The 2017 York Festival of Ideas will be running from 6-18 June, with the title The Story of Things. With a number of the events relating to York’s Anglian era, I was asked to translate a small number of Anglo-Saxon riddles to decorate the promotional bookmarks for this strand of the festival. The three riddles,…
Month: May 2017
Bizarre beasts and naked acrobats! A look inside the Winchcombe Psalter
In recent months, I have been tweeting the occasional image from a manuscript shelved as Cambridge, University Library MS Ff. 1. 23, known as the Winchcombe Psalter. Intrigued by its miniatures, its bilingual nature, and the rather bizarre initials which are used to open the psalms, I have found myself coming back to this manuscript…
A medieval astronomy lesson
If you drilled a hole through the centre of the earth, and dropped a stone down it, what would happen? How big are the Sun, Moon and stars? And, hardest to answer of all, are there any people on the other side of the globe? I’ve been reading up on medieval science. In particular, I’ve…
For the Wynn 