Aug 15, 2020

Medieval Codes Update: reflections on the long view

 Yin Liu

I have not posted to this website in a very long time. My thanks to the student researchers who have held the fort while I was sidetracked by other things. But it is about time I popped back into this website to explain what is going on.

Perceval and recluse
Detail from BnF MS Fr. 343, fol. 21v: a knight visits a recluse.


The Medieval Codes project continues. For four years it was generously funded by an Insight Grant from SSHRC, which enabled me to support a productive and keen team of student researchers. Many of them are still connected to the project as volunteers, and I consult some of them from time to time, even if I no longer have funds to pay them. Not only have they contributed content to this website, they have, much more, added project assets that you can’t see, and amassed a large pile of material that will keep me occupied for years to come. Their interests have also led me to areas I would not have ventured into otherwise, sometimes areas I didn’t know existed. I am immensely grateful to them all.

After the SSHRC grant ended and I was no longer bogged down by grant administration, I continued to be bogged down by other forms of administration. So work on this project has proceeded very slowly. And then, in March 2020,  community transmission of COVID-19 was confirmed in Canada, where I live.

Jan 11, 2020

Oak Gall Ink Explained

Alex Margarit

In my study of the Ripley Scrolls and trying to understand how medieval documents were made,
I created a large batch of iron gall ink. Iron gall ink is made from the tannins found in oak galls and iron salts. The recipe for iron gall ink differs depending on who writes it, but the general idea remains that it is a simple ink made from a vegetable dye and a mordant. One thing I discovered about oak galls, aside from the way they grow on trees, is that they differ based on the region they come from. In the image below are Canadian oak galls (top) and Eurasian oak galls (below):

Fig. 1: Canadian oak galls (above) and Eurasian oak galls (below). All images (c) Alex Margarit.