Manuscripts

A little medieval scribal humor (and pain), embedded in a classic Xerox commercial. And you thought the printing press was a major technological innovation...

(with thanks to my 2310W students, who dredged out this wonderful gem!)

A recent article in History Today remarks upon a somewhat unexpected fashion trend: Parisian designers creating collections inspired by medieval texts, images, and writers -- as well as medieval clothing styles themselves. As Benjamin Wild writes of Vivienne Westwood,

On your arm, even.

See the original Tumblr image at

http://tattoolit.com/post/57158513780/pre-color

What do graffiti and medieval manuscripts have in common?

The Dutch graffiti artist Shoe is finding out, and you can read about his graffiti art, commissioned in celebration of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

In 2011, Middle English scholar Elaine Treharne found a (slightly racy) Latin poem, written by a sixteent-century Englishwoman for her tutor, pasted into an early modern printing of Chaucer. You can read the whole story -- who the Englishwoman and her tutor were, why it's important that the poem is in Latin, and a translation of the poem itself -- at the Early Modern England website.

This is a legacy post from my previous website.