Lex scripta: The Manuscript as Witness to the History of Law

2nd Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age
October 30-31, 2009

Lex scripta : The Manuscript as Witness to the History of Law

In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Biddle Law Library of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Libraries are pleased to announce the 2nd annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age. This year’s symposium is dedicated to the history of handwritten law and legal documents in Western Europe and the Middle East up to the early modern period in honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of Henry Charles Lea, whose library containing a significant collection of works on ecclesiastical legal history was conveyed to the University in 1926.
Nine speakers will present papers on various topics relating to the history of handwritten law and legal documents. The symposium will conclude with a panel of digital humanities scholars who will discuss specific projects and issues related to the digitization of legal manuscripts and documents.

Illuminated initial with the jurist Angelo de Gambiglioni, from a copy of his Tractatus de maleficiis (Free Library of Philadelphia, Hampton L. Carson Collection, LC 14 23, fol. 1r)

Participants include :
Jonathan E. Brockopp, Penn State University
Hugh Cayless, New York University
Simon Corcoran, Projet Volterra, University College London
Gero Dolezalek, University of Aberdeen
Abigail Firey, University of Kentucky
Jessica Goldberg, University of Pennsylvania
Kathleen E. Kennedy, Penn State University-Brandywine
Susan L’Engle, Vatican Film Library, St. Louis University
Kenneth Pennington, The Catholic University of America
Edward Peters, University of Pennsylvania
Timothy Stinson, North Carolina State University
Georg Vogeler, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich
Anders Winroth, Yale University

The symposium will be held at the University of Pennsylvania and the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia. For locations, schedule, and program details, click here.
Registration is $35 (Free to students with valid student ID). To register, click here.
The symposium is made possible by the generous support of E. Ann Matter, Associated Dean of Arts and Letters, and the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania.
For further information or problems with registration, please contact Lynn Ransom at lransom@pobox.upenn.edu or (215) 898-7851. For more information on the Schoenberg Symposium Series, click here.
For more information on the Schoenberg Symposium Series, click here.