Professor Leah Tether from the English Department and her co-author Dr Benjamin Pohl (Historical Studies) will launch their book The Bristol Merlin at the conference ‘From Fragment to Whole: Interpreting Medieval Manuscript Fragments’, hosted by the Bristol Centre for Medieval Studies, this Friday, 17th September.
The Bristol Merlin consists of fragments of a thirteenth-century manuscript of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, an Old French romance text that tells stories of Merlin, Arthur and his knights. The fragments were identified in 2019 in Bristol Central Library by Michael Richardson from the University’s Special Collections: a find that attracted global interest. Leah and Ben then worked with Laura Chuhan Campbell at Durham University to analyse the fragments. Their book, published by ARC Humanities Press, presents a text of the fragments and translation into English, along with full colour images and commentary. For more details, please see the University press release for full details or read the Guardian’s report on the story.
‘From Fragment to Whole’ is a two day conference running on 16th September (online) and 17th September (in person) organised by the Centre for Medieval Studies and devoted to manuscript fragments. Kathleen Kennedy, Cathy Hume and Carol Meale from the Department will all present their research at the conference, alongside a stellar line-up of external speakers. A full programme can be found on the CMS website.