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Carin Ruff

@carinr.bsky.social

1.3K followers 820 following 4.8K posts

Medievalist, Latinist, paleographer, Episcopalian, with novel in progress. DC-based, with beagle. Web: ruffnotes.org Cover image is from the Reichenau Gospels, Walters Art Museum MS W7 fol. 7r.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · Feb 25

Pinned intro: Most days I make a post about medieval manuscripts associated with a saint of the day and discuss their #paleography. I generally follow medievalists, book history people, Episcopal/Anglican folks, and local Washington, DC history/civic affairs/statehood peeps.

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 1h

Good sleeve on this early manicule. In a commentary on Aristotle, Porphyrius & Boethius, printed at #Venice in 1496. At @theulspeccoll.bsky.social since 1664, part of the vast collection of Richard Holdsworth, Master of Emmanuel College Cambridge. CUL Inc.3.B.3.138[1836].

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 13h

Thank you for this rec! I was just hearing from a friend whose very young grandson recently discovered that museums are pretty neat. I'll pass this on.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 14h

Oh, Wunderhund!

Reposted by Carin Ruff

CM Janeese Lewis George @cmlewisgeorgew4.bsky.social · 21h

Every sign in DC marks the loss of someone’s neighbor, someone’s loved one, someone’s friend.

Every sign marks yet another step in the march toward authoritarianism.

Signs popping up around D.C. note: ‘ICE kidnapping happened here’

The signs range in style and mark numerous locations where people have been taken by federal agents.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

Here's my earlier post about her brother Earconwald, in which I was also cranky downthread about the BL:
bsky.app/profile/cari...

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · Apr 30

Today is the feast of St. Earconwald, d. 693, Bp. of the East Saxons (i.e., of London). Here he is in the list of bishops of the "horientaliu(m) saxonu(m)" from the reconversion (i.e., of the Anglo-Saxon period), in @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social CCCC 183, fol. 61v. 🕯️🧵 #medievalsky

Manuscript page in two columns: lists of bishops, with numbers and headings in red and names in black. The numbers leave space for continuation of the lists.

Detail of the manuscript page in the other image, showing the top of the right column.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

This is immediately recognizable a 12th-c. Rochester MS, with that pointy-bottomed protogothic script. It's a very pretty copy of Bede. Here are some pages w/initials, plus samples of the mini-script used for capitula. #paleography

The digitized MS is here: iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifes...

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

This is the feast of Æthelburh (Ethelburga), 1st abbess of Barking. 🕯️ Bede describes in the early part of Bk4 of the HE how her brother Earconwald founded 2 monasteries, 1 for him and 1 for her. Here's a screenshot (BL, sigh) from BL Harley 3680, 108r, w/her name (&dilburgȩ!) & Barking's underlined.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

👀🧵👇‼️ #openaccess #medievalsky

Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · Jan 7

'Sutton Hoo & Syria: The Anglo-Saxons Who Served in the Byzantine Army?' This is one of the most exciting things I've written (so far..!). Thanks to everyone who helped.
academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

Reposted by Carin Ruff

Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 1d

Saint Jerome and his lion, bonding meditatively over thoughts of life's vanity in 1548. As painted by Georg Pencz, whose day is today.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

Very cool! This reminds me that Siân Echard has a book coming out NEXT WEEK on 18-19c facsimiles of medieval manuscripts: www.pennpress.org/978151282705...

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 1d

Grab some wine! Some late antique communion bread 🥖 loaves from the 7th-8th centuries with Jesus upon them have been discovered in Anatolia. www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/10/c...

Charred Byzantine-Era Loaves of Bread with Greek Inscriptions Discovered in Anatolia

An archaeological excavation campaign carried out at the Topraktepe site, corresponding to the ancient city of Irenopolis, has yielded a discovery of extraordinary scientific significance: five charre...

www.labrujulaverde.com

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

There are some neat Traherne sites and projects online, like this one oxfordtraherne.web.ox.ac.uk/trahernes-ma... , but despite being called Traherne's Manuscripts that page neither lists nor links to them.

More info on the MSS of his works, also sans links, is at celm.folger.edu/introduction...

Traherne’s Manuscripts

Thomas Traherne's manuscripts

oxfordtraherne.web.ox.ac.uk

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

MS. Eng. th. e. 50 at digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/a822...

Bodleian Library MS. Eng. th. e. 50

View high resolution digitized images of Bodleian Library MS. Eng. th. e. 50 'Centuries of meditations'

digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

Today the Church of England also celebrates Thomas Traherne, d. 1674. 🕯️ No time (or expertise) for a proper post, but I'll note that the Bodleian has fully digitized two of his autograph manuscripts, MS. Eng. poet. c. 42 at digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/593f... and... (short 🧵)

Bodleian Library MS. Eng. poet. c. 42

View high resolution digitized images of Bodleian Library MS. Eng. poet. c. 42 The 'Dobell folio'

digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Julia Walworth @juliawalworth.bsky.social · 1d

A new academic year & the Upper Library is finally re-opened. The exhibition this term features Merton's 'newest' medieval manuscript (MS 329) acquired this year with the generous help of @thefnl.bsky.social. Booklet of 14th-century astronomical tables! Eclipses, conjunctions and more!

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 1d

Mark my words, "Toward an Inflatable Liberationist Theology" is gonna fill an auditorium at AAR.*

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 2d

Today the Church celebrates St Paulinus, who came from Rome as a missionary to the North of England from Rome. He’s literally close to us in Mirfield, as he founded Dewsbury Minster, just along the valley from us, and brought the Christian faith to this place.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

"This Edwin's father in baptism was the venerable Bishop Paulinus, one of those whom Gregory sent among us (sc. the Northumbrians), as we have said."

See the whole MS here: e-codices.ch/en/searchres...

St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 567, p. 88, detail

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

This is the feast of Paulinus, Bishop of York, d. 644. 🕯️ Though the extensive Paulinus material is in Bede, I realized we've never looked at the sole surviving MS of the Anonymous of Whitby's Life of Gregory the Great, St. Gall 567. Here's the passage about the baptism of Edwin from that text.

St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 567, p. 88

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

Good morning from Dolly.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 2d

I just ordered this from Blackwell's. $40, free shipping to the US. I was all set to buy it from a US seller today but it's not published till 10/28 in the US and we're doing Insular MSS in class NEXT WEEK. Students asked me about it on day 1! blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

The Book of Kells

An account of one of the most famous manuscripts in the world.

blackwells.co.uk

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 2d

I'm happy to hear that unconferences are still a thing.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 2d

I would be up for that!

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 2d

It's very hard to make out on most pages, but yes, the script is pendant. Here you can *just* see the dry-point ruling running across the top of most letter bodies. (Personal layout obsession, irrelevant to Grosseteste.)

See the whole MS here: cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FF-0...

Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.24, fol. 44r, showing script in relation to ruling.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 2d

Today the CofE & the Episcopal Church celebrate Robert Grosseteste, d. 1253. Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.24 is an amazing find for a saint+manuscript post: a 10th- or 11th-c. copy of The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in Greek, with annotations in Grosseteste's hand. #medievalsky

Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.24, fol. 25r

Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.24, fol. 42v

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