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…
Category: Ælfwine’s Prayerbook
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…
‘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. …
Now open: Anglo-Saxon Exhibition at the British Library
Hwæt! The British Library’s new exhibition, Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, has now opened. I have had the great privilege of working alongside the curators, being one of the first to see the completed exhibition, and of celebrating the official opening. A number of the manuscripts which I have written about in my blogposts are…
Not Angles but angels
According to the Venerable Bede, the evangelisation of the southern English was proposed by a Pope with a pun. In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the story goes that Pope Gregory I was walking through the market of Rome when he saw some slave boys with striking looks and hair. What people, he…
Egyptian Days and Ayurvedic Man: medical cultural connections
One of the advantages of working in central London is the sheer number of interesting exhibitions and other events going on all around me. The other day I wandered into the Wellcome Collection to see if they had anything interesting to see, and was rewarded with a free exhibition called Ayurvedic Man: Encounters with Indian…
How many colours were there in a medieval rainbow?
This is the sign of my covenant, that I make between me and you and all living creatures for all generations, that is that I will set my rainbow in the clouds and it will be a sign of my covenant between me and the earth: when I cover the heavens with the clouds, then…
In the Seven Sleepers’ den
There must have been many people who have come across this line from John Donne’s seventeenth-century poem and wondered who the Seven Sleepers might have been – or why the poet might have snorted there. The second question has a quick answer: it simply means ‘snored’. But who were the Seven Sleepers? In June last…
Adam, agate and amulets: a medieval general knowledge quiz
What is the connection between Adam’s navel and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s left ear? This was the first question that was asked in the first episode of the long-running British comedy quiz QI, which has been producing one series for each letter of the alphabet since the A-series in 2003. Of course, the whole point…
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 