On due care of books

We are not only rendering service to God in preparing volumes of new books, but also exercising an office of sacred piety when we treat books carefully, and again when we restore them to their proper places and commend them to inviolable custody; that they may rejoice in purity while we have them in our hands, and rest securely when they are put back in their repositories.

Richard Du Bury goes on to say...

And in the first place as to the opening and closing of books, let there be due moderation, that they be not unclasped in precipitate haste, nor when we have finished our inspection be put away without being duly closed.  For it behoves us to guard a book much more carefully than a boot.

 A sound article. When I have my castle my priority will be building a safe library, God willing and weather permitting.
(The last clause was included so that my mother might learn the meaning of D.V. & W.P.)

Knowledge dropping

Honi soit qui mal y pense

I do wonder why this phrase was adopted for British passports, courts of law and sovereigns when, when people ask me what it means and why it is there, I have to give such an absurd explanation.



"Yes, I know what that means",  I can reply to the interrogator.  "It was said by one of our kings - they spoke French in those days - when he put on womenfolk's underwear in a public place, and it is a remonstrance of anyone who might snigger at him."
I am not unused to baffling my audience, but I do pity them at this point and their utter confundity as to why the Brits then emblazoned it upon everywhere official-looking that they could.
So if anyone has a worthier explanation (though I've a misplaced respect for the wits whose ridiculous reasons gain currency) please let me know.