Book Curses, ancient and modern
An interview with the author of a marvellous new book about cussing out literary thieves is coming to a shelf near you later this year
The amount of material from an interview that makes it into the final version in print usually represents an absolute butchering of the conversation. It’s simply impossible to leave everything in, however interesting, because of space constraints. Recently I spoke to Dr Eleanor Baker, English Subject Lead for the University of Oxford’s Astrophoria Foundation Year, about Book Curses, her new title coming out in autumn this year with Bodleian Publishing, and her interest in linocuts (pictured above is her delightful Spring Pilgrim). Although I did my very best, I couldn’t cram it all into the feature which appeared in the summer print issue of Fine Books & Collections magazine (where I’m the Online Editor). So here is pretty much our entire conversation, well over twice as long as the article. I hope you enjoy it, despite the Alan Partridge nature of the interviewing.
How long have you been interested in book curses?
I have been aware of book curses for a little while. My doctorate research examined how different kinds of material texts, books, documents, inscribed objects like rings were described in late medieval literature in order to better understand how the people of late medieval England understood them as objects. This all sounds a bit dry, but I was interested in questions like ‘did the way that books were made in the late medieval period impact how people thought about them, and did they find the use of products like animal skin for parchment and binding unsettling?’ ‘when people wrote about mystical books like the Book of Life, did they describe them as being similar to real ones?’ and ‘why are holy figures like Christ and Mary so often compared to books?’
My interest was initially gripped by a collection of Middle English poems which described Christ as if he were a legal charter document: his skin was figured as parchment, his blood was ink, and the more serious injuries on his hands, feet, and side were dripping red wax seals. In researching these poems, I came across more examples of literature that again likened Christ’s wounds to writing, but also offered some more connections between bodies and texts. I found that late medieval people viewed their books and inscribed objects in many ways: they could be understood as holy or magical objects, but were also employed in religious literature as a means of understanding how the mind and memory functioned, or how sins and good deeds were logged.
So, I was already immersed in ideas about what books could represent - evil and good, life and death - and book curses were sometimes referenced in the academic work that I was reading as evidence for the ferocity with which people valued their books. More loosely, I am an avid reader of all things spooky, and cursed books return time and time again to haunt writers and readers in many different genres. For example, medievalist and prolific short story writer M.R. James’ ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book’ includes a daemonic illustration which looms over its reader. The historian and historical fiction writer Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy includes the fictional Ashmole 782, an elusive manuscript which appears and disappears from the Bodleian Library’s storage and which concerns the history of the vampires, witches, and daemons that the novels are concerned with. For me, book curses represented a compelling concoction of my research interests and the books that I read for fun.
How hard has it been to find examples?
Initially, I thought that it might be very difficult to find examples. ‘Book curses’ are rarely given that term that in catalogues that describe the contents of manuscripts and rare books. Instead, they are described using other more general terms like ‘colophon’ or ‘ownership inscriptions’, which could include a book curse, but not necessarily. They may also be called ‘anathemas’ a term which specifically implies excommunication from the Catholic faith, but this does not represent the variety of threats that these curses promise.
Have fellow academics been helpful?
I am in enormous debt to the researchers and librarians who produced and continue to work on catalogues of manuscripts and rare books: many of them go unnamed and their efforts under-acknowledged, and catalogues tend to be collaborative efforts gradually pieced together from many different individuals’ work over years. I consulted lots of online databases and hard-copy catalogues of libraries in the UK, the USA and Europe to find examples which I found interesting and which I thought other readers would, too. Luckily, I had most of the curse examples research from London’s British Library completed before the cyber-attack occurred, which meant that their manuscripts were not available to consult, and neither were their online catalogues - the most up-to-date catalogues which are often accompanied by digital facsimiles - live to peruse. Some scholars, notably, had written on the topic before; the best known is Marc Drogin’s Anathema! Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses which focusses on curses from the early medieval period. Clarck Drieshen has written two fascinating blog posts on some unusually vicious curses for the British Library Blog about medieval curses, too, and Lauren Alex O’Hagan study of curses inscribed within Edwardian books. The writing of these authors gave me an excellent place to start.
What kind of time range do the curses cover?
The title Book Curses is a little misleading, as not all of the curses contained in the volume are from books – some are inscribed on stone tablets from the ancient Near East, while others are on documents. They range from thousands of years BCE right up until the modern day, and they feature in both manuscripts and printed books. The vast majority of the curses that appear in books are hand-written, but they appear later in the form of book plates which could be easily reproduced and pasted into the front cover or flyleaves of a book, and then personalised with the name of the book’s owner or library of residence. The late medieval period between 1350 and 1550 CE, though, represents something of a high-point for the curse, both in terms of creativity and proliferation. They also still prove popular today – if you look on online crafting websites like Etsy you can find artists who sell book-plates with curses pre-printed for you to stick into your own books.
Are there common themes?
Yes, there are definitely common themes that are retained across different periods – the threat of hanging appears many times, that of burning is not infrequent, and shame is often invoked. What is lasting over time is people’s desire to imagine harm upon one another in creative ways – a creativity that is both amusing and unnerving. They also continually show how much people valued the objects that the written word was inscribed or printed upon, whether they represented the conquering of a piece of land or a book treasured because it was gifted by a much-loved relative.
Have these changed over time?
Many of the curses are representative of the time in which they were penned and make reference, for instance, to contemporary forms of capital punishment or kinds of illness that were particularly prevalent. These are often unsettling and sometimes humorous (indeed, for many examples the elicit a response of both at once) to a modern reader. To the inscribers of the curses themselves, these threats were intended and perceived likewise: for some people these were threats that promised real harm, but for others they were more playful. This perception is partially revealed by examining the kind of material text the curse appears in, and considering who the author might have been, so each of the examples that I given in the book is also accompanied by a description of the kind of material text it is found on or in and why it might be significant to our understanding of the curse.
What’s your favourite curse?
It changes depending on my capacity for violence or humour on any given day. My research interests mean that I have a particular soft spot for curses of the late medieval period. Many book curses from the earlier medieval period are written in very formulaic Latin, ‘This book belongs to X, whoever removes it from X, let them be anathema. So be it. Amen’ is the common formula. An example of this kind of standard curse is seen in a manuscript from Northern Italy now held in Yale’s Beinecke Library:
The book of St Mary of the Dove. Whoever steals or removes [this book]: let him be anathema. Amen.
In the late medieval period, the structure of these curses becomes a little freer and we begin to see some more idiosyncratic constructions. John Hancok’s book curse also consistently remains in my top five. The curse is written in Middle English, and translates as follows:
This is John Hancok’s book and whoever says nay,
The devil of hell bare Thomas Carter away!
Know before you knit, and then you may loosen it,
If you knit before you know, then it is too late.
The curse is from a 15th century manuscript held by Durham University Library and which contains a collection of works by Thomas Hoccleve. Some scholars have speculated that the John and Thomas named in the curse are two schoolboy scribes. They both write in the margins of the manuscript and sometimes carelessly smudge their ink. The somewhat riddle-like quality of the last two lines, which appears to advise that one should know, perhaps in the biblical sense, the person they will marry before they wed them seems precocious for two young boys and offers a foil to the threat of the curse’s opening. I like to imagine these two educated but typically teenage boys trying to appear learned and scholarly while simultaneously squabbling over the book.
And a particularly bad one, either in terms of nastiness or just being a bit pathetic?
In terms of a particularly ‘bad’ example, I enjoy any curse which breaks its rhyme scheme. Many curses end-rhyme, the final word of each line rhymes, but when the rhyme scheme is broken the reader’s expectation is disrupted which can feel anti-climactic, and therefore read as pathetic or poignant depending on the context. An interesting example of this, I think, is the only book curse included in the volume which does not have a named manuscript reference. The manuscript is ‘missing’, which does not necessarily mean lost but more likely that its buyer and subsequent library of residence was not recorded. The last known sighting of it was at a Sotherby’s auction in 1962. The description of the manuscript records a Middle English book curse that translates as follows:
He who steals this book,
Shall be hanged upon a hook,
Behind the kitchen door.
I like that the curse finishes on a pleasingly domestic note: the thief will not be hanged on a gallows, but on the back of the kitchen door. While we can safely assume that the book was not stolen, I cannot help but wonder if the curse’s disrupted rhyme scheme impacted its efficacy, and if the jarring final line is somehow responsible for the location of the manuscript no longer being known.
Can you tell me a little more about your linocuts?
I began linocutting in the second Covid lockdown in the UK at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. I remember having been frustrated by the selection of Christmas cards on offer that year, and thought it would be nice to post some handmade cards to people. I bought myself a cheap starter set for £10 from Hobbycraft and was enamoured. I was by no means a natural, but I enjoyed the process of designing, carving, and printing, and the range of finer skills that you must cultivate to do any of these things well. Having spent a deal of time with late medieval manuscripts and incunabula I was particularly drawn to imitating the qualities of illustration and wood-block prints. In terms of which curses I select to cut – it is mostly the ones that take my fancy! I find it fun to try and imagine the individuals who were motivated to inscribe the curses, from Assyrian rulers to early modern cooks and naughty Victorian school children.
And here are two examples of book curses with linocuts and explanations by Dr Baker.
He that steals this book,
May Our Lady give him ill health.
Either with rope, sword or knife;
He shall have a short life.
Therefore, for the love of Our Lady,
I pray you let this book lie.
Said William Bentley.
This Middle English book curse features on a 15th century manuscript held by Lambeth Palace Library, London. The print represents the threats promised in the book (a rope, a sword, and a knife), and the spray of lilies coming out of the book the Virgin Mary, who is often represented with the flower in late medieval iconography.
Jean Gembel her book,
I wish that she who steals it from her
May be drowned.
Written in a book containing recipes that dates to between 1660 and 1700 and which is held by the New York Academy of Medicine. Jean Gembel signs her name multiple times in the book, and in this print Dr Baker has figured her boiling up jam (hence her holding the strawberries). There are several recipes involving oranges in the book, so I have included these as part of the border.