Not all manuscripts are pretty. Many, of course, are absolutely gorgeous: one need only look at the British Library exhibition on the Royal Manuscripts collection from 2011, or the accompanying TV series, to be dazzled by phenomenal illuminations or intricate pen-flourished initials. There is, however, a real danger that in focusing predominantly on these examples […]
Books of Hours are perhaps the most familiar of all medieval manuscripts. Their intricate miniatures have become a universal symbol of European art and culture before the advent of the printing press – and the stock-in-trade for every producer of ‘traditional’ Christmas cards. They were the first books to be mass-produced: commercial workshops, centered on […]
Exeter medievalist Eddie Jones has been awarded AHRC funding for an international research network to explore the remarkable intellectual and spiritual legacy of Syon Abbey. Syon, the Birgittine monastery of monks and nuns founded by King Henry V in 1415 was a focus for intellectual and religious renewal in England in the century before the […]
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