Sunday, September 16, 2007

This post is for you

Can a blog be the equivalent of marginalia in a medieval Book of Hours? Benjamin Schwarz in "Life in the Margins" (The Atlantic, October 2007):

The books are crammed with pressed flowers, recipes, notes on debts and rents due, charms and incantations, souvenirs of pilgrimages, affectionate messages from family members ...
Not every book contained each sort of owner contribution; some simply reported important life events, others directly annotated particular prayers. The range of content sounds familiar, as does the democratizing effect of considering the marginalia seriously. Schwarz quotes Eamon Duffy describing these marginalia in Marking the Hours as
a series of unexpected windows into the hearts and souls of the men and women who long ago had used these books to pray.
Creating such windows sounds like a good goal to me.

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