We are delighted to tell you that the magnificent Kerdeston Hawking Book is now available on our Digitised Manuscripts site (Add MS 82949). This manuscript, together with the related Kerdeston Hunting Book (a fragment of 5 leaves, now Additional MS 82948), was in the collection of HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, until his death in 1974, being acquired by the British Library in 2007.

Ypocras sitting on a stool writing with a dog at his feet. Three hunters, each with a beating stick and three hawks on his arm stand in front of Ypocras. Two buildings are at the top of the miniature, with Kerdeston's arms in the upper centre, from the Kerdeston Hawking Book, England (Norfolk): London, British Library, MS Additional 82949, f. 31v

The library of a 15th-century country gentleman would not have been complete without books on everyday matters such as estate management, heraldry and hunting, sometimes compiled as one volume. The Middle-English ‘Kerdeston Hawking Book’ is from the library of Sir Thomas Kerdeston of Claxton, Norfolk (d. 1446), whose first wife, Elizabeth, was daughter of Sir Edward Burnell, one of the English soldiers killed at Agincourt in 1415. It is a tall, thin book, probably designed to be carried around, and the pages are worn, indicating that it was well-used  by its owner.

The first leaf of the book has two full-page images, one on either side, unfortunately rather damaged by cuts and rubbing. The first shows a man in very fine hunting dress, thought to be of the Master of the Hunt, with his pouch at his waist and hawk on his wrist, riding towards a stream with fish and fowl in it.

The Master of the Hunt, shown on horseback, and, below, a hermit with beggars, from the Kerdeston Hawking Book: London, British Library, MS Additional 82949, f. 1r

On the verso of the first folio is an image showing a king in full regalia, holding three hawks on a leash in his right hand. In the lower third of the page are three hawksmen with poles, lures and pouches. The seated scholar in the middle has an open book and a scroll that reads ‘ypocras’. This refers to the first treatise in the book, a dialogue between Ypocras (Hippocrates) and Cosma, a Roman senator, on falconry.

A royal figure, scholar and three hawksmen from the Kerdeston Hawking Book: London, British Library, MS Additional 82949, f. 1v

The book contains advice on how to care for falcons and hawks, with remedies and recipes for salves to keep their plumage in good condition, as well as instructions on their training and management.  The margins are decorated with images of birds, animals and the Kerdeston coat of arms.

Marginal image of a dog with a duck in its mouth, from the Kerdeston Hawking Book: London, British Library, MS Additional 82949, f. 45r

Marginal image of two hawks swooping on a heron, from the Kerdeston Hawking Book: London, British Library, MS Additional 82949, f. 48r

No English book on hunting would be complete without foxes and hounds, and here they are:

Marginal image of two hounds chasing a fox, from the Kerdeston Hawking Book: London, British Library, MS Additional 82949, f. 32r

Chantry Westwell

You can read more about the Kerdeston Hawking Book here:

Bror Danielsson, 'Library of Hunting and Hawking Literature (early 15th c. fragments)', in Et Multum et Multa: Beiträge zur Literatur, Geschichte und Kultur der Jagd. Festgabe für Kurt Linder zum 27.November 1971, ed. by S. Schwenk, G. Tilander &C. A. Willemson (New York, 1971), pp. 47-60 [refers to the Kerdeston Hunting Book, a related manuscript: Add MS 82948].

Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 6, 2 vols (London, 1996), no. 91.

 

 

We received some lovely feedback about our recent post, Superheroes, True Romance, Blood and Gore ... so here are three more medieval comic strips. Some people suggested, incidentally, that the famous Bayeux Tapestry qualifies as one of the earliest "comic strips", but here are some British Library examples from the 12th century.

Silos Apocalypse - Daniel the Superhero

A vision of the life of Daniel is illustrated in graphic detail in this Spanish version of Revelations made in the monastery of Silos in Northern Spain. King Darius orders Daniel to be thrown into the lions' den. Daniel appears in the den, on the right, where he is given food and the lions lick his feet. In the lower half of the image, Darius lies awake, worrying about the punishment he has inflicted on Daniel.

 
Scenes from the Life of Daniel, Spain, 4th quarter of the 10th century: London, British Library, Ms Additional 11695, ff. 238v-239r

The Guthlac Roll -  the life of a ‘cult’ hero

Saints’ lives were usually action-packed and gory, lending themselves easily to the comic-strip format. The Guthlac roll tells the story of the life of St Guthlac using a series of images in roundels with labels (see our recent blogpost On A Roll).

St Guthlac receiving the tonsure at Repton Abbey, with the inscription 'Guthl[acus] tonsura[m] suscipit apud rependune', and inscriptions 'Epi[s]c[opus]', 'Guthlac[us]', and 'Ebba abbatissa' labelling the figures, England (possibly Crowland), c. 1175-1225: London, British Library, Harley Roll Y 6, roundel 3 

 

Drawing of Guthlac exorcising a demon from Ecgga: London, British Library, Harley Roll Y 6, roundel 10

 

Bede’s Life of St Cuthbert - miraculous events 

St Cuthbert’s life is told in 46 pictures in this beautiful picture book from the 12th century:

Miniature of Cuthbert accepting the bishopric at a synod of fellow monks; miniature of a man ministering to his ailing servant with holy water blessed by Cuthbert, from Chapter 24 & 25 of Bede's prose Life of St Cuthbert, Durham, 4th quarter of the 12th century: London, British Library, MS Yates Thompson 26, ff. 53v-54r

Here is an action-packed image of a man falling from a tree (degree of difficulty 1.7):

Cuthbert's vision of the soul of a man, who was killed by falling from a tree, being carried to heaven, from Chapter 34 of Bede's prose Life of St Cuthbert: London, British Library, MS Yates Thompson 26, f. 63v

Don't forget that our exhibition Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK is on at the British Library until 19 August 2014.

Chantry Westwell

What's your favourite map? This is our's (at least, today it is, next week we'll doubtless have a different one).

Look closely, and you can just about discern the shape. Can you guess what it is yet? It's a medieval view of Britain, one of four surviving maps by Matthew Paris, historian and cartographer at St Albans Abbey. Scotland is shown at the top, joined to the rest of the British mainland by a bridge at Stirling ('Estriuelin pons'). Moving southwards are depicted two walls, one dividing the Scots from the Picts (the Antonine Wall) and the other the Scots from the English (Hadrian's Wall). Along the spine of the map is a series of English towns, including Newcastle ('Nouum castrum'), Durham ('Dunelmum'), Pontefract ('Pons fractus') and Newark ('Neuwerc'), culminating with London, Rochester, Canterbury and Dover ('Douera'), a castle located in the centre of the South coast of England. Wales ('WALLIA') is sited in just about the right place, with a sequence of jagged lines representing Mount Snowdon ('Snaudun'); diagonally opposite is Norfolk and Suffolk, and the towns of Norwich (a metropolis, no less), Lynn and Yarmouth.

This particular map is now bound separately (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius D VI, f. 12v), but it once belonged to a manuscript of the Abbreviatio Chronicorum of Matthew Paris, dating from the 1250s. There are less complete maps of Britain by Matthew Paris in two other St Albans' manuscripts held at the British Library, Royal MS 14 C VII and Cotton MS Julius D VII, and in another at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS 16). You can read more about these maps in Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Aldershot, 1987), pp. 364-72; but meanwhile here are some more details of the version in Cotton Claudius D VI. It's worth bearing in mind that Matthew Paris did not have satnav, GPS or an A-Z, and that he had never visited the vast majority of the places recorded on his maps.

 

Julian Harrison

The British Library’s amazing new exhibition, Comics Unmasked, was opened last week by TV presenter and comics fan Jonathan Ross. Talking about the oldest item on show, an early printed version of the Bible with graphic images, Jonathan commented that the Bible can be a great source of material for comic books. We in Medieval Manuscripts know this only too well!

Of course, it all began with manuscripts. Here are some early examples.

The Old English Hexateuch – How many modern comic books have dancing camels?

This 11th-century Old English version of six books of the Old Testament is filled with graphic depictions of the well-known stories, like the series below showing Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden:

Adam and Eve, England, S. E. (Canterbury), 2nd quarter of the 11th century: London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B IV, f. 7v

We had to include this picture of the dancing camels!

Abraham’s Camels in the Book of Genesis: London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B IV, f. 39r

Holkham Bible Picture Book -  Joseph hears shocking news, ‘SHOCK’, ‘HORROR’!!

Sometimes described as England’s first graphic novel, this book tells stories from the Old and New Testament in a series of pictures with captions in Anglo-Norman French. There is some interesting material that didn’t make it into the authorised version of the Bible. The page below tells about Joseph’s reaction when he hears Mary is having a baby: the banners contain the dialogue, like speech bubbles in modern cartoons. In the second image, Joseph, whose friends have been telling him some home truths about his wife, is touching Mary’s stomach and asking her some awkward questions. Mary protests, ‘No, really don’t worry, I have never committed a bodily sin’. Of course he doesn’t believe her, but fortunately an angel drops in to reveal the divine plan and he has to eat humble pie.

Joseph finds out about Mary’s pregnancy, England, S.E. (?London), 1327-1335: London, British Library, MS Add 47682, f. 12r

Episodes from the life of Christ are also given the comic-book treatment:

The healing of the paralysed man; Christ rests by a well; the woman of Samaria; the disciples eat but Jesus will not: London, British Library, MS Add 47682, f. 24v

Egerton Genesis Picture Book – the Prequel, or where it all began

Egerton MS 1894, better known as the Egerton Genesis Picture Book, tells the creation story in a series of images:

The first days of Creation, England (?Norfolk), 3rd quarter of the 14th century: London, British Library, MS Egerton 1894, f. 1r

God creates the birds, animals and man, and rests on the final day: London, British Library, MS Egerton 1894, f. 1v

You can read more about this manuscript in our blogpost A Medieval Comic Strip.

Queen Mary Psalter –   Moses, the greatest epic hero

The life of Moses is one of the great stories of all time, providing material for comics and movies such as the Charlton Heston epic and Spielberg’s ‘Prince of Egypt’. The Queen Mary Psalter contains a remarkable series of Old Testament stories told in a series of 223 pictures with captions in French. Included in the series is the Moses story. Here are some of the episodes:

Miniature in two parts of the king of Egypt demanding that all Jewish infants be killed (above); of the birth of Moses, and Moses placed in a basket and left on the banks of the Nile (below), England (London?), c. 1310-1320: London, British Library, MS Royal 2 B VII, f. 22v

Miniature of Moses freeing the Israelites from the king of Egypt, (above); miniature of Moses and the king of Egypt's troops facing each other across the Red Sea, (below): London, British Library, MS Royal 2 B VII, f. 24v

Miniature of God giving the laws to Moses for a second time (above); and of Moses showing the laws to the Israelites (below): London, British Library, MS Royal 2 B VII, f. 26r

We'll feature more medieval "comics" on this blog in the next few weeks. We're having great fun putting this list together, and would welcome more suggestions via @BLMedieval. Meanwhile, you can see our Comics exhibition in London until 19 August 2014, book your tickets online here.

Chantry Westwell

For those who are still in suspense about the solution to our puzzle, A Medieval Word Search, the table in question comes from Additional MS 21114, the ‘Psalter of Lambert le Bègue’ (Lambert the Stammerer), a priest and reformer of Liège, believed to be founder of the Beguines, a charitable order of lay nuns.  The manuscript contains a drawing of Lambert le Bègue, and written above in French are two lines saying ‘This gentleman first founded the order of the Beguinage, and made the epistles of Saint Paul into our language’.

Full page ink miniature of Lambert de Bègue holding a banner inscribed, 'Ge sui ichis Lambers, nel tenez pas a fable, Ki funda sain Cristophle ki enscri ceste table' (I am Lambert…who  wrote this table), from the ‘Psalter of Lambert le Bègue’, Liège, 1255-1265, Additional MS 21114, f. 7v

Now for the solution the riddle.  We cannot claim to have worked it out for ourselves but Paul Meyer, the great French manuscript scholar, studied a group of psalters from Northern France containing similar texts, and worked out the meaning of this table, which he also identified in Bibliothèque NationaleMS Latin 1077. His explanation in French is available online on the Gallica website here.

A table with decorated frame for calculating the date of Easter in the years 1140 to 1672, from the ‘Psalter of Lambert le Bègue’, Add MS 21114, f. 7r

As we all know, one of the key obsessions in the medieval church was the calculation of Easter.  Any cleric worth his salt was bound to tackle this issue at some stage, and England’s own Bede wrote at length on the subject.  So, our table is a perpetual calculator for the date of Easter, used in the same way as we once used books of logarithms, for those who remember the pre-electronic calculator era (not quite as far back as the 13th century, but close).  It consists of 20 vertical columns, the first of which contains the dominical letters (i.e. the date on which Sunday falls for a given year, with ‘A’ representing the 1st of January).  The remaining 19 columns represent the lunar cycle of 19 years and the 28 horizontal lines represent the 28-year solar cycle.  Are you still with us?

The 35 two/three-letter syllables in the grid (di, in, ge, lu, etc.) each represent one of the possible dates of Easter Sunday, which can fall between 22 March and 25 April, yielding 10 possible dates in March and 25 possible dates in April.  Meyer worked out (and we’re not sure quite how he did this!) that that the first column of the calendar represented the dates of Easter for the years 1140-1167, so ‘di’ stands for 7 April (the date of Easter Sunday in 1140) and ‘in’ corresponds to 30 March (the date of Easter in 1141) etc.  The following columns continue this pattern up to 1672!  Then you would start all over again at the beginning for 1673. 

Now if you put the syllables in date order as follows (Meyer does this for us, thank goodness !)

March                                                                           April                                                                              

22            la                                                       1               rit                                                 13            cat

23            ber                                                    2               ar                                                 14            lu

24            tu                                                       3               te                                                 15            mi                             

25            ta                                                        4               ad                                                16            na

26            le                                                        5               pa                                                17            reg

27            qui                                                     6               ra                                                 18            ni

28            no                                                      7               di                                                  19            mag

29            bis                                                     8               si                                                  20            nus

30            in                                                       9               a                                                   21             ce

31            ge                                                       10             ci                                                  22            lo

                                                                             11             per                                               23            ru

                                                                             12             du                                                24            fac

                                                                                                                                                    25            tor

 

If you put this together, and add in some abbreviated ‘m’s, you get:   La[m]bertu[m], tale[m] qui nobis ingerit artem / Ad paradisiaci perducat lumina regni / Magnus celoru[m] factor

Or, in English:  The great creator of the heavens leads Lambert, the one who brings us knowledge, to the light of the kingdom of paradise.

So, if Lambert himself made up this puzzle, he must have had a rather high opinion of himself and wanted to assure his future reputation among those in the know.

And we have to add that those 19th-century medieval scholars continue to astound with the breadth of their knowledge and their talent and dedication in solving these mysteries for us.  Meyer even found out that there were a couple of mistakes in the table in the British Library manuscript and corrected them.  Félicitations, Monsieur Paul Meyer!

Now after all that hard work, you, our readers deserve a reward. Here are some great images and interesting marginalia from this manuscript, so enjoy !

Text page with marginal images including a bird stealing a crown, from the ‘Psalter of Lambert le Bègue’, Additional MS 21114, f. 34r

Historiated initial 'D'(ixit) of Christ tempted by the devil with the words, 'Non in solo pane..' at the beginning of Psalm 13 from the ‘Psalter of Lambert le Bègue’, Additional MS 21114, f. 47r

Historiated initial 'E'(xultate) at the beginning of Psalm 80 with Saint Martin holding a sword, giving his cloak to a beggar, saying 'Hac me veste contexit..' and marginal image of a man’s head in profile from the ‘Psalter of Lambert le Bègue’, Additional MS 21114, f.68v

- Chantry Westwell

Here is a puzzle for our readers, but be warned – it is not for the faint of heart!  This is not the simple type of word search we are used to, but a very complex puzzle involving the date of Easter.  

A table with decorated frame for calculating the date of Easter in the years 1140 to 1672 from a Psalter, Liège, 1255-1265, Add MS 21114, f. 7r

Here are your clues:  this puzzle comes from a Psalter in our collection and dates from the 13th century.  The table contains 35 two-letter symbols, which, if put in the correct order, make up a verse of two and a half hexameter lines, revealing the name of a well-known cleric with whom the book was closely associated.  This cleric may have commissioned it or devised this puzzle himself.  And those are the only clues we are giving!

Historiated initial 'D'(ixit) at the beginning of Psalm 109 with God holding Christ on the cross, from a Psalter, Add MS 21114, f. 11r

Apart from the Psalms, this smallish book contains two verses in a Northern French dialect, prayers and liturgical material added in the latter part of the 14th century and a number of 15th-century additions in Catalan.

This manuscript is not yet in our online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts but will be published at the next upload, later this year, so you will not find any help there.  We know it’s possible to solve the puzzle; a French scholar had it all worked out in the late 19th century.  Let’s see if you can do it!  You can leave your guesses in the comments below, or on Twitter @BLMedieval.  We'll be revealing the solution on Tuesday, so stay tuned!  

- Chantry Westwell

For more information about the Huth Hours, please see our post A Calendar Page for January 2014.

The themes of courting and pleasurable outdoor pursuits continue in these calendar pages for the month of May.  On the first folio is the beginning of the listing of saints' days and feasts for May, amongst a backdrop of flowers.  In the roundel below can be found a roundel miniature of an aristocratic young couple on horseback, setting off to go hawking (it is perhaps, but not definitely, the couple found on the opening folio for April).  On the next folio is a small painting of a nude couple for the zodiac sign Gemini.  Beneath is a well-dressed lady sitting in a flowering garden, engaged in a somewhat mysterious activity.  Curators in our department have variously theorised that she is holding a tambourine, an embroidery hoop, or a skein of yarn; please do let us know what you think!

Calendar page for May, with a roundel miniature of a couple going hawking, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 5v

Calendar page for May, with a roundel miniature of a lady in a pleasure garden, with the zodiac sign Gemini, from the Huth Hours, Netherlands (Bruges or Ghent?), c. 1480, Add MS 38126, f. 6r

- Sarah J Biggs

We are still recovering from having been named Arts and Culture Blog of the Year in the inaugural UK Blog Awards. This blog started in 2010 as the Digitised Manuscripts Blog. Among our highlights have been blogging about the Royal manuscripts exhibition, including the opening by HM Queen Elizabeth II; our announcement of the acquisition of the St Cuthbert Gospel; the weekend when some of our newly-digitised manuscripts were featured in the Financial Times; and the day when our blog received in excess of 36,000 hits for the post Knight v Snail. Winning this award is a huge honour for us. We never really realised how much impact we were making until we saw our viewing statistics and discovered that we had readers in Antarctica!

Here are some more photographs from the awards ceremony. (Warning: some photos may contain flash photography.)