Medieval Scribbles

Drawing executed to indicate an important part of the text for future reference [Courtesy Dr. Erik Kwakkel and the Library of the University of Leiden]

Let's consider the following scenarios:

Scenario 1: you are in a meeting with your group of work on the multinational corporation in which you exert functions. It's been more than a hour and a half that the group is in a discussion about the 'sex of the angels'. You work in front of a computer for eight hours a day and at the present the job you were assigned has some problems that need to be addressed. While the person in charge of directing the meeting doesn’t question the evolution of your job, you make some scribbles on the pages of the dossier that you have before you, lost in your thoughts, far away from that room. The scribbling evolves, some of them having sense, others not, but always within a discrete fashion along with what seems to you as hours and hours of meeting...

Scenario 2: the teacher of the course that you are forced to attend is in a uninterrupted verbiage since the very beginning of the class (three quarters of an hour before...) and it promises to continue for the next hour. The course that you are attending doesn’t have, in fact, any use for the ends that the graduation is proposed to. But it’s part of the curriculum and without the approval at that course you will not get your certificate. How to survive, then, at a time like this? One solution will be scribbling in the advised official book for class orientation (which was, after all, quite expensive) to the taste of thoughts and daydreaming for which the window next to your desk much contributes…

We might think that perhaps these two scenarios (which so many other variations on time and space) are maladies of the modern times. But maybe that’s not true. In fact, some books of the 13th and 14th centuries show us a different reality. Dr. Erik Kwakkel, a medieval books scholar, shows us some of the oldest doodles made on the margins of books pages. However, most of these doodles would have different purposes depending on the person who made them, being able to be distinguished in three kinds. The first kind of doodle, those that can be found in the pages of the beginning or the end of the books, had the purpose of previously try the pen as well as the gesture, in what one might call 'pen trials', with which the writer or the amanuensis would undertake the endeavour of writing the book. As Dr. Kwakkel refers, the scribbles of this nature demonstrates much of the  of the scribe's way of being, for he had to adapt the style of the writing (in form and content) according to the monastery where he worked, the region or even the country to where he moves. Nevertheless, the pen trials were invariably done in the standard style of the place or region where scribe's training took place.
The second kind of scribbles is that  that served as text markers for the portions of text that the readers considered important for future reference. Although the value of the middle age books would be compared at that time to other luxury items (let’s not forget that we are talking about books whose production is prior to the advent of European letterpress typography) we can find yet a third type of scribbles and drawings that seem to be indicative of one and one thing only: boredom! As it looks, the dullness of reading a philosophy book at school - especially if you are a young student... - is transversal to the course of the centuries and it goes back to the first book editions. When it comes to monotony and boredom nothing is held to sacred or to valuable…
(via Colossal)

Doodle on the lower margin of a manuscript page containing Juvenal's "Satires" [Courtesy Dr. Erik Kwakkel and the Library of the University of Leiden]

Figures with pointy noses, Library of the University of Leiden, 13th century (MS BPL 6 C) [Courtesy of Dr. Erik kwakkel and the Library of the University of Leiden]

[Courtesy of Dr. Erik Kwakkel and the Library of the University of Leiden]

Doodle discovered in a 13th century law manuscript (Amiens BM 347) [Courtesy of Dr. Erik Kwakkel and the Library of the University of Leiden].

Pen trials by writing short sentences and drawings. These 'pen trials' are from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 15th century [Courtesy of Dr. Erik Kwakkel and the Library of the University of Leiden]