The best notes written in manuscripts by medieval monks

beggars-opera:

Colophon: a statement at the end of a book containing the scribe or owner’s name, date of completion, or bitching about how hard it is to write a book in the dark ages

• Oh, my hand
  
• The parchment is very hairy
• Thank God it will soon be dark
• St. Patrick of Armagh, deliver me from writing
• Now I’ve written the whole thing; for Christ’s sake give me a drink
  
• Oh d fuckin abbot
• Massive hangover
• Whoever translated these Gospels did a very poor job
  
• Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night
  
• If someone else would like such a handsome book, come and look me up in Paris, across from the Notre Dame cathedral
  
• I shall remember, O Christ, that I am writing of Thee, because I am wrecked today
• Do not reproach me concerning the letters, the ink is bad and the parchment scanty and the day is dark
  
• 11 golden letters, 8 shilling each; 700 letters with double shafts, 7 shilling for each hundred; and 35 quires of text, each 16 leaves, at 3 shilling each. For such an amount I won’t write again
  
• Here ends the second part of the title work of Brother Thomas Aquinas of the Dominican Order; very long, very verbose; and very tedious for the scribe; thank God, thank God, and again thank God
• If anyone take away this book, let him die the death, let him be fried in a pan; let the falling sickness and fever seize him; let him be broken on the wheel, and hanged. Amen