An estate auction in Maine that a savvy shopper visited in search of a KitchenAid mixer, a bookcase, or vintage apparel ended up giving him or her a 700-year-old gem.
Will Sideri expected to see a kitchen gadget, but instead found a framed paper on a wall. It included ornate Latin lettering, musical notation, and gold embellishments. A bumper sticker read 1285 AD. The text seemed downright mediaeval based on what he had studied in a Colby College manuscripts class.
And for $75, it was a great deal.
Academics determined the parchment was from The Beauvais Missal, a late 13th-century book used in the Beauvais Cathedral in France. They said that it was first utilised in Roman Catholic devotion some 700 years ago.
The text, which was originally published by the Maine Monitor, may be worth up to $10,000, according to an expert on manuscripts.
After seeing the unique text, Sideri got in touch with a professor from Colby College who had previously taught him and was acquainted with it due to the existence of another page in the college’s archive. A other scholar who had studied the text was contacted by the professor. They immediately verified the legitimacy.
According to Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America and professor of manuscript studies at Simmons University in Boston, the parchment was a component of a prayer book and a priest’s liturgy.
She said that the whole missal was formerly held by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst before it was sold in the 1940s and, much to the dismay of modern scholars, was divided up into individual sheets.
At the start of the 20th century, the practise was widespread. In this manner, Davis said, “thousands of rare manuscripts were destroyed and dispersed.”
Davis has meticulously tracked down more than 100 distinct pages from The Beauvais Missal throughout the nation. The original missal included 309 pages in all.
Scholars are particularly interested in the page that Sideri bought.
It is a gem due to its antiquity and better-than-average condition compared to the other page in the Colby collection, according to Megan Cook, a former student of Sideri’s and a mediaeval literature instructor at Colby.
As to Davis, the parchment is worth more than $10,000. However, Sideri said he had no plans to sell it.
He said that he appreciates the parchment’s history, elegance, and the tale of how he came upon it.
At the conclusion of the day, he said, “I know this is cool.” I didn’t acquire anything with the intention of selling it.