This is a hand-written manuscript produced on some type of fine polished animal skin. I own two of them, which I bought very inexpensively years ago. One has a defect at the edge of the page, and this one has some sort of random mark on oneside. I used to do a lot of calligraphy, some with handmade reed pens, so I could appreciate how these scribes worked. Years ago, pages like this were plentiful and not really seen as any type of art form.
Edward Johnston, a calligrapher who was largely responsible for the rebirth of the art during the last century, wrote a lot about the old scribes. He said that "the thing that would have struck us most--even more than the skill, would have been the speed with which he wrote...they didn't seek beauty directly....everything they did was primarily for use and even those gorgeous letters they put in their illuminated manuscripts were primarily for use as book markers. " He went on to point out that despite the utilitarian goal, scribes had a "dream of divine beauty that they were seeking," and thus were able to manifest it in their work.
reizenbee, icka, lachance, Henk en Sara Raap, and 24 other people added this photo to their favorites.
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aaron_language 36 months ago | reply
That is an incredible manuscript and a great shot of it! Wow! We just wanted to let you know that we have downloaded your photo and are thinking about using it to make a short YouTube movie for ESL students on being a better writer. If we use it, we will naturally provide a credit and let you know then. Our writing-related website is at www.aaroncoaches.com/, but it is mostly in Japanese. Thanks for making your photo available with a Creative Commons license.
illustratormihi2 33 months ago | reply
Appears to be from a portion of a Psalter, the end of Psalm 114 and the beginning of Psalm 115 'Credidi'. The first versse of Ps. 115 is "Credidi propter quod locutus sum ego adflictus sum nimis." or "I have believed, therefore I have spoken: but I have been humbled exceedingly."
My guess based on certain conventions that I can see is that this may be from the 14th century.
Jasper on the Move 31 months ago | reply
Would love to use this image for one of my posts @ doede.net. I understood the image is Creative Commons, but would like to know if there any other author specific rules besides attribution. If so let me know.
Pablo Rizzo 26 months ago | reply
Fantastic !!