February Post:
Manuscripts
Most days will find me in my office word crafting the latest novel. Occasionally I look out the window at my garden, letting thoughts come and go as I try to build a chapter that will beckon my readers to follow me into a scene that is both captivating and beguiling. Characters from the novel inhabit my daily life almost like real people, even when I am not sitting at the computer writing their story. I listen to their voices, try to figure out ways to solve conflicts, meet unexpected situations, and watch them fall in love. So, this got me thinking about medieval writers, and how the life of an author in the twenty first century has been made comparatively easy. I don’t have to sit in a drafty turret with only a candle for light, scratching away with a quilled pen, dipped in ink that I have made from scratch. Nor for us squeamish vegetarians, having to use scrapped animal skins to write on. I am fortunate to have the luxury of a computer, the internet and a collection of medieval reference books.
Some of these references are critical in writing historical fiction. What would we do today without those writers who came before us, writing letters, manuscripts and diaries?
Some of the famous manuscripts dealing with the history of the British Isles are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, a famous source of 11th century news, as Sharon Bennett Connolly, a non-fiction writer said. It gives wonderful snippets of information about Anglo-Saxon England. Like the description in 1066 of the appearance of Halley’s Comet. I wonder what the people of Llawgwalch would have made of that fiery comet lighting up the night sky. Bede in 731 wrote “Ecclesiastical History of the English people.” Gerald of Wales wrote “Description of Wales” dating from 1193 or 1194 and by the early part of the thirteenth century stories of Chivalric Romance were being written.
On a trip to Trinity Collage Dublin a few years ago I was lucky enough to see the exhibited “Book of Kells”, a nineth century illuminated manuscript. Sometimes known as the Book of Columba containing the four Gospels of the New Testament. It was created in a Columban monastery in either Ireland, Scotland or England. It takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, County Meath in Ireland which was its home for centuries. The Abby was pillaged by Vikings many times at the beginning of the 9th century, no one knows how the book survived all of those raids. The pages are of high-quality calf vellum. The lettering is written with iron gall ink. And the colors used were derived from a wide range of substances. Blues were made from an indigo dye extracted from woad. White was derived from gypsum and purple was created from a dye from orchil lichen. The tools were simple but the artistry is stunning.
Writing surface: Parchment is made from specially untanned skins of animals, primarily sheep, calves and goats and has been used as a writing material for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of young animals. The making of parchment required dehairing, soaking, sometimes in lime, then stretching, and scraping, repeated over several days until a desired thickness was achieved. Other treatments were used to make the skins more aesthetically pleasing and easier to use by the scribe. Rubbing with pumice to make it smoother, while powders and pastes were used to remove grease so the ink or pigment would not run.
Writing utensil: For a very long time the writing tool was a quill. Feathers were mostly removed and the quill had to be tempered with heat to be strong enough to not splinter when writing. A slit was carefully cut in the quill so that it would hold ink, much like todays pens. The quills came from a molted flight feather, preferably a primary wing feather from a large bird. Goose or swan were considered to be the best.
Inks: These had to be produced with mortar and pestle. Iron gall ink was used form the fifth century. It was made from the oak gall, a small round ball that grows on the leaves or twigs of the oak tree. It is formed when a gall wasp lays its egg. These galls contain tannic acid. They would be ground and mixed with iron sulfate, gum Arabic and a liquid like rainwater or wine. It is unsure when the gall ink was first used. Pliny the elder 23-79 AD recorded an experiment he made using iron sulfate on a piece of papyrus that had been treated with tannic acid.
Erasing: A knife would be used to scratch mistakes from the parchment.
What did people use before parchment?
Did people write letters to friends and family? Yes, they did.
Archeologists found wooden writing tablets at the auxiliary Roman fort of Vindolanda, just south of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. They are thin pieces of wood about the size of a modern postcard. The tablets are made from birch, alder or oak. One tablet was written around 100 AD, by Claudia Severa, the wife of the commander of a nearby fort, to Sulpicia Lepidina, inviting her to a birthday party. The tablets are held at the British Museum in London, but some are on loan to the Vindolanda Museum.
Recommended books or websites:
Simon Garfield: To the Letter (A celebration of the lost art of letter writing) Historical letters from Antiquity. Chapter two is about the Vindolanda letters.
Ref: The Making of a Medieval book: The J. Paul Getty Museum getty.edu
If there is a specific historic fact or event that you are interest in related to this time frame and would like to see as a post please feel free to contact me through my website. HTTP://STORYTELLER.SPACE or email at: marilyn@storyteller.space
Marilyn