Week 8; Monica S.; Medieval Manuscripts - Diebold

I feel like this reading for this week is more of a supplement to lecture than the previous articles. What I mean is that the reading seems like much more history about the cultures of the scribes and less about the actual manuscripts and the art involved with them. However, I would say that this history is necessary to understand the origins and the reasons behind the art on the carpet pages and the evangelists' pages. The question of whether these manuscripts were for the illiterate is very valid. Without reading this article I would have believed that they were for the illiterate, but because this states that most of the manuscripts were protected with metal covers and then stowed out of reach or sight sways my opinion. I find it very strange that the scribes would go through so much work to makes the manuscripts and then keep them out of use or sight to most anyone. This defies the point of iconography and connecting words with pictures for comprehension. I also found the "magic" of words to be very interesting. I like the fact that Diebold brings into the article the difference between our culture and the one of this time and the fact that we, as readers or students or scholars, have a hard time believing that words could be so magical because they exist so much in our lives, but that the pure existence of them to these people was so great and overpowered their meanings or legibility.