Dragon from 'Leaves of Gold, Miniatures and Manuscripts from the Medieval Mind Set'
The display on view at Dulwich College comprises some 85 items from Robert Weaver’s personal collection, intended to complement the three medieval manuscript volumes from the College collections (two believed to be publicly on view for the first time).
Cockatrice
After study at Durham, Oxford, London Robert Weaver BA MA FSAScot. began teaching at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford where his interest in rare books was kindled by the Elizabethan Chained Library there. He has run the Religious Studies department at Dulwich College for 21 years and is now Keeper of the Fellows’ Library, involving work on the College’s rare books collection and its promotion, alongside Calista Lucy. Last year he was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in recognition of 30 years’ palaeography(manuscript) teaching and study- the society is the world’s oldest, dedicated to study of the human past.
He writes about the background to his collection.
Since first encountering the Lindisfarne Gospels on a sixth form placement in what was then the British museum galleries I have been fascinated by ancient texts and their survival. They seemed such fragile relics from past ages and impressed by their beauty, rarity, history and huge effort in production in a pre technology age, an ambition arose to assemble representative examples of handwritten material illustrative of the book arts between the 12th and 16th centuries, sometimes with illumination but obviously limited because of cost- a teacher’s modest salary imposes certain pecuniary restrictions. To date the collection of these palaeographical specimens totals about 150 single leaves on vellum, most of which are religious (given that the Church had a monopoly on book production in the early Middle Ages in Europe) but which also include Law, History, Languages, Music as well.
Female headed dragon
Where have they been sought? I used auction houses in London (a majority of such fragments came in twice yearly sales of medieval manuscripts at Sotheby’s and I remain ever grateful to Christopher de Hamel there who allowed me as a novice to inspect literally thousands of whole texts hands on, knowing I would only be able to afford the most modest of leaves); also there was the thrill of the occasional ‘find’ in a second hand bookshop (a sadly disappearing feature of our High Streets) where knowledge of the recondite was useful on the principle ‘caveat vendor’. Trips by ferry in the bad old days to Paris would see me in the 1980’s onwards browsing the bouquiniste stalls that lines the Seine in the hope of mediaeval bargains- I once had to disentangle a suspiciously wrapped 13th century vellum manuscript leaf from my knapsack for disbelieving Customs officials to inspect, holding up the ferry train accordingly, but you have to suffer for your art as they say…
While the motive of the thrill of the chase has doubtless been behind acquiring a group of objects by their nature rare, and a tangible link to half a millennium and more back, this has also been mixed a little with my teaching role in passing on I hope to a new generation, the fascination of studying how these books were made and introducing students to the detective work possible in disentangling and interpreting the evidence such artefacts can display for those with eyes to see.
Thus over the years thousands of willing and sometimes unwilling pupils have been subjected to handling for themselves material that usually might be confined to museums and library shelves.
Female Centaur
I hope the collection, which has been displayed at the College once for each generation of boys to see, can show that it is still possible for a modest assembly of medieval artefacts to be put together illustrative of fantastic human endeavour, offering an insight into a world at the same time strange even alien, but also often remarkably human with the same concerns as our own age.
The exhibition is in the Archives Exhibition Area of The Wodehouse Library of Dulwich College until 13 February.
Open 9am – 5pm (school days only)
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