The best notes written in manuscripts by medieval monks
Colophon: a statement at the end of a book containing the scribe or owner’s name, date of completion, or bitching about how hard it is to write a book in the dark ages
- Oh, my hand
- The parchment is very hairy
- Thank God it will soon be dark
- St. Patrick of Armagh, deliver me from writing
- Now I’ve written the whole thing; for Christ’s sake give me a drink
- Oh d fuckin abbot
- Massive hangover
- Whoever translated these Gospels did a very poor job
- Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night
- If someone else would like such a handsome book, come and look me up in Paris, across from the Notre Dame cathedral
- I shall remember, O Christ, that I am writing of Thee, because I am wrecked today
- Do not reproach me concerning the letters, the ink is bad and the parchment scanty and the day is dark
- 11 golden letters, 8 shilling each; 700 letters with double shafts, 7 shilling for each hundred; and 35 quires of text, each 16 leaves, at 3 shilling each. For such an amount I won’t write again
- Here ends the second part of the title work of Brother Thomas Aquinas of the Dominican Order; very long, very verbose; and very tedious for the scribe; thank God, thank God, and again thank God
- If anyone take away this book, let him die the death, let him be fried in a pan; let the falling sickness and fever seize him; let him be broken on the wheel, and hanged. Amen
what does oh d fuckin abbot even MEAN
an abbot is the head of a monastery so it just means “fuck my boss” basically, an abbreviation of “O damned fuckin Abbot”. this is what it looks like:
Brasenose College MS 7, f.62v
I would just like to pop in again after all this time and offer some sources, as I know there has been discussion for a while. A good number of these initially came from an infographic from Lapham’s Quarterly Magazine, which I don’t have access to, and I’m not sure if sources were cited. Some of these, however, have been confirmed by scholars, particularly a group at the University of Leiden who had a blog going for a while on the subject of medieval writing. Not everything mentioned was documented with photos, but here are a couple:
“Ale has killed us” (translated as “massive hangover”) in Ogham x
“Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night“ x
(please note the helpful finger pointing to the pee stain/cat doodle)
“This work is written master give me a drink; let the right hand of the scribe be free from the oppressiveness of pain” x
“Whoever translated these Gospels did a very poor job” x
“If someone else would like such a handsome book, come and look me up in Paris, across from the Notre Dame cathedral” - we even have the scribe’s name, Herneis le Romanceur x
“I shall remember, O Christ, that I am writing of Thee, because I am wrecked today. It’s now Sunday evening “ x
The “don’t @ me” scribe x
The source for the poor scribe complaining about his awful salary was linked to from the University blog as well but the page about that text seems to have been removed.
The scribe who hates Thomas Aquinas x
“Let him be broken on the wheel and hanged” x
