Holy Doodle!

A couple of Sunday's ago some folk had a puzzled look on their faces when I mentioned the St. John's Bible during my sermon, the first illuminated and hand-calligraphed bible to be created in more than five hundred years. http://www.saintjohnsbible.org/ 

Before the development of movable type to produce books every bible was written by hand, usually by monks working in monasteries. After Johannes Gutenberg printed his bible this painstaking and creative art came to an end relatively quickly.The St. John's Bible was commissioned by a monastery in the United States and involved a marvelous team of artists and calligraphers.

Describing the process of hand-writing a bible as "painstaking" could be reframed as tedious and boring and laborious. While the creation of a bible today is an honour, it shouldn't come as a surprise then that some of the scribes of the past chose to doodle as they worked, often creating rude and hilarious marginal cartoons and images. Some were even inserted into the text itself.


Recently Professor Erik Kwakkel, a book historian at Leiden University in Holland, was interviewed by CBC radios As It Happens about some of the drawings he has found as he works his way through manuscripts. He notes that sometimes the scribes were getting the ink going in their quill pens and imaginations took over.

I find this delightful, even though it would have been a sacrilege if discovered. I imagine some lowly monk sitting in a cold, dimly lit room, having a bit of secretive fun. Or maybe furtively showing off his risqué work to another trusted brother.

What about you? Humorous, or blasphemous?