Helen McKee

Confessions Of An Accidental Medievalist Mary Flannery on the Joys of Manuscripts

Had the chance to write about my professional (and sometimes unprofessional) love of medieval manuscripts….

therepublicofletters.substack.com/p/confession...

How brilliant is this www.weregildcalculator.com

Celtic medieval treasures - new publication out which accompanies the stunning exhibition of early medieval treasures at the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare- 'Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe'
www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collec... #medievalsky

Scriptorium next to the tower of San Salvador de Tavara: a scribe has a knife & quill; the other is using a compass; & a seated man is cutting parchment with shears.
#Medievalsky
The Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.429; 'Las Huelgas Apocalypse' ; Spain (Toledo?); 1220; f.183r

After a long day in the scriptorium, the scribe just couldn't resist the initial 'Q'....

BnF MS Latin 10289; Priscianus Caesariensis, Institutiones grammaticae, cum glossis; 9th century (second half); France (Brittany); f.63r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

The word ‘pangor’, written in Caroline minuscule, enlarged from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS. 221, f. 8r.

Lovely to find (almost) my cat’s name in a manuscript #Pangur

London library forced to briefly close after fox 'made itself comfortable' inside Foxes have been known to live everywhere in London from back gardens to the top of the Shard

Fantastic

Given all the great work I’ve seen, I’m so proud to announce that my book, Truth is Trickiest, won the prize for the best monograph of 2024 from the International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England!

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 48, fol. 1r

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 48, fol. 7v

This is the feast of Benedict of Nursia, d. 547–THE Benedict, with apologies to B. Biscop & B. of Aniane. 🕯️ Let's do a 🧵 of manuscripts of his Rule. Bodleian Library MS Hatton 48, early-8c England, is the oldest surviving copy of the Rule. It is written in Uncials...

#medievalsky #monasticism

From the looks of it, he was not the greatest artist of the seventeenth century, but still very nice that painter Bartholomeus van Nooij signed a notarial deed with a little (self?) portrait in 1646. Probably his only surviving work.

Macron: "He's a very clever cat"
Merci monsieur le président x

😂
Exhilaratingly good! Finished it and went straight back to the beginning. (Single favourite moment is probably SCRAM.) Happy belated birthday in return!

Seems like some folks are dismissing Bluesky today. Counterpoint: yesterday @stephenaj.bsky.social asked a question that, because @sebfalk.com replied, came to my feed and inspired a fun, nerdy, discussion about the Roman numeral for 40. We'd never met before. This is what we call "collaboration".

Ha. I just had my birthday and am similarly reading my way through my presents — currently ‘Lake of Darkness’! (Am TRANSFIXED.)

This is fascinating! I wonder whether DLS herself was the model for the vicar’s daughter in ‘The Nine Tailors’?

The Manderley Press edition of Rosemary Sutcliff’s ‘Sun Horse, Moon Horse’ (introduced by Tiffany Frances Baker) — perfectly gift-wrapped in turquoise tissue paper and tied with a saffron ribbon. There’s a matching bookmark and postcard with the book’s cover design (by Isabel Greenberg) of a man in tunic, leggings and cloak looking up at the White Horse of Uffington, beneath the sun and a crescent moon.

The invariable issue with @manderleypress.bsky.social books is that they are SO BEAUTIFULLY packaged that one doesn’t want to open them!! 😍

And here is a painting of Pangur (as himself rather than Tevildo!) by my son’s incredibly talented friend! 😻

Drawing of a tabby cat with a serious expression and a broad dark stripe down his back. The heading is ‘Pangur, Prince of Cats’ in Elvish, and various captions recall Tolkien’s description of Tevildo: beautiful tail lashing, monstrous purring, eyes glowing like green lamps, whiskers as stout and sharp as needles, the mightiest of all cats!

Children made me a birthday card featuring our beloved tabby as Tevildo, Prince of Cats 🐱🥰

Illustration is a picture from ‘shopping with mother’ where mother leads two children into the Butchers shop. It was painted in 1958, so 4 years later than the date in the post

On this day 4th July 1954
Fourteen years of food rationing in Britain ended with the lifting of restrictions on the sale and purchase
of meat and bacon

Artist: Harry Wingfield

Moon cake

Ermine

🌕Over my patreon, I post much longer stories and recipes, such as Ermine and Sea Otter's Moon-viewing Rum and Coconut Cake! Join for these and over a thousand other tales and essays and receipts in the archives! 🦦https://patreon.com/posts/ermine-and-sea-128676028

Did you know you can download the booklets for all the women's heritage walks WAW has done since 2021, and follow the routes yourself? Go to our website: www.womensarchivewales.org/en/womens-he...

These Medieval Monks Scribbled Notes in the Margins of Their Books More Than 1,000 Years Ago A new exhibition in Dublin showcases historic manuscripts written in Irish monasteries. The show also features medieval artifacts, such as a rare book shrine found in a river in the 1980s

The "Words on the Wave" exhibition is featured in @smithsonianmag.bsky.social
The article explores medieval marginalia—scribbled notes and doodles left by monks over a millennium ago.
Visit in person at the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street.
🔗 www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t...

View of the Lady Chapel from high up at the west end. The building is of pale cream stone and the windows have clear glass. The ceiling is also cream but with bands painted teal with gold stars; minimalist white and gold lamps hang from it on long, pale cords. There is a modern wooden carving of the Virgin and Child above the altar, which bears a gold-and-red cross and matching candlesticks and has a pale gold frontal. The sanctuary carpet is pale grey-blue with faded gold decorations. Seating consists of pale wooden benches with grey upholstery.

Perk of being married to an organist: The heavenly view from the organ loft of the Lady Chapel at Guildford Cathedral 😇

Copyist Totmundo presenting the Antifonario visigótico mozárabe to Abad Ikila of the monastery of San Cipriano del Condado.

Source: Antifonario visigótico mozárabe de la Catedral de León (10th-12th c.) - Archivo de la Catedral de León, Ms. 8, f. 1v (bvpb.mcu.es/es/consulta/...)

The Cuckoo’s Lea by Michael Warren review – a magical ornithological history of Britain From buzzards in Oxfordshire to cranes in Kent – how once common birds left their mark in British place names

Gorgeous, in depth review by @amyjanebeer.bsky.social of a gorgeously immersive book, #TheCuckoosLea @drmjwarren.bsky.social … ‘by the end, we live … newly able to read the growth rings of place, & to perceive an alternative land shimmering over the one we already know.’ Oh, & that owl!

The iPad of late antiquity (this one is even similar in size!): a complete wax tablet found in Byzantine Egypt still wit notes in Coptic on it. Low content permanence but high portability with an infinite undo function!

Met Museum 14.2.4a–d, c. 500-700

The Hobgoblin from Finn Family Moomintroll, travelling the universe with his top hat and his black panther (here sitting on a moon near a ringed planet).

This was actually my first thought, but on closer inspection the Hobgoblin has travelled even further into space than the moon!

An ink doodle of a head. The face has carefully drawn eyes, eyebrows and nose; there is a large chin (with a soul patch?? It’s what it looks like), and above this a small, neat smile (reminiscent of an archaic Greek statue). The hair is fair and thick and gathered into a braid at the nape of the neck.

Today’s face gazing out at us from a millennium ago is from the endleaf of MS 221 @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social

These two books go well together.
@laurainparis.bsky.social

Schaffhausen, Stadtbibliothek, MS Gen. 1, p. 2. Manuscript text in two columns of Insular minuscule with large UIR to start the text. Black ink with orange washes in some in-text initials.

Today is the feast of St. Columba, d. 597, Iona's founder! This manuscript, Schaffhausen, Stadtbibliothek, MS Gen. 1, is the oldest copy of the Life of Columba by Adomnán, abbot of Iona, d. 704. The MS was copied on Iona no later than 713. 🕯️🧵

Full MS here: www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/...