M. R. James Memorial Lecture

M. R. James Memorial Lecture
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This is a past event

Professor David Dumville presents the inaugural lecture in an ongoing series on Palaeography & Manuscript Studies named in memory of celebrated author and scholar, Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936).

Manuscripts and Historiography, Cistercian Monks and the pan-Insular past:
The Abbey of Sawley in Craven and its links with Scotland, 1150-1225

M. R. James was responsible in 1932 for cataloguing the medieval manuscripts held by the University of Aberdeen.

In this inaugural lecture, Prof Dumville presents an illustrated talk on two mediaeval manuscripts produced at the Cistercian abbey of Sawley in Craven, now in eastern Lancashire. The manuscripts are currently held in the Library Collections of the University of Cambridge, a collection also catalogued by James in 1895.

We know much of the first century of the Cistercian Abbey of Sawley in Craven from three codices, now in Cambridge and catalogued by Montague Rhodes James about a century ago.  These extraordinary books contain some fifty Latin texts, constituting a treasure-trove of unique copies of historical literature, of unique versions of texts otherwise known, and of remarkable testimony to a living school of multilingual historical research whose interests spread across these Islands.  As their contents have begun to be appreciated, the manuscripts themselves have become objects of vigorous controversy.  The key to understanding their significance resides in the close analysis both of the physical witness provided by the manuscripts and of the texts which they contain, accompanied by a willingness to pursue the evidence wherever it may lead.

For Aberdonians the precise significance of the polymathic M. R. James is that one of his last scholarly accomplishments was his catalogue of the mediaeval manuscripts in our University Library. M.R. James is known to the general public for his remarkable ghost-stories, which still attract significant media-attention, and his translations from Danish of some forty stories by Hans Christian Andersen: James's mediaeval interests were stimuli for these enterprises.

Speaker
Professor David Dumville
Hosted by
Special Collections Centre
Venue
Lower Ground Floor Seminar Room, The Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen, Bedford Road, Aberdeen, AB24 3AA
Contact

Spaces are free, reservation advised. To reserve your space, please contact scc.events@abdn.ac.uk