In the beginning was the Word …
In the beginning was the word. But which word?
For the Wynn
a blog about medieval manuscripts, by Kate Thomas
Latest posts
BL blogpost: You Can Now Make Your Own Online British Library Exhibit with IIIF
In recent years, more and more manuscripts, artworks and museum exhibits have been digitised and made available online. But what if you could use them to make your own virtual exhibitions? Images which have been uploaded in IIIF can be used and reworked into interesting things, and viewed alongside images from different institutions. This post... Read More
BL blogpost: In praise of the psalms
I have written another blogpost for the Medieval Manuscripts blog of the British Library! This one is on a manuscript, Harley MS 2928, which we catalogued for the Polonsky England and France 700-1200 project, which turned out to include a copy of a text which I know very well. De laude psalmorum ( In praise of... Read More
What happened before the Books of Hours?
As promised in earlier posts, my monograph has now been published by De Gruyter/Medieval Institute Publications! Although it is based upon my 2011 doctoral thesis, it departs from it considerably in several places, reducing the attention given to the Carolingian period and adding two extra chapters. Many of the subjects discussed in the book have... Read More
Quattuor/feower
Four are the elements from which the rainbow takes its colours Quadricolor enim est . ex omnibus elementis in se rapit species. De celo enim trahit igneum colorem . de aquis purpureum . de aere album de terris collegit nigrum. For it [the rainbow] is of four colours, and takes its appearance from all of... Read More
Established in our spirit-chests: the Old English Lord’s Prayer III
Everyone must know their Lord s Prayer and their creed. So wrote Ælfric of Eynsham in the early eleventh century. It may be for this reason, and also because churchpeople may in any case have wished to pray in their own language, that several copies of the Lord s Prayer or Paternoster survive in Old English translation,... Read More
Divination for a day of birth
This is my 100th blogpost on For the Wynn! In celebration of this, I am going to share a full version of a fascinating little text which I mentioned briefly in this blogpost for the British Library s Medieval Manuscripts blog: a divinatory text by which you can discover a person s fortune based on the position... Read More
BL blogpost: A medieval guide to predicting your future
Which day of the month is bad for starting a new project? How do you find possessions which have been stolen from you? What will your fortune be? Medieval people knew the answers to these questions! Find out in my new blogpost for the British Library s Medieval Manuscripts blog.
Rivers of tears, softening stone
Jesus wept. Famously the shortest verse in the Authorised English version of the Bible (John 11:35), when Jesus weeps at the death of his friend Lazarus, this is actually slightly longer in Latin, usually a more succinct language than English: Et lacrimatus est Iesus. A major focus of my work is on the circumstances surrounding... Read More
‘Lord, my teeth hurt…’ Prayers to and for St Peter
It s the 29th of June, and today is the feast day of St Peter (and also of St Paul). Peter is my favourite Bible person, because he s a bit of an idiot quite a lot of the time, but he really wants to be good. Take, for example, the narrative of the Transfiguration of Christ. ... Read More