Category Archives: Rare Books

In Which I Divulge My Place of Employment

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I hadn’t intended to discuss my job here, but now I have a good reason to—we’ve started a blog!

I’m working at Peter Harrington and writing The Cataloguer’s Desk.  It’s an informal look at daily life as a bookseller, the interesting items we come across, and shop news and events written by myself and a coworker.  I uploaded out first post today on Moon Writing, one of the earliest systems of printing for the blind, and the incredible 60 volume Bible that was published in Moon script.  We also have a new Twitter feed. It’s all very exciting and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Birds II

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Happy Easter!  Just in time, here’s part II of my series of birds in medieval European manuscripts.  Today, religious and moral birds.

One of the best places to find birds is the genre known as bestiaries, compilations of animal lore that originated in ancient Greece and were later combined with Christian allegories.  The images below are from the Aberdeen Bestiary; sorry about the low quality scans, but I couldn’t find any other complete bestiaries online.  The Aberdeen Bestiary is one of the finest of its type, made in England around 1200.

In one of the opening illustrations God creates the fish and birds.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth under the firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day’ (Genesis 1:20-23).

The next image illustrates the chapter on the fox, the false teacher who lures good Christians (the birds) into heresy:

The word vulpis, fox, is, so to say, volupis. For it is fleet-footed and never runs in a straight line but twists and turns. It is a clever, crafty animal. When it is hungry and can find nothing to eat, it rolls itself in red earth so that it seems to be stained with blood, lies on the ground and holds it breath, so that it seems scarcely alive. When birds see that it is not breathing, that it is flecked with blood and that its tongue is sticking out of its mouth, they think that it is dead and descend to perch on it. Thus it seizes them and devours them. The Devil is of a similar nature. For to all who live by the flesh he represents himself as dead until he has them in his gullet and punishes them. But to spiritual men, living in the faith, he is truly dead and reduced to nothing. Those who wish to do the Devil’s work will die, as the apostle says: ‘For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’ (Romans, 8:13) And David says: ‘They shall go into the lower parts of the earth: they shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.’ (Psalms, 63:9-10)

The hoopoe represents the ideal parent-child relationship:

When the bird called the hoopoe sees that its parents have grown old and that their eyes are dim, it plucks out their old plumage and licks their eyes and keeps them warm, and its parents’ life is renewed. It as if the hoopoe said to them: ‘Just as you took pains in feeding me, I will do likewise for you.’

If birds, who lack reason, do as much for each other, how much more should men, who have the power of reason, support their parents in return; because the law says: ‘And he that curses his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death’ (Exodus, 21:17); it is as if he were guilty of parricide or matricide.

The heron:

It is called heron, ardea, as if from ardua, meaning ‘high’, because of its capacity to fly high in the sky; it fears rain and flies above the clouds to avoid experiencing the storms they bring. A heron taking wing shows a storm is coming.

Many people call the heron Tantalus, after the king who betrayed the secrets of the gods. Rabanus says on this subject: ‘This bird can signify the souls of the elect, who fear the disorder of this world, lest they be caught up by chance in the storms of persecution stirred up by the Devil, and raise their minds, reaching above all worldly things to the tranquility of their home in heaven, where the countenance of God is forever to be seen.

Today we associate owls with wisdom, but they had completely different connotations for medieval people:

Isidore says of the owl: ‘The name owl, bubo, is formed from the sound it makes. It is a bird associated with the dead, weighed down, indeed, with its plumage, but forever hindered, too, by the weight of its slothfulness. It lives day and night around burial places and is always found in caves.’

On this subject Rabanus says: ‘The owl signifies those who have given themselves up to the darkness of sin and those who flee from the light of righteousness.’ As a result it is classed among the unclean creatures in Leviticus (see 11:16). Consequently, we can take the owl to mean any kind of sinner.

Many of the bestiary birds were based on real creatures and their actual behaviors, others were purely mythical.  Probably the most well-known is the phoenix:

It lives for upwards of five hundred years, and when it observes that it has grown old, it erects a funeral pyre for itself from small branches of aromatic plants, and having turned to face the rays of the sun, beating its wings, it deliberately fans the flames for itself and is consumed in the fire.  But on the ninth day after that, the bird rises from its own ashes.

Our Lord Jesus Christ displays the features of this bird, saying: ‘I have the power to lay down my life and to take it again’ (see John, 10:18). If, therefore, the phoenix has the power to destroy and revive itself, why do fools grow angry at the word of God, who is the true son of God, who says: ‘I have the power to lay down my life and to take it again’?

Birds also appear in the Bible itself, such as the raven and dove released by Noah after the flood.  Depicted here in Yates Thompson 13, a 14th-century book of hours made in England.

To be honest, I have no idea what is happening in the illumination below, from the Macclesfield Psalter.  It looks like a king and his adviser, probably David, who was believed to be the author of the Psalms.  But what is the bird doing there?  Is it just a bit of marginalia or is it integral to the story of the two figures?  You can see the full image here, folio 161 (verso).

One of the most common Christian birds was the eagle that represented the Gospel of John the Evangelist  John was thought to have received his inspiration directly from God, much as the eagle flies to the heavens.  From the Aberdeen Bestiary’s eagle chapter:

The word ‘eagle’ represents the acute understanding of the saints. The same prophet, Ezekiel, when he described how he had seen the four evangelists in the form of animals, saw the fourth among them, that is, the one signifying John, as an eagle, which left the earth in flight; as John, on earth, penetrated the mysteries with his acute understanding by reflecting on the word. Likewise, those who still leave behind their earthly mind, seek heavenly things, as the eagle with John, through contemplation.

An evangelist symbol appears in each corner of this illumination from Yates Thompson 13: clockwise from top left, Matthew (the man/angel), John (eagle), Matthew (bull), Mark (lion).  In the center is the Trinity, God the Father, Christ on the Cross, and between them the dove of the Holy Spirit.

Probably the most well-known of all medieval evangelist leaves, that in the magnificent Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin, MS 58).  John’s eagle is on the lower right, apparently clasping the gospel book in its talons.

The opening page of the Gospel of John from the equally spectacular Lindisfarne Gospels, made by Northumbrian monks during the early 8th century.  Interestingly, John sits with a scroll while the eagle carries a codex.

In many cases the eagle is depicted assisting John by holding his pen case and ink bottle, as in the two illuminations below.  The first is from a late 15th century French book of hours at the University of Texas at Austin, HRC 006.  And don’t forget that the pen itself came from a bird, the pinna, or primary flight feather, was used to make quills.

15-century French book of hours.  Columbia University Rare Book Library BP.096.

Doves are one of the oldest Christian symbols, with roots in the imagery of Judaism and other ancient cultures.  Representing the Holy Spirit, they appear in many episodes of the life of Christ found in manuscripts.  I particularly like the Annunciation, not least because Mary is frequently depicted reading.  Below, Mary and the angel in a 15th-century French book of hours, University of Texas at Austin HRC 006.  Of all the images in today’s post, this is my favorite.

Below, the Annunciation as depicted in a 13th-century French copy of The Golden Legend, a popular medieval book on the lives of various saints.  I love that it looks like the dove is whispering the news in the Virgin’s ear, or maybe it’s just about to crash into her like a plate-glass window.  Huntington Library HM 3027.

Three of the Gospel writers describe the Holy Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove at the Baptism of Christ.

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.  But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?  And Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him.  And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.  (Matthew 3:13-17)

German antiphonary dated to 1350, Free Library of Philadelphia Lewis E M 042:11.

Late 13-century French psalter.  Free Library of Philadelphia Widener 009.

13th-century Italian antiphonary.  Free Library of Philadelphia Lewis E M 026:20-29.

Finally, the dove appears in images of the Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and the Virgin following the Resurrection.  I find these images odd, as the Biblical story tells of “tongues of fire” appearing over each person.

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them (Acts 2:1-4)

Is there a reason why the dove was substituted for fire so often?  Perhaps to maintain symbolic continuity throughout the cycle of illuminations?  The image below is from the Free Library of Philadelphia Widener 009.

Huntington Library HM 3027.

University of Texas at Austin HRC 006.

Below, the dove appears in an illustration of the Trinity.  Late 15th or early 16th-century book of hours made in Flanders for an English patron, now at the Bodleian Library.

Themselves are only mystic books

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For Valentine’s Day I’m sharing one of my favorite poems — John Donne’s Elegy XIX: To his Mistress going to bed.  This is its second appearance in print, from the third edition of his poetry published in 1669.

The poem, denied a license for publication in the first edition, was printed first in an anthology in 1654 before taking its place alongside his other works in 1669.  Visit Texas A&M’s Digital Donne website to see the entire text, as well as other early Donne books and manuscripts.

None of Donne’s poetry was printed before his death in 1631, but pieces such as this one did circulate widely in manuscript.  You can read more about that, and see some manuscript examples, in a fascinating short essay at the Folger Library: John Donne’s “To His Mistress Going to bed” As an Open Source.

Elegy XIX: To his Mistress going to bed

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defie,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,
Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.
Off with that girdle, like heavens Zone glittering,
But a far fairer world incompassing.
Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,
That th’ eyes of busie fooles may be stopt there.
Unlace your self, for that harmonious chyme,
Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.
Off with that happy busk, which I envie,
That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.
Your gown going off, such beautious state reveals,
As when through flowry meads th’hills shadows steales.
Off with that wyerie Coronet and shew
The haiery Diadem which on your head doth grow:
Now off with those shooes, and then softly tread
In this loves hallow’d temple, this soft bed.
In such white robes, heaven’s Angels us’d to be
Reveal’d to men: thou Angel bringst with thee
A heaven like Mahomets Paradice, and though
Ill spirits walk in white; we easly know,
By this these Angels from an evil sprite,
Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.
Licence my roaving hands, and let them go,
Before, behind, between, above, below,
O my America! my new-found-land,
My Kingdom’s safest, when with one man man’d.
My Myne of precious stones: My Emperie,
How am I blest in thus discovering thee?
To enter in these bonds, is to be free;
Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be,
Full nakedness! All joyes are due to thee,
As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,
To taste whole joyes. Jems which you women use
Are like Atlanta’s ball: cast in mens views,
That when a fools eye lighteth on a Jem,
His earthly soul may court that, not them:
Like pictures or like books gay coverings made,
For lay-men are all women thus arrayed.
Themselves are only mystick books, which we,
(Whom their imputed grace will dignifie)
Must see revealed. Then since that I may know;
As liberally, as to thy Midwife shew
Thy self: cast all, yea, this white lynnen hence
There is no pennance due to innocence:
To teach thee I am naked first, why than
What needst thou have more covering then a man.

Birds part I

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If you look carefully you’ll begin to notice birds in all sorts of medieval manuscripts, used as anything from decorative flourishes to representations of the divine.  In this series of posts I’ll explore a variety of bird imagery, beginning today with ornamental figures and moving on to birds as symbols of power.  In the next post, birds of morality, philosophy, and religion.  (As usual, click the images to go directly to the sources.)

Our first examples come from Huntington Library HM 65, a copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest made in southern France in 1279.  This is an astronomical text, so the birds and other animals in the margins are purely decorative.  Like acanthus leaves and running hares, these birds are a familiar visual trope of the period.  Out of all the medieval birds they’re probably my favorites.

Sometimes birds illuminations aren’t just decorative but refer to the text.  Harvard University’s Houghton Library MS Typ 0446 is a 13th-century Latin Bible.  On one page we see a decorative bird perched on an illuminated initial, but in Exodus a stork appears with a frog in its beak—a reference to the plague of frogs.

Birds also grace the bindings of books.  These clasps date from 14th-century Germany.  Columbia University X242.1.S.

Bird in a blind stamped binding, bound between 1510 and 1519 by a Dutch binder named John Reynes who was active in London.  Huntington Library HM 36336.

The margins of manuscripts were a kind of no-man’s land where artists could explore subversive fears and fantasies.  The creepier aspects of birds are apparent in these grotesques from the pages of a 16th-century Dominican gradual.  University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center HRC 013.

But manuscript birds were just as likely to have a humorous character.  The Macclesfield Psalter, for instance, depicts a man riding a ‘hobby duck’.

A charming bird sneaks a bite from a penwork initial, from the University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library MS 12.  You are what you eat, after all.

Birds were also common as heraldic devices and symbols of authority.  This lovely 13th-century wax seal featuring a bird on a branch is affixed to a “Quit claim by Gwenllian, widow of Madoc ap Seycil to the monks of Abbey Dore of her widow’s third of the 4 1/2 bovates of land on Grosmont hill which Madoc gave to them for his burial for her soul and the soul of Madoc.”  Lawrence, University of Kanses, Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS 191:13.

The Luttrell Psalter is famous for its idealized depiction of English manor life.  Here a peasant feed chickens and a man uses a slingshot to drive crows from the newly tilled fields.  In this case the birds are a significant part of the manuscript’s meta-narrative: depicting its patron Geoffrey Luttrell as a benevolent and pious lord presiding over a bountiful estate.

Another way that birds embodied power and status was via falconry scenes — depictions of the nobility engaging in one of their favorite pastimes.  You could argue that owning a falcon was the medieval equivalent of driving a super car or owning a yacht, and wealthy book patrons would have enjoyed seeing this high status activity reflected in the pages of the luxury texts they commissioned.   Below is the illumination for the month of May from the Fecamp Psalter, created in France circa 1180.

Ptolemy with a falcon, from Der Naturen Bloeme, a 14th-century Flemish bestiary, KB KA 16.

Two examples of falconry from British Library Yates Thompson 13, a 14th-century English book of hours: the first is part of a calander page for the month of May.

Vade Mecum

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A few months ago, in a post on medical manuscripts, I wrote about vade mecum and lamented that I couldn’t find any images online.  Reader Margie has come to the rescue with a great list of examples, and I’ve collected and annotated some of the images below.  Thanks Margie!

Vade mecum were carried by variety of professions, especially the mendicant religious orders, and not all included medical information.  Though the Welcome and UCLA examples below include medical diagrams, some of the others seem to be purely calendrical in nature.

Wellcome MS 40

This example was made in the late fifteenth-century.  Here we see the outer appearance of the vade mecum, including the folded pieces of parchment that make up the booklet and the two individual pieces that cover the front and back as a form of loose binding.

A calendar page fully opened from the front and displaying two months.  You can see the four folds that create the booklet – one horizontal and three vertical.  At the bottom the binding is visible.

A calendar page fully opened from the back.  On the lower half is the table of contents listing the three months written on this page.  When folded, the calendars are hidden and only the table of contents is visible while flipping through the almanac.

A zodiac man, with descriptions of each sign.

A phlebotomy, or bloodletting, man, showing the points to cut, as well as astrological charts.

Berkeley Huntington Library HM 47641 (please see correction in the comments below.  Thanks Justin!)

This example, from the Huntington Library at Berkeley, is unusual in that it has a brass cover.  It’s possible that other vade mecum had similar covers of metal or leather which have been lost.

The Berkeley manuscript opened – this liturgical calender has a different, and less commonly seen, orientation than the Welcome manuscript above.

Royal Observatory Edinburgh (scroll down)

This is a great photo, showing exactly how the booklets were opened and consulted.

Schoyen Collection (see MS 1581 and MS 2913)

MS in Norwegian and Latin on vellum, Uvdal, Norway, 1636, 30 ff. (complete), 5,5×5,5 cm, single column, (5×5 cm), 15 lines in capitals, Norwegian Gothic cursive script and a variant of Roman numbers, 80 miniatures of saints or their symbols, 12 circular diagrams, 12 miniatures of the occupations of the months, all in full colours; the book flattens out into a long strip, 67×11 cm, each section cut and folded around each month.

Binding: Norway, 1636, not bound but plied together to form a book, in its original girdle type leather covered wooden box.

Context: Very similar to 2 Norwegian girdle calendars dated 1558: the Hegra Calendar in Trondheim, Det Kgl. Norske Videnskabers Selskabs Bibliotek, and the Oslo Calendar, cf. MS 1581. Layout and illustrations are nearly identical, but the two earlier calendars are rather crudely executed compared to the present one.

This Norwegian almanac is very interesting in that it was created in 1636, long after the establishment of printing throughout Europe.  It would be interesting to learn more about manuscript calender production in this period, and why this format might have been chosen over printed calenders in this region.

More examples from the Bodleian Library and UCLA:

Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 939

Bodleian MS Ashmole 8

Bodleian Canon. Liturg. 237

Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 28

UCLA MS Rosenbach 1004/29 – Two medical images – a bloodletting man and a urine wheel (used to diagnose based on the color and texture of a patient’s urine).

Death and the Press

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While writing about the Danse macabre in a recent post I remembered this, the oldest known illustration of mechanical printing.  It’s from a chapbook version of the Danse macabre printed in Lyons in 1499, at the very end of the incunabula period.

By this time printing has spread across Europe and the structure of the wooden press and the workflow of the printing house are well established.  On the left of the woodcut sits the compositor, filling his tray with letters from the case.  Beside him, resting on the bench, is the forme which holds the type tightly together during printing; this one looks like it holds two pages, making a folio-sized book.  The page sticking up is the copy that he works from.

In the middle are the two pressmen, one waving an ink ball.  These were made of treated, stuffed leather and the inker worked with one in each hand to spread the special, greasy ink on the assembled type.  The third man would have operated the press itself, pulling on the wooden bar to lower the heavy platen, squeezing the paper onto the inked forme.  The detail here is very good—the large wooden screw in the top of the press is clear and the press stone, which holds the forme and slides in and out for easy access, is visible.  The press is also accurately shown as being stabilized via beams attached to the ceiling.  The image on the right is a stationer’s shop, which were sometime attached to printing houses.

On a side note, one has to feel for the poor inker: with his colleagues dead and work at a standstill he’s loosing a day’s wages.  No wonder he’s yelling.

Of course, printing hadn’t been invented when the Danse macabre became popular in the late fourteenth century.  The inclusion of new technology into an old illustrative tradition shows that book designers were innovative even when copying older manuscript forms.  And I imagine that it was a fun bit of self-referential black humor to the printers, known for being a bawdy, jovial lot.

This wasn’t the last time death would appear allegorically in the printing house.  The illustration below is from a Danse macabre published at Lyons in 1568, nearly seventy years later, though the date of the woodcut itself is uncertain as they were often reused.  It’s a copy of the 1499 image, and though this artist was less talented, he seems to have been as familiar with the print shop as was his predecessor.  He has included details that are unclear or not visible in the older woodcut, such as the second ink ball, the platen, and the forme on the press stone; and he’s made the halfway finished forme next to the compositor four-pages (quarto-sized) rather than copying the two-page forme above.

Just a note:  The 1499 woodcut is very well-known, but I discovered the second through a short article titled ‘An Early Picture of a Printing Press’ by William M. Ivins in the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 19, 1924.

Irony

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The world’s largest collection of sixteenth-century anatomical prints, or ‘fugitive sheets’ has been digitized and is available online, thanks to the Wellcome Library.  There are nineteen prints with pop-up action allowing the reader to see different organ systems in the order of dissection.  In this male and female set you can see both still images and video of the flaps being lifted—brilliant!  (I do wish that more of the entries offered stills, since the video is cool but it’s hard to get a detailed view of the different layers.)

I’m in the process of looking through all these, but I’m especially intrigued by this one.  Can you guess who’s making an unauthorized celebrity cameo?  It’s Vesalius’s head on that body, copied from his full-page portrait in the Fabrica.  Right next to an organ (on the right) taken from the same book.  Vesalius spent a great deal of energy, even prior to publication, in trying to forestall the plagiarism of his work.  I doubt, though, that even he imagined his own head would end up on a perpetually-being-dissected body.  One has to wonder about the motives of the artist—an ironic joke at the great dissector’s expense?

Here’s the original portrait for comparison:

European Blockbooks

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Lately I’ve been looking at a lot of medieval manuscripts.  And thinking about mostly just… medieval manuscripts.  Which is great; I’ve seen amazing things in the last few days and my dissertation is coming along nicely.  But I’d like to think about something else for a bit, so while this topic is actually kinda still medieval, at least it’s a form of printing.

Blockbooks appeared in northern Europe at almost the same time as movable type, during the mid-fifteenth century, and may have developed from the printing of patterned fabric, individual devotional images, and playing cards.  They can be differentiated from other types of early printed books because they didn’t use movable type: text was always carved into the block along with the images.  This process is labor-intensive and sort of a bitch if you screw up or decide to change something, but it allowed for quick, cheap reproduction.  Pages were printed on one side by rubbing the paper against the carved and inked block, and the blank sides were often glued together before binding.  Hand-coloring of the illustrations was also common.  These were cheap, popular, and ephemeral publications, similar in that way to the broadsides that would become ubiquitous in later centuries.  Blockbooks were probably owned by a range of people, including the illiterate, and may have been common teaching aids.  This is mostly speculation, though, as few copies remain and we have little material evidence of their use.

Blockbooks developed into a handful of extremely specific genres, usually based on older manuscript books and traditional illustration cycles.  Here are examples of a few:

Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying): You’d think that once at the deathbed there couldn’t be much left in the way of sin.  After all, you can’t move enough to commit murder or adultery, and you’re probably not in the mood for gluttony.  Unfortunately, this is incorrect.  In the medieval Christian worldview death was a time of significant temptation and obviously the most important time to resist.  The Ars moriendi were guides to a good death, explaining the types of sin that the dying could fall into, and counseling both the sick and his or her family on how to behave at this crucial time.  In the illustrations saints and demons fight over the soul of a dying man, who eventually goes to heaven.  In the image below, from the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (which has a nice selection of digitized blockbooks), the dying man is tempted by devils into deathbed-specific sins such as despair, impatience, and pride.

Apocalypse:  These blockbooks are based on the Book of Revelation, one of the most visually interesting parts of the Christian Bible, and their format and illustrations come from manuscript traditions that are extant in an illuminated Apocalypse held by the Bodleian Library.   The image below, of the mouth of Hell, is from a hand-colored Apocalypse at the University of Glasgow, which was featured as their website’s book of the month in August 2005.  The site includes lots of images and a really excellent discussion of this particular book of the Bible and the blockbooks it inspired—highly recommended.

Danse Macabre (Dance of Death): This was a widely popular series of illustrations that originated in the late Middle Ages, probably as a response to widespread mortality during the plague, and it appeared in many variations in books and artwork.  In each image Death takes someone, from children, paupers and farmers to merchants, scholars, knights, kings, and popes; the lesson being that Death can come at any moment and he doesn’t care how much money or power you have.  Potentially humbling for the rich, darkly humorous for the downtrodden.  BibliOdyssey has posted a nice set of images from a German Totentanz at the University of Heidelberg: below, death takes (what I assume is) a haughty queen.  Interestingly, in most of the pictures Death looks jovial, but here he seems pretty annoyed by the queen’s attitude.  The coloring in these is also nicely done.

Biblia Pauperum (Poor Man’s Bible):  Some might say it’s the ideal Bible for the easily distracted internet generation.  The Biblia Pauperum compresses the the whole thing into 40 pages— mostly illustrations of the life of Christ.  From the Herzog August Bibliothek, a page featuring a scene from Genesis.  I really like the serpent, though a it’s bit odd that Eve seems to be the one offering the fruit.  Here you can see that the quality of script carved into a piece of wood could easily be less than optimal.  The text in the Ars moriendi above is much better.

Antiques Roadshow Here I Come

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At the end of June I was in York for a few days doing research, arriving on a Sunday morning to spend the day getting oriented (priority #1: non-touristy sources of food) and exploring the city.  Mon-Wed were devoted to archival research with some lunch breaks that included enormous ice cream cones and basking in the garden next to the local museum.  The museum was my favorite attraction because the medieval life exhibit included a clump of dirty hair under plexiglas with absolutely no explanation other than a sign reading ‘HAIR!’

One afternoon I had some free time and wandered into a nice antiques shop where I found, amongst Roman coins and Norman belt buckles, what was described as a 13th-14th century bone dip pen found in the Thames.  It was really lovely—very smooth with a creamy, light brown patina.  One end was carved and polished into a simple nib shape and the other end left with the joint intact.  It was also slightly curved and fit very naturally into my hand.  I wasn’t quite sure about it, though, because I’d never heard of a bone dip pen, only quill and reed.  It also didn’t have a groove to hold ink, so I thought it might actually be a stylus for wax tablets.  But it was very inexpensive (I can imagine the antique dealer’s thought process: ‘This is really cool.  But who on earth is looking for an old bone dip pen?  Better price it low or it’ll never move.’  He’d definitely never met me.) so I bought it, thinking that if it turned out to just be an old broken bone I wouldn’t be out much, but if it was authentic I’d have gotten a deal on something really special that’s related to my career.  After all, what are the odds I’d ever run across something similar?

Back at home I got in touch with Alan Cole of the Museum of Writing, who had given me quill pen cutting lessons in December.  He took a look at my pen and agreed that the antique shop’s analysis was probably correct, even though there was no groove for ink.  Wax styli are usually made with a different point, and the Museum of Writing contains Roman and medieval pens in the same shape that are made of other materials such as metal, and they also lack a groove.  But he’s never seen anything comparable to mine made from bone.  While he couldn’t verify the date, he said that there was no reason to think it wasn’t medieval, or potentially older.  (In the shop it was grouped with other medieval items found at the same time in the river, so I assume that was how it was dated.)  While there’s the possibility it could be some other artifact, neither of us could think of anything really similar.  The closest thing would be a medieval hairpin, but those are usually carved solidly with more tapering points.

So here are some photos, and you can see my other pictures from York here.

What’s Your Sign?

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I know that I’ve been quiet lately, but it’s because my last set of essays was due in early June and since then I’ve been working intently on my dissertation.  I’m studying the Gildbook of the Barber-Surgeons of York, held at the British Library, and have been reading about medieval medicine and the types of books consulted by medieval practitioners.

Medicine during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era was practiced by a wide variety of people.  Most illnesses were treated at home by the women of the household or by members of the community with herbal and folk knowledge.  Barbers and surgeons were skilled laborers who undertook more complex treatments, notably cutting for cataract, surgically removing anal fistulas and cancers, repairing broken bones and disjointed limbs, trepanation for head injuries, treatment of venereal diseases, and leechcraft (bleeding).  At the highest level of medical care was the physicus, usually university-educated and Latinate, urban, and less likely to preform surgical procedures, which were considered undignified manual work.  Though these seem like hard and fast categories, dividing lines were actually blurry and many similarities are found between the groups.  Sources shows that educated physicians used folk knowledge and herbal remedies, and ‘uneducated’ barbers often owned and consulted books in Latin and other languages.  As skilled tradesmen, barbers and surgeons often formed guilds to regulate their trade and to promote education through apprenticeship.  The York guild was one of the most prominent outside of London and has left us excellent records of its activity.

Some of the most important books used by medical practitioners were those containing charts to assist in treatment.  Late medieval medicine was based on theories inherited from the ancient world that were filtered through classical thinkers such as Galen, preserved and annotated by Islamic scholars, and reintroduced to Europe in the thirteenth century.  Astrology was the most important of these, and while it influenced many aspects of medieval life it was most strongly tied to medicine.  It was a system in which humans were intimately tied to the movements of the cosmos, and an individual’s horoscope determined the ratio of humours that created his or her personality and body type.  Movements in the heavens (in addition to an individual’s age, sex, and behavior) could lead to humoral imbalances, and potential treatments had to be scrutinized to assure that the stars were aligned favorably.  A good example is bleeding: it was clear that the Moon affected tides, and was also believed to affect the ebb and flow of humours in the body.  If the Moon was located in the sign that corresponded to a specific body part then that member should not be bled, or the patient might die from the loss of humours.  Practicing astrology, though, was incredibly complex, so doctors developed helpful charts to assist in diagnosis and treatment.  The popular ‘Zodiac Man’ illustrated the signs that governed different parts of the body, while charts called volvelles used movable discs to determine favorable conditions for treatment.

The Gildbook of the Barber-Surgeons of York, which includes a variety of common medical charts, was begun in the 1480s and added to until the end of the eighteenth century.  Primarily a ceremonial text rather than one consulted on a daily basis, it is mostly in English and contains the gild’s ordinances and oath, portraits of monarchs, a liturgical calendar, and medical illustrations and texts.  (Click for bigger images.)

Page from the liturgical calendar for September.  The entries in red are feast days in honor of saints, which is where the term ‘red letter day’ originated.  Many of the red days celebrate saints associated with northern England or medicine.

The head of Christ and personifications of the four humours, clockwise from top left: melancholy man, sanguine man, phlegmatic man, and choleric man.

Vein Man: explanation of bleeding points, most of which are located on the arms and face.  These delicate illustrations are influenced by Flemish artwork of the period, possibly transmitted via trade links of the city of York, which was an important mercantile center.

Zodiac Man.  Pretty self-explanatory.  I’m enamoured of the lovely goat illustration for capricorn.  And amused by scorpio, which I’ve noticed is usually drawn as a multi-legged dragonish sort of creature.

The Volvelle.  The pointer determines the sun sign, and the piece that would determine the moon sign is missing.  The figures at the top are Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, and below are Saints Cosmas and Damian, all traditional patron saints for medieval barbers and surgeons.  Cosmas is holding the ubiquitous symbol of medieval medicine, the urine flask, and Damian prepares medicine.

In addition to the Gildbook I’m looking at a variety of other medieval medical texts.  Some of my favorites are small handbooks called vade mecum, which means ‘bring me along.’  These were small pieces of parchment folded and sewn together at the bottom and attached to the belt or slipped into a pocket for quick reference.  They contained calenders and medical charts like the ones above, only in miniature.  I spent a delightful afternoon with six vade mecum in the British Library last week, and was pleased to see and feel the wear indicative of frequent use, not unlike my own notebook.  Sadly, there aren’t many digital versions of these texts, probably because they’re a bitch to unfold and photograph.  Below is an image from British Library MS Egerton 2724.  This image is part of a faded calendar showing activities for different months.  This specific text is unusual compared to the others I’ve looked at, being square rather than rectangular and using a different folding system.  I wish there were some others online I could show you, because I’ve seen some very beautiful examples.

Next week I’ll take a look at a few more interesting medical manuscripts, but now it’s time for bed.  I have to get up early tomorrow because I’m leaving for York to do research in the city archives.  Looking forward to exploring the city walls and cathedral, and I’ll be sure to twitter all sorts of useless things during my trip.