do you return books? do your friends?

[Ken Gargett]

i have a once only policy. mates often borrow books. if they don't come back, they are never allowed another. you'd be amazed at how much some of my mates scream about this. 

i will concede something about rob - he always returns books. hence, he is allowed more. 

anyway, i came across this recently. sent it to a few friends, apropos of nothing. stunned at the number who asked why they had received it. 

9 Curses for Book Thieves From the Middle Ages and Beyond

BY REBECCA ROMNEY

 

MARCH 23, 2018

ISTOCK

It may seem extreme to threaten the gallows for the theft of a book, but that's just one example in the long, respected tradition of book curses. Before the invention of moveable type in the West, the cost of a single book could be tremendous. As medievalist Eric Kwakkel explains, stealing a book then was more like stealing someone’s car today. Now, we have car alarms; then, they had chains, chests … and curses. And since the heyday of the book curse occurred during the Middle Ages in Europe, it was often spiced with Dante-quality torments of hell.

The earliest such curses go back to the 7th century BCE. They appear in Latin, vernacular European languages, Arabic, Greek, and more. And they continued, in some cases, into the era of print, gradually fading as books became less expensive. Here are nine that capture the flavor of this bizarre custom.

1. DEATH BY FRYING PAN

A curse in the Arnstein Bible

BRITISH LIBRARY // PUBLIC DOMAIN

The Arnstein Bible at the British Library, written in Germany circa 1172, has a particularly vivid torture in mind for the book thief: “If anyone steals it: may he die, may he be roasted in a frying pan, may the falling sickness [i.e. epilepsy] and fever attack him, and may he be rotated [on the breaking wheel] and hanged. Amen.”

2. "A WORSE END"

A 15th-century French curse featured by Marc Drogin in his bookAnathema! Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses has a familiar "House That Jack Built"-type structure:

“Whoever steals this book
Will hang on a gallows in Paris,
And, if he isn’t hung, he’ll drown,
And, if he doesn’t drown, he’ll roast,
And, if he doesn’t roast, a worse end will befall him.”

3. "THE MOST SAINTED MARTYR WILL BE THE ACCUSER"

A book curse from the Historia scholastica

YALE BEINECKE LIBRARY // PUBLIC DOMAIN

In The Medieval Book, Barbara A. Shailor records a curse from Northeastern France found in the 12th-century Historia scholastica: “Peter, of all the monks the least significant, gave this book to the most blessed martyr, Saint Quentin. If anyone should steal it, let him know that on the Day of Judgment the most sainted martyr himself will be the accuser against him before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

4. "OUT WITH HIS EYES"

Drogin also records this 13th-century curse from a manuscript at the Vatican Library, as Medievalists.net notes. It escalates rapidly.

"The finished book before you lies;
This humble scribe don’t criticize.
Whoever takes away this book
May he never on Christ look.
Whoever to steal this volume durst
May he be killed as one accursed.
Whoever to steal this volume tries
Out with his eyes, out with his eyes!"

5. "DAMNED AND CURSED FOREVER"

A book curse from an 11th century lectionary

BEINECKE LIBRARY // PUBLIC DOMAIN

An 11th-century book curse from a church in Italy, spotted by Kwakkel, offers potential thieves the chance to make good: “Whoever takes this book or steals it or in some evil way removes it from the Church of St Caecilia, may he be damned and cursed forever, unless he returns it or atones for his act.”

6. "YOU DESERVED THIS WOE"

This book curse was written in a combination of Latin and German, as Drogin records:

"To steal this book, if you should try,
It’s by the throat you’ll hang high.
And ravens then will gather ’bout
To find your eyes and pull them out.
And when you’re screaming 'oh, oh, oh!'
Remember, you deserved this woe."

7. "CURSED FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD"

This 18th-century curse from a manuscript found in Saint Mark’s Monastery, Jerusalem, is written in Arabic: “Property of the monastery of the Syrians in honorable Jerusalem. Anyone who steals or removes [it] from its place of donation will be cursed from the mouth of God! God (may he be exalted) will be angry with him! Amen.”

8. "I WISH SHE MAY BE DROUNED"

A book curse in a 17th century cookbook

NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE // PUBLIC DOMAIN

A 17th-century manuscript cookbook now at the New York Academy of Medicine contains this inscription: "Jean Gembel her book I wish she may be drouned yt steals it from her."

9. "THE GALLOWS BE YR END"

An ownership inscription on a 1632 book printed in London, via the Rochester Institute of Technology, contains a familiar motif:

“Steal not this Book my honest friend
For fear the gallows be yr end
For when you die the Lord will say
Where is the book you stole away.”

BONUS: TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

One of the most elaborate book curses found on the internet runs as follows: "For him that stealeth a Book from this Library, let it change to a Serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy, and all his Members blasted. Let him languish in Pain, crying aloud for Mercy and let there be no surcease to his Agony till he sink to Dissolution. Let Book-worms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final Punishment let the Flames of Hell consume him for ever and aye.”

Alas, this curse—still often bandied about as real—was in fact part of a 1909 hoax by the librarian and mystery writer Edmund Pearson, who published it in his "rediscovered" Old Librarian's Almanack. The Almanackwas supposed to be the creation of a notably curmudgeonly 18th-century librarian; in fact, it was a product of Pearson's fevered imagination.

[anacostiakat]

Interesting.  Not a book borrower or lender be!    I read primarily action/mystery/syfy in paperback as I am old skool.     Used to just pitch them but more recently I send them to my brother-in-law and he returns the favor.  Only diff is he generally reads hardbacks.  Then I try to send them to someone else.  Otherwise they go out.

[ayepatz]

I always return a borrowed book.

I have lost so many treasured books over the years to mates, and worse, family members, who never return them.

It’s so frustrating when they are part of a series, such as Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin books.

Or when they come back scuffed to bits, or with the corners folded over.

?

[Hookmaker]

Ken I’ve taken your policy one step further: I’ve stopped lending out books all in all. This hurts those who return, but the flock of non returners had grown, so I had to move on. Same with tools and power tools, I never lend them out. I often go and help out, but no one touches my tools.

[Kitchen]

Looks like aside from 7 and 8, all those punishments were before the printing press, when every book had to be handwritten.  A group of monks would take about 5 years to complete one text, so yes, I can assume the cost of a book was very high with a pretty steep punishment for steeling. 

[Corylax18]

Being 31, this isn't really an issue I've run across. Most people my age don't even own A book, and haven't since they sold their last college text. The only books I borrow/have borrowed are from my father, he has more than he knows what to do with. That being said, I have still returned every single one. As a young kid he had the faith in me to let me read through his complete first edition set of "The Hardy Boys" books, juxtapose that with me borrowing "Cocktail Time in Havana" from him just last week. Its quite an interesting look at Havana from a "Well Heeled author", published in 1928. I'm more amazed by what has changed, more than by what has. 

[BJRPorter]

Interesting...

I keep all the books I’ve read. They are excellent storage for the bands of the cigars I smoked while reading them. When I read again, years later, coming across the bands adds another layer of contemplation to the subject matter.

[gweilgi]

I am fully on board with all of those.  Not returning a book is a crime.  I can get seriously ratty about it.  Zero tolerance all the way....

Although, if it were up to the Waverley Council planning department, I would not have any books at all.  We put in a Development Application and I was asked "why do you need such a large study".  When I told the guy that I had 2,500 books in storage, I was told to throw them out...

[Tag9485]

I feel like, in today's digital age, the physical book/magazine is becoming less prevalent. With Kindle and all the other e-readers people no longer flock to Barnes and Nobles like they used to. While I'm in the same age group as the gentleman above(32), I own quite a few books. As convenient as ebooks are, theres nothing quite like holding the real thing.

 

That said, I've never been a fan of a book thief or a thief of any kind.

 

 

 

 

[fitzy]

Even worse is when those so called friends return your books and they are trashed. 

Last time I loan books to that guy. 

[PrairieSmoke]

If I borrow a book I return it and if I lend one I don’t expect it back.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[grizzlee]

Don't borrow and usually don't see a loaner come back home....