From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V5 #70 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Saturday, March 10 2001 Volume 05 : Number 070 ======================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with unsubscribe scribes-digets in the body of the message. Leave the subject line blank. Do not include any additional text. [scribes]: Scriby Renaissance [scribes]: The Irish Scribe Re: [scribes]: The Irish Scribe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 00:58:50 From: "Elyse Boucher" Subject: [scribes]: Scriby Renaissance Greetings from the humble scribe Merouda Pendray! Lovely post, Elianora! I understood Geva to be talking strictly about scrivners rather than painters. One thing I am not fond of is the SCA's use of the term "Scribe" to describe a person who does calligraphy and illumination. It's innaccurate; period scribes wrote. They might also paint, but it wasn't called "scribe" duties. There is a really great book called "Tudor Artists" that I think you would like; features a study of the work of Sergeant Painters and so forth during the reigns of the Tudors; a splendid read with about 100 examples of period illuminated documents, mostly plea rolls. I'll look up the whole cite for you as soon as I can. I am glad that you made the point that Tudor painters were actually painters of all sorts. Today you're illuminating the document for the King's special friend, tomorrow you are painting disposable banners for the King's pageant, the day after you're painting the stage set for the masque, and the day after that your doing the preliminary sketches for a portrait. My personal feeling is that a female making a living based on her ability to write would be a personal secretary, but there is evidence that independent producers of documents also existed. Sometimes, the king promised you a bennie, and it was up to you to get the paperwork done; this would often require you to engage a scrivner to write it out. "Scrivner," as a class of occupation, continues at least into colonial America, so it certainly existed in Elizabethian England. Even if you could write well enough for daily life, a document to be signed by the king had to be professional looking. The 15th and 16th century also sees the "heraldic scribe" coming into existance; that is, the artist engaged by the College of Heralds to help produce the documents reflecting the Grants of Arms made by the Authority of the college rather than directly from the Crown. Spiff, eh? If you've got Joyce Irene Whalley handy, one of her books has an example of a book of prayers done by a Scottish Woman, dated in the early 1600's, I think, slightly post period, in the grey area, but close enough to period to suggest it is a carry over of ealier practice. I wish I could remember the name of the book off the top of my head; that's another thing I'll have to look up for you as soon as I have the tiem. ::sigh:: Geeze, I gotta go. I'd much rather talk about this with y'all. :-) Your Servant, Merouda _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 21:11:57 -0500 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: [scribes]: The Irish Scribe "My hand is weary with writing; my sharp great point is not thick; my slender beaked pen juts forth a beetle-hued draught of bright blue ink. A steady stream of wisdom springs from my well-coloured neat fair hand; on the page it pours its draught of ink on the green skinned holly. I send my dripping little pen unceasingly over an assemblage of books of great beauty, to enrich the possessions of men of art - whence my hand is weary from writing." - -Irish Traditional, 11th century Just thought I would share with you this little bit of writing from an anonymous 11th century Irish scribe, describing so well what it is like to be working on a piece of calligraphy. How well we must all know these feelings as described above! ~Saradwen Midrealm =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 22:48:40 -0600 From: "Corinna Taylor/Al Frank" Subject: Re: [scribes]: The Irish Scribe If you can find a copy of "Anathema" by Marc Drogin, you'll find a lot of such quotes, though most run more in the vein of "My quill is split and the vellum is hairy; thank God I've finished!" Corinna - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sally Burnell" To: "Scribes" Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 8:11 PM Subject: [scribes]: The Irish Scribe > "My hand is weary with writing; my sharp great point is not thick; my > slender beaked pen juts forth a beetle-hued draught of bright blue ink. A > steady stream of wisdom springs from my well-coloured neat fair hand; on the > page it pours its draught of ink on the green skinned holly. I send my > dripping little pen unceasingly over an assemblage of books of great beauty, > to enrich the possessions of men of art - whence my hand is weary from > writing." > > -Irish Traditional, 11th century > > Just thought I would share with you this little bit of writing from an > anonymous 11th century Irish scribe, describing so well what it is like to > be working on a piece of calligraphy. How well we must all know these > feelings as described above! > > ~Saradwen > Midrealm > > =================================================================== > To unsubscribe from this list, send email to > with a blank Subject: line and > unsubscribe scribes > in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in > the body. > =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V5 #70 ****************************