Category: Medieval Art and Architecture
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Initials and Capital Letters – Day 6
Initials – capital letters within manuscripts’ texts – are key venues for decoration, aides in navigating the text, and veritable works of art.
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The Black Hours – Day 5
Today’s post is about a truly stunning manuscript that demonstrates the relatively rare but wonderful phenomenon of manuscripts on colored parchment.
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Text in Manuscripts – Day 4
Art historians primarily see manuscripts as works of art, but we shouldn’t forget that they are also books intended to convey the written word.
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A Fourteenth-Century Italian Choir Book – Day 3
Today’s entry features a page from a 14th-century choir book called an antiphonary. Like most medieval choir books, it’s huge and has big illustrations.
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The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux – Day 2
The early-14th century Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux introduces us to the Book of Hours, surprising scale in manuscripts, and the wacky world of marginalia.
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The Book of Kells – Day 1
It only seems appropriate to start off 31 Days of Medieval Manuscripts with the Book of Kells, arguably the world’s most iconic illuminated manuscript.
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31 Days of Medieval Manuscripts
31 Days of Medieval Manuscripts is a series I wrote in October 2015 as part of my participation in a 31-day bogging challenge. Participants were encouraged to select a specific topic to focus on during the challenge, and I chose medieval manuscripts – a topic I love and studied extensively in college. Every day, I…
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Carmina Burana
I’ve been working on a dance routine to “Carmina Burana” and wanted to do some research on the history of the piece. I was planning to write more about gargoyles this week, but I decided to write about this instead when I saw a picture of the original medieval manuscript.* Before it was a well-known piece of…
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Writing Prompt #17: Basilique Royale de Saint-Denis
Today’s prompt didn’t particularly interest me or feel like a good fit for this blog, but the additional challenge was to write in a style different from my usual one, which I liked a lot. I like my writing to flow and include lots of description; I never skimp on the words. Therefore, I decided…
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Writing Prompt #7: Contrast, Controversy, and the Cloisters Cross
Today’s prompt told me to write about a contrast between two things. The first idea that came to mind for me was contrasting points of view or interpretations. Have you ever been in a situation where you and someone else experienced the exact same thing at the exact same time, yet both of you were…
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Gargoyles and Grotesques of Westminster Abbey and Palace, London
An introduction to the gargoyles and grotesques of Westminster Abbey and Westminster Palace – two important Gothic and Gothic Revival structures in London.
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Nerd Candy: Doodles in Medieval Manuscripts
I loved medieval graffiti, and now I find out that there are medieval doodles, too! What more could a history nerd want? I just came across an article on Colossal (a very cool site, by the way, so be sure to follow it) about some work being done by Erik Kwakkel, a manuscript historian at Leiden University. Kwakkel is…