Deep Dive Why so many medieval manuscripts feature doodles – and what they reveal Through making their mark, ephemeral humans were inscribing themselves into the book's eternal living history ...

“I often take 15 students to a library for three days, and we carefully open up the bindings of medieval books to reveal what is inside. “We have found many fascinating, rare manuscripts this way.

To “doodle” means to draw or scrawl aimlessly, and the history of the word goes back to the early 20th century. Scribbling haphazard words, squiggly lines and mini-drawings, however, is a much older ...

Social Media Medieval monster-drawing monks and why it’s ok to hate-follow shitty people on Twitter January 25, 2019 - 1:39 pm What would a social media feed be without monsters?

A new analysis of ancient DNA found in medieval books from European abbeys reveals that these seals came from the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, where they were hunted in the 12th and 13th centuries ...

Several strange creatures lurk within the pages of medieval books. But perhaps none are more disturbing than the lions. Lions were a symbol of strength and sovereignty for the Roman Empire, and ...

But If you read a lot of books or watch a lot of movies with pseudo-Medieval settings, you may come away with a mistaken impression that you know what life in the Middle Ages was like.

Medieval Medical Books Could Hold the Recipe for New Antibiotics A team of medievalists and scientists look back to history—including a 1,000-year-old eyesalve recipe—for clues ...

A version of this article appears in print on April 22, 2025, Section D, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Sealed Deals: Covering These Medieval Books, a Shaggy Surprise.

As de Hamel tells it, the history of the manuscripts club begins with medieval bibliophiles such as St. Anselm (circa 1033-1109), the archbishop of Canterbury following the Norman Conquest, whose ...