I’ve returned from the whirlwind of holiday travel – time to tackle the reference questions in the inbox. Thanks for your patience!
British Library, Oriental 5024, f. 19r
Author: Isaiah of Trani the Younger
Title: Decisions of Isaiah of Trani the Younger (Pisqei Rabbi Yeshayah Aharon)
Origin: Italy, Central (Bologna or Rimini)
Date: 1374
Decorated initial-word panel accompanied with a partial foliate border in the outer margin inhabited by a deer. In the upper margin, illustration of a man lighting the Hanukkah lamp, at the beginning of the section on Hanukkah.
HAPPY HANUKKAH! 😀
Mistress Kudrun Pilegrim’s Laurel Scroll
This summer, my favorite collaboration partner and I worked together on Mistress Kudrun Pilegrim’s Laurel scroll for her elevation at the 7th Known World Cooks and Bards Collegium in Jararvellir. It’s based on the Murthly Hours (c. 1280, Paris), f. 87r, 67v, and 43v.
Kat is responsible for the text and calligraphy, and I did the layout and illumination. The video shows it MOST of the way done – it didn’t get finished-finished until we were on site.
More about the text after the break. It’s really cool text!
Hi! Me again! :D I was wondering if you’d seen any really good 11th century Russian illumination? At April coronation, it’s one of competition categories, so I’m starting early.
No, but I can find some. I’m a librarian! 😀
(Sorry – I just did a binge-watch of all The Librarian movies to gear myself up for the TV show. Every time he announced, “I’m The Librarian,” I giggled.)
OKAY SO.
To start, how about the The Codex Assemanianus?
It was probably 10th century, but it’s still cool. You can read more about it here [link], and there are two pages of scans from it [link] [link]. Quite a few of these pages would be really easy to translate into SCA awards. I might do a few blanks myself for our current blank drive… Here are a couple of my favorites:
f. 157v
f. 10r
</p></But if we want to be firmly in the 11th Century, how about the Ostromir Gospels? These date to 1056-7. You can find more info at the National Library of Russia [link]. I’ve known scribes who have used this. That is, looking at it, I’m going “OH HEY. This is what so-and-so used!” Have a sample:
f. 2r
Lastly, there is the Arkhangelsk Gospel, also know as the Archangel Gospel, which dates to 1092, making it the fourth oldest Slavic manuscript we have. You can view the whole thing online at the Russia State Library [link].
Have fun browsing!
Have a Kindle? FREE EBOOK: Edward Plantagenet, The English Justinian
Have a Kindle? FREE EBOOK: Edward Plantagenet, The English Justinian
Edward Plantagenet, The English Justinian – Kindle edition by Edward Jenks. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Edward Plantagenet, The English Justinian.
Free if you have a Kindle.
Description from Publisher: Pyrrhus Press specializes in bringing books long out of date back to life, allowing today’s readers access to yesterday’s treasures. This is a concise but comprehensive biography of King Edward of the Plantagenet dynasty. From the preface:“IF ever there was a national hero, it was Edward of England. In his person, his character, his position, and his policy, are summed up the essential elements of that great English nation which came into existence during his lifetime. How far Edward was its creator, how far its creature, is a shrewd question, which each student of history must answer for himself; but I trust that this little book may help him to form a sound conclusion. Whatever be the answer, there can be little doubt, that it would be impossible to find a truer symbol of the English nation, in the days of its glorious youth, than the king whose life is sketched in the following pages.Perhaps it is necessary that I should offer a word of apology for the intrusion of a mere lawyer upon a scene so dominated by great historians. My explanation is, that I have long been unable to understand, how anyone but a lawyer can possibly appreciate the true inwardness of Edward’s reign. The Common Law which came into existence during his lifetime was, and is, the very picture of English national life, the concrete form into which the national spirit crystallises with the moving centuries.Some of Edward’s most brilliant achievements in legislation and statecraft are wholly missed by lay historians, simply because these achievements are expressed in highly technical language. If I have essayed the perilous task of striving to make technical matters clear to the general reader, as in Chapters IX. and XIII., I have done so because I have felt, that it was idle to attempt, in any other way, to bring out Edward’s real greatness. But, even with this conviction, I should hardly have ventured the task, had I not been encouraged, by those whose opinions are entitled to greater weight than my own, to hope that I might in some degree succeed in persuading my readers, that Law is a dull subject only to those who do not understand it.”
Leah’s Quick Draw Scribal Challenge
Remember those buttons?
They’re prizes for Leah’s Quick Draw Challenge.
A while ago, Northshield Scribes had a Facebook discussion on what should be in the kingdom’s Scribal Handbook. One of the comments asked for instructions on how to decipher blazons in order to include a recipient’s heraldry on scrolls. To answer this, I came up with the Quick Draw Challenge. I’m all about having fun while learning, so the Quick Draw Challenge is a 24 hour “race” to decipher a blazon, draw the emblazon (the picture), and send it back to me – because the best way to get comfortable with blazonry is to practice.
The challenge goes out twice a week – on Tuesdays and Thursdays – the Northshield Scribe’s list. I send out a blazon, and everyone has 24 hours to send me their entry. I’ve gotten emblazons scribbled on post-it notes, done up in MS Paint or Word (with the colors labeled). The unofficial motto of the challenge is “It doesn’t have to be pretty – it just has to be right!” The first person with a correct entry gets a button, but everyone who gets the emblazon correct get in a drawing for a copy of Masterpieces of Illumination, by Walther and Wolf. Everyone who enters, whether correct or not, gets entered into a drawing for a satchel of scribal supplies. And if someone gets three buttons, they can exchange them for a paternoster.
the second of the Towers I did, and my least favourite of them. again, drew it like five, six times in the course of a day and a half.
A while back, I asked the scareferencedesk for any illumination references with towers they knew of, and I promised to post them after they all got handed out. Well, it is definitely not in a timely manner, but they’ve all been handed out! I added some of the other designs I’ve done so it’s not so architecture heavy. I also added the Red Tower Rapier Champion scroll which was a group project. Mistress Adela did the calligraphy then curse because she left too much space (while the rest of us are laughing at how small she wrote), and then handed it to me and told me to draw a thing in the empty space. So, yay, weird little medieval person! I totally snagged the Knight Marshal on his way past the table and was like “SWORDS. HOW DOES THE HAND GUARD THINGY EVEN.” And luckily he spoke internet at 1am because he answered what I meant. The whole scroll totally was finished five minutes before evening Court, and we’re counting it as a major victory that it was dry. And then like a week later we had to ask if Wistric would send us pictures so we could keep track of the things we made. Veronica and I are still in the track our progress through photos of all the things we make stage.
Yay! So happy to see them! 😀 Also, Combat Scribing is awesome.
Beginner and veteran transcribers, this app is available for free, on both Android and iOS devices. Manuscript database, basic info on each of them, typography galore…
The origins of this app lie in online exercises in palaeography developed for postgraduate students in the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, U.K. The aim is to provide practice in the transcription of a wide range of medieval hands, from the twelfth to the late fifteenth century.
Truth be told, some of the pages might be in higher resolution, but still, it’s one of the best edu apps I’ve seen lately.
Hey, pulltheotheroneithasbellson! I found another tower! 😀
From the Beinecke Rare book and Manuscript Library’s record:
La Sfera
Creator: Dati, Gregorio, 1362-1436
Language: Italian
Date: [between 1450 and 1500]Subjects:
Astronomy, Medieval
Italian poetry–15th century
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscripts, Medieval–Connecticut–New Haven
Early maps
Navigation–Early works to 1800
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Dati, Gregorio,–1362-1436
This is folio 17r.
So the University of Iowa Libraries has this DIY thing for the historian in all of us – transcribing old texts and handwritten letters for the public record. It’s a group effort, and the sort of nitty gritty thing you’d get to do if you actually used your history degree for a thing related to it.
KATE BEATON + DIY HISTORY?!?
So, this is a thing. 🙂