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N8CCRG t1_iy41qh1 wrote

>Significantly, she found Eadburg’s name passionately etched into the margins of the manuscript in five places, while abbreviated forms of the name appear a further 10 times.

>This suggests it is likely to have been Eadburg herself who made the marks. “I could understand why somebody might write someone else’s name once. But I don’t know why you would write somebody else’s name so many times like that,” Hodgkinson said.

Are we pretending that a man obsessing over a woman is a modern invention?

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SendMeNudesThough t1_iy45os1 wrote

“I could understand why somebody might write someone else’s name once. But I don’t know why you would write somebody else’s name so many times like that,”

This is definitely a line written by someone who has never seen a teenager's diary.

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Might_Aware t1_iy4a63v wrote

Or whom never had her name written more than once herself...or never etched her crushs last name on hers. Like, helllooo, ever go to elementary school?

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MostlyPseudonymous t1_iy45gcw wrote

I facepalmed hard reading that, glad it wasn't just me.

"it's inconceivable to me personally as a single adult woman that a man could ever have written a woman's name over and over in a book."

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jigokubi t1_iy55k1f wrote

Yet she thinks it's perfectly normal for someone to write their own name in a book over and over...

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ButterflyAttack t1_iy57r0f wrote

Just goes to show how you have to take history with a pinch of salt. Historians' preconceptions colour their perceptions like anyone else's.

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shewy92 t1_iy8f2jf wrote

I did that when I was practicing my autograph for when I become a famous race car driver when I was bored in class as a teenager.

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jigokubi t1_iy9ivwa wrote

Maybe someone a thousand years from now will look at one of the old textbooks you had under the paper, find the impression of your signature, and write a news article about you.

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Nuntiak t1_iy587hv wrote

> …tiny, rough drawings of figures – in one case, of a person with outstretched arms, reaching for another person who is holding up a hand to stop them … Hodgkinson hopes further study will reveal the meanings of these figures and the ancient transcription, which has so far proved impossible to translate.

Really, Hodgkinson? Are we going to pretend we all don’t “know” EXACTLY what these figures mean?

Some medieval dude had an unrequited crush on Eadburg. He doodled in the book with his stylus while he was supposed to be studying.

We’ve all been there.

Except Hodgkinson apparently. Lucky Hodgkinson.

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CreativeKeane t1_iy6mbre wrote

I figured they're just playing dumb to get more funding and research money.

I hope they find more doodles. It's kinda cute but poor homie and the unrequited love.

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PMmeserenity t1_iy6wbqk wrote

This is the obvious interpretation. I totally agree. But if you go with that explanation, you loose the whole story about a "rare" example of a woman's writing from that era.

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vesparider t1_iy4l7x5 wrote

This is the equivalent of an 8th grade notebook with a first crush being scribbled inside. The person writing clearly knew if someone saw the text, they'd get some shit so they did it stealthily.

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Igoos99 t1_iyawoln wrote

Exactly. Look at any teenager’s notebook. The name written over and over again on it is very often not their own.

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Mikethebest78 t1_iy4a6hs wrote

Well other then the silliness about the name writing lets not be distracted from the fact that this survived for 1300 years and no one knew it was there. That is fairly amazing.

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inksmudgedhands t1_iy4ob2q wrote

Meanwhile, the cheap paperbacks I bought a few of years ago are already turning yellow.

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iocan28 t1_iy6oeix wrote

Clearly you need to get the vellum editions.

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khrak t1_iy4ltaq wrote

>The name of a highly educated English woman, secretly scratched on to the pages of a rare medieval manuscript in the eighth century, but impossible to read – until now.

The whole article they try make it sound like someone was secretly hiding these messages in various documents.

>capable of revealing “almost invisible” markings so shallow they measure about a fifth of the width of a human hair,

But it's pretty obvious that someone was doodling on some other material that was sitting on top of them.

I guess being able to recover 1,300 year old writing via the depressions left on another document just wasn't cool enough.

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jigokubi t1_iy55zsz wrote

Apparently the author never once read a mystery novel.

Maybe Eadburg was a celebrity, using the manuscript as a support while signing autographs.

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hugglenugget OP t1_iy6kk8m wrote

I imagine there may be differences due to the effects of a stylus's friction when applied directly to the page, compared to the frictionless depression caused by printing through from one page to another. Perhaps the fibres are dragged in a particular way.

Also, did the writing implements of the time require pressure? With a quill, a brush or an ink pen with a nib you wouldn't be able to use that much pressure. So perhaps that's another way they could figure out that this isn't print-through. But it's not explained in the article, as you say.

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SaltpeterSal t1_iy53m2l wrote

It's possible, although at this point the closest thing they have to paper is animal hide. Yes, even the pages are leather-bound. Who knows, maybe there's a matching tapestry with her name slashed into it.

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Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iy5504r wrote

>But it's pretty obvious that someone was doodling on some other material that was sitting on top of them.

It's pretty blatantly obvious this is not what happened.

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DecentChanceOfLousy t1_iy5cdgw wrote

Please, explain how it's blatantly obvious. What led you to this conclusion, other than the fact that the author said it was theirs?

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Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iy5e5vz wrote

No. If we want to play that game then the burden of evidence lies with the original claim, which I simply rebutted.

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DecentChanceOfLousy t1_iy5jjjk wrote

You said it was blatantly obvious, but I simply don't see how it can be obvious at all, much less blatantly so.

Thin depressions in a writing surface, with no pigment, show up constantly because the pressure of something else being written overtop of it travels through to the writing surface below.

I find it much easier to believe that that is what happened here, rather than a scribe writing and doodling with imperceptibly shallow scratches that they can't see even as they're writing. Perhaps I'm missing something; maybe this particular parchment was prepared such that it had a thin, easily scraped off layer of dried surface that would show the marks to the doodler for a few minutes before becoming imperceptible for the next 1300 years. Maybe this was a palimpsest, and the marking had pigment present on the parchment before being scraped off, and only the slight compression that carried through into the lower layers remains. Perhaps there is evidence of it being scraped (surface abrasion, or similar) that would rule out pressure carrying through from an upper layer. Perhaps.

But none of that is in the article, only the statement that it was written with a drypoint stylus (with no mention of how certain that was, or what evidence supported it), so I don't see how it's "blatantly obvious" that the simplest, most mundane explanation is incorrect.

But you find it blatantly obvious. I'm curious as to your reasoning. "I'm going to state that the person above me is missing something blatantly obvious and refuse to elaborate when politely questioned" is a much sillier game to play than "please, explain".

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Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iy5slv3 wrote

I'm not wasting my time reading that. Find a better use for your time.

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myrddyna t1_iybyz32 wrote

My man needs some debate prep.

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Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iydk3nk wrote

I really don't. Someone else made a claim, and I responded with the same amount of evidence they had - none. Someone else, who believed their claim without evidence asked me for evidence (absurd). I pointed out that the burden of evidence isn't on me (burden of evidence is a debate term, look it up). Some 18 people who don't understand burden of evidence or confirmation bias decided to side with someone presenting no evidence for their position, while being displeased I refused to show evidence for the opposite position. Meanwhile both claims are largely unverifiable, making it a stupid thing to debate over in the first place.

I simply decided to short circuit a pointless conversation, about something unimportant, with morons.

Since you opened your mouth about debate, and clearly don't understand burden of evidence, you're with the morons. Happy Wednesday.

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inksmudgedhands t1_iy4hs3n wrote

In the doodle, I don't see a person reaching out to another person and the other person holding their hands out. Instead, I see a nun with a habit getting slapped. With the lines coming out of her being action lines of her turning and feeling the sting of the slap.

Knowing folklore of this time, and how often the written word and figures be it drawn or created in poppet form were used to direct "magic" at a target be it good or bad, I think we are looking at a sneaky spell. Write down your target's name at a certain time over and over, draw what you want to happen and pray for it to happen. That's how basic spells worked back then.

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qtx t1_iy4tzbz wrote

What is it with people who simply won't believe what actual experts are saying and instead will make up their own version of events?

It's like, here are people who studied for decades to reach the knowledge they have now accompanied with the best scientific research available but nope, not good enough for me, I'll make up my own reality.

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inksmudgedhands t1_iy4x8xq wrote

Did I pee in your cornflakes and just forgot about it....?

Also, I am taking in expert knowledge. It just happens to be collected folklore and folklore practices. Grimoires were a thing and still are. Hidden in plain sight grimoires were a thing and still are. And during this time, simple written spells were all over the place. You can still find carved warding marks on the walls of older buildings throughout Europe with England being one particular country. Double Vs, Slashes, Daisy Wheels. Magic was extremely common.

Also, It is not clear why the name was written so stealthily, with a drypoint stylus, rather than ink. “Maybe it was to do with the resources that person had access to. Or maybe it was to do with wanting to leave a mark that put that woman’s name in this book, without making it really obvious,” Hodgkinson said. “There could have been some reverence for the text, which meant the person who wrote her name was trying not to detract from the scripture or compete with the word of God.”

They are making an educated stab in the dark here. As am I. Only it never really occurred to them to see it from a folklore perspective. They are almost using a modern perspective. A woman's name is secretly written in the book over and over again, therefore, the book must belong to a woman. True. But, also, given that it's on a religious text, in a religious setting, the name is hidden and repeatedly written with that accompany drawing, to completely ignore the folklore implications is missing out on a big potential clue to what is exactly going on here.

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Nice_Bake t1_iy4bjpx wrote

My dumb brain: "did they even have texting 1300 years ago?"

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Stibley_Kleeblunch t1_iy4v1sl wrote

Can we bring Eadburg back as a name?

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inksmudgedhands t1_iy4xq9g wrote

I've always wondered why some ancient names like Noah, Adam, Eve and Mary survived well into modern day while other names like Eadburg just fade away into nothingness. What makes some names endless while others stuck in a certain window of time that gets shut?

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Stibley_Kleeblunch t1_iy588ji wrote

Maybe they eventually get spoken out loud enough for people to realize how crazy some of them sound. Then again, we've still got Keith, so who knows.

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Fochinell t1_iy5oi8w wrote

Saxon name. The Saxons did get overwhelmed by the Normans, after all.

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EmotionalSuportPenis t1_iy6svfn wrote

Biblical names stick around by virtue of being Biblical names. They are notable, a lot of people will have seen them, and they are (were) extremely culturally relevant. You'll also find that different Biblical names tend to be kept by speakers of different languages depending on what's easiest to pronounce.

People are still named after non Biblical figures like Alexander and Helen for the same reasons, even though the two originators of those names were born ~2400 and ~3200 years ago, respectively.

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myrddyna t1_iybzmbi wrote

Language is funny that way. Eadburg pronounced in middle English would sound very near yabur to our ear. Like mother.

Names, like any word, are distorted by dialect. Much like the Irish name Aisling is Ashley in the USA.

Time and dialect change lots of words. It's doubtful that Jews in 1k BC would recognize Adam and Eve as anything more than gibberish.

For instance, my username is Myrddyna, but the two d's are a th sound, it's a form of the name Merlin.

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breakfasteveryday t1_iy54uj5 wrote

lol from the looks of it this was probably some kid

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skankenstein t1_iy5vbqe wrote

Looks like a medieval Kilroy was here.

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Nightshade_Ranch t1_iy64py9 wrote

Someday they're going to have to figure out dickbutt and soyjack.

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SixMillionDollarFlan t1_iy8lhc9 wrote

That picture is giving me Bob's Burgers vibes.

Ead-BURGER

Time Traveler

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alvarezg t1_iyaxo22 wrote

It makes perfect sense that a monk or novitiate would not want to write the name of his crush visibly.

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Trance354 t1_iyb5zma wrote

Lot of posters aren't taking into account one really pertinent point. At that time, faith was absolute. There was a God, there was a christ, and the holy spirit was more than just the 3rd figurehead. These beliefs were set in stone. It was on the order of perjury of their immortal soul to deface a religious manuscript.

As for her existence, it really isn't that far fetched for a noblewoman to enter the service of the church at some point, and less surprising that they were literate in the local Olde English dialect and Latin. If her father was unable to find a match, or she was intractable, the Abbess position of a religious order would be the equivalent to a corporate golden parachute.

I'm guessing the book was hers, personally, and likely that was what she did while listening to claimants. Essentially, doodling. Why she didn't leave a family name, likely because she was known, and her name was enough.

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throwawayhyperbeam t1_iy51l8h wrote

Tiny sketches, eh? Bet her boyfriend didn’t appreciate that.

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