Post date: Feb 20, 2017 12:58:18 AM
As I sat down to read the "Making Medieval Manuscripts" reading, I had just gotten off the phone with someone whose advice I had been waiting for all week. Now of course, they just had to call right when I had no paper on me at all on which to write what they were saying. I was also not near my room. This led to me transcribing the conversation onto my arm via sharpie and then onto some random passerby's sticky notes.
The lengths to which humanity has gone in order to be able to write down our thoughts is fascinating. Today, I can just whip out my phone and make a note or send an email (which now that I'm thinking about it, I could have done that during the phone call too...), but the fact that for millennia we've had to build and make our own word holding devices just to be able to reference them later is amazing. And the fact that we could be picky about what is used, from the form of surface, to the type of ink, is baffling but also completely human. Of course we'd want parchment over paper, when paper does not last long. Of course we created wax tablets to take notes and draw up drafts when wax can so easily be wiped out to be written over and revised. And of course we became picky over what type of parchment was used, because the quality reflected the money poured into the manuscript. Humans don't just use written words to record solemn events and histories, as this customer service complaint from 1750 BCE shows, we record all aspects of humanity in what we write.
In the age of mass production, the fact that we use paper so unthinkingly and the fact that I can save any written work to my computer, shows that our concern for preservation of our thoughts and for the future really isn't a physical concern anymore. Books on my shelf from 100 years ago are falling apart. I've bought cheap books where the binding just flat out sucks so much so that a few years later it's no longer a book but a collection of papers. When we print something, it's not to keep it forever (since it's easy to get a new copy) but we print as a reminder of an event, to show off something here and now. I personally buy books to remember. Every town I go to, I try and pick up a book or, barring that, pick up a written pamphlet from a tourist stop. Whenever I buy a secondhand book, I wonder at the stories left between the pages. My copy of The Decameron has a business card for a cafe in Italy. Many book margins have another's hand that tells me their thoughts.
I suppose that's why I really liked reading this, not for the technical details, but to see the little quirks of manuscript writing that scream humanity. This is embodied in the defective edges that were repaired like that found in Llanbadarn Fawr, or the fact that prickings in margins were common in order to "rule" the parchment, making straight lines for the words. The National Geographic article about cat footprints preserved in a medieval manuscript always reminds me of the living people that created these things. The scribe had a cat. Or perhaps, more accurately, a cat had a scribe. Other manuscripts have doodles, like the one of Jeanne d'Arc found on her court transcript, or art of medieval snails fighting knights. The questions found in books and manuscripts aren't just limited to those found in printed word, but also in the remnants of the past humans left behind in the pages.
Written word connects us. We can read the words of people long dead, whose bones are now only dust. And for that we have to thank Medieval manuscripts and their parchment. Even though reading how parchment is made reminded me of Doctor Who ("moisturize me"), I only have the words of ancient authors due to the care and (hard) work others put into transcribing and preserving their words. And sometimes that wasn't enough. Sometimes, certain words were warped or prioritized over others. That is more humanity's problem than that of the written word. We warp words to suite our needs always. But the fact that we can even look back on a text from 800 CE says something about the need for humans to remember words and how we have always gone about preserving and recording.
*Now that we're at the end, I can talk about Harry Potter. The fact that they still use Parchment is just amazing, don't you think? Also I am curious about how they buy their parchment. Who makes it? is it in rolls, sheets? Why do they write essays based on length anyways? Why is 12 inches considered a lot to write? Why do they still use quills? Is it an aesthetic thing? Does the Wixen World see themselves as perfect, so felt no need to move on to the fountain pen and paper? They have to know what a ballpoint pen is. Muggleborns do at least. Do they just not like Hungarians? I get not using computers because of the theories that magic and technology is a no go but still. I need answers.