#fragmentfriday
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sims-mss.bsky.social
Today’s #FragmentFriday is from the binding of LJS 470, which is a 16th century Italian collection, written in Hebrew, of medical and magical texts. The fragments are deep in the spine, and haven’t been cataloged or identified. Can you tell what this is? #medievalsky

🔗: https://bit.ly/43GkrIS
November 7, 2025 at 8:49 PM
happy #fragmentfriday feast of st willibrord from this noted breviary from Frauenfeld! fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-...
November 7, 2025 at 5:46 PM
spooky skeleton chant fragment #fragmentfriday fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-...
A leaf from a gradual (McGill MS Medieval 0064) with chants from the mass for the dead. The initial R frames a rather ghoulish skeletal figure, looking to the right and grinning. Perhaps he is a big Requiem fan.
October 31, 2025 at 9:23 PM
arjanvandermeij.bsky.social
Dank je voor de verwijzing en @svanimpe.bsky.social voor deze #fragmentfriday. Mooi toeval dat ik dit gisteren voor het eerst opmerkte in mijn “hometown” Den Haag. Raamstraat 47.
October 26, 2025 at 9:46 AM
hgoeselt.bsky.social
#fragmentfriday time
October 24, 2025 at 4:39 PM
svanimpe.bsky.social
This #FragmentFriday is found in De Thiende (1585), a groundbreaking #mathematical book by Simon Stevin, introducing the decimal separator (now , or . ) for fractions. It has a 19th century library binding, but retains the medieval parchment wrappers it was originally bound in.
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October 24, 2025 at 9:29 AM
around 1592 somebody used an antiphoner to be a cover for their college textbook. it really must have been a pretty big antiphoner, so one wonders how many other texts it was used for... #fragmentfriday fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-...
the cover of a splayed book. In the upper right, what would be the cover, is part of the verse "In omnem terram" in a large script; below it is the title of the book it bound in its second life, Exercitationes ethicae Goclenii (pub. 1592)
October 17, 2025 at 3:34 PM
svanimpe.bsky.social
It's not always easy... This #FragmentFriday is about an unidentified Latin text, B 255483:fragm.306. The text is difficult to read and overprinted with red ink - indicating that the original sheet of #parchment was used as a #Frisket sheet for printing a book in red and black ink.
Front of the fragment, a strip of parchment with handwritten text. There are a few thick red lines, and on the upper half a large red square, overprinting the handwritten text. Photo: MMFC.be Back of the fragment.
October 17, 2025 at 9:18 AM
sims-mss.bsky.social
For #FragmentFriday here's a parchment leaf from a lectionary used as pastedown and front flyleaf in the binding of a late 15th century collection of papal letters regarding the order of the Eremite Friars of St. Augustine of Rouen (UPenn Ms. Codex 736) #medievalsky

🔗: https://bit.ly/3Wq9uaq
October 10, 2025 at 9:12 PM
hgoeselt.bsky.social
Happy #fragmentfriday to all who celebrate, especially this little fellow, who I only can imagine is a recycled parchment doc used as a seal bag.
October 10, 2025 at 5:56 PM
happy feast day of st gereon, martyr at Cologne, from this fragment in Antwerp #fragmentfriday fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-...
chants for the feast of st Gereon (Oct 10), in a linear sort of musical notation used in the low countries and germany around the 12th century. the fragment is now in Antwerp's 's Vleeshuis ("meat house") which feels oddly macabre for chants about martyrdom.
October 10, 2025 at 4:47 PM
a happy feast of ewald and ewald this #fragmentfriday from this saint calendar, possibly from the diocese of Trier, now in Paris. bonus: weird little scorpion, fun marbled pillars fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-...
Part of a saints calendar for the month of October. The middle of the page, which contains the names of feasts to be celebrated, is framed by pairs of colourful decorative columns with decorative patterning. The left pair has the dominical letter and part of the roman name for that date; the right column has the golden number. the column pairs are topped by a semicircular arch, and the middle by a rectangular bit, so the whole stack of calendar pages would be like looking down a basilica colonnade, if this were a pop-up book and not a fragment of medieval parchment. the roof, if you will, has some information about the number of days in the month and the zodiacal sign, in this case scorpio, that is depicted in the center. the scorpion lacks fearsome claws, but it has a human face, so it's somehow unsettling nevertheless.
October 3, 2025 at 6:41 PM
svanimpe.bsky.social
It's #FragmentFriday! Have a look at this #Antwerp almanac for the year 1568. It's bound in a vellum fragment with writing from what seems to be the late 12th century. #Medieval #Paleography

It's (I think) a copy of the Decretum Gratiani, a compendium of canon law dated shortly after 1140.

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Front cover of the almanac, showing handwritten text. First opening of the almanac, showing the verso of the fragment used in binding with handwritten text, and the printed title page of the almanach with red and black text and an illustration of an armorial device. The last page of the almanac, showing on the left a woodcut with the printer's device: two greyhounds holding a shield with 'IVG', the initials of the printer Jan van Ghelen. On the right is the inner sheet of the back cover, showing manuscript text. The back of the almanac, showing a fragment of parchment with handwritten text. Some larger words are written in red ink.
October 3, 2025 at 1:41 PM
sims-mss.bsky.social
For #FragmentFriday we have a bifolium from a book of hours. The text includes portions from the Gospel lesson from Matthew and the matins of the Office of the Virgin. Written in France in the 15th century. (UPenn Manuscript Fragment Collection. Folder 23) #medievalsky

🔗: https://bit.ly/46gsyxH
September 27, 2025 at 1:38 PM
sims-mss.bsky.social
Our bsky account was disconnected from our posting service for a few days and we just caught it, so if you see a #FragmentFriday post come through in a few minutes... yeah you did! Sorry to be late with it.
September 27, 2025 at 1:29 PM
unfortunately this fragment gives no music, but the chants for Maximin of Trier can also be found in a manuscript from Arras--now in Vercelli, Italy. (Some #chant travels almost as much as St Simeon, apparently.)
happy #fragmentfriday!
The chant "Constantissimum fidei" for Saint Maximin, this time with musical notation on a red, four-line staff.
September 26, 2025 at 8:24 PM
this fragment from Trier has some fun and colourful initials for pentecost #fragmentfriday fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-...
Chants for Pentecost with unheightened neumes from a fragment preserved in Trier.The antiphon "Non vos relinquam orphanos" has a lovely N in gold on a blue background inside a square green frame. The blue paint has sort of cracked off, but you can tell it looked pretty colourful originally.
September 26, 2025 at 8:24 PM
svanimpe.bsky.social
Two large, unidentified in-situ fragments for #FragmentFriday, bound in Μικροπρεσβυτικον = Veterum quorundam brevium theologorum (Basel, 1550). EHC F 4196.
Beautiful rubrication in vibrant red and blue! 1/2

#bookhistory 📚💙 📜
A parchment leaf of a bifolium (two pages) each with two columns of text, bound inside a large folio volume. A parchment leaf of a bifolium (two pages) each with two columns of text, bound inside a large folio volume.
September 26, 2025 at 1:13 PM
happy belated feast of Hildegard (Sept.17)! celebrate with this lovely fragment from the binding of the Riesencodex (the greenish circle is from the bosses on the cover) #fragmentfriday fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-y...
A page of chant, somewhat the worse for wear from being used in a binding. Red lines mark the "f" line, and also divide up various sections of the litany "Aufer a nobis."
September 19, 2025 at 5:03 PM
sims-mss.bsky.social
Today’s #FragmentFriday is part of a leaf used in a binding. It is from a canon law manuscript, and contains papal decretals of three popes. The fragment shows both main text and commentary. Written in France in the 14th century. (UPenn LJS 119) #medievalsky

🔗: https://bit.ly/4m8XtRn
September 12, 2025 at 7:58 PM
normally dragons are more of a thing for Michaelmas (Sept 30) but this manuscript decided to have a holy cross (sept 15) dragon too. dragon-tember. #fragmentfriday
September 12, 2025 at 4:45 PM
saveredlandlibr.bsky.social
3/ More suggested hashtags to join on a Friday

#FluoriteFriday

#FossilFriday

#VolcanoFriday

#FortressFriday

#FindsFriday
#FragmentFriday
#FlintFriday

#VikingFriday
#RomanRoadsFriday
#PharaohFriday
#PhoenicianFriday
#PhallusFriday (Archaeology only)

3 of 6 #FridayHashtags
September 12, 2025 at 3:30 PM
svanimpe.bsky.social
An in-situ fragment for #FragmentFriday. Peaking out of the binding of a small Greek edition of Polyaenus the Macedonian (G 5077) are fragments of 2 works. The colourful one is a comment on canon law (chapter "De disciplina in officinis servanda"). The smaller fragments are difficult to determine.
Title page of Polyaenus, Stratagematum libri octo (Lyon, 1589) Spine lining with fragments of medieval manuscripts. Back of the major fragment, showing more text. Detail of one of the smaller fragments peeking out of the binding.
September 12, 2025 at 7:41 AM
something fun about this fragment is that the text combines parts of two different chants, but the melody is continuous across them like it was supposed to be that way all along. chant remix! #FragmentFriday
Several staves of music from a fragment now in Cluj-Napoca (https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-8cwo/11129/81427). A large capital A marks the beginning of the responsory verse "Amaverunt Christum in vita sua" (https://cantusindex.org/id/006342a), but switches up the second half with a line about walking around in white robes, which is usually part of a different chant entirely (https://cantusindex.org/id/007021). Did somebody drop it in here deliberately, or did they copy the wrong line and roll with it? Either way, the music is lined up with it, so it still works just fine.
September 5, 2025 at 9:05 PM
svanimpe.bsky.social
How did people do #FragmentFriday before google books? Turns out: they didn't. Working through a folder of uncatalogued fragments with illuminated initials, often incunables.

Fragment of Joannes Duns Scotus, Quaestiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi (Nurnberg, Koberger, 1481).
A large page of printed text in two colums. In the upper left an illuminated initial in red and blue, with a descender all the way down to the page. Close-up of the illuminated initial, showing fine pen drawings of foliage. Close-up of the illumination at the bottom of the page.
September 5, 2025 at 12:30 PM