Writing tablet

Tablets of ivory or wood with wax-filled compartments were used as handy notebooks for the ephemeral jottings of the day. The tablets, often as many as six, were laced together with strips of leather or parchment in the form of a book. Those on the outside provided a protective cover and the exterior surfaces were often embellished with figurative or geometric carvings. Biblical scenes, figures of saints or secular images of courtly love and leisure pursuits were popular. The tablets were housed in special travelling cases of leather and the notes were scribed into the wax with a bone or metal stylus.
Writing tablets have internal divisions for the wax and the number and shapes of the compartments vary from tablet to tablet, a flexible system which allowed the owner to select a particular tablet for a particular purpose. Complete examples of writing tablets with their cases survive in the Royal Library of Belgium, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and from excavations in York (see York Archaeological Trust). Writing ‘tables’ as they were known in the medieval period, were sold by booksellers and haberdashers, and regular consignments were imported into London from the Continent.