Michael Richardson, special collections librarian at the University of Bristol, wasn’t surprised to find forgotten parchment scraps from medieval manuscripts hidden inside some of the books at Bristol’s public library. The library, established in 1613, is one of the oldest in England and has an antiquarian books collection that rivals any university’s. And where there are old, rare books, there are often older, sometimes rarer parchment fragments recycled into those books’ bindings. But Richardson didn’t expect to stumble on several medieval fragments written in Old French glued into the binding…
