The contributors to The Middle Shore assembled their exhibits without knowing the sources of the materials given to them. If you would like to submit an exhibit of your own, we encourage you to do likewise. Please curate your own collection of our textual, pictorial, and sonic fragments before viewing the descriptions and source information below.
Besides the images listed by collection (Tide), the Middle Shore also makes use of photographs by Marian Bleeke, Lara Farina, Hannah Gracy, Robert Farina, Kathleen Kelly, and Katherine Richards.
Click on this icon to follow a link to the original item, where available.
The first collection of images on The Middle Shore.
Angels – Anonymous. The Middle English ‘Mirror’: An Edition Based on British Library MS Holkam misc. 40. Ed. Kathleen Marie Blumreich. MRTS 182. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2003. p. 181. The Middle English text is a late fourteenth- to early fifteenth-century prose translation of Robert de Gretham’s Anglo-Norman Miroir (c. 1250–1260), a collection of 60 sermons in verse.
Blue Round – Illustration from Guadalupi, Gianni. China Through the Eyes of the West. Vercelli, IT: White Star S.r.l., 2003. p. 23. The map is an illustration of al- Sharif al-Idrisi’s Kitab Rudjar/Tabula Rogeriana, made for Roger II of Sicily in 1154. The manuscript shown is likely Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Pococke 375, (1553).
Caliphs – Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Spain. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995. p. 166.
Cards – Kyoshi, Takahama. “Spring.” In Traditional Japanese Poetry. Ed. and trans. Steven Carter. Menlo Park, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993. p. 443. The poem is a modern haiku in the style of a traditional waka; it is included in this collection of mostly medieval poetry.
Change – Gray, Douglas. Later Medieval English Literature. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p. 122. The image features lines from Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Trojan romance, Troilus and Criseyde.
Cliff – Photo by Brandon Darnell from his blog, Living in the Golden Age of Travel. The image shows the Slovenian castle, Prejama Grad, built in 1570 on the site of an earlier medieval castle set into the mouth of a cave.
Confusion – Raskolnikov, Masha. Body Against Soul: Gender and Sowhele in Middle English Allegory. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. p. 91. The passage concerns William of Moerbeke’s thirteenth-century Latin translation of Aristotle’s On the Soul.
Corner – Lego construction and photo by Alois. “Modular Medieval Corner Inspired by Set 1592.” Eurobricks Member Forum.
Cubebs – Anonymous. “The Land of Cockagne.” In Anglo-Irish Poems of the Middle Ages. Ed. and trans. Angela M. Lucas. Dublin, Ireland: Columba Press, 1996. p. 51. The Middle English poem is from British Library MS Harley 913, ff. 3–6v (c. 1330).
Door – Illustration from Allan, Tony. The Vikings: Life, Myth, and Art. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2004. p. 15. The photo, by Ted Spiegel, shows a tenth-century style house at the Hedeby Viking Museum in northern Germany.
Dress – “Medieval Dress Cotte Simple laced-up, XV century, reenactment.” Dress by Aleksandra Kaim, who is shown modeling it. Image taken from Dalebora Crafts’ pages on Etsy. Photo by Joanna Kaim.
Head – Illustration from Coquet, Michèle. African Royal Court Art. Trans. Jane Marie Todd. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. p. 34. The photo shows a thirteenth- to fifteenth-century terra cotta figure, made by the Ife-Ife people (Nigeria). At the time of print, the sculpture was housed in the Musée National des Arts d’Afrique et Oceanie in Paris.
Jankyn – Reichl, Karl. “The Middle English Carol.” In A Companion to Middle English Lyric. Ed. Thomas G. Duncan. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005. p. 157. The lines are from a fifteenth-century Christmas carol in British Library MS Sloane 2593, f. 34r.
Lxx – Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, Vol. 5: Bald’s Leechbook (BM Royal MS 12 D.xvii). Ed. C.E. Wright. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1955. f. 56b. The manuscript is also viewable in the British Library’s online collection.
Moonwort – Gray, Douglas. Later Medieval English Literature. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p. 340. The lines of verse are not actually from John Lydgate’s Dietary, and another source is not given.
Plan – Illustration from Horn, Walter, and Ernest Born. The Plan of St. Gall, Vol. II. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. p. 184. The image shows the plan for the bloodletting house of the proposed Benedictine monastery laid out by the ninth-century architectural drawing, Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen MS 1092.
Ring – Image from British Library, Royal MS 6 E.vi, f. 104. The image is an historiated initial illustrating the Omne Bonum, an encyclopedia compiled in London c. 1316–1375. Image courtesy of British Library Public Domain.
Sailing – Illustration from Guadalupi, Gianni. China Through the Eyes of the West. Vercelli, IT: White Star S.r.l., 2003. p. 82. Credited as “Archivo White Star,” no captions.
Saint – Boase, Thomas Sherrer Ross. St. Francis of Assisi. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1968. p. 54. The passage discusses Thomas of Celano’s Life of St. Francis, written c. 1229–1230.
Scullions – Gray, Douglas. Later Medieval English Literature. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. p. 423. The image features lines from Alexander Barclay’s Egloges (c. 1514).
Silver and Gold – Norton, Thomas. The Ordinal of Alchemy. Ed. John Reidy. EETS 272. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. p. 18. Norton’s manual (written in 1477) here describes allegorical imagery that he attributes to Ramon Lull of Catalonia.
Skull – Illustration from Coquet, Michèle. African Royal Court Art. Trans. Jane Marie Todd. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. p. 149. The figure shown is a twelfth-century bronze of Igbo-Ukwu manufacture (Nigeria), probably modeled after a leopard skull. At the time of print, the artifact was housed in the Galerie Walu in Zurich.
Smoldering – Damian, Peter. Letters 121–150. Trans. Owen J. Blum and Irven M. Resnick. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004. p. 100. From a letter to his brother Damianus, c. 1065–1071.
Une Femme – Mannyng, Robert. Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne, Part II. Ed. Frederick J. Furnivall. EETS o.s. 123. London: Kegan Paul, 1903. p. 279. The Middle English text is Robert Mannyng’s 1303 confessor’s manual, Handlyng Synne; the French is Mannyng’s main source, William of Waddington’s Manuel des Pechiez (c. 1275–1300). The lines shown follow the exemplum, “The Temptation of St. John Chrysostom’s Deacon,” a story from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great (written in 593).
Uphill – Illustration from National Library of the Netherlands, MMW 10 b 23, f.123r (Jean Bondol’s Bible Historial. Made in Paris in 1372). Accessed via Europeana Collections. The image portrays scenes from the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah.
Violet – Diamond, Arlyn. “Sir Degrevant: What Lovers Want.” In Pulp Fictions of Medieval England. Ed. Nicola McDonald. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, 2004. p. 93. The text is ll. 641–651 of Sir Degrevant, an anonymous fifteenth-century Middle English romance.
Added to the base collection by participants in the “Beachcombing” panel at BABEL Santa Barbara.
Eyes ex Voto – Undated silver sterling plate form the “Amulets and Talismans” collection of the American Academy of Opthamology’s Museum of Vision.
Glass – Window of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain (construction begun 1882). Photo by Brianna Jewell.
Hands – Wall painting, Toledo Cathedral, Toledo, Spain. Photo by Brianna Jewell.
Pilgrim Badge/Scallop – captioned “a thirteenth-century drilled scallop-shell pilgrim badge found in excavations at Winchester, England.”
Three Phalli – Neta no es Porno, 5/31/2014. Captioned “Medieval pilgrim badge of unknown origin.”
Wall – Gate of Santa Madrona (14th c.), Barcelona, Spain. Photo by Brianna Jewell.
Words and Margins – Burgwinkle, William E. Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature. Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 13. Photo and marginal notation by Brianna Jewell.
Other images used in personal collections and essays.
Aphrodite – from the collection Afrodit, where it is captioned “First Nude Female Sculpture Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, 350 BC.” The sculpture appears to be the Colonna Venus, a Roman copy of Praxiteles’ statue, housed in the Museo Pio-Clementino galleries at the Vatican Museum.
Little House – Personal photo held by Marian Bleeke, c. 1976.
Sheela – Corbel sculpture from Kilpeck Church, Herefordshire (built c. 1140), from The Sheela Na Gig Project. Photo by John Harding.
St. John St. John the Evangelist – Polychromed walnut sculpture, c. 1400, from Tuscany. In the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo by Marian Bleeke, 2014.
Stone/Shell Compositions – Arrangements and photos by Marian Bleeke, 2014.
Awasegai Shells – Decorated shells for matching game, middle to late Edo Period (18th –19th c). Saga Prefectural Museum, Japan. Photo by Pekachu, Wikimedia Commons.
Box of Iroha Karuta – Playing cards, probably Taisho period (1912-1926). Photo by Japanexpertna, Wikimedia Commons.
Matrix Diagram – Illustration from Bostock, Mike. “Will It Shuffle? Or, why random comparators are bad (in addition to being slow).” bost.ocks.org. 2012. Web. Accessed 2 Mar 2016.
Babel Box –Treasure box by Helen Burgess, 2015. Photo by Lara Farina.
Merlin – Lovelich, Herry. Merlin: A Middle English Metrical Version of a French Romance. EETS e.s. 93. Ed. Ernst A. Kock. London: Kegan Paul, 1904, p. 267. The edition is based on Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 80 (c. 1450).
Camino Cielo Paradise – Chumash wall painting at Painted Cave State Historic Park, CA. Photo by Doc Searls, 2009. Wikimedia Commons.
Mission Santa Barbara – Photo by Carlton Watkins, 1876. Wikimedia Commons.
Watershed and Topography Map 1 – Southern Santa Barbara County Steelhead Assessment and Recovery Project. Stoecker Ecological, 2002.
Waving Grizzly Bear – US Department of the Interior twitter feed, August 25, 2014. Photo by Kevin Dietrich.
All drawings and sounds by Wendy Farina, 2014 & 2016.
Broken Prayer Bowl – Photo by Brianna Jewell.
Fun Home’s Cuts – Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston and New York: Mariner Books, 2007. p. 44. Photo by Brianna Jewell.
Ancona Whale — Print from engraving, 1602. From: Barthelmess, Klauss, “Stranded whales in the culture and economy of medieval and early modern Europe,” ISANA 27 (2003).
Animals – Bartholomeus Anglicus, Livre des propriétés des choses (French translation of Jean Corbechon), Paris, 1447. Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 399, fol. 241r.
Chilmark Pond – Photo by Kathleen Kelly, 2015.
Dead Girl – Thomes, William Henry. A Whaleman’s Adventures in the Sandwich Islands and California. Chicago: Laird and Lee, 1890. p. 168.
Doggerbank Minke Whale – Pencil and watercolor drawing by James Sowerby, 1787. From: Barthelmess, Klauss, “Stranded whales in the culture and economy of medieval and early modern Europe,” ISANA 27 (2003).
Donegal Whales – Video still from McCann, Nuala, “Whales found dead,” BBC News, November 7, 2010.
Drumlin – Photo, Stavros Reservation.
Franks Casket – Carved whalebone box, 8th century. Photo, The British Museum.
Jewelbox Clam – Photo by Kathleen Kelly, 2014.
Jointing a Whale – Woodcut illustration from Thévet, André, La Cosmographie Universelle, Vol. 2. Guillaume Chandiere: Paris, 1575, p. 1017.
Katwijk Whale – Woodcut, 1608. From: Barthelmess, Klauss, “Stranded whales in the culture and economy of medieval and early modern Europe,” ISANA 27 (2003).
Marine Map – Olof Månsson [Olaus Magnus], Carta marina et Descriptio etc. From Van Duzer, Chet, Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps. London: The British Library, 2013. p. 82–83.
Micro Shell – Photo Gary Greenberg, 2008. Sandgrains.com.
My First Sperm Whale, Whale Jaw – Photos by Julie Tennis, n.d. Columbia River Sea Lions.com.
The Sanibel Stoop – Photo by Pam Rambo. I Love Shelling, February 17, 2012.
Otis – Photo by Kathleen Kelly, 2014.
Shop Penguins – Photo by Kathleen Kelly.
Stranded Objects in Plan Model – VMWare IT Documentation Center.
Stranded Objects Pushed Ashore – Kinahan, G. Henry, et al. “On Chesil Beach, Dorsetshire and Cahore Shingle Beach, County Wexford.” The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 33 (1877): p. 34–35.
Stranded Whale Near Berkhey – Drawing by Hendrik Goltzius, 1598. From Goldman, Victoria Sears, “‘Omen and Oracle’: Dutch Images of Beached Whales,” August 22, 2012.
Stranded Whale Near Beverwyck – Print by Jan Saenredam, 1602. From Whitty, Julia, “Two Whales, 400 Years Apart.” Mother Jones, November 10, 2010.
Stranded Whale on the Beach at Zandvoort – Anonymous print, post 1598.
Taranaki Whale – “Whales found stranded on Taranaki Coast,” ONE News.
Three Beached Whales – Print by Johannes Wierix, 1577. Wikipedia.
Torpedo Method – Barber, Francis M. Method for Floating Stranded Vessels. US Patent 435788 A, 1890.
View of Scheveningen Sands – Oil Painting by Hendrick van Anthonissen, 1641. From Kennedy, Maev, “Restoration reveals hidden whale in 17th-century Dutch painting,” The Guardian, June 4, 2014.
Vinyard Whale – Photo by Aretha Brown from “Dead Whale Washes Ashore,” Martha’s Vineyard Gazette, November 15, 2012.
Whale after Goltzius – Print by Jacob Matham, post 1598. From Goldman, Victoria Sears, “‘Omen and Oracle’: Dutch Images of Beached Whales,” August 22, 2012.
The Whale Beached between Scheveningen and Katwijk – Oil painting by Esaias van de Velde, 1617. Photo, New Bedford Whaling Museum. Wikimedia Commons.
Cyborgs on the Shore – Surfers and dogs at Bolinas Beach, CA. Photo by Lara Farina.
Dice – Roman dice made of bone. Photo from Saint Thomas Guild: Medieval Woodworking.
Baffled Owl – Marginalia from The Maastricht Hours, Liège, 14th century: British Library, Stowe MS 17, f. 162v. From Discarding Images.
Double Manicula – Marginalia from Anonymi chronicon à mundi creatione ad annum 1220. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 4935, fol. 19v.
Flightless – Marginalia from British Library, Add. MS 42130, f. 76r, The Luttrell Psalter. England (c. 1325–1340).
Manicula – Marginalia from St. Andrews, University Library, Typ NL A85 JT. Antwerp (1487–1490).
Manicula Dragon – Marginalia from British Library, Royal MS 12 E.xxv, A Volume Of Treatises On Natural Science, Philosophy, And Mathematics (c. 1300).
Owl – Marginalia from Walters Art Museum, MS W.267, f. 179v, a book of hours. Hainaut (c. 1450–60). From Discarding Images.
Peacock – Marginalia from Universiteitsbibliotheek Leuven, Cod. 1, f. 38r, Anjou Bible. Naples (c. 1340). From Discarding Images.
Snailcock – Marginalia from Walters Art Museum, MS W.427, f. 171v, a book of hours. Bruges (c. 1500). From Discarding Images.
Sweet Kiss – Marginalia from Cambrai, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 102, f. 195v, a13th-century French breviary. From Discarding Images.
Girls Playing Kai-awase – Anonymous artist, c. 1800. Wikimedia Commons.
Manicula Dragon – Marginalia from British Library, Royal MS 12 E.xxv, f. 23r, A Volume Of Treatises On Natural Science, Philosophy, And Mathematics (c. 1300). Image courtesy of British Library, Public Domain.
Fourth Angel – Morgan Apocalypse, London and France, c. 1255–1260: Morgan Library, M 524, f. 5r.
Gluckhaus – Game board by Janin Wise, 2014.
My First Sperm Whale – Photo by Julie Tennis, n.d. Columbia River Sea Lions.com.
Screaming Snail – Marginal image from Xenophon, Retreat of the Ten Thousand, c. 105: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Français 701, fol. 46r. From Discarding Images.
Shell Ear – Photo by Lara Farina, 2016.
Spiral – Drawing and photo by Lara Farina, 2016.
Yerba Santa – Photo by Liz Bauman, 2008. Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council.
All drawings and sounds by Wendy Farina, 2014 & 2016.
Whale Fall with Red Worms – Photo ÓMBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), 2002. From MBARI, “Whale carcass yields bone-devouring worms,” July 29, 2004.
Hand Shadow, Chillmark Pond, Penguins at Jane Slater’s – Photos by Kathleen Kelley, 2015.
Kelp Knot – Photo by Lara Farina, 2017.
Leechbook detail – British Library MS Royal D.xvii, fol. 51r (10th century): Image courtesy of British Library, Public Domain.
Shroud of Charlemagne – Polychrome Byzantine Silk (9th century). Musee national du Moyen Age, Paris. Wikipedia.
Standing Stone Observatory – photo by Shaun Dunphy, 2010: “Reflected Serendipity,” Flickr.
