M is for Medieval: or How the Irish Invented the Moleskine.

A great deal of my creative inspiration originates with the manuscripts of early medieval Ireland. Perhaps the best known example is the Book of Kells, which reigns supreme among the elaborately illuminated manuscripts from that era. These decorated books are typified by mind-boggling details, swirling spirals, elaborately complex knotwork patterns, and undecipherable letterforms. These images burst off the vellum pages and stand apart from other illuminated manuscripts of that time period as a unique creative expression reflecting many of the cultural complexities of the early history of Ireland.

 

Strangely though, my imagination has been completely captivated by a comparatively small, unadorned assemblage of odd sheets of vellum called The St. Paul Irish Codex (or more formally: MS: Unterdrauberg, Carinthia, Kloster St. Paul 25.2.31). This manuscript was the personal notebook of an Irish scribe working in the early ninth century, most likely in the scriptorium at Reichenau, an island monastery on Lake Constance located between Germany and Switzerland. It contains no color other than the deep brown of the ink, and no illumination of any kind, yet it seems to me to reveal more about at least this one personality behind the long labor of creating illuminated manuscripts.

 

This un-named monk assembled what discarded pieces of vellum he could gather together and used his notebook to jot down interesting text he came across in his daily work (incidentally, the size of this notebook is very close to a large size Moleskine). Written in a very tight script you will find bits of grammar, animal lore, an incantation, and an endearing poem in Old Irish about a monk and his cat named Pangur Bán, all on the same page. Throughout the other pages of the notebook are excerpts written in Greek, an astrological table, and notes on logic, metaphysics and etymology, among other topics.

How, you wonder, does this relate to the modern day Moleskine? Well in its own way, the St. Paul Irish Codex is a very well preserved example of the centuries-old need to organize one’s thoughts on the written page. In the very same way that most of us today cobble together threads of ideas, quotations, and excerpts from our favorite writers between the pages of our Moleskines, this ninth century scribe created a small portrait of himself in the handwritten notebook he left behind. His interests, reflected in small fragments of an impressively wide range of subjects, reveal much when taken together as a whole. None of what he collected was written in the first person – all the words originally belonged to someone else – but collectively they became his own.

Much has been made of the Irish contribution to Western society, so by comparison, giving an Irish monk credit for inventing the Moleskine does not seem that excessive. I do know that the process I go through filling my own notebooks can similarly be found in this otherwise ordinary looking manuscript created just over 12 centuries ago. How much of ourselves can be perceived between the lines of our own notebooks? When I read between the lines of the St. Paul Irish Codex I am inspired by the presence of a living man long turned to dust who continues to speak through his handwritten pages.

Lisa Laughy
NinthWave Designs

Comments

[Alia]

Lisa,

Thanks for sharing this. While I fell in love with the Book of Kells' artistry as a child, I was not aware of the codex. What a wonderful glimpse into someone else's mind. I always am amazed that humans haven't really changed over the centuries, for all that our lives have changed to the point where I would seem as distant from his understanding as space alien to a Medieval monk -- as he seems to me.

Am I wrong to wonder what will happen to all the notebooks we are filling? Will there someday be a St. Paul, MN, Codex or a Book of New Jersey? Or is this all a very good argument for taking those old journals to the shredder, just in case?

[Mike]

It's a good thing he didn't use a Palm Pilot. I don't think that it would have quite lasted the ages.

Something I find both funny and scary is how few books like this one exist today. In a thousand years people will look back and find reams of powerpoint presentations with fragmented sentences and 3d pie charts that give two elements of data in one megabyte of space.

People often woder whether it is worth saving the sort of stuff we write in our Moleskines. Granted I don't often have a profound thought to write down, but even grocery lists give a view into another world given enough time.

The durability of a good notebook and a good ink is what got me into this hobby. I love looking at the handwritten notes of someone who lived hundreds of years before iPods.

[Sylvia]

Ping!

[Notebook Lover]

There was a posting on craigslist - a woman collecting journals and diaries. I went to look for it but now it's gone. She'd found one at a flea market and got hooked. Too bad that post has been deleted. It talked about why she keeps a diary and why she wants to read the diaries of others.

[Ninth Wave]

Thank you all for you comments!

I am having my own personal experience today with the inconsistencies of technology - reinforcing the value of the written word. It's "back to analog" for me while I install a new hard drive and mourn the lost data. I comfort myself knowing if it was something I couldn't live without I would have written in down!

[Joy]

I am 100% confident that the written and printed word will survive and flourish in the face of any and all technology. They can co-exist successfully...the WMP is one example.