Medieval Book Curses by Catherine T Wilson
Life in a medieval society could be both simple and contrary. As quoted by author Barbara Tuchman1 ‘any statement of fact about the Middle Ages may (and probably will) be met by a statement of the opposite or a different version.’ We know their lifestyle was based upon an explicit hierarchy and failure to comply could result in serious consequences. There was feudal law, civil law and when that failed to keep order, religious law often intervened to overrule or frighten a subject into compliance for the church could hold your very soul to ransom. When practical measures failed, fear of damnation could hold sway and this gave the monks who laboured long hours in the scriptoriums a unique way to protect their work from thieves.
Fig 1 – Monks in scriptorium – Photo by Cathy T © – Mont St Michel
The law of copyright would not exist until the 18th century. In order to protect their precious books from thieves, religious houses used a practical method of chaining their volumes to fixtures. If you are a Game of Thrones fan, you will have recently seen Sam Tarly working around the chained books in the Citadel’s library in Oldtown. This was not merely fiction – an example of such a library exists at Hereford in the UK.
Fig. 2 and 3 – Chained Library at Hereford – Christopher Furlong/Gerry Images Europe
Fig 4 – A chained book – University of Kansas, Spencer Library, MS D84
(This book is a bound manuscript dated circa 1370. The text is Sermones de sanctis, writings of Frater Soccus, a monk from the Cistercian order.)
Fig 5 – Sam Tarly in the Oldtown Library
(I once read a comment where a lady said ‘I wish my partner would look at me the way Sam Tarly looks at books!)
If chaining books wasn’t enough to deter would-be thieves then there was one other path open to them – the insertion of a curse, usually on the first page or as part of the colophon, there to forever reside within the volume like a sentinelled demon. If punishment to the body via common law wasn’t enough to dissuade a criminal, perhaps the idea of chastisement to the eternal soul could.
Book and parchment curses date back to ancient times, one of the earliest coming from a 7th century Assyrian king who placed them on his clay tablets which were discovered in 1849 in a library at Ninevah.2
One of these curses states:
‘He who breaks this tablet or puts it in water or rubs it until you cannot recognise it [and] cannot make it to be understood, may Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Adad and Ishtar, Bel, Nergal, Ishtar of Ninevah, Ishtar of Arbela, Ishtar of Bit Kidmurri, the gods of Heaven and earth and the gods of Assyria, may all these curse him with a curse that cannot be relieved, terrible and merciless, as long as he lives, may they let his name, his seed, be carried off from the land, may they put his flesh in a dog’s mouth.3
Be it in Latin or vernacular, the good brothers of the Middle Ages were not afraid to apply such curses to their parchments either, calling down horrible punishments on miscreants.
To steal this book, if you should try,
It’s by the throat that you’ll hang high.
And ravens then will gather ‘bout
To find your eyes and pull them out.4
In a digitised manuscript at the British Library, a Middle Dutch botanical and bestiary compilation ‘Der naturen bloeme’ (The Flower of Nature) commissioned by Nicolaas van Cats and written by Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant, included a curse written beside a cross which states that ‘its borrower swears that he/she will return the manuscript or die.’ The oath is signed by a woman, in a 14th- or 15th-century hand, who identifies herself as ‘abstetrix heifmoeder (obstetrix: midwife).5
Fig. 6 – The British Library – Digitised Manuscript Division – Details of an Oath f. 94v Fig.7 The Oath
The 14th century was filled with such curses calling upon the wrath of God for sinners. In William of Nottingham’s Commentary of the Harmony of the Gospels,6 the colophon first praises the scribe and rewards him with a high-quality wine then condemns any offender with death.
‘Morteque malorum: raptor libri moriatur.’ (Death from evil things: may the thief of this book die.)
Fig 8 – William’s curse in his Commentary of the Harmony of the Gospels
Other curses call for the perpetrator to be ‘hauled up by the neck.’
‘Thys boke ys sancht audatys; he þat stelys þe boke shall be haulynth by þe neck.’7
Another from the The Arnstein Bible8 promises to afflict the thief with torture and sickness.
‘Liber sancte Marie sancti que Nycolai in Arrinstein:
(The holy books of St Mary and St Nicholas)
Quem si quis abstulerit
Morte moriatur in sartagine coquatur
caducus morbus instet eum et febres · et rotatur et suspendatur
Which translates along the lines of ‘whomsoever shall steal it or take it away, let him be roasted in a frying pan, may the falling sickness (epilepsy) and fever attack him. May he be rotated (on a breaking wheel) and hanged. Amen.’
And a curse from a monastery in Rochester for anyone who dares to steal the Book of Distinctiones9 will mean his own name shall be deleted from the Book of Life, a tome in which the names of those to be saved at the Last Judgement are recorded. That is definitely a one-way ticket ‘down’ after death!
And if that wasn’t enough, then there were plenty of illuminations to reinforce the idea of eternal damnation (a very popular medieval concept) like early Renaissance artist, Fra Angelico’s ‘Last Judgement,’ the right-hand side clearly showing the horrors that awaited sinners in hell.
Fig. 9 – Fra Angelico, Last Judgment, 1431-1435, tempera on wood. Museo di San Marco, Florence
Fig. 10 – Details of the right side panel top half – and bottom half – Fra Angelico, Last Judgment, 1431-1435, tempera on wood. Museo di San Marco, Florence
Or this in the New Minster Liber Vitae 10 in Winchester showing 11th century drawings of the Last Judgement, where angels lead souls to St Peter, two saints watch on as St Peter and a demon fight over a soul and the Archangel Michael locking the door as a demon drops the damned into the mouth of a beast in hell. (And the number of the beast is … )
Fig 12 – New Minster Liber Vitae, Stowe MS 944, ff.
And last but by no means least, a manuscript11 depicting what horrors were waiting – torture, being eaten, hot oil poured onto genitals or boiled alive in a huge cauldron. Take your pick! (Is that book worth all of this later?)
Fig 13 – Hours, chiefly in Latin, containing Calendar. Fr. f. 1. Hours of the Virgin, f. 20. Penitential Psalms and Litany,f 89. ‘Les heures de la …’
There are many more depictions, most condemning the perpetrators of crime directly to hell, such was the feeling of abhorrence to thievery of God’s work. I am sure today’s authors might feel the same.
Having discovered such a wonderful medieval custom, I could not resist inserting our own curse into The Traitor’s Noose, the fourth book in our Lions and Lilies series. This curse is no kinder than its Middle Age predecessors and the warning comes in the book’s ‘own words.’
From my spine to yours, a word of warning,
If you think to harm me, be it night, noon or morning,
I feel I should tell you if you have evil intent,
That I am protected by a potent enchantment.
Terrible things will happen until they cannot be worse,
This is the power of a medieval book curse.
When my authors learned of this, like cocks on a midden,
They crowed with delight and a curse was hidden,
Within these pages, from quill to sword,
Double-edged and sharp, to any lady or lord,
Who thinks to plunder is honourable – it’s not!
So, if you are tempted, I beg you to stop.
Like witches around a cauldron, my authors chanted and weaved,
A conjuration so shocking, it’s hard to believe,
Such words could pass the lips of these gentile dames,
But I swear on my binding, they were not playing games.
They called down a plague, a scourge, damnation,
Condemnation and castration to ensure ruination.
Should you mark me, or rip me, or steal my contents,
You will find yourself in the devil’s presence.
This invocation is no jest, it’s proven fact,
The 14th Century protected my relatives like that.
From my first page to my last and every parchment betwixt,
Is steeped in sorcery, on my oath, this is no trick.
My innards are sacred, my humour sublime,
But do me an injury and given time,
You will begin to notice that all is not well,
As you slide down the path which leads straight into Hell.
May your eyes fall out and hair, teeth and nails
As the prettier elements of this incantation prevails.
So, read me and love me, but don’t tamper with my text,
Or you will find yourself bewitched by a terrible hex,
And it’s not only me but my siblings too,
Books One, Two and Three, I tell you true.
Lions and Lilies is protected by a divine light,
And a tiny curse safeguarding medieval copyright.
By Catherine T Wilson ©
- A Distant Mirror – The Calamitous 14th Century – (forward xvii)
- Norton, Jeremy. “Knowledge as Power: The Earliest Systematically Collected Library as Distinct from an Archive (668 BCE – 627 BCE)”. History of Information.
- Libraries in the ancient world. Casson, L. (2001).New Haven: Yale University Press., 2001, pp. 13-14
- Anathema – Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses – Marc Drogin, Page 78.
- The British Library – digitised manuscripts division (Add MS 11390)
- William of Nottingham’s Commentary on the Harmony of the Gospels, Evesham, c. 1381, Royal MS 4 E II, f. 471r
- From the church of St Aldate in Gloucester (Add MS 30506) f. 170r
- The Arnstein Bible – Harley MS 2798
- The Book of Life, from the Distinctiones, 13th century, Royal MS 10 A XVI, f. 2r
- New Minster Liber Vitae,Stowe MS 944, ff. 6v–7r
- Hours, chiefly in Latin, containing Calendar. Fr. f. 1. Hours of the Virgin, f. 20. Penitential Psalms and Litany,f 89. ‘Les heures de la …’
Blog by Cathy T Wilson
The Traitor’s Noose has been shortlisted in Chanticleer’s Chaucer Award and Cathy T and Cathy A will be attending the CAC -2018 Chanticleer conference in Bellingham, USA in April this year with fingers crossed for a fourth win!