#manuscript art
Additional, to fantasy map there are a few pages from Grand Chronicles of Old Land describing the random legends and events from history of the continent.
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Medieval souvenirs
Thin pieces of metal that are bluntly attached to precious illuminated pages. It is not something you see every day in a medieval book - or imagined to see at all in such delicate objects. They are pilgrim’s badges, mementos purchased during pilgrimages to holy sites in medieval Europe. They are really not very different from the Eiffel Towers, baseball caps or Big Bens that we carry home in our suitcases today: they are mass-produced, cheap and highly portable souvenirs. If you went to see the shrine of St Thomas Becket, you would take a badge home, partly to show that you had been (like this one). The badges above are special because the pilgrim attached them to the pages of his prayerbook when he came home, which is how they survived. The shiny pieces of metal are religious instruments, of course, but they also proudly emphasize that the owner of the book went on a real pilgrimage: been there, done that!
Pics: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce MS 51 (Book of Hours, Flanders, c. 1490). More images and information here. More about medieval pilgrimages here. A safer (but not cheaper) alternative was to have pilgrim’s badges painted into a book (here).
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Medieval manuscript of the week is a stunningly bound manuscript from Flanders or France. It is one of the treasures of the Bodleian library, and currently on display in the new Treasures exhibition in the Weston Library.
I’d love to tell you more about the manuscript, but my computer isn’t cooperating tonight, so you’ll have to savour the photo of the luxurious binding and wait for more details later in the week!
Image source: Author’s own. Released into the public domain. The manuscript is Bodleian MS Auct D 4.2
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Medieval manuscript of the week is a unicorn! This is an illustration from a late medieval (circa 1550-1560) manuscript produced in Paris. The text is Greek, and the book is rich with eighty illustrations of animals. This image seems to conjure a unicorn by combining a lion with a hint of goat! Isn’t it great?
Image source: British Library MS Burney 97; image in the public domain.
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Medieval manuscript of the week depictsMargaret of York, duchess of Burgundy kneeling at prayer before the resurrected Christ. At their feet is Margaret’s little dog, who looks to be a whippet or greyhound. This is an example of a ‘donor portrait’, depicting the person who commissioned and would use the manuscript. The book is a devotional text titled ‘Dialogue de la Duchesse de Bourgogne à Jésus Christ ’, which was written especially for Margaret. At the end of her life, she gifted the book to her lady in waiting Jeanne de Hallewin.
You can read more about this remarkable manuscript, and its remarkable owner, over here on the British Library website.
Image source:British Library, image in the public domain.
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Medieval manuscript of the week is a memento mori, a full-page miniature from British Library MS Egerton 1070, the Hours of René d'Anjou'
As we approach all hallows (aka halloween), this is macabre and appropriate. A page like this, a memento mori, reminds the owner of this manuscript of their own mortality. The depiction, of a rotting corpse wearing a crown, and clutching a scroll that unfolds to remind the reader that one day they too will return to dust. The illustration reminds the reader to be devout in their faith, and in their good deeds, because one day they would be judged.
Image source: British Library, image in the public domain.
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