✣Highlights from the week online
How St Cuthbert kept a book for 300 years At JSTOR Daily, Allison Meier described the history of “Europe’s oldest intact book”. The small red book, a copy of St John’s Gospel, was found inside the coffin of St Cuthbert in 1104. St Cuthbert’s body was incorrupt, and Catholics would bring devotional objects to his resting-place after his death in 687.
The article quoted the academic Stuart McWilliams as saying that small books were sometimes worn for spiritual protection: “While many kinds of relic could be worn as amulets, books were particularly desirable, and there are multiple accounts of Gospels and Psalters (especially those linked with saints) being fitted with cord or placed in a pouch and worn on the body.”
