Thread by @Sonja_Drimmer

YOUR FISH SHOULD BE THIS BIG!

You can tell me dimensions in cm or inches all day; but nothing compares to this manuscript, which contains two red lines specifying the length & width "of the piece of salmon for the small dish of the ladies owed by...the abbess." More info below.

This is the Liber ordinarius of Nivelles, which is digitized fully here:

iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view…

More information about the manuscript and what a liber ordinarius here: blogs.harvard.edu/houghton/an-ol…

It's common to find in the later Middle Ages MSS that show an interest in real size. For ex, MSS contain representations of the nails w which Christ was nailed to the cross, & they'll have captions vouching that that size of the depicted nails match the size of the actual ones.

But encountering something so pragmatic here--a line that matches the size of a fish that a person should eat--is not only charming; it's a kind of transcendental encounter with the very physical and mundane. Someone was allocated a fish of this size.

Manuscripts are just the absolute fucking best.

Here's a great ex of what I described upthread. It's from a prayer roll owned by Henry VIII (before he was king) & it says, "Pope Innocent has granted to every man & woman who bears upon them the length of these nails saying daily 5 pater nstrs, 5 ave mrias & 5 credos 7 gifts..."

The prayer roll has been fully digitized here:

bl.uk/manuscripts/Fu…

I co-wrote a catalogue essay about it with Andrea Clarke, which you can read here:

academia.edu/15925262/Royal…

And Shannon Gayk wrote a great article about it here:

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…