Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times

Survival of classical methods in mediaeval times; epigraphy and palaeography; manuscripts on metal plates; lead rolls; tin rolls; gold amulets; Petelia tablet; waxed tablets and diptychs; tablets shown on gems and coins; tablets found in tombs; tablets from Pompeii; Consular diptychs; many-leaved tablets; the form of the waxed tablets; whitened boards used by the Greeks; late survival of tablets; "bidding the beads;" lists of members of guilds; wooden book in Norway; ivory tablets and diptychs; inscribed Anglo-Saxon lead tablet; "horn-books."

Two forms of manuscripts, the roll and the codex; Egyptian Books of the Dead; Book of Ani; existing manuscripts on papyrus; the library of papyrus rolls found at Herculaneum; Herodotus on manuscripts; use of parchment; manuscripts on linen; inscribed potsherds or ostraka; manuscripts on leaves of trees; Greek libraries; Roman libraries; a list of the public libraries in Rome; Roman library fittings and decorations; recently discovered library in Rome; authors' portraits; closed bookcases; booksellers' quarter; cost of Roman books; slave scribes; librarii of Rome. The technique of ancient manuscripts; parchment and vellum; palimpsests; papyrus manuscripts; process of making papyrus paper; use of papyrus in Greece and Rome; ancient papyrus manuscripts; the qualities of papyrus paper; the form of papyrus rolls; the wooden roller; inscribed titles; coloured inks; use of cedar oil; black carbon ink, its manufacture and price; red inks and rubrics; purple ink; double inkstands; pens of reeds and of metal; Egyptian scribes' palettes, pen-cases, and pens.

Use of minium; Egyptian miniatures; illuminations in Roman manuscripts; Greek illuminations; two sources of knowledge about classical illuminations; the Ambrosian Iliad; the Vatican Virgil; the style of its miniatures; later copies of lost originals; picture of Orpheus in a twelfth century Psalter; another Psalter with copies of classical paintings; the value of these copied miniatures.

The very compound character of Byzantine art; love of splendour; Gospels in purple and gold; monotony of the Byzantine style; hieratic rules; fifth century manuscript of Genesis; the Dioscorides of the Princess Juliana; the style of its miniatures; imitations of enamel designs; early picture of the Crucifixion in the Gospels of Rabula; the splendour of Byzantine manuscripts of the Gospels; five chief pictures; illuminated "Canons"; Persian influence; the Altar-Textus used as a Pax; its magnificent gold covers; the Durham Textus; Byzantine figure drawing, unreal but decorative; Byzantine mosaics; the iconoclast schism, and the consequent decadence of Byzantine art.

The age of Charles the Great; the school of Alcuin of York; the Gospels of Alcuin; the golden Gospels of Henry VIII.; the Gospels of the scribe Godesscalc; Persian influence; technical methods; the later Carolingian manuscripts; continuance of the Northumbrian influence; beginning of life-study; the Gospels of Otho II.; period of decadence in the eleventh century.

The Irish Church; Celtic goldsmiths; technical processes of the metal-workers copied by illuminators of manuscripts; the Book of Kells, its perfect workmanship and microscopic illuminations; copies of metal spiral patterns; the "trumpet pattern;" Moslem influence; absence of gold in the Irish manuscripts; the Book of Durrow; the monks of Iona; the Celtic missionaries to Northumbria; the Gospels of St Cuthbert; the Viking pirates; the adventures of St Cuthbert's Gospels; the Anglo-Celtic school; improved drawing and use of gold; Italian influence; the early Gospels in the Corpus library; the Gospels of MacDurnan; the Book of Deer; the Gospels of St Chad; the Celtic school on the Continent; the Psalter of St Augustine; Scandinavian art; the golden Gospels of Stockholm and its adventures; the struggle between the Celtic and the Roman Church; the Synod of Whitby; the Roman victory, and the growth of Italian influence; the school of Baeda at Durham.

The Danish invasions; revival of art under king Alfred; the Benedictional of Aethelwold; signs of Carolingian influence; the Winchester school; St Dunstan as an illuminator; Anglo-Saxon drawings in coloured ink; Roll of St Guthlac; the great beauty of its drawings; Canute as a patron of art; the Norman Conquest.

The Norman invasion; development of architecture and other arts; creation of the Anglo-Norman school; magnificent Psalters; the Angevin kingdom; the highest development of English art in the thirteenth century; Henry III. as an art patron; the rebuilding and decorating of the Church and Palace of Westminster; paintings copied from manuscripts; the Painted Chamber; English sculpture; the Fitz-Othos and William Torell; English needlework (opus Anglicanum); the Lateran and Pienza copes; Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the Vulgate; the style of their illuminations; manuscripts produced in Benedictine monasteries; unity of style; various kinds of background in miniatures; magnificent manuscripts of the Psalter; the Tenison Psalter; manuscripts of the Apocalypse; their extraordinary beauty; their contrast to machine-made art; English manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the results of the Black Death; the Poyntz Horae; the Lectionary of Lord Lovel; the characteristics of English ornament; the introduction of portrait figures; the Shrewsbury manuscript; "Queen Mary's Prayer-book;" the works of Dan Lydgate; specially English subjects; manuscripts of Chronicles and Histories.

The age of Saint Louis; archaism of costume in miniatures; French manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; historiated Bibles; the ivy-pattern; the Horae of the Duc de Berri; the treasure-book of Origny Abbey; the Anjou Horae; costly and magnificent French Horae; their beautiful decorations; their numerous miniatures; the Bedford Breviary; the Bedford Missal; various styles in the same manuscript; manuscripts in Grisaille; manuscripts of secular works; Cristina of Pisa; Chronicles and Travels; Romances and Poems; Italian influence in the south of France; the growth of secular illuminators; the inferiority of their work; cheap and coarsely illuminated Horae; manuscripts of the finest style; use of flowers and fruit in borders and initials; influence of the Italian Renaissance; the Horae of Jehan Foucquet of Tours.

Horae printed on vellum in Paris; their woodcut decorations; the productions of the earliest printers; the Mazarine Bible; the Mentz Psalter; illuminators becoming printers; Italian printed books with rich illuminations; the colophons of the early printers; the books of Aldus Manutius; invention of Italic type; manuscripts illustrated with woodcuts; block-books; the long union of the illuminators' and the printers' art.

Revival of art in Germany in the eleventh century; the Missal of the Emperor Henry II.; the designs used for stained glass; the advance of manuscript art under Frederic Barbarossa; grotesque monsters; examples of fine German illuminations of the twelfth century; their resemblance to mural paintings; the school of the Van Eycks; the Grimani Breviary; Gérard David of Bruges; examples of Flemish miniatures; the use of gold; grotesque figures; the influence of manuscript art on the painters of altar-pieces; the school of Cologne; triptych by the elder Holbein; book illuminated by Albert Dürer; Dutch fifteenth century manuscripts; their decorative beauty; their realistic details; illumination in pen outlines in blue and red.

Italian art slow to advance; its degraded state in the twelfth century; illuminators mentioned by Dante; Missal in the Chapter library of Saint Peter's; the monk Don Silvestro in the middle of the fourteenth century; his style of illumination; the monk Don Lorenzo; Fra Angelico as an illuminator; Italian Pontifical in the Fitzwilliam library; manuscripts of the works of Dante and Petrarch; motives of decoration; Italian manuscripts after 1453; introduction of the "Roman" hand; great perfection of writing, and finest quality of vellum; the illuminators Attavante, Girolamo dai Libri, and Liberale of Verona; manuscripts of northern Italy; their influence on painting generally; Italian manuscripts of the sixteenth century, a period of rapid decadence; Giulio Clovio a typical miniaturist of his time; the library of the Vatican; its records of the cost of illuminating manuscripts. The manuscripts of Spain and Portugal; the manuscripts of Moslem countries, especially Persia.

Monastic scribes; the great beauty of their work, and the reasons for it; their quiet, monotonous life; examples of monastic humour; no long spells of work in a monastery; care in the preparation of pigments; variety of the schemes of decoration; the scriptoria of Benedictine monasteries; their arrangement in one alley of the cloister; the row of armaria; the row of carrels; the carrels in the Durham cloister described in the Rites of Durham; the scribes of other regular Orders. Secular scribes; the growth of the craft-guilds; the guilds of Bruges; their rules, and advantages to both buyer and seller; the production of cheap Horae; wealthy patrons who paid for costly manuscripts; women illuminators, such as the wife of Gérard David; the high estimation of fine manuscripts. Extract from the fourteenth century accounts of St George's at Windsor showing the cost of six manuscripts. Similar extract from the Parish books of St Ewen's at Bristol in the fifteenth century, giving the cost of a Lectionary.

The vellum used by scribes, its cost and various qualities; paper made of cotton, of wool and of linen; the dates and places of its manufacture; its fine quality. The metals and pigments used in illuminated manuscripts; fluid gold and silver; leaf gold, silver and tin; the highly burnished gold; leaf beaten out of gold coins; the goldsmith's art practised by many great artists; the mordant on which the gold leaf was laid; how it was applied; a slow, difficult process; laborious use of the burnisher; old receipts for the mordant: the media or vehicles used with it; tooled and stamped patterns on the gold leaf; the use of tin instead of silver; a cheap method of applying gold described by Cennino Cennini.

The coloured pigments. The vehicles used; blue pigments, ultramarine; its great value; story told by Pliny and Vasari; smalto blues; "German blue;" Indigo and other dye-colours; how they were made into pigments; green pigments; terra verde, verdigris, smalt, leek-green; red pigments, minium red lead, vermilion, red ochre (rubrica); murex and kermes crimson; kermes extracted from scraps of red cloth by illuminators; madder-red; lake-red; purples; yellow pigments, ochre, arsenic and litharge; white pigments, pure lime (Bianco di San Giovanni), white lead, biacca or cerusa. Black inks, carbon ink and iron ink (incaustum or encaustum and atramentum); red and purple inks; writing in gold; the illuminator's pens and pencils; the lead-point and silver-point; red chalk and amatista. Pens made of reeds, and, in later times, of quills; brushes of ermine, minever and other hair, mostly made by each illuminator for himself; list of scribes' implements and tools. Miniatures representing scribes; the various stages in the execution of an illuminated manuscript; ruled lines; writing of the plain text; outline of ornament sketched in; application of the gold leaf; the painting of the ornaments and miniatures; preparation for the binder.

Costly covers of gold, enamel and ivory; the more usual forms of binding; oak boards covered with parchment and strengthened by metal bosses and corners; methods of placing the title on the cover; pictures on wood covers; stamped patterns on leather; English stamped bindings; bag-like bindings for portable manuscripts; bindings of velvet with metal mounts; the costly covers of the Grimani Breviary and other late manuscripts. The present prices of mediaeval manuscripts; often sold for barely the value of their vellum; modern want of appreciation of the finest manuscripts.

Directions to scribes, from a thirteenth century manuscript at Bury St Edmund's.

Note on Service-books by the late Henry Bradshaw. Extract from the Cistercian Consuetudines.

Painting on panel by a fifteenth century artist of the Prague school; it represents St Augustine as an Episcopal scribe. The background and the ornaments of the dress are stamped in delicate relief on the gesso ground and then gilt. This picture, which is now in the Vienna Gallery, was originally part of the painted wall-panelling in the Chapel of the Castle of Karlstein.

The object of this book is to give a general account of the various methods of writing, the different forms of manuscripts and the styles and systems of decoration that were used from the earliest times down to the sixteenth century A.D., when the invention of printing gradually put an end to the ancient and beautiful art of manuscript illumination.

I have attempted to give a historical sketch of the growth and development of the various styles of manuscript illumination, and also of the chief technical processes which were employed in the preparation of pigments, the application of gold leaf, and other details, to which the most unsparing amount of time and labour was devoted by the scribes and illuminators of many different countries and periods.

An important point with regard to this subject is the remarkable way in which technical processes lasted, in many cases, almost without alteration from classical times down to the latest mediaeval period, partly owing to the existence of an unbroken chain of traditional practice, and partly on account of the mediaeval custom of studying and obeying the precepts of such classical writers as Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder.

To an English student the art-history of illuminated manuscripts should be especially interesting, as there were two distinct periods when the productions of English illuminators were of unrivalled beauty and importance throughout the world.

In the latter part of this volume I have tried to describe the conditions under which the illuminators of manuscripts did their work, whether they were monks who laboured in the scriptorium of a monastery, or members of some secular guild, such as the great painters' guilds of Bruges or Paris.

The extraordinary beauty and marvellous technical perfection of certain classes of manuscripts make it a matter of interest to learn who the illuminators were, and under what daily conditions and for what reward they laboured with such astonishing patience and skill.

The intense pleasure and refreshment that can be gained by the study of a fine mediaeval illuminated manuscript depend largely on the fact that the exquisite miniatures, borders and initial letters were the product of an age which in almost every respect differed widely from the unhappy, machine-driven nineteenth century in which we now live.

With regard to the illustrations, I have to thank Mr John Murray for his kindness in lending me a cliché of the excellent woodcut of the scriptorium walk in the cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey of Gloucester, which was originally prepared to illustrate one of Mr Murray's valuable Guides to the English Cathedrals.

The rest of the illustrations I owe to the kindness of Mr Kegan Paul. They have previously appeared in the English edition of Woltmann and Woermann's valuable History of Painting, 1880-7.

I have to thank my friend and colleague Mr M. R. James for his kindness in looking through the proofs of this book. He is not responsible for the opinions expressed or for the errors that remain, but he has corrected some of the grosser blunders.

J. HENRY MIDDLETON.

The following are some of the most important works on this subject, and the most useful for the purposes of a student. Many others, which deal with smaller branches of the subject, are referred to in the following text.

Bastard, Peintures et Ornemens des Manuscrits, classés dans un ordre Chronologique, Imper. folio, Paris, 1835, &c.; a very magnificent book, with 163 plates, mostly coloured.

Birch and Jenner, Early drawings and illuminations, London, 1879; this is a useful index of subjects which occur in manuscript miniatures.

Bradley, J. W., Dictionary of Miniaturists and Illuminators, 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1887-1890.

Chassant, Paléographie des Chartes et des Manuscrits du XIme au XVIIIme Siècle, 12mo.; a useful little handbook, together with the companion volume, Dictionnaire des Abbréviations Latines et Françaises, Paris, 1876.

Denis, F., Histoire de l'Ornementation des manuscrits; 8vo. Paris, 1879.

Fleury, E., Les Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de Laon étudiés au point de vue de leur illustration, 2 vols., Laon, 1863. With 50 plates.

Humphreys, Noel, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, folio, London, 1849; a handsome, well-illustrated book.

Humphreys, Noel, The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing; sm. 4to., with 28 plates; London, 1853.

Kopp, Palaeographia Critica, 4 vols. 4to., Manheim, 1817-1819; a book of much historical value for the student of Palaeography.

Lamprecht, K., ''Initial-Ornamentik des VIII.-XIII. Jahrh.'', Leipzig, 1882.

Langlois, Essai sur la Calligraphie des Manuscrits du Moyen Age et sur les Ornements des premiers livres imprimés, 8vo. Rouen, 1841.

Monte Cassino, Paleografia artistica di Monte Cassino, published by the Benedictine Monks of Mte. Cassino, 1870, and still in progress. This work contains a very valuable series of facsimiles and coloured reproductions of selected pages from many of the most important manuscripts in this ancient and famous library, that of the Mother-house of the whole Benedictine Order.

Reiss, H., Sammlung der schönsten Miniaturen des Mittelalters, Vienna, 1863-5.

Riegl, A., ''Die mittelalterl. Kalenderillustration'', Innsbruck, 1889.

Seghers, L., Trésor calligraphique du Moyen Age, Paris, 1884; with 46 coloured plates of illuminated initials.

Shaw, Henry, Illuminated Ornaments of the Middle Ages from the sixth to the seventeenth century; with descriptions by Sir Fred. Madden; 4to. with 60 coloured plates, London, 1833. A very fine and handsome work.

"" The Art of Illumination, 4to. London, 1870; with well-executed coloured plates.

"" Hand-book of Mediaeval Alphabets and Devices, Imp. 8vo. London, 1877; with 37 coloured plates.

Silvestre, Paléographie Universelle, 4 vols., Atlas folio, Paris, 1839-1841. This is the most magnificent and costly work on the subject that has ever been produced. The English Edition in 2 vols., Atlas folio, translated and edited by Sir Fred. Madden, London, 1850, is very superior in point of accuracy and judgment to the original French work. A smaller edition with 72 selected plates has also been published, in 2 vols. 8vo. and one fol., London, 1850.

Waagen, G. F., On the Importance of Manuscripts with Miniatures in the history of Art, 8vo. London (1850).

Westwood, J. O., Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria, royal 4to. London, 1843-5. This is a very fine work, with 50 coloured plates of manuscript illuminations selected from manuscripts of the Bible of various dates from the fourth to the sixteenth century.

"" Illuminated Illustrations of the Bible, royal 4to. London, 1846. This is a companion work to the last-mentioned book.

"" Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts, fol., London, 1868; with 54 very finely executed coloured plates of remarkable fidelity in drawing. The reproductions of pages from the Book of Kells and similar Celtic manuscripts are specially remarkable.

Wyatt, M. Digby, The Art of Illuminating as practised in Europe from the earliest times; 4to. London, 1860; with 100 plates in gold and colours.

The best work on the form of books in ancient times is Th. Birt, Das antike Buchwesen in seinem Verhältniss zur Literatur, 8vo., 1882.

The publications of the Palaeographical Society, from the year 1873, and still in progress, are of great value for their well-selected and well-executed photographic reproductions of pages from the most important manuscripts of all countries and periods.