Great book about Old English, from roughly 500AD to 1150AD.
þ, "thorn", was pronounced as "th", so "the" was "þe". Scribes often used "y" instead of þ, to the point where printers would shorten "the" to "þe". This got forgotten, then strangely resurfaced when in the 17th century "ye olde"... became fake archaic English.
How "miniatures" that monks drew, have nothing to do with their size, but the "minium" colour that was used for them.
