Hospitallers of Albion for Haldan Skjoldklifr

 

The exemplar is BL MS Harley 2621 f. 1. The text reads:

Hearken now how we, Thorvaldr and Tofa, send halsings (1) to the most Honourable Haldan, hewer of shields, most handy and helpful is he, for we have been happily housed within his homelike and habitable herbergerie (2) and hospitality. His horn of plenty hath made our sojourn neither half-holiday nor hardship, his hearth is always hot, he has in all happenings kept us neither hamed (3) nor harmed nor hamperned. A hearty haven has he provided handling all our health, habitually and hendly (4), and before we hie ourselves homeward, with high happiness we hallow him with the honor of the Hospitalers of Albion such that henceforth and hereafterwards he shall always be hight a high-standing member of their company. Here we mark the date: xv.iii.xlvii. Here we set our hands:

124 words, of which 52 begin with "H". Unfortunately, I chose both the wrong nib and the wrong line-spacing, and thus the calligraphy is nothing to write home about. However, I'm relatively happy with the overall result. The color of the scan is also rather wonky, but I haven't figured out how to correct for this yet.

Notes:

1. MED s.v. halsing(e): (2) 'greeting, salutation'.
2. MED s.v. herbergerie: (a) 'A temporary lodging place; also, the tents or camp of an army in the field'’.
3. MED s.v. hamed: 'restrained, hampered'.
4. MED s.v. hendeli: (2)(a) 'humbly, meekly'; (b) 'beautifully, pleasantly'; (c) 'quickly, sharply'

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© 2013, Sara L. Uckelman.