Kathleen E. Kennedy

@themedievaldrk

manuscripts, early print, coconuts, nautiluses, media archaeology Above: BL, Royal 18 D II, Lambeth MS 532 For more on the banner artist, read

624 Folgt8.759 Follower19.595 Posts

Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir themedievaldrk.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jul 13

for ex, this lovely box of cockets. each of those in there has its own shelfmark (bc at best and worst TNA is actually field-leading)! (this is the prove-it background I use in meetings)

a whole lot of crumpled up parchment in a box, all covered in small handwriting

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jul 8

The Tiffany Problem but design. Is this 1970s? Nope. 1540s.

Violet and red design playing with positive and negative space

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jun 20

Also available globally. Chicago not as bad as I'd feared, but the recent light-dark pattern highlights the extreme swings characteristic of the breaking climate.

A chart of blue and red lines of varying intensities, showing the temperature changes in Chicago from 1850 to today.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· May 14

QR code on the back. Poor advertising and irresponsible infosec- idcare if Z loves this stuff we shouldn't encourage them to scan random qrs!

Curious? Scan it. Medieval Studies Cornell University Press. Black type on a white card.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· May 6

Screaming crying carrying on

A stack of books on a brown paper wrapper

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Mar 21

👀THEY ARE FOLLOWING ME 👀

Half a coconut shell on the asphalt next to a yellow pylon

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Mar 17

Current windchill 6F/-15C

An I Voted sticker in multiple languages colored red, white, and blue featuring the Chicago skyline

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Mar 14

Me in the 90s? (True, my tshirt was black and I was NEH not Rhodes lol)

Rachel Maddow profiled in Out in Front wearing a black leather bike jacket, white tshirt and jeans, round wire glasses and a buzz cut

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Mar 9

Reaction shot for your Monday: HONK

2 Canada geese on top of a brick smoke stack. One stretches out its neck...and honks.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jan 24

Hey Lassie, what's that? Has @themerl.bsky.social reached across the Atlantic to NWS?? MERL with a longer reach than this winter storm!!

black text on grey ground. "weather headline-maker is the absolute unit of" with 'absolute unit' outlined in red.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jan 10

Speaking of effective design and branding...

A grey T-shirt with a black crow holding its beak to a record like the needle. Text reads The Records Department Woodstock IL

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jan 10

This precisely! So for ex my cover is v medieval, but at the same time the colors and typefaces read contemporary. The combination is unexpected, new. The option I rejected didn't make both points as loudly.

A turquoise book cover with an orange/peach design on the front, with a bird biting an initial -I- while a vine pierces it. The text is black, and reads Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550, Kathleen E. Kennedy

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jan 3

That said, I'd be fully willing to pay 15 if it would help renovate whatever post apocalyptic travesty this "station" is. Srsly get this in front of a location scout and use the money for reno...

Many rusty grey metal railings and dirty ramps against peeling yellow and white walls and ceiling. Not pictured: the industrial bleach smell.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jan 1

oh and since someone will ask, this is the original manuscript that the top image was derived from. Never an exact copy! Owen Jones, the guy who imported the chromolitho studio, owned only a few manuscripts, and this was the primary one. He used it as a model of what medieval illumination should be

Red, green, and blue acanthus on sprays of green lobes and gold balls against white background, below a red-orange and blue border. VAM MS Reid 41

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Jan 1

Back on my bs in 26! This is from one of the earliest chromolithographed books in England (1849, more or less, published in fascicles)--not perfect, but very good. But the team was French and the print-run small. The flat, yellow of the facsimile in the QT is more normal for larger projects.

Green, blue, and rose acanthus leaves curl against white background, among green-lobed sprays and gold balls, below an orange and blue border.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Dec 28

Prepping my 26 planner and it needs something it needs something...ah that's the stuff @ethankocak.com

Black At-a-Glance 2026 planner with a blue clip on the top and a blue, black, and yellow newt character sticker on the front against a wooden desk

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Dec 23

YOU GUYS LOOKIT LOOKIT (look who ISN'T a fan of early 16thc dragons??)

In brown ink on tan paper a sort of dragon with curled tail, bat wings, leafy ears, horns. The first word of the text begins on a line from its open jaws, as though roared by the dragon.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Dec 20

Turned out to be tricky to photo the pages w/o glare but I think I got enough

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Nov 13

CHAPER 5: 150 YEARS OF ILLUMINATION, LOST AND FOUND- Why don’t we study 15thc English illumination? Who DID notice this art, and why? Surprising answers take us from the cradle of modern design theory to interwar Chicago!

collage of many pieces of medieval English border illumination, colorful blues, roses, and greens, against the yellowish scanned page. https://archive.org/details/grammarornament00Jone/page/n225/mode/2up

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Nov 13

CHAPTER 4: MID-TUDOR MEDIA STRATEGIES AND THE INVENTION OF MEDIEVAL DESIGN Enter printing! Watch English royal taste shift from stylistic plenitude in 1521 to a total adoption of continental design by the 1560s. Watch medievalism take shape from commoner to court.

the lower portion of a printed page. The borders dotted in black, a gold border rings the text. Rose and blue acanthus leaves and roses fill the border, and rose and blue vases. A monochrome portrait of Henry VIII in a turban as King David in a roundel in the center of the lower border. at https://luna.manchester.ac.uk/luna/servlet/detail/Manchester~91~1~432683~214284?mi=3&trs=7&qvq=q:reference_number%3D%2218952%22;lc:ManchesterDev~93~3,Man4MedievalVC~4~4,ManchesterDev~95~2,Manchester~25~25,Manchester~18~18,Manchester~91~1,Manchester~12~12,lib1~1~1,Manchester~26~26,Manchester~95~95,Manchester~20~20,maps002~1~1,Manchester~11~11,Manchester~24~24,nonconform~91~1,Manchester~4~4,Manchester~19~19,Manchester~10~10,Manchester~93~93,Manchester~14~14,Gaskell2~91~1,Manchester~15~15

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Nov 13

CHAPTER 3: MEDIEVAL MEMORIAL DOCUMENTS AS MASS MEDIA Documents! Propaganda! ~100 docs decorated in 3 styles, distributed nationwide, used at the same time on the same days. Reading medieval mass media art through McLuhan and @scottmccloud.bsky.social

gold background covered in cartoon-line roses, flowers, and gold portcullises. English royal armorial shield held up by a cartoony white greyhound and red dragon inside the initial T. Almost no text visible. at https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/72803654-c768-4ea3-b4f4-4a510636a954/surfaces/73698297-facf-4f18-b73c-1b27741203e9/

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Nov 13

CHAPTER 2: A VARIANT IN AN ENGLISH MEDIUM. Introduces media archaeology and media variants, media that fail. Medieval betamax. Nevertheless, these failures demonstrate English engagement with Renaissance designs, nearly 100yrs before they are supposed to have done.

white manuscript page copied in two columns, with colorful border of foliage, fancy initials in pigments and ink, and ink crosses in blue and red within the black text at https://bibliophilly.library.upenn.edu/viewer.php?id=MS%2048#page/2/mode/2up

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Nov 13

Hey hey, it’s now official on Concordia UP’s website, 20% discount code KENNEDY2026 at CUP (CAN) or Chicago (USD, link in next post) for Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550! concordia.ca/press/illumi...

A turquoise book cover with a orange-red design on the front, Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Oct 2

yeah that's more traffic than usual on this here no-alg site...

326 reposts, 28 quotes, 1.2k likes, 14 saves and then 48 comments, 354 reposts (incl quotes), 1.2k likes

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Sep 25

Likewise, this modest missal passed into the hands of Luigi Celotti, fleeing Italy with trunks of mss. Celotti’s sales in London in the 1820s finally taught the English to collect mss as art and this very book was in Lot 303! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/mis...

Black ink against white parchment. A gold illuminated initial T against a rose and blue ground features the Crucifix, and acanthus extensions in blue, red, and green.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Sep 25

Sometimes a manuscript’s travels are important. Friend of Cardinal Newman, Scottish Episcopalian bishop Alexander Penrose Forbes owned this humble breviary, perhaps acquired during his Italian tour. He had it bound by a Dundee shop renown for deluxe bindings. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/bre...

Dark blue leather binding, possibly shagreen (sharkskin), with two silver-metal corners, stamped with Forbes’ episcopal seal.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Sep 25

Science fans we got you! Until recently engineers required training in art as well as STEM! A surveyor in the 1620s sketched watercolors of astronomy landscapes and diagrams as he traveled. He even includes a pirated copy of Galileo’s 1606 work on compasses! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/gal...

A watercolor design on paper featuring a quadrant and other surveying equipment, and showing the use of a compass, filled in with a small landscape, and decorative flora and fruits, with a coat of arms at the center in blue, green, red, and gold.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Sep 25

While TM remains largely medieval, we do reach later. Fans of Esther Inglis might note this volume copied in France. A collection of Latin maxims derived from Erasmus and the Distichs Catonis, the emphasis is clearly on the calligraphy! www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/sev...

Black ink highlighted in gold in several calligraphic scripts on white pages, pages outlined in black and gold, and right-hand page bordered in black and white interlace designs.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Sep 25

There’s reason to believe that this marriage manual was personalized for Catherine de Medici c.1539! Childless for years, this gilded volume may have been a quiet, familial effort to support Catherine, thus lacking splashy miniatures or royal heraldry. www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/tre...

Two blue illuminated initials against gold grounds, infilled with strawberries and the designs called ‘dolphins.’ White parchment page outlined in gold and red, showing a large humanist script in black.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk· Sep 25

Pontificals include the rituals of bishops, not popes! This one was made for François de Halvyn, Bishop of Amiens c1503. Easily competing with print, this book boasts a sumptuous original scarlet velvet binding and top-tier script and decorative illumination www.textmanuscripts.com/medieval/not...