Books for Research

Picked up copies of "The History of English Handwriting AD 700 - 1400" by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson and "Parker Chronicle and Laws Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 173" from the Early English Text Society Original Series.

The History of English Handwriting is taken from an off print of the original article which was first delivered in 1899 to the Bibliographical Society and then published in the Society's Transactions the following year.  Tinger of the Stripe, the publishing company to do this version has added additional illustrations.  Over all this should be a short interesting read.

Having a hard copy of the Parker Chronicle is nice, as the images I had just didn't have the resolution to get a good look at the calligraphy.  The different hands in the Parker Chronicle is very similar to the other Anglo-Saxon/Old English hands I found in other manuscripts.  The differences are in little flourishes.

For my History project, I think I'm going to be combining most of the flourishes I like the best from the different Anglo-Saxon calligraphy.  I've done a test run using a cartage pen and the hand that's used on the Beowulf manuscript.  Over all, it went rather well, with only a few mistakes.  I'll be making some changes to my plan that will help create a better finished project.

The Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts has been a wonderful source for having a lot of good links to various Old English Manuscripts. Old English List

Isaac

Sharp Change of Direction

I'm making some profound changes to my book project idea.

While doing some more searching for digital facsimiles on the web, I ran across one of the many Anglo-Saxon chronicles. It's known by several names, the Parker Chronicle, the Winchester Chronicle, or Manuscript 173, and I found it here at Parker Library on the Web.
Image of f 11 R:

I've decided to attempt a few quires, or loose booklets, based on this manuscript for a "History" theme arts and science comp that's coming up in December. I'm only planning on quires right now as I'm still working on learning the book binding arts, and making the quires is one of the first steps in making the book.  I also don't know if I have the time to do all the calligraphy.  I think I've nearly pulled together all the information I want to include right now, so it's time to work on my calligraphy and layout.

Isaac

*chirp chirp*

Did way to much inkle weaving the other weekend.  Did so much that my hands hurt and the joints were really stiff for most of a week.   Note to self: Weave off and on through out a week, don't do a full band in a single day.

Other then recovering and getting stuff done like house work, I have put in some time inking designs.  I need to go get copies made of a few items for cut and paste and even some color tests.

Yet another Project

Another new project.  Yea, just what I needed, another project. hehe

I've been mainly working on this one during lunch breaks at work well at least the drawing of the pages.  I've decided to do a small book.  Yea, a book.  I've been doing some research into book binding, nothing to deep yet, but it's been turning the gears in the head.  So, I've decided to tackle something smaller, it's going to be about a 5 x 7 in page size.  It will be in the style of Taymoth Hours or the Yates Thompson 13, a book of hours from the 2nd quarter of the 14th century.  It can be found here. I've gotten 34 pages sketched out and I've started to lay out the calligraphy. 

I'm still working on charter designs.  I've got the cleaned up and inked.  I need to make a run to the copy shop and then do some more cut and paste.

I've also got the inkle loom out and been doing some weaving.  Making some bands to go on the T-tunics that Ginger's made.

Isaac