What’s in a description?

The above description is for one of the manuscript codices that the Loyola University Chicago Special Collections is contributing to the Peripheral Manuscripts Project. The original description was typed on a catalog card by an unknown librarian at St. Ignatius College, Loyola Chicago’s founding institution, several decades ago. It remained in the card catalog until the University Libraries went to an automated catalog system in the 1970s, when the existing description was reused for an electronic catalog record. In 1997 it was used yet again by an appraiser for the only existing appraisal of items in the rare book collection. But none of the individuals writing or using the description of this manuscript was a medievalist or a specialist in medieval manuscripts. And while the original cataloger may have been a member of a religious order, specifically the Jesuits, did that person actually spend time looking at the manuscript to verify what it was, or did they just use the brief bookseller description that is glued on the interior of the front cover? Is the resulting description accurate?

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 Well, yes, in that this is a manuscript on vellum with illuminated initials and miniatures of the Virgin and Child and of St. Agnes. There are leaves of musical notation and a calendar, and leaves in a different hand at the end. And it is bound in wood boards and sheepskin. But is such a limited description useful for researchers? If not, how can it be improved?

To make the description more useful for researchers, additional information about the manuscript’s physical details and context are needed. Expanding upon the physical details is relatively easy, even for a non-specialist. For example, the current description doesn’t indicate that this is a relatively small codex, approximately 13 cm, or 5 inches, in height. It doesn’t tell researchers that several parchment leaves towards the end were replaced by paper, or that the eight leaves in a different hand at the end are also on paper, not parchment. Some additional context can also be added, specifically that this manuscript was part of the Fathers’ Library at St. Ignatius College that came to Loyola Chicago when the library moved to the Lake Shore Campus. But other questions remain unanswered and require the examination of the manuscript by experts. I hope that exposing the manuscript to a wider audience of scholars through the Peripheral Manuscripts Project will help fill in some of the remaining blanks.

As researchers study this manuscript, they can perhaps clarify whether this codex is actually a breviary or if it is another type of devotional work and whether it was created and/or used by Franciscans or if members of other orders also used and added to it. These answers will help determine a correct title for the manuscript. Answers to other questions would help fill in the physical description of the manuscript, by identifying or verifying: what scripts are used in the codex; what kind of animal skin was used to make the parchment; the dating of the manuscript; and where was it made.

Still other questions may never be fully answered, such as why some sections were replaced with paper; who annotated the manuscript, when, and why; how, when, and why it was acquired; and how it was used at St. Ignatius College. Was it used for study by faculty and classes? Was it used for prayer? Was it just put on display in the library?

As with the other items that Loyola Chicago has contributed to the Peripheral Manuscripts Project, this manuscript needs to be examined by specialists. I look forward to learning what they discover. 

By Kathryn Young, University Archivist and Curator of Rare Books, Loyola University Chicago