SJLahey

SJLahey, 7 days ago to Ravens

“‘God created … every winged bird according to its kind’, by which Genesis 1:21 mainly meant #crows & #ravens, because what other #birds could you possibly want?” — this 13th century artist, apparently.
One for @ct_bergstrom

#corvids #MedievalManuscripts #Critters #MedievalAnimals
@bookhistodons @medievodons

DonnaHuntriss, 9 days ago to random

I did this yesterday on my Redbubble site! #palaeography For those who study manuscripts!

SJLahey, 10 days ago to Law

#TFW you’re overcome by the sheer horror of c.16 of the 1st Statute of Westminster (3 Edw 1) 😳. #MedievalManuscripts #LegalHistory #HistLaw #Law
@bookhistodons @medievodons

SJLahey, 11 days ago to rainbow

A stripy, #rainbow ‘S’ from Cambridge University Library. 🌈 #MedievalManuscripts
@bookhistodons @medievodons

SJLahey, 13 days ago to history

#TIH #OTD in #BookHistory 31 May 1669: Citing poor eyesight, Samuel Pepys (1633 Feb 23–1703 May 26) makes his final diary entry.
@bookhistodons @histodons @litstudies

SJLahey, 15 days ago to bookhistodons

A golden initial like a tiny #sun in one of Cambridge University Library’s medieval English statute books. 🌞 #MedievalManuscripts #Manuscripts #LegalHistory #HistLaw
@bookhistodons @histodons

SJLahey, 17 days ago to Women

#TIH #OTD 27 May 2019: Leslie Weir was appointed Librarian & Archivist of Canada; she is the first woman to hold this role.
#GLAM #Libraries #Librarians #Women #CdnBookHist #BookHistory
@bookhistodons @histodons

SJLahey, 17 days ago to neverwinternights

At Girton College, Cambridge, #SaintMargaret ’s #dragon has the sweetest little puppy-dog eyes you ever did see… 🥹 #MedievalManuscripts #Saints #MedievalAnimals #Critters #aww
@bookhistodons @histodons

SJLahey, 21 days ago to Women

Lovely portrait of a woman tucked away in a Statuta Angliæ manuscript from Cambridge University Library. #MedievalManuscripts #Manuscripts #LegalHistory #HistLaw #Women #Art
@bookhistodons @histodons

SJLahey, 22 days ago to bookhistodons

Biblically-accurate #manicule? #Manuscripts #MedievalManuscripts 👀
@bookhistodons @histodons

SJLahey, 23 days ago to Law

‘M’ for the Merry Month of May in a Cambridge University Library statute book. #MedievalManuscripts #Manuscripts #LegalHistory #HistLaw #Law
@bookhistodons @histodons

SJLahey, 28 days ago to bookhistodons

Are any of you at London Firsts tonight? If so, let’s meet up! (I’m here in the queue…) @bookhistodons #RareBooks #MedievalManuscripts

SJLahey, 30 days ago to NovaScotia

#TIH #OTD 14 May 1761: The Halifax Gazette (#NovaScotia) ran the 1st advertisement of bookseller James Rivington (1724–1802) of London, UK, who had opened #Canada’s 1st retail bookshop in Halifax “next Door to Mr. Manning nigh the [Grand] Parade”. #BookHistory #CdnBookHist #books
@bookhistodons @histodons

SJLahey, 30 days ago to history

Some #BookHistory: French lawyer & author Marc Lescarbot (d.1641) (‘ML’) had a client involved in an expedition to Acadia, New France. He invited ML, who accepted. 1606 July: They reached Port Royal (now in #NovaScotia )… with ML’s #books in tow: the 1st known library* in what is now #Canada.

• Depending on your definition of ‘library’, of course. Let’s say, ‘Lescarbot’s books are regarded as the first known collection of European-style codices in what is now Canada’.
  @bookhistodons

SJLahey, 1 month ago to history

#TIH #OTD in #BookHistory 6 May 1236: Death of Roger of Wendover, Benedictine monk & 1st of a series of important chroniclers at St Albans. His best-known chronicle, Flores historiarum, survives in 2 #MedievalManuscripts—including the 1 shown in the 📷—& an edition in Matthew Paris’ (c.1200–1259) Chronica majora.
@bookhistodons @medievodons

SJLahey, 1 month ago to history

#TIH #OTD in #BookHistory: Happy birthday to the French publisher Louis Christophe François Hachette (1800 May 05–1864 Jul 31), founder of @HachetteLivre (estab. 1826). Initially called Brédif, the company became L. Hachette et Compagnie on 01 Jan 1846.

@bookhistodons

SJLahey, 1 month ago to history

#OTD in #HorrorHistory #WeirdHistory #BookHistory: Death of Eleanor Sleath (1770 Oct 15–1847 May 05), best known for her 1798 #gothic novel The Orphan of the Rhine, listed as one of the 7 ‘horrid novels’ recommended by Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.
(‘The Northanger Horrid Novels’ were believed to be of Austen’s own invention until Montague Summers began publishing on the seven, refuting the denial of their existence. Other scholars soon followed suit.)

@bookhistodons

SJLahey, 1 month ago to bookhistodons

For #InternationalFirefightersDay, selections from the Sankt Florian Psalter—St Florian being the patron saint of #firefighters. (I love the ‘jewelled’ line-fillers in this codex). #MedievalManuscripts
@bookhistodons @medievodons

A medieval manuscript leaf: folio 57 recto in Warsaw, National Library, Rps 8002 III. 2 columns of text in Polish, each of 26 lines, in black ink. Every 2nd or 3rd line opens with a slightly enlarged initial in gold leaf and colours: blue, red, and green. Whenever the text does not reach the end of a line, the empty space has been filled with an (aptly-named) ‘line-filler’, a decorative shape intended to complete the line. Usually line-fillers are formed of simple, abstract, pen-work. The examples on this page are more elaborate. Some are dense blocks of coloured ink, with intricate geometric patterns meticulously picked-out by leaving some areas uncoloured. Others consist of bars of burnished gold leaf adorned with repeating patterns of interlocking geometric windows, each filled-in with translucent pigments in emerald green or rose pink. The gold catches the light, making the golden initials and line-fillers appear to appear to spring up off the page.
Detail from a medieval manuscript leaf: folio 51 verso in Warsaw, National Library, Rps 8002 III. 2 columns of medieval Polish, each with 17 lines of text in black ink. Every second or third line opens with a slightly enlarged decorated initial in gold and colours, mostly blue, red, and green. Whenever the text does not reach the end of a line, the empty space has been completed with a decorative ‘line-filler’. Most line-fillers are fairly simple, created of abstract pen-work, but most of the examples here are truly luxurious: bars of burnished gold leaf adorned with repeating patterns made of tiny, interlocking geometric forms. Each form is filled-in with translucent pigment in rich, vivid hues—deep cobalt blue, ruby red, jade green—and then highlighted with white, to create a 3-dimensional effect. The technique creates the illusion of line-fillers made from enamelled jewels, floating above the parchment.

SJLahey, 5 months ago to Law

Today I’m in the Parker Library (Corpus Christi Cambridge) working on, among other #MedievalManuscripts, this wee #LawBook. Like many tiny common #law #manuscripts it’s small but fancy (making it ‘a Rolex’ vs ‘a Ferrari’ 😉).
“Wait. What? …” 🤔
1/2
@bookhistodons @medievodons

Detail of a leaf in a medieval manuscript: folio 102 recto in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, manuscript 482. The photo is taken from the bottom of the leaf, angling slightly up the page. Visible are roughly 24 lines of Latin copied in brown ink in a clear, even hand. The 7th line up from the bottom is copied in a conspicuously larger hand. Following it are 6-lines of text with the first 5 lines indented to accommodate an enlarged decorative initial ‘A’. Rendered in gleaming gold leaf, the initial sits atop a ground painted in cobalt blue and rose, elegantly ornamented with a geometric pattern of delicate white strokes.

SJLahey, 5 months ago to bookhistodons

Today I’m back ‘home’ in Cambridge University Library—where mythical hazards lurk in the #MedievalManuscripts! 😱🐉 #HicSuntDracones #Dragons #BookHistory #RareBooks
@bookhistodons @medievodons

SJLahey, 6 months ago to bookhistodons

As Cambridge University Library’s 2nd ever Oschinsky Research Associate, I was thrilled to spend today working with one of the same #MedievalManuscripts that Dorothea Oschinsky researched! #FanGirling 😃 Thank you, Gonville & Caius College Library! #LegalHistory
@bookhistodons @medievodons

Detail of a page in a modern, printed book: page 460 in Dorothea Oschinsky’s Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting, published by Oxford’s Clarendon Press in 1971. The image shows two paragraphs of Latin text transcribed from a medieval manuscript: page 379 in Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, manuscript 205.111.

SJLahey, 6 months ago to Law

Spent today looking at #MedievalManuscripts in St John’s College (Cambridge) Library’s Rare Books Reading Room—a wonderful space (📷 1: St John’s Chapel). This manuscript (📷 2) belongs to a group I discussed in my uOttawa MA thesis (sup.: Andrew Taylor); how amazing to see it in person. #LegalHistory #HistoryOfLaw #Law #RareBooks #Manuscripts
@bookhistodons @medievodons

Photo of a detail of a leaf in a medieval manuscript: folio 53 recto in Cambridge, St John’s College, manuscript A.7. 21 lines of French copied in black ink, in a precise, spiky hand, with the first 14 lines indented to accommodate an enormous decorative initial ‘E’ for ‘Edward’ (for this is England’s King Edward II). The letter is rendered in blue and white atop a black-painted square densely packed with fine, scrolling filigree vines in gold. At centre, superimposed atop the letter, is a painting of a king, his long brown hair and beard just beginning to grey beneath his golden crown. Clad in a pink, ermine-trimmed cloak over a vermilion robe, he sits enthroned—golden sceptre in one hand, golden orb in the other—gazing at the adjacent text with an expression of deep suspicion. Can the scribes be trusted? Only time will tell.