(Untitled)

[aelfgifu]

Seven severely stupid questions:

Working on the novel again. I have a few stupid glitches…things I ought to know, but can’t locate. If any of you know any of these, chime in and you will get….okay- no prizes, just gratitude! I should finish making up my midterms!

1) I believe medieval manuscripts were salted to help them dry. Were they, and when

Comments

[alassenya]

1. Not sure about the salt (will try to find out). Most documents were rolled up fairly soon after the seal was impressed, and the roll was fairly large in diameter, so I think the seals just curled up with the parchment. The seals were often small - not like the big decorative "wafer" seals on modern documents - so as long as no pressure was put on them directly they would be all right

[alassenya]

Andrew Dalby's "Dictionary of Languages" gives the following sequence for counting sheep in Yorkshire and Lancashire:
yan, tan, tethera, methera, pimp, teezar, leezar, cattera, horna, dik, yandik, tandik, tetherdik, metherdik, bumpit, yan-a-bumpit, tan-a-bumpit, tetherabumpit, metherabumpit, jigot.

He attributes this sequence to the celtic languages that predated the Anglo-Saxons - Welsh is the main remnant.

[dreamflower02]

I've never heard of *salt* being used on MSS--I've usually heard of *sand* being used for that purpose. (And as a calligrapher myself, I think I would have come across mention of it. I don't recall seeing anything about salt in any of my books.)

However--just to be sure, you might try posting those first questions at the sca_scribes community. Someone else may have come across such a reference.

[teffania]

just passing by...

1. Most important doccuments for the majority of the medieval period used seal tags - bit of ribbon/braid or paper that enabled the seal to dangle from the end of the doccument. The parchment was folded up or cut at hte bottom before inserting the tag in it to prevent anyone adding extra lines to it. You should be able to google some pictures now you know the name for it.

Notes to neighbours might have had what we classically think of as a wax seal though. a small blob of wax put on the outside that broke when the letter (folded or rolled - I'm not sure which) was opened. I've never seen an example of this but I've read one reference to this, and the common existance of personal seal rings (much smaller than the big seals used for official doccuments) implies this was common.