This scribe was obviously not enjoying their work. Thus, let this composition be ended here. In Aelfric’s 11th-century Old English De termporibus anni, a concise handbook of natural science, the scribe finishes with: Sometimes, though, the scribes were a little bit bolder and wrote more emotively about their work. The scribe has written the Latin words “ Probatio Penne”, which means “pen test”. vi, which is currently held in the British Library in London. ![]() We see this in a manuscript catalogued as Cotton Vespasian D. These types of doodles – an odd name here and there, modest works of art or even a line of music – are important because they give us a rare glimpse into the real day-to-day life of these medieval scribes and what they really thought about the books they were scribing. Now, though, with modern technology, medievalists can uncover all sorts of messages that lie behind the pages of these ancient books. When we see images of scribes (people who made written copies of documents) writing, they are often depicted with a pen and knife in hand.ĭrawings in the Book of Hours. The origins of doodling in the Middle Ages are hard to pinpoint, but they probably started with pen trials. Given the skills and specialisation required for writing in the Middle Ages – the training, level of literacy, access to materials, for example – doodles in manuscripts were rarely thoughtless or accidental. It was commonplace to write in margins, underline and annotate, use blank spaces for recipes and handwriting practice, and even colour in images. Usually found in the flyleaves or margins, doodles can often give medievalists (specialists in medieval history and culture) important insights into how people in earlier centuries understood and reacted to the narrative on the page. Scribbling haphazard words, squiggly lines and mini-drawings, however, is a much older practice and its presence in books tells us a lot about how people engaged with literature in the past.Īlthough you wouldn’t dare doodle on a medieval manuscript today, squiggly lines (sometimes resembling fish or even elongated people), mini-drawings (a knight fighting a snail, for instance), and random objects appear quite often in medieval books. Painting Materials and Techniques in Western Illuminated Manuscripts c.600ĥ8 highly detailed case studies of manuscripts from as early as the year 700 up to c.1600.Īll these are fully illustrated in colour and provide stimulating examples to guide conservation departments in collections, museums and other laboratories in applying scientific investigation into works of art.To “doodle” means to draw or scrawl aimlessly, and the history of the word goes back to the early 20th century. Painting Materials and Techniques in Byzantine and Slavonic Illuminated Manuscripts, c.800 Paola Ricciardi and Catherine Schmidt Patterson Mechanisms for Knowledge Transmission and the Training of Manuscript IlluminatorsĪnalytical Methods for the Study of Illuminated Manuscripts Introduction: The Integrated Analyses of Illuminated Manuscripts All these are fully illustrated in colour and in great detail, and should act as examples to inform scholars in libraries, museums and other cultural institutions of the benefits of adding scientific tools to the range of methods used to investigate manuscripts. ![]() Then follow 58 Case Studies of manuscripts from as early as the year 700 up to c.1600. The many analytical instruments and techniques that are used to investigate manuscripts are also discussed. ![]() The present publication includes 6 Essays by way of introducing and explaining the major topics being investigated, including the range of inks, pigments and paint binders used by illuminators parchment-making pigment recipes and model books. ![]() The Conference proceedings were published in the first two volumes of the HMMIMA series (2017-2018). The results achieved by the research of the pioneering MINIARE research project based at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge led to the ground-breaking and acclaimed 2016 exhibition "COLOUR: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts." This was followed by an international Conference, in which art historians, paper and book conservators, and cultural heritage scientists were brought together to share new recent research not only on manuscripts but also on painting in other media.
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