About
Stephanie J. Lahey is Mark Andrews Postdoctoral Fellow in Book Science at University of Toronto’s
Old Books New Science Lab. She completed her PhD at the University of Victoria in September 2021. Her
SSHRC-funded dissertation—a quantitative analysis of scrap parchment in medieval English manuscripts—was supervised by Iain Higgins (Victoria) and Erik Kwakkel (UBC iSchool). Awarded both UVic’s Gold Medal for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in the Humanities, and Canadian Society of Medievalists’
Boyle Dissertation Prize, it is forthcoming as a monograph from
York Manuscript and Early Print Studies. In 2021–2023, she expanded upon this research as a
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto’s
Centre for Medieval Studies, and spent 2023–2024 as
Oschinsky Research Associate at Cambridge University Library and Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge. A former Guest Researcher at
Universiteit Leiden, and instructor at
DHSI and at University of Victoria, she is active as a co-editor and editorial board member of
Early Middle English, and as a medieval manuscript cataloguer in the rare books trade. Her research interests include Book History, Book Science, and Manuscript Studies (palaeography, quantitative- and bio-codicology, materiality, provenance studies, manuscript production); cataloguing; public humanities; legal manuscripts, and
Fachliteratur.
Education
2021 — PhD (English), University of Victoria.
Dissertation:
Offcut Zone Parchment in Manuscript Codices from Later Medieval England.
Supervisors: Iain Macleod Higgins, Erik Kwakkel.
External examiner: Daniel Wakelin.
Viva: 2021 Sep 09. [Unanimously awarded UVic’s Gold Medal for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in the Humanities (only one awarded annually, selected by faculty committee), and Canadian Society of Medievalists’ Leonard Boyle Dissertation Prize (one awarded annually, adjudicated by committee).]
2015 — MA (English), Université d’Ottawa / University of Ottawa.
Thesis:
Legal Book Collecting in Late Medieval Bristol: The Case of Harvard, Houghton Library, MS Richardson 40.
Supervisor: Andrew Taylor.
Selected Additional Professional Training
2019 Mar —
ManuSciences’19. CAES du CNRS, Villa Clythia, Fréjus, France.
2018 Jun —
DHSI (Digital Humanities Summer Institute) 2018. Victoria, BC.
2018 Jan —
American Academy in Rome, Winter School in Latin Paleography and Codicology. Roma, Italia.
2017 Jun —
TNA–PAST (The National Archives Postgraduate Archival Skills Training), Medieval Legal Records Workshop. Kew, UK.
2017 Jun —
London International Palaeography Summer School. London, UK.
Mastodon Feed
The codex holds a Sanskrit commentary on a Hindu legal text; this copy dates from the 17th or possibly even 16th century. #HistLaw #LegalHistory #LawBooks @bookhistodons @histodons (2025-01-13 ↗)
Back at University of Toronto Engineering today for an Old Books New Science Lab collaboration with Grasselli’s Geomechanics Group https://geogroup.utoronto.ca/contact-us/. We’re micro-CTing a birchbark codex. 👀 #Books #RareBooks #BookScience @bookhistodons @histodons @litstudies (2025-01-13 ↗)
#TIH #OTD 7 Jan 1779: Quebec Gazette announced a new subscription for a public library at Ville de Québec—the 1st public library estab. in what is now #Canada. Some books were bought from local members of the public, but most were brought over from Europe. By 1788, the library held 2000 volumes. Despite loss of many books in a 1854 fire, the library’s 1866 catalogue listed 6990 vols in its collections. #books #BookHistory #CdnHist @bookhistodons @histodons @litstudies (2025-01-07 ↗)
A Dispute? (‘The Cloisters Apocalypse’; Normandy, c.1330) #MedievalManuscripts #Manuscripts #Critters #MedievalAnimals #Dragon #Wyvern @bookhistodons @medievodons (2025-01-07 ↗)
According to the chronicler Froissart, #TIH #OTD 1 Jan 1387, Charles II, King of Navarre, suffering from illness, was ordered by his physician to be tightly sewn into a linen sheet soaked in distilled spirits. The sheet caught fire; the king later died of his injuries. #WeirdHistory #Medieval @medievodons @histodons (2025-01-01 ↗)
Publications
Monograph
Scrap Parchment in Later Medieval British Manuscripts.
York Manuscript and Early Print Studies, [forthcoming 2024].
Peer Reviewed
“Parchment: Medieval Christianity”, invited sublemma, s.v. “Parchment”, in
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Ed. C.M. Furey, et al. Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming 2024.
“‘Et dixit anglice’: Unpublished Vernacular Verses in British Library, Harley MS 912”.
Medium Ævum, forthcoming 2024 [with Adrienne Williams Boyarin].
“Transcribing ‘Le Pèlerinage de Damoiselle Sapience’: Scholarly Editing Covid19-Style”.
Digital Medievalist 15, no. 1 (2022): 1–33. doi:
10.16995/dm.8071. [with Laura Morreale, Tamsyn Mahoney-Steel, Lisa Fagin Davis, et al.].
“Identifying Offcut Zone Parchment in Medieval Manuscripts”.
Manuscripts: From Fragments to Books—From Identification to Interpretation, 68–70. Paris: ManuSciences’19, 2019.
“On the Origin and Provenance of Victoria, McPherson Library, Doc.Brown.4: Sir Thomas Mowbray’s Care of Newnham Priory”.
Florilegium 33 (2016 [published 2018]): 63–91. doi:
10.3138/flor.33.004.
Open access.
“Paratextual Drift? Text / Image Dialogue in George Herbert’s ‘Easter Wings’”.
Interdisciplinary Humanities 25, no. 1 (2008): 56–66.
Media Contributions
[Social media outreach.] 2021 Oct–2022 Mar. Manager, ‘Old Books New Science’ Twitter:
@OldBooksNewSci. (Social media account of University of Toronto’s
Old Books New Science Lab.)
[Social media outreach.] 2021 Sep 20–26. Guest host, ‘Tweeting Historians’ Twitter:
@Tweetistorian. (Rotating social media account hosted by a new historical researcher every week.)
[Podcast interview.] 2018 Mar 29. Kautzman, Kevin. “Fugitive Love”.
Righteous Yammer, episode 65. (Topics included parchment-making, uses of low-quality parchment, medieval trade, and popular misconceptions about diversity in pre-modern Europe.)
[Consulted and cited.] 2018 Mar 08. Zimmer, Ben. “
Riders, From Goat Skin to the Oscars”.
The Wall Street Journal.
Editorial Work
[Editorial assistant and copyeditor.]
Early Middle English, issues 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1. Arc Humanities Press, 2019–2021. Issue 3.1 reprinted as:
The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion. Ed. Michelle M. Sauer and Jenny C. Bledsoe. Early Middle English Books. ARC Humanities, 2021.
[Research assistant and copyeditor (including bibliographical and indexing assistance) for scholarly monograph.] Adrienne Williams Boyarin.
The Christian Jew and the Unmarked Jewess: The Polemics of Sameness in Medieval English Anti-Judaism. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020.
[Co-editor, with Margaret Harry and Christa Beaudoin-Lietz.]
Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association / Association de linguistique des provinces atlantiques: Papers from the Thirtieth Annual Conference / Actes du trentième colloque annuel, Nov. 3–4 / 3–4 nov. 2007. Halifax: Saint Mary’s University, 2008.
Projects
2024 Sep–2026 Aug. Mark Andrews Postdoctoral Fellowship in Book Science,
Old Books New Science Lab, University of Toronto.
2023 Oct–2024 Jul.
Oschinsky Research Associate and Fellow of Girton College. “Law of Numbers: Analysing the Medieval Statuta Angliæ Corpus”. Cambridge University Library. Cambridge, UK.
2021 Oct–2023 Sep.
SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. “Edge Effects: New Work at/on the Edges of Parchment and Medieval Studies”.
Centre for Medieval Studies and
Old Books New Science Lab, University of Toronto.
Supervisor: Alexandra Gillespie.
2022 Mar–2023 Aug. Research Associate. “Archival Parchments Rejuvenation: Re‐Engineering Native Collagen Crosslinks for the Test of Time”.
Project directors: Laurent Bozec & Marianne Odlyha. [University College London–University of Toronto Strategic Partnership Project to develop a consolidation agent to repair and increase the longevity of archival parchments.]
2021 Oct–present. Research Associate: Stow Team. “John Stow’s Books and
MoEML”.
Project directors: Alexandra Gillespie and Janelle Jenstad. [Collaboration between
MoEML: Map of Early Modern London and
OBNS: Old Books New Science linking MoEML to digitized versions of Stow’s print and manuscript sources.]
2021 Aug–present. Research Associate: Chair, Mapping Team. “Mapping La Sfera”.
Project director: Laura Morreale. [Project to develop a historical gazetteer based on Gregorio Dati’s
La Sfera, with a website linking editions and transcriptions of the text to digitized manuscripts and early portolan maps.]
Upcoming Talks and Conferences
Upcoming Talks and Conference Papers
[Upcoming.] 2024 Jun. “[Title TBD]”. ULRI: University Library Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Cambridge, UK. [Invited talk.]
Selected Invited Talks and Lectures
2024 Feb 16. “Mathematical Approaches to Medieval Books”. Applied Mathematics Seminar, Department of Mathematics, Grand Valley State University. Allendale, MI. [Invited talk.]
2024 Feb 09. “Postdocs”. MST 1003: Professional Development for Medieval Studies PhDs. [2023–2024 PhD seminar led by Sebastian Sobecki]. Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto. Toronto, ON. [Guest lecture.]
2024 Jan 26. “The Making and Use of Medieval Parchment”. Cambridge Bibliophiles, University of Cambridge. Cambridge, UK. [Invited talk.]
2023 Nov 24. “Quantitative and Scientific Approaches to Medieval Manuscripts”. MDV5100: Medieval and Renaissance Studies: Research Methods and Tools. [2023–2024 MA seminar led by Andrew Taylor]. University of Ottawa. Ottawa, ON. [Guest lecture.]
2023 May 29. “Applying for Doctoral and Postdoctoral Funding: SSHRC and Beyond”. Roundtable on Funding and Publishing Work in Medieval Studies, Canadian Society of Medievalists 42nd Annual Meeting. York University. Toronto, ON. [Invited talk.]
2023 Jan 26. “Uncertainty in Quantitative Codicology”. Uncertainty and the Handmade Book. Stanford Manuscript Sciences and Stanford Text Technologies 6th International Colloquium. Stanford University. Stanford, CA, USA. [Invited talk.]
2022 Oct 21. “How to Do Things with Scraps: Later Medieval Uses of Parchment Offcuts”. Monash University Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Melbourne, Australia. [Invited talk.]
2022 Sep 11. “Parchment Quality and Scribal Choices in Later Medieval England”. Richard III Society of Canada. Toronto, ON. [Invited talk.]
2022 Jun 09. “STM-Informed Approaches to Medieval Books: Statistical Methods and Materials Analysis”. ENGL 481: In the Archives / MEDI 452: Special Topics in Medieval Manuscript Studies. [2022 MA/BA seminar led by Adrienne Williams Boyarin]. University of Victoria. Victoria, BC. [Guest lecture.]
2022 Apr 20. “From Image to Data: Digital Transcription of Medieval Diagrams”. From Data to Wisdom: IIIF Reader Multilevel Visualization Research. Max Planck Institute for Art History, Bibliotheca Hertziana. Rome, Italy [with Benjamin Kozlowski. Invited talk.]
2021 Oct 08. “Quantifying the Medieval Manuscript Book”. Medaille College Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Buffalo, NY. [Invited talk.]
2021 Feb 26. “The Cheap, the Bad, and the Ugly: Examining Offcut Zone Parchment in Later Medieval English Manuscripts”.
IHR Late Medieval Seminar. Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London. London, UK. [Invited talk.]
2019 Nov 18. “
A Parchment Prodigal—Or, the Travels of a Medieval Charter ”.
Manuscripts on Mondays [Special Collections Public Lecture Series]. University of Victoria. Victoria, BC. [Invited talk.]
2019 Nov 12. “Scribing on Scraps: Medieval Production and Use of Offcut Parchment”. Fairbank Calligraphy Society, General Meeting. Victoria, BC. [Invited talk.]
2019 Apr 28. “Of Cows and Carbon: The Material Book from Parchment to Pixel”. Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, General Meeting. Victoria, BC. [Invited talk.]
2018 Nov 04. “Skins to Sheets: The Manufacture and Quality of Medieval Parchment”. Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, General Meeting. Victoria, BC. [Invited talk.]
Selected Refereed Conference Papers
2023 May 27. “Questions in Statistical Approaches to Medieval Manuscripts”. Canadian Society of Medievalists 42nd Annual Meeting. York University. Toronto, ON.
2023 Feb 24. “To Lift or Not to Lift? 11th-Century Fragments in an Early 16th-Century Book”. Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C.
2022 Jul 05. “Points of Law: Pricking in Statuta Angliæ Manuscripts”. International Medieval Congress. University of Leeds. Leeds, UK.
2022 Jul 02. “Scarce and Strange: Medieval English Offcut Devotional Books”.
Pfaff at 50: New Devotions and Religious Change in Later Medieval England. University of Nottingham, UK.
2022 Jun 07. “Protecting the Page: Safeguarding Medieval Manuscripts as Cultural Heritage”. Canadian Society of Medievalists 41st Annual Meeting [with Alvionne Karpinski.]
2022 Mar 04. “Digital Transcription of Diagrams in Medieval Manuscripts: Dati’s
La Sfera as a Case Study”. New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Sarasota, FL, USA [with Benjamin Kozlowski.]
2021 Dec 09. “On the Varieties of Medieval Parchment”. English Perceptions of the Material Text: 1300–1600. Online symposium, via Zoom.
2019 Jul 08. “British Library, Lansdowne MS 348: Situating Devotion in a Professional Corpus”. Early Book Society 16th Biennial Conference. University College Dublin. Dublin, Ireland.
2019 Jul 04. “Into the Zone? Analysing Parchment Flaws in a Corpus of Later Medieval English Manuscripts”. International Medieval Congress. University of Leeds. Leeds, UK.
2019 Jun 05. “Patchwork Physic: British Library, Sloane MS 783B”. Canadian Society of Medievalists / Société canadienne des médiévistes, 38th Annual Meeting. Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. University of British Columbia. Vancouver, BC.
2018 Jul 04. “Swank Scraps? Gilding Waste Parchment in a Statuta Angliæ Manuscript”. International Medieval Congress. University of Leeds. Leeds, UK.
2018 May 29. “Professional Pages, Done Dirt Cheap: On the Genres of English Offcut Manuscripts”. Canadian Society of Medievalists / Société canadienne des médiévistes 37th Annual Meeting. Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. University of Regina. Regina, SK. [Awarded the Canadian Society of Medievalists,
M. Jane Toswell Student Presentation Prize for best student paper in any field of Medieval Studies presented at the 2018 Canadian Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.]
2018 Apr 27. “From Skins to Sheets: Varieties of Medieval Parchment”. Vancouver Island Library Staff Conference. Victoria, BC.
2017 Jul 11. “‘Awreke me of these wastours’: Exploring Parchment in Aberystwyth, NLW, MS 733B”. Early Book Society 15th Biennial Conference. University of Durham. Durham, UK.
2017 May 27. “Cheap Medicine: Parchment Offcuts in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1378”. Canadian Society of Medievalists / Société canadienne des médiévistes 36th Annual Meeting. Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Ryerson University. Toronto, ON.
