erikkwakkel:Cat paws in medieval book - againThis great image was brought to my attention by the arc
erikkwakkel:Cat paws in medieval book - againThis great image was brought to my attention by the archivist at Balliol College, Oxford (here is the tweet). In a similar case, an image I tweeted some time ago showed a trail of inky cat paws, which was sent to me by @EmirOFilipovic (here is that tweet). The Balliol manuscript again provides evidence of cats walking over books, in this case in a manuscript from the 15th-century. It’s lovely to see that cats walking over books is a universal practice, with currently two medieval cases identified. In the image above the cat appears to merely have had dirt on his feet, not ink. It’s hard to say when this intrusion happened, but it will likely have been before modern times. Cats are, after all, refused entry to library reading rooms.Pic: Oxford, Balliol College, MS 192 (England, 15th century). -- source link