The fragments of text had been reused hundreds of years ago as covers for early modern notebooks, bound around administrative records relating to the island’s feudal holdings, and were quietly preserved by that act of reuse.
Found within the collections of the Island Archives and among records held in the Greffe strongroom, they offer what experts say is the first real evidence of the books present on Guernsey, and the texts in circulation, during the medieval period – a time from which almost no such evidence has survived.
The fragments were identified by the Island Archives team alongside manuscript expert Dr David Rundle, of the University of Kent, and book historian Professor Tamara Atkin, of the Queen’s College, University of Oxford.
Together, they suggest that late medieval Guernsey was home to keen readers who, when they read, did so in French rather than English. Most are in Latin, though six are in French, and many are popular works that survive in copies across England and France.
One comes from a rare dramatic poem, L’Estoire de Griseldis, a secular play thought to have been written around 1395.
The Guernsey copy is exceptionally rare, surviving in only one other manuscript and two later printed editions – making the find an important missing link in how the story was copied and passed down.
‘This collection is exciting in its variety, of subjects and of dates, and hint at a culture which has not even been imagined,’ said Dr Rundle.
The discovery began when archival assistant Callum Tostevin-Hall was asked to track down a 16th-century copy of Edward III’s 1331 Extente of Guernsey, and noticed that a vellum cover with Latin text had been removed from the notebook during earlier conservation.
‘I checked this cover and was astonished to find that it was clearly a reused bifolium from a medieval manuscript,’ he said.
Island archivist Vikki Hart said the fragments were ‘striking early examples of recycling’.
‘What was once a practical act of reusing old parchment has, centuries later, preserved pieces of the island’s history that would otherwise have been lost,’ she said.
The Island Archives will host an academic study day on 10 September, featuring a round table with academics from the UK and France, a hands-on study session and a public talk.
Tickets for the talk are available through Eventbrite.
You need to be logged in to comment.