Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts: Provenance

This is a blog on the provenance of manuscripts maintained by Peter Kidd, former Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library, London, United Kingdom.

The Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts aggregates observations of premodern manuscripts drawn from auction and sales catalogs, inventories, catalogs from institutional and private collections, and other sources.

This multi-partner project links disparate datasets from Europe and North America to provide an international view of the history and provenance of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. Researchers are able to analyze and visualize the aggregated data at scales ranging from individual manuscripts to thousands of manuscripts.

Based at the Institute of English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, "Cultural Values and the International Trade in Medieval European Manuscripts, c. 1900-1945" project examines the impact of collectors of medieval manuscripts, experts and dealers on the formation of collections and the development of scholarship between 1900 and 1945.