In the Gilded Page, Wellesley takes the reader on a journey through a selection of medieval manuscripts, enlightening how they were made, what we know about scribes, what we know about authors, and some of the famous manuscripts of the era. It's fascinating - like walking through a museum with an expert telling you what you're looking at. She also talks about preservation (or lack of preservation) and a bit about secular vs sacred texts. There are also sections where she uses a manuscript to try to learn about the life of the author or the scribe or the owner of the manuscript.

I really enjoyed this. There isn't a lot of direction and she doesn't seem to be building a particular case for anything, but I don't think the book needs it. It's simply a glimpse into manuscripts of a long ago era, and is fascinating enough as what it is. ( )

Mary Wellesley loves medieval manuscripts and that love, and her knowledge of these ancient books / art objects, shines through in this fascinating book. Wellesley, a Research Affiliate at the British Library, takes a tour through a number of these books while providing informative background on how manuscripts were produced.

Every medieval manuscript is unique, and manuscript creation is difficult for our modern minds to really understand. From the author (or authors, as many manuscripts are collections of various works), to the scribes, to the artists who illustrated (or "illuminated"), to the craftsmen who made the parchment, to the binders and makers of the covers - an individual manuscript required varied skills, passed through many hands, and could take years of tedious work to produce. When done, each manuscript would be difficult to recreate and was a prized possession above and beyond the knowledge it contained.

I read the ebook so I'm not sure how many illustrations are included in the hard cover edition. But, it doesn't really matter as the footnotes in the book provide links and information that allow a reader to quickly jump to the British Library (where most of the books discussed are catalogued) and view online detailed images of the manuscript pages Wellesley describes. I did this a number of times and it really helps to solidify the information Wellesley is providing.

Understanding these manuscripts means having a basic understanding of the times and society that produced them, and there is quite a bit of history in this book. She takes us from the early days of manuscript creation by monks and nuns to the late medieval / early modern time when creating manuscripts was a commercial activity alongside the production of books via printing press.

Wellesley clearly has an interest in understanding the role women took in producing manuscripts, whether as authors or scribes, and provides a number of examples of both. There is a whole section devoted to anchoresses - women who devoted their lives to solitude, prayer and spiritual reflection, depriving themselves of earthly pleasures by allowing themselves to be locked away for life - imprisoned really - in tiny rooms often attached to their local churches. One of the few earthly activities they were allowed was to read and write (with the priest's permission of course). Wellesley describes one of the most well known anchoresses, and whether or not we can know how much of her story comes down to us in her own words.

And that is what makes the book so interesting - Wellesley's ability to take us from the manuscripts she lovingly describes back into the world of their creators. I enjoyed the book and learned quite a bit. I give The Gilded Page Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.

NOTE: I received an advanced reviewer's copy of this book through NetGalley and Basic Books in exchange for a fair and honest review. The hardcover and ebook editions came out October 12, 2021. ( )

I received a review copy of this from the publisher Hatchette Book Group through NetGalley. An uncommon topic treated clearly passionately by Dr. Wellesley ("To sit in the silence of a special collections reading room and turn the pages of a medieval manuscript is to have tangible, smellable, visual encounters with the past. Parchment manuscripts have a particular scent that is hard to describe: acrid with undernotes suggesting an organic origin.") I liked all of the historical background and notes before Dr. Wellesley even gets into the various gilded leaves. One example early in the book: a fifteenth century recipe for ink. Dr. Wellesley conveys some of the difficulties researchers have in their work with manuscripts: "Some questions cannot be answered by copies or surrogates. And when a manuscript is lost completely, many important clues to its provenance are lost with it." She talks about tragic losses and near-losses - fires, deliberate destruction, more. She talks about patronage, some of the artists who illustrated the manuscripts she researched, some of the scribes who copied them, the authors, and some texts whose authorship is unknown.

Dr. Wellesley says "Because I love language and language forms, I have chosen, in almost all cases, to quote from original texts alongside modern translations." Because I love language and language forms...but am hampered by atrophied synapses that are not all that good at learning a new language... I so very much appreciate her quoting the originals and providing the translations. Despite that hampering, by the end of the book I could almost parse a bit of Old English! And understand a wee more of middle/early modern English. The Welsh? Whooee, what a jawcracker! I liked that she even translated early modern English, though those quotes were quite clear enough to me.

A continuing theme throughout this book is the importance, involvement, patronage, roles as scribes women had in ancient manuscripts; and some of the history, and lost history, of female authorship. Dr. Wellesley describes one thirteenth century translation of Aesop's Fables with final lines that "mean that the text is the work of the earliest named female writer of secular literature in the European tradition: Marie de France. And yet we know almost nothing about her." Along with the theme, Dr. Wellesly recounts several instances of male revisions of female writings. Though Marie "raises women from a position of moral inferiority to one of greater equality", some scribes making copies of her Fables added and changed lines that changed the meaning. In one fable of a wolf and a sow, the sow outwits the wolf. Marie closes the fable with [the literal translation]"All women should hear this example and remember it: they should not let their children die for want of a lie." And yet

The scribe of a fourteenth-century copy of "The Fables" in Cambridge changed this, however, turning the line "Que pur sulement mentir" (Only for want of a lie ) to "Por soulement lor cors garist" (Only to protect themselves). The change refashions this story of a protective mother into a suggestion that mothers might prioritize their own safety over that of their offspring. This is only one example: we see a pattern of misogynistic alterations in the manuscripts of Marie's "Fables."

I found one other example especially interesting to me. It that showed that not "all the literature produced by female writers from medieval Britain was bound by stricture." The

Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain (c. 1460-1502) wrote in a gloriously unrestricted way. Her surviving work is varied. She wrote the kind of religious verse common to her ere - the late fifteenth century = but she also wrote about topics that few, if any, medieval women writers discussed: unambiguous sexual desire, bodily functions, domestic violence.

And

"Cywydd y gont" is Gwerful Mechain's most famous poem, and the evidence of surviving manuscripts suggest it was also one of her most popular - it survives in thirteen copies. Perhaps part of its shocking, witty, joyous appeal was the way it took a familiar form and refashioned it. The poem is likely a response to Dafydd ap Gwilym's famous "Cywydd y Gal" [...]

I'll leave it to the curious to look up what the titles of the two poems translate to.

My one sadness with this book is that in at least the review copy I received, there were no actual illustrations of the works Dr. Wellesley cited. There are cumbersome urls in the notes, but they are largely ... cumbersome. Perhaps the publisher could also provide shortened links? I don't know if the final copy will have any of the gilded pages described.

And also for the publisher/editor:
In my copy, Chapter 6, there is a typo "Early printed editions of Chaucerf's work".

And, in Chapter 7, the text reads "Once he'd had that insight, the code could be cracked as follows, with the words in italics indicating vowels:" The consonants in my copy were also italics, not just the words indicating the vowels. Yes, her text that follows that does have the described vowels italicized, but the repeat of the code was the same, with slight regrouping of the letters. ( )

The Gilded Page explores not just Medieval manuscripts, but the world in which these manuscripts existed, and the forces that created, shaped, and preserved them. And while it serves as a highly researched exploration of the reasons and people who created these works of devotion and art, as well as what information we can glean from these texts in the modern day, overall I found the organization of the book to be a bit uneven. Some parts go into such detail that you forget if you’re reading about manuscripts or the epistolary habits of the 14th/15th Century Such-and-Suches. There are also moments where the author inserts herself into the text with personal anecdotes that don’t contribute to the research being presented, and these felt a bit out of context with the rest of the content.

This might be more enjoyable for those looking for a general potpourri of Medieval/manuscript trivia, but not a historical deep-dive into specific manuscripts themselves.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy. ( )

Disclaimer: I read this book as a NetGalley ARC. No compensation was received other than the chance to read this work.

This work is a discussion about the history of medieval manuscripts.

Overall, the work is an informative read as to how manuscripts are created, stored, found, and the history behind their discovery. This work is a delight for those who are interested in antiquarian works, historical preservation, librarians and curators. This would not really be considered a "light read" for a broader audience, as it does at times feel more like a recitation of people, places and facts.

The author does a good job of blending the text, historical context and narrative creation throughout the work.

Recommended for those who enjoy Susan Orleans and Allison Hoover Bartlett. ( )