We recently received an enquiry asking if medieval manuscripts ever depict people with disabilities. At this time when the eyes of the world are upon the Rio Paralympics, we thought that it might be appropriate to devote a blogpost to medieval illustrations of disability and illnesses. 

Medieval manuscripts are full of portrayals of disabilities. From allegorical figures to pilgrims seeking cures at saints’ shrines, to medical texts describing early surgeries for cleft palates, our manuscripts depict many forms of disability and many individual people with disabilities in images and words.

Detail of Old Age, portrayed as a woman with a crutch from the Roman de la Rose, Harley MS 4425, f. 10v; part of an account of miracles healing blind, deaf and paralysed people at the tomb of St Swithun, Winchester, Royal MS 15 C VII, f. 86v; detail of Christ and an ill man, from the Theodore Psalter, Add MS 19532, f. 155v

In fact, people with disabilities are illustrated more frequently in medieval manuscript culture than is often realised, particularly as the owners of and inspirations for many surviving manuscripts. To take one example: Bishop Æthelwold—for whom the spectacular Benedictional of St Æthelwold was made—had ‘swollen legs’ according to his students, and he reportedly needed two assistants to help him stand during mass. Aside from these two references, however, Æthelwold’s disability is not mentioned either in the written accounts or in the images which seemingly depict him. Studies of medieval disability are often hampered because scholars are dependent on the sources revealing disability in the first place.

Image of a bishop, possibly Æthelwold of Winchester, from the Benedictional of St Æthelwold, England (copied by Godeman), c. 963 x 984, Add MS 49598, f. 118v

As well as being the patrons of manuscripts, people with disabilities also influenced the contents of manuscripts as authors, scribes and artists. For instance, the Greek poet Homer may have been blind: at least, he was certainly believed to have been blind by the late Middle Ages. The British Library has a large collection of early copies of Homer’s works, including one of the best-preserved copies of the Iliad from the 2nd century AD, along with later medieval depictions of Homer as blind.

One of the best preserved copies of the Iliad, the Bankes Homer, Papyrus 114 , 2nd century AD 

Detail of a miniature depicting Homer, from a copy of the Iliad with a life of Homer and other prefatory material, Italy (Florence), completed on 16 May 1466, Harley MS 5600, f. 15v

People with disabilities also feature as the subjects of texts in many medieval manuscripts. Many leaders in the Middle Ages experienced one disability or another. King John of Bohemia was blind yet continued to fight on horseback; while Enrico Dandolo was blind by the time he became the doge of Venice in 1192. Admittedly, in some medieval cultures and contexts, being blind was seen as a bar from holding high office: in the Byzantine Empire, deposed leaders or political rivals were sometimes blinded to stop them gaining or resuming power. Nevertheless, Dandolo disproved the idea that sight loss was incompatible with effective leadership when he allied with the crusaders who sacked Constantinople in 1204.   

Detail of Timur watching the defeat of Damascus, from the Ẓafarnāmah, a  history of the conquests of Timur by Sharaf al-Din Yazdi completed c. 1424; the manuscript was completed on 31 March 1533, IO Islamic 137, f. 358r

Musculoskeletal disabilities did not stop some medieval warriors, either. Contemporary accounts supported by archaeological discoveries suggest that Timur (d. 1405), the founder of the Timurid Empire, whose armies swept across Central Asia and the Middle East, had physical disabilities on his right-hand side. In several languages, he was remembered as 'Timur the Lame', leading to the European misnomer Tamerlane. Manuscripts recounting the deeds of Timur and his descendants are described in more detail on the British Library’s Asian and African Studies blog.  

The autograph of Richard III (as Duke of Gloucester, before 1483), from Chroniques de France ou St Denis, France (Paris), 1380-1400, Royal MS 20 C VII, f. 134r

Modern archaeological research has also confirmed that Richard III had scoliosis and that Robert the Bruce may have had leprosy towards the end of his life. Perhaps the most famous king to have leprosy, however, was Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, whose disease was discovered while he was playing as a boy. The British Library holds several versions of the history written by Baldwin’s tutor, William of Tyre, which mentions this incident.

Detail of an historiated initial showing William of Tyre discovering Baldwin’s leprosy, from Histoire d'Outremer, a French translation  of William of Tyre’s Historia rerum, France (Picardy?), 1232–1261, Yates Thompson MS 12, f. 152v

Other medieval rulers had conditions which we can no longer identify, but which were remarked upon by contemporaries. Alfred the Great, king of Wessex (871–99), had an uncertain illness which had an unfortunate tendency to become acute during communal events, such as his own wedding. Alfred’s biographer, Asser, tried very hard to explain away Alfred’s ailment as a test from God to keep Alfred holy. 

Page from an early modern transcript of Asser's Vitae Ælfredi describing Alfred's wedding, Cotton MS Otho  A XII/1, f. 18r

These examples do not necessarily mean that all people with disabilities in the Middle Ages enjoyed particularly notable lives or were able to overcome all physical and cultural obstacles. Treatments prevalent in many places may have been more harmful than helpful, notwithstanding some remarkable recent discoveries in medieval medical manuscripts. It is important to stress, however, that medieval people with disabilities were not always marginalised, and that some of them were socially, politically and culturally prominent, as our manuscripts so splendidly reveal.

Alison Hudson

@BLMedieval

 

 

A reminder for your diaries, for everyone who is interested in Greek and Byzantine manuscript culture. The British Library is holding a day conference on our Greek manuscripts on 19 September 2016, featuring an international panel of experts (from the United Kingdom, Greece, Bulgaria and France). This is the culmination of the third phase of our project to digitise all the British Library's Greek manuscripts, and to mark the launch of our fantastic Greek Manuscripts Online Resource.

The Theodore Psalter, AD 1066: Add MS 19352, f. 100r

We'd love you to be able to join us: you can book your tickets here. You can also book tickets to both the conference and an evening lecture by Michael Wood at a reduced rate. Not only will you hear discussion of illuminated manuscripts, palimpsests and Greek written culture, but coffee, a sandwich lunch and a reception are also provided to those attending the conference.

Please don't delay, book today. Places are limited, so don't miss out!

 

Greek Manuscripts at the British Library

British Library Conference Centre

19 September 2016

10.00–17.00, followed by a optional evening lecture by Michael Wood, The Wisdom of the Greeks (18.30–20.00)

Programme

10:00–11:00

Registration and Coffee

11:00–11:30

Welcome: Scot McKendrick (British Library)

Session 1

Chair: Peter Toth (British Library)

11:30–12:00

Sebastian Brock (University of Oxford): Greek Undertexts in Syriac Manuscripts from Egypt in the British Library

12:00–12:30

Elizabeth Jeffreys (University of Oxford): A New Planet Swims into our Ken: Editing Greek Texts in the Digital Era

12:30–12:45

Lunch (sandwiches provided)

Session 2

Chair: Antony Eastmond (Courtauld Institute)

12:45–2:15

Georgi Parpulov (Plovdiv, Bulgaria): Illuminated Byzantine Manuscripts – Digitized

2:15–2:45

Maria Georgopoulou (Gennadius Library, Athens): British Collectors of Greek Manuscripts: A Glimpse from Athens

2:45–3:15

Tea

Session 3

Chair: André Binggeli (Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, Paris)

3:15–3:45

Christopher Wright and Philip Taylor (Royal Holloway, University of London): An electronic edition of a post-Byzantine Greek manuscript of the British Library (Royal MS 16 C X)

3:45–4:15

Charlotte Roueché (King’s College London): Linked Data: The Role of Manuscripts

4:15–4:30

Break

4:30–5:15

An end or just a beginning? Discussion on prospects for digitization and cataloguing, introduced and moderated by André Binggeli and Charlotte Roueché

5:15–6:15

Reception for conference participants

Public Lecture

6:30–8:00

Michael Wood: The Wisdom of the Greeks

Abstracts and Biographies

Greek Undertexts in Syriac Manuscripts from Egypt In the British Library

Almost all Syriac manuscripts earlier than the 12th century have been transmitted through two monastic libraries in Egypt: St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, and Deir al-Surian in the Nitrian Desert. The latter was the source of much of the British Library’s extensive collection of Syriac manuscripts, and among them are some 65 palimpsests, the subject of this paper. Although for the most part the undertexts are in Syriac or Christian Palestinian Aramaic, in a number of manuscripts it is Greek (in one case, Homer).

Sebastian Brock is a former Reader in Syriac Studies at the University of Oxford’s Oriental Institute and a Professorial Fellow at Wolfson College.

A New Planet Swims into our Ken: Editing Greek Texts in the Digital Era

This paper will consider the Greek manuscripts in the digitization programme: what they are, how are they accessed, and what can one do with them. There will be a focus on the manuscripts collected by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford (d. 1827).

Elizabeth Jeffreys was Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature, University of Oxford, and Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1996–2006. She is now Emeritus Professor and Emeritus Fellow of Exeter College.

Illuminated Byzantine Manuscripts – Digitized

Manuscript digitization is of enormous benefit to those who are primarily concerned with the physical appearance of books rather than their textual contents. In the miniatures of Add MS 11870, the peculiar manners of different artists can be distinguished. Add MS 36928 shows how a scribe and a miniature painter collaborated. The richly illustrated and as yet unstudied Egerton MS 3157 reminds us that digital images ought to be supplemented with relevant catalogue information.

Georgi Parpulov studies Greek and Slavonic Manuscripts, Byzantine Palaeography and codicology, and Bulgarian history with a special focus on illuminated manuscripts.

British Collectors of Greek Manuscripts

John Gennadius assembled an extensive collection of Greek manuscripts from the 1870s onwards when he held a diplomatic post in London. Some of the most important manuscripts in his collection are now at the Gennadius Library in Athens, several examples of which belonged to Lord Guilford.

Maria Georgopoulou is director of the Gennadius Library, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece. Her publications focus on the artistic and cultural interactions of Mediterranean peoples in the Middle Ages.

An electronic edition of a post-Byzantine Greek manuscript of the British Library (Royal MS 16 C X)

Dr George Etheridge, former Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, addressed a Greek Encomium to Queen Elizabeth I on King Henry VIII for the Queen’s visit to Oxford in 1566. It is now uniquely preserved in Royal MS 16 C X. The electronic edition of the text employs an original interface that graphically links words or phrases in the digitized manuscript image with their counterparts in the transcribed or edited Greek text and in the English translation, supported by multiple dynamic scholarly apparatus including a lexical analysis of each word with direct links to several online dictionaries. This exploratory editorial project is accessible at http://hellenic-institute.rhul.ac.uk/Research/Etheridge/.

Christopher Wright is a research fellow at the Hellenic Institute in the Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Philip Taylor is an Honorary Research Associate at Hellenic Institute of the Royal Holloway, University of London.

Linked Data: The role of manuscripts – or Now What?

The Greek manuscripts project makes rich materials available to a worldwide audience. Manuscripts are bearers of meaning: the challenge now is for those who have the expertise to make this meaning apparent, to ensure that these are more than just images. But no one person – or even group of people – has all the relevant knowledge. Instead, in the spirit in which Tim Berners-Lee developed the web, we need to think in terms of Linked Open Data. We need to link this material to other resources which can enhance what we see. The modern owner of a manuscript might be linked to an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; earlier owners, or scribes, might be linked to their entries in one of the series of Byzantine prosopographies. Locations can be linked to an online gazetteer. As resources develop, it will be increasingly possible to link manuscripts to the texts which are based on them: the pioneering work here has been done by the Homer Multitext Project. This is just a beginning!

Charlotte Roueché is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Classics at King’s College London. For many years she has explored the use of digital tools for the analysis and publication of Greek texts. She is particularly concerned with using the Internet to bring the highest possible level of scholarship to the widest possible audience.

Closing Discussion: An end or just a beginning?

What are the implications of making these rich materials available online? How can we support scholars in exploiting them? What will the ordinary reader need? How will we keep track of what journeys our manuscripts now undertake?

— @BLMedieval

It's been a while since we asked you to "guess the manuscript", that fun game for all the family. This medieval manuscript is found, in full, on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts site. But what is it?

Send us your guesses via Twitter (@BLMedieval) or using the comments box below this post. Good luck! We'll reveal the answer next week.

A page from an old book, but we're not going to tell you what it is yet, as that would spoil it (British Library MS XXX!)

 

Update (5 September)

And the answer to our fiendish Guess the Manuscript is Sloane MS 1975, a 12th-century medical and herbal miscellany, currently on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum's Colour exhibition. We showed you folio 93v; here's the other side of that same leaf (f. 93r). Thank you everyone who took part and for all your fun guesses.

 

For more information about the Bedford Hours, please see our post for January 2016; for more on medieval calendars in general, our original calendar post is an excellent guide.

Calendar page for September from the Bedford Hours, France (Paris), c. 1410-1430, Add MS 18850, f. 9r

Summer’s end is in the air in the calendar pages for September from the Bedford Hours.

Detail of miniatures of a man treading grapes and the zodiac sign Libra, from the calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9r

The heavy agricultural work of the summer begins to give way to the preparations for autumn, and this calendar page for September shows one of the most common of these preparations.  On the lower left, a man is carefully treading grapes in a vat for making wine; he has removed his trousers for this messy job, but his jaunty cap remains intact.  To his right is a female figure carrying a set of scales, for the zodiac sign Libra.

Detail of a marginal roundel of Palas, from the calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9r

On the middle right of the folio is a miniature of a king with a forked beard, seated in a garden.  Behind him stands an angel with an open book, which is visible behind the king’s crown.  This scene is only somewhat explained by the accompanying rubric, which describes how the month of September is named after the number seven, which is ‘dedicated to Palas which means wisdom’.  The honorific Pallas was given to the goddess Athena, who was indeed the goddess of wisdom.

Calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9v

More details about the month of September can be found on the following folio.  The first marginal roundel shows a bearded man, clad in green leaves, standing in a walled garden overflowing with plants.  Above him in gold lettering is the name ‘Verto[m]pn[us]’, who the rubric tells us produces fruit ‘in the month of September’.  This figure is almost certainly that of Vertumnus, the Roman god of seasonal change, fruit trees, growth and gardens.  At the bottom is a figure of a regal woman standing in a garden, with a bird flying directly before her.  She is labelled ‘Elul’ and the rubrics go on to explain that the month of September is ‘called in Hebrew elul which means the mother of God.’ (Elul is the sixth month of the Hebrew ecclesiastical calendar, corresponding to parts of August and September in the Gregorian system.)

Detail of marginal roundels of Vertumnus and Elul, from the calendar page for September, Add MS 18850, f. 9v

Tickets are selling fast for a special lecture at the British Library on 19 September. Michael Wood, television presenter, writer and Professor of Public History, will be speaking on The Wisdom of the Greeks in an evening event held at our conference centre. He promises to examine how the legacy of Greece and Byzantium in science, religion and literature was transmitted to the Latin West, and to tell fascinating stories about texts and ideas, scribes and scholars. There may even be references to Anglo-Saxon kings, Crusader knights and Renaissance humanists!

Michael's talk will be the conclusion of our Greek Manuscripts in the British Library conference, to be held that same day. This event marks the completion of the third phase of our Greek Manuscripts Digitisation Project and the launch of the Greek Manuscripts Online web resource. The day itself starts with an academic conference, including invited experts, to discuss a variety of topics related to the British Library’s digitised Greek collections, such as Greek-Syriac palimpsests, Byzantine illuminated manuscripts, Greek written culture and the digital humanities and the cultural interactions between Greece and Britain. The conference runs from 10.00 to 1700, and attendees can purchase a ticket to the evening talk at a reduced rate.

The Wisdom of the Greeks by Michael Wood is on 19 September 2016 (18.30–20.00), and tickets are £10 (£7 for under 18s, with other concessions available).

You may have noticed the recent trend for naming days on Twitter. We've had #WorldElephantDay, #InternationalDogDay and even #nationalburgerday (seriously, who makes this stuff up?!). So, without more ado, we've decided to make a stand and to reclaim Mondays as our very own #MonsterMonday. (You know it makes sense.)

A man without a head, with eyes and a mouth in his chest (a blemmye): Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 102v

For the inaugural #MonsterMonday (the trademark application is in the post), we thought we'd kick off with the Marvels of the East, from the copy that forms part of the famous Beowulf manuscript. A quick advert for our Digitised Manuscripts site here: you should know that you can view digitised images of Beowulf and hundreds of the British Library's other medieval manuscripts, for free and online, from the comfort of your own office/living room/bathroom, 24/7. The manuscript of the Marvels of the East featured here was made sometime around the year AD 1000, most likely during the reign of King Æthelred the Unready (978–1016) or his successor, King Cnut (1016–35). Sadly, it was damaged during the Cotton Library fire of 1731, but the pages containing the images of fantastic beasts are mostly intact, even when the parchment has warped under the intense heat of the flames.

Which monsters do you recognise here? We'd love you to tweet us your favourites, to @BLMedieval, and to join in our little game of Monday mayhem, using the hashtag #MonsterMonday. Otherwise, someone else will come up with an equally daft idea, like #GlobalTurnipWeek, and we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?

A serpent and a two-horned beast: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 99r

A cynocephalus (a man with a dog's head): Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 100r

A man 15 feet high with white bodies and two faces: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 101v

A beast-headed man, holding a human leg and foot, alongside a person with long hair: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 103v

A man with ears like winnowing fans: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 104r

A woman with long hair: Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 105v

 

Julian Harrison

@BLMedieval/@julianpharrison

If you check the British Library’s online catalogue of Archives and Manuscripts today, you may notice an exciting change. Catalogue entries of many digitised manuscripts now feature a button linking directly to the digitised version of the manuscript.  

Detail of a marginal painting of a friar with a musical instrument and a woman with upraised arms, from the Maastricht Hours, Low Countries (Liège), c. 1300–1325, Stowe MS 17, f. 38r 

You can find the link either by scrolling down the ‘Details’ tab or by looking in the tab labelled ‘I want this’, where a button linking to the digital version should appear first in the list of options. Click on the blue hyperlink or the red ‘Go’ button, and a new tab will open in your browser containing the Digitised Manuscripts page for the relevant manuscript. We will soon have added hyperlinks to catalogue entries for all 1460+ of our digitised manuscripts.

Catalogue entries for the Psalter of Henry VIII, Royal MS 2 A XVI, with links to the digital version highlighted in red

Therefore, if you are planning a trip to the British Library or just looking up the details of a manuscript, you will be able to see immediately what is fully available 24/7 on Digitised Manuscripts. There’s no need to wait for our quarterly masterlist of Digitised Manuscripts hyperlinks (although we will continue to release those) or to check the Digitised Manuscripts website separately.

Opening page of one of the most recent additions to Digitised Manuscripts, La Vie de saint Denys et ses compaignons, with inhabited border and historiated initial, France (Paris or Rouen?), c. 1420, Harley MS 4409, f. 3r

We hope you will find this new tool useful. With almost 1500 manuscripts digitised, there is a lot to discover. Happy reading!

Alison Hudson

@BLMedieval

The return of a certain baking contest to British television screens this evening marks the time of year when viewers are struck by a peculiar kind of ‘baking fever’. Typical symptoms include: massively overestimating your own baking talents; buying and using peculiar ingredients you would never usually use; and avidly discussing whose cake had more of a ‘soggy bottom’. This fascination with the baking process and an enjoyment of bread, cakes and pies has long been an important part of society. Baking is, after all, one of the world’s oldest professions, and baking guilds were among the earliest craftsmen guilds established in medieval Europe.

The high level of skill required in the baking craft was certainly recognised in medieval society. In the passage below, the Anglo-Saxon monk, Ælfric, implied that everyone can cook, but it took special skills to be a baker! 'You can live a long time without my skills', he described a baker saying, 'but you cannot live well without them.'

Detail of passage from Ælfric’s colloquy which claims that everyone can cook, but it takes special skills to be a baker (pistor), from marginal additions to a copy of Priscian’s De Excerptiones, Abingdon, 11th century, Add MS 32246, f. 16v

The realities of medieval baking are also depicted in the beautiful illustrations of the Smithfield Decretals. This manuscript contains a collection of 1,971 papal letters, heavily illustrated with scenes which complement the letters and aspects of medieval life. These two illustrations depict two figures, one putting a loaf of bread into the oven and another who waits nearby with a basket of loaves. It is likely that this depicts a communal bread oven, which was popular in the 1300s and allowed all members of the village to bake their own loaves.

Detail of a baker putting a loaf in an oven, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 145r

Detail of a man with loaves in a basket and a baker putting loaves in an oven or taking loaves out of an oven, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 145v

Another illustration from a 14th-century manuscript depicts a rabbit baking its own bread in a miniature oven!

Detail of marginal image of a rabbit, from Lansdowne MS 451, f. 6r

In medieval society, bakers also provided extravagant fare at feasts and celebrations. Feasts were a fundamental part of medieval society and were used to celebrate victories, proclaim social bonds and enjoy the products of the land.

Detail of men feasting, from the Tiberius Psalter, England (? Old Minster Winchester), 11th century, Cotton MS Tiberius C VI, f. 5v 

It is easy imagine that preparing for these feasts could be an extremely stressful experience for the cooks and bakers. The illustration below depicts an angry cook brandishing his knife at a member of the service staff.

Marginal illustration from the Luttrell Psalter, Additional MS 42130, f. 207v

Like their modern counterparts, medieval bakers created and used cookbooks, containing recipes and lists of ingredients. A particularly fascinating cookbook was recently discovered here at the British Library, which included recipes for hedgehogs, blackbirds, and even unicorns! The image below, however, is taken from the Forme of Cury, the oldest known instructive cookbook in the English language, dating to the 14th century. The world ‘cury’ is the Middle English word for ‘cookery’. This recipe is for a ‘toastee’, in which two pieces of toasted bread are flavoured with a spiced honey and wine sauce. This cookbook also includes recipes for ‘Pygg in sawse sawge’ or ‘Pig in sage sauce’ and ‘Bank mang’, the predecessor of blancmange.

Recipe for a ‘tostee’, from the Forme of Cury, England, c. 1390, Add MS 5016

Other medieval recipes can be found in the 15th-century cookbook known as the ‘Boke of Kokery’. This manuscript contains 182 recipes, instructing the reader how to ‘hew’ (chop), ‘mele’ (mix), and ‘powdr’ (salt). The page below describes some of the dishes served at a feast for the ordination of the archbishop of Canterbury in 1443. The page also describes a ‘sotelte’ or ‘subtlety’, which was an elaborate sugar sculpture, designed to replicate a biblical scene.

Description of sugar sculptures and other subtleties at a feast for the ordination of the archbishop of Canterbury in 1443, from A Boke of Kokery, England, c. 1443, Harley MS 4016, f. 2r

It is clear that there are many similarities between the medieval and the modern baker. Bakers are still valued members of society, use cookbooks and recipes, and cook for a wide range of functions. One particular difference, however, is the more tolerant approach that modern critics have for bakers whose culinary skills are just not up to scratch. No matter how bad their skills, modern bakers will not be drawn through the streets on the back of a horse with the evidence of their failure tied around their neck.

Detail of a bas-de-page scene of a bad baker being dragged on a horse-drawn hurdle with his deficient loaf of bread around his neck, from the Smithfield Decretals, Southern France (Toulouse?), c. 1300-1340, Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 94r

Neither will modern bakers be strung up for their failures of the kitchen, and meet the same fate as the baker in the image below. This is taken from the illustrated Book of Genesis in the Old English Hexateuch, and accompanies the story of the hanging of the Pharaoh’s baker.

Depiction of the hanging of the Pharaoh’s baker in the Old English Hexateuch, Cotton MS Claudius B IV, f. 59r.

Thankfully to many an aspiring baker, modern society is far more tolerant of the varying talents of bakers and the cakes an loaves that they produce!

Becky Lawton

@BLMedieval/@bbeckyL