Medieval manuscripts behaving badly

Posted on February 28, 2014 | in Collections, CRC, Featured, Library | by

MS185sThis 15th century manuscript of the Chronicle of England ends with some rather surprising remarks on the flyleaf:
Tritu est perire quod facis ingrato [what you do is lost by thankless wear and tear]
Clawe a Churle by the arse and he wyll beshite thy fyste quod elisabet moncke

It sounds as though the 16th-century Elizabeth Monk was having a particularly bad day.  Thanks to Meg Laing from Linguistics and English Language for spotting this note, which is not recorded in the catalogue.

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/crc/collections/special-collections/rare-books-and-manuscripts/rare-books-directory-section/western-manuscripts

Comments are closed.

Follow @EdUniLibraries on Twitter

Collections

Default utility Image Archival Provenance Project: a glimpse into the university’s history through some of its oldest manuscripts               My name is Madeleine Reynolds, a fourth year PhD candidate in History of Art....
Rediscovering the Poetry of Louisa Agnes Czarnecki, a 19th-Century Edinburgh Writer and Musician Today we are publishing a blog by Ash Mowat, a volunteer in the Civic Engagement...

Projects

Default utility Image Giving Decorated Paper a Home … Rehousing Books and Paper Bindings In the first post of this two part series, our Collection Care Technician, Robyn Rogers,...
Default utility Image The Book Surgery Part 2: Bringing Everything Together In this blog, Project Conservator Mhairi Boyle her second day of in-situ book conservation training...

Archives

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.