Tuija Ainonen

Letter O on square background filled in purple with white highlights and framed in thin light purple, red and green frame. Inside multicoloured O there is a portrait of Christ with cruciform halo, holding an empty scroll in his both hands. He is dressed in blueish-purple and white, has a dark brown beard and long hair. His eyes are looking up to the right. Background is filled in with red. Gold highlights the halo and both the right and left curve of the letter O. Image is a detail from Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 380, f. 27r

One of our treasures is the sole surving copy of Robert of Cricklade's (OSA, prior of St Frideswide, Oxford | d. after 1188) 'Speculum fidei' (Mirror of Faith)

Christ is pictured with pensive eyes & an empty scroll; what could he be thinking?

CCCC MS 380, f. 27r
tinyurl.com/2am9zv2t
#MedievalMSS

Almost the 400th anniversary of the Cambridge bookfish!

A miniature of the construction of the Tower of Babel, from Boccaccio's Des cas de nobles hommes et femmes (Add MS 35321).

The British Library’s Medieval MSS team now have a presence on Bluesky @blmedieval.bsky.social

Follow for updates as we restore more of our digitised content online!

Story of pivotal English battle on show at Lincoln Castle The medieval Chronica Majora recalls the victory that prevented a French takeover of the country.

Visitors to Lincoln Castle have the chance to see a medieval book highlighting the role the city played in shaping English history

Chronica Majora includes the story of the Battle of Lincoln in 1217, which turned the tide of the First Baron's War

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Cataloging is complete for 792 manuscripts in the collection of Johann Christian Senckenberg Library, Frankfurt University, Germany, microfilmed by HMML in 1989–1991. Many of the manuscripts were relocated from religious communities closed during the #Reformation.

Learn more: https://bit.ly/4b0Uit4

Vacancies - St John's College, Cambridge St John’s is a large community of more than 150 Fellows and 250 staff who all help us to be an inspiring place to live, learn, teach, research and work.

Currently advertising two fixed term parental leave posts: Special Collections Librarian (13 months; £43,622-£49,097 - closes 9 March) and Special Collections Assistant (6 months; £30,508-£33,096 - closes 7 April). It's a great chance to work with a brilliant collection jobs.joh.cam.ac.uk

Chronica Majora – Lincoln Castle Picture of The Chronica Majora on display at Lincoln Castle

We're delighted to loan Matthew Paris's (d.1259) 'Chronica Majora' to Lincoln Castle exhibition

See the Siege of Lincoln in 1217 displayed along with Magna Carta - visit these two stars while you can!
www.lincolncastle.com/events/event...

CCCC MS 16ii, ff. 55v-56r
tinyurl.com/mre3xwp4
#MedievalMSS

Still time to register for tomorrow’s virtual visit to Vatican Apostolic Library!

Peterborough Psalter and Bestiary is making a visit to London!
Why not drop by to say hi

The manuscript is on loan at a new exhibition:
The Painted Tower: Conservation in Context at Longthorpe
Courtauld Gallery, 26 Feb–27 May 2026
courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh...

CCCC MS 53, ff. 7v-8r
#medievalMSS

When you stare into a manuscript and the manuscript stares into you

Snippet of a hand-written text with the word 'received' spelled <Receiv,d>

Does someone know anything about the practice of using a comma instead of an apostrophe? I've so far come across two writers doing this: one is late-18th century, and the other (pictured here) unknown but I reckon late-18th to mid-19th century. #spelling #punctuation #manuscripts

Introduction to Making Medieval Manuscripts (Practice Based) This course introduces students to the complicated and messy processes of production through which pre-modern manuscripts were created. It offers a mixture of talks and practical sessions that give…

The “messy” course returns to London’s palaeography summer school, 8-12 June. A chance to make your own medieval manuscript. Places are limited so book now (tell your friends)! #medievalsky taught by the amazing @saracharles.bsky.social @stevelawesarts.bsky.social 👇🎨🫟
palaeography.uk/study/short-...

Making of the Bible: Texts and Languages The new Parker Library Exhibition, 'Making of the Bible: Texts and Languages', tells the story of the Christian Bible as a book in England through some of the medieval manuscripts and early-print trea...

Making of the Bible: Texts and Languages
www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/mak...

Lent '26 exhibition offers a number of medieval MSS & early-print treasures from our shelves

A wonderful chance to see various English bible translations: Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale & Matthew Parker's Bishops' Bible

Screenshot of a review, with buttons for downloads in different form

screenshot of a review

Really pleased with this review of Katarzyna Kapitan's edition of the Hrómundur Saga in the @tayoxford.bsky.social Editions series run by @emmahuber.bsky.social & myself as a not-for-profit open access initiative muse.jhu.edu/article/965571 #TEI #xml @oxmedstud.bsky.social @bkhistoxford.bsky.social

SIMS / Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures Collaborative Fellowship A new SIMS fellowship in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg.

SIMS / Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures Collaborative Fellowship. Take advantage of the expertise and manuscript resources at Penn Libraries and CSMC’s expertise in the Humanities, material analysis and/or Computer Science. Apply by Friday, May 1, 2026.

🔗: https://bit.ly/4aE3wec

The graph spans 1580-1719 in 20-year periods. The script categories shown are "Secretary", "Mixed", and "Italic". Secretary script is at nearly 60% in the first period, falls to about 20% by 1620-1639, is below 5% by 1660-1679, and falls to zero by the end of the century. Mixed scripts occur throughout, with their heyday from 1620 to 1679, during which nearly 10% of the letters are written in Mixed hands. Italic starts at about 40%, but is nearly 50% by the second period, and dominates strongly thereafter.

Here's a graph showing the primary script used in early modern English letters plotted over time. This graph is based on 3,489 letters, 22% by women, with decent social coverage although lower ranks are underrepresented.

Assistant Professorship in Medieval Literature (temporary cover) at University of Cambridge Apply now for the Assistant Professorship in Medieval Literature (temporary cover) role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.

An opportunity for a medievalist to join the team at Cambridge: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQQ346/a...

Congrats to the amazing Oxford Conservation Consortium team for their new article in the @araukie.bsky.social journal on their projects to rehouse estates and livings records of @lincoln.ox.ac.uk and other colleges! 📜🎉
doi.org/10.1080/2325...

You’ve hear of dos-a-dos but have you seen…..

DOS-DOS-A-DOS-A-DOS?!

Medieval Worlds Residential 9-10 April 2026 Nominations by teachers of Year 12 (Y13/S5) students; includes free accommodation and food. Deadline for nominations 2 March 2026 (midday)

We're looking forward to the Medieval Worlds Residential, hosted here by @corpuscambridge.bsky.social on 9-10 April for Year 12 (Y13/S5) students

What is it? Check College Outreach's Instagram: tinyurl.com/5n94vtk3
or
www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/medieval-wor...
DL for nominations: Monday 2 March at noon!

And bursaries are available thanks to @bibsoc.bsky.social!

Hey #medievalsky #manuscriptsky - do you have any examples of codices made into scrolls or rolls? Any genre.

A lovely email to receive first thing on a Monday: my article 'Poet-Bishop and Harlot Saint: Marbod of Rennes's Life of Thais in Context' was selected as Feminae's Article of the Month! inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/Arti...

Medieval Manuscripts Seminar The seminar covers current research into the intellectual history of book production in the Middle Ages

The first medieval manuscripts seminar of the term is next Tuesday. It’s a hybrid lecture. Eyal Poleg will be talking about The Science of Erasures #MedievalSky 👇
ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

March 6 is the deadline to apply for Introduction to #Arabic #Manuscript Studies—a virtual, one-week intensive course held from June 22 to 26, 2026.

Apply today: hmml.org/programs/arabic-mss-studies

French pronunciation truly horrifies me, coming from language tradition where everything that is written is pronounced!

'Ail' in all its forms remains unpronouncable to me.
I feel the agony of medieval scribes who heard and understood the word, and then tried to figure out how to write it out

It's fun to go down these rabbit holes 🐰🕳️ when avoi... when making minor tweaks to the Parker Library On the Web manuscript descriptions

Today I'll correct the misattribution of: Bull granting Thomas Becket (was: Bourgchier) archbishop of Canterbury license to canonize Anselm of Canterbury

plain black text on white background providing typographical variants for Middle French 'ail' aka garlic

The amazing @a-ndictionary.bsky.social was invaluable for understanding this:
anglo-norman.net/entry/ail

The variety of plural forms for 'ail' is staggering. If you thought modern French spelling was challenging, it's always fun to discover Middle French!

Excerpt of a page in medieval manuscript containing information about herbs and their uses. Right hand column contains the text in brownish-black ink, with a capital S in red with blue pen-flourishes that starts the paragraph on 'allia' / garlic. Left hand column contains summary of main medical uses of garlic, written in red ink by the same hand has the main text. Left column is occasionally intersperced with translation glosses of the main headword, added by a later hand. Black ink reads 'Haus .Garlec.' to indicate the Middle French and Middle English words for 'allia'. The Parker Library, CCCC MS 438, f. 21v

Trilingualism in action: Latin book on herbs & their uses gets translation annotations of some head words to French & English

Things I learned: 'haus' (Middle French) is a (rare) plural form of 'allia' (Latin), aka 'garlec' (Middle English)

CCCC MS 438, f. 21v
parker.stanford.edu/parker/catal...