July 28, 2009

Macclesfield Alphabet book

The British Library has acquired the Macclesfield Alphabet Book, a 'pattern book' thought to have been used by scribes in medieval Britain to produce luxury books

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Painted ‘ribbon’ or ‘banderole’ alphabet in colours, of lower and upper case letters A to M Photograph: /British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Letters L, M, N, O, and P, in brown ink, with faces and animals, including dogs Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Decorated letters A to O, one O with a ‘Green Man’ face Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Letters C and D, formed of figures and animals, copied after the Flemish ‘1464 Grotesque Alphabet’ circulating in woodblocks and engravings Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Macclesfield Alphabet's flower and ‘bar’ border designs, fully painted and with gold dots Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Letters L, M, N, and O, formed of figures and animals, copied after the Flemish ‘1464 Grotesque Alphabet’ circulating in woodblocks and engravings Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Letters in black ink, O (with a kneeling pope), P (with a fish and two birds’ beaks), Q (with a monkey riding an animal), R (with two birds’ heads), S (formed of two fish), and T (with a bird’s head) Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Alphabet in blue letters with red pen-flourishing from A to Z, and the letters ‘KL’ (an abbreviation for kalends, the first day of the month, from which ‘calendar’ is derived), which would be used for calendar pages in prayer books Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Painted border designs of flowers, and a bar border Photograph: British Library

Macclesfield Alphabet : Macclesfield Alphabet — Three-sided drawn manuscript border, with a T and flowers Photograph: British Library

Leave a Comment Cancel comment