THE HISTORY OF THIS LEAF

Accession log book from the WCSU Archives dating back to 1975.

Provenance is a pivotal part of a repository having clear legal right to its custody of a particular object or objects; however, provenance can be just as important in identifying what an object is and determining its authenticity.

According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, provenance relates to: "the history of the ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality."  Therefore, provenance can impact monetary value, contextual value and content value.  For example, a replica medieval manuscript leaf created by a well-respected artist or owned by some person of note may carry with it greater monetary, contextual and content value than a well-executed replica with unknown or unremarkable provenance.

The provenance of WCSU's single parchment manuscript leaf is unknown. Archives customarily accession materials and record where that material may have come from and who was the donor.

The box of miscellanea that in which the manuscript leaf was stored.

There was no accession record at the WCSU Archives and further inquiries to the previous archivist revealed nothing.  However, a former WCSU librarian, James Pegolotti, shared the following information that another former WCSU faculty member, Dr. Kathleen McGrory, had related to him:

I did have a graduate student in my ENG courses at WCSU (1969-1978)--a wealthy MD psychiatrist, older woman, eccentric, who lived in Newtown and had a house full of treasures... She was really turned on by those WCSC literature classes, excessively so... She told me she did have some old manuscript "artifacts" and invited the class to her home for an evening meal. She...had  chunks of genuine medieval codices, very old, and some framed pages--as well as one lampshade. I did hear, years after I had left,  that she had included some significant donations to Wesconn in her will.

Some progress was made in identifying this former student but no record of a gift being made of a medieval manuscript was anywhere documented. This is the closest lead we have of a donor to the University with an interest in medieval manuscripts.

All we knew for sure is that the manuscript leaf had been in WCSU's possession at least a decade and appeared to be authentic.

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