Eight Guidelines on Book Preservation from 1527: 'How One Should Preserve All Books to Last Eternally'

The present article analyses and makes available one of the earliest known texts on book preservation. The text in manuscript The Hague, KB 133 F 2 dates back to 1527 and contains eight guidelines on how to preserve books. These guidelines give us a unique insight into the way people in the later Middle Ages thought about handling books and the risks involved. An analysis of the contents of these age-old guidelines in light of modern book preservation indicates that the causes of deterioration and degradation identified back then still hold true today. In addition, this set of medieval instructions can be seen as one of the earliest foundations of our present-day regulations on access, handling and storage

Tolkien among Scholars

An introduction to the volume of conference proceedings of the international Tolkien conference ‘Tolkien Among Scholars’, as well as a brief introduction to Tolkien Studies

“I can read Hollandsch very fairly. The Correspondence between James Murray (1837-1915) and Pieter Jacob Cosijn (1840-1899)

Thijs Porck, “I can read Hollandsch very fairly. The Correspondence between James Murray (1837-1915) and Pieter Jacob Cosijn (1840-1899)”, in Language Use, Usage Guides, and Linguistic Norms, ed. Luisella Caon, Marion Elenbaas & Janet Grijzenhout (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021), 107-129

Reshaping the Germanic Economy of Honour: Gift Giving in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

An article that contrasts the role of gift giving in Old English poems like Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings

De Brederodekroniek voor Yolande van Lalaing

This article contextualizes the Brederodekroniek [Brederode Chronicle] by Johannes a Leydis (Jan van Leiden). After a discussion of the surviving manuscripts, I provide a new date of composition for the Middle Dutch and Latin versions of this chronicle and reflect on its original purpose.

New Roads and Secret Gates, Waiting around the Corner: Investigating Tolkien’s Other Anglo-Saxon Sources

This article outlines briefly the methodology of studying Tolkien’s sources and then attempts to move beyond the early medieval English sources that have so often been the topic of research, such as Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon. The paper proposes hitherto unnoticed links between Tolkien’s fiction and Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, Old English law codes and early medieval English archaeology

Everzwijn

A brief note on the boar in medieval culture for a special issue on animals in the Middle Age

“Wie zijn verleden verloochent, verloochent zichzelf”: Een interview met Rolf H. Bremmer Jr over Friezen in de Middeleeuwen

An interview with Rolf H. Bremmer Jr about Frisians in the Middle Ages on the occasion of his retirement

Treasures in a Sooty Bag? A Note on Durham Proverb 7

This note calls attention to a precursor of the Latin text of Durham Proverb 7 in the ninth-century Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae and, in doing so, sheds some light on the unresolved relationship between the Old English and Latin versions of the Durham Proverbs in general and Durham Proverb 7 in particular

Beowulf: A Dutch Paper Doll Pirate History (1934)

Reports on the existence of a set of paper dolls based on the Old English poem Beowulf, published in various Dutch newspapers in the 1930s