1-150-054 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

St Jude and King Ahaziah, second half of the 14th century, (1843). Scenes from a manuscript service book and lectionary. St Jude is writing his epistle with the tools of a scribe - the quire is here represented as held in its place by a piece of lead suspended to a string; one page is already written, the other is prepared to receive the writing. The writer holds a pen and a scraper to erase mistakes from the vellum, on one side are three ink-horns for the different coloured inks. The box within the chairs contains his writing implements. King Ahaziah is sick in bed and awaiting the return of his messengers whom he had sent to consult Baalzebub the god of Ekron, and to know if he were destined to recover (2 Kings, ch i). At the end of the fourteenth century, people had not yet laid aside the custom of going to bed quite naked. Illustration from Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages from the Seventh to the Seventeenth Centuries, by Henry Shaw, (London, 1843).