Good morning, friends.

Anyone else like books? I like books. They are so easy to get your hands on today, but we Medieval nerds know that this wasn't always the case. Can you imagine having to build (yes, build) a book? Out of some poor, unsuspecting calf, too.

Skin pages, called vellum, last a lot longer than paper, but they also take a long time to prepare [Check out this video if you'd like to know more about the actual construction process of medieval books]. If you were super rich, you could afford the greatest vellum ever: uterine calf skin. Yeah, that's right: stillborn cows. But don't worry, if you'd like to make a nice scroll out of "vellum" nowadays, you can just use a cotton-based substitute. Phew.

EVENTS!

If anyone would like join us on Thursday, the Medieval Languages Study Group will be meeting in library study room A107. I'm there for the Latin and Old Norse, but we are also looking at Norman French and ye olde English among others. So come on down!

Take some time out of your busy academic calendar and come to our fantastic pumpkin carving bonanza on October 26th, 4:30pm, CLE D132.