Harvard’s Medieval Greek Manuscripts in Time and Context, workshop led by Niels Gaul (University of Edinburgh), Houghton Library, Harvard University, October 21, 2024, morning session: 10:30am–12:30 pm, afternoon session: 3:00–5:00 pm

Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies present “Harvard’s Medieval Greek Manuscripts in Time and Context,” a hands-on workshop by Niels Gaul, A. G. Leventis Professor of Byzantine Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

With over 30 codices (and numerous fragments) dating from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, Houghton holds one of the finest collections of medieval Greek manuscripts in the United States. In this workshop, we will look at some of its stars—including a palimpsest and an archaizing scroll—across a wide range of genres: (miniature) psalters, aristocratic Gospels, and provincial lectionaries; poetry, philosophy, and historiography; bestiaries and schoolbooks. We will consider these manuscripts as artefacts that kept evolving through time, from the wishes and intentions of their original scribes and patrons to the traces left by later readers, users, and collectors; endeavor to place some of them in their wider paleographical and historical contexts; and explore the connection to early printing.

"Harvard’s Medieval Greek Manuscripts in Time and Context" will be offered in the morning and once in the afternoon, and space is limited. Please register for one session only. Link for afternoon registration.