A fragment from a manuscript of the medieval French story of Merlin the magician was recently re-discovered at Cambridge University Library. It was preserved because it was reused as the binding of a 16th century archival manuscript, a register of property of the manor of Huntingfield in Suffolk. As part as a project funded by Cambridge Digital Humanities, the fragment was not removed from the document but preserved in situ as an original example of modern English archival binding.

This talk will show how advanced digitisation techniques allowed the virtual unfolding of the fragment (whose handling is particularly delicate) and increased the readability of the text.