Futility Closet

So There

Posted in History, Literature, Oddities by Greg Ross on November 27th, 2006

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/451312

Before there were copyright laws, there were book curses:

For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner, let it change into 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 out for mercy, & let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails … when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever.

That's from a volume in the monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona, but similar curses were used widely throughout the medieval period.