ABSTRACT
The digitization of cultural artefacts seems, at first glance, to be far removed from the process of creation as enacted by medieval scribes. In Emma Hardiman’s essay on medieval materiality, she mentions Thomas Aquinas’s explanation that God ‘placed within material objects the potential for divinity, and that it was through a process of refinement that they were able to become divine’. In terms of design, in the present-day era, one might ask where does the digital lie in the never-ending battle against the seductions of the Devil? The digital lacks either soul or real body, and while the physical manuscript is a locus to the divine, the sense remains that the digital one is a heresy. A religious manuscript is, arguably, the word of God, a weapon in the armoury for the good fight, and it is fair to say then that they are relics in themselves and are treated as such.
