S. Worthen | Weblog

I feel like a real medievalist now. I went to the BL this afternoon and spent time with a restricted-access fourteenth-century manuscript. Some of you have been doing this for years. I designed my PhD to only require primary sources in reproduction and edition, so I never went travelling to archives along the way.

Now that I've started and know how manuscript-requesting works, it'll be easy to pick this work back up post-trip. Bonus: the manuscript is in a very lovely, clear hand. Sure, I have to count minims sometimes just to check if something's a "num" or a "mum", but it's a pleasure to be dealing with something so legible. There's joy in deciphering complicated hands, but then there's also joy in being able to just read.