Author: Robby Berman / Source: Big Think
- It turns out medieval religious manuscripts were not exclusively the domain of male monks.
- Fleck of a rare gemstone pigment in fossilized teeth prove women also authored religious manuscripts.
- We’ll never see these exquisite books the same way again.
Surviving medieval religious manuscripts can be quite beautiful, with impeccable calligraphy and adorned with intricately detailed and brightly colorful illustrations.
By and large, their authors remain unknown, and they’ve been assumed to be monks, since the few signatures they contain are of male names — it’s likely humility prevented most authors from identifying themselves. However, there’s evidence that suggests nuns in Salzburg and Bavarian monasteries may have been working as scribes and artists as far back as the 8th century.And now, a new study, published on Jan. 9 in Science Advances, reveals physical proof that women were involved in religious manuscript production: telltale flecks of ultramarine paint found in the fossilized teeth of a middle-aged medieval nun.
Not just any paint
To get from a few bits of pigment to the conclusion that someone worked on medieval manuscripts may seem like quite a leap, but it’s not. That’s because those flecks are lapis lazuli, the source of luminescent ultramarines in manuscript illustrations. Ground and purified into paint, the gemstone’s presence is an unarguable indication that the woman was involved in illustrating the books since the pigment was so extraordinarily expensive that it was used almost exclusively in the production of religious manuscripts.
Its extreme value was due to…
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