An incredible new discovery!

An incredible new discovery has been made recently to reveal a wholly unknown text with sumptious illuminations bearing the title Fabula Rodonis peccatoris nequissimi (The story of Rodo the most worthless sinner).  The first folio of this newly discovered pieces is presented here exclusively in an attempt to unveil the mysteries of the text.

Fabula Rodonis is preserved in a single quire of what might have been once a papyrus codex. The script is very eccentric and irregular, which could indicate it is an autograph, possibly of someone with imperfect scribal training and quite a bit of imagination.  This could imply that the author of the text was a young monk, perhaps identical with the monachulus depicted  in the Fabula. Such an impression is supported also by the fact that the Latin of the Fabula is full of errors and has distinctly unclassical tinge. If the above implications can be taken seriously, this is not just an example of a unique new type of minuscule, but also a rare piece of autobiographic writing. As such, it provides us with a fresh insight into ups and downs of the life of an oblatus at St. Remi in Reims, the monastery, where, supposedly, Rodo lived.

We will continue to search for more clues about this text and update you on the Fabula Rodonis peccatoris nequissimi and on the fates of Rodo, the most worthless sinner, and magister Dodulf.

!yaD ‘slooF lirpA yppaH

Evina Steinova

I am currently a VENI postdoc at Huygens ING, an institute of the Dutch Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam. My postdoctoral project deals with the diffusion of innovations in Carolingian period and the role of intellectual networks in their successful spreading (or on the contrary the lack thereof). I have been active on Mittelalter since 2015 while still a PhD working on annotation practices in the early medieval Latin West. If you are seeking someone to explain you strange symbols appearing in the margins of early medieval codices, I may be the right person to consult. I have originally trained as a Latinist. My interests include Digital Humanities, medieval Jewish history and Judeo-Christian relations, history of science, and the study of early medieval manuscripts.

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