Amazing books of the Middle Ages: 6 examples of non-standard antique copies

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the era Late Middle Ages the book was considered to a greater extent not to be an indicator of the owner's scholarship, but of his high social status. Each copy was made by hand and equated almost to a work of art. And if the book was also non-standard, then its value increased significantly. This review presents examples of unique old books that surprise you not with their content, but with their appearance.

Heart shaped songbook

In the late Middle Ages, heart-shaped books were popular. Often they were filled with entertainment rather than religious content. We are talking about songbooks in the form of hearts.

Rotundus Codex

This miniature masterpiece called Rotundus Codex dates back to 1480. It is a book of hours written in Latin and French. It is made in a non-standard round shape. The diameter of the booklet is only 9 cm and the length of the spine is 3 cm. On 266 pages, an unknown author has depicted 30 unique capital letters. Now this masterpiece of the 15th century is in the city library of the German city of Hildesheim.

Belt book

The waist book was so called because it was worn at the waist. A piece of leather served as a continuation of the book and was plugged into a person's belt or belt. Moreover, the book hung upside down, so you could read it without taking it off your belt. Similar books were popular in the 15th and 16th centuries in Germany and the Netherlands.

Double-sided book "dozado"

Similar double-sided books were used in the 16th and 17th centuries. Their unusual binding was called dos-a-dos (dosado). This method was often used in the creation of the Old and New Testaments.

A book that can be read in six different ways

This book is a more complex form of the previous one. It can be read in six different ways. In other words, it contains 6 different books. This ingenious creation was created in Germany in the 16th century. It contains religious texts from the past, including the Small Catechism by Martin Luther. The book is now kept in the Strängnäs library (Sweden).

Book on the "leg"

In the 17th century, books weighed more than they do now. The children's alphabet was a piece of paper enclosed in a frame on a leg. Thus, the child could clamp a piece of wood between his legs and raise the alphabet to the required distance in front of his eyes. When libraries began to appear in Europe, then books, because of their high cost, were chained. Today it seems wild, but in medieval libraries, shelves were equipped with special rings for chains, which were long enough to work with a book, but at the same time it was impossible to take it out of the room.