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Showing posts from June 13, 2010

Book curses

Mixing it up a little, I'm going to start including posts about research, including links to interesting finding. This was originally posted on my livejournal blog http://alienorh.livejournal.com I always knew that books were very valuable in period, but the discovery that clerks wrote in "book curses" against anyone who would steal a book amuses me. I glossed over the apparent used of it when I read Chaucer's "House of Fame" Some examples I loved:  "Whoever steals this book let him die the death; let be him be frizzled in a pan; may the falling sickness rage within him; may he be broken on the wheel and be hanged" Placing Middle English in context By Irma Taavitsainen has a chapter where she discuses the use of the genre. Anathema!: Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses‎ by Marc Drogin, apparently also discusses it. "Whoever Alters This, May God Turn His Face from Him on the Day of Judgment": Curses in Anglo-Saxon Le...