Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 748 (Fragmentarium: F-4ihz)

This beautiful page comes from a manuscript known as The Beauvais Missal. The manuscript was produced in France in the late 13th century for use by a priest in the Beauvais Cathedral of St. Peter. After the secularization brought on by the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, the Cathedral library was dispersed and the Missal disappeared into private hands. In 1926, it was purchased at auction by none other than American industrialist William Randolph Hearst, who brought it to the United States. After sixteen years of happy ownership, he sold it in turn to an antiquarian bookseller in New York named Philip Duschnes. Working with his business partner Otto Ege of Cleveland, Duschnes dismembered the manuscript in 1942. He and Ege sold its leaves one by one to collectors and institutions across North America, knowing they would make more money selling single leaves than if they had sold the complete manuscript. This destruction in the name of capitalism was, unfortunately, quite common at the time, and thousands of manuscripts were destroyed this way, their leaves scattered to the wind. This destruction of cultural heritage objects cannot be undone, but digital tools offer reparative possibilities. The Beauvais Missal is currently the subject of a digital reconstruction project; so far, 122 of the original 309 leaves have been found. This leaf, preserving chants from the Common of Martyrs, now belongs to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. - Lisa Fagan Davis, Executive Director, Medieval Academy of America