The University of Iowa’s Special Collections paints a colorful picture of medieval books. BY EMMA MCCLATCHEY
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hen one imagines a book from the Middle Ages, they likely picture a hefty religious tome, calligraphed by quill-clutching monks and featuring the kind of gilded, illustrated initials that inspired that one episode of Spongebob. But old books don’t have to glitter to be gold, according to Eric Ensley, medieval scholar and curator of Rare Books and Maps at the University of Iowa’s Special Collections library. One of the jewels of their Middle Ages collection is a stained, crumpled manuscript full of doodles and scribbles, wrapped in an old piece of parchment folded into an envelope, which Ensley compared to a Trapper Keeper. “This is probably a university textbook,” Ensley said—a “cheap copy” of Cicero’s Ad Herennium, a treatise on rhetoric. “This is one that I just can’t believe we have here at Iowa … books like this don’t survive in huge numbers because they were
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used to death.” The book was likely made in the 14th century (the owner wrote down the date, but a bookworm ate a hole right through it) and owned by a student in southern Italy, where Greek, Viking and Middle Eastern cultures collided. “The paper suggests that they had contact with Arab empires at that time because that’s where paper was coming from,” said Ensley, noting paper hadn’t caught on in Europe yet. “So it’s also telling a story of cultural intermixing in the Middle Ages.” As for the marginalia, “Students have been doodling in their notebooks forever.” Ensley fell in love with historic books while working towards his Master’s in library science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He chose Yale to pursue his Ph.D. in English, focusing on history and rare books. His goal is to “humanize the Middle Ages” for students researching the era. “I think when we start to think about people 1,000 years ago, it’s kind of hard to imagine them as human, that they are functioning in a world not so different from our own, that they [had] thoughts and feelings,” he explained. “These were real people with real lived lives. Not everything was gilded letters or really fancy writing. Some of it was really ugly, but cool.” There’s little about the Middle Ages collection at UI that’s ugly; even a French nun’s hand-sized book of funerary chants is made more fascinating by a burn near its binding, suggesting she may have leaned too close to a candle while reading. “We have over 100 medieval items,” Ensley
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Emma McClatchey / Little Village
Doodles, Scribbles and Goldleaf
Have a question on medieval books? Email the expert at eric-ensley@uiowa.edu Everyone, not just University of Iowa students and staff, is welcome to visit Special Collections on the third floor of the Main Library, or explore the materials online. Scan the QR code above for the visitors’ guide. Follow @uispeccoll on Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr to see more!
