Copy of - COMMONPLACE BOOK - MEDIEVAL HOLSTER BOOK (2)
Journal 230 x 95mm
128 sides of 130 gsm ivory cartridge
Covers are a hand block printed paper by John and Jane Jeffery, hand coloured.
This book has been made to replicate the size and shape of the 10th century medieval holster book (Harley MS 5431). Holster books were tall and narrow which made them more portable, and they may have been hung from a belt or carried in a leather saddle bag. I came across this format in Roland Allen’s book, The Notebook, a History of Thinking on Paper, which notes that holster books may also have been slipped into a sleeve or pouch. They are a nice format for copying verse or lists.
Commonplace Books are a very purposeful way of using a journal, or giving one as a gift. They have been used since the Fifteenth Century, the idea being to record passages of text, poems, quotations, recipes, reading lists, drawings, sayings, family turns of phrase, calligraphy, aspirations - any words of perceived wisdom or personal significance - all making up a memoir of the author’s interests over a number of years. All sorts of famous people have kept Commonplace Books including John Milton, Napoleon Bonaparte, Lewis Carroll and Virginia Woolf.
(HOLSTER 2)