Second-hand book
Life in a medieval monastery – Durham Priory in the fifteenth century
Author Anne Boyd
Publisher Cambridge University Press
ISBN 0-521-33724-0
Price 49p
This slightly faded paperback showing light wear and tear was found in the ‘bargain bin basket’ of the Greenwich Oxfam book shop. Already reduced to a charity shop status, it then fell again into further cultural obscurity in the sale bin at half-price.
The Middle-ages was a time of extreme dynamics; high spirituality sits beside deep violence, yet their visual sense and poetic outlook is second to none. The great cultural shift of the Early Renaissance crushed the singular vision of the Middle-ages and left us obsessed with proportion, scale and perspective! The idiosyncratic aesthetics of the medieval world now reduced to curiosity and incredulity.
But I believe we have it wrong and this book should have been sitting in the locked glass cabinet as a prize of the best a charity shop has to offer; down with the renaissance, vive la Middle-ages!
Oxfam shop
2 College Approach
Greenwich
London SE10 9HY
