Kathleen E. Kennedy
@themedievaldrk.bsky.social
manuscripts, early print, coconuts, nautiluses, media archaeology
Above: BL, Royal 18 D II, Lambeth MS 532
For more on the banner artist, read https://differentvisions.org/aging-artists-and-impairment-in-fifteenth-century-england/
Above: BL, Royal 18 D II, Lambeth MS 532
For more on the banner artist, read https://differentvisions.org/aging-artists-and-impairment-in-fifteenth-century-england/
CHAPER 5: 150 YEARS OF ILLUMINATION, LOST AND FOUND- Why don’t we study 15thc English illumination? Who DID notice this art, and why? Surprising answers take us from the cradle of modern design theory to interwar Chicago!
November 13, 2025 at 6:12 PM
CHAPER 5: 150 YEARS OF ILLUMINATION, LOST AND FOUND- Why don’t we study 15thc English illumination? Who DID notice this art, and why? Surprising answers take us from the cradle of modern design theory to interwar Chicago!
CHAPTER 4: MID-TUDOR MEDIA STRATEGIES AND THE INVENTION OF MEDIEVAL DESIGN Enter printing! Watch English royal taste shift from stylistic plenitude in 1521 to a total adoption of continental design by the 1560s. Watch medievalism take shape from commoner to court.
November 13, 2025 at 6:11 PM
CHAPTER 4: MID-TUDOR MEDIA STRATEGIES AND THE INVENTION OF MEDIEVAL DESIGN Enter printing! Watch English royal taste shift from stylistic plenitude in 1521 to a total adoption of continental design by the 1560s. Watch medievalism take shape from commoner to court.
CHAPTER 3: MEDIEVAL MEMORIAL DOCUMENTS AS MASS MEDIA Documents! Propaganda! ~100 docs decorated in 3 styles, distributed nationwide, used at the same time on the same days. Reading medieval mass media art through McLuhan and @scottmccloud.bsky.social
November 13, 2025 at 6:09 PM
CHAPTER 3: MEDIEVAL MEMORIAL DOCUMENTS AS MASS MEDIA Documents! Propaganda! ~100 docs decorated in 3 styles, distributed nationwide, used at the same time on the same days. Reading medieval mass media art through McLuhan and @scottmccloud.bsky.social
CHAPTER 2: A VARIANT IN AN ENGLISH MEDIUM. Introduces media archaeology and media variants, media that fail. Medieval betamax. Nevertheless, these failures demonstrate English engagement with Renaissance designs, nearly 100yrs before they are supposed to have done.
November 13, 2025 at 6:06 PM
CHAPTER 2: A VARIANT IN AN ENGLISH MEDIUM. Introduces media archaeology and media variants, media that fail. Medieval betamax. Nevertheless, these failures demonstrate English engagement with Renaissance designs, nearly 100yrs before they are supposed to have done.
Hey hey, it’s now official on Concordia UP’s website, 20% discount code KENNEDY2026 at CUP (CAN) or Chicago (USD, link in next post) for Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550! concordia.ca/press/illumi...
November 13, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Hey hey, it’s now official on Concordia UP’s website, 20% discount code KENNEDY2026 at CUP (CAN) or Chicago (USD, link in next post) for Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550! concordia.ca/press/illumi...
yeah that's more traffic than usual on this here no-alg site...
October 2, 2025 at 7:33 PM
yeah that's more traffic than usual on this here no-alg site...
Likewise, this modest missal passed into the hands of Luigi Celotti, fleeing Italy with trunks of mss. Celotti’s sales in London in the 1820s finally taught the English to collect mss as art and this very book was in Lot 303! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/mis...
September 25, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Likewise, this modest missal passed into the hands of Luigi Celotti, fleeing Italy with trunks of mss. Celotti’s sales in London in the 1820s finally taught the English to collect mss as art and this very book was in Lot 303! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/mis...
Sometimes a manuscript’s travels are important. Friend of Cardinal Newman, Scottish Episcopalian bishop Alexander Penrose Forbes owned this humble breviary, perhaps acquired during his Italian tour. He had it bound by a Dundee shop renown for deluxe bindings. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/bre...
September 25, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Sometimes a manuscript’s travels are important. Friend of Cardinal Newman, Scottish Episcopalian bishop Alexander Penrose Forbes owned this humble breviary, perhaps acquired during his Italian tour. He had it bound by a Dundee shop renown for deluxe bindings. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/bre...
Science fans we got you! Until recently engineers required training in art as well as STEM! A surveyor in the 1620s sketched watercolors of astronomy landscapes and diagrams as he traveled. He even includes a pirated copy of Galileo’s 1606 work on compasses! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/gal...
September 25, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Science fans we got you! Until recently engineers required training in art as well as STEM! A surveyor in the 1620s sketched watercolors of astronomy landscapes and diagrams as he traveled. He even includes a pirated copy of Galileo’s 1606 work on compasses! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/gal...
While TM remains largely medieval, we do reach later. Fans of Esther Inglis might note this volume copied in France. A collection of Latin maxims derived from Erasmus and the Distichs Catonis, the emphasis is clearly on the calligraphy! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/sev...
September 25, 2025 at 4:31 PM
While TM remains largely medieval, we do reach later. Fans of Esther Inglis might note this volume copied in France. A collection of Latin maxims derived from Erasmus and the Distichs Catonis, the emphasis is clearly on the calligraphy! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/sev...
There’s reason to believe that this marriage manual was personalized for Catherine de Medici c.1539! Childless for years, this gilded volume may have been a quiet, familial effort to support Catherine, thus lacking splashy miniatures or royal heraldry. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/tre...
September 25, 2025 at 4:29 PM
There’s reason to believe that this marriage manual was personalized for Catherine de Medici c.1539! Childless for years, this gilded volume may have been a quiet, familial effort to support Catherine, thus lacking splashy miniatures or royal heraldry. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/tre...
Pontificals include the rituals of bishops, not popes! This one was made for François de Halvyn, Bishop of Amiens c1503. Easily competing with print, this book boasts a sumptuous original scarlet velvet binding and top-tier script and decorative illumination www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/not...
September 25, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Pontificals include the rituals of bishops, not popes! This one was made for François de Halvyn, Bishop of Amiens c1503. Easily competing with print, this book boasts a sumptuous original scarlet velvet binding and top-tier script and decorative illumination www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/not...
Occasionally TextManuscripts.com even handles some print! Long before spinner racks of paperbacks, Aldus Manutius invented the idea with these elegant, small, spare editions of classical texts—easy to hold, easy to buy, easy to read. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/hor...
September 25, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Occasionally TextManuscripts.com even handles some print! Long before spinner racks of paperbacks, Aldus Manutius invented the idea with these elegant, small, spare editions of classical texts—easy to hold, easy to buy, easy to read. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/hor...
Text Manuscripts doesn’t get a lot of –literature- in, so it’s exciting to have a single-author Gerson anthology, and all in French! This is the only one in NA afaict and includes greatest hits and shorter works--even includes the paratexts. Fancy! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/mir...
September 25, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Text Manuscripts doesn’t get a lot of –literature- in, so it’s exciting to have a single-author Gerson anthology, and all in French! This is the only one in NA afaict and includes greatest hits and shorter works--even includes the paratexts. Fancy! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/mir...
Leaping ahead to the 15thc, this book highlights how decorative a ‘Text Manuscript’ can be! This breviary was translated into Dutch for a nun in Delft. These were the winter offices, and this bright book would surely lift a nun’s heart in those dark days. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/bre...
September 25, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Leaping ahead to the 15thc, this book highlights how decorative a ‘Text Manuscript’ can be! This breviary was translated into Dutch for a nun in Delft. These were the winter offices, and this bright book would surely lift a nun’s heart in those dark days. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/bre...
The Rule is bound with ANOTHER rule--excerpts of the Rule of Arrouaise for lay brothers! The Norman conquerors founded Arrouaisian (Augustinian) abbeys across England. This bit of the Arrouaisian rule was probably copied by a French founding canon in England. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/rul...
September 25, 2025 at 4:20 PM
The Rule is bound with ANOTHER rule--excerpts of the Rule of Arrouaise for lay brothers! The Norman conquerors founded Arrouaisian (Augustinian) abbeys across England. This bit of the Arrouaisian rule was probably copied by a French founding canon in England. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/rul...
The earliest book in the update is a little English 12thc Rule of St. Benedict. It’s wee but has lovely initials! One of its sister manuscripts in Toronto includes a bit of the life of Cuthbert on a flyleaf, hinting at northern origins. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/rul...
September 25, 2025 at 4:18 PM
The earliest book in the update is a little English 12thc Rule of St. Benedict. It’s wee but has lovely initials! One of its sister manuscripts in Toronto includes a bit of the life of Cuthbert on a flyleaf, hinting at northern origins. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/rul...
I see your puddle reflection snaps and I raise you an -office desk- reflection snap.
September 22, 2025 at 10:47 PM
I see your puddle reflection snaps and I raise you an -office desk- reflection snap.
and lo, I do not exaggerate! And really the onion pin is truly next-level--that story on the card!!
September 18, 2025 at 9:56 PM
and lo, I do not exaggerate! And really the onion pin is truly next-level--that story on the card!!
I don't tend to post shelfies but lookit the stunning supports and snakes that @book-historia.bsky.social made for the gallery!! 😍
September 12, 2025 at 2:53 PM
I don't tend to post shelfies but lookit the stunning supports and snakes that @book-historia.bsky.social made for the gallery!! 😍
Managed a functional, if inelegant (but also, close to the floor so not hugely noticeable) repair on an old hat tree, one of the few victims of the move, and having it upside down noticed for the first time that it's from the Clemetson Company, an early 20thc Chicago furniture-maker.
August 30, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Managed a functional, if inelegant (but also, close to the floor so not hugely noticeable) repair on an old hat tree, one of the few victims of the move, and having it upside down noticed for the first time that it's from the Clemetson Company, an early 20thc Chicago furniture-maker.
Preferred by toddlers everywhere. Ask for it by name, etc
August 13, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Preferred by toddlers everywhere. Ask for it by name, etc
Sometimes in our current chaotic moment you just have to pause and explain a bit of the Wars of the Roses and appreciate again just how chaotic a time it was for them, too.
August 13, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Sometimes in our current chaotic moment you just have to pause and explain a bit of the Wars of the Roses and appreciate again just how chaotic a time it was for them, too.
There were 77 boxes. Now there are 21 left unopened. 2 casualties so far, repairability tbd. At this point reasonably confident that whatever hasn't turned up yet will, but much remains to unpack. 4pm and so much yet to go.
August 6, 2025 at 9:01 PM
There were 77 boxes. Now there are 21 left unopened. 2 casualties so far, repairability tbd. At this point reasonably confident that whatever hasn't turned up yet will, but much remains to unpack. 4pm and so much yet to go.
So writing a final report for a 4.5yr-long grant that began during the pandemic and immediately after hard Brexit and ended as HE and politics everywhere are actively on fire is going to require some extra drafts I think...(draft 1)
June 29, 2025 at 9:08 PM
So writing a final report for a 4.5yr-long grant that began during the pandemic and immediately after hard Brexit and ended as HE and politics everywhere are actively on fire is going to require some extra drafts I think...(draft 1)