Sketches of a Clerk

The following is a case study of the numerous pictures found in the margins of late-medieval account books of Reval. The first goal is to present the corpus of pictures and to analyse the forms, functions, and dynamics of this practice of drawing. Besides particular, unique features of the Reval drawings, I will show the connections of this corpus of pictures with the practices of other North European urban chanceries. Along with the discussion of the pragmatic aspects which characterise the Reval pictures, the question will be raised of the possibilities of using these pictures for reconstructing late medieval urban mentalities.