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Up close and personal with the Bury Bible, an unusual quill knife in a manuscript has sparked the quill knife item on my blog, two Mercians, gloves or not, Nelson's chelengk, craft in London Craft Week, and certainly not the Dark Ages – it's all here! I hope you enjoy this rather eclectic newsletter and hope that everything is well with you. After a rather dismal March with the weather, April looks as if it may have more to offer – we've certainly seen the sun! Patricia.
The Bury Bible – a Real Treasure
 How lucky was I last month to spend a whole afternoon with the second volume of the Bury Bible in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. It is a rare privilege to be able to study such treasures as closely as I was able to, and also to note some interesting calligraphic features to the accents used in the book. So often, because they are simply stunning, more focus is given to twelfth-century Master Hugo's wonderful illuminations with gold and jewel colours, as shown here and more here, but the script is strong enough to stand on its own, and the care taken with the abbreviations is quite amazing. See more on the link.
Quill Knives
 One of the tools for a mediæval scribe would have been a quill knife, a pen knife. This would obviously have been used to cut and shape a pen nib in the blunt tip of a bird's hardened wing feather, but, when writing, the penknife was held in the left hand so that the flat blade of the knife pushed the bumpy surface of vellum and parchment down against the writing surface. It was also to hand to shave a little off the quill nib tip to sharpen it after about half a paragraph of writing, and the knife was used to scrape off any errors from the animal skin surface. But what's required for a good quill knife? There's more on the link.
Admiral Lord Nelson's 'Hatpin'
 It seems that Nelson may well have been quite a flashy dresser! As a reward for the Battle of the Nile, Nelson was presented with this chelengk by Sultan Selim III of Turkey in 1798 and Nelson wore it for the rest of his life. The diamond uprights represented the 13 ships sunk or captured in battle, and the central diamond actually goes round (imagine the sniggers of the cabin boys when this party trick happened!). The jewel was stolen over 50 years ago and it was recreated by Philip Denyer, and the hatters Lock and Co produced a new bicorn hat based on Nelson's actual head measurements which they still had! There's a podcast about the jewel here, and more on the link.
St Guthlac – Saint's Day April 11th
 St Guthlac was a Mercian man (see Æthelflaed below) and spent his early life doing what men in the early eighth century born into the royal dynasty would have done – raiding neighbouring areas and taking part in battles. However, he realised the error of his ways and became a monk, spending a holy life afterwards at Crowland in the Fens. Here he carried out a number of miracles including casting out demons. This image from the Guthlac Roll shows St Guthlac carried to the gates of hell by demons and being given a scourge by St Bartholomew to repel them. There's more on this wonderfully drawn roll and the life of St Guthlac on the great British Library Typepad blogpost on the link.
Making it! – Craftsmanship on Show
 The Heritage Crafts Association and the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust have an exciting day on Wednesday 9th May planned at the Carpenters' Hall as part of London Craft Week. A number of heritage craftspeople including a fan maker, a chair maker, a paper marbler, a wood carver and a disappearing fore-edge painter will be demonstrating from 11am until 2pm. At 3pm John Makepeace OBE will be talking about his design and how he made the Master's chair (this is a ticketed event), and then there is a reception from 5pm to 7pm with demonstrations, again this is a ticketed event. More details on the link.
Æthelflæd, Lady of Mercia
 In this significant year for women – marking 100 years in the UK for women getting the vote (and then only for those over 30 who owned property) – the great British Library Typepad are featuring other important women in history, and Queen Æthelflæd is one. She was the oldest child of Alfred the Great, king of the West Saxons, and married Æthelred, lord of the Mercians. When Æthelred died in 911, Æthelflæd ruled Mercia on her own and even expanded the territory. This year is the 1100th anniversary of her death. There's more about this remarkable woman on the link.
The Dark Ages? – absolutely not!
 The Staffordshire Hoard, consisting of many broken fragments of gold and decorated metals, has revealed a great deal about the high level of skill of craftspeople of the Anglo-Saxon period. Not only is the gold intricately worked, but the jewellery shows a level of craftsmanship that absolutely disproves that this period of time was anything but dark! Underneath carefully cut garnet stones gold foil was often placed which had been etched or punched. This gold then reflected the light and made the jewellery really catch the eye.
White gloves, manuscripts and a spell in purgatory!
 Whenever there's a programme on television showing manuscripts and white gloves are, or are not used, the question afterwards is often why, or why not? The British Library and other informed libraries' policies is not to use gloves when handling manuscripts, but to ensure that hands are clean. Gloves greatly affect the feel and handling of the pages of the manuscript, and often transfer dirt more easily than hands. Also manuscript pages are usually made from animal skin and the natural oils in human skin can be a benefit. This policy is reinforced by the story of Lady Zwedera from the Netherlands who wore white gloves when reading holy books, only to be told that because it was an extravagance, she would suffer in purgatory. White-gloved manuscript handlers – you have been warned! More on the great British Library typepad on the link.
A Hair-Raising Craft
 What do you think this brooch is made of – it looks almost as if it's metallic thread, or perhaps even a textile like silk? In fact it's made out of human hair – weird, but true. For decades after Prince Albert's death, Queen Victoria wore jewellery containing his hair and this became a fashion during this period. At a time when there were too many early deaths it was a way to remember and keep close those who you had lost. Weaving hair into flowers, shapes and jewellery also became a respectable pastime for Victorian ladies. There's more on the link.
Knit One, Purl One to Make a Village
 Mae Aitcheson set up the Cloughmills Crochet Club six years ago, but she probably never thought it would lead to recreating the whole village in wool. The purpose of the Club wasn't only to learn and practise crochet and knitting but also to provide a social hub. However, it resulted in a depiction of houses, cottages, the church, the Orange Hall, the bridge over a small stream and the most wonderful 'pom pom' trees and bushes.
Data Protection – UK/European Legislation
And now for the boring but necessary stuff! New regulations come in next month in the UK and Europe about the ways in which your data is used. Just so that you know, you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time by clicking on the link below, or if you would like me to unsubscribe for you, please do just contact me with 'Unsubscribe' in the heading of your email. Also, for reassurance, your email address will never be passed on to anyone or any other organisation, and the only person who has access to it for the purposes of this newsletter is me, and I gain access to it on my computer which has a security password that only one other person knows.
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