Secrets of medieval manuscripts

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. On first glance, what might you notice about a medieval manuscript? Maybe the material it's made from, the elaborate script or the ornamental illustrations. But look a little closer and there's a lot more to discover. In fact, as historian and curator Michelle P.

Brown explains in her new book, Illumino, these medieval artefacts are a portal to the past, with life stories of their own. Emily Briffitt spoke to Michelle to unravel some of their secrets. Talking about your new book, Illumino, it offers an insight into the medieval world through 12 of its illuminated manuscripts, and I'd really like to get acquainted with some of these. But first, before we go there, what do you think makes medieval manuscripts such a fascinating source for telling medieval history?

I've always found them one of the most complex and engaging forms of medieval evidence and you can excavate each book rather like you would Saturn who or any other major archaeological site. So it opens up the world of the physicality, it's the economy, it's the trade, you know, how did these materials get to be where they are, who actually was engaged in making them. And then you move in from that, obviously, to the textual content, but even beyond the textual content, the illuminated manuscript world can actually allow you to dig deeper and in fact much of the import and the meaning of them isn't actually pictures at all.

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