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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Monastic Pressmarks

OK, I promised I would sneak a little something in. There is a set of new script samples of cursive writing from the 14th and 15th centuries, as found in monastic pressmarks, basically inscriptions in books as to where they are stored in the library. These are interesting on a few counts. They show the diversity of cursive hands, but they also show something of medieval monastic library practice, and they point out avenues which have been used by researchers for discovering the history of books.
I have made some minor changes to the frame structure of the site, and before you say you hate it anyway and I should throw it out, I might point out that it is only there so that I can do some of these reorganisings when certain sections get overloaded, as I only have to change the navigation frame, not umpty gazillion pages. The script index now has its own section, as that is what a lot of people use the most, and it is getting kind of large. The navigation frame is wider, as I figure you have all got wider screens than the one that it was originally designed for. If the site comes up looking really weird next time you load it, just try clearing your cache so that everything fits again. If your favourite section has somehow got lost in the wash, please let me know.

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