illumination
what were you doing in the 9th century when the chinese were rebelling against their emperor and his skanky concubine, charlemagne was subduing the lombards (again!), those rascally persians were penning one thousand and one nights, and the empress of the byzantines (irene sarantapechaina) was exiled to the island of lesbos where she spent the remainder of her days spinning yarn?
maybe you were cowering in the corner somewhere as viking hooligans pillaged your village. perhaps your final thought as a raider’s blade neared your quivering forehead is how awesome it would be to have illuminated badass manuscripts with florid majuscules (like the 9th century letters here presented). perhaps your final thought was the discovery of another non-gerund -ing noun in viking.
we shall never know for certain. but what we do know is that the project gutenberg copy of the book of ornamental alphabets, ancient and mediæval (1914). is well worth the browse.
