I do not make notes or underlinings in books, and deplore those who do today, yet like any historian I am immensely grateful to those who did so in the past. Marginalia are part of any historian’s stock in trade - for contemporary evens as much as for those of the more distant past.
An important instance of this is revealed in an article on the website of Artnet News which concerns an eighth century copy of the Acts of the Apostles now in the Selden MSS in the Bodleian. In this particular case the marginalia have been missed hitherto because they are in drypoint rather than ink. They are the work of a nun, the Abbess Eadburg.
The illustrated article can be seen at A Woman's Name Uncovered in the Margins of a 1,200-Year-Old Medieval Manuscript Provides a Fresh Clue About Its Real Significance
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