POSTCARDS on parchment paper have revealed how medieval people used their own version of social media.
An expert at St Andrews University found they used small works of art in the same way we use social media today, to reveal status, allegiances and values.
Author Dr Kathryn Rudy, senior lecturer in the School of Art History, found hundreds of lost artworks between the pages of medieval prayer books.
The images had been wrongly classified as manuscript illuminations but Rudy discovered they were in fact personal notes, mementos, and small painted images similar to modern postcards, which were kept in the religious books for safe keeping.
For ten years, the lecturer carried out the research of medieval books in more than 30 libraries in seven countries, including Scotland and England, for her new book Postcards on Parchment: The Social Lives of Medieval Books.
Rudy said: “In some ways, medieval people were similar to us in that they traded small images as a way to forge social bonds, just as we post images on social media sites today – to reveal our status, our allegiances and our values. Recipients of small gifts would form a favourable memory of the giver each time they gazed upon the picture.
“Whereas manuscript illuminations were designed to provide a visual narrative to a book’s text, parchment paintings offered a kind of autonomous currency for exchange between individuals – people who longed for saturated colour in a grey world of wood, stone and earth.
“These small, often colourful pictures offered a brilliant reprieve, and these intriguing and previously unfamiliar images were traded and cherished, shedding light into the everyday life.”
The medieval art expert identified more than 200 examples, and has now compiled them in this fantastic new book.
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