To warn away thieves, medieval scribes sometimes added a written curse to the colophon of a precious book. Curses were once considered such powerful deterrents that they were sometimes added to Anglo-Saxon legal documents. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Medieval Book Thief Curses”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
In the Middle Ages, books were the rarest of treasures, painstakingly copied out by hand and often over many long years.
So how to protect these valuable works from theft?
Well, one way was for medieval scribes to include a curse written on the colophon, that is either the first page or the last page, to warn away would-be thieves.
Here’s one. May whoever steals me cease ever to have a moment’s peace.
They want to just haunt these people.
And here’s one. It’s a 16th century translation of a similar inscription in a French book.
Whoever steals this book of prayer, may he be ripped apart by swine.
His heart be splintered, this I swear, and his body dragged along the Rhine.
That’s for a book of prayer.
A little cognitive dissonance there, right?
I wonder if it rhymed in the French.
Yeah, but if you start looking for medieval book curses, you can find them.
There’s also one that’s a hoax that’s out there that somebody just made up to try to throw people off the track.
But, I mean, you think about it.
How do you keep people from stealing your books?
There were in those medieval libraries, you know, sometimes you see books that have chains connected to the shelves.
But I think the curses probably worked pretty well.
You think they would work?
I think they would.
Books were a more potent thing than they had a power about them because they were rare and filled with magic.
Well, and the curses themselves invoke divine intervention.
In fact, there are Anglo-Saxon legal documents, wills, where people invoke curses on people just to make sure that nobody changes the will.
A different time.
A different time.
I’ve always had the philosophy that if books go missing, I hope that the new owner of the book uses it for something.
That’s right, or it ends up in a little free library or something, right?
As long as they’re using it for something that it’s meant for.
They’re reading it.
They’re caring for it, appreciating it.
Well, we’d love to hear about what you’re reading or any thoughts you have about any aspect of language.
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