , aims to explore the craftsmanship behind mediaeval European bookbindings spanning the 8th to 13th centuries. This involves a meticulous examination of manuscript texts, coupled with a detailed analysis of the materials and structures facilitating their accessibility, use and preservation. The convergence of expertise and resources seeks to provide a comprehensive exploration of mediaeval book production, offering unprecedented insights into the evolution of manuscripts and their bindings.

Our focus centres on an exhaustive analysis of the bindings within a collection of manuscripts from Cambrai's religious institutions. Remarkably, these pre-Gothic bindings have remained unexplored and uncharted until now. Housed in the former Jesuit college, the municipal library of Cambrai in Northern France preserves a collection of mediaeval manuscripts notable for several reasons.

Its sheer size is a direct consequence of the rich fabric of religious institutions that previously dotted the area, with book possessions gathered in Cambrai in the late 18th century due to secularisation decrees. The library boasts a unique collection of pre-tenth-century volumes, including the earliest extant copy of Gregory of Tours' Histories (MS 684, 6th century), a strikingly illuminated Apocalypse (MS 386, 9th century) and the earliest written homily in old Irish (MS 679, 8th century). Notably, the collection also features an outstanding proportion of mediaeval bindings.

Preserved at the library are no less than five Carolingian-style bindings (plus a sixth partially preserved), more than thirty Romanesque-style bindings and an even higher number of Gothic-style bindings. These figures underscore the significance of the Cambrai collection for early and high mediaeval binding studies, especially in understanding the library practices of religious houses in the French Middle Ages.

Most manuscripts with Romanesque-style bindings in the Cambrai library come from one source: the former chapter house of Cambrai, an institution attached to the cathedral church. Despite providing ample grounds for research, this collection has received less scholarly interest than the former Benedictine abbey of the Holy Sacrament, where the bishop of Cambrai moved his seat in the late 18th century. The mediaeval library of the abbey has now been studied by Sara Pretto, curator at the 1 B2C, 'Beasts to Craft (B2C). Biocodicology as a New Approach to the Study of Parchment Manuscripts' (palaeome.org, 2018), https://sites.google.com/palaeome.org/ercb2c/home. Cambrai municipal library. 2 On the other hand, while the origins of the Carolingian manuscripts are unknown, it is highly likely that their bindings originated from the Cambrai area.

The project aims to reveal the cultural history and archaeological significance captured within the book's construction, uncovering the intricate methods employed by mediaeval religious institutions in the making and use of their manuscripts. This sheds light on monks' reading practices and the significance of these texts within religious circles. Lay bindings, embedded within broader social, cultural and religious frameworks, serve as a testament to the intricate interplay between craftsmanship and societal ethos. The goal is to decipher deeper sociocultural narratives by contextualising these bindings within their historical milieu. The exploration extends beyond the text, delving into the material and manufacture techniques of these bindings, tracing the evolution of writing practices and perceiving bindings not merely as vessels for text but as historical artefacts embodying the essence of their time.

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hal-05287033 , version 1 (28-09-2025)

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Alberto Campagnolo, Élodie Lévêque, Antoine Brix, Sarah Fiddyment. Skins, structures and traces: Material culture investigations of Cambrai's medieval manuscripts. Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 19. Proceedings of the nineteenth international seminar held at the University of Copenhagen 19th-21st April 2023., The Arnamagnæan Institute; University of Copenhagen, Apr 2023, Copenhague, Denmark. pp.41-73, ⟨10.1016/j.jas.2013.08.021.⟩. ⟨hal-05287033⟩
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