Advertisements are something that effect us every single day, as our eyes and ears are constantly assaulted by ads on the internet, television, and radio. Some are worse than others (looking at you Carl's Jr., Go Daddy, and K-Love pledge drives), but give an ad a few hundred years and I will instantly devote my attention to it. Case in point, here are a couple Medieval/Renaissance era advertisements I've come across recently:
This 13th century bookstore advertisement would've been displayed outside the bookshop, with patrons looking over the various types of handwriting script available, in order to choose the one they wanted for the book they were ordering. (Similar to playing around with the fonts on Microsoft Word.) This sheet is from the shop of Herman Strepel in Munster, circa 1447.
Next we have an example of early 'spam', found on the last page of a privately owned manuscript. Here, a scribe named Herneis addresses the reader: "If someone else would like such a handsome book as this one, come and find me in Paris, across from Notre Dame cathedral." Scribal notes like these can frequently be found in texts towards the end of the Middle Ages, as book production became privatized - as opposed to being produced in monasteries and cloisters.
Lastly is the earliest known printed English book advertisement, at a business card-sized 80x146 mm. This was printed by England's first printer, William Caxton, and it proudly announced the availability of the freshly printed Sarum Ordinal. Where can a "spiritual" man purchase this "well and correct" liturgical manual? "Let him come to Westminster, in to the almonry at the Red Pale, and he shall have them good & cheap."
Most of these were found on the Tumblr of Erik Kwakkel, a Medieval book historian at Leiden University. You can see more of his terrific content at http://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com/
Today in history, the Council of Nicea was convened in 325, and over the course of the next month, settled the issue of Christology and the relation of Jesus Christ the Son to God the Father (among its other accomplishments). The council also produced the famous Nicene Creed, one of the most enduring documents in all of Christian history.
Contrary to popular belief, the Council of Nicea had nothing to do with the canon of the Bible, nor with 'creating' Christianity (both of which are myths perpetuated by a certain Dan Brown book). It was here that the orthodox belief was officially upheld: that Christ was both 100% man and 100% God, and that the Son, while a separate 'person', was of the same substance as the Father. For an accurate and detailed description of the council in layman's terms, I highly recommend Paul Pavao's book Decoding Nicea (which, incidentally, was one of the books that steered me towards the Early Church).
I'll make a longer post on the Nicene Creed sometime soon, since it's the one I adhere to. However, I do believe that Christianity, while growing in size post-Nicea, has decreased in quality. The writings of the Early Church - the writings of the men who sat under the Apostles! - have been largely pushed aside by the Protestant and Evangelical circles. Perhaps the Council's anniversary is just the time to bring up an Early Church discussion with your Christian friends.
The prop masters/creators for the film Thor: The Dark World did an excellent job of creating impressive props and set pieces, but for me, one item clearly stands out from the rest. At one point in the film, Thor and Odin flip through a book describing the history of the Ether dark energy, and whose illustrations and illuminations pay homage to Medieval manuscripts from the Carolingian period. The top page in particular is an obvious copy of a Eusebian canon table - concordance-like reference material that was a staple of countless medieval Bibles and New Testaments. The book was clearly influenced by Codex Aureus of Lorsch (aka the "Lorsch Gospels"), a gospels manuscript whose beautiful illuminations and golden-inked cursive script still stand out to this day. (A canon table page from that manuscript is below.)
