It only takes a moment standing in front of a glass case, leaning in closer, to forget about the present day and be transported through time. The medieval manuscripts on display in Lewis & Clark’s Shaping the Soul: Books in Medieval Life offer a rare, tangible connection to centuries past.
“The thing you’re seeing, somebody made 800 years ago. It’s astounding. The human connection is even bigger than the beauty of the pages,” says Hannah Crummé, head of special collections and college archives, who helped put together the exhibition.
On view through March 8 in Watzek Library, Shaping the Soul brings together more than 30 rare manuscripts from the 13th through 16th centuries, offering visitors an unusual opportunity to engage up close with books that once shaped how people prayed, learned, and understood themselves. It’s the first public display of medieval manuscripts in Portland in nearly 30 years.
Unlike modern books, these manuscripts were handmade from animal skin, each one extraordinary in its own way.
“A manuscript has a unique presence because you can see the traces of the animal it came from, the minerals and pigments used to make it, and the hand of the person who wrote and painted it,” says Karen Gross, professor of English and exhibition cocurator.
One striking example is a 1516 Book of Hours displaying a Homo anatomicus, or Zodiac Man, a medical diagram linking the human body to astrological forces. The book shows how medieval medicine relied on the heavens and how prayer, health, and science all intertwined on one page.
“Prayer books were much more lively than we often imagine,” Gross says. “They were focal points for prayer, learning to read, recording family deaths—they were deeply human objects.”
Another Book of Hours depicts Pentecost, with Mary and the Apostles in a colorfully decorated letter “H” (for “Hours”). Marginal illustrations of flowers, insects, and birds celebrate the natural world. This suggests there was a late-medieval belief that God could be understood not only through scripture, but also through nature itself.
“One of my favorite pieces is a scroll,” says Crummé. “It documents a woman’s effort to keep her property in the female line, something unusual for a period when inheritance typically passed to men. Even though a scroll isn’t always the most visually striking object, the history it carries is remarkable.”
Other exhibition highlights include a nun’s private devotional handbook, a lawyer’s manual with amusing doodles for memory aids, a grand choir book, and a 13th-century Bible.
Three leaves from French and English psalters and books of hours show the use of gold in manuscript illumination. Artists applied gold either as reflective gold leaf or as matte shell gold, revealing both the patrons’ wealth and the crafter’s skill.
The exhibition is made possible through partnerships with rare book dealers and lenders, including the Manuscripts in the Curriculum initiative developed by international art dealer Les Enluminures, based in Chicago and Paris. Lewis & Clark is the first liberal arts college to participate in the program. Additional manuscripts are on loan from Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Manuscripts in McMinnville, Oregon, giving the community access to materials rarely seen outside private collections. Some of the pieces showcased are owned by Lewis & Clark’s very own Special Collections in Waztek Library.
Getting to be close to this work honestly just reinforces how much being human hasn't changed. Someone sat and created these pages hundreds of years ago, and now we're sitting here looking at them.
Alli Sanders BA ’26, cocurator of the exhibition
Sanders became involved after taking a medieval manuscripts course taught by Gross, which later evolved into an opportunity to work directly on the exhibition. Throughout the semester, she worked in Special Collections alongside Crummé and Gross, participating in weekly planning meetings and contributing to the exhibition’s texts, choice of display, and graphic design.
“These are beautiful pieces of history, and it felt special to help create a space where people could experience that together,” Sanders says. “It’s been really meaningful to see people from outside the college come in and engage with the manuscripts.”
Indeed, on the January 26 opening reception of the Shaping the Soul exhibition, students, faculty, alumni, and community members from all over the Portland area gathered to experience the exhibition, some viewers even coming from as far as Eugene and Seattle. The library filled quickly as visitors lingered over the manuscripts and listened to undergraduates perform plainchant from a 15th-century Italian choir gradual, under the direction of visiting music professor John Cox. Guests also enjoyed hearing the beautiful melodies performed by local early-music ensemble Musica Universalis.
Another event will take place on March 4 as the exhibition comes to a close, with a lecture by Lisa Fagin Davis, who has taught at Yale University and regularly teaches at the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science. In this event, “Scattered Leaves: Otto Ege in Oregon,” Davis will explain how to identify leaves that were separated from their manuscripts and describe how scholars can begin to repair the damage by digitally reconnecting them with other scattered pages.
During the exhibition’s run, Watzek Library will be a place where the community connects not only with one another, but with the people who created these books centuries ago.
“Lewis & Clark aims to be a resource for the city as well as for its students,” Crummé says. “This exhibition is one of the ways we make that possible.”
Special Collections and Archives English
