Complaints of Medieval monks

I find the last one particularly touching.

This is sad! O little book! A day will come in truth when someone over your page will say, "The hand that wrote it is no more"

I often think about that when reading an author who has passed away and I know there will be no further works from them.

ishtar'sgate said:

I find the last one particularly touching.

This is sad! O little book! A day will come in truth when someone over your page will say, "The hand that wrote it is no more"

I often think about that when reading an author who has passed away and I know there will be no further works from them.

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A moving quote and sentiment.

What a great site. Thanks, Eddyz Aquila, for this thread.

It's interesting to follow the link in the article to the one on Isaac Newton--he must have been a little hellion in his teenage years.

ishtar'sgate said:

I find the last one particularly touching.

This is sad! O little book! A day will come in truth when someone over your page will say, "The hand that wrote it is no more"

I often think about that when reading an author who has passed away and I know there will be no further works from them.

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So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Eddyz Aquila said:

Too bad there's only a few quotes, I can only imagine what some of the more "colourful" monks have written on other manuscripts.

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Especially if they had access to forbidden manuscripts such as the poems of Catullus and epigrams of Martial.

donroc said:

Especially if they had access to forbidden manuscripts such as the poems of Catullus and epigrams of Martial.

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I suspect you might have been influenced by Umberto Eco, making a bit of an in-joke.

Catullus and Martial weren't forbidden. In fact, as Eco knows full well, the medieval Latin grammars use some of the juicier bits of both as sententiae.

There are in fact a number of famous mss. of Catullus in particular, with all the works we attribute to him, plus a bunch of others that are spurious. There's this one at Bodley that numerous generations of medievalists have had assigned as an exmplar.

There are earlier mss. as well, including ninth century Irish glosses from monks trying to work out the dirtier bits. Peter Dronke is the authority for the role of Catullus, Martial, Virgil, and Horace on medieval Latin.

Thank you, Med, good to know. I assumed certain clerics had access but not the general clergy or the few literate in the 9th century, setting for my near-polished WIP about Bodo, the Apostate.

9th century? Oh, yes and very yes. Make haste, polish, sell -- I want to read this!

Me likes this one... As the harbor is welcome to the sailor, so is the last line to the scribe. Still true today...

My current reading fascination is with Bernard Cornwell Historical Fantasies. I have to wonder if he found some of these quotes in his research because in the current book I am reading, "Excalibur," the monk scribing the tale talks about bad ink/parchment, poor lighting, and how cold it is all the time, not to mention the bad posture...

I thought of that, too, reading the link. I think it's the writer thing, but I find these little snapshots of life endlessly fascinating. I could see myself writing a story or novel around such a detail.

This made me chuckle. How little things have changed over the century! When I am writing minutes from a meeting, I scribble similar things.