Matthew Holford
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matthewholford.bsky.social
Matthew Holford
@matthewholford.bsky.social
1K followers 500 following 99 posts
Medievalist and librarian, interested in all aspects of manuscript culture.
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matthewholford.bsky.social
Just found out about this amazing example of #manuscript #recycling . The whole manuscript is made up from the margins of an earlier liturgical manuscript, cut out and rearranged (hence the unusual format), the (mostly) blank margins then used to copy various magical texts in the mid 16th century.
A magical text written in the 16th century on the previously blank margin of an earlier liturgical manuscript. Part of the original liturgical text can be seen at the bottom of the leaf. The leaf would originally have been part of the outer margin of a large leaf but has been rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
November 6, 2025 at 5:33 PM
matthewholford.bsky.social
The Tanner Bede is on Digital Bodleian! #MedievalSky 📜
digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/6285...
The opening page of the Tanner Bede with heading and an initial
November 1, 2025 at 9:29 AM
matthewholford.bsky.social
Enjoying the historically informed street signs in Basel. Why don't we see this in more places?
A Basel street sign. Small text underneath explains the origin of the street name.
August 22, 2025 at 8:27 PM
matthewholford.bsky.social
Call for papers, Leeds IMC 2026 - Big data and medieval manuscripts. Please consider submitting a proposal!
Call for Papers for the International Medieval Congress 2026 6th–9th July 2026, University of Leeds, UK Sponsor: ‘Enabling digital research on manuscript catalogue data,’ a project at the Bodleian Libraries, funded by Digital Scholarship @ Oxford, which seeks to facilitate quantitative analysis of the Bodleian’s western medieval manuscript catalogues. Organisers: Dr Matthew Holford and Dr Sebastian Dows-Miller (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford) Computational research into the contents, codicology and history of medieval manuscripts is wellestablished. “Quantitative codicology” has since the 1960s used statistical analysis to explore topics from the dimensions of the manuscript page to overall patterns of book production, but many research questions remain open. This session seeks to bring together scholars from across medieval studies who are engaged in the examination of medieval manuscripts through the lens of ‘Big Data’, to facilitate cross-disciplinary exchange within the still underdeveloped fields of quantitative palaeography and codicology. We welcome proposals from all areas of manuscript studies. Topics may include, but are not limited to: • Networks of texts and people associated with manuscripts. • Quantitative approaches to the palaeographic analysis of scripts and hands. • The application of AI and ML to large corpora of manuscript data. • Issues of data quality and provenance in quantitative manuscript studies. • The use of ‘Big Data’ as a tool for teaching manuscript studies. Potential contributors interested in using the tabular outputs of the sponsoring project can find them at the project’s GitHub repository Please send abstracts of maximum 150 words, along with 5 subject keywords and your contact details, to matthew.holford@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. The deadline for receipt of these details is 23:59 BST on 29th August 2025. If you would like to apply to the IMC separately for financial assistance, see the their advice here.
August 7, 2025 at 4:08 PM
matthewholford.bsky.social
New on Digital Bodleian, this wonderful 11th-century Beneventan psalter probably from the abbey of Sora near Naples (MS. Douce 127). digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/9564...
Part of a page of a psalter in Beneventan script showing the beginning of Psalm 13 (Vulgate numbering) "Dixit insipiens", with a decorated initial
January 28, 2025 at 5:16 PM
matthewholford.bsky.social
Palaeography challenge for the holidays. Unidentified (so far) philosophical text used as an endleaf in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social MS. Add. A. 106.
Fragments of a highly-abbreviated 13th-century manuscript in Latin
December 20, 2024 at 9:15 AM
matthewholford.bsky.social
New on Digital Bodleian - the Glastonbury Magna Tabula. Remarkable as a rare survival of a type of object that was fairly common in the middle ages (see doi.org/10.1080/0004...) and as a dramatic illustration of the problem of scale in digital images digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/916e70
Outer cover of the Glastonbury magna tabula (about 1m high) with ruler for scale
January 9, 2024 at 5:18 PM
matthewholford.bsky.social
The results of a very long side quest appeared earlier this year as vol. 37 of the Gloucestershire Record Series. No link yet on their website - will update when one appears.
Cover image for Gloucestershire Record Series Volume 37. ESCHEATORS’ INQUISITIONS FOR GLOUCESTERSHIRE AND BRISTOL, c. 1260–1485. Edited by Matthew L. Holford with Paul Dryburgh. Blurb: The documents calendared in this volume illustrate the activities of the royal escheator in medieval Gloucestershire and Bristol. The escheator was an official particularly concerned with maintaining the crown’s feudal and prerogative rights, and the documents illustrate how widely and deeply the enforcement of those rights was felt. A large number containappraisals of the goods and chattels of outlaws, fugitives, and felons, but the documents range as widely as did royal rights themselves. There are detailed inventories of aristocrats condemned for treason or attainted; accounts for the lands of ecclesiastical institutions temporarily in royal custody; and inquisitions into subjects as varied as mines, treasure, immigration and suicide. [...]
September 21, 2023 at 8:08 PM