Marginal Sketches, In A Volume Of Treatises On Natural Science, Philosophy, And Mathematics f.23r

This manuscript is typical of the sort of book owned by medieval university students: its contents are academic, it is small and easily portable, the text is written in small cursive script, and with minimal decoration. On a flyleaf is a partially erased inscription, recording that it was given by a university graduate to an Oxford school; a later medieval inscription records its ownership by Holy Trinity collegiate church at Tattershall, in Lincolnshire. A little pointing hand (or manicula) was used throughout the Middle Ages by readers to indicate passages of text which they thought worthy of marking. Here such a hand has been given a dragon-like body, and a second sketch of a human head is looking directly at the next interesting part of the text.