The quills of torment

Apologies for the poor quality! Here Grammar is depicted as a woman holding a book, a pen and a rod, with a classroom full of pupils brandishing their wax tablets (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana S. Marco MS 190)

The subversive power of text is usually captured by the saying 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. The problem with this adage is that it is n…