Monthly Round-Up

This month in medieval news begins with an encouragment to go to twitter and search #manuscriptthetube for a plethora of gorgeous MS images related to tube stops. Started by the British Library I believe.

A 15th c. ship in Netherlands complete with on board oven has been raised:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/medieval-trading-ship-raised-to-surface-almost-intact-after-500-years-on-riverbed-in-netherlands-a6870221.html

Medieval reading habits explored:
http://medievalbooks.nl/2016/02/26/dirty-old-books/?utm_content=buffere77e5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Monsters in map margins:
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/can-you-spot-the-monsters-in-this-medieval-map-of-the-world

  A particularly sneaky looking rabbit.

(14th c. Italy, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS 322 f.104v)

#ColourOurCollections

The 'craze' for therapeutic colouring has been upon us for quite a while. Recently however, it has reached important new heights - colouring books from museum and library collections.

While the urge to colour the beautiful images you see in manuscripts hadn't been one I'd actually harboured (I'm more of a desperately scout the gift shop for reproductions kinda girl), these do look really fun. A Google search will quickly bring up a number of results but here are my favourites:

Bodleian Library:
http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/197453/2016-Colouring-Book.pdf 

Museum of English Rural Life:
http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/197453/2016-Colouring-Book.pdf

Dittrick Medical History Center:
http://artsci.case.edu/dittrick/files/2013/12/DittrickColoringBook.pdf

The Getty:
http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/files/2016/02/ColorOurCollections__TheGetty.pdf

 

Heart Shaped books

In an attempt to have something vaguely Valentine's day themed ahead of tomorrow, have some eye candy in the form of heart shaped books.

I'm by no means a manuscript scholar, so if you're curious about them (and the heart as a symbol in general) I thoroughly reccomend this link which summarises a book on the topic:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/391167.html

Now, onto the eye candy:

This paining is held in the Met Museum and is dated to the mid-fifteenth century. 

Depicted, is the elevation of the host during mass when the host is raised and "This is my body" is spoken. According to Eric Jager, the shape of the book demonstrates veneration of chirst and an association between "the worshipper's heart (cor) to Christ's body (corpus)".

The shape of the book is also symbolic of the "inner self" - but at this point we're venturing into a larger topic than this blog can handle!

Here are some examples of genuine heart shaped books however to sate your curiosity.

BnF, latin 10536

BnF, latin 10536

15th c., BnF Latin 10536, Book of Hours
http://classes.bnf.fr/dossisup/grands/ec060a.htm

 

 15th c., BnF Rothschild 297, Music book

http://classes.bnf.fr/dossiecr/gc178-4.htm