Medieval books of north England deserve more respect, scholar says

By Andrea Lynn

An Illinois professor could be considered the unofficial Duke of York.

John Friedman, a UI English professor, has spent the last 10 years trying
to put the medieval books of Yorkshire in northern England on the
intellectual map. His diligence has led to the discovery of several hundred
handmade books - many with painted illustrations - that were produced in
the region. That discovery, in turn, has led to the publication of his own
book, which sheds light on Yorkshire, giving it the respect it deserves.

According to Friedman, most medieval manuscript specialists have
concentrated on the stylish southern half of England, believing that the
northern half was "too barbarous to have a thriving manuscript trade." His
book, however, challenges this time-honored bias by exploring the vigorous
northern trade, identifying the books and styles and many of the scribes
that hailed from the region.

In "Northern English Books, Owners, and Makers in the Late Middle Ages"
(Syracuse University Press), Friedman lists some 250 manuscripts that
derived from such cities as York and Durham - from "kalendars" and
"almanachs," to prayer books, tracts, maps and histories. Among the gems
are a portable parchment calendar "with feathered sprays and drawings of
zodiac men" that Friedman found in Australia, and a 1390 parchment breviary
with red and violet pen work that he found under his nose at the UI
Library. Friedman's extensive survey of wills turned up some 3,300 books
that had been passed down through the ages, including the "ABC of Divinity"
and Thomas Becket's "Vita."

The professor of medieval texts also applied computer technology to his
scholarship: He digitized and archived thousands of images from the
manuscripts to help him identify particular scribes by their scripts.

By a phenomenal coincidence, he also was able to grow the Mediterranean dye
plant whose berry produced the unusual purple pigment used in some of the
northern manuscripts. Friedman had spent years hunting for the seed of
Chrozophora tinctoria. At wit's end, he called the UI botany department to
see if anyone there could give him any leads on the rare plant. "Those
seeds were the stuff of life to me," he said. The botanists, alas, couldn't
turn up anything.

A few months later, Friedman got a call from UI biochemist Steve Sligar,
who had been doing studies on natural anti-viral materials. Sligar
explained that a Paris, Ill., physician had sent him a bag of Chrozophora
tinctoria seeds that were sent to him by his brother in California, who had
grown the plant, believing that it held a cure for cancer. The California
brother mailed the pound or so of seeds to Illinois so that his sibling
could have them analyzed. The Illinois brother, in turn, sent the seeds to
the UI, which is where Sligar entered the picture. Remembering Friedman's
unusual phone call, Sligar contacted Friedman and handed off the seeds.
With some difficulty, Friedman later germinated the seeds - "I became a mad
scientist in the basement," he said - then planted them in his garden. "I
could have spent the rest of my life looking for this plant. It's magic
that I found it."