All my medievalist friends, road trip to Yale!!! The Takamiya Collection of Middle English Manuscripts I am very glad to announce that I am depositing on long-term loan at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University my collection of western medieval manuscripts. The Takamiya Collection numbers over one hundred manuscripts and includes the outstanding core of Middle English texts in which I have been interested as a scholar and collector. Assembled over forty years, it is perhaps the largest and most comprehensive collection of Middle English manuscripts in modern times. A substantial group of medieval English vernacular texts of literary, historical, scientific and cultural significance, it includes the classics of Middle English poetry, works of spiritual devotion in prose and verse, historical chronicles, two Wycliffite Bibles, the only manuscript of Mandeville’s imaginary Travels in private hands, and many others. Among the jewels of the collection are three manuscripts of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe. Now that I have had the satisfaction of collecting and studying these manuscripts, it is high time to think of their future in a secure home, where they will be easily accessible to international scholars and students. I am impressed by the Beinecke Library’s ambitious research programs and I think they have both the expertise and energy to use the collection to great advantage. As many of you know, I have always enjoyed making these manuscripts available to the scholarly community, but I am aware that Tokyo may at times seem far away, and for many people New Haven is closer to home. I myself first visited the Yale campus as a teenager in the summer of 1963, just before the opening of the Beinecke Library, and again in the autumn of 1966 as an interpreter of a Japanese Noh troupe. I find it particularly gratifying that the collection has arrived in time for the Beinecke Library’s 50th anniversary celebrations this autumn. I am certain that Dr E. C. Schroeder, Director of the Beinecke Library, and Dr Ray Clemens, Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts, will soon officially announce the arrival of the collection at Beinecke for long-term loan and its availability to academia in the future. Those of you who are interested in the collection are invited to refer to “A Handlist of Western Medieval Manuscripts in the Takamiya Collection,” which I contributed to The Medieval Book: Glosses from Friends and Colleagues of Christopher de Hamel, ed. James H. Marrow, Richard Linenthal and William Noel, 2010, pp. 421-440. Toshiyuki Takamiya FSA, HonDLitt (Sheffield), HonLittD (Glasgow) Professor Emeritus, Keio University
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 02:00:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015