Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times/Chapter 7

The ninth century in England was one of great turmoil and misery, on account of the fearful havoc wrought by the Danish Northmen throughout the whole length and breadth of the land. In Northumbria the thriving literary and artistic school which had been raised to such preeminence by Baeda was utterly blotted out from existence by the invading Danes; and when at last King Alfred, who reigned from 871 to 901, secured an interval of peace he was obliged to seek instructors in the art of manuscript illumination from the Frankish kings.

In this way the wave of influence flowed back again from France to England. In Charles the Great's time the Carolingian school of manuscripts had been largely influenced by the Celtic style, which Alcuin of York introduced from Northumbria, and now the later art of Anglo-Saxon England received back from France the forms of ornament and the technical skill which in Northumbria itself had become extinct.

Alfred was an enthusiastic patron of literature and art, especially the art of manuscript illumination, and before long a new school of manuscript art was created in many of the Benedictine monasteries of England and especially among the monks of the royal city of Winchester, which in the tenth century produced works of extraordinary beauty and decorative force.

As an example of this we may mention the famous Benedictional of Aethelwold, who was Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984. The writer of this sumptuously decorated manuscript was Bishop Aethelwold's chaplain, a monk named Godemann, who afterwards, about the year 970, became Abbot of Thorney. Unlike the manuscripts of earlier date in which the illuminated pictures are usually few in number, this Benedictional contains no less than thirty full page miniatures, mostly consisting of scenes from the life of Christ. Each picture is framed by an elaborate border, richly decorated in gold and brilliant colours, with conventional leaf-work of classical style. The drawing of the figures is dignified, and the drapery is usually well conceived and treated in a bold, decorative way, showing much artistic skill on the part of the illuminator.

Fig. 21 shows one of the miniatures, representing the Ascension; the colouring is extremely beautiful and harmonious, enhanced by a skilful use of burnished gold.

Though the figures and especially the delicately modelled faces have a character of their own, peculiarly English in feeling, yet in the general style of the miniatures, and in their elaborate borders there are very distinct signs of a strong Carolingian influence, owing, no doubt, to the introduction of Frankish illuminators and the purchase of Carolingian manuscripts during the reign of Alfred the Great, more than half a century before the date of this manuscript.



There is, for example, much similarity of style in the miniatures of this Benedictional and those in a Carolingian manuscript of the Gospels written for King Lothaire in the monastery of St Martin at Metz soon after 843 ; see above fig. 14, p. 71.

Another very fine example of the Winchester school of illumination is the manuscript Charter which King Edgar granted to the new minster at Winchester in 966. The first page consists of a large miniature, painted in gold and brilliant colours on a purple-stained leaf of vellum, with Christ in Majesty supported by four angels in the upper part of the picture, and, below, standing figures of the B. V. Mary and Saint Peter, with King Edgar in the middle offering his charter to Christ. The whole picture is very skilfully designed so as to fill the whole page in the most decorative way, and it is framed in a border with richly devised conventional leaf-forms.

In artistic power this tenth century Winchester school of illuminators appears, for a while at least, to have been foremost in the world. Both in delicacy of touch and in richness of decorative effect the productions of this school are superior to those of any contemporary Continental country.

Saint Dunstan, the great ecclesiastical statesman of the ninth century, created another school of illumination in the Benedictine Abbey of Glastonbury. Dunstan himself was no mean artist, as may be seen from a fine drawing of Christ, which he executed ; the Saint has represented himself as a small monkish figure prostrate at the feet of Christ. At the top of the page is inscribed in a twelfth century hand, "Pictura et scriptura hujus pagine subtus visa est de propria manu sancti Dunstani."

During the tenth century a large number of illuminated manuscripts were executed in the southern parts of England, the miniatures in which are very unlike and, as decoration, very inferior to the manuscripts of the Anglo-Carolingian style, as represented by the magnificent Benedictional of Aethelwold. This class of illumination consists of drawings, often with a large number of small figures, executed with a pen in red, blue and brown outline. The drawing of these figures is very mannered, the heads are small, the attitudes awkward, and the draperies are represented in numerous small, fluttering folds, drawn with an apparently shaky line, as if the artist had lacked firmness of hand. This, however, is a mere mannerism, as wherever he wished for a steady line, as, for example, in the drawing of the faces, the artist has drawn with the utmost decision and firmness of touch. The costumes of these curious outline drawings, the architectural accessories and other details, all show clearly the influence of the very debased forms of classical Roman art, which still survived among the manuscript illuminations of Italy. This degraded form of classical art was far from being a good model for the Anglo-Saxon illuminator to imitate, and the blue and red outline miniatures are very inferior to the sumptuous Anglo-Carolingian manuscripts which were being produced at Winchester by contemporary illuminators.

In the eleventh century Anglo-Saxon miniatures in coloured outline improved greatly in beauty of form and in gracefulness of pose; till at the beginning of the twelfth century extremely fine miniatures of this class were produced. A very beautiful example of this is a long vellum roll illuminated with eighteen circular miniatures, mostly drawn with a pen in dark brown ink. These outline miniatures represent scenes from the life of Saint Guthlac, the Hermit of Crowland. The series begins with a drawing of the youthful Guthlac receiving the tonsure from Hedda, Bishop of Winchester (676 to 705), in the presence of the Abbess Ebba and two nuns. The whole composition is very skilfully arranged to fill the circular medallion, and there is great dignity and even delicate beauty in the separate figures. The precision of touch shown in the drawing is most admirable, recalling the perfect purity of line seen in the finest vase-paintings of the Greeks, in which, as in these miniatures, the greatest amount of effect is produced with the fewest possible touches. A few flat washes are introduced into the backgrounds, but all the principal part of the miniatures is executed with this pure outline.

There are no grounds for the suggestion that these medallion drawings were intended as designs for stained glass. There is much similarity of style in stained glass paintings and manuscript illuminations during the twelfth to the fourteenth century in England, just as in the early Byzantine manuscripts the same design serves for a miniature painting and a colossal wall-mosaic. The same simplicity of drawing and flatness of composition were preserved in both classes of art, and there is nothing exceptional in the fact that these miniatures of Saint Guthlac might have served as excellent motives for a glass-painter.

The Pontifical of Saint Dunstan (Brit. Mus. Cott. Claud. A. 3), executed in the early part of the eleventh century, is a magnificent example of decorative art, both in its noble designs and richness of colour. Though no gold is used, the greatest splendour of effect is produced, especially in a large miniature representing Saint Gregory enthroned under an elaborate architectural canopy, with prostrate figures at his feet of Archbishop Dunstan and the Benedictine scribe of this beautiful manuscript; see Westwood, Irish Manuscripts, Pl. 50.

The beauty of the best English manuscripts of the twelfth century is a remarkable contrast to the once splendid Byzantine school of illumination, which by this time had sadly degenerated from its former vigorous splendour, and had become weak in drawing, clumsy in pose and inharmonious in colour. The English school on the other hand, all through the twelfth century, was making rapid advances towards a perfection both of design and technique which culminated in the Anglo-Norman style of the latter part of the thirteenth century, which for beauty of all kinds remained for a long time quite without rival in any European country.

To return to the Anglo-Saxon school of manuscripts in the eleventh century, it should be observed that the Danish King Canute, unlike his destructive predecessors, did all that he could to encourage literature and art in England. With a view to fostering the production of fine illuminated manuscripts he introduced into this country, and especially into the royal and monastic libraries of Winchester, a large number of Roman manuscripts with the usual illuminations of the debased classic type. This, no doubt, helped to encourage the production of miniatures in outline such as those in the Utrecht Psalter. Another variety of Anglo-Saxon manuscript illumination, executed during the first half of the eleventh century, consists first of all of a pen drawing in brown outline; to which subsequently the artist added with a brush narrow bands of blue or red laid on in a thin wash as a sort of edging to the brown outlines, apparently with the object of giving roundness to the drawing.

This class of illumination is, however, very inferior in beauty and decorative splendour to the finest works of the monks of Winchester and Glastonbury, in which solid colour in great variety of tint is used, as, for example in the above-mentioned Benedictional of Aethelwold and the Pontifical of Saint Dunstan.

The Norman conquest of England in 1066 soon put an end to the Anglo-Saxon school of illumination, with its weak imitations of the debased classical style of Italy. In place of this the magnificent Anglo-Norman schools of miniature painting were developed on both sides of the British Channel. England and Normandy became one country, and as long as this union lasted manuscripts of precisely similar character were produced both in Normandy and in England, as is described in the following Chapter.