Xiuxiueig

Nikoleta Sekulovic

Jane Barlow, 2025

This is a page from a Medieval glossary, a list of words followed by a synonym or an explanation of their meaning. Glossaries are the ancestors of dictionaries, the difference is that dictionaries aim to include all the words in a language, while glossaries were/are made to help students understand a specific Latin text that they studied in school, listing the difficult or outdated words from that text.

The page in this photo is the last surviving page of a glossary that was copied around the year 900 probably to be used in the Barcelona Cathedral's school. It's kept in the Diocesan Archive of Barcelona (Catalonia).

Colophon: a statement at the end of a book containing the scribe or owner’s name, date of completion, or bitching about how hard it is to write a book in the dark ages

Oh, my hand

The parchment is very hairy

Thank God it will soon be dark

St. Patrick of Armagh, deliver me from writing

Now I’ve written the whole thing; for Christ’s sake give me a drink

Oh d fuckin abbot

Massive hangover

Whoever translated these Gospels did a very poor job

Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night

If someone else would like such a handsome book, come and look me up in Paris, across from the Notre Dame cathedral

I shall remember, O Christ, that I am writing of Thee, because I am wrecked today

Do not reproach me concerning the letters, the ink is bad and the parchment scanty and the day is dark

11 golden letters, 8 shilling each; 700 letters with double shafts, 7 shilling for each hundred; and 35 quires of text, each 16 leaves, at 3 shilling each. For such an amount I won’t write again

Here ends the second part of the title work of Brother Thomas Aquinas of the Dominican Order; very long, very verbose; and very tedious for the scribe; thank God, thank God, and again thank God

MORS DIABOLVSQVE COMITANTVR VOLVPTATEM

by Christian Goller (1943–2017)