What's Wrong with Nones?

What's Wrong with Nones?

I want to take a closer look at UCR 013 (R&V). If we recall earlier, we learned that calendars were numbered reverse sequentially based upon their relation to three important days within the month (Kalends, Nones and Ides). Thus a date 6 days before Ides would be labeled VII ID. However, if you look at 013V (Aprilis), you might see that a problem arises, specifically in this area:

Let’s work down this part of the calendar together as it is written. The first row would be the 4th of the Nones (IIII N), the next row is the 3rd of the Nones (III N), the third row would be the 2nd of the Nones (II N) and the Fourth row is the 1st of the Nones (N). The calendar then continues with the fifth row labeled as the 8th of the Nones (VIII N) and the sixth row as the 7th of the Nones (VII N) and then immediately jumps into the seventh row, which is labeled as the 6th of the Ides (VI ID).

There seems to be an issue with the numbering. If the 1st of the Nones lands on the 5th of April, then April 6th should be labeled as VIII ID, not as VIII N (as we learned earlier when we discussed the numbering of calendars). The same is true with April 7th which is labeled here as the 7th of the Nones (VII N) instead of the 7th of the Ides (VII ID).

  Although within the image it does seem that there is some attempt by the scribe to make an “I”, and thus indicate the beginning of the period before Ides, the next date blatantly has a N (And thus labeling April 7th as VII N).  The Scribe makes a similar error on the recto side of this calendar. If we look at March 8th (what should be VII ID), this date is also labeled with the same strange curb like shape that looks much like the curves of the N’s seen above it. The scribe also omits writing the word Nones (or Nons as it is labeled on the verso side of this leaf) on March 7th (although it is still labeled as I N) however this might just have been for time reasons, given that the numbering of calendars was common knowledge.

So why are these mistakes there? In my opinion it seems to be simple human error. Typically books of hours (which I am assuming this was a part of) were written more for look than for practical use. Thus if there was a mistake made within the book of hours, it would not always have been corrected, especially if doing such would cause the book to look less pristine.

One method of scribal correction was to scrape at the vellum underneath a mistake before the ink dried.  So, it seems that the “N-like” curves were written in such a way that they could be either “N’s” or “I’s”, as if the mistakes were scraped away before the ink dried. Unfortunately, it seems that the ink on April 7th dried before the scribe was able to make a correction. However, the issue with this theory is these calendars are not written on vellum, rather they are written on parchment so I am not sure if the same technique could be used.

Still, regardless of the reason, the fact that the mistake exists seems to give the calendar more life. It allows us to see the human side of the scribe who worked tirelessly in order to create this calendar. 

Now let's take a look at some scribal inconsistencies.