CLAS Manuscript Study Days

The Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society holds an annual Manuscript Study Day on various topics relating to manuscripts and historical book production. We have held Manuscript Study Days at the British Library - Illuminating the Dark Ages, St Paul's Cathedral - Illuminating Manuscripts, Missal and Music (where we had live singing of the music in the manuscripts), Cambridge - Illuminating Cambridge Manuscripts, and our 2009 Manuscript Study Day was at Canterbury Cathedral.

Illuminating Lambeth

The Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society held a hugely successful Manuscript Study Day at Lambeth Palace Library on Saturday June 4th. The event sold out almost as soon as it was advertised, and many people were disappointed in that they did not send in their application in time. We had visitors from all over the UK as well as Norway and a group from the US. We were also privileged to have the Bishop of Arizona and his wife as our guests. Our speakers were on top form, with Professor Michelle Brown talking about Bibles before the year 1000 and how the Bible was shaped, and included fascinating photographs of papyri from almost the very beginnings of the New Testament. Then Dr Christopher de Hamel took up the baton by talking about bibles leading up to, and including, the twelfth century, focusing on the Bury and Winchester Bibles and particularly the Lambeth Bible, with amazing new research for the latter. And finally Dr Giles Mandelbrote, Librarian and Archivist at Lambeth Palace Library introduced the Library itself, and then the new exhibition ‘Out of the Sacred Tongues’, which is about the translation of the Bible. Even the weather stayed kind for us, as a glorious sunny day outside meant that many could relax at lunchtime and enjoy the wonderful outside space of the Palace and also the Thames Embankment just across the road.