New #BookOfHours added: #Houghton library 2020HEM-50, from c. 1450-75 Italy. Like the rest of Emerson donation it's SUPER tiny. This was rebound poorly, and out of order in the late 19th C(see below), but appears complete. The calendar is sparse, with only 106 entries, and some errors. Interesting is a trio of date corrections, one each in Jan, Feb, and April, using marginal letters #Medieval#Medievodons@bookhistodons@medievodons http://www.cokldb.org/p/v100/ms/869
Just bought a #medieval#manuscript catalogue printed in the 70s, in black and white. Colour images were glued in, because the technology didn’t yet exist to print them directly! This makes the catalogue, like the manuscripts it describes, a witness to lost production processes.
Our dear Mr Paton has made it a short distance from Požarevac to Smederevo, #Serbia in his travels and got to observe the well-preserved late medieval fortress in Smederevo, the last of its kind built from scratch by Serbia.
Moving onwards to Pančevo, he observed a strange obsession with #British products, where the quality and efficacy could be dubious, but they were trusted due to their origin.
🏴 Revealed: How mass tourism helped England after the Black Death
“The new investigations into the management and economics of the medieval pilgrimage industry has revealed that each major pilgrimage centre (often cathedrals) would seek to market their ‘pilgrimage offer’ only around four times a year - so as to deliberately concentrate mass tourism in their specific town into a manageable series of very short seasons.
This maximised efficiency and profit, while minimising mass tourism’s impact on normal ecclesiastical life.”
The Danelaw: The Scandinavian Influence on English Identity
“Perhaps it is a possibility that these English noblemen and clergymen and some portion of the common people felt a certain fear of these foreigners, not just because of the invading force that the Great Armies were comprised of, but because these men and women from across the sea were so different yet so similar and perhaps it was because of these similarities that these two cultures were able to form a cultural hybrid in the eastern half of England where even today we can still find faint traces of Scandinavian influence.”
The Danelaw: The Scandinavian Influence on English Identity
“Perhaps it is a possibility that these English noblemen and clergymen and some portion of the common people felt a certain fear of these foreigners, not just because of the invading force that the Great Armies were comprised of, but because these men and women from across the sea were so different yet so similar and perhaps it was because of these similarities
that these two cultures were able to form a cultural hybrid in the eastern half of England where even today we can still find faint traces of Scandinavian influence.”
I'm currently looking at the Godescalc Evangelistary, and I'm struck again by what an innovation it was. One of the books made at the court of #Charlemagne in the eighth century, its elaborate decoration & writing have no real precedent. This is the beginning of a period when the #medieval#manuscript book is raised to an art & an ideology. It's a very strange feeling, to be looking at such clear evidence of a fundamental historical shift.
An interesting little paper on how a #medieval realm which was able to produce an ungodly amount of #silver reacted to the increased #Ottoman presence on its borders in the late XIV to early XV centuries.
Includes a famous palimpsest, a multi-voice Mass, with former binding fragments in a second volume, some songs, a table for Paschal calculations and a volume from University of Würzburg.... and no more #Medieval#Medievodons@bookhistodons@medievodons
It's been a while since I've added anything to CoKL, but I got through another of the mini-Hours at #Houghton Library this week, 2020HEM-27. This was made c.1400 in Bruges. The calendar is somewhat sparse at 118 saints, but nearly flawless. Only two errors, and both are just shifted by a single day. An interesting detail is the flamboyant script to abbreviate the parts (Kalends, Ides, etc) of the Roman dating http://www.cokldb.org/p/v100/ms/867 #Medieval#Medievodons@medievodons@bookhistodons
Today #amwriting about women and #gender in Venantius Fortunatus. He's pretty conventional, as one would expect, but I'm uncovering some interesting wrinkles.
Includes a 15th C Petrarch, Dati's La Sfera (with the Tower), a 16th C Arabic Diatessaron, many song books from Chigi, a 16th C Ge'ez Gospel, some early Greek, a Maronite Office... and more! @medievodons@bookhistodons#Medieval#Medievodons
An interesting paper for anyone interested in the #medieval#military#history of the #Balkans and how the power of nobles living in the border regions evolved in the XIV and XV centuries.
A joy to be at Clare College to unveil the stone sculpture of the 1359 seal - greatly enlarged for visibility! Wonderful workmanship by Cardozo Kindersley Workshop, http://kindersleyworkshop.co.uk