colophon

Here ends the Handbook of Prayers, edited by Fr. Charles Belmonte, made into this reading edition by Edward Wijaya — who, like the scribes before him, worked with borrowed light: the text is the Church’s, the prayers are the saints’, and only the mistakes are his own.

The type is EB Garamond, with initials in Uncial Antiqua after the manner of the Insular hand. The colors are those of the old books — vellum and iron-gall ink, minium red for the rubrics, ochre and verdigris for the illumination — though no calf was harmed for this vellum, and the verdigris will not eat through the page.

Where a monk had a scriptorium, this scribe had a machine that copies the book to the whole world in under a minute, and still he found ways to be slow about it.

An Irish scribe once finished a manuscript and wrote in the margin: “Now I have written the whole thing — for Christ’s sake, give me a drink.” The sentiment is retained; the request is converted to its modern equivalent:

Edvardvs peccator me fecit. Pray for him, and for all who read here. ✠