Medieval Wedding Invitations

If you’re looking for custom medieval wedding invitations, look no further! I design and create wedding invitations for themed weddings: medieval, Celtic, fairy, Renaissance, Lord of the Rings, or whatever fantasy world you have in mind. I can… Read More

Pangur Ban, calligrapher’s cat

Today I am addressing envelopes for a medieval wedding, and I am being supervised by my 8-month-old kitten, Pangur Ban. It is delightfully appropriate that Pangur Ban should watch me doing calligraphy today: I am writing in Insular… Read More

Iron Gall Ink

In an effort to get closer to the medieval techniques that I emulate in my calligraphy, I have started using Iron Gall ink. This was the ink most commonly used in the Middle Ages (and beyond). It’s interesting… Read More

Anglicana Script

I have been working on my Anglicana script lately. The term “Anglicana” actually describes a whole family of scripts that were in vogue in late medieval Britain. British scribes were looking for a script that was easy to… Read More

Gesso

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m learning how to use gold leaf with a technique called raised gilding. The cool thing about raised gilding is that the gold leaf is, well, raised – it is 3-D,… Read More

Ruling

One of the biggest aesthetic shifts between medieval and modern book layout is ruling. Medieval scribes would draw straight lines on their paper and on their margins to keep their writing straight, much like modern notebook paper. Today,… Read More

Buying Parchment

As a follow-up to my post about parchment, I have noticed that a lot of people find my site by doing internet searches about where to buy parchment. Well, there are two places you can buy parchment in… Read More

Parchment

I have been fortunate enough to have several opportunities to handle medieval parchment – it is an experience I wish everyone could have. Parchment is an absolutely amazing material. It is soft to the touch – some of… Read More

Scribes and Scribal Tools

For your browsing pleasure, here are links to a bunch of medieval images of scribes and scribal tools. You’ll notice that in almost all the images, the scribe is holding a quill pen in one hand, and a… Read More