In this lecture, we look at some beautiful, austere, and distinctively uncomfortable manuscripts and learn how the Middle Ages shaped the way we read today both in print and on screen. Medieval manuscripts written in early English are familiar and yet foreign to us, not only for their language but also for their style. Like their cathedral counterparts, Gothic script and page design come across to us as beautiful, austere, and distinctively uncomfortable. But is this how their designers intended them – and can we indeed speak of these books as designed?