Codex Marginalia

Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 until his death in 721, is the named maker of the gospel-book that bears his island's name — yet the colophon of Aldred, two centuries his junior, is our only witness. What can the ductus of a single hand, working alone by candle & quill upon some two-hundred-and-fifty-eight folios of vellum, tell us of the rhythm of the early medieval scriptorium? In this essay we follow the trembling of his bowl-strokes through eight years of labour…

In the lower margins of the Smithfield Decretals (BL Royal 10 E IV, c. 1340), an armoured hare rides a snail into single combat. The image is at once absurd, devotional and political — a triangulation typical of the bas-de-page tradition. This essay considers the snail-and-knight motif as an index of late medieval anxiety, drawing upon some forty manuscripts from English, French & Flemish workshops…