Madeline Nielsen

Project title:  

Exeter Manuscripts under Bishop Osbern, 1072-1103 

Project Summary:  

The Norman Osbern FitzOsbern held the position of Bishop of Exeter from 1072 until his death in 1103, succeeding its first bishop Leofric. Leofric was a major book donor and has been well-studied, but Osbern, who was also a significant figure in the assembly of the library at Exeter, remains understudied. I propose to rectify this by investigating Osbern’s donations of manuscripts, commissions of manuscripts, and scriptorium activity. I seek to identify the Norman origins of the majority of Osbern’s manuscripts, expanding knowledge about his books and networks. By investigating the manuscripts and charters of his episcopacy, I will also investigate Osbern himself as a historical figure and his impact on Exeter.

The period of 1072-1103 sits in the shadow of the Norman Conquest, and represents a time of cultural and social change in prominent English monastic centres like Exeter. During this time, there was much scribal migration from Norman to English centres, with manuscripts coming along with the relocating scribes. Not only is this period marked by hybrid manuscripts revealing collaboration between Anglo-Saxon and Norman actors, but hybrid scripts—script was in the process changing from Carolingian to Gothic, and it seems that dynamic Anglo-Norman centres like Exeter may be key sites of innovation in the development of the transitional Proto-Gothic script that led to Gothic. I hope to produce a catalogue of the manuscripts under Osbern at Exeter, identifying and tracing the patterns of Norman migration the hands in the manuscripts reveal, and ultimately share my research in an accessible, digital format.