{"id":3710,"date":"2012-07-25T20:02:02","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T20:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryshenanigans.wordpress.com\/?p=1289"},"modified":"2026-02-11T23:21:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:21:05","slug":"book-curse-turned-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/2012\/07\/25\/book-curse-turned-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"book curse turned blessing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jessyrandall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/1493hystoriate.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1290\" title=\"1493hystoriate\" src=\"http:\/\/jessyrandall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/1493hystoriate.jpg?w=236\" alt=\"\" width=\"236\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>Our anonymous Oxford shenaniganner sends us another beauty:<\/p>\n<p><em>Upon his death in 1715, William Brewster divided his substantial library between the Bodleian, Saint John&#8217;s College, Hereford Cathedral, and All Saints Parochial Library at Hereford.\u00a0 Among the nearly 300 chained books was the first Vernacular Livy (Venice: 1493) [pictured] which was left to All Saints.\u00a0 As with many books of the era, the Livius was graced with a book curse which remains just below the All Saints wood-engraved bookplate, reading:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0&#8220;Qui libru[m] istu[m] furatu[r] <\/em><br \/>\n<em>a domi[no] maledicat[ur]&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>At some point in its history, some library patron had added his own Medi\u00e6val version of shenanigans, capitalising on the fact that the &#8220;a&#8221; in &#8220;maledicatur&#8221; had been left slightly open, and the &#8220;l&#8221; following it was left quite short, and hence, with three short penstrokes, the anathema which promised God&#8217;s wrath to whomsoever might dare pilfer the volume was made anew:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Qui libru[m] istu[m] furatu[r]<\/em><br \/>\n<em>a domi[no] benedicat[ur]&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>promising that God would &#8220;speak kindly of&#8221; anyone who would steal this book.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For more information on book curses, try Marc Drogin&#8217;s <em>Anathema!: Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses<\/em> (1983), available at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/oclc\/9682767\">a library near you<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our anonymous Oxford shenaniganner sends us another beauty: Upon his death in 1715, William Brewster divided his substantial library between the Bodleian, Saint John&#8217;s College, Hereford Cathedral, and All Saints Parochial Library at Hereford.\u00a0 Among the nearly 300 chained books was the first Vernacular Livy (Venice: 1493) [pictured] which was left to All Saints.\u00a0 As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenanigans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3q4oW-XQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4062,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions\/4062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}