tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/manuscripts-11602/articlesManuscripts – The Conversation2024-02-08T19:17:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2218692024-02-08T19:17:04Z2024-02-08T19:17:04ZDigital technologies have made the wonders of ancient manuscripts more accessible than ever, but there are risks and losses too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571367/original/file-20240125-23-736sf7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C1%2C1311%2C841&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from a 14th-century miniature Greek manuscript depicting scenes from the life of Alexander the Great. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jews_Byzantine_Greek_Alexander_Manuscript_(cropped).JPG">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Near the end of the 18th century, a Greek monk named Nikodemos was putting together a massive anthology of Byzantine texts on prayer and spirituality, which he would call <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/284248/the-philokalia-by-anonymous/9780241201374">The Philokalia</a>. </p>
<p>He lamented the state of learning among his fellow monks, because they did not have access to the texts of their tradition:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because of their great antiquity and their scarcity – not to mention the fact that they have never yet been printed – they have all but vanished. And even if some few have somehow survived, they are moth-eaten and in a state of decay, and remembered about as well as if they had never existed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nikodemos hoped to correct this by collecting and printing texts that would otherwise fall to dust. By making the manuscripts into a book, he would preserve the knowledge they contained – but not the manuscript, not the artefact itself. </p>
<p>He does not mention how difficult his Byzantine manuscripts were to read and transcribe, even for someone familiar with the language. Copying by hand takes dozens, even hundreds of hours of intensive labour. Reading them means learning to decode scribes’ handwriting, abbreviations and shorthand. </p>
<p>Every manuscript, with its errors, notes and doodles – not to mention its artistry, images, and ornamentation – remains a unique artefact. The evanescent beauty of manuscripts is lost in their printed analogue. Every manuscript is its own text, its own space of knowledge, and an irreplaceable part of our shared cultural histories. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572356/original/file-20240131-29-3ehnmj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nicodemos (1818).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%CE%86%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%82_%CE%9D%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%B4%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%BF%CF%82_%CE%BF_%CE%91%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%B5%CE%AF%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82.jpg">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Preserving the Past</h2>
<p>Nikodemos was struggling with the perennial dilemma faced by historians and archivists. Our knowledge of the past, and the wisdom we can gain from it, is bound in material objects – whether manuscripts, paintings, ruined buildings or clay pots – that are <em>decaying</em>. </p>
<p>Decay presents three challenges. What will we preserve of the past? How should we preserve it? And how do we ensure its accessibility?</p>
<p>The scarcity and obscurity of ancient and medieval manuscripts are among the biggest obstacles to understanding both the texts they contain and the lives of those who wrote them. </p>
<p>Few copies might ever have been made of a given text. We are lucky if we can now read a text in 50 manuscripts. Some survive in only one. </p>
<p>But the biggest problems are time and the elements. <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/how-to-make-a-manuscript/zgJCWOBXaPIaJw">Medieval manuscripts</a> are usually made of parchment and bound in leather-covered boards. The ink is usually iron gall. These are amazingly durable materials, but they have their limits.</p>
<p>Ink fades with exposure to light. Pages are torn or damaged by water, smoke and skin oils. The same activities that give us access to the manuscript will also slowly destroy it.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uncovering-the-mysteries-of-the-book-of-kells-from-myopic-monks-on-magic-mushrooms-to-superhuman-detail-221147">Uncovering the mysteries of The Book of Kells – from myopic monks on magic mushrooms to superhuman detail</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573935/original/file-20240206-18-stfd34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Manuscript depicting scenes from the life of Alexander the Great, late Byzantine period (1204-1453).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Byzantine_Greek_Alexander_Manuscript.JPG">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early modern period, antiquarians and collectors began acquiring manuscripts from monasteries and churches and putting them into libraries. Manuscript tourism became a popular activity for wealthy scholars like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Robert-Bruce-Cotton-1st-Baronet">Sir Robert Cotton</a> (1571-1631), whose collection became the core of the British Museum’s collection. </p>
<p>Of course, many of these collectors simply stole or smuggled what they wanted from struggling monasteries in what are now Greece, Sinai and Israel. Their achievements must be balanced against their participation in colonial piracy. </p>
<p>But their work made possible the rise of printed editions of classical and medieval works. The printing revolution promised a solution to preservation and accessibility. It accelerated distribution and made the task of reading easier by standardising printing conventions. Books could proliferate where manuscripts could not, and anyone who could read them could access that knowledge. </p>
<p>But the printed version rarely resembles its parchment parent. Hand-copying always introduces errors, whether accidental or intentional, and so each manuscript copy differs from the next. Printed editions must choose one form. Usually, this means choosing between readings, combining them, or correcting as the editor deems best. </p>
<p>Our modern editions of the Bible and the Iliad, for example, do not exactly match their underlying manuscripts. The texts represent editors’ best judgement of the originals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573937/original/file-20240207-30-7xcw2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bear baiting, marginal illustration from a 14th century manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Library_Additional_MS_42130_F161r_(Bear_baiting).jpg">British Library, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dogs-in-the-middle-ages-what-medieval-writing-tells-us-about-our-ancestors-pets-221454">Dogs in the middle ages: what medieval writing tells us about our ancestors’ pets</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Digital decay</h2>
<p>Even if we prefer the edited versions, printed books decay faster than manuscripts, and take up just as much space. Print does not solve the problem of preservation; it only postpones it.</p>
<p>In the 20th century, digital scanning tools and computer-based storage seemed to offer a new kind of solution. Manuscripts could be scanned into high-resolution images and stored digitally. Computers promised no more deterioration and no more shelf space.</p>
<p>European and American libraries have invested millions in digitising their manuscript holdings. The <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/manuscript">Library of Congress</a>, the British Library, and the <a href="https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/">Bibliothèque Nationale de France</a>, among others, offer access to thousands of manuscripts free of charge on their websites.</p>
<p>The move online seems so perfect to some that the UK Ministry of Justice plans to digitise 100 million wills, and then <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/18/ministry-of-justice-plan-to-destroy-historical-wills-is-insane-say-experts">destroy the paper originals</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573936/original/file-20240207-28-yg1w5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armenian manuscript, 15th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Armenian_Manuscript_Bifolium_MET_DP342091.jpg">Metropolitan Museum of Art, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This proposed move ignores the inherent problems and vulnerabilities of digital solutions, which amount to “digital decay”.</p>
<p>First, the digital image is not the same as the material original. Even the finest colour images do not let a reader change the lighting to bring out different colours, or look from different angles to see faded letters more clearly. You just can’t see as much in the scan as you can on the page.</p>
<p>Second, digital images are often in proprietary formats, meaning that without the library’s viewing software you cannot actually examine the manuscript. Sometimes lower quality scans are available in formats like PDF and JPEG, but these are generally blurry, and even unreadable. </p>
<p>In some cases, images cease to be accessible because they are contained in obsolete file formats. The digital format is still chained to its digital shelves in a private space. </p>
<p>Third, as a recent cyber-attack on the British Library demonstrates, the digital space seems not to be safer than the physical one. On October 28, 2023, a criminal group called Rhysida unleashed ransomware in the British Library’s computer systems, stealing <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/the-disturbing-impact-of-the-cyberattack-at-the-british-library">nearly 500,000 files</a>. </p>
<p>The most worrisome thefts were of personal information that could be used for identity theft and other frauds. But the British Library website has been down since that day. Its <a href="https://www.bl.uk/cyber-incident/">incident report page</a> says that it may take up to a year to restore all online operations. </p>
<p>That includes all of the library’s carefully digitised manuscripts, which are now unavailable. There is no sense of when we will see them again. The digital library space, with its proprietary viewing software and its specialised file formats, is now shuttered.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/disquiet-in-the-archives-archivists-make-tough-calls-with-far-reaching-consequences-they-deserve-our-support-197013">Disquiet in the archives: archivists make tough calls with far-reaching consequences – they deserve our support</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Conservation and accessibility</h2>
<p>Digitising manuscripts may promise preservation and accessibility, but it does not future-proof our access to the past. Scans and websites cannot make up for losing the real thing. Yet physical conservation comes at the expense of accessibility. </p>
<p>We can, however, use advances in AI and computer technology to improve approaches to digital conservation and enable wider access to the uniqueness of individual manuscripts.</p>
<p>To avoid digital decay, we need to devote the same attention to digital conservation as to material conservation. Long term investment is needed to regularly migrate file formats to keep up with changing technologies. Ideally, these formats should be “inter-operable” – which is to say, usable across a wide range of platforms. </p>
<p>This would uncouple the digital objects from the proprietary viewers used by libraries now, so they can be stored and viewed anywhere, rather than only on library websites. Until that happens, each digital library space remains vulnerable to decay and even loss since, if the website is down, the viewer is down.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573938/original/file-20240207-26-1no8gw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abraham’s sacrifice, 14th century manuscript.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abraham%27s_sacrifice_from_a_manuscript_from_the_14th_century.jpg">Árni Magnússon Institute. Szilas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It has become possible to train AI to “read” manuscripts, transcribe them, and assist in translating them into English, Chinese, Spanish, and so on. Images of manuscripts would then have a readable text <em>and</em> all the unique elements of the material original – its decorations and artistry, its errors and doodles. </p>
<p>The underlying combination of inter-operable file formats and relatively simple software would mean museum visitors could use tablets and touch screens to read and interact with manuscripts, not just as artistic objects, but as readable texts. In this enhanced digital form, manuscripts could come to local museums, libraries and galleries, where they would be accessible to everyday visitors as well as specialists. </p>
<p>This approach would require careful care for the material originals, as well as continuing investment in digital formats and technologies to ensure access for future readers. </p>
<p>At the end of his introduction to the Philokalia, Nikodemos congratulates himself on what he offers readers: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>For behold, writings never ever published in earlier times! Behold, works which lay about in corners and holes and darkness, unknown and moth-eaten, and here and there cast aside and in a state of decay!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The challenges of preserving and accessing our past, contained in objects like manuscripts, are not really that different from those Nikodemos faced in his day. But unlike him, we can now offer the experience of the manuscript as well as the text, and to a much wider audience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221869/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan L. Zecher receives funding from the Templeton Religion Trust.</span></em></p>Digitising manuscripts may promise preservation and accessibility, but technology does not future-proof our access to the past.Jonathan L. Zecher, Research fellow, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2211472024-01-19T16:54:31Z2024-01-19T16:54:31ZUncovering the mysteries of The Book of Kells – from myopic monks on magic mushrooms to superhuman detail<p>The Book of Kells is a late-eighth century illustrated copy of the four gospels of the New Testament, traditionally associated with the affiliated monasteries of Iona in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland and Kells in County Meath, Ireland. </p>
<p>Seeing the book at Trinity College Dublin is on the bucket list for most visitors to the city, although many are perhaps unaware of what, exactly, makes it so important. One easy way to explain its importance is to compare the so-called Chi-Rho page in Kells which celebrates the first mention of Christ’s name in the gospels by enlarging the first two letters of his name in the Greek alphabet, χ (Chi) and ρ (Rho) with a similar page in any other contemporary manuscript from the milieu of the Irish Church. </p>
<p>Not infrequently, the response to the Book of Kells page will be: “Monks on mushrooms!” This was also the reaction of Guardian art critic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/jan/04/book-of-kells-psychedelic-monks-drugs-trinity-college-dublin">Jonathan Jones</a> recently, when he visited the newly opened Book of Kells Experience, an immersive exhibition at Trinity College Dublin that showcases some of the extraordinary creative highlights of the manuscript.</p>
<p>There is a long history of <a href="https://worldart.news/2023/06/02/art-drugs-an-enigmatic-journey-through-tragic-tales-of-famous-artists/">substance-enhanced art</a>, particularly in association with some of the 20th century western greats – Picasso, Salvador Dali and Jean-Michel Basquiat – and of course an entire counterculture movement in the late 1960s connected with LSD. But this is not typically something we would associate with eighth-century monks.</p>
<p>The pages of The Book of Kells certainly contain some of the elements that have been used to identify drug use in modern and contemporary art. </p>
<p>The figures of Matthew and John introducing their respective gospels have creepily vacant stares. Letters are formed from distorted men, birds and beasts, their bodies and limbs extended and entangled to create decidedly surrealist openings to important gospel texts. One panel on the page that opens the Gospel of Luke appears to depict an all-male bacchanalian gathering. </p>
<h2>Kells under the microscope</h2>
<p>Although now faded by 1,200 years of use, the colours in the manuscript still retain some of their original psychedelic intensity. The yellows and purples practically vibrate on the page. The variety and layering of colours is not found in any surviving contemporary northwest-European manuscript.</p>
<p>Scientific research into the origins of the pigments conducted by Trinity College Dublin’s <a href="https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jrs.2231">library conservation department</a> have revealed some of the alchemy involved in their creation. </p>
<p>The intense yellows were created using the poison arsenic sulphide, the reds are toxic red lead and the purples are made from lichen, the purple colour extracted using ammonia, traditionally obtained from urine. </p>
<p>We know that contemporary metalworkers used <a href="http://www.saint-manchans-shrine.com/fire-gilding.html">mercury gilding</a> – a technique that would have led to neurological issues from the inhalation of mercury vapour. Might scribes too have been exposed to side effects from the tools of their trade?</p>
<p>Against this argument are some of the other secrets that the Book of Kells has revealed when studied under a microscope. </p>
<p>Underlying some of the most complex – and psychedelic – pages are tiny grids of pin pricks, used as a carefully prepared guide to ensure that the artist maintained perfect symmetry in his work. While at a macro level the art of The Book of Kells appears exuberant and uncontrolled, at a micro level it is an object lesson in pure symmetry, often at a minute scale. </p>
<p>For example, a panel measuring just 80mm x 45mm (right) near the centre of the Chi-Rho page incorporates three lions, four humans, four snakes and 13 birds. Although all are extenuated and locked into a tight mesh of limbs, bodies, wings and heads, the anatomy of each is complete and a symmetry of the bodies is maintained throughout. The precision of planning and control of design does not suggest a scribe under the influence of psychedelic drugs.</p>
<h2>Unsolved mysteries</h2>
<p>It is only since the <a href="https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/collections/ks65hc20t">digitisation of the manuscript</a> in 2014 that most of us been have able to properly appreciate this aspect of The Book of Kells’ mastery, as much of this detail is nearly invisible to the naked eye.</p>
<p>Artificial lenses are an <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/02/medieval-spectacles.html">invention of the late 13th century</a>, so aside from the possible use of the magnifying properties of rock crystal (for which there is no direct evidence) the question does arise as to whether the scribes’ ability to see and work at such a minute scale was enhanced by other means.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/epdf/10.1484/J.PERIT.5.131900?role=tab">more than 400 medical texts</a> survive from the later medieval period in Ireland, relatively few date back to the period when the Book of Kells was made. However, we do know that many monasteries had physicians. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38682/38682-h/38682-h.htm">a Life of St Columba</a>, written at Iona about 100 years before the Book of Kells was made there, describes a man coming to seek medicines at the monastery. Unfortunately, though, specific references to “cures” for eye ailments, or for enhancing near sightedness are not forthcoming. That is except for St Manchan “the wise” of Lemanaghan, County Offaly, whose hagiography (books written on the lives of saints) describes how his protruding eyes were cured by contact with the corpse of St Molua.</p>
<p>Assuming that this particular cure is an apocryphal one, the mystery of the enhanced myopia and the steady hands of the Book of Kells scribes remains unsolved, unless of course, one sides with one 12th-century commentator who declared that such intricacy could only be the result of “<a href="https://www.ucc.ie/en/media/academic/seanmeanghaeilge/cdi/texts/Carey_Hand_and_Angel.pdf">the work of angels</a>”.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Moss works for Trinity College Dublin. In the past she has received funding from the Irish Research Council and Bank of America Merrill Lynch for research work relevant to this article. </span></em></p>The pages of The Book of Kells certainly contain some of the elements that have been used to identify drug use in modern and contemporary art.Rachel Moss, Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2187342023-11-29T12:56:34Z2023-11-29T12:56:34ZHow AI could reveal secrets of thousands of handwritten documents – from medieval manuscripts to hieroglyphics<p>Have you ever struggled to read what that scrawl between “carrots” and “potatoes” is on your shopping list? Soon, artificial intelligence (AI) may be able to help.</p>
<p>Over the last ten years, researchers have gradually been working out how to teach computers to <a href="https://readcoop.eu/a-short-history-of-transkribus-with-gunter-muhlberger/">read handwritten documents</a>. As in most machine learning, a computer is fed training data: in this case, images of handwriting and details of what it says. It then learns how the marks on each page correspond to letters. It learns that that half circle is a “c”, that that short vertical stroke is an “i” and that it might therefore be “rice” that you wrote on your shopping list, for example. </p>
<p>How it does this no one is quite sure – <a href="https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/ai-artificial-intelligence-black-box-glass-explainable/">machine learning is often a black box</a>. But it seems likely it is at least partly learning which characters are likely to occur in sequence, thus determining that you are unlikely to want to be shopping for “qvjx”, however much the word might look like that.</p>
<p>This technology has been applied to handwriting from many countries and periods, from medieval manuscripts to 19th-century diaries (if not yet 21st-century shopping lists), in languages from Latin to Old French to Hebrew. </p>
<p>Because the technology works on the basis of image analysis, it is in theory applicable to any writing whatsoever, from Egyptian hieroglyphs to copperplate. Ten years after its initial development, some truly exciting consequences of the development of handwritten text recognition (HTR) techniques are becoming clear.</p>
<h2>AI’s archive applications</h2>
<p>One is that it democratises access to knowledge. The digitisation of manuscripts has made many libraries’ collections accessible at the click of a button (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/31/british-library-suffering-major-technology-outage-after-cyber-attack">cybercriminality notwithstanding</a>). But lengthy training, only available in select universities, is still needed to read what they say (and some scripts, like <a href="https://blog.digitizedmedievalmanuscripts.org/codicology/medieval-scripts/beneventan-script/">Beneventan</a>, have the power to make even postgraduates gnash their teeth). </p>
<p>HTR has the power to generate a tolerably accurate, machine-readable version of a manuscript at more or less the click of a button. If language is still a barrier for the user, that transcript can be subjected to machine translation and a workable English (or French, or Chinese) version given, side by side with the manuscript.</p>
<p>The sheer quantity of data these processes will make available has significant ramifications for scholarship. Many medieval manuscripts haven’t been read <a href="https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/dark-archives-a-conference-on-the-medieval-unread">since the middle ages</a>. In the past, major questions (like the date of composition of foundational works like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Beowulf">Beowulf</a>) have often been resolved with the tiniest fragments of data, such as a single spelling. We are now starting to look at answering such questions with <a href="https://academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/llc/fqad064/7308409">data sets of tens of thousands of spellings</a>: with HTR it will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions. And the answers we get will be different.</p>
<h2>Beyond qwerty</h2>
<p>The data HTR can generate is also richer. Over the past half millennium, the representation of medieval texts has been fundamentally constrained by the printing press and the computer keyboard. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="script of Beowulf" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1264&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562169/original/file-20231128-17-3s1iz3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1264&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first folio of the heroic epic poem Beowulf, one of the texts we may gain better understanding of through AI.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf#/media/File:Beowulf_Cotton_MS_Vitellius_A_XV_f._132r.jpg">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some medieval scribes use three different forms of “s”, but all have been transcribed as the familiar, snake-like “s” on a keyboard. Marks of punctuation, like the poor <em>punctus elevatus</em> (which looks something like an inverted semi-colon) have had to be modernised out of sight. </p>
<p>Because HTR is based on visual recognition technology, it can recognise any number of letter forms, not just the hundred or so on a qwerty keyboard, and reproduce them more accurately than a human who has become accustomed to copying all four forms of “s” as “s”.</p>
<p>Realising these potential applications for the earliest written English, from the period before 1150, is the goal of my new pilot project, Ansund, at Trinity College Dublin. </p>
<p>Ansund aims to use HTR to build an exhaustive, open-access digital corpus of Old English texts, that transcribes all surviving Old English for the first time, and in an unparalleled level of detail. We’re particularly excited to see how many new letter forms we discover and to gather the first, substantial data on word division in Old English (scribes did not always put spaces where we might expect).</p>
<p>Ansund is one of a number of initiatives at Trinity that aims to harness new technologies to increase access to manuscripts, including the <a href="https://www.tcd.ie/thebook/news-and-events/latest-news-/2023/new-tcd-cul-fellowship/">Trinity Centre for the Book</a>, which focuses on the history of writing and sharing of the book. <a href="https://www.tcd.ie/virtual-trinity-library/">Virtual Trinity Library</a> has digitised over 60 manuscripts and launches this week with the <a href="https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/events/event/the-many-lives-of-medieval-manuscripts-symposium-with-registration-link.php">Many Lives of Medieval Manuscripts Symposium</a>.</p>
<p>The ethics and dangers of AI have received important attention over the past year, but its power to make legible and navigable our cultural heritage also deserves attention. Some day soon, it may even ensure you can decode your muddled shopping lists.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218734/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ansund is funded by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute, a collaboration with Elisabetta Magnanti (Vienna).
Manuscripts for Medieval Studies is part of Virtual Trinity and is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York.</span></em></p>The sheer quantity of data these processes will make available has significant ramifications for scholarship.Mark Faulkner, Assistant Professor in Medieval Literature and Director, Trinity Centre for the Book, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2062552023-06-13T15:20:19Z2023-06-13T15:20:19ZWhy medieval manuscripts are full of doodles of snail fights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527819/original/file-20230523-12079-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=326%2C106%2C2504%2C1362&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Battle in the margins from the Gorleston Psalter (1310-1324).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_49622">British Library </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The doodles found in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-so-many-medieval-manuscripts-feature-doodles-and-what-they-reveal-190114">margins of very old manuscripts</a> are often just as interesting as the content of the manuscripts themselves. One such example is the frequently recurring – and extremely odd – image of knights warring against snails. </p>
<p>From the late 13th century through to the 15th century, images of knights fighting snails pop up in all sorts of unlikely places within the medieval literary world. And they reveal fascinating insights into what medieval people thought about the world around them.</p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/knight-v-snail.html">Images of knights fighting snails</a> first started to emerge in North French illuminated manuscripts (which are decorated with richly coloured illustrations) towards the end of the 13th century (around 1290). A few years on – although slightly less consistently – these same images started appearing in Flemish and English manuscripts.</p>
<p>Interestingly, in most cases these snail doodles appear to be unrelated to the adjoining illustrations of textual passages.</p>
<p>Often, the doodles depicted an armed knight confronting a snail whose horns were extended and pointing like arrows. In the manuscripts of the French folktale, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-de-Renart">Le Roman de Renart</a>, the weapons that the knights were depicted with varied between sticks, maces, flails, axes, swords and even forks. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight on horseback jousting with a snail." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527821/original/file-20230523-4359-o9bdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Extreme jousting from Brunetto Latini’s Li Livres dou Tresor, (c. 1315-1325).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8128&CollID=58&NStart=19">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Snail assailants are almost always male knights. However, there is <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2852357">one known instance of a woman opposing a snail</a> wielding a spear and shield. </p>
<p>As these snail combat doodles increased in popularity within manuscripts, they became an accepted element of medieval imagery. From here, they spread to other areas of medieval life.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A page from a manuscript showing a snail facing a monk in the footer. The monk is disarmed and on his knees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527827/original/file-20230523-28-6opxah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A disarmed monk faces a snail opponent, from The Book of Hours (c. 1320-1330).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8836&CollID=8&NStart=6563">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Decorative panels <a href="https://www.mbs-brasses.co.uk/public/files/2006-transactions-volume-xvii-part-4-194995852.pdf">carved around 1310</a> on the main entrance of <a href="https://www.historyhit.com/locations/lyon-cathedral/">Lyon Cathedral</a> in France, for example, showcase a knight confronting a snail and another man threatening a dog-headed giant snail with an axe.</p>
<p>Despite travelling across the continent, the knights versus snails motif varied little from country to country, which suggests that it may have had a deeper meaning.</p>
<h2>Medieval satire</h2>
<p>Nobody knows exactly why battles between snails and knights were so popular throughout the middle ages. One theory is that these doodles <a href="https://www.gotmedieval.com/2009/07/whats-so-funny-about-knights-and-snails.html">added humour</a> to texts which were otherwise quite dry and serious. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight praying for mercy from a large hovering snail." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527823/original/file-20230523-19-muwv1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The gastropod conqueror from the Gorleston Psalter, 1310-1324.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_49622&index=0">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A reader could rest their eyes by taking a moment to laugh at the scene of snail combat before continuing with their reading.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A rabbit and a snail sit on top of a pair of monkey's shoulders, jousting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527829/original/file-20230523-18640-r4nxs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rabbit, monkeys and snail jousting, from the Harley Froissart (c. 1470-1472).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4379">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the doodles show a knight dropping their sword or kneeling submissively before their diminutive shelled foe, which accentuates its satirical implications. There are also several representations of women pleading with knights not to attack the formidable beasts. </p>
<p>Other similarly lighthearted imagery includes a cat stalking a snail with the head of a mouse, as well as dogs, monkeys, dragons and even rabbits in fierce opposition with the molluscs.</p>
<h2>The meaning of the snail motif</h2>
<p>Snails were recognised in medieval times for their unusual strength, given that they were able to carry their home on their back. Confrontation with a snail, therefore, could represent a test of personal strength as well as mental fortitude. </p>
<p>Once <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2852357">a symbol of deceptive courage</a>, the snail became a creature to be hunted down and destroyed in a display of strength and bravery.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A knight approaches a large red snail, wielding a club." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527825/original/file-20230523-19-miwckg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A knight versus snail fight from the Smithfield Decretals ( c.1300-1340).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_10_e_iv&index=0">Courtesy of the British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like many other subjects popularised in marginal illuminations of the 1300s, the snail and knight duo gradually disappeared as time wore on. They experienced a brief revival, however, in medieval manuscripts towards the end of the 15th century. </p>
<p>And they haven’t completely disappeared from the common imagination. Today the pairing can still be enjoyed in the nursery rhyme, <a href="https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1509">Four-and-Twenty Tailors Went To Kill a Snail</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Four-and-twenty tailors went to kill a snail,</p>
<p>The best man amongst them durst not touch her tail;</p>
<p>She put out her horns like a little Kyloe cow;</p>
<p>Run, tailors, run, or she’ll kill you all e’en now.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Snails were recognised in medieval times for their unusual strength, given that they were able to carry their home on their back.Madeleine S. Killacky, PhD Candidate, Medieval Literature, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031852023-04-05T20:03:35Z2023-04-05T20:03:35Z‘Like blood, then turned into darkness’: how medieval manuscripts link lunar eclipses, volcanoes and climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519148/original/file-20230403-17-t8wel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=445%2C222%2C3456%2C2430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A diagram of a lunar eclipse from De Sphaera Mundi by Johannes de Sacrobosco, c. 1240 AD.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/148cf2c0-f054-0138-15e1-0242ac110003">New York Public Library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before humans started heating the planet by burning fossil fuels in the 19th century, Earth had experienced centuries-long widespread cool period known as the Little Ice Age.</p>
<p>Scientists believe this cold spell may have been <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL050168">triggered, in part, by volcanic eruptions</a> which made the atmosphere hazier, blocking some incoming sunlight. </p>
<p>Records of these eruptions are sparse, and much of our knowledge of them comes from the traces left behind in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08357-0">polar ice</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379115301888">tree rings</a>, which are fragmentary and sometimes contradictory.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05751-z">new study published in Nature</a>, an international team of researchers led by Sébastien Guillet at the University of Geneva has found another way to learn about these historical eruptions: by studying descriptions of lunar eclipses in medieval manuscripts.</p>
<h2>Dark eclipses</h2>
<p>The researchers compiled hundreds of records of lunar eclipses from across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, documenting 187 eclipses between 1100 and 1300. </p>
<p>In particular, they searched for descriptions that provided information on the brightness and colour of the Moon during the eclipse. Most of these turned out to be from European monks or clerics, writing in Latin.</p>
<p>Based on these descriptions, the researchers ranked the colour and brightness of the Moon reported in each total eclipse. The brighter the eclipse, the clearer the atmosphere at the time: darker eclipses indicated a higher level of aerosol particles in the upper atmosphere – a marker of recent volcanic activity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519473/original/file-20230405-18-65dlb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519473/original/file-20230405-18-65dlb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519473/original/file-20230405-18-65dlb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519473/original/file-20230405-18-65dlb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519473/original/file-20230405-18-65dlb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519473/original/file-20230405-18-65dlb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519473/original/file-20230405-18-65dlb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon turns red due to sunlight refracted by Earth’s atmosphere. A particularly dark eclipse indicates more aerosols in the atmosphere, which is a sign of recent volcanic activity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Harwood / Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The next step was to put the eclipse data together with simulations of how aerosol particles behave in the atmosphere, modern satellite observations, and climatic evidence from historical tree ring records. </p>
<p>This allowed the researchers to estimate the timing of the culprit eruptions more precisely than from previous ice core records – and determine which eruptions reached the stratosphere and would be more likely to generate climatic cooling effects.</p>
<h2>What lunar eclipses tell us about the state of the atmosphere</h2>
<p>A total lunar eclipse is a beautiful sight. When the Sun, Earth and Moon align perfectly, our planet blocks direct sunlight from reaching the Moon’s surface. </p>
<p>However, Earth’s atmosphere bends sunlight around our planet. As a result, some sunlight reaches the Moon even during a total eclipse. </p>
<p>Earth’s atmosphere also scatters sunlight - acting as a giant colour filter. The bluer the light, the more it is scattered – which is why the sky is blue in the daytime, and why the Sun appears ruddy at dawn and dusk.</p>
<p>During a total lunar eclipse, the sunlight reaching the Moon has been filtered by Earth’s atmosphere, removing much of the blue and yellow light. The light that reaches the Moon is effectively the sum of all the dawns and all the dusks occurring at that time. </p>
<p>And the state of Earth’s atmosphere at that time controls just how much light is filtered. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mbT50-rppaU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">NASA video released to explain the total Lunar eclipse seen from the Americas in December 2011.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How volcanoes affect lunar eclipses</h2>
<p>If you’ve ever seen a sunset during a dust storm, or on a very smoky day, you know the extra particles clogging up the sky can produce deep, vibrant reds and oranges.</p>
<p>Imagine a total lunar eclipse occurring while wildfires rage overseas. The fires would pump smoke and dust into Earth’s atmosphere, making the Moon redder and darker during the eclipse. </p>
<p>Which brings us to the effect of volcanoes. The largest volcanic eruptions pump vast amounts of material into Earth’s stratosphere, where it can remain for many months. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1538151976751755271"}"></div></p>
<p>The spectacular volcanic sunsets seen throughout Australia in the months following the Tongan volcanic eruption of January 2022 are a great example. And that material, once in the stratosphere, will spread around Earth.</p>
<p>What effect does this have on lunar eclipses? It turns out the brightness of the Moon during a lunar eclipse depends the amount of material in our stratosphere. In the months after a large eruption, any lunar eclipse would be markedly darker than normal.</p>
<h2>How volcanoes affect the climate</h2>
<p>Volcanic eruptions can eject huge amounts of ash, sulphur dioxide, and other gases high into the atmosphere. Eruptions can cause either cooling or warming (both temporary). The effect depends on exactly what the volcano spews out, how high the plume reaches, and the volcano’s location.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-how-volcanoes-influence-climate-and-how-their-emissions-compare-to-what-we-produce-125490">Climate explained: how volcanoes influence climate and how their emissions compare to what we produce</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Sulphur dioxide is particularly important. If it reaches the stratosphere, it reacts with water vapour to form a lingering veil of sulphate aerosols. These aerosols, along with the volcanic ash, block and scatter Solar radiation, often leading to cooling at the Earth’s surface.</p>
<p>Large volcanic eruptions, such as the <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/1510/global-effects-of-mount-pinatubo">1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption</a> in the Philippines and the infamous <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/quaternary-research/article/abs/historic-eruptions-of-tambora-1815-krakatau-1883-and-agung-1963-their-stratospheric-aerosols-and-climatic-impact/13CE8FA2B0EF3BE25951FB759F904446">1815 eruption of Tambora</a> in Indonesia, slightly lowered global temperature in the years after the eruption. After Tambora, Europe and North America experienced a “<a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab3a10">year without a summer</a>” in 1816.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo from the International Space Station showing white puffy clouds over the ocean and a dark grey plume from a volcanic eruption." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519457/original/file-20230405-22-ay5bt0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The plume of ash and smoke from the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption was visible from the International Space Station.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA / NASA / Kayla Barron</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, water vapour and carbon dioxide from volcanic eruptions have a warming effect. It’s only small, as all present-day volcanic emissions produce <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP/volcanoes-can-affect-climate">less than 1%</a> of the carbon dioxide released by human activities. </p>
<h2>The past and future of volcanoes, eclipses, and the climate</h2>
<p>Eyewitness accounts through historical reports and oral traditional knowledge are often overlooked in the study of volcanoes. However, the inclusion of broader sources of knowledge is incredibly valuable to help us understand past impacts of volcanic eruptions on people and the environment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-bullin-shrieked-aboriginal-memories-of-volcanic-eruptions-thousands-of-years-ago-81986">When the Bullin shrieked: Aboriginal memories of volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In this study, the combination of historical observations with ice records and climate reconstructions from tree rings has enabled more precise timing of those ancient eruptions. In turn, this has allowed us to better understand their potential impact on the climate during the European Middle Ages. Such information can help us to understand the role these eruptions may have played in the transition to the Little Ice Age.</p>
<p>In the future, volcanoes may have to work a little harder to create a “dark” eclipse. As the atmosphere warms, the altitude of the stratosphere will increase. As a result, it may take a bigger eruption to put significant amounts of aerosols into the upper layer where they will hang around to darken the Moon for future generations!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Handley receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is Co-Founder of Women in Earth and Environmental Sciences Australasia (WOMEESA) and Co-Founder and Director of the Earth Futures Festival.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonti Horner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Medieval monks recorded hundreds of lunar eclipses. Centuries later, their descriptions are helping scientists unravel the role of volcanoes in historical climate change.Heather Handley, Associate Professor of Volcanology and Geoscience Communication, University of Twente and Adjunct Associate Professor, Monash UniversityJonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1953892022-12-23T07:38:53Z2022-12-23T07:38:53ZCats in the middle ages: what medieval manuscripts teach us about our ancestors’ pets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497695/original/file-20221128-12-umimlg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C24%2C946%2C502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cat king, Germany, circa 1450. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/358/item_3J5D2RBASIEFQVLJUQZSTXUG7YHLPR7N">Scheibler’sches Wappenbuch – BSB Cod.icon. 312c</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cats had a <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/why-cats-were-hated-in-medieval-europe/#:%7E:text=Cats%20in%20medieval%20Europe%20mostly,this%20view%20of%20felines%20emerged.">bad reputation</a> in the middle ages. Their presumed links with paganism and <a href="https://academiccatlady.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/halloween-black-cats-and-witches-in-medieval-times/">witchcraft</a> meant they were often treated with suspicion. But despite their association with the supernatural, medieval manuscripts showcase surprisingly playful images of our furry friends.</p>
<p>From these (often very funny) portrayals, we can learn a lot about medieval attitudes towards cats – not least that they were a central fixture of daily medieval life.</p>
<p>In the middle ages, men and women were <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Cultural_History_of_Animals_in_the_Med.html?id=ZbDYSAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">often identified</a> by the animals they kept. <a href="https://mad.hypotheses.org/37">Pet monkeys</a>, for example, were considered exotic and a sign that the owner was wealthy, because they had been imported from distant lands. Pets became part of the personal identity of the nobility. Keeping an animal that was lavished with attention, affection and high-quality food in return for no functional purpose – other than companionship – signified high status. </p>
<p>It was not unusual for high-status men and women in the middle ages to have their portrait completed <a href="https://fanimal.online/the-history-of-pet-portraits/">in the company of a pet</a>, most commonly cats and dogs, to signify their elevated status.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A painting of Jesus and his disciples, gathered round a table on the right. On the left, in a corridor outside of the dinner, a cat and dog are shown." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497364/original/file-20221125-7159-k2d5y3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Last Supper (1320), by Pietro Lorenzetti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pietro_lorenzetti,_ultima_cena,_assisi_basilica_inferiore,_1310-1320.jpg">Web Gallery of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is commonplace to see images of cats in <a href="https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781783275694/medieval-pets/">iconography of feasts</a> and other domestic spaces, which appears to reflect their status as a pet in the medieval household. </p>
<p>In Pietro Lorenzetti’s Last Supper (above), a cat sits by the fire while a small dog licks a plate of leftovers on the ground. The cat and dog play no narrative role in the scene, but instead signal to the viewer that this is a domestic space.</p>
<p>Similarly, in the miniature of <a href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_35313_fs001r">a Dutch Book of Hours</a> (a common type of prayer book in the middle ages that marked the divisions of the day with specific prayers), a man and woman feature in a cosy household scene while a well looked-after cat gazes on from the bottom left-hand corner. Again, the cat is not the centre of the image nor the focus of the composition, but it is accepted in this medieval domestic space.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="a man and woman feature in a cosy household scene whilst a well-looked after cat gazes on from the bottom left-hand corner." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497366/original/file-20221125-24-ps4wa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1500 Book of Hours known as the ‘London Rothschild Hours’ or the ‘Hours of Joanna I of Castile’. Illustrated by Gerard Horenbout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_35313_fs001r">London British Library. Manuscript 35313, folio. 1 verso. C</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just like today, medieval families gave their <a href="https://www.archaeform.de/blog/2016/06/23/medieval-pet-names/?___store=english">cats names</a>. A 13th-century cat in Beaulieu Abbey, for example, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjSjYbboMn7AhWVh1wKHS65C0AQFnoECBIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscovery.ucl.ac.uk%2F1446154%2F1%2FU593483.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2y48B3MbmwUbCtfMf5C8Kp">was called “Mite”</a> according to the green ink lettering that appears above a doodle of said cat in the margins of a medieval manuscript.</p>
<h2>Royal treatment</h2>
<p>Cats were <a href="https://www.historyhit.com/how-3-very-different-medieval-cultures-treated-cats/">well cared for</a> in the medieval household. In the early 13th century, there is <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mSJWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=account+of+the+manor+of+cuxham&source=bl&ots=4vak0SEXM1&sig=SLfyBBzzy5-8dqsFhkUGbnUFn5A&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=account%20of%20the%20manor%20of%20cuxham&f=false">mention in the accounts</a> for the manor at Cuxham (Oxfordshire) of cheese being bought for a cat, which suggests that they were not left to fend for themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C628%2C776&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a young woman in a yellow dress, her hair wrapped in fabric and a pearl choker round her neck, holding a tabby kitten to her chest in a pose of affection." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C628%2C776&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497369/original/file-20221125-22-4ubj9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bacchiacca (circa 1525), by the Italian painter Antonio d'Ubertino Verdi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bacchiacca_-_Portrait_of_a_young_lady_holding_a_cat.jpg">Christie’s</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, the 14th-century queen of France, <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110544794-016/pdf">Isabeau of Bavaria</a>, spent excessive amounts of money on accessories for her pets. In 1387, she commissioned a collar embroidered with pearls and fastened by a gold buckle for her pet squirrel. In 1406, bright green cloth was bought to make a special cover for her cat.</p>
<p>Cats were also <a href="https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/14997/canvas/canvas-1383291/view">common companions</a> for <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/03/a-useful-companion-for-a-scholar-cats-in-the-middle-ages.html">scholars</a>, and eulogies about cats were not uncommon in the 16th century. In one poem, a cat is described as a scholar’s light and dearest companion. Eulogies such as this suggest a strong emotional attachment to pet cats, and show how cats not only cheered up their masters but provided welcome distractions from the hard mental craft of reading and writing.</p>
<h2>Cats in the cloisters</h2>
<p>Cats are found in abundance as a <a href="https://theroseandthethistle.com/2019/11/29/pets-in-medieval-times-2/">status symbol</a> in medieval religious spaces. There are lots of medieval manuscripts that feature, for example, illuminations (small images) of nuns with cats, and cats frequently appear as doodles in the margins of Books of Hours. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Rouen bibliotheque municipale ms 3028 fol. 63r" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497367/original/file-20221125-21-556ipi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=698&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">St Matthew and his cat, Bruges, c. 1500.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/14997/canvas/canvas-1383291/view">[Rouen bibliotheque municipale. Manuscript 3028, Folio 63r]</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is also much criticism about the keeping of cats in medieval sermon literature. The 14th-century English preacher <a href="https://archive.org/details/JohnBromyardSummaPraedicantiumParsPrima1586/page/n3/mode/2up">John Bromyard</a> considered them useless and overfed accessories of the rich that benefited while the poor went hungry.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Doodle showing a nun spinning thread, as her pet cat plays with the spindle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497371/original/file-20221125-3308-71a3q5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of a miniature of a nun spinning thread, as her pet cat plays with the spindle; from the Maastricht Hours, the Netherlands (Liège), 1st quarter of the 14th century,</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj48c7no8n7AhWQg1wKHSs5BEYQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bl.uk%2Fmanuscripts%2FFullDisplay.aspx%3Fref%3DStowe_MS_17&usg=AOvVaw32f927hR3pl8kUZop0SGeW">Stowe manuscript 17, folio 34r</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cats are <a href="https://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/why-cats-were-hated-in-medieval-europe/">also recorded</a> as being associated with the devil. Their stealth and cunning when hunting for mice was admired – but this did not always translate into qualities desirable for companionship. These associations led to the killing of some cats, which had detrimental effects during the <a href="https://owlcation.com/humanities/Cats-and-the-Black-Plague">Black Death</a> and other middle age plagues, when more cats may have reduced flea-infested rat populations.</p>
<p>Because of these associations, many thought that cats had <a href="https://memo.imareal.sbg.ac.at/?edmc=1999#:%7E:text=Centuries%20before%20their%20more%20familiar,in%20the%20high%20Middle%20Ages.">no place</a> in the sacred spaces of religious orders. There do not seem to have been any formal rules, however, stating that members of religious communities were not allowed to keep cats – and the constant criticism of the practice perhaps suggests that pet cats were common.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Doodle in the corner of a page of a medieval manuscript shows a cat on its hind legs, dressed as a nun" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497373/original/file-20221125-7303-6390xk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cat cosplaying as a nun.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE10952603&file=FL10960776&mode=browse">State Library Victoria, 096 R66HF, folio 99r</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even if they were not always considered as socially acceptable in religious communities, cats were still clearly <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/01/lolcats-of-the-middle-ages.html">well looked after</a>. This is evident in the playful images we see of them in monasteries.</p>
<p>For the most part, cats were quite at home in the medieval household. And as their playful depiction in many medieval manuscripts and artwork makes clear, our medieval ancestors’ relationships with these animals were not too different from our own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Medieval manuscripts are littered with images of cats – sharing their owner’s dinner, keeping them company, and even cosplaying as nuns.Madeleine S. Killacky, PhD Candidate, Medieval Literature, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1640352021-12-21T15:06:01Z2021-12-21T15:06:01ZFrom scribe to choir to being repurposed over generations, medieval Christian chant book fragments reveal stories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417518/original/file-20210824-19-jf0yce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=37%2C34%2C1878%2C1470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One page fragment was found in West Germany in a shop adjacent to stalls selling spiced wine and cuckoo clocks in a busy Christmas market.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Medieval chant books and the parchment they were made of were designed to last a long time — so long, that pages of them can outlast the book itself. Across medieval Europe, monks and nuns and clergy in city cathedrals <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/divine-office">sang daily chants in communal forms of timed and sung prayer</a> still practised by some Christians today. Fragments of chant books travel across time and space, ending up at antique stores, tucked away in attics or even made into book covers. </p>
<p><a href="http://dact-chant.ca">Our research</a> collects <a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/partner-projects/dact">images of these</a> scattered and fragmented pages of chant and creates inventories of their contents, revealing their many and <a href="https://twitter.com/DactF">varied stories</a>. </p>
<h2>Why chant?</h2>
<p>Medieval Christian communities wrote down the many chants needed for their worship in books called antiphoners (music only), breviaries (which also included texts to be read) and graduals (containing chants that were part of the mass, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/mass-Christian-religious-service">the central act of worship in the Catholic Church</a>).</p>
<p>Each chant was intended to be sung at a particular time or occasion, and rarely did two communities do things exactly alike. Medieval chant books followed similar patterns, <a href="https://cantus.uwaterloo.ca/sites/default/files/documents/1.%20Quick%20Guide%20to%20Liturgy.pdf">but could also be surprisingly different from one another</a>. </p>
<p>One monastery might sing a certain chant in the morning, while the nearby cathedral might sing it in the afternoon with a slightly different melody or celebrate a saint of local importance on that day instead. Taken together, such decisions can often be a kind of fingerprint for a manuscript. They can make it possible to identify where a book might have been from. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Uo6PzRcKRb0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The antiphon ‘Te deum patrem,’ (You, God the Father) from a book written around 1550 for a women’s religious community in Turnhout, Belgium.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reuniting lost books</h2>
<p>Many books didn’t survive intact. Some were taken apart once their contents were no longer useful to their communities, or disassembled by booksellers hoping to make more money by selling the book page-by-page. One of the goals of our research is to make the contents of these individual pages easier to access, so that they can be better understood. </p>
<p>Sometimes it is possible to reunite a book’s pages again, especially if there is a clue about when and where the pages were last seen together. </p>
<p>For example, in the mid-20th century, American art history professor <a href="http://ege.denison.edu">Otto Ege</a> of the Cleveland Institute of Art took apart many books. Ege rearranged their pages into bundles of 50 to sell to libraries; this way, he reasoned, library collections could have examples of many different kinds of manuscripts. </p>
<p>Now, it is possible to <a href="https://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/speccoll/tag/dr-alison-altstatt/">undo some of Ege’s book-breaking</a>, by gathering up pictures of the pages he sold and <a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-4ihz">re-ordering them digitally</a>. </p>
<h2>Abbey library mystery</h2>
<p>A slightly different case is the <em>Gottschalk Antiphoner</em>, a beautifully decorated 12th-century chant book <a href="http://www.pendragonpress.com/book.php?id=502">from Lambach Abbey</a> in Austria, which was eventually taken apart and used to bind books for the abbey’s library. </p>
<p>Many of these bindings were sold to collectors during the Second World War, but thanks to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/ca/academic/subjects/music/nineteenth-century-music/gottschalk-antiphonary-music-and-liturgy-twelfth-century-lambach?format=HB&isbn=9780521592499">extensive scholarly sleuthing</a>, 30 of the pages have been <a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-75ud/">put together digitally</a>, making it possible to get a better glimpse of this <a href="https://manuscriptroadtrip.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/manuscript-road-trip-reintroducing-the-gottschalk-antiphonal/">remarkable volume</a>. </p>
<p>But often what has been broken is not readily put together again. Hundreds of pages of the <em>Gottschalk Antiphoner</em>, and of Ege’s collections, remain at large.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A drawing of a woman seen next to text to be sung." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417489/original/file-20210824-27-11oorfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fragment from the ‘Gottschalk Antiphonal’ showing the first major chant of the night service (matins) on feasts of virgin saints. The exact melody is not written out, but outlined for the singer with symbols above the words. The text invites the saint to ‘put on the crown prepared for you’ as illustrated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-o71o">Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 704 (6), Leaf 131 in Davis, The Gottschalk Antiphonary</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Windows into the past</h2>
<p>So, if the pages cannot be put back into their books, what can be said about them? In the absence of the rest of the book, small details of each page become more remarkable. </p>
<p>Even one page, which typically only contains the music and texts for a small part of the day, can reveal some small choices in wording or melodies, providing clues to its origins. And even when the clues go nowhere, they provide a window into a small piece of the past: the unique way that that community chose to celebrate. </p>
<p>Eage page is a hand-made object, and reveals something about the people who made it. We have seen pages where an inattentive scribe forgot to <a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-r3s1">include a letter</a> or a note; another page is hand-stitched where someone carefully <a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-ukk4/4003/41914">fixed a tear</a> in the parchment.</p>
<p>Page references were added in or changed as the book was used. Some pages are plain, others purposefully illustrated while others are whimsical. Among the hundreds of pages of an entire chant book, such details can go overlooked, but in isolation, they are a picture of a particular day in the working life of a scribe, illustrator or musician. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1420821034870116360"}"></div></p>
<h2>Pages’ afterlives</h2>
<p>Just as often, the fragments are interesting not just for where they began, but where they ended up, and how they got there. </p>
<p>Through our research, we’ve heard how <a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-2fkm">one page</a>, after arriving in Nova Scotia, was passed along through several people connected to the local symphony, tracing a story of friendships in a musical community.</p>
<p><a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-v8wt">Another fragment</a> had been repurposed as the cover of a book, providing a glimpse into religious reforms. An early owner had written the titles of Lutheran hymns in between the older chants. </p>
<p>The individual personalities associated with each fragment sometimes come to the fore in delightful ways. One arrived with a letter describing how the letter-writer had fallen in love with <a href="https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-2csu">the fragment</a> while her family was temporarily installed in West Germany. The fragment was found in a shop adjacent to the many stalls selling <em>glühwein</em> (warm, spiced wine) and cuckoo clocks in a busy Christmas market.</p>
<p>Such stories are reminders that even in the absence of larger books, pages have individual journeys. From the time they were crafted to their paths into the 21st century, each is the product of individual choices set against the backdrop of historical changes and institutions — a page from a much bigger book.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Bain receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna de Bakker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Piecing together the mystery of medieval chant books means studying hand-made objects from centuries ago.Anna de Bakker, Postdoctoral research associate, Department of Music, Fountain School of Performing Arts, Dalhousie UniversityJennifer Bain, Professor of Musicology and Music Theory, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1386972020-08-04T16:55:20Z2020-08-04T16:55:20ZSecond World War fight to protect Monte Cassino Abbey was a battle over Europe’s history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340156/original/file-20200605-176564-1k5sq6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C180%2C1310%2C754&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A low aerial view of Monte Cassino Abbey, south-east of Rome, after the February 1944 bombing.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Battle_of_Cassino,_January-may_1944_C4363.jpg">(Wikimedia Commons/The Imperial War Museum)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Allied <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8afP6GetP8">bombing of Monte Cassino Abbey</a> in Italy on Feb. 15, 1944, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/27/world/40-years-later-the-message-of-monte-cassino-pax.html">was a mistake</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/arts/02iht-3kimm.7713570.html">Hundreds of civilians reportedly died</a>, and the Allies soon learned that the Germans, believed to be hunkered inside, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=CngSogEACAAJ&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&redir_esc=y">were not there</a>. </p>
<p>Military historians have written tirelessly about the strategic errors during this critical phase of the “<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/italian-campaign">Italian campaign</a>,” which reduced the abbey to a “<a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5147958W/Monte_Cassino">mass of ruins</a>.”</p>
<p>Situated on the Germans’ defensive “<a href="https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=309">Gustav Line</a>,” which connected the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas, the abbey stood in the way of the Allies’ march towards Rome. But was its destruction really necessary? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335389/original/file-20200515-138654-9qxh1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335389/original/file-20200515-138654-9qxh1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335389/original/file-20200515-138654-9qxh1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335389/original/file-20200515-138654-9qxh1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335389/original/file-20200515-138654-9qxh1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335389/original/file-20200515-138654-9qxh1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335389/original/file-20200515-138654-9qxh1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bombing of Cassino Monastery and town, May 1944, by Peter McIntryre, an official Second World War artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia Commons/Archives New Zealand)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many of the campaign’s closest participants didn’t think so. Writing after the war, American army General Mark W. Clark considered the attack an <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=N8o9SKt1ZjIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">unnecessary measure</a>. </p>
<p>A senior British army officer, Major-General J.F.C. Fuller, called it “<a href="https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/j-f-c-fuller/the-second-world-war-1939-45/9780306805066/">an act of sheer tactical stupidity</a>.” Even Winston Churchill questioned whether Monte Cassino, “<a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=R1K76X8qj60C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Churchill,+Second+World+War,+volume+V&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXs-y_iLbpAhVqdt8KHdMjCesQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q&f=false">which several times in previous wars had been pillaged, destroyed and rebuilt … should have been destroyed once again</a>.” </p>
<p>Yet all was not lost. Pre-emptive measures fuelled by a growing trans-Atlantic concern for the protection of its ancient library, archive and treasures spared the abbey an even greater disaster: the complete loss of its cultural identity and heritage. </p>
<p>Both Allied and Axis forces, engaged in a larger war against each other, scrambled to protect Monte Cassino’s library and artifacts. A politicized struggle emerged in the process, with both sides wanting to be seen and remembered as guardians of Europe’s cultural and religious inheritance. </p>
<h2>Rise to prominence</h2>
<p>Monte Cassino was the fountainhead of the <a href="https://www.osb.org/our-roots/a-brief-history-of-the-benedictine-order/">western monastic tradition</a>.
Established by <a href="http://osborg.anselmianum.com/our-roots/saint-benedict/">Saints Benedict and Scholastica</a> around the year 529, the abbey grew throughout the Middle Ages into one of the most important religious, political, cultural and intellectual centres in western Europe. </p>
<p>It acquired this reputation in part thanks to the basic instructions for monks’ religious life first developed at the abbey known as <em><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/302806/the-rule-of-st-benedict-by-carolinne-white/9780140449969">The Rule of Saint Benedict</a></em>. Benedict’s “rule” offered <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/rule-of-st-benedict-with-a-necrology-of-st-gilles-abbey">organizing principles and regulations on obedience, work and prayer</a> that inspired a community of devoted followers, and is <a href="https://www.osb.org/our-roots/the-rule/">today considered a classic text of Christian spirituality</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335406/original/file-20200515-138620-uk65ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335406/original/file-20200515-138620-uk65ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335406/original/file-20200515-138620-uk65ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335406/original/file-20200515-138620-uk65ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335406/original/file-20200515-138620-uk65ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335406/original/file-20200515-138620-uk65ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335406/original/file-20200515-138620-uk65ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1128&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Orthodox icon depicting St. Benedict, also known as Benedict of Nursia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia Commons)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The abbey’s library and archive were especially famous. The collection was already substantial by the third quarter of the eighth century, and <a href="https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_34/index.htm#page/(III)/mode/1up">grew significantly in the 10th and 11th centuries</a>. </p>
<p>Under Abbot Desiderius (1058-87), who physically expanded the abbey’s <em><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/ca/academic/subjects/literature/printing-and-publishing-history/scriptorium-and-library-monte-cassino-10581105?format=HB&isbn=9780521583954">scriptorium</a></em> and its <a href="https://www.dmgh.de/mgh_ss_34/index.htm#page/444/mode/1up">scribal activity</a>, Monte Cassino assumed a prominent place in the annals of western history, culture and learning. </p>
<p>The abbey’s so-called “<a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=6wtZs_8q9RoC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=golden+age+of+montecassino&source=bl&ots=wsPUe6l3Y0&sig=ACfU3U2NpX8mWC3CxSAcgc_1L5NF3JRpnA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDyKXvvcfpAhVyc98KHZEeCMkQ6AEwBXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=golden%20age%20of%20montecassino&f=false">Golden Age</a>” didn’t last forever. Yet the achievements of this era furnished a rich historical legacy.</p>
<h2>More than just bricks and mortar</h2>
<p>Saving the abbey from wartime destruction became a priority for both Allied and Axis forces. </p>
<p>The former archbishop of both York and Canterbury, Lord Cosmo Lang of Lambeth, argued that the abbey’s “<a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1944/feb/16/preservation-of-historical-and-art">monuments of the great past, its architecture, its sculptures, its pictures are among the noblest expressions of the human spirit</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335426/original/file-20200515-138615-ulcd0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335426/original/file-20200515-138615-ulcd0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335426/original/file-20200515-138615-ulcd0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335426/original/file-20200515-138615-ulcd0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335426/original/file-20200515-138615-ulcd0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335426/original/file-20200515-138615-ulcd0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335426/original/file-20200515-138615-ulcd0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=844&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cosmo Gordon Lang (1864-1945), portrait by Philip de László.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia Commons)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to the Allied Supreme Commander in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Italy’s monuments and cultural centres demanded great respect; they symbolized “<a href="https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/monuments-men/033-006.pdf">to the world all that we are fighting to preserve</a>.”</p>
<p>Appealing to the Italian people by radio, leaflets “and any other means available,” American army General George Marshall sought to remove all movable works of art from harm’s way. The destruction of immovable works was also to be avoided, “<a href="https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/monuments-men/033-019.pdf">insofar as possible without handicapping military operations</a>.” </p>
<p>Italy’s cultural inheritance was at stake. </p>
<h2>Practical limits to protection</h2>
<p>There were practical limits to the protection available. The lives of fighting men, military strategists repeatedly argued, should take precedence over ancient buildings. </p>
<p>But as Eisenhower admitted, “<a href="https://i1.wp.com/text-message.blogs.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/eisenhower_december-1943.jpg">the choice is not always so clear-cut as that</a>.” He recognized
there were times when “military necessity” could justify the complete annihilation of “<a href="https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/monuments-men/033-006.pdf">some honoured site</a>.” But it was the imperative of high commanders, he contended, to “spare without any detriment to operational needs” whatever monuments could be saved. </p>
<p>The British House of Lords reached a similar conclusion. Knowing that the abbey’s priceless treasures were “subject to the swaying tides of battle,” the House called on the “<a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1944/feb/16/preservation-of-historical-and-art">Germans occupying the place to remove them to safety as soon as they were in real danger.…</a>” </p>
<p>When the Germans did so, Viscount Herbert Samuel called the act “<a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1944/feb/16/preservation-of-historical-and-art">a great relief to all who care for the interests of history</a>.”</p>
<h2>Evacuating library, treasures</h2>
<p>In October 1943, an Austrian officer, Lieutenant Colonel Julius Schlegel, commander of the Divisional Maintenance Section — together with a German officer, Captain Maximilian Johannes Becker — <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/bombardamento-di-montecassino-diario-di-guerra-di-e-grossetti-m-matronola-con-altre-testimonianze-e-documenti/oclc/878035276?referer=br&ht=edition">convinced Abbot Gregorio Diamare to move the abbey’s literary, artistic and cultural treasures to safety</a>. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=aiMeCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=julius+schlegel+Die+Oesterreischische+Furche&source=bl&ots=fDVjIh9eMx&sig=ACfU3U1Ul7rFbs0-zqO4Rti59qdbIo0Keg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdxL-6za_qAhWOzzgGHXcZDUgQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=julius%20schlegel%20Die%20Oesterreischische%20Furche&f=false">series of newspaper articles</a> written for the Austrian newspaper <em>Die Österreichische Furche</em> in 1951, Schlegel recounted the sequence of events.</p>
<p>Together with the abbot and community of monks, they forged <a href="http://abbaziamontecassino.org/abbey/en/legacy/the-battle-of-montecassino/32-treasures-removal-montecassino-abbey-wwii">a plan to evacuate Monte Cassino’s archive and library collections</a>. According to Schlegel, the former consisted of some 80,000 documents while the latter contained around 70,000 volumes. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335399/original/file-20200515-138620-1973lwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335399/original/file-20200515-138620-1973lwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335399/original/file-20200515-138620-1973lwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335399/original/file-20200515-138620-1973lwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=952&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335399/original/file-20200515-138620-1973lwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335399/original/file-20200515-138620-1973lwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335399/original/file-20200515-138620-1973lwm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1197&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Transfer of art treasures from Monte Cassino, 1943. Abbot Gregorio Diamare, left, with Lieutenant Colonel Julius Schlegel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(German federal archives/Wikimedia Commons)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Added to this list of artifacts were priceless artistic works by Titian, Raphael, Bruegel and da Vinci, among others, as well as various ancient vases, tapestries, sculptures, <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/relc/hd_relc.htm">reliquaries</a> (containers for holy relics) and crucifixes.</p>
<p>Beyond its own library and treasures, <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1944/feb/16/preservation-of-historical-and-art">contents from two museums in Naples, the convent of Montevergine near Avellino, and the Keats-Shelley house in Rome, had already been relocated there</a>. </p>
<p>Over three short weeks, the remaining Cassinese monks, Italian refugees and German soldiers transported some 700 crates by 100 trucks — some to the neutral territory of the Vatican (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Castel-SantAngelo">Castel Sant'Angelo</a>) and its library for safekeeping, others to <a href="http://www.archiviosanpietroperugia.it/wp-content/uploads/wordpress/Benedictina-2015_1.pdf">a castle in Spoleto, about 100 kilometres north of Rome</a>.</p>
<h2>Improbable salvage operation</h2>
<p>The whole salvage operation was an improbable feat in diplomacy, secular and ecclesiastical collaboration and logistics in the midst of war. But there are lingering questions about the Germans’ intervention — how both they and Allied forces sought to represent it in historical records. </p>
<p>Was it a genuine humanitarian effort to safeguard Monte Cassino’s heritage <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/memoirs-of-field-marshal-kesselring/oclc/438493348">ordered by German High Command</a>?</p>
<p>Was it a personal initiative spearheaded by Schlegel, “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1958/08/09/archives/julius-schlegel-dies-former-german-officer-saved-cassino-art.html">against the order of his German army superiors,</a>” as the <em>New York Times</em> reported in 1958? </p>
<p>Or was it part of a larger <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Le_Saint_Si%C3%A8ge_et_les_victimes_de_la_gu.html?id=8wdIAQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">propaganda campaign</a> intended to disparage the Allies’ military actions against the <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/memoirs-of-field-marshal-kesselring/oclc/438493348">defenceless Benedictine house</a>? </p>
<p>Whatever the answer, the Italian Director General of the Fine Arts, writing on Dec. 31, 1943, thanked German military and political authorities for their collaborative efforts in safeguarding the “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/bombardamento-di-montecassino-diario-di-guerra-di-e-grossetti-m-matronola-con-altre-testimonianze-e-documenti/oclc/878035276?referer=br&ht=edition">national artistic patrimony</a>.” </p>
<p>The monks singled out Schlegel for his deeds, thanking him for <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/bombardamento-di-montecassino-diario-di-guerra-di-e-grosetti-m-matronola-con-altre-testimonianze-e-documenti/oclc/878035276?referer=br&ht=edition">saving them and their abbey’s possessions</a>.</p>
<p>The national German newspaper, <em>Die Welt</em>, published a commemorative story in 1998 about Schlegel’s efforts, which it claimed Italy “<a href="https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article596847/Italien-hat-Julius-Schlegel-nicht-vergessen.html">has not forgotten</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340664/original/file-20200609-21226-mcffem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340664/original/file-20200609-21226-mcffem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340664/original/file-20200609-21226-mcffem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340664/original/file-20200609-21226-mcffem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340664/original/file-20200609-21226-mcffem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340664/original/file-20200609-21226-mcffem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340664/original/file-20200609-21226-mcffem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">View of the rebuilt Monte Cassino Abbey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Wikimedia Commons)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Preserving the abbey’s heritage was considered a moral and necessary good. Re-consecrating it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2B7JoJ-vQ4">in 1964</a>, after almost two decades of reconstruction, Pope Paul VI marvelled at its capacity for regeneration. He celebrated peace “<a href="http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/it/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-vi_apl_19641024_pacis-nuntius.html">after whirlwinds of war had blown out the holy and benevolent flame</a>.…”</p>
<p>Today, global pilgrims and tourists visit the restored abbey every day to experience its <a href="http://www.abbaziamontecassino.org/abbey/en/visit-montecassino">spiritual, historical and artistic treasures</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kriston R. Rennie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1944, the former archbishop of Canterbury mounted a case to preserve the Italian abbey, renowned for centuries for scholarship and devotion, but Allied forces had just destroyed it.Kriston R. Rennie, Associate Professor in Medieval History, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1267372019-12-09T14:10:48Z2019-12-09T14:10:48ZMedieval medicine: astrological ‘bat books’ that told doctors when to treat patients<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303465/original/file-20191125-74584-1j4wtdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C7%2C1239%2C1268&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Physician letting blood from a patient. Attributed to Aldobrandino of Siena: Li Livres dou Santé. France, late 13th Century.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Library, London, UK</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Medieval doctors had to acquire a range of skills including an ability to read Latin texts, a working knowledge of the bodily “humours” and an understanding of the rudiments of blood circulation. Their diagnostic techniques were largely limited to examining a patient’s urine: they could match the colour of the urine to that on a chart, such as one now in the <a href="https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/">Bodleian Library</a>, which offers an alarming spectrum of hues. After diagnosis, one of the most important treatments was bloodletting, for which physicians used detailed astrological charts.</p>
<p>In the middle ages, stars were laden with meaning and, with no light pollution in the sky, often easier to see with the naked eye than they are now. Belief in astrology was almost universal. It was generally understood that the planets and stars under which a person is born would exert influence over a person’s health and personality.</p>
<p>Someone born under Mars might grow up to be belligerent, while someone born under Venus would become lascivious. Sidereal movements – the movements of stars or other heavenly bodies – could also influence the person’s mind and body. Comets, eclipses and and conjunctions of planets were thought to foretell natural disasters or political coups. So meaningful were these cosmic events that every medieval European court had an in-house astrologer – and kings rarely took political decisions without first consulting them. </p>
<p>Medieval physicians, too, scrutinised the night skies and consulted elaborate hand-drawn charts before performing <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2141.2008.07361.x">phlebotomy</a>, the most prevalent health intervention until the 18th century. By letting blood, physicians could treat existing conditions – everything from headaches to corns – and restore the balance of the four humours in the body, blood being an admixture of all four. </p>
<p>Although children, pregnant women and those over 70 tended not to be bled, for everyone else phlebotomy was the go-to treatment. The surgeon would choose the day carefully – the age of the patient had to correspond to the phase of the Moon – and the ailment should be aligned with the position of the zodiac – that is, the fixed stars that rose annually and were associated with the months of the year. </p>
<h2>Tool of the trade</h2>
<p>A manuscript now in the National Library of Scotland probably belonged to a physician who wanted to calculate moon phases and sidereal positions before cutting open a patient’s vein.</p>
<p>According to the tenets of phlebotomy, the figures of the zodiac governed particular body parts. That concept is visualised in “Zodiac man”, according to which, Aries governs the head, Gemini the two arms, Scorpio the sex, Aquarius the shins, Pisces the feet, and so forth. </p>
<p>To treat an ailment of the feet, a physician would consult the night sky with respect to the position of Pisces. Calculating the celestial positions and the relevant time, place, and manner to incise the patient’s vein would require interpreting various charts in the manuscript. </p>
<p>Knowing how to manipulate such a manuscript and read its complex diagrams would certainly have impressed the patient and establish a power and knowledge difference between doctor and patient. The manuscript would not only have aided the surgeon in his calculations, but also served to demonstrate his expertise, a little like today’s white lab coat and stethoscope.</p>
<p>The Latin text flanking “Zodiac man” enumerates the available veins. This must not have satisfied the owner of this particular manuscript, because he added a sheet to the end of the bat book with an image of “vein man”. The diagram shows six veins on the arm, plus others on the face, legs, armpits and groin. The lines connecting the tapped man and the labels look red and arterial.</p>
<h2>Portable knowledge</h2>
<p>One type of manuscript in which one can find these diagrams is called a “bat book”. As the photographs in this article show, bat books consist of parchment sheets folded into compartments, like road maps that have to be unfolded in order to be read. Each rectangular leaf has a tab on one edge, and these tabs are gathered together with stitches so that the leaves can be bound together. They are designed to hang from a belt for portability. </p>
<p>In 2016, the great codicologist Peter Gumbert called them “<a href="http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503568096-1">bat books</a>” – “because when in rest they hang upside-down and all folded up, but when action is required they lift up their heads and spread their wings wide”. The text is upside down so that the book is legible when it is hanging from the girdle.</p>
<p>About 60 bat books survive – the oldest having been made in Glastonbury Abbey around 1265 and the youngest in the 1470s as the printing press was sounding the death knell of the handwritten form. Of these, about 30 are English almanacs – including the one in Edinburgh’s National Library – which contain astrological and medical material. </p>
<p>This group of manuscripts contains calendars plus the charts necessary for calculating eclipses and performing phlebotomy. Two men originally <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20777967?seq=1">computed the charts in the 1380s</a> – Nicholas Lynn, who worked for John of Gaunt, and John Somer, a Franciscan friar who worked for Joan of Kent. Their respective patrons charged them with the same task: to calculate the future movements of celestial bodies for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Metonic-cycle">four Metonic cycles</a>, those beginning in 1387, 1406, 1425 and 1444.</p>
<p>As Metonic cycles last 19 years, both men calculated eclipses and Easters up til 1462. The NLS manuscript was made in the early 15th century. After 1462 it would have lost much of its usefulness. </p>
<p>Elaborate and meticulous charts present these data, and also show how eclipses are formed, with the moon blocking rays of sunlight – (fig. 3, fol. 11v). The astronomical calculations in the book are remarkable considering that the astronomers who made them had a geocentric (earth-centered), rather than heliocentric (sun-centered), model of the planetary system.</p>
<p>Both Lynn and Somer worked in Oxford, so all of the astronomical calculations are for that city. One can also see that the manuscript was written in Oxford because one of the university town’s local saints, St Frideswyde, is featured in the calendar for Oct 19. It is possible that a workshop in Oxford produced such almanacs for doctors working throughout Britain.</p>
<p>In 2002 it was presented to the Edinburgh National Library as one of three manuscripts from the <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/borthwick/">Borthwick Collection</a>, but its earlier history is not known. Because physicians carried bat books on their belts, this book form probably has a lower survival rate than codices, which would have stayed indoors most of the time and been protected on a book shelf. </p>
<p>Further analysis may reveal that the manuscript contains bloodstains, from the book’s brief career as a utilitarian guide for a knife-wielding surgeon. The bat book could be considered a late medieval smart phone: a hand-held, portable computer with apps for busy professionals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Rudy receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>A handful of manuscripts remain which give researchers valuable insights into medieval science.Kathryn Rudy, Senior Lecturer in Art History before 1800, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/450662015-07-22T16:25:25Z2015-07-22T16:25:25ZDiscovery of ‘oldest’ Qur'an fragments could resolve enigmatic history of holy text<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89378/original/image-20150722-1426-1b8rpsv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the world’s <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/">1.6 billion</a> Muslims, the idea that the Qur'an is a seventh century text disseminated by Islam’s founder, the Prophet Muhammad, is neither news, nor particularly controversial. </p>
<p>But in academia the history of this holy text is much more opaque. For researchers in Islamic studies, historical evidence dating the Qur'an back to Islam’s foundational era has proved elusive. This has led to hotly contested academic debates about the early or late canonisation of the Qur'an, with a small handful of scholars claiming that the book is a product of a much later (mid-eighth century and after) age of compilation or even confabulation, when ‘Abbasid-era scholars rationalised and expanded the Muslim religious corpus.</p>
<p>Recent scholarly work on early manuscript fragments of the Qur'an such as those discovered in <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/scott-macmillan/sanaa-city-book">Sana‘a, Yemen in 1972</a> gave us portions of Qur'anic text carbon-dated to a few years after the Qur'an was officially standardised by one of Muhammad’s early successors, the caliph ‘Uthman, in around 650 CE. But there has been little clinching evidence to settle the debate about the dating of the text from a scholarly rather than devotional perspective.</p>
<h2>A new discovery</h2>
<p>But this picture seems to have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33436021">changed overnight</a>. Two Qur'an fragments unknowingly held since 1936 in the University of Birmingham’s manuscript collection have been definitively dated to the era of Muhammad’s life or a little later. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C-HDFiC2boQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The writing of the two folios (with text corresponding to chapters 18-20 in the modern Qur'an) has been placed somewhere between 568 and 645 CE, which is very close to the conventional dating offered for the Prophet’s ministry, 610-632 CE. Given the more than 95% accuracy of the carbon dating involved, carried out at the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, this discovery indicates that these fragments are in all probability contemporary with the Prophet himself.</p>
<p>No wonder that the University of Birmingham, and the city as a whole, has welcomed the news with excitement and pride. There seems some poetic justice in the fact that a city that is home to one of the most multicultural communities in the world (described without irony on Fox News as a “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30773297">no-go area</a>” for non-Muslims) should now, as it surely will, become a veritable Mecca for both non-Muslims and Muslims eager to examine for themselves these almost 1,400 year-old pages, which are offered in a clear, legible, even beautiful hand.</p>
<h2>Handwriting hesitation</h2>
<p>Certainly, the discovery will have its detractors, and no doubt these will be of two kinds. First, from those historians who are cautious, even sceptical about carbon dating as a tool of evidence. </p>
<p>On the whole, palaeography (the study of handwriting) and carbon dating have worked side-by-side to offer a clearer picture than ever of the date-range of various textual materials for ancient and medieval history. But historians schooled in palaeography or philology (the study of historical language) can often find the evidence furnished by carbon dating to be unfeasibly early. There have been clear instances of carbon dating specifying a timeframe which is undermined by a study of language (such as dialect or idiom), of script and of what I will call circumstantial evidence, namely what is known from written histories or from archaeological remains about the spread of texts and of ideas. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89363/original/image-20150722-1447-qac8gr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fragments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>French scholar François Déroche, for example, <a href="http://www.brill.com/qur-ans-umayyads/">argued in 2014</a> that carbon dating seems to offer too early a time period for the Umayyad-era (661-750 CE) Qur'ans that he has examined. Such discrepancies can usually be attributed to the fact that carbon dating provides a reasonably accurate assessment of the date of the medium of writing – for example, the death date of an animal whose skin is used for writing on – rather than the date when of the writing itself. Yet the widespread use of the method for dating ancient and medieval texts and artifacts bears witness to its importance as a powerful tool for establishing a reasonable range of dates for any given object. </p>
<h2>Hardwired skeptics</h2>
<p>The other group who may find fault with this discovery are those writers for whom “Islam” is a collection of ideas and strictures developed in a much later (post-conquest) era and projected back on to the seventh century. For such hardwired sceptics, it may be that no historical evidence carries the power to shift their convictions. This new discovery may be dismissed by such voices as part of the global conspiracy to give Islam’s self-created narrative more credence than it deserves.</p>
<p>But for academic historians of early Islam, the early stabilisation of Qur'anic text is one of the few areas which a broad spectrum of scholars agree on. In the words of the recently departed historian Patricia Crone, a widely acknowledged expert on early and medieval Islam:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We can be reasonably sure that the Qur'an is a collection of utterances that [Muhammad] made in the belief that they had been revealed to him by God … [He] is not responsible for the arrangement in which we have them. They were collected after his death – how long after is controversial.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is this last point of controversy that the Birmingham discovery illuminates. Clearly, Qur'anic verses with a very close match to the version we have today were being transcribed during or soon after the Prophet’s lifetime. So historians of early Islam have good reason to feel excited, if not gratified, by this discovery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fozia Bora does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hotly-contested debates about the early or late canonisation of the Qur'an may be resolved by a recent discovery.Fozia Bora, Lecturer in Middle Eastern History and Islamic History, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/290952014-07-23T02:38:48Z2014-07-23T02:38:48ZDon’t be Misérables – it’s Hugo’s original manuscript<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54386/original/t56b9fvt-1405918800.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What can be read between the handwritten lines of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables manuscript? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://images.theage.com.au/file/2014/07/17/5602599/le_mis_170714/">handwritten manuscript</a> of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables (1862) – from which the blockbuster stage show and numerous movies ultimately descend – has arrived at the State Library of Victoria (its first time out of Europe).</p>
<p>Will a latter-day pilgrimage to Melbourne commence? Or, as philosopher and critical theorist <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/benjamin/">Walter Benjamin</a> <a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm">famously argued</a>, does mass consumption through endless reprinting, translation and adaptation eliminate the aura around the original work of art – in this case, the manuscript? </p>
<p>The success of recent exhibitions in the <a href="http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/treasures-gallery">National Library’s Treasures Gallery</a> points to the social lives that classic literary works enjoy, lives that in turn prompt a healthy curiosity about what the handwritten manuscript offers that the professional printings and productions cannot.</p>
<p>The encyclopedist of popular science from antiquity, <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Pliny_the_Elder.aspx">Pliny the Elder</a> put his finger on it in 77AD when he recorded the:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>very unusual and memorable fact that the last works of artists and their unfinished paintings … are more admired than those which they finished, because in them are seen the preliminary drawings left visible and the artists’ actual thoughts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>We still value the more intimate insight the unfinished object opens up to us, provided it is a work of genius. We want to admire the aesthetic achievement, to participate in it; but we also want to understand how it came to be. The manuscript, for literary works, is the lifeline, the palpable link, in material form, to the past creative moment when the rough edges were still showing.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54182/original/d6n8zh24-1405649210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cast of Boublil & Schonberg’s Les Miserables during a dress rehearsal at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne this month.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Castro/AAP Image</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1976 I first gazed at a literary manuscript, more or less contemporary with Victor Hugo’s, that of my favourite novel <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31250.Little_Dorrit">Little Dorrit</a> (1855-57) and the so-called <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/436025?uid=3737536&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21104363345607">Number Plans</a> that Dickens prepared in order to plan the monthly instalments of his long novel.</p>
<p>I’d just written an MA at Melbourne about Dickens, and had dutifully flicked through the neatly printed Number Plans reproduced in some of those mammoth 800-page, closely typeset Penguin paperbacks. For me, they <em>were</em> Dickens. But here, in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, was the physical evidence of something that had not dawned on me. </p>
<p>Subtle changes in ink colour and angled insertions of cryptic plot summaries revealed to me what must have been later additions to the Number Plans that he went back to insert <em>after</em> writing his monthly 32-pages. He entered the details into the Plans so that, say, six months later as he wrote a later instalment, he could conveniently ascertain what he had covered in the earlier one. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54387/original/jdgzzpwr-1405918921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How otherwise to keep track of the sprawling novel? How to go on, month-in, month-out, writing those 32 pages, each instalment bursting with energy, each with its own narrative rhythm and thematic development, so that, after 20 of them, the novel could be issued in volume form without further revision or change? </p>
<p>The novel immediately took on another dimension for me. </p>
<p>The manuscript threw light on the effort, on the process of writing, on the felicitous breakthroughs, the cancellations and changes of mind. My literary training had left me wholly unprepared for this Dickens: Dickens the artificer, Dickens the professional who had to write to deadlines to earn his living. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=691&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54388/original/ht4d83yf-1405918958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since then I’ve held a great many literary manuscripts in my hands – by D H Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, the remarkable <a href="http://web.srv.adfa.edu.au/JITM/JL/Annotation_Viewer.html">Jerilderie Letter</a> (What tiny pages! And in whose hand – not Ned’s?) as well as the heavily marked-up and revised newspaper columns passed to the printer for Henry Lawson’s <a href="http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/external_data_share/hass/ASEC/pdf/SUPGeologicalSpeiler.pdf">While the Billy Boils</a> (1896). Each one begs the question of its own history of becoming. </p>
<p>The return of research interest since the 1990s in the meanings of the material forms of works (in their manuscripts, their newspaper and book printings), and in the genesis and creative process that these material forms witness, was inevitable. It has been a tonic. If the exhibition at the State Library draws the crowds it will be partly because of the (inevitable) trickle-down effect from this shift in research direction. </p>
<p>What will the visitors see? On display will be one of the two bound volumes of the manuscript of Hugo’s novel, Les Misérables, written and revised during 1845-48 and 1860-61. He wrote down the right-hand side of each page, leaving the left for later additions and revisions. </p>
<p>And there were plenty. Given the gap between the two bursts of composition, a period in which Hugo’s politics also shifted, rethinking of the novel’s emphases is in evidence everywhere. So too, more subtly, are his stints of writing and the shift in his handwriting characteristics over the 12-year gap; and the hands of his sister and lover also appear.</p>
<p>They, like us, would have felt they had a stake in this literary classic. </p>
<p><br>
<em><a href="http://victorhugoexhibition.com.au/">Victor Hugo: Les Misérables – From Page to Stage</a> is at the State Library of Victoria until November 9.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Eggert receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The handwritten manuscript of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables (1862) – from which the blockbuster stage show and numerous movies ultimately descend – has arrived at the State Library of Victoria (its…Paul Eggert, Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.