Manuscripta

The short text most commonly known as La devisions des foires de Champagne is little more than a list of the dates of the six major Champagne fairs followed by an enumeration of the different periods during the fairs. Nevertheless, it raises a number of interesting questions, due in large part to its extremely varied manuscript context, for this little "memory aid" appears both associated with calendars and separately in some dozen manuscripts produced from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. In addition, via those manuscripts we can trace its travels from France to Flanders, England, Italy, and Spain. This article provides a survey of the manuscripts and the contexts in which this text survives.

The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana possesses the largest collection of humanist manuscripts in the world. It did not, however, follow a conscious policy of acquisition in gathering them together. Rather, most of these manuscripts were acquired as parts of other collections incorporated into the Vatican Library after the fifteenth century. This article surveys the history of the Vatican Library's collection of humanist manuscripts, focusing on Giovanni Tortelli and providing a list of manuscripts whose ownership can be attributed to Cardinal Marco Barbo.

Vercelli, Biblioteca capitolare, MS Fragment 50 contains a hitherto unknown tenth-century inventory of books. Analyzing the fragment and the contents of its list in the context of Vercelli libraries in the tenth century, this article seeks to reconstruct the original carrier codex and suggests that the booklist may record the holdings of the old chapter at Santa Maria Maggiore. It further argues that the chapter libraries of Vercelli were reorganized after Bishop Atto's death (ca. 958), probably during the episcopacy of Leo of Vercelli (d. 1027), during which some of their books were destroyed.

This article draws attention to two unexplored witnesses to Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicon anglicanum in London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 371, which are important evidence for the reception of the Chronicon in medieval England and its role in shaping monastic interpretations of Richard I's reign, particularly his crusading career.