One of the books to which I often return in the course of my research is a 1492 edition of the collection of saints' lives Das Leuend der Hÿlghen, printed by Steffen Arndes in Lübeck. This book is now kept in the library of the University of Southern Denmark, which is where I encountered it in the course of a brief employment as a research assistant there. The book is magnificent for many reasons, and one of the many aspects that continue to delight me is the material evidence of use - various clues as to how its readers interacted with the book. Since this edition came to the university library from a Danish school established in the mid-sixteenth century, these clues are particularly interesting for what light they might shed on the reception of these saint stories in a post-Reformation Scandinavian context.
Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek RARA M 15, f.403v
The material clues come in various forms, often as marginal notations of different kinds - scribbled notes or simply marks to highlight a passage - and sometimes these clues are more accidental. One such accidental clue can be seen on page 403v, the last page in the collection's chapter on Saint Erik of Sweden. As can be seen in the photograph above, the left column of the page is curiously streaked by some kind of discolouration. At the time of writing, I do not know how to explain this or what it might tell us about how this book has been used, but I'm opening this up to readers with more experience in codicology, in the hope that some suggestions might appear.
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