Foredge Paintings and Other Curiosities

The first time I saw this mentioned was in a novel called The Grand Complication, by Allen Kurzweil, which was full of bibliophilic curiosities. Foredge paintings are invisible unless a book's pages are fanned in a particular way. I ran across this video on Rag & Bone, then found a couple more on YouTube. Wow, these are amazing.  I'd never seen one of these in action before. Rag & Bone's post (in May 2007; there's no permalink, for some reason) has a more extensive explanation of how it's done. Check it out. I can't ever see doing this myself, since it's not the kind of bindings I aspire to, but wow, anyway. If you like beautiful books, it's hard not to like these.

In the same book, Kurzweil mentions something called a girdle book, which, despite my many years of servitude in the Middle Ages, I had never heard of, either. As I was reading the novel, this post turned up on one of my favorite blogs, Bibliodyssey, with a picture of a girdle book, which I have shamelessly gacked and post here for your erudition. But go look at the post, since it has all kinds of fabulous links, not to mention how amazing the blog is.

Girdle books were originally breviaries attached to the belt (in midievalese, the girdle) of a monk so they could meditate on words of wisdom at down moments between singing the hours, illuminating books, digging in the garden, cooking, cleaning, eating, swiving (whoops, cynical me!), and sleeping. The protagonist in Kurzweil's book carries one around for taking miscellaneous notes and collecting words he likes (he's a nerdy librarian, and no, that's not redundant. Nobody likes a wiseass.)  There's a rockin' exhibit of contemporary girdle books here, which has made me think this is something I might like to make at some point.  Anybody know of any patterns or instructions for these?

Comments

[peacay]

Ouch! You made me look at that post again and the first thing I saw was a spelling mistake. Heh. But thanks for the kind words. I wonder if the fact that there are only 26 surviving girdle books is telling us something? I mean, they do look good and I bet they would make a pretty fine weapon but I'm not so sure what a swinging 20 pound weight off a belt would actually feel like. {Not to mention *cough* crown jewel protective thoughts.} Nevertheless, I've come across a couple of 'how to' sites before and found this one in my bookmarks. Let me know how it goes. It will give an added dimension to the 'How's it hanging' greeting I guess. Heh.

[Lee]

Thanks for the link, peacay! I'll post pictures when I get around to this project (it's about number 6 on the list right now).

Hmm, I hadn't thought about the weight problem before. Wonder if it might have doubled as a weapon? Monks weren't allowed to draw blood (so swords were forbidden), but one infamous bishop rode into battle with a mace. Apparently head-bashing wasn't too bloody to be prohibited. As you point out, 20 pouds of book swung at the end of that tail might do some damage, especially with a sharp, spikey bit of iron binding on it, say, as a clasp. Beaten to death with The Word.

[Alexandra Lynch]

Oh, yes, girdle books.

Being a medieval reenactor, I have intended to make one for some time. Either that, or a wax tablet (the medieval post-it note).

If you're really interested in making one, there are instructions at http://www.virtue.to/articles/girdlebook.html