![]() Such imperfections are not uncommon in medieval parchment although they sometimes were repaired, in this case, the scribe simply worked around it. Note also the large hole in the parchment near the center of the page. Such glosses represent the origin of the modern footnote. Note that some of the glosses are keyed to the text by pilcrow marks, that is, paragraph marks. The opening of the book of Leviticus is marked by a large ornamental initial for the word “Vocavit”. Both glosses are written in a smaller script that the text of Scripture proper. In this case, the commentary takes two forms, first, an interlinear gloss (the original form of “reading between the lines”) and a marginal gloss. The text of Scripture is accompanied by a gloss, that is, a commentary. The manuscript, however, presents more than just one of the books of the bible. The folio you see here comes from a late twelfth-century copy of the Old Testament book of Leviticus, formerly in the library of the abbey of St. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. ![]() Lifting the strip of silk to reveal the image would have added to the aura of revelation. The irregular pricking above the initial marks the place where a silk guard that protected the initial, now lost, was sewn into the manuscript. The prick marks are clearly visible in the left- and right-hand margin as well as in the upper and lower margins, where they mark the locations of the vertical rulings. The rubric identifies the text as the chant for the first Sunday in Advent, the traditional opening of the liturgical year. The dove of the Holy Spirit at the upper left represents his inspiration, identifying him as God’s amanuensis. The Pope writes on a scroll rather than on a book per se. The initial on folio 1 recto shows the supposed author of the Roman liturgy, Gregory the Great, in the guise of a medieval author and scribe, seated at his writing desk, pen and scraper in hand. Very often such prickings have been trimmed due to rebinding.įor an example of pricking, see this single leaf from the Missal of Noyon cathedral in northeastern France, illuminated ca. Although ruling sometimes was carried out using an instrument known as a rake, most often scribes pricked holes (known as prickings) along the edges (inner and outer margins for horizontal rulings, upper and lower margins for vertical rulings) to place the lines that in turn would guide the scribe. Although the number of lines per page can vary, very often it remains identical throughout a well-constructed manuscript. Given how many manuscripts have been rebound and hence trimmed, it is as or more important to measure the written space than it is to measure the dimensions of the volume per se. Ruling defined not only the written space, known as the justification, corresponding to the text block, it also defined the number and spacing of lines. ![]() ![]() Before most manuscripts were written - certainly any manuscript of a certain quality - the pages had to be prepared by ruling.
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