"Hidden Hands" by Mary Wellesley

 A book about mediaeval manuscripts sounds dry as dust. I loved it. From the visceral description of how parchment is made from goatskin (including a photograph of the author having a go) to the wonderful two-language quotes from manuscript so you can try your hand at translating Old English and check how accurate you were, this book is a delight. I learned so much!

• Parchment was invented when a bibliophile ruler of Pergamon was unable to import papyrus from nearby Egypt: pergamenum is the Latin word from which we get parchment. (Prologue)
• The closely related vellum is technically made from calf-skin (veal) (Prologue)
• When making parchment the dried goatskins are stretched across a frame called a 'herse', a word related to the word 'hearse' which originally meant "a frame for carrying lighted tapers over a coffin". (Prologue)
• You can determine the social status of old skeletons by measuring the amount of radiocarbon in their bones because higher-status individual ate more fish (Ch 3)
• Manuscript artists were called limners short for luminers which meant illuminator from the Latin lumen meaning light. (Ch 4)
• Surreal monsters are a characteristic of the pictures on manuscripts dating from the Gothic period (1200 - 1350) (Ch 4)
• "The rise of universities in England from around the twelfth century created a demand for books outside of any specifically monastic context" (Ch 5)
• The word 'brethele' which means a worthless person or a pauper is related to the word 'brothel'. (Ch 5)
• The word 'author' is related to the word 'authority'. (Ch 7)

If I have a criticism it is that towards the end of the book, especially in chapter seven, the author drifts away from talking about the manuscripts and focuses on mediaeval authors, especially women, whom she regards as having been ignored by later generations of misogynist scholars. The blurb on the back cover describes this as "an insistent emphasis on the early role of women as authors and artists". But I was reading the book to learn about the texts, not to speculate on their producers.

But there is much else in this book to treasure, including fifty beautiful colour plates and a most wonderful glossary.

An interesting history of some fascinating artefacts.

Selected quotes:

• "Literary fame appears to be a fleeting thing." (Ch 6)

November 2023; 280 pages

This review was written by the author of

Bally and Bro, Motherdarling and The Kids of God