Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
Welcome to the Medieval Text Manuscripts Blog! This blog highlights what makes our text manuscripts particularly interesting and appealing to us – and (we hope) to you too! Here we explore what these books can tell us about how they were made and used. We also share what we know of their most fascinating and unusual contents, makers, and owners. Some of our discoveries are quite significant, some merely amusing, and some bizarre. All medieval manuscripts have much to reveal to their attentive modern audiences. Follow our blog to learn more about them.
October 14, 2022
Autumn, what does it mean to you? Crisper days and chilly nights, a new palette in the garden, asters, pumpkins? A new academic year? For us at Les Enluminures, it means that it is time for the annual Fall update of the Text Manuscripts Site.
August 19, 2019
Out on your summer vacation, perhaps looking for that ideal Instagram photo, have you ever gazed in wonder at a painting and thought “how did they do that?” Well, artists’ secrets are sometimes revealed in unexpected places – like the flyleaf of a manuscript.
May 17, 2019
We usually steer clear of divisive political issues in this blog, but today, we are going to plunge right in (no pun intended)...
November 15, 2017
At first glance, this unlikely juxtaposition seems to mean nothing. Even Mr. Google yields no results in a search that combines this artist, subject, and scholar. But, indeed, one of Damien Hirst’s most inventive new works is...
October 19, 2017
This post takes a closer look at what’s in a Book of Hours, which is arguably the most important text of the late Middle Ages. This is why...
June 13, 2017
The telephone, the Ferris Wheel, the first public toilet, the television, the Eiffel Tower, the incubator, the X-ray machine, even the dishwasher – these are just a few of the “firsts” exhibited at world’s fairs...
April 05, 2017
One of the questions we are asked most frequently about medieval prayer books, especially Books of Hours, is how they were actually used...
April 20, 2016
Some medieval and Renaissance manuscripts survive in almost pristine condition. There is a special pleasure in turning the pages of manuscripts such as our copy of Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics...
March 02, 2016
The text manuscripts featured on this blog so far range in their contents from the rare or unique to works that would have been circulated and valued within particular circles ...
January 19, 2016
In most of our encounters with writing on the medieval manuscript page, we know very little about the person who set pen to parchment (or paper) long ago. Their script may tell us a bit about them. Paleographers, those who study early handwriting, can often place and date scribes’ hands on the basis of particular script features...
