# Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII.
The Anglo-Norman School of Manuscripts.
The twelfth century in England and Northern France was a period of rapid artistic development in almost all branches of the arts, from a miniature illumination to a great Cathedral or Abbey church.
The Norman invasion.With regard, however, to the art of illuminated manuscripts and other branches of art in England it should be observed that though the conquered English and the Norman conquerors with remarkable rapidity were amalgamated with great solidarity into one united people, yet for a long period after the Conquest it was distinctly the Norman element that took the lead in all matters of art and literature. The Bishops, Abbots and Priors of the great English ecclesiastical foundations were for a long period wholly or in the main men of the Norman race, and thus (intellectually) the native English took a lower place, and did far less to advance the arts of England than did the Normans who formed the upper and more cultivated class. Robert of Gloucester.As Robert of Gloucester the Benedictine monkish Chronicler of the thirteenth century says,
Of the Normannes beth thys hey men, that beth of thys lond, And the lowe men of Saxons, as ych understonde.
​Architectural growth.In the eleventh century building in stone on a large scale for military and ecclesiastical purposes had been introduced into England by the Normans in place of the frail wooden structures of the Anglo-Saxons. Towards the close of the twelfth century the Gothic style of architecture, with its pointed arches and quadripartite vaults, was brought to England by the Cistercian monks of northern France, and soon spread far and wide throughout the kingdom.
The artists of this century began to study the human form, its pose and movement, and also in their drapery learnt to depict gracefully designed folds with much truth and with a keen sense of beauty.
Anglo-Norman school.Manuscripts of various classes were now richly illuminated with many varied series of picture subjects, and the old hieratic canons of Byzantine conservatism were soon completely thrown aside. In the ornaments of the Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the twelfth century rich foliage is used made of conventionalized forms which recall the old acanthus leaf, the half expanded fronds of various ferns and other plants, all used with great taste in their arrangement, and wonderful life and spirit in every line and curve of the design. Older Celtic motives are also used; ingeniously devised interlaced work of straps and bands, plaited together in complicated knots, and terminating frequently in strange forms of serpents, dragons and other grotesque monsters. These ornaments are strongly decorative both in form and colour, and, though delicately painted, are treated somewhat broadly, very unlike the microscopic minuteness of the earlier Irish and Anglo-Celtic school.
Illuminated Psalters.At this time a large number of very magnificently illuminated Psalters were produced; and the use of gold leaf both for the backgrounds of pictures and in combination with brilliant pigments began to come into more frequent use. A fine typical example of English manuscript art at the ​close of the twelfth century is to be seen in the so-called Huntingfield Psalter, which was executed, probably in some monastic house in Yorkshire, a little before 1200 A.D. It contains 68 miniatures of very fine style, delicately painted on backgrounds partially of gold; the subjects are taken from both the Old and the New Testament, beginning with the Creation of the World. The general style of the illuminations in this Psalter is more exclusively English in character and less Norman than is usual in manuscripts of this date. Martyrdom of St Thomas.The book is interesting as containing one of the earliest representations of the Martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, who subsequently became so popular a Saint in England and Normandy. In this case the painting is not quite of the same date as the bulk of the manuscript, but it evidently was added not many years after Becket's death, which occurred in 1170; Saint Thomas was canonized only two years later.
One of the earliest representations of this subject is a miniature painted by Matthew Paris on the border of a page of his Greater Chronicle in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, No. xxvi.
The Angevin kingdom.Though I have used the phrase "Anglo-Norman" to denote the school of manuscript illumination which, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, existed on both sides of the Channel, it should be observed that manuscripts of a similar type to those of Normandy were produced in many places far to the south, and indeed almost throughout the whole dominions of the Angevin kings, including the whole western half of France down to Gascony and the Pyrenees. The fact is that to a great degree all forms of Norman art extended throughout the whole Angevin dominions, so that, for example, we find a Cathedral as far south as Bayonne (not far from the Spanish frontier) resembling closely both in ​general design and details of mouldings and carving the ecclesiastical architecture of Canterbury and Caen.
English art in the XIIIth century.English art at its highest period of development. The thirteenth century was the culminating period of Anglo-Norman art of all kinds; and indeed for a brief period England occupied the foremost position in the world with regard to nearly all the principal branches of the fine arts.
Henry III. as an art patron.The early years of the thirteenth century were a time of war and tumult, little favourable to artistic advance, but during the long reign of Henry III., which lasted from 1216 to 1272, progress of the most remarkable kind was made. The King himself was an enthusiastic patron of all the arts, ranging from manuscript illumination to the construction of such a fabric as Westminster Abbey; and the lesser arts of life, such as weaving, embroidery, metal work, together with stained glass, mural painting and other forms of decoration, were all brought in England to a wonderful pitch of perfection between 1250 and 1300.
Houses of Henry III.Immense sums were spent by the King in improving and decorating his Palaces and Manor Houses all over the kingdom with an amount of refinement and splendour that had hitherto been unknown. Many interesting contemporary documents still exist giving the expenses of the many works which Henry III. carried out. He spent large sums on fitting the windows with glass casements, laying down floors of "painted tiles," and in panelling the walls with wainscot which was richly decorated with painting in gold and colours. Large mural paintings were executed by a whole army of painters on the walls of the chief rooms; and decorative art both for domestic and ecclesiastical purposes was in England brought to a pitch of perfection far beyond that of any continental country.
Chief works of Henry III.The chief works of Henry III. were the building of a magnificent Palace at Westminster in place of the ruder structure of the earlier Norman kings; the reconstruction of Westminster Abbey, and the providing for the body of Edward the Confessor a great shrine of pure gold, richly studded with jewels of enormous value. A long and ​interesting series of accounts of these and other lavish expenditures of money still exist in the Record Office.
Wall-paintings at Westminster.A magnificent series of wall-paintings, with subjects from sacred and profane history and from the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, were executed by various artists, both monks and laymen, on the walls of the chief rooms in the new Palace of Westminster. In style these paintings were very like the miniatures in an illuminated manuscript of the time; they were simply designed, flat in treatment, and executed with the most minute and delicate detail. Great richness of effect was produced by the use of wooden stamps with which delicate diapers and other patterns were stamped over the backgrounds of the pictures on the thin coat of gesso which covered the stone wall. These minutely executed reliefs were then thickly gilt, forming rich gold backgrounds, such as are so commonly used in the manuscripts of the Anglo-Norman school; see fig. 23, p. 130.
Paintings copied from MSS.The close connection between these magnificent wall paintings and the illuminated miniatures in manuscripts is borne witness to by an interesting record that, in the year 1250, the King ordered Richard de Sanford, Master of the Knights Templars, to lend an illuminated manuscript in French of "The Gestes of Antioch and the History of the Crusades" to the painter Edward of Westminster, so that he might copy the miniatures, using the designs to paint the walls of "the Queen's low room in the new Palace of Westminster" with a series of historical pictures. From these paintings of "the Gestes of Antioch" the Queen's room was thenceforth known as "the Antioch chamber".
​The Painted Chamber.The largest of the halls in the Westminster Palace, decorated with a marvellous series of exquisitely finished paintings, was known as "the Painted Chamber" par excellence from its great size and the immense number of pictures which covered its walls. The system of decoration adopted in the thirteenth century was not to paint large pictures in a large hall, but simply to multiply the number of small ones, keeping the figures as delicate in execution and small in scale as if the room had been of the most limited dimensions.
This had the effect of enormously adding to the apparent scale of the room, a great contrast to the method of decoration which was employed in later times of decadence, when large halls were dwarfed and rendered insignificant by covering the walls with figures of colossal size. The sixteenth century tapestry in the great hall at Hampton Court is a striking example of the way in which gigantic figures may destroy the scale of an interior.
Existing fragments.The great beauty and extreme minuteness of the work can be seen in some few damaged fragments, now in the British Museum, which were not completely destroyed when the Royal Palace of Westminster, the seat of the two Houses of Parliament, was burnt in 1834.
In the second half of the thirteenth century, during the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., the painting of England was unrivalled by that of any other country. Even in Italy, Cimabue and his assistants were still labouring in the fetters of Byzantine conventionalism, and produced no works which for jewel-like beauty of colour and grace of form were quite equal to the paintings of England under Edward I.
English sculpture.In sculpture too England was no less pre-eminent; no continental works of the time are equal in combined dignity and beauty, both of the heads and of the drapery, to the bronze effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor of Castile on the north side of Edward the Confessor's Chapel at Westminster. These noble examples of bronze sculpture ​William Torell.were the work of the goldsmith citizen of London William Torell, who executed them by the beautiful cire perdue process with the utmost technical skill; see page 232 on their gilding, which was executed by the old "mercury process."
The Fitz-Othos.One of the chief English families of the thirteenth century, among whom the practice of various arts was hereditary, was named Otho or Fitz-Otho. Various members of this family were goldsmiths, manuscript illuminators, cutters of dies for coins and makers of official seals, as well as painters of mural decorations. The elaborate gold shrine of the Confessor, one of the most costly works of the Middle Ages, was made by the Otho family. The great royal seals of more than one king were their handiwork, and it should be observed that the seals of England, not only of the thirteenth century but almost throughout the mediaeval period, were far the most beautiful in the world, both for splendour and elaboration of design, and for exquisite minuteness of detail.
English needlework.Another minor branch of art, in which England during the thirteenth century far surpassed the rest of the world, was the art of embroidering delicate pictures in silk, especially for ecclesiastical vestments. The most famous embroidered vestments now preserved in various places in Italy are the handiwork of English embroiderers between the years 1250 and 1300, though their authorship is not as a rule recognized by their present possessors. The embroidered miniatures on these marvellous pieces of needlework resemble closely in style the illuminations in fine Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the thirteenth century, and in many cases have obviously been copied from manuscript miniatures.
​Decay of English art.There is, in short, ample evidence to show that the Anglo-Norman art of the thirteenth century, in almost all branches, and more especially on English soil, had reached a higher pitch of perfection, aesthetic and technical, than had been then attained by any other country in the world. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, owing largely to the Black Death and the protracted Wars of the Roses, the arts of England fell into the background, but it should not be forgotten that there was one period, from about 1260 to 1300 or 1320, when England occupied the foremost place in the artistic history of the world.
With regard to the Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the thirteenth and early part of the fourteenth century, the most remarkable class, both for beauty of execution and for the extraordinary number that were produced, consists of copies of the Vulgate, richly decorated with a large number of initial letters containing minute miniatures of figure subjects.
MS. Bibles.These Bibles vary in size from large quartos or folios down to the most minute codex with writing of microscopic character. In the latter it appears to have been the special aim of the scribe to get the whole of the Vulgate, including the Apocrypha, the Prologue of St Jerome, and an explanatory list of Hebrew names, into the smallest possible space. The thinnest uterine vellum of the finest quality is used, the text is frequently much contracted, and the characters are of almost microscopic size. In these smallest Bibles the initials are mostly ornamented with conventional leaves and grotesque dragon monsters; but in the larger manuscripts the initials at ​Historiated Bibles.the beginning of every book, about 82 in number, are illuminated with a miniature picture of the most exquisite workmanship, a perfect model of beauty and refined skill. The drawing of the faces and hair is specially beautiful, being executed with a fine, crisp line with the most precise and delicate touch, worthy of a Greek artist of the best period. The drawing of the hair and beard of the male figures is most masterly, with waving curls full of grace and spirit, in spite of the extreme minuteness of the scale.
Method of execution.The miniatures of this school are executed in the following manner: first of all a slight outline is lightly sketched with a lead or silver point; the main masses are then put in with flat, solid colour; the internal drawing of the folds of the drapery, the hair and features and the like, are then added with a delicate pointed brush, capable of drawing the finest possible line; and finally some shading is added to give roundness to the forms, especially of the drapery, a broader touch being used for this, unlike the first drawing of the details, which is executed with a thin, though boldly applied line. As a rule the portions which are in shadow are put in with a pure pigment; the high lights being represented with white, and the half lights with a mixture of white and the same pigment that is used for the dark shadows. By this somewhat conventional system of colouring, the local colour is never lost, and the whole effect is highly decorative, and far more suitable for painting on such a minute scale than a more realistic system of colour would have been.
Bible of Mainerius.One of the larger and more magnificent manuscripts of this class, in the library of S$^{te}$ Géneviéve in Paris, is a historiated Vulgate in three large volumes, which is of special interest from the fact that it is signed by its scribe, a monk named Mainerius of the Benedictine Abbey of Canterbury.
Most of these Bibles and other sacred manuscripts of this ​Benedictine scribes.period appear to have been written and illuminated in the great Benedictine Abbeys of England and Normandy. On this side of the Channel York, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Winchester, St Albans, and Canterbury were specially famed for their schools of illumination. And probably some work of the kind was done in every Benedictine House.
The unity of a great monastic Order like that of St Benedict, and the fact that monks were often transferred from a monastery in one country to one of the same Order in another country, had an important influence on the artistic development of mediaeval Europe.
Monastic unity.This unity of feeling was of course encouraged by the existence of a common language (Latin) among all the ecclesiastics of Western Europe; and to a great extent the old traditions of a great Western Empire, uniting various races under one system of government, survived in the organization of the Catholic Church.
This unity of life, of custom and of thought, which was so striking a feature of the monastic system, was, to a great extent, the cause why we find a simultaneous change of artistic style taking place at several far distant centres of production. Hence also it is usually impossible, from the style of illumination in an Anglo-Norman manuscript of the thirteenth century, to judge whether it was executed in Normandy or in England.
Backgrounds of sheet gold.One extremely magnificent class of illumination of this date and school, specially used for Psalters, Missals and other Service-books, has the background behind the figures formed of an unbroken sheet of burnished gold of the most sumptuously decorative effect.
​Chequer backgrounds.In the fourteenth century the plain gold background was mostly superseded by delicate diapers of lozenge and chessboard form, with alternating squares of gold and blue or red, very rich and beautiful in effect, and sometimes of extreme minuteness of scale, so that each lozenge or square of the diaper is not larger than an ordinary pin's head. In France these diapered patterns were used with great frequency, and their use survived in some cases till the early part of the fifteenth century.
Scroll patterns.Another form of background, used in Anglo-Norman miniatures, consists of delicate scroll patterns or outlined diapers put in with a fine brush and with fluid gold over a ground of flat opaque colour. Gold scroll-work of this kind on a pink ground is specially characteristic of miniatures painted in England during the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth century.
Architectural backgrounds.A fourth style of background, used in miniature pictures of this date, consists of architectural forms, which frequently enshrine the whole miniature, with background, frame, and canopy in one rich architectural composition. This is often painted in gold, with details in firm, dark lines, and, though conventionally treated, gives not unfrequently a representation of an exquisitely beautiful Gothic structure.
Realistic backgrounds.Last of all come the realistic backgrounds, with pictorial effects of distance and aerial perspective, often very skilful and even beautiful in effect, but not so strongly decorative or so perfectly suited to manuscript illumination as the more conventional backgrounds of an earlier date.
These realistic surroundings began to be introduced in the fourteenth century, but are more especially characteristic of the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century, when the illumination of manuscripts had ceased to be a real living art, though painfully and skilfully practised by such masters of technique as Giulio Clovio and various Italian and French painters, the pictorial character of the backgrounds was carried to an excessive degree of elaboration and decadence.
​Psalter at Burlington House.Among the most magnificent of the Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the thirteenth century are copies of the Psalter. One in the library of the Society of Antiquaries in Burlington House is of extraordinary beauty for the delicate and complicated patterns of interlaced scroll-work which fill its large initials. The first letter B of the beginning of the Psalms (Beatus vir etc.) is in this and some other illuminated Psalters of the same class, of such size and elaboration that it occupies most of the first page. Among its ingeniously devised interlaced ornaments various little animals, rabbits, squirrels and others are playing—marvels of minute and delicate painting. Round the border which frames the whole are ten minute medallion pictures, some of them representing musicians playing on various instruments, one of which is a kind of barrel organ, called an organistrum, worked by two players. This magnificent manuscript dates from about the middle of the thirteenth century.
The Tenison Psalter.Another still more beautiful Psalter in the British Museum, called from its former owner Archbishop Tenison's Psalter, was illuminated for Queen Eleanor of Castile, the wife of Edward I., about the year 1284. It was intended as a marriage gift for their third son Alphonso, who, however, died in August 1284, a few days after the signing of his marriage contract. The manuscript was for this reason unfortunately left unfinished, and was afterwards completed by a very inferior illuminator. The letter B on the first page is filled by an exquisite miniature of the Royal Psalmist; and in the lower part of the border is the slaying by an infantile David, of Goliath, represented as a gigantic knight in chain armour. At intervals round the border are minute but very accurately painted birds of various kinds, including the gull, kingfisher, woodpecker, linnet, crane and goldfinch. In places where the text does not reach to the end of the line the space is filled up by a narrow band of ornament in gold and colours, occupying the same space that a complete line of words would have done. This method of avoiding any blank spaces in the page, and making the whole surface one unbroken mass of beauty was employed in the finest ​manuscripts of this and of other classes, especially the manuscripts of France and Flanders.
Tenison Psalter.The Tenison Psalter appears to have been written and illuminated in the Monastic House of the Blackfriars in London; it is quite one of the noblest existing examples of English art during the thirteenth century, and is unsurpassed in beauty and skilful technique by the manuscripts of any age or country.
MSS. of the Apocalypse.Manuscripts of the Apocalypse. The Anglo-Norman and French manuscripts of the Apocalypse, executed during the fourteenth century, are on the whole the most beautiful class of illuminated manuscripts that the world has ever produced.
For combined decorative splendour, exquisite grace of drawing, and poetry of sentiment they are quite unrivalled. During several years before and after 1300 a considerable number of these copiously illustrated manuscripts of the Apocalypse seem to have been produced with a certain uniformity of style and design, which shows that, as in the case of the historiated Bibles, one model must have been copied and passed on from hand to hand through the Scriptoria of many different Monastic Houses.
Perfect beauty.No words can adequately express the refined and poetical beauty of these miniatures of Apocalyptic scenes, glowing with the utmost splendour of burnished gold, ultramarine and other brilliant pigments. The whole figures of the angels, their beautiful serene faces, their exquisitely pencilled wings with feathers of bright colours, the simple dignified folds of their drapery, all are executed with the most wonderful certainty of touch and the highest possible sense of romantic beauty.
The accessories are hardly less beautiful; the Gothic arches and pinnacles of the New Jerusalem, the vine plants and other trees and flowers, designed with a perfect balance between decorative conventionalism and realistic truth, and ​last of all the sumptuous backgrounds covered with delicate diapers or scroll-work in gold and blue and crimson, all unite the whole composition into one perfect harmony, like a mosaic of gleaming gems, fixed in a matrix of pure, shining gold.
Machine-made art.Nothing perhaps could better exemplify the gulf that separates the artistic productions of this feverish, steam-driven nineteenth century from the serene glories of the art of bygone days than a comparison of such a book as the Trinity Apocalypse with that masterpiece of commercial art called "the Victoria Psalter," which, printed in a steam-press on machine-made paper, illuminated by chromolithography, and bound in a machine-embossed leather cover, produces a total effect which cannot adequately be described in polite language.
English Monasteries.The later English manuscripts. In the fourteenth century a more distinctly English style of illumination began to branch off from the Anglo-Norman style. Something like separate schools of painting gradually grew up in the great Benedictine Monasteries, such as those at St Albans, Norwich, Glastonbury and Bury Saint Edmunds.
The type of face represented in English miniatures from about the middle of the fourteenth century onwards is rather different from the French type with its long oval face and pointed nose. In English manuscripts the faces are rounder and plumper, and the backgrounds are very frequently formed ​by gold scroll-work over a peculiar pink, made by a mixture of red lead with a large proportion of white.
The Black Death.On the whole the style of figure painting in English manuscripts deteriorated very distinctly after the ravages caused by the Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century; that is to say the average of excellence became lower; and, especially in the fifteenth century, a good deal of very coarse and inferior manuscript illumination was produced. On the other hand there were some illuminators in England whose work is not surpassed by that of any contemporary French or Flemish artist.
Outline drawings.One very beautiful class of English illumination, executed about the middle of the fourteenth century, has very small and delicate figures, drawn in firm outline with a pen and brown ink; relief is then given to the figures by the partial application of transparent washes of delicate colour, producing an effect of great beauty and refinement. The Poyntz Book of Hours in the Fitzwilliam Library has no less than 292 miniature paintings of this very beautiful style. The book was written for a friend and companion of the Black Prince about the year 1350. Its delicate paintings have unfortunately, in many places, been coarsely touched up with gold and colours by a later hand.
Lectionary of Sifer Was.A very fine characteristic example of English art towards the close of the fourteenth century is preserved in the British Museum (Harl. Manuscripts 7026). This is a noble folio manuscript Lectionary, unfortunately imperfect, which was written and illuminated by a monk named Sifer Was for Lord Lovel of Tichmersh, who died in 1408; it was presented by him to the Cathedral church of Salisbury, as is recorded by a note which asks for prayers for the donor's soul. The text is written in a magnificent large Gothic hand, such as was imitated by the printers of early Missals and Psalters. On the first page is a large, beautifully painted miniature representing the scribe ​Sifer Was presenting the manuscript to Lord Lovel. The figures are large in scale, and the heads are carefully executed portraits, evidently painted with great eiconic skill. Each page of the text has a richly decorative border with conventional foliage of the characteristically bold English type. Figures of angels are introduced at the sides, and an exquisitely minute little painting is placed at the top, by the initial letter of the page.
English foliage.The English foliated borders and capitals in manuscripts of this type are very bold and decorative in effect, with a simple form of leaf with few serrations, twining in most graceful curves and broadly painted in blue and red with very good effect, even in many manuscripts where the execution is not of the most refined kind. A variety of what is commonly known as "the pine-apple design" is frequently introduced into these very effective pieces of ornament.
Portrait figures.It should be noticed that the first growth of portrait painting in Western Europe seems to have arisen out of this custom of introducing portrait figures of patrons and donors at the beginning of important manuscripts. In French and Burgundian manuscripts especially we find many very interesting portraits of Kings and Princes together with those of the authors or the illuminators of richly decorated manuscripts.
Altar-pieces.Donors' portraits are also commonly introduced into votive altar-pieces, usually in the form of small kneeling figures. As time went on these figures of donors gradually became more important in scale and position. Thus, for example, the magnificent altar-piece in the Brera Gallery in Milan, painted by Piero della Francesca about the year 1480, has, in the most conspicuous place in the foreground, a kneeling figure of the donor, Duke Federigo da Montefeltro ​of Urbino, which is actually larger in scale than the chief figures of the picture—the Madonna and attendant angels. During the fourteenth century, both in altar-pictures and in manuscript illuminations, the portraits of living people are treated in a more subordinate way.
Portrait of Richard II.A fine example of portraiture in a manuscript is to be seen in the Epistre au Roy Richard II. d'Angleterre (Brit. Mus. Royal Manuscripts 20 B. vi) written by a Hermit of the Celestin Order in Paris. The upper half of the first page is occupied by an exquisite miniature of Richard II. on his throne, surrounded by courtiers, accepting the bound copy of the manuscript from the monastic author, who kneels on one knee, presenting his book with one hand, while in the other he holds a sacred banner embroidered with the Agnus Dei. The background is of the sumptuous chess-board pattern in gold, blue and red, and the whole page is surrounded with the so-called ivy-leaf border.
Portraits of Henry VI. and his Queen.The Shrewsbury manuscript, containing a collection of chivalrous Romances (Brit. Mus. Royal Manuscripts 15 E vi), has another beautiful example of miniature portraiture. The first painting represents John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, for whom this interesting manuscript was illuminated, kneeling to present the book to Queen Margaret of Anjou on the occasion of her marriage with Henry VI. The King and Queen are represented side by side on a double throne, and around is a group of courtier attendants. The kneeling figure of Earl Talbot is interesting for its costume; the mantle which the Earl wears is powdered (semée) with small garters embroidered in gold; an early but now obsolete form of state robe worn by Knights of the Order of the Garter. Both these manuscripts, though executed for English patrons, are of French workmanship.
Some of the most magnificent manuscripts of the fifteenth century and earlier were, like Lord Lovel's Lectionary, illuminated at the cost of some wealthy layman for the purpose of presentation to a Cathedral or Abbey Church. In return for the gift the Church often agreed to keep a yearly obiit or annual Mass for the donors soul, which in England was called ​"the years mind"; and this kind of gift thus often served to provide a "Chantry" of a limited kind.
Queen Mary's Prayer-book.One of the finest examples of English manuscript art in the fourteenth century is a Psalter commonly known as "Queen Marys Prayer-book". This exquisite manuscript, which is in the British Museum, contains, before the Psalter, a large number of miniatures of Biblical scenes executed in outline, treated with delicate washes of transparent colour. The Psalter is illuminated in quite a different style, with brilliant gold and colours in all the miniatures and borders, which are painted with wonderful delicacy of touch, unsurpassed by the best French work. A Bestiary is introduced into the margins of the Psalter; and at the end there are beautiful paintings of New Testament scenes. The date of this book is c. 1330; in 1553 it was given to Queen Mary.
MSS. of Dan Lydgate.Another English manuscript of special interest both for its text and its beautiful illuminations is a copy in the British Museum of Dan Lydgate's Life of Saint Edmund, which was written and illuminated in 1433 by a Monk in the Benedictine Monastery at Bury Saint Edmunds; it is an early and very beautiful example of a manuscript in the Vulgar tongue. In style the illuminated borders are not unlike those in "Queen Mary's Prayer-book."
Another very similar manuscript both in date and style was sold at the Perkins sale, in June, 1873, for £1320. This is a magnificently illuminated folio of "The Siege of Troye compiled by Dann John Lydgate, Monke of Bury"; it contains seventy miniature paintings, chiefly of battle scenes, in which the combatants wear armour of the first half of the fifteenth century. The illuminated borders are of the boldly decorative English type mentioned above, and the miniatures are large in scale, in many cases extending across the whole width of the page with its double column of text.
Woodcut initials.In England the introduction of the art of printing in 1477 ​seems to have brought the illuminator's art to an end more quickly than was the case in Continental countries. Caxton's later books have printed initials, instead of blank spaces left for the illuminator, as in most of the early printed books of Germany, France and Italy; and English book-buyers appear to have been soon satisfied with simple illustrations in the form of rather rudely executed woodcuts.
The subjects represented in English miniatures are for the most part the same as those in contemporary French manuscripts; but the martyrdom of Saint Thomas of Canterbury occurs more frequently in English than in any continental manuscripts. Almost immediately after the event in 1170 this scene began to be represented; see above, page 108.
St George and the Dragon.Another specially English subject is Saint George, who was at first the Crusaders' Patron and then the national Saint of England. He is usually represented as a Knight on horseback slaying the dragon with a lance. This subject did not come into popular use till the fourteenth century.
Both in England and in France, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, manuscript Chronicles and Histories of both ancient and modern times formed a large and important class of manuscripts; and these were usually copiously illustrated with miniatures. The Chronicles of Sir John Froissart was justly a very favourite book on both sides of the Channel, and many richly illuminated manuscripts of it still exist; see below, page 139.
​MS. Chronicles.The British Museum possesses a magnificent manuscript of the Chronicles of England in seven large folio volumes, which were compiled and written at the command of Edward IV. The miniatures which decorate this sumptuous work are partly Anglo-Norman and partly Flemish, in the style of the school of the Van Eycks at Bruges.
One favourite form of Chronicle, giving an abstract of the whole World's history, was in the shape of a long parchment roll, illuminated with miniatures in the form of circular medallions. Some of these great rolls were written and illuminated by English miniaturists, but they appear not to have been as common in England as they were in France; see below, page 139. On these rolls the writing usually continues down the strip, not at right angles to the long sides, as on classical papyrus rolls.
* ↑ Indeed it was not very long before the tables were turned and Normandy was reconquered by an English army under a king, who, though of Norman blood, was distinctly an English king. The victory of Henry I. over Robert, Duke of Normandy, at Tenchebray in 1105, went far to wipe out any feeling on the part of the English that they were a nation under the rule of a conqueror.
* ↑ Chronicles of Robert of Gloucester, Hearne's edition, 1724 (reprinted in 1810), Vol. I. p. 363.
* ↑ An interesting example of this revived study from the life is afforded by the Sketch-book of Villard de Honecourt, which is mentioned above at page 72.
* ↑ See below, page 193, on the revival of this class of ornament in Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century.
* ↑ This beautiful manuscript is now in the possession of Mr Quaritch, who prices it at £800 in his catalogue of December, 1891. It appears once to have belonged to Sir Roger Huntingfield, who died about 1337 A.D.
* ↑ It is noticeable that even the earliest miniatures of Saint Thomas' death represent him in Mass vestments, officiating at the High Altar, whereas he was really killed late in the afternoon, and on the north side of the church.
* ↑ See Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. VI. pp. 1 to 37, and Plates 26 to 39; illustrations are given here of "the Painted Chamber" and its decorations before the fire of 1834, and a number of interesting extracts are quoted from the accounts now preserved in the Record Office.
* ↑ The Gestes of Antioch probably means the capture of Antioch in 1098 under the Crusader leaders Tancred and Godfrey of Bouillon. In the same way the "Jerusalem" and "Jericho chambers" in the house of the Abbot of Westminster were so called from the paintings on their walls. The curious "archaism" of these paintings, with figures of knights in the armour of the eleventh century, is explained below; see page 128.
* ↑ See, for example, that wonderful frontal, covered with miniature paintings, from the High Altar of Westminster Abbey, which is now preserved in the south ambulatory of the Sanctuary.
* ↑ Various attempts have been made to show that Torell was an Italian, and that the painted retable at Westminster was the work of a foreign artist, but there is not the slightest foundation for either of these theories.
* ↑ As examples of this I may mention the famous "Lateran Cope" in Rome, the "Piccolomini Cope" at Pienza, and two others of similar date and style in the Museums of Florence and Bologna. On many occasions we find that the Popes of this period, on sending the Pall to a newly elected English Archbishop, suggested that they would like in return embroidered vestments of English work, opus Anglicanum. It should be observed that in almost all published works on the subject the above mentioned copes are wrongly described as being of Italian workmanship.
* ↑ Both before and after this period manuscripts of the Vulgate were comparatively rare, but between 1250 and about 1330 many thousands of manuscript Bibles must have been produced, all closely similar in style, design, choice of subject and character of writing. There is no other large class of manuscripts in which such remarkable uniformity of style is to be seen.
* ↑ As an example of the wonderful thinness of this uterine vellum, I may mention a Bible of about 1260 in my own possession which consists of 646 leaves, and yet measures barely an inch and a half in thickness. In spite of its extreme thinness this vellum is sufficiently opaque to prevent the writing on one side from showing through to the other.
* ↑ For example a Bible of this class in the Cambridge University library, dating from about 1280, has from thirteen to seventeen lines to an inch!
* ↑ This method of painting the shadows in pure colour, and using the same pigment mixed with white for the rest, was employed on a large scale by many of the Sienese painters in the fourteenth century, and by the Florentine Fra Angelico in the fifteenth. Fra Angelico's earliest works were manuscript illuminations, executed about the year 1407 in the Dominican Convent at Fiesole.
* ↑ The Bodleian library (Douce, 366) possesses a specially beautiful manuscript Psalter, which belonged to Robert of Ormsby, a monk of Norwich Abbey.
* ↑ In all periods the Benedictines were the chief monastic scribes and miniaturists; the Mother House at Monte Cassino was one of the chief centres in Italy for the production of manuscripts, and wherever the Benedictines settled they brought with them the art of manuscript illumination; see page 211.
* ↑ This is specially noticeable in the development of the architectural styles; not only general forms, but details of mouldings and the like seem to spring up all over England almost simultaneously.
* ↑ See below, fig. 25, page 133.
* ↑ The first pages of the two last-mentioned Psalters are illustrated by Shaw, The Art of Illumination, London, 1870, pp. 17 to 23.
* ↑ An example of the most marvellous beauty and perfection was presented by Lady Sadleir to Trinity College library in Cambridge.
* ↑ The Victoria Psalter is however frequently described in booksellers' catalogues, not only in polite, but in enthusiastic language. As an example I may quote the following, THE BEAUTIFUL VICTORIA PSALTER: PSALMS of David illuminated by OWEN JONES, beautifully printed in large type, on thin cardboards, on 104 pages, each of which is surrounded by SUMPTUOUS BORDERS in GOLD and COLOURS, with the CAPITALS ILLUMINATED, and some of the pages consisting of large and most beautifully illuminated texts, columbier 4to. elegantly bound in morocco, the sides elaborately carved, leathern joints, and gilt edges (A VERY HANDSOME VOLUME), £4. 10s. n. d.
* ↑ These same characteristics of face are very noticeable in the beautiful carved ivory diptychs and statuettes of the Virgin and Child made during the fourteenth century in France and England.
* ↑ A lectionary contained the Gospels and Epistles arranged for use at the celebration of Mass.
* ↑ Especially for the Canon of the Mass. The famous Mentz Psalter of 1459 is printed in characters of this size and style; see below, page 149.
* ↑ The pine-apple was not known in Europe before the discovery of America, and this very decorative form, which occurs so largely on the fine woven velvets of Florence and Northern Italy, was probably suggested by the artichoke plant, largely assisted by the decorative invention of the designer.
* ↑ In the Brera Catalogue this very beautiful painting is wrongly ascribed to Fra Carnovale, a pupil of Piero della Francesca.
* ↑ This very important English manuscript was bought by Mr Quaritch and priced at £1600 in his catalogue, No. 291, 1873. It was written in or soon after 1420 when Lydgate completed writing his work; it may possibly have been written and illuminated by the author himself.
* ↑ Caxton appears to have begun to use woodcut initials in the year 1484 or 1485, but most Continental printers continued to use hand-painted capitals many years later than that.
* ↑ This scene and the name of Saint Thomas, wherever it occurs, are frequently obliterated in English manuscripts. This was done by the special order of Henry VIII., who, after his quarrel with the Pope, appears to have regarded Thomas à Becket as a sort of personal enemy.
* ↑ See page 187 for a fine Italian example of this subject. It is interesting to note that the popular legend of Saint George and the dragon is simply a mediaeval version of the old classical myth of Perseus and Andromeda. In the more genuine Oriental lives of Saint George this episode is not introduced.
* ↑ It should be remembered that Norman-French continued to be the Court language of England till late in the fifteenth century, and for certain legal purposes even later. Its use still survives in the Law-Courts of Quebec and Montreal.