#medieval manuscript repairs

[cuties-in-codices]

medieval parchment repairs

in a psalter, south-western germany, late 12th/early 13th c.

source: Hermetschwil, Benediktinerinnenkloster, Cod. membr. 37, fol. 19r, 53r, and 110r

[mering]

with him i have an ending

okay i want to explain some of my thought process for this one. i started it for the vsz week prompt "gods/worship" (and obviously did not finish it in time), where i wanted to do something with depictions of sainthood in medieval art and the imagery in illuminated manuscripts.

i took the basic idea of the pose from (many versions of) st michael and the dragon, switched around so that despite keeping the original power balance intact, zam is the one being impaled; in defeating vitalasy, he's forcing his hand to hurt himself. if it was up to zam, vitalasy would have retaliated and proven him right post-betrayal, but that isn't how it goes.

zam is holding the inverted eclipse shield subz gave him after the betrayal. i drew him in my wormhole design in reference to the final conversation they have, where zam is using the idea that he's broken beyond repair as a shield to avoid having to engage with vitalasy. in short: i'm trying to visually portray the contradiction present in needing someone to hurt you to maintain your worldview/sense of self, when they don't want to do that.

the lyric in the caption is from heartland, which is an album about struggles for authorial control, and resentment over how someone else portrays you, and a shift from complete belief in someone/something towards that resentment... where authorial power is conflated with godhood. (it is also about gay romance.)

also, here's a version from before i did the black background:

[colleendoran]

The Secret Language of a Page of Chivalry: Gone Fishing

Neil Gaiman's Chivalry is a sweet and simple story on the surface, but is full of allusions and literary references, and the symbolism in the art, as well as the art style, serves as meta-narrative. 

Previous post re: the symbolism in the art for Chivalry over HERE.

One of the pages readers ask about the most is this one, where Mrs. Whitaker in the Oxfam shop finds an old book entitled The Romance and Legend of Chivalry (1912).

Written by Scottish author A. R. Hope Moncrieff, this popular tome was published in multiple printings and editions in many languages. While most of his books were intended for young boys, they would be over the heads and/or not to the taste of many modern readers.

They are dense and wordy, but I love them. 

You can find good copies of the first edition with the gorgeous cover you see here at reasonable prices. If you can spare $20-$30, you shouldn't have to settle for cheap, modern editions which are ugly and don't have that pretty gold stamping.

It should be obvious why Mrs. Whitaker has focused on this book during the course of Chivalry.

What some didn't understand is the reference there in the top corner written in red pen: "Ex Libris Fisher".

This translates to "From the Library of Fisher" as in The Fisher King.

The Fisher King otherwise known as King Pelles, Sir Galaad's grandfather. (And for those who don't understand why Galahad is spelled Galaad, an explanation HERE.)

The inset images in the illuminated manuscript sequences aren't just there to dress up the page. They have meaning.

On this page the meaning is pretty obvious: in the upper right, a fish, then an image of a man fishing, then young Galaad, then the castle. Also, King Pelles holds a spear.

King Pelles was known as The Fisher King because he had a disabling wound and was unable to do much of anything but sit in his boat and go fishing.

There are a number of layers of meaning to the tale of the Fisher King, the most obvious being that the king, also known as the Grail King, charged with the task of protecting the Holy Grail, is a fisher even as Christ is a fisher of men.

But the Fisher King, it is implied, has been wounded as punishment for a sin, the which sort of varies depending on the King Arthur tale version you read. (The derivation of the name Pelles, or the medieval French word for fish, is a pun on an old French term for sin. Can't find my reference on that, sorry.)

Pelles was wounded in the thigh. Some interpret this as a wound to the genitalia, which robbed the king of his vitality. Since the strength of the king was the strength of the land, the land withered as well. 

Referring directly to a man's wounded genitals was super-rude back in the day no matter what they do on Twitter now: so it was common to simply refer to a "wound in the thigh" if a man had issues in his nether regions.

The spear the king holds is the Spear of Longinus, which a Roman centurion used to pierce the side of Christ, and which was used to deliver a wound to Pelles, the Dolorous Stroke, a wound which cannot be healed until the coming of the Grail Knight who will ask the right questions and take the right actions. 

These actions depend on which versions you read, and we could be here all day going over them and who did them. 

As for the sin of Pelles, it is asserted that Pelles was either a philanderer or he refused to marry the woman he should have in order to ensure the bloodline of the Grail. To repair that damage, Pelles sets about getting his daughter Elaine going with Lancelot (by shocking means) to ensure that Galaad is born, because he knows only Galaad can achieve the Grail.

In Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, the story is rather confusing and the role of King Pelles gets split between Pelles and another king. 

But there are a lot of wonky things in Malory, so don't stress, the man never had an editor, he was in jail while he wrote most of the book, and he did his best. 

Pelles is healed by the Holy Blood on the spear. Or a knight asking the right questions. Or by drinking from the Grail.

Depending on who is telling the story.

With the Achievement of the Grail and the redemption of King Pelles by the knights, in particular his grandson Galaad/Galahad, the king is healed, sins are forgiven, and the land is healed.

Mrs. Whitaker, who is being visited by young Galaad on a quest, has just found a tome in an Oxfam shop that once belonged to Galaad's grandfather. 

Pelles, who failed to be as chivalrous as he should have been and ended up spending a lot of time fishing instead of running his country, perhaps learned some lessons from The Romance and Legend of Chivalry that got passed down to Galaad, because this Neil Gaiman tale is Twilight Zone-ish like that.

And now you know.

Thanks to my Patreon patrons for sponsoring this post and so many other wonderful things.

[trans-cuchulainn]

Could you recommend some good resources on accurate depiction of parchment in the medieval period? I feel like most people interested in medieval studies have a basic understanding of what it is and how it’s made, but you seem more well-versed than most on its tactile properties and regular use cases. Where can others acquire this knowledge?

most of what i've learned about manuscripts and book history has been either during my degrees or from work (i have worked in various libraries including with special collections, although mostly with early printed books and later paper manuscripts in that capacity). and in terms of what it's like to interact with, i have learned this mostly from interacting with it, but if you don't have a library or museum near you that will enable you to do this, it's a bit harder. this makes it hard to give recommendations although there are lots of very good books out there about books and manuscript history

(there's one i read early on in my journeys with palaeography etc that went into loads of detail about different writing surfaces including wood and wax tablets and so on, but i cannot remember the title and past me did NOT write it down which was really unhelpful. if i remember it i'll post about it)

there are also a ton of online resources about manuscripts though. lots of museums have online guides to manuscript production, parchment, writing through history. there's lots of codicology stuff out there. so it's not like you have to learn it in a formal environment -- that's just where i learned it and therefore mostly from lectures rather than shareable resources

but to understand parchment specifically i think understanding the process of making it is a crucial step to understanding why it is the way it is (and why it's not paper). here's a couple of youtube videos that give an overview

this is a more detailed video about a project that got people to make parchment themselves which is just kinda interesting (haven't watched it all the way through but am watching parts):

once you understand how parchment is made and the resources that go into it, i think it's easier to understand why it probably wouldn't be used for ephemera and scraps, and that helps you think about situations where people might use something else -- e.g. a wax tablet to take hasty notes, send messages that don't need to be permanent, send messages that are emphatically not permanent (your recipient can melt it and hide the note), etc -- as well as beginning to rethink the modern world's reliance on the written word in general and consider how oral messages and other non-written communication might have been used

as for the tactile side of things, as i said in a previous post, if you can't touch book parchment, go find your local irish musicians and see if the bodhrán player will let you handle their drum (or good quality orchestral timpani will do too! but with a bigger drum it's harder to feel both sides of the skin). drumskins made of goatskin are very similar on a tactile level to parchment, just a little thicker and not processed to quite the same level as a writing surface. it helps you stop thinking of them as super fragile once you realise people are whacking them with a stick regularly, and you can learn about the difference between the hair side and the flesh side of the skin and stuff and see the way the hair leaves traces in the skin and so on. this helps with the tactile understanding

(the cheaper the bodhran, the rougher the reverse side will be even if the front is still nice and smooth, which also makes you realise the difference between high quality books where you can barely tell which side of the page is the hair side, and low quality ones where they're not fully treated, there's still hair, whatever)

i talked to a conservator lately who told me the way he got into book conservation was via musical instrument repair -- they are more similar than you would think -- and i know trad musicians scattered far and wide enough to be reasonably confident that even if you're in an area with no touchable medieval manuscripts, you can probably at some point find a drummer who will let you play with their bodhrán in exchange for a pint or something, lol

but in the mean time there's lots of cool videos about there about parchment making which i do think is a crucial step to understanding it as a writing surface! and i will see if i can remember the names of any of the books i've read...

[autumnmobile12]

Some Speaker Headcanons

Okay, so last night, for the first time in months, I opened up the document for Right Here, Always. So I may actually finish this fic yet.

But in the meantime, here are some Speaker headcanons I included in the story:

They Don't Travel During the Winter

At least not in the mountainous regions where the weather can turn nasty unexpectedly.

"It’s hard for Speakers to travel in the winter months, especially after storms when the roads are impassable.  Since we don’t want to run the risk of being stranded in the wilderness without aid, we often settle in one area temporarily.  Usually at monasteries where we can earn our keep by helping the monks copy, repair, or translate manuscripts.  It could get pretty tedious.”

...

They Don't Practice Marriage

Or rather, similar to the Ancient Egyptians, they don't have a specific ceremony or rites. Closer to what we'd consider a committed, long-term relationship.

Trevor frowned at her in surprise.  “What brought this up all of a sudden?  I thought Speakers didn’t even practice marriage.”

“Well…yes, we do.  That’s a common misconception,”  she said.  “We don’t hold any specific rites or ceremonies that a church would recognize as a marriage, but we do marry in a sense.  By the standards of my people, since we share a bed and we have a child, the two of us actually are married.  I just thought…your parents were wed according to their faith.  And yours.  There’s nothing that says we need to adhere solely to my people’s traditions.  I suppose I thought it might be important to you.  Is it?”

...

Sypha's Parents

I normally assume Sypha's parents have passed away by the time the series takes place--either by illness, religious persecution, accident or whatever other nastiness the medieval era had to offer--but I suppose the red-haired guy standing in the back of the above group shot could be her father who just doesn't have a speaking role?

Blonde lady in this shot may be her mum? I dunno. This series does ride on a bare minimum voice cast, so that could be possible. Otherwise, this whole group is probably related somehow.

Ultimately in the fic, I went with the idea her mother died in childbirth, which added some anxiety for Sypha with her own pregnancy. Her father died of an illness before she was old enough to really remember him. Which again adds some depth over how close her own daughter came to losing her father before she could remember him.

...

Anyway, I don't know when Chapter 8 will be done, but it isn't forgotten. I'll get there.

[mysticalspiders]

Whale Weekly Annotations: December 17

Quite a bit of art today!

[ (Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah?)

1. In Genesis 19, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, the wicked cities of the plain, by raining fire and brimstone upon them.

(It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet)

2. Hell.]

[(where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft)

3. A “temptestuous wind, called Euroclydon,” buffets Paul’s ship in Acts 27. The old writer is presumable Ishmael’s invention.

(old black-letter, thou reasonest well)

4. From the name of the type in the earliest printed books, resembling the script of medieval manuscripts. 

(Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken wrapper—(he had a redder one afterwards))

5. In the biblical parable Lazarus is a beggar who is saved, while a rich man (Dives) is daned to the fires of Hell. See Luke 16: 19-31.]

[(like another cursed Jonah)

1. See Jonah 1-2.

(examining by a dim light divers specimens of skrimshander)

2. Also called scrimshaw. See Melville’s definition, Chapter 57, paragraph two.]

[(This man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned))

3. Not a bunkmate but a “silent partner,” that is a partner who takes no visible part in the business. 

(He stood full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam)

4. A watertight structure from which repairs can be made on a ship below waterline.]

[(going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a snow-storm)

5. Externally cool but inwardly furious. Mt. Helca, in Iceland, well known as an active volcano. (sidenote: I love how cheeky the annotator is here)]

[thesoulprophecies]

On November the 4th 1966, the river Arno flooded into Florence burying hundreds of thousands of books, manuscripts and artwork beneath mud, debris and putrid water. Due to this massive cultural and historical devastation, countries responded quickly with financial aid and restoration research. It became imperative to combine modern science with historical book making techniques in order to save and restore the damaged antiquarian books and manuscripts. Experimental research was used from The Institute of Book Pathology in Rome, and The Imperial College of Science and Technology in association with The Royal College of Art in London.

Damaged books were given emergency washing and drying treatments and then sterilised against bacteria and mould. The edges of a lot of books were badly stuck with mud, gelatine and sawdust. The covers/boards, spines, headbands and everything surrounding the text block were removed and catalogued in envelopes. Once the spine was clear the sewing was cut from the spines and the sections separated carefully. Mud was scraped from the leaves of the book, and especially bad books were soaked in an alcohol and water mixture and then interwoven with wet strength paper and washed again. Coloured plates and prints were sprayed with a solution of soluble nylon in alcohol to preserve them. Any oil that may have damaged the books was removed with a solution of xylene and trichloroethylene. Fuller’s Earth was applied delicately and brushed off to remove excess chemical solution and oil.

Thermostatically controlled, stainless steel, sinks were used to wash the books leaf by leaf in a fungicide solution. Some particularly fragile leaves were resized. pH tests were conducted and if a book had too much acidity, it was deacidified. Bleach staining is not considered good practice, and was limited to the leaves that were so stained that the text was illegible. The individual leaves were dried at controlled temperatures in specially made drying cabinets. Once dry, the leaves were checked and put in order. (Plates and prints were handled separately to the main text blocks as extra care had to be taken due to the colours.)

Before sewing and binding could take place, repairs were made to the leaves caused by the flood and early binding techniques. Lens tissue was used for small tears, and Japanese tissue paper was used for serious tears and missing sections of leaves.

Books were sewn back together with thread and techniques dependent on their size and publication date. Appropriate bindings were also chosen depending on the use of the book and its time period. The majority of the damaged Antonio Magliabechi manuscripts and volumes from the National Library of Florence were bound in limp vellum. Other rare books required new leather bindings.

The restoration of books, manuscripts, art and historical artefacts from the 1966 flood is still an ongoing process today. Many people had to be trained specially to restore books on site in Florence, as shipping damaged books to experts across the world was deemed to be impractical and quality could not be controlled. There was also the risk that the books would be lost or damaged further in transit.

Floods and natural disasters cause widespread damage but are fortunately not that common. Some books are damaged over time due to use and age. Working in a second-hand bookshop, I see a lot of old books that are damaged; missing spines and boards, detached boards, bumped corners, missing labels and stained. Modern books are notoriously poor quality and tend to fall apart easily in comparison to their sewn, medieval ancestors. There is a genuine calling for restoration and book binding experts. Some old books are scarce, and some books have signatures or notes in their margins from historically important people which make them unique and irreplaceable. For the individual, books passed down through the generations hold significant sentimental value and may need repairs or complete new bindings. If history teaches us anything, it is that we need to continue to find methods and solutions to protect and save items of historical importance.

References:

The Restoration of Books: Florence – 1968. – YouTube

The Disaster that Deluged Florence’s Cultural Treasures – HISTORY

The great flood of Florence, 50 years on | Art and design | The Guardian

https://blog.outletpublishinggroup.com/2023/02/23/blog-156-the-importance-of-book-restoration/ 

[une-sanz-pluis]

By contrast with those efforts to circumscribe charitable benefit, gifts of books could also forge social bonds. Social bonds included relationships within a family, such as the familial bond of William and Richard Courtenay, and with friends and colleagues, such as fellow members of a college or cathedral community. Scott describes the contemporary medieval understanding of charity as the ‘idealised love of one person for another following the Gospel precept: “A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one another as I have loved you”’. Thus, charity was a way of expressing one’s Christian love for others. Bequests of books, whether they were dedicated to individuals or to a community, were also a way of expressing this ‘idealised love’ through charity, a form of testamentary piety, especially where prayers were expected in return. This shared expression of fellowship and brotherhood had benefits for both the living and the dead: it strengthened the community’s understanding of itself as a corporate body, at the same time as it symbolised the donor’s commitment to that community, even after death.

Hannah Ryley, Re-using Manuscripts in Late Medieval England: Repairing, Recycling, Sharing (York Medieval Press, 2022)

[your-dietician]

History of Cosmetic Surgery

New Post has been published on https://backtherapyhealth.com/history-of-cosmetic-surgery/

History of Cosmetic Surgery

Today, here, and around the world, many people have considered having Cosmetic Surgery, or Plastic Surgery performed. Many more have had plastic surgery done, some with multiple procedures. Plastic Surgery, by definition, is a broad term for operative manual and instrumental treatment which is performed for functional or aesthetic reasons. Medical treatment for Facial injuries dates back over 4,000 years. The word “plastic” is a derivative of the Greek word plastikos meaning to mould or shape; however, contrary to common belief, the term “plastic surgery” is not related to modern plastics at all.

Cosmetic Surgery was first known to have been performed in Roman times. The Romans had the ability to perform simple procedures such as repairing damaged ears, in modern times referred to as Otoplasty, this is one of the most simple of procedures. One report discusses a patient getting his earlobes repaired after years of wearing heavy earrings. The excess lobes were trimmed and the hole sewn together. One of the more expensive plastic surgeries performed at the time, the removal of branding and scars, was a commonly executed procedure. Freed slaves paid a high price indeed for this type of surgery. It was felt that this common practice reduced the stigma of having been a slave in this ancient times.

In ancient India physicians were able to use skin graft reconstruction techniques as early as 800 B.C. From ancient times to the early nineteenth century, we find a living tradition of plastic operations of the nose, ear and lip. The Kangra (correctly pronounced as ‘Kangada’) district in Himachal Pradesh was most famous for its plastic surgeons. Some scholars are of the opinion that the word ‘Kangada’ is made from ‘Kana + gadha’ (ear repair). The British archaeologist Sir Alexander Cunningham (1814-93) had written about the tradition of Kangra plastic surgery procedures. We also have information that in the reign of Akber ,a Vaidya named Bidha used to carry out plastic operations in Kangra.

The Charaka-Sanhita and the Sushruta-Sanhita are among the oldest known manuscripts on Ayurveda (the Indian science of medicine). Chronologically speaking, the Charaka-Sanhita is believed to be the earliest work, and deals with medicine proper and containing a few passages on surgery. The Sushruta-Sanhita, a work of the early centuries of the Christian era, mainly deals with surgical knowledge rather than medicine. The extant Sushruta-Sanhita is, according to its commentator Dalhanacharya (of twelfth century AD), a amendment by Nagarjuna. The original Sushruta-Sanhita was based on a series of lectures between Kashiraj Divodas (or Dhanvantari) and his disciples, Sushruta and others.

In 15th Century Europe, a man by the name of Heinrich von Pfolspeundt , a German physician and a member of the Teutonic Order of Knights was one of the first known Europeans to have performed cosmetic surgery. Dr. Pfolspeundt was one of the first doctors of the late medieval and early Renaissance period to take medical practices beyond the very crude conditions that had existed through much of the Middle Ages. During his time, a good number of German physicians, especially those in Strasbourg, helped to serve the advancement of the study of medicine. Dr. Pfolspeundt described a procedure to make a new nose for a person who lacks one. He stated that by removing skin from the back of the arm and suturing it into place a new nose could be created.

From Italy we have records that would indicate that in the year 1442, Branca, a surgeon of Catania in Sicily, carried out plastic surgery of the nose, Also known as rhinoplasty, using a skin flap from the face. This procedure was very similar to the one described in the Sushruta-Sanhita, an Ayurvedic compendium composed in the early centuries of the Christian era. His son Antonio continued his work and was the first known to use a skin flap from the arm for reconstructing the nose. The Boinias family carried on with his work. The plastic operations carried out by the Boinia brothers are described in a book published in 1568 by Fioravanti, a doctor of Bologna, Italy.

At the hands of Gasparo Tagliacozzi (1546-99), a professor of surgery and of anatomy at the Bologna University, that plastic surgery attained wide fame in Europe. His book De curtorum chirurgia per insitionem (The surgery of defects by implantation), printed in 1597, was the first scientific composition on plastic surgery. Tagliacozzi had described a method of substitution of the nose by skin from the arm and of replacement of the ears and lips, demonstrating his work throughout his manuscript by way of a large number of illustrations.

The Church dignitaries of the time regarded cosmetic surgery as an interference in the affairs of the Almighty. After his death they not only excommunicated Tagliacozzi, but also had his corpse exhumed from its church grave, and placed it in unconsecrated ground. The great Voltaire (1694-1778) wrote a satirical poem on Tagliacozzi and his operation on the nose, using flap from the buttocks.

However, due to the many dangers of surgery in those times, cosmetic surgery was rarely performed until around the 1900’s. The United States first plastic surgeon was Dr. John Peter Mettauer, born in Virginia in 1787, who in 1827 performed the first cleft palate surgery on record with instruments he himself designed.

There are two very broad fields of aesthetic surgery, Cosmetic Surgery and Reconstructive Surgery. Reconstructive surgery, including microsurgery, focuses on undoing or masking the destructive effects of trauma, previous surgery or disease. Examples of such operations are the rebuilding of amputated or damaged arms or legs; repairing cleft palates or lips, badly formed noses, and ears; and reconstructing a breast after mastectomy. Reconstructive surgery may include moving tissue from other parts of the body to the affected area.

Cosmetic surgery however, is an elective surgery, usually done more for aesthetic reasons rather than to repair an injured area. In many cases, however, there are medical reasons for having some procedures done, such as breast reduction (for back pain relief) and Mastopexy (also known as a “breast lift). Cosmetic Surgery includes, but is not limited to, Abdominoplasty, or “tummy tuck”, Blepharoplasty, or “eyelid surgery”, Augmentation Mammaplasty, or “breast enlargement”, and Rhytidectomy, or “face lift”.

There are many more procedures not listed here that are commonly performed as well. The top five surgical procedures in 2004 Liposuction (325,000), nose reshaping (305,000), breast augmentation (264,000), eyelid surgery (233,000), and facelift (114,000).

As you can see, Plastic Surgery has a longstanding history across the ages. It has helped not only in the reconstructive plastic surgery field but also has allowed people to feel more comfortable with their bodies and more confident about themselves.

Source by Angie Tidwell

[upennmanuscripts]

Parchment repairs made with thread is one of our favorite types!

[cuties-in-codices]

more medieval manuscript repairs

all from a miscellany containg thomas de chabham's "summa poenitentialis", southern germany (?), first half of the 13th c.

source: Basel, Universitätsbibl., B X 1, fol. 56r, 67r, and 71r

[itonje]

some medieval english arthurian texts

with the green knight (2021) coming out today i want to talk a little about other arthurian english works because i find them interesting and entertaining <3 these were medieval arthurian texts written in english, not translated into it. all of these are in middle english, though many were written in different time periods and in different dialects. if you’ve read sir gawain and the green knight, many of these have similar plot beats, feature our beloved sir gawaine in a major role, or are alliterative in the same wonderful way sgatgk is! many these come from the university of rochester’s camelot project and it is an invaluable resource! however a lot of these texts are also written in a style that may be archaic or inaccessible- i will try to link more modern translations and reworkings if i can. 

the avowing of king arthur, sir gawain, sir kay, and baldwin of britain: in which the four title characters go to inglewood and, as stated, swear on various vows. 

the adventures of arthur at the tarn wadling: this is actually about gawaine, as most arthurian texts are. featuring ghosts and a duel! what could be better? there are several copies of this texts in manuscripts, including one where it’s in a collection with avowing (see above), said manuscript being the only copy in which avowing survives. 

layamon’s brut: by layamon, of course. this is a pseudohistorical text, going off the account of wace who went off the account of geoffrey of monmouth, but is longer than both and focuses almost solely on arthurian content (including a lot of merlin if you like him). if people want to read history of the kings of britain but don’t want to get through a lot of stuff that isn’t arthurian, i really recommend this. as another draw i will say this features baby gawaine (walwain) and modred. iirc this is the oldest text on this list. 

of arthur and of merlin: a text first about the background and story of arthur’s birth and early reign, including a variety of numerous battles. very merlin heavy. has a fair bit in common with the prose merlin. the copy i linked might be a bit hard to read, sorry. like layamon and aforementioned PM, also features baby gawaine (wawain) and brothers!

sir launfal: by thomas chestre, based off of lanval by marie de france. in which lanval has a secret romance with a magical woman. in this version it’s more implicit than the original lai, but guinevere is canonically homophobic <3 love loses 

sir perceval of galles: a...i would honestly call it a borderline parody of the typical perceval story. this one is deranged. in a fun way! 

ywain and gawain: based off of yvain by chretien de troyes, has the same basic plot beats. very fun even if you’ve already read yvain though, especially (imo) for the rhyming. 

sir tristrem: based off thomas of britain’s french tristan, the latter of which survives only in fragments. based off the tristan and iseult courtly branch. have not read this so i can give little opinions on it. 

i thiiiink lancelot of the laik belongs on here iirc the text is english but it’s from scotland and has scots influence. it’s inspired a from the first part of the lancelot-grail cycle-the poem itself is incomplete. 

the stanzaic morte arthur: poem about the fall of camelot as from the prose cycles. i really like this one, if you don’t want to read le morte darthur for it’s heaviness, i recommend this instead. it has all of the longing and eerie finality of any death of arthur story, even amplified in this work imo. elaine of astolat fans will enjoy this one, she features fairly prominently in the first part. 

the alliterative morte arthure: poem about the fall of camelot, taking mostly from the pseudohistories. i’ve jokingly said i like this as an iliad fan before, but if you are intrigued by the arthurian portions of british pseudohistories, and you like modred (oh my god i really recommend this for people who like modred) you will really love this one. it’s very entertaining! fair warning if you don’t like battle scenes or duels in other arthurian works you will...not enjoy this one. but i love it <3

the prose merlin: OUR FIRST PROSE WORK YES! based off of robert de boron’s unfinished merlin poem and parts of the lancelot-grail cycle, like arthur and merlin, tells of merlin’s birth, life, and the early reign of king arthur. this features a lot of battles and a lot of gawaine and his brothers! i think in this edition of it i’m linking, there are parts cut out, fair warning. i really like this one as well. 

sir gawain and the carle of carlisle: this one is similar to the avowing of arthur. gawaine and co (the same in avowing barring arthur, actually) arrive at a castle for refuge for the night during a storm whilst hunting, and the lord within gives them various tests of chivalry and integrity. this one is fun- a text i recommend after reading sir gawain and the green knight if you liked it for the plot and so on. if you read them concurrently you can imagine that gawaine repaired his reputation post sgatgk. 

if the above text is a little too unreadable for you (which is fair), i also recommend the carl of carlisle, a more condensed version which tells the same basic story with some minor differences (there’s a beheading in this one :3)

the marquis of bath’s manuscript of a latin account of the kings of britain: now, you may be saying, that said latin! well, i guess whoever wrote this decided that for arthur’s portion he would write it in english verse as opposed to latin prose? this one is fairly obscure, but, again, tells a plot similar to other arthurian portions of pseudohistories. 

the jeaste of sir gawain: i think this one tells the story of gawaine’s son, ginglain, the fair unknown, and combines it with gawaine’s romance with the lady of lys from the first continuation of perceval. i haven’t read this text, but i know the plot of gawaine and the lady of lys ditty, and i...do not like it. and i feel like i’d like this one less. 

the wedding of sir gawain and dame ragnelle: everyone’s familiar with this one. the archetypal story of the knight who seeks to figure out ‘what women truly want’. i enjoy this one and i feel like i’ll come back to it in the future analysis wise. ragnelle is a girlboss, etc. may have been written by sir thomas malory. speaking of which...

le morte darthur by sir thomas malory: will let its notoriety speak for itself. amazing work, though long to get through. if you like gawaine, and are looking at this post for gawaine content, while he is probably presented at his worst and most repugnant here out of any other story on this list, honestly this is one of my favorite versions of his character, and that’s the main reason why this text is even going on here in the first place (it’s popular enough, and borderline modern imo lol). 

anyways, happy reading, and happy a24′s the green knight release! summer of dev patel, summer of gawaine, etc!

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Josh Groban’s Illuminations is a very aptly titled album. Each song is an illumination, both in the sense that it lays a ray of light on this and that complicated feeling or very specific MomentTM, and in the sense of medieval illuminated manuscripts: it’s the decoration that illustrates, exemplifies, summarizes the text in a picture, and so illuminates it.

Beauty and light are traditionally tied in classical thought; beauty is, for the scholastics, the splendor, the shimmer, the glow of truth and goodness. This must not be understood in terms of pretty=good, but as in the sense that beauty is the texture of our concrete experience of truth and goodness in the world. That’s why we can say that beauty can pierce us and awaken us, because it produces catharsis, not just of good feelings.

Illuminations is very often considered a sad album, but that doesn’t make it a dark album; music and lyrics are filled with a light that illuminates, in both the senses I spoke of at the beginning of the post.

The Wandering Kind, even without lyrics, is a snapshot of the quiet joy of a happy, sunny, fruitful day or journey, the way we wish to look forward to the journey of life; 

Bells of New York City shows us a person standing at the edge of night and winter, of loneliness, and being haunted by many ghosts; but the bells sing “one song for joy, and one for redemption, and whatever is in between that I call mine”, and in that moment, hope is born: “stay with me, oh, stay with me, a refuge from these broken dreams”.

Galileo is mainly a happy song about being in love, and how the experience of love fills us with wonder of the divine: “Who puts the rainbow in the sky? Who lights the stars at night? Who dreamt up someone so divine, someone like you and made them mine?” however, the melody is wistful because it knows the loved one may be gone at any moment, and yet... “I won’t be blind and I won’t cry, I’ll look up high and gladly sigh and thank the guy that puts the rainbow in the sky”.

L’ora dell’addio in turn is about leaving the ones we love, either because we cannot stay or because us remaining where we are harms them one way or another, and how it hurts, and how it hurts to know the other is hurting because of it. There isn’t more to it, just the scream of sorrow of the heart, heard with clarity.

Hidden Away is the story of finally having the courage and the energy to reach out, ask someone for their truth, and how that is an experience of healing and freedom: “I want to free your heart, I want to see your heart, please don’t keep your heart hidden away”.

Au Jardin des Sans-Pourquoi is a night story, but unlike Bells... the night is the sweet memory, memory of an innocent time before war and pain, and the music brings us to that happy memory we wish we could go back to.

Then there’s Higher Window. The hope of repairing what was once broken, trying again and again and again... because it was meant to be good once! And it still can! The hurt happened, and after it being alone felt right, until the realization comes that the song was made for two... and there is a light from a higher window shinning down on you”. a moment of clarity and truth.

If I Walk Away. The way in which this song goes from despair and the tiniest bit of hope to a confident plea is everything: “faithless, woke in the dark and I made this from my dream... play me all your sweet rhymes, recreate me... out of the cold and dark, down to the one bright spark, futures that all may start someday.”. It’s that moment right before dawn and it is beautiful.

Love Only Knows is the moment of fusion of Hidden Away and Au Jardin...; it’s a moment of truth after so many half spoken truths: “I can’t live without love and I won’t”, a tired appeal for a moment of peace and joy and the anxieties for the future being answered with “love only knows”, which is half hope, tinged with uncertainty that makes it feel real.

Like Galileo, Voçê Existe Em Mim is a song about being in love, but unlike Galileo, it’s about loving rather than being loved, about the power that love gives us to conquer things for the ones we love. It is a moment of pure energy and joy.

War at Home turns from the theme of love to that of trauma and PSTD: “he doesn’t want to rest, he just wants to run, and he’s tired of being told that he’s the lucky one”. The fight is not over once the trauma is over, yet not everything is loss: “you see these hands? they are million strong, they are yours now. Hold on, love, we’re all going down.” There is still hope, because we are not alone and there is hope because there is purpose, and there’s still hope because we have been through it once before.

London Hymn is probably the song that feels the most out of place, as it’s a very different style from the rest, yet it is thematically fitting; we go from war to death, from hopelessness to hope and from darkness to light: “the restless dead... everlasting peace.”

Straight to You is, fittingly for the last song of the album, eschatological in tone: the towers are crumbling, the light is fading, days of rainbows and nights of swinging from the stars are gone, the sea will swallow the mountains, the sky will throw thunderbolts and sparks... there’s a sense that heaven isn’t listening and even the the just and the angelic creatures are despairing, yet in the midst of this supreme chaos, there’s still hope, alive and beating: “I’ll cry, girl, but I’ll come running straight to you... one more time.”

Beginning and end, loving and being loved, holding on and letting go, despair and hope, sorrow and joy, are all illuminated, like small vignettes hit by a ray of sun, uncovering their beauty -that is- their real texture that makes them resonate in the heart and the memory and allows us to process them, purge them, own them. Because deep down a moment of catharsis is a moment of illumination.

[nyupreservation]

Happy Preservation Week! (Part 1 :)

Happy Preservation Week, everyone!

I’m Cat Stephens, an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow studying Library & Archive Conservation at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. At the IFA, I’m earning an MA in the History of Art and Archaeology, and an MS in the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, specifically in the conservation of books, paper objects, and photographs.

Students in my graduate program have the option to spend their year-long graduate internships almost anywhere in the world, but I chose to stick around and intern at the NYU Libraries’ Barbara Goldsmith Preservation & Conservation Department... In addition to being awesome at their jobs, the conservators here are excellent teachers, and I’ve always been impressed by the range and volume of treatments that they perform every year! Additionally, NYU has done an impressive job of reducing the spread of Covid-19 on campus, and I feel very lucky that my internship was not severely impacted by the University’s precautionary measures. Since September 2020, the library’s preservation staff and I have had the option to work in the library for 2-4 days every week, and we catch up on paperwork during our teleworking days.

Over the last seven months I’ve worked on many treatments that have helped me understand the finer points of library preservation, and I’ll describe four of my favorite preservation/conservation treatments for you over the next four days. These treatments include a 19th century publisher’s binding, a 16th century book bound in recycled parchment, a wooden box full of unexposed Daguerreotype plates, and ... a skateboard??

But first, unless you’re a library or museum professional, you may be wondering what Preservation Week is, and how does “preservation” differ from “conservation?” For cultural heritage institutions, Preservation Week is a yearly opportunity to draw public attention to the importance of preserving cultural heritage materials of all kinds. These materials may include modern books, medieval manuscripts, audio/visual materials like VHS tapes and home movies, photographs, scrapbooks, textiles, digital data, paper documents, and metal, wood or glass objects, just to name a few. Many of these materials are held in libraries and museums for public enjoyment, but perhaps many more are sitting in our basements and attics! If you have special things at home that you want to preserve, there are many online resources available to you, and I’ve provided links to some of them at the end of this post.

For conservators and other preservation professionals, Preservation Week is a good time to consider the enormous range of objects that we’re tasked with caring for, and to think about new ways to preserve and conserve them for the next generations. In libraries and museums, “preservation” and “conservation” refer to slightly different activities, but they both contribute to the wellbeing of cultural heritage objects. “Conservation” refers to any physical interventions performed on an object, such as cleaning, making repairs, or compensating for parts that have been lost. A conservation treatment can reduce the stains in a flood-damaged drawing, or it can transform a pile of ceramic sherds back into an ancient vase. “Preservation” usually encompasses the activities performed around an object which will minimize the object’s chemical and physical deterioration over time. Preservation activities include the making of enclosures to protect objects from physical harm, dust, or light damage, the management of pests, and the careful control of temperature and humidity in storage facilities. Preservation and conservation are two sides of the same coin, and many argue that “preservation” is the broader term which includes conservation activities. This point of view is often held in libraries, where the objects (usually books) are not just static relics of the past, they are vehicles of information; to access this information, books must be handled, and they must be able perform a kinetic function. For this reason, any conservation treatment that restores functionality to a broken book can also be considered “preservation.” Of course, many old or rare books have been digitized and made available online, but even so, scholars often want to verify and augment their online research by perusing the original book… there’s no digital substitute for the real thing :)

Thanks so much for reading, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment of our Preservation Week 2021 blog series, where I’ll discuss the conservation of a novel published in 1891 (photos below!)

-Cat Stephens

Some At-Home* Preservation Resources:

American Institute for Conservation (AIC): “Caring for Your Treasures”

American Library Association: “Saving Your Stuff”

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency): “Salvaging Water-Damaged Family Valuables and Heirlooms” ... (Fact Sheets are available in English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, and Spanish):

Minnesota Historical Society: Preserving “Clothing and Textiles”

National Archives: “How to Preserve Family Archives (Papers and Photographs)”

*But sometimes a problem is so complex that it requires a conservator… AIC’s “Find a Conservator” tool can help! https://www.culturalheritage.org/about-conservation/find-a-conservator

[nenuials]

A day in the life of Lothrin

How does a day in the life of Lothrin, Lady of Twilight, Sage of Annúminas and aid to the Dúnedain look like? More uneventful that one would expect. In order to better paint a picture of her daily schedule, I shall be using LOTRO canon, thus using the geography and settlements presented therein. Secondly, this schedule is applicable between the years of TA 2500 and TA 3019.

Lothrin’s usual residence and where she might be found most of the time is the keep of Tinnudir, in the heart of Evendim. Though depending on the season, she may move to the encampment at High King’s Crossing, the farms in Barandalf or the camp in the heart of Annúminas. More often than not, when not in Evendim, Lothrin can be found in Sarn Ford, Esteldin, Falathlorn or Imladris.

Mornings

If residing in Tinnudir, Lothrin is usually the first to stir awake, way before dawn. Elves sleep but a couple hours a night, usually about two to four, and can go entire days without rest. Early in the morning, she will rise and make a start on the chores of the day. Tinnudir, a keep of such size and the surrounding land are always in need of hands to tend to them.

She will quickly leave the keep and make her way to the animal pens. While LOTRO doesn’t show this detail to us, I strongly believe there were animals raised on the island. She will release the chickens and ducks from their coops, collect the eggs, feed the cows, goats, sheep, horses, and pigs and if time allows milk the cows and goats, then clean their spaces. If she is not present or otherwise occupied, someone else will take care of these duties. 

With a big chunk of the early morning gone, she will either help in the kitchens to prepare the meals of the day, or simply eat and be on her way. Depending on the season and food situation, in the morning or noon she may either go alone or take some company to cross the lake and hunt in the hills of Evendim.  Evendim is home to a big population of bears, so bear meat is plenty available to make stew or rugs from. 

Afternoons

With the time-sensitive chores out of the way and still plenty of daytime left, when in Tinnudir and not otherwise occupied with administrative duties, Lothrin’s hands would ever be busy with spinning thread or sewing clothing, as tailoring is one of her hobbies. In medieval societies aside from food, the two most important resources people needed were thread for cloth-making and wax for candle-making. The process involved in cloth-making is long and laborious, so everyone was urged to give a hand: from picking the plants, to dying the thread, to spinning it, to sewing the cloth itself and more. Making even one piece of a garment may take anywhere up to three hundred hours, depending on the complexity of the piece. 

If the weather is otherwise not foul, Lothrin will join the dúnedain in the small gardens surrounding Tinnudir and tend to the vegetable plantations. What gardening needs to be done wholly depends on whether it is planting or harvesting season, but she loves the harvest best and all the work that comes with the season. One may always find her carrying entire baskets of vegetables, and helping with the making of jams, sauces, pickled vegetables and more. If strong arms are needed, she will help with woodworking and the upkeep of the various buildings, mainly repairing rooftops, as the dúnedain do not possess her elven agility and ease of movement. On more than one occasion messengers would find her high atop a roof, hammering nails.

Evenings

One regular activity she pursues in the evenings is patrolling the roads up to the King’s Crossroad, for any signs of trouble. If all the other sentries are away on errands, she will gladly take their posts and stand guard the whole night. If present in Tinnudir, she will help with serving dinner to the whole encampment of roughly fifty people, then either tell a story or leave for her study and pursue various scholarly duties in candlelight. As she is the sage of Evendim, every couple of years she rewrites her various notes on the life of the northern dúnedain. She has kept meticulous notes that date back to the inception of Arnor, detailing genealogies, customs, lineages and more. Her various manuscripts have been a treasure to the modern-day dúnedain, mainly with helping them remember their customs and their lineages. 

Tinnudir is a keep with various floors. The ground floor is home to a small library, a study, a storage room, the kitchens, and some sleeping quarters placed around the inner pool. The upper floors are accessible through an inner stairway and are home to more sleeping-quarters and storage rooms. On the third floor rests the Study of Lothrin, a room filled to the brim with treasures of ages long past, scrolls and books, weapons, armour and in the middle of it all sits a desk, where Lothrin does her scholarly work. The room though cramped, is luminous.

If the evenings are calm and quiet, she will delight in teaching the dúnedain children their history, with as much detail as she can muster. She will speak of the marble columns of the throne-room of Elendil, of the beautiful gardens at the heart of Annúminas, of the various gatherings the nobles of Evendim used to have, of all the kind and brave working-people who fought so fiercely for their kingdom. 

Deviations

The schedule presented above may suffer alterations depending on a myriad of factors. If orcs have been spotted in the area, Lothrin will join patrols and guard the borders. If the harvests have been lacking, she will hunt more and gather whatever plants and roots available for eating. If the coffers are emptying, she will join in the making of various products to try and trade them in Bree or the Shire. If the day allows and no pressing matters are ahead of her, she will often train herself, then train some of the younger dúnedain in close, then ranged combat. She is a strict but fair teacher. 

Seasonal Work

If the summer weather is especially kind, she would often be found at the farms in Barandalf, in south Evendim. The farms are the main source of food for the dúnedain of Evendim, so tending to them is of utmost importance. The farms, though small, are close to hobbit lands, so trade often occurs. If the farms are otherwise staffed, and the sentries are away on various errands, she will stand guard at the bridge of High King’s Crossing, inquiring the business of any travellers that wish to pass into the heart of Evendim. If the day is particularly slow, she may talk to the others and try and tend to the bridge, although she is no stoneworker or architect. 

Although, she has long pled to the dúnedain that maintaining Annúminas is of utmost importance, the dúnedian are simply too few and too far spread to tend to a city the size of Annúminas. If present within the white-city, when not reminiscing about the past, Lothrin will help the sentries stationed there to maintain a road throughout the city, free of rubble. If otherwise unoccupied, she will scout the various half-flooded buildings for any objects of importance. If at Sarn Ford, she will act as a sentry and report to the on-field commander. Though her visits to Esteldin are rare, she will more often than not come for administrative business or high-councils, thus partake less in the day-by-day chores.

One of the big advantages elves possess is that they live for thousands of years. The lifespan of Lothrin, as of the War of the Ring is equal to that of fifty to a hundred human lives. In modern terms, in takes one human one lifetime to become an absolute expert in whatever domain they choose, can you imagine what we could do with fifty lifetimes? Lothrin, as an elf, had millennia of time to hone her skills, and thus can lend a hand to whatever needs doing.

She will do anything that needs doing from more household oriented activities like sewing, cooking, baking, soap-making, wine and beer-making, house repairs, cloth beating/washing, childcare, makeshift barbering, to more scholarly pursuits like candle making, writing, chronicling, teaching, book-binding, sending messages, to more administrative pursuits like tax-keeping, act as a clerk, act as a judge, act as a baliff, hold council, to more agricultural pursuits like bee-keeping, cattle-raising, farm-management, hunting, animal-skinning, bird-plucking, to more military pursuits like commanding guerrilla troops, maintaining armour and military strategy. Though it is worth mentioning that just because she can do something, it does not mean she can do it as well as someone whose job is only that specific thing like a full-time farmer or woodworker.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and that this small essay shed some light on my character.