Brand-new, still in shrink-wrap. I am proud to consider the author, Margit Smith, a librarian and hand bookbinder who retired in 2010 from the Helen K. and James S. Copley Library at the University of San Diego, a personal friend. Bound in an Imperial octavo hardcover format, with a brilliant, illustrated dust jacket and that is augmented with nearly 300 color photographs. Neither shelf- nor edge-worn, neither sunned nor marked as a remainder.
In Medieval Europe, “girdle”-books were all of that and more. From the looks of their exterior, girdle-books weren?t obviously books, but clergymen and noblemen wore them, aristocrats and commoners, men and women alike. Some looked like little leather-bound ghosts hanging upside-down. Text was written in ink on hand-made paper and illustrated or, following the manufacture of type-font and invention of the printing press, printed finely. Their spines were sewn with thread or twine or sinews into a large piece of soft animal skin so that the surrounding “cloak” could be folded over and fastened with buckles or laces or clasped and embellished in “humaniform,” that is, little polished figures etched to resemble humans. Some girdle-books featured brass corner pieces, embroidery, awl punctures, or family crests. Girdle-books were worn folded over a rope or leather belt. They were “tied” with a “Turk’s head” knot at top. They hung down so far that, when worn properly, they slapped against the thighs of their wearers. Swung upwards easily, a girdle-book could be opened and read from, say, from a Book of Hours or a New Testament commentary. A copy of Boethius?s De Consolatione Philosophiae (The Consolations of Philosophy) sits in Yale University?s Beineke Library, a sort of Holy Grail of viewing for bibliopoles. Of the 26 exemplars of that title that were ever printed – a sixth-century manuscript printed in the 15th century ? that one is the sole survivor in Christendom. Margit Smith?s fascinating survey, The Medieval Girdle Book, dives deeply into the world of Medieval readership and girdle-book display. Girdle-books hanging down the fronts and sides of men and women are depicted in Medieval art, too. For women, a girdle-book enabled hands-free carrying of a precious item thus safe from rain, mud, and grubby thumbs. Girdle-books also revealed social station and literacy, religious faith and fame; Saints George and Jerome were painted wearing them while slaying demons. Printed books and that were bound with leather and other materials spelled the end of the girdle-book. Fewer than two dozen Medieval girdle-books have survived in their original binding. Cheaper printing costs made it easier to replicate instead of copying texts. Because of its physical nature and the moral-philosophical or frankly religious texts they contained, girdle-books mimicked corpses, implied souls and resembled human beings. Girdle-books bound together a ?text? that could be read and interpreted almost endlessly.
384 pp. and complete with notes, bibliography and index.
Offered by Structure, Verses, Agency Books
$125
To purchase, contact svafinebooks@gmail.com
Leave a Reply