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Law students today have it pretty easy — or at least their medieval counterparts would say so. Displayed on the sixth floor of Bird Library is a law textbook about two feet wide by four feet tall, which was carried into classrooms by medieval servants in law school. Despite the difference in era, doodles in the margins of the textbook remind visitors that students have always gotten distracted in lectures.

“Looking at the doodles makes me feel connected to those students, because that’s a practice that continues to this day, engaging with this really dense legal text, in this playful manner,” Irina Savinetskaya, the exhibition’s curator, said.

The Making of the Medieval Book is currently on display at the Special Collections Research Center on the sixth floor of Bird until Aug. 15. The exhibition consists of a main gallery full of authentic manuscripts from the 13th to 16th centuries, and a hallway gallery focusing on modern work inspired by medieval books. It’s a continuation of Savinetskaya’s earlier work, digitizing medieval manuscripts for Bird.

For Savinetskaya, handling the manuscripts is a visceral experience. Many of them are printed on animal skins, meaning that hair follicles are visible on the pages with the writing and illustrations. She was excited when she handled the materials for the first time and hopes to make the public aware that they also have access to the manuscripts through the SCRC reading room.

“I remember opening them one by one, and going, ‘Oh, this is amazing,’” Savinetskaya said. “There were funny noises in the stacks as I was looking at them.”

Savinetskaya acknowledged a niche subject like medieval manuscripts might feel obscure to the general public. She kept that in mind during curation and focused on how the manuscripts were made and reused over their lifetimes, as well as their impact and influence on modern design.

Courtney Hicks, lead curator of the SCRC, said one of the exhibition’s strengths is its focus on the evolution of the medieval manuscript. It highlights how certain traditions have held up over time, from the use of parchment and scribes to the invention of the printing press.

“It’s incredible to connect with the shift in how the material of the book was made,” Hicks said.

Collin Snyder | Staff Photographer

In Syracuse University’s Bird Library medieval manuscript collection, pages of the texts are embellished with colorful letters and designs. Each manuscript is carefully crafted and personalized, revealing aspects of the scribe’s life.

Books of hours, devotional texts with a prayer for every hour of the day, are featured multiple times throughout the exhibition, and provide a window into the lives of people living in medieval times. The books were often highly personalized to the owner and used to record important events in the family or sentimental messages from friends. They were kept in families as wedding gifts for generations, giving women a medium to express themselves.

“Some people call them the best sellers of the Middle Ages,” Savinestkaya said. “There were more of them made than any other type of medieval book, including the Bible.”

Hicks emphasized that the making of the exhibition involved many partners across the library, including people working on processing, cataloging, mounting and caring for materials.

Brett Barrie, the catalog librarian for SCRC, is part of that team. He translates information from Savinestkaya about manuscripts into detailed descriptions to be cataloged online. Barrie finds common language to describe the manuscripts and make them searchable in the library database.

Collin Snyder | Staff Photographer

The Special Collections Research Center in Syracuse University’s Bird Library houses a Book of Hours, a medieval prayer book. This is one manuscript in their collection, filled with many works from the Middle Ages.

Barrie said that cataloging manuscripts can be especially difficult because they are one of one items made by scribes, unlike later books that were produced on a printing press. The recycled and passed down aspect of the medieval books also complicates his work. He has to treat each owner and writer as a new layer or era of the text.

His favorite part of his job is getting the materials in front of people to physically interact with. Barrie values giving people the opportunity to interact with something they saw in the exhibition through online catalogs.

“The thing that stays with me is the amount of dedication you have to have to produce something like this,” Barrie said. “I’m just happy they survived long enough to get to us.”

Savinetskaya hopes that visitors to the exhibition walk away with a feeling of connection to the time period and the material and can understand the parallels between modern books and medieval manuscripts. She wants people to realize that the way we read books today is a continuation of some practices that began in the Middle Ages.

“I hope that the exhibition helps to demystify (medieval manuscripts) and spark curiosity about them as this unique, dynamic object,” Savinetskaya said. “Curiosity that goes beyond mere admiration to meaningful engagement with these materials.”

Published on February 12, 2025 at 12:33 am

Contact Charlotte: cprice04@syr.edu