Anathema!: Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses

by Marc Drogin

MEDIEVAL CALLIGRAPHY Its History and Technique
Marc Drogin

“Vastly rewarding and illuminating. . . . Drogin, a professional medieval calligrapher and illuminator as well as a writer and teacher, is obviously steeped to the eyebrows in the lore of medieval manuscripts and their makers; yet he carries his erudition lightly, infecting his readers with his own enthusiasm. . . . As a manual for the practice of medieval calligraphy, his book is as comprehensive and instructive as his historical survey.” - American Artist

“Drogin has produced a very fine book and given us an account based on long experience and a deep knowledge, not to say love, of the subject.” - Eranos

An “excellent instructional guide for calligraphers. . . . Discusses the lives and times of medieval scribes and the development of their craft and follows with a brief history of the most important script styles. . . . In the teaching section there are full-page instructional alphabets for twelve different script styles with detailed explanations of how to duplicate them with modern writing tools.” - Manuscripta

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Books About Books, Magic, Christianity

137 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

American writer, illustrator, and medieval calligraphy expert.

Reviews

[Autumn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, humorous book about the curses medieval scribes put at the end of their manuscripts. Includes a brief description of how the manuscripts were created and why they were valuable, and a whole lot of curses themselves. I would recommend to anyone interested in books, medieval or otherwise. It makes you appreciate how easy it is to access books in the 21st century. My favourite curse is below.

Who folds a leafe downe
ye divel toaste browne,
Who makes marke or blotte
ye divel roate hot
Who stealeth thisse boke
ye divel shall cooke

[Tamara]

Awesome! May everyone who never returned books to me be devoured by killer pigs of the Rhine!

It does give a sense both of how inacessible information was then, (a library might consists of...two volumes) but also of the way society did tick along, with systems in place for copying and borrowing books, complete with etiquette, convention, humor, frustration, etc.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic read! Mixed with humor and wit, this book tells a history of the manuscript, its role in medieval society, and of the life of those responsible for their creation, most often scribes in monasteries. From there, the author describes the nature of book curses and why the scribe, after carefully spending months or years on a single manuscript, would take the time to lay upon the book they had just completed. A unique history of the book, lovingly and hilariously told.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before the printing press, making books was tedious.

Really tedious.

Drogin writes "The library of Cambridge University, remarkable for its 122 books in 1424, labored for a half-century to increase the number to 330."

The unfathomable convenience of digital text was many centuries away, and there was nothing like digital rights management (DRM) to protect scribes' considerable book-copying labors. However, "Medieval man had the ultimate solution: he who had placed his existence in the hands of the Almighty decided that there was room there for his books as well. And so they were placed under God's protection".

Curses were written into the books to protect against those that would damage or steal them. Many asserted the curse of anathema (excommunication and eternal damnation). A typical example from Dogin's collection:

Hie est liber Sancti Benedicti abbatis . . . coenobii; si quis eum aliquo ingenio non redditurus abstraxerit, cum Juda proditore, Anna et Caipha atque Pilato damnationem accipiat.’ amen.

This is the book of Saint Benedictus the abbot . . . at the monastery; if anyone by any means takes this book away without intending to return it, may he suffer eternal damnation with Judas the betrayer, with Annas and Caiphas and Pilate. Amen.

Basically an EULA, only shorter in expression and longer in consequences.

Even after the automation that came with the printing press, there were some notable anathema examples. Drogin writes "Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) issued a Papal Bull that promised automatic excommunication to any printer who might alter the text of the Vulgate Bible he had authorized to be printed. For good measure he ordered the printers to set the anathema in type at the beginning of the Bible. When the Bible was published, however, it contained so many errors that, when an attempt to save it by pasting in corrections failed, the edition was destroyed. Disconcerting as this may have been to Sixtus, it is even more so to the generally held belief that the closer one is to God, the more efficacious one's anathematic ferocity."

Given the religious context throughout, I expected Drogin to mention John of Patmos's Book of Revelation ending, but he did not. So I'll include the curse here:
"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll."

[Ron Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've discovered my new bookplate: “Qui te furetur,/in culum percutietur.” (“May he who steals you then be sent/A blow upon his fundament.”)

This book contains a good deal that is humorous, but it also gives you insight into how valuable books were in pre-modern times. Awash in books of dubious quality, it is hard for us to imagine a time when people could be, and were, hung for stealing books. Libraries were tiny things: in the 13th century, “the library of Oxford University consisted of a few books kept in a chest under St. Mary’s Church.” A Bavarian official offered a monastery the revenue of an entire town in perpetuity for one of their manuscripts. He was turned down not because the monks thought it an unfair price, but because they knew he could take the town back at any time.

Monks put great effort into creating fair copies of manuscripts. Prior Petrus, about 1090, said of the copiers’ task that it “dims your eyes, makes your back ache, and knits your chest and belly together – it is a terrible ordeal for the whole body.” Monks often wrote crowded around their cloisters, from the Latin claustrum, from which we derive ‘claustrophobia.’

So, naturally, monks took the opportunity to beg people to take good care of their manuscripts, not to steal them, and to complain vociferously about the work involved in completing their valued documents.

[Denise Kettering · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a basic history of the book and provides examples of book curses intended to keep people from stealing or damaging books. Drogin demonstrates that the reason for the curses was the amount of resources (both natural and human) that it took to produce a book led scribes to use curses to try to keep people from damaging the books. This book is not an in-depth history of the subject, but is an enjoyable and introductory look at book production in the Middle Ages. The work is documented and provides many notes in the original languages alongside translation. Good read for those interested in the history of the book and/or medieval history.

[verbava · Rating 5 out of 5]

марк дрогін назбирав легендарну колекцію середньовічних книжкових проклять. скажімо, отаке, родом із барселонського монастиря:

коли хто вкраде цю книжку або позичить її і не поверне власникові, нехай вона перетвориться на змію в його руках і його вжалить. нехай розіб’є його параліч, і всі його члени хай розпухнуть. нехай мучиться від болю і благає про помилування, і хай не буде кінця цим мукам. нехай книжкові черви їдять його нутрощі, мов черв невмирущий, і коли він нарешті піде на вічне покарання, нехай пекельні вогні вічно поглинають його.

якщо вам треба захистити свою бібліотеку від, наприклад, нечесних позичальників, ця книжка буде абсолютно незамінна.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant topic. TW: there are a lot of curses warning of all the ways you could die by the devil's fire - poker up your ass, turn you on a spit, dancing on red-hot coals. That's assuming you aren't mauled by wild boars during a peaceful shit in the woods.

What really got me thinking was the very realistic descriptions of how inaccessible information was, but also of the way society did tick along, with systems in place for copying and borrowing books with etiquette, humor, and frustration.

https://archive.org/details/anathema-...

[Brenda Hasse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information. A great resource.

[Iqra Tasmiae]

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles...

[Aljan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun to thumb through.

[Rebecca]

Charming book of curses. "If anyone steals this book may he come to the gallows or the rope of Judas."

I didn't read it in detail, so want to come back to this. (So many books, so little time.)