Folding
I am completing an article on the semantics of folding in late medieval England that centres on a fourteenth-century almanac, the remarkable Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson D. 939. The manuscript comprises six oblong parchment sheets. Each is folded first lengthwise to form a narrow strip and then again, in a zig-zag or accordion pattern to create a palm-sized packet. Folded, Rawl. D. 939 can be paged through like a codex. But, like a pop-up book, its pages open, revealing an array of calendrical, chronological, devotional, medical, economic and prognostic material. Cuts in the parchment allow a viewer to access information on the inside without unfolding an entire sheet. If we were to fully unfold the manuscript and place its sheets end-to-end, it would stretch an astonishing 2.5 meters. Folded, it measures 14 x 11 cm—compact, but no more so than many almanac codices, which measure on average around 15 x 10 cm, making them just as portable. Given this, I am curious why a thing like Rawl. D. 939 was created and believe the answer to that question lies in a better understanding of, on the one hand, the expressive pressures that time-related content put on the codex, and, on the other, of the formal and relational possibilities folding afforded.
I am also collaborating with Sarah Griffin and Kathleen Doyle on a catalogue of all the European concertina-fold almanacs. Sarah is curating an exhibition at Lambeth Palace Library February–May 2025 that will feature many English examples, including parts of Rawlinson D 939. If you want to be kept in the loop about this work enter your email below.
Publications
with Sarah Griffin and Kathleen Doyle. Concertina-Fold Almanacs: A Catalogue [expected completion 2024]
‘A Wrinkle in Time: The Structural Significance of a Fourteenth-Century Folded Almanac’ [expected completion 2024]
Nos. 164–5, in Lisa Fagin Davis et al. (eds.), Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 201–206.
‘Making Knowledge Portable: The Zodiac Man, in the Context of Folded Medical Almanacs‘ (MA, The Courtauld Institute, 2007).
Presentations
‘A Wrinkle in Time: The Structural Significance of a Concertina-Fold Almanac’
Kress Foundation Art of the European Book Lecture, Rare Book School, University of Virginia, 25 July 2022
with Kathleen Doyle and Sarah M. Griffin, ‘Time Unfolded: Cataloguing Concertina-Fold Almanacs’
The Book Print Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 24 February 2022
with Sarah Griffin, ‘Time Unfolded: The Rashleigh Calendar and Medieval Concertina-Fold Almanacs’
Kresen Kernow (‘Cornwall Centre’), 13 January 2022
‘A Wrinkle in Time: Fold and Form in a 14th-century Computus Manuscript’
Hooking Up, Schoenberg Symposium of Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, University of Pennsylvania, 21–23 November 2019
‘“Walking 500 Winters”: Picturing the Time between Planets in a Folded Almanac’
Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting, 12–14 February 2015
Conference Sessions
‘The Concertina-Fold Book, Across Premodern Cultures’ (Co-organiser with Sarah Griffin)
International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 5 July 2023. Supported by an ICMA Kress Travel Grant SoFCB Funds