Waxed Tablets from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

This page combines views of waxed tablets in art as well as extant related artifacts (panels and stylii) into a unified timeline.

For more information on constructing or using waxed tablets, see the articles by Ranthulfr Asparlundr, Ulf, Al Schlaf, Early Period, Hippodromus, of Dofinn-Hallr Morrisson, Þóra Sharptooth, and Arval Benicoeur; Haakon has photos of his miniature wax tablet, another miniature wax tablet, a wax tablet, and a bunch of wax tablets; or these additional links.

For more Roman-era waxed tablets, see A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities or The Roman Era in Britain.

• The finds at the Shipwreck at Uluburun (1306 B.C.) include a boxwood writing tablet with a three-piece ivory hinge and a wooden leaf from a writing tablet.
• Writing materials: tablet, stylii, seal, inkwell, and compass found in France, c. 100 B.C. - 50 B.C.
• Terentius Neo and his wife, fresco from Pompeii
  The wife of the magistrate holds a set of two waxed tablets which are joined together in the middle; she also holds a stylus.
• Mural from Pompeii ("Sappho")
  A girl holding a stylus and a set of four waxed tablets which seem to be tied together along one side. (This fresco comes from the same house as the portrait of Terentius Neo and his wife.)
• A Roman will found in Wales, dated to A.D. 75-125
• Pine writing-tablet and another writing-tablet, an iron stylus, another iron stylus, and yet another iron stylus, and even more iron stylii, found in excavations of a Roman fort at Newstead, Roxburghshire, dating from around A.D. 80-100
• Roman tablet found in London, dating from around A.D. 80-120, recording the deed of sale of a slave named Fortunata. There are actually three tablets of silver fir bound together.
• The Vindolanda tablets, from around A.D. 97-103, date to the Roman occupation of Britain.

Preparation of the heart is the unlearning of the prejudices of evil converse. It is smoothing the waxen tablet before attempting to write on it. St. Basil the Great, Epistle II

• A schoolboy's wax tablets -- one with handwriting practice (British Library MS 34186, No. 1), and one with multiplication tables and a grammatical exercise (British Library MS 34186, No. 2) -- 2nd century?
• Copper alloy and iron stylus, Roman Britain (found in Winchester), A.D. 180-220
• There are tablets and some stilii at The British Museum, including the wood from waxed tablets (sometimes with still-visible writing); explore the British Museum's website to find them.
• Metal and bone stylii from Whitby Abbey, eighth or ninth century.

[Charlemagne] also tried to write, and used to keep tablets and blanks in bed under his pillow, that at leisure hours he might accustom his hand to form the letters; however, as he did not begin his efforts in due season, but late in life, they met with ill success. Einhard's Life of Charlemagne

• Illustration ca. 983
  The smaller figure holds a single panel hornbook-like waxed tablet in one hand, and a stylus in the other.
• St. Gregory from an 11th century Benedictine missal
  The scribe in the lower left-hand corner uses a stylus on a wax tablet.
• A bronze stylus found in Giecz, in Poland, dates to the 11th or 12th centuries.
• St. Ambroise, Opuscules (Alençon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 11, fol. 1), 12th century
• Contemporary illustrations of Hildegard von Bingen depict her using a waxed tablet. Her vision of a tree in Scivias (1165) includes a small self-portrait in one corner. A biography of Hildegard started during her own lifetime has an illustration in which she is having a vision (also here); she is poised to write on a waxed tablet, and it appears her scribe (possibly the monk Vollmar) is writing on one as well.
• A bone stylus found at Jedburgh Abbey in Roxburghshire, dating from the 12th-15th centuries
• The wax tablets of the city of Torun, c. 1250 - 1530 (thanks, Brian!)
• The Konstanz-Weingartner Liederhandschrift, 1290-1320
  Heinrich von Morungen holds a waxed tablet.
• Writing styluses and board for wax writing tablet from medieval Novgorod

His felawe hadde a staf tipped with horn, A peyre of tables al of yvory, And a poyntel polysshed fetisly, And wrooth the names alwey, as he stood, Of alle folk that yaf hym any good, Ascaunces that he wolde for hem preye. The Summoner's Tale from The Canterbury Tales, ll. 76-81

• Ivory writing-tablets with ecclesiastical scenes made in either Paris or Liege, 14th century
• Writing tools (an ivory waxed tablet with a leather case), 14th century; found in London. See Leather case for writing tablets for additional information.
• 14th century wax writing tablets from Back Swinegate in York. "These are match box sized and are complete with an iron stylus and decorated leather case. Their owner used them to jot down a curious mixture -- a document in Latin, a set of accounts and a love poem in Middle English." York Archaeology also has a more detailed description and a child-oriented webpage about these tablets.
• Set of six ivory tablets in a cuir-bouilli holster, 14th century
• French writing tablet of the 14th century showing the coronation of a lady.
• Ivory writing tablets, 1300-1320
  More information on these tablets are here.
• Manesse Codex, 1300-1330
  Der von Gliers holds a waxed tablet.
  A young boy at the feet of the napping Herr Reinmar von Zweter writes on a waxed tablet.
  Meister Gottfried von Strasburg holds a waxed tablet.
• Birth and Naming of the Baptist, fresco in the Peruzzi Chapel in Florence by Giotto, 1320
  Zacharias writes John's name on a tablet
• A man reads something written on a tablet in The Holkham Bible (British Library MS Add. 47680, fol. 27v), c. 1327-1335
• Ivory cover of from a pair of writing-tablets: a hawking party, c. 1330-1350
• Ivory tablet, mid-14th century
• Ivory tablet with young people playing games (hot cockles and frog?), 1340-1360
• The birth of St. John the Baptist, The Golden Legend (BNF Fr. 241, fol. 141), 1348
• Ivory waxed tablet, 1350-1360
• The birth of St. John the Baptist, Les petites heures de Jean de Berry (BNF Latin 18014, fol. 207), c. 1375
• Ivory writing tablets with carvings depicting children playing games, 1375-1380
• Ivory writing-tablet with a scene of courtly love, c. 1380-1400
• Mary at the loom and The Holy Kinship in the frescoes at St. Vigil unter Weineck, c. 1385-1390
• St. Matthew from a fresco at the Church of St. Helena at Deutschnofen, c. 1405-1415
• Two boys go to school, Livre des Vices et des Vertus (BNF Fr. 20320, fol. 177v), 15th century
• Allegory of Memory, The Twelve Dames of Rhetoric (BNF Fr. 1174, fol. 27v), second half of the 15th century
• An ape in a jester's ass-eared hood writes on a tablet in the margins of a book of hours (The Hague, MMW, 10 F 50, fol. 157v), c. 1460
• An ivory writing-tablet with the Fountain of Youth within the Castle of Love, 15th or 16th century (reverse, open)
• Laborer, the Schwazer Bergbuch (ÖNB 10852, fol. 90v), 1561
• A polyptych set of waxed tablets (twelve pages) with a leather case, from Germany, beginning of the 17th century