Category: manuscripts
-
Archive work in the British Library – the way I work
At the end of September I went down to London to hear a paper by Chris Marsh at the Royal Historical Society, so I took the opportunity to travel down a bit ahead of time and spend the afternoon in the British Library. This is something I haven’t done for a couple of years, for…
-
“And what are your conclusions so far?”
“And what are your conclusions so far?” I was asked that a couple of weeks ago, and I was slightly taken off guard. It was because I couldn’t immediately come up with an answer that I decided I needed to take stock! I am convinced that the ballad music has more links with…
-
Lyndal Roper and news
I’ve spent a lot of time in the company of Luther in the last few days, courtesy of Professor Lyndal Roper and Manchester’s Dr Jenny Spinks. Prof Roper’s seminar on Thursday evening described Luther’s polemical writing as an expression of his masculinity, but surprised many of the audience with his scatology and lewdness. On Friday…
-
It’s gone!
I have finally sent off my commonwealth chapter to my panel, ahead of my meeting with them next week. I’m in a slightly different position to normal in that I was able to send it with a message telling them where I wanted help and where I hoped to expand it when I come to…
-
Tidings of Good News
I was warned on Wednesday that my luck will have to run out eventually. That may not sound too much like good news, but the converse is, of course, that, in order to provoke the comment, things must be going relatively well at the moment. Work on the commonwealth chapter continues, with some quite major…
-
The British Library
I spent this week working in the British Library, looking at lots of old manuscripts and some printed music. I’ve been looking for ballads in commonplace books and found some really interesting stuff. Yesterday I looked at the two oldest known pieces of English sheet music, which was amazing. Highlight of the week, though, had…
-
Dread Again
[I’m told that for some people this dangled mid-sentence and never got to the point I wanted to make, so I’m trying it again] It has been a relatively quiet week. I spent two days working on my chapter, determined to get something that vaguely resembled a draft ready before I went to London. …
-
A Change is as Good as a Rest?
This week has been rather different to normal. Foolishly, at 8am on Monday morning I was at Preston station in the hope of travelling to London, but the storm rather got in the way. Instead of arriving in London at 10, it was lunchtime when I got there, so I missed a few hours’ work…
-
The Way Through the Woods
Yesterday I met my supervisors to Discuss the Chapter. I took a list of questions and comments, a piece of work on some manuscript miscellanies that I’ve been studying and some examples of ballads that fitted some of the categories I’d been working on. Between us, I think we’ve managed to find an approach that…
-
The Bog – Part 2
You may have noticed that there wasn’t a blog post on Friday evening. Nor was there one the Friday before. There reason was that I didn’t feel like it; I didn’t want to acknowledge in public that I’m still stuck in the bog, probably waist rather than ankle-deep now. In fact, if truth be told,…
Home 