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My name is Bryan Trussler and I have been involved in mediaeval manuscript work since the 1980s. But I am not a tenured academic with access to public funds for when projects get expensive.
Why do I do this? I do this for the same reason that archaeologists will stand and die in front of ancient ruins in Syria or Iraq -- because it is through the past that we learn why we are who we are and we get only one shot at preserving it. Lost is lost, forever. The death of cultural memory leaves the world a sadder, smaller, poorer place.
Abbot Adam of Perseigne of the Cistercian Order lived through some of the most tumultuous times of the high Middle Ages. He was born ca 1160 and died in 1221. He lived in northern France and his abbey, Perseigne, stood on Plantagenet lands. He knew, personally, Henry the Lion, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Lionheart, John Lackland, Philip Augustus of France and many more of the leading figures of this pivotal period. He was entrusted by the papacy to debate points of theology. He served a turn as Confessor to Richard. He preached the Crusades and went on Crusade into Syria.
He was prolific in his writings -- letters, treatises, sermons, homilies, commentaries -- but much has been lost. I have been studying Adam's writings since my graduate work (1989-1992) and some of my findings are cited in Wikipedia and other, more academic publications. I currently possess the most complete digital library of his writings. Except ..... for two manuscripts in Vienna! (The background image depicts the domed foyer of this magnificent library.)
1) A commentary on the Lamenations of Jeremiah. This is a unique, last-surviving copy, about 80pp in length.
2) A collection of sermons, about 400pp in length but not all by Adam. This is the intriguing one -- the manuscript was misdescribed and miscatalogued by the Vienna library in the 1860s. Miscataloguing a 500-yr old book is almost the same as losing it! In this age of digital copies and virtual research, where almost no one buys a plane ticket to fly to Vienna to actually SEE the book and to hold it and examine it, a book that is mislaid in a library catalogue ceases to exist for the value of its contents -- no one who wants it will find it and no one who does find it will want it!
But I have sharp eyes and I am deeply intuitive and I believe in serendipity. I was able to persuade a staffer in Vienna to go LOOK at this book. And she confirmed what I had suspected -- it was miscatalogued 160 years ago! Identifying this manuscript *doubles* the known sermons from this important Church Father.
So now I want to buy digital copies of these manuscripts and get to work on recovering for the world this knowledge that had been so very very lost.
A quality scan of the treatise on Jeremiah will cost 400 EUR ($620 CAD) at 80 pages times 5 EUR per page. Scans of equal quality of the sermons would cost 2000 EUR ($3200 CAD), but I can economise -- I can buy only those pages with Adam's words on them *or* I can buy a lower overall quality scan or some combination of the two (high quality for Adam's writings and lower quality for their contextual pages). I shall also need to purchase four other books which will support my research into these new writings.
ALL donations will help in some material way. The first $200 CAD raised will go for those four additional books. The next $1200 CAD raised will go for high quality scans of the sermons. The next $600 CAD will go for quality scans of the treatise on Jeremiah. All funds raised beyond that will go for lower quality scans of the contextual pages of the sermons.
I will post updates here as the work progresses. Any donor interested in the research over the longer term or in my own earlier research is welcome to inquire. I am happy to share. I am offering to name any person or group who significantly enables this research to proceed with a donation of $500 or more in the Acknowledgements of any published findings or translations of these texts.
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Individuals or groups who contribute at least 25% ($500) of the funds needed for the goal will be specifically named in thanks and gratitude in future publications stemming from this research, along these lines: "This research has been made possible by the generous contributions of [names]".
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Individuals or groups who contribute at least 25% ($500) of the funds needed for the goal will be specifically named in thanks and gratitude in future publications stemming from this research, along these lines: "This research has been made possible by the generous contributions of [names]".
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