english illuminated manuscripts

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATEDMANUSCRIPTS


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Strictly limited to an edition of 300 copies,of 7i>liich this is No.t-f- w


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20.


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ENGLISHILLUMINATEDMANUSCRIPTS

BY SIR EDWARD MAUNDE THOMPSON, K.C.B.

LONDONKEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNERAND COMPANY, LIMITED

1895


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Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty


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TABLE OF PLATESTO FACE PAGE

1. Beginning of the Gospel of St. Luke,from the * Lindisfarne Gospels ' or' Durham Book ' ; about a.d. 700.(Cottonian ms., Nero D. iv.) . 9

2. David playing on the Lyre, from ' St.Augustine's Psalter ' ; early 8thCentury. (Cottonian ms., VespasianA. i.) 13

3. Illustration of Psalm ix., from aPsalter; nth Century. (HarleianMS. 603) 17

4. Scenes from the ' Psychomachia ' ofPrudentius ; loth and nth Cen-turies. (Additional ms. 24199 ; andCottonian ms., Cleopatra C. viii.) . 19

5. Adoration of the Magi, from theBenedictional of St. yEthelvvold ;about A.D. 970. (ms. of the Dukeof Devonshire) . .216. The Crucifixion, from a Psalter ; lateloth

Century. (Harleian ms. 2904) 237. Beginning of Psalm lil, from a

Psalter; nth Century. (ArundelMS. 60) 248. Scenes from yElfric's Paraphrase ofthe Pentateuch, etc. ; early nth Cen-

tury. (Cottonian MS. ,Claudius B.iv.) 25VI 1


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS

From the Eighth Century to the NormanConquest

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSunderstand the word. Westwood defines the differ-ent kinds of ornament employed in the decorationof Irish manuscripts to be formed ' (i) simply by theuse of dots, generally in different coloured inks ;(2) by simple lines, straight or curved ; (3) by thestep-like, angulated patterns ; (4) by the Chinese-likeZ patterns ; (5) by interlaced ribbons ; (6) by inter-laced zoomorphic patterns ; and (7) by the variousspiral patterns, which are by far the most charac-teristic of the whole.' The repetition of these de-signs, usually set in compartments and arrangedeither to form full ornamental pages or elaborateinitial letters, produces an effect which, regarded aspure ornament, it would be difficult to surpass.There is some reason to assume that the illumina-tors of the early Irish manuscripts borrowed theirpatterns from other more early established indus-tries, those of the metal-worker, sculptor, wicker-worker, or in whatever branch of art we may supposesuch designs to have been used. This assumptionis supported by the sudden appearance of highly-decorated manuscripts at a certain period withoutearlier specimens to show anything like a gradualdevelopment. It would indeed be expecting toomuch to look for the survival of early manuscriptsin such numbers as to afford a complete chain ofevidence ; but if there had been a gradual growthof book-ornament spreading over a fairly extendedperiod, we should certainly have found fuller tracesof it in what survives. If we are right in our beliefthat the form of writing which was employed inIreland in the earliest manuscripts was adapted inthe sixth century from Roman models in a particularclass of writing, something more than a centuryof manuscript-production would have elapsed whenthe brilliantly ornamented pages of the ' Book of

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSKells, probably executed towards the end of theseventh century, burst upon us with fully developeddesigns. It would be out of place to attempt toconjecture to what remote period we are to look forthe origin of the Celtic patterns which we meet within Irish illuminated manuscripts ; such speculationsmay be carried back almost indefinitely with nosatisfactory result ; but it is significant that thespiral or whorl which Westwood particularises asa specially Celtic detail of ornament is to be seenin the metal-work of shields of British make asearly as the first century.The history of the introduction of the Irish style

I of book-decoration into the north of England iswell known. In consequence of the conversion ofOswald, who became king of Northumberland inthe year 635 and who had accepted Christianityduring his exile in the Irish monastery of lona,Aidan, a monk of that house, became the founderof the Northumbrian Church. He was the firstbishop of the see of Lindisfarne (Holy Isle), choos-ing that island on the Northumbrian coast asthe seat of his diocese. There was established bythe brethren who accompanied him from lona thefamous School of Lindisfarne, which produced aseries of finely-written and ornamented manuscriptsin the Celtic style, examples of which still survive.Of these the most beautiful, as well as the mostperfect and highly finished, is the manuscript inthe Cottonian collection in the British Museum,which is known as the ' Lindisfarne Gospels,' or' St. Cuthbert's Gospels,' or the ' Durham Book,'the date of which is about the year 700. Thehistory of its origin and of its vicissitudes is sointeresting that a few words may be said regardingthe manuscript. It contains the Four Gospels of4


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSSt. Jerome's Latin version, written, as appears froma comparatively early record in the volume itself,by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, a.d. 698-721,in honour of his predecessor, St. Cuthbert, whodied in 687. Ethilwold, who was bishop from724 to 740, bound it; and Billfrith the anchoritewrought the jewelled metal-work with which thecovers were adorned, no doubt, as we may fairlyassume, in the style of the interlaced and otherpatterns of the ornamental pages of the volume.We are not told who were the artists engaged onthese pages, which however were executed underdirection of Eadfrith. The particulars here givenare derived from a note written at the end of thebook by the priest Aldred, an inmate of the houseof Lindisfarne, who also added a ' gloss ' to theGospels : that is, he wrote, word for word, betweenthe lines, a translation in English a pricelessmonument of the Northumbrian dialect of the tenthcentury, the period to which the writing of Aldredis to be assigned. Aldred, it is true, gives noauthority for the tradition regarding the originof the manuscript which he transmits ; and wemust bear in mind that he writes more than twohundred years after the death of Eadfrith. Onthe other hand, the general accuracy of his state-ments may, we think, be accepted, for the manu-script must have been held in too much esteem inthe monastery for the details of its history to havebeen forgotten, although they may perhaps havebeen magnified. There is one pleasing touch ofnature in the worthy Aldred's memorandum whichdeserves record. After speaking of himself withall the self-abasement ' indignus et miserrimus 'which natural or conventional modesty demanded,he affectionately remembers his parents, and takes

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTScare to tell us who they wereAlfred, and ' a goodwoman, Tilwin.'The manuscript remained at Lindisfarne till thetime of the Danish invasion in 875, when it wascarried away for safety together with the shrine ofSt. Cuthbert ; and, as we are told by the historian,Simeon of Durham, who wrote early in the twelfthcentury, it was lost overboard during an attemptedvoyage to Ireland, and was only recovered by theintervention of St. Cuthbert himself. Afterwardsit was kept at Durham, but was subsequentlyrestored to Lindisfarne, when the priory was rebuiltas a cell to Durham Priory, and remained thereuntil the dissolution of the monasteries. Nothingis known of its later history to the time when itcame into the possession of Sir Robert Cotton, thatgreat collector to whom we owe the preservation ofso many treasures of the art and learning of theMiddle Ages, who purchased it from Robert Bowyer,Clerk of the Parliaments, in the reign of James theFirst ; and then its jewelled covers had disappeared.The ornamentation of the volume is most perfect.The first page of each Gospel and two other pages,six in all, are in large letters of the most elaboratedesigns, with borders ; and on a leaf prefixed toeach Gospel and on one accompanying the firstpreface is a full-page painting or cruciform design,worked with all the wonderful combination ofgeometrical and interlaced and spiral patterns ofthe Celtic school. Besides, decoration, in keepingwith these more elaborate pages, is applied to theEusebian Canons and to the principal initial lettersof the text. There are likewise four interestingportraits of the Evangelists. They are copied fromByzantine models; and, although the artist's methodof expressing his ideas may be peculiar, there is to6


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSbe seen in them an attempt to render the originalswith something approaching to accuracy, and weare rid of the extraordinary barbarism of the figure-drawing of Irish manuscripts. The difficulty ofrepresenting the folds of the draperies has provedtoo much for the artist's powers, who has indicatedthem, not by shading, but by streaks of paint of adifferent colour from that in which the robes them-selves are painted ; and in the faces the shadows ofthe features are marked out with lines of greenpaint. But, it may be asked, how and whencewould the Lindisfarne draughtsman obtain theByzantine drawings which served as his models?And it is seldom that one is in a position to giveso satisfactory an answer to such a question ascan be given in this instance. We know, infact, that the text of the Durham Book is copiedfrom a manuscript of the Gospels which wasbrought into this country by one of the mission-aries from Rome. This knowledge we owe tothe acute investigations of Mr. Edmund Bishop,the result of which he communicated to DomGermain Morin, who has shown in the RevueBdnddictine (Nov.-Dec. 1891, pp. 481, 529) that the' Capitula ' or tables of sections which accompanythe several Gospels follow the Neapolitan use;and that Adrian, the companion of the GreekTheodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his missionto Britain in the year 668, was abbat of a monasteryin the island of Nisita, near Naples. That thetwo missionaries visited Lindisfarne we know fromthe pages of Bede, and we thus complete the chain.There can be no reasonable doubt that the Neapoli-tan manuscript from which the Durham Bookderived its text was one which had been brought afew years previously from Naples by the abbat


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSAdrian ; and we venture to think that the drawingsof the Evangelists which we are now consideringwere also very probably copied from others executedin the Byzantine style in that manuscript. Know-ing, as we do, the influence exercised, particularlyin Southern Italy, by Byzantine art, the suppositionof the existence of such Byzantine models in amanuscript written and ornamented in Naples is inno way unreasonable. It is, of course, also possiblethat the English drawings may have been copiedfrom actual Greek originals existing in some Greekmanuscript left at Lindisfarne by Theodore orAdrian ; and the occurrence on the copies of thetitles of the Evangelists in Greek would at firstsight appear to support this view. But we thinkthat their half- Latinised forms, e.g. 'o agiosMATTHEUS,' ' o AGius MARCUS,' indicate that theoriginal drawings and inscriptions had passedthrough an intermediate process : that is, thatactual Greek drawings and inscriptions did not comebefore the Lindisfarne draughtsman, but that hedrew from copies, such as might have adorned theLatin Gospels of the abbat Adrian, wherein theGreek words had received Latin modifications.We can hardly believe that he would have hadGreek enough to make such alterations himself,and we prefer to think that, following the usualpractice, he copied exactly what he saw.

The page of the Durham Book which has beenselected for reproduction, on a reduced scale, inPlate I, contains the commencement of St. Luke'sGospel, 'Quoniam quidem multi conati sunt ordinarenarrationem,' and has been chosen because it iscomposed of a fairly representative variety of thedifferent patterns employed in the decoration of thevolume. It would be quite impossible to reproduce8


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-f Jjucas innilns ^cm^p W' rti y)i(? lu..H-


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSby any mechanical process the exquisite colouringof the

original,which with its thickly-laid pigmentsresembles a specimen of beautifully-finished porce-

lain or enamel. The outline of the large Q is black,edged on the inner side with bands of straw-yellow.The spirals in the space within the bow of the letterare coloured with violet, light green, red, blue, andyellow ; and the little triangular space in the centreis filled with goldthe only instance of the use ofthat metal in the whole design. Gold is not foundat all in native Irish manuscripts, and is appliedvery sparingly in this masterpiece of the school ofLindisfarne. The interlacings on the bow of theletter are in sections of red and blue ; those on thestem are in black and white. The birds and lacer-tine creatures are green, and white, and yellow;but the two birds at the bottom of the stem arecoloured red, blue, violet, and yellow. The circlesand spirals in the terminals are green, red, andviolet. The borders and the corner-piece are edgedwith violet. In the corner-piece the birds havewhite wings and heads, yellow legs and crests, andgreen and blue necks, and, in addition to the inter-lacing of necks, crests, and legs, they are furtherlinked together with intertwining red ribbons. Inthe lower border the birds have white wings edgedwith yellow, yellow legs and heads, and blue andred tails. In the side border there are the samecolours, differently disposed. The cat's head whichterminates the side-border is yellow with whitemuzzle ; the fore-legs are blue. And this extra-ordinary creature's hind-legs and tail are at theother end of the border, which thus does duty forits body. Of the ornamental letters the U and Oare coloured in harmony with the rest of the page.The dotted patterns are red. We feel that we


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSought to apologise for this detailed and, we fear,tedious account of the colouring of this beautifulspecimen of Lindisfarne work ; but, in default ofthe actual colours in our plate, a literal descriptionis the only means of giving an idea of the original.Nothing can excel the harmony of the whole com-position, which can only be realised by inspectionof the manuscript itself.

But, at the period when this beautiful book wasproduced, the Celtic style of ornamentation wasalready known also in the southern part of England.It may have been directly introduced by Irishmonks at such a centre as Glastonbury ; or, whatis more probable, the connection between Lindis-farne and that house, which we know existed, mayhave made it quickly known in the south. AtCanterbury it was practised as early as the begin-ning of the eighth century. Of that time we have avaluable manuscript in which we find ornamenta-tion of this type executed with great skill ; and, sideby side with it, an instance of the adaptation ofRoman art by native draughtsmen. Nothing canbe more interesting for our subject than thus tosee the two styles, the Celtic from the north andthe classical from abroad, meeting on one pagein a volume produced in the city which was thegateway for the entrance of Roman art into thecountry. The manuscript is a Psalter in theCottonian collection in the British Museum, bear-ing the press-mark Vespasian A. i. It belongedto the Abbey of St. Augustine, and was no doubtwritten and ornamented in that house. And it isnot only on account of its ornamentation that it isof interest ; for the character of the writing is alsosignificant and supports the view that the manu-script may, in fact, be a copy of one of the volumes10


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSwhich were imported into England by the followersof St.

Augustine.The text of the Psalms is inRoman uncial letters, a form of writing which neverobtained favour with English scribes ; and certain

portions of the manuscript are copied in Romanrustic capitals, which were even still less adopted bythem. An early tradition has even pronounced themanuscript to be one of the very volumes whichwere sent to St. Augustine by Pope Gregory, as re-corded by Bede. Thomas of Elmham, who wroteat the beginning of the fifteenth century a chronicleof St. Augustine's Abbey, describes two Psalters,which he appears to include among the gifts whichwere presented by St. Augustine to Peter the firstabbat ; and the description of one of them so nearlysuits the Cottonian manuscript that it is difficultnot to believe that it is the actual volume to whichElmham refers. Of course, if it had any claim tothe distinction of being one of St. Augustine's ownmanuscripts brought into this country from Rome,the presence in it of Anglo-Irish work could hardlybe accounted for. However, it is not necessary todiscuss the point. With our better opportunities forcomparison, there can no longer be any question ofthe real age of the manuscript, and of the countrywhere it was written and ornamented.The decoration of the volume chiefly consists ofinitial letters designed in the Celtic style, but withcertain modifications which betray foreign influence.Gold, which, as has already been qbserved, is no-where found in Irish manuscripts, and is but spar-ingly used in the productions of the Lindisfarneschool, is here applied with profusion ; and on itssurface delicate patterns were traced in blacka rareprocess, as it appears. We can scarcely doubt thatthis more magnificent and costly method of decora-II


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTStion was suggested by the illuminated manuscriptsof the continent. But the volume also contains afull-page design, to which we have above referred,in which Celtic and Roman art stand side by side.This page is reproduced in our Plate 2. First,examining the decorative portion of the design,we have a solid arch supported on columns, richlyornamented with interlaced and spiral patterns aswell as with lozenges and rosettes. The colours arered, blue, green, lake, and light yellow, on a groundof black ; but the marginal bands, the lozenges, andthe rosettes are gilded, patterns having been tracedon the surface of the gold, as just described. Theflaking-off of the metal has to some extent destroyedthese delicate designs. The prevalence of the Celticelement is evident enough in these ornaments ; thespirals and interlacings are purely Celtic details,and they occupy so much space in the compositionthat, as a whole, it would be classed as of the Irishtype. On the other hand, the foreign element isnot wanting, for the three gilt rosettes which standin the upper part of the arch are such as are foundvery commonly in Greek and Roman decoration.But turning to the picture, here is nothing Celtic.David is seated on his throne playing on a lyre ;on each side stands a scribe, the one holding ascroll and stilus, the other a set of tablets and astilus ; ^ and in the foreground are two boys oryoung men dancing between two horn-blowers andtwo trumpeters. The prevailing colours are stone-blue, green, red, and brown. David's nimbus andthe framework of the throne are gilt, and the lyre

' The scroll in the hand of the sciibe on the left is no doubt meant for apapyrus roll {volumen). It is remarkable, though probably nothing more thana coincidence, that, in two instances in the Assyrian bas-reliefs in the BritishMuseum, the scribes who are taking note of spoils are represented in pairs, onescribe using a tablet, the other a scroll. The tablets would be used for therough draft, the roll for the fair copy.12


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSand the cross-pieces in the legs of the throne arein silver. At a glance the design proclaims itselfto be of Roman origin ; and it is evident that thedraughtsmanwho we may confidently assume tohave been one of the native inmates of St. Augus-tine's Abbeyhas done his best to make a faithfulcopy of the Roman original before him, withoutany addition or peculiar treatment of his own. TheCottonian Psalter is, then, as we have seen, a veryvaluable record for the history of the early book-decoration of England ; and, if we are right in be-lieving that its text may have been actually copiedfrom one of St. Augustine's own manuscripts, andthat the picture before us may be a reproduction of aclassical model, we have in it a link which connectsEnglish art with the time of the Roman missionaries.That the Celtic style of ornament was followedat Canterbury to a later date is shown in thedecorated pages of a fragmentary copy of theGospels among the Royal j\iss. (i E. vi.) in theBritish Museum (see Westwood, Miniatures andOruainents, p. 39), a manuscript of the latter partof the eighth century, which also belonged to St.Augustine's Abbey, and which, it may be added,appears also to have been one of the volumes whichThomas of Elmham enumerates as having beensent by Pope Gregory to St. Augustine. Thenorthern style, however, was now on the decline.Soon we find quite a different class of ornamen-tation prevailing in the south of England, basedupon a free style of drawing, and retaining onlya partial reminiscence of the interlacings of theIrish school. This new southern style was founded,as we shall presently see, on late classical, or per-haps we should rather say semi-classical, models,not of the broad type of the drawing in the Cottonian

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSPsalter just described, but of a light and moregraceful character. The influence of Roman modelsof the style of the Psalter drawing is not to betraced very clearly in English manuscripts. Thatsuch models, however, were not altogether neglectedmay be inferred from the style of certain miniaturesin the manuscript which is known as the Psalterof King yEthelstan, and which may have actuallybelonged to him (Cottonian MS., Galba A. xviii.).This little volume, of foreign origin, appears, likeanother manuscript in the same collection, to havebeen sent as a present to the English king by theEmperor Otto i., who married in 929 Eadgyth, thehalf-sister of yEthelstan. The miniatures to whichwe have referred are insertions by English handsof the tenth century, and are evidently strongly in-fluenced by later Roman or Byzantine models (seeWestwood, Miniatures and Ornaments, p. 96). Butgenerally the decorations of English manuscripts ofthis period are of that lighter style, the developmentof which we will now endeavour to trace.

In contrasting this, the southern style, with theproductions of the Celtic school, we have, at thebeginning of this article defined it as one in whichfigure-drawing was more specially developed. Thisfigure -drawing is distinguished by the generallightness and delicacy of outline, the elongationof the limbs, a strange humping of the shouldersor back, in some instances almost amounting todeformity, and the peculiar treatment of the draperyto which the epithet of ' fluttering ' has been givenin order to describe its appearance as thoughagitated by the wind. In this style of drawingour Anglo-Saxon ancestors were particularly suc-cessful and attained in some instances to a beautyand grace nowhere to be found in the contemporary5'

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSmanuscripts of the Continent, which are adornedon the more gorgeous lines of the Byzantine school.So national did this free style become, that therehas been a tendencywhich we think has beencarried too farto appropriate all drawings of thisnature to our own country. On the contrary, it canbe shown that, at least in some instances, suchdrawing was practised down to the tenth century,under Anglo-Saxon influence it may be, but cer-tainly outside this country. And for its originwe must look abroad. The classical details in theearliest extant example of the style are too manifestto allow us to suggest any other country than Italyfor its birth. This example is the manuscriptknown as the Utrecht Psalter, which once belongedto the library of Sir Robert Cotton, but is now inthe University Library of Utrecht. Its antiquity,like that of other volumes whose classical detailsmisled the experts of the day, was formerly over-estimated. Its actual date may be fairly placedabout the year 800 ; but what gives it a peculiarvalue is, that it has all the appearance of beingpractically a facsimile copy of a much earlier manu-script. Both in the character of the writing, and,we may also fairly assume, in that of the drawings,the ancient style is pretty faithfully reproduced.The ancient rustic-capital writing, which passedout of general use for the text of manuscripts somehundreds of years earlier, is employed in thisvolume, the scribe no doubt finding that he couldthus most conveniently maintain the same settingof the text as in the archetype, and could thus leavethe necessary spaces for the insertion of the draw-ings in conformity with those of the older volume,which we may very reasonably assume to have beenat least as early as the fifth century.

IS


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSThe drawings, which are numerous, illustrate

the Psalms most literally, and contain an infinitevariety of subjects ; and they are executed with nomean skill. Until recently they were thought to bethe production of English artists ; but this view canno longer be maintained, for internal palaeographicalevidence leaves no room for doubt that the manu-script is of Prankish workmanship. We are pro-bably not far wide of the mark in adjudging it tothe north or north-east of Prance.^ Here, then, wehave evidence of the early existence on the Con-tinent of the style of drawing which afterwardstook root and flourished so successfully in our owncountry ; and, as we have said, the classical ele-ments point decidedly to its ultimate Roman origin.The Utrecht Psalter appears to have been oneof the imported volumes on which the English stylewas to form itself. We have two later copies ofthe Psalter illustrated with similar, though notexactly the same, drawings as in that manuscript :the one of the eleventh century, Harleian ms. 603,in the British Museum ; the other, known as theEadwine Psalter, of the twelfth century, at Cam-bridge. With the latter volume we are not nowconcerned, as it does not fall within the period withwhich we are dealing. It is quoted only as aninstance to show how popular the illustrated Psalterof the type of the Utrecht ms. became in England.The Harleian ms. is made up exactly in the sameway as the Utrecht Psalter, that is, the text iswritten in triple columns (not, however, in capitalsas in the older manuscript, but in the ordinaryCaroline type of minuscules of the time), and the

' Since the above was written, the place of origin of the Utrecht Psalter hasbeen made a subject of research by M. Paul Durrieu, who concludes that theMS. was executed in the diocese of Kt:\ms.L'Origtne tltt MS. cdlibre dit LcPsautier if Utrecht, in Mila7i


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSdrawings extend across the full breadth of the page.Many of the latter are the same as those in theUtrecht MS., some indeed being so exactly similar indesign that they might have been copied from thatvolume ; but generally additions are introduced andthere are variations in the costume ; and, again,many are altogether different. The Harleian MS.is therefore not a copy of the Utrecht Psalter itself,and leads us to infer from its variations that otherversions of the illustrated Psalter were in existencein England at an early date. The drawing whichwe here give, on a reduced scale (Plate 3), from theHarleian ms. illustrates the 9th Psalm ; but it isnot easy to find in the words of text a certainexplanation of all of the different scenes. God isseated in the Heavens ' judging right ' (v. 4) ; thegroups of men being slain are the enemy who are' turned back and fall and perish ' (v. 3) ; on theright, the heathen are rebuked (v. 5), and the idolfalls from its base ; in the centre are the destroyedcities (v. 6) ; in the foreground, the three figuresseated in the canopied hall appear to be engaged in' ministering judgment to the people in uprightness '(v. 8) ; and, on the left centre, the wicked are being' turned into hell ' (v. 1 7), which is represented as aflaming tower. The walled cjty on the left is pro-bably intended for Zion, the Psalmist standingabove the gate and 'showing forth praise' (v. 14);and the building on the hill on the right, from whichone of the group of figures has apparently emerged,may perhaps illustrate the gates of death (v. 13).This drawing is almost an exact replica of thecorresponding drawing in the Utrecht Psalter.There is the same pose of the figures, the sameelongation of the limbs, and the same treatmentof the draperies. Here, however, the outlines arec 17


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSvariously drawn in colours, blue, red, and greenbeing used as well as ordinary ink.

It may here be remarked that the practice of theAnglo-Saxon artists of copying drawings from olderand foreign models has scarcely been sufficiently con-sidered by writers on the manners and customs ofour forefathers, and that too much in these drawingshas been assumed to be purely English. It is truethat the later artists would introduce certain modi-fications ; and it may be readily granted that to someextent they adapted details in their work, such asarms and dress, to suit the objects of their own timeand country ; but it is also quite as certain that theystill copied exactly very much that they saw in theiroriginals, and that many of the illustrations thatappear in our histories and costume-books as Englishare only travesties of the early classical models.As the Harleian Psalter forms so valuable alink in the history of Anglo-Saxon drawing, wehave taken it out of its true chronological order, ifwe regard the period at which it was actually exe-cuted. For we have examples of this particularclass of drawing dating from the previous century,the period in which it appears to have attained itsfull development in England. But before we pro-ceed to notice the manuscripts which we select, forthe illustration of our subject, as being of undoubtedEnglish workmanship, one must engage our atten-tion which has been described by Professor West-wood, Miniatures and Ornaments, p. 107, as aspecimen of English production, ' the drawings ofwhich,' he says, 'are of great value as containing aseries of representations of the habits and customs,dresses, arms, etc., of the later Anglo-Saxons,' butwhich we venture to think is of foreign origin.This is an illustrated copy of the ' Psychomachia,'18


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSan allegorical Latin poem on the subjection of thevices by the virtues, written in the fourth century byAurelius Prudentius, an officer of high military rank,who was born in Spain, and who solaced himself inretirement by composing this and other poems of alike character. The ' Psychomachia,' like the illus-trated Psalter, appears to have been a favouritework for reproduction in this country, as there stillsurvive several copies with illustrative drawings ofthe Anglo-Saxon period. But the manuscript inquestion, which formerly belonged to ArchbishopTenison's library and is now in the British Museum(Additional MS., 24199), was certainly written abroad,and we believe that its drawings were also executedon the continent. The writing is distinctly of thetype which has been called Caroline minuscule, asused in the Prankish Empire in the ninth andtenth centuries. The hand was indeed occasionallyadopted by English scribes of the latter century,but they stamped a character of their own upon itwhich is not to be mistaken. In this manuscript,which is of the latter part of the tenth century, thereis no trace of the English impress upon the writing ;it is altogether of the'^foreign type, and was probablywritten in the north of the Prankish Empire, per-haps in the district now the Netherlands. Fromthe evidence of a few stray notes which have beenadded, we gather that the manuscript had alreadybeen brought to England in the early part of thefourteenth century; but there is nothing to showwhether it was in this country at an earlier date.Now turning to the drawings, we find that a seriesof them has been added, to the extent of two-thirdsof the poem, in the spaces left vacant by the scribefor their insertion, and that they are executed inthe light sketchy style adopted by the Anglo-Saxon19


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSartists. At the same time the classical elements inthe designs are very evident, and there is no doubtthat they are copies of an earlier series. If we areright in our opinion that the manuscript was writtenabroad, these drawings must also be of foreignexecution ; for that they are contemporaneouswith the writing is proved by the accommodation ofcertain contemporary marginal commentaries to keepclear of the space occupied by the drawings. Theycould not, therefore, be the work of Anglo-Saxonartists after the introduction of the manuscript intoEngland ; and that they are the work of Anglo-Saxon artists abroad is hardly probable. We havethen in this series of drawings strong presumptiveevidence that even as late as the tenth century thecopying of earlier models in the light outline whichbecame so popular in England was not confined tothis country, and that on the continent, at all eventsin the districts opposite to our southern shore, thesame style of book-decoration as our own wascultivated. It is indeed only reasonable to supposethat such should have been the case ; and it is notimpossible that the wide practice of this particularform of drawing in this country may have in-fluenced the work of the artists across the channel.To return to the Tenison ' Psychomachia,' thespaces left to receive illustrations for the rest ofthe poem have been only partially filled with ten-tative sketches, some very rough and inartisticand seemingly of later date, others, again, executedwith very considerable skill by contemporary hands.We select from the latter a very prettily-drawnscene illustrating the line ' Cornicinum curva asrasilent ; placabilis implet Vaginam gladius,' etc.,and a single figure from another page (Plate 4,nos. I, 2), which, in the treatment of the drapery20


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSand the wrinkled hose and sleeves, so closely re-semble the Anglo-Saxon style. This manuscripttoo affords us an interesting instance of a peculiarmethod of work followed in the production ofillustrated manuscripts. Some of the drawingsare accompanied wath descriptive titles, as in thecase of the first scene in the Plate. These werewritten by the scribe, not by the artist, before thedrawings were executed ; as is proved by the occur-rence of titles in spaces which are still devoid ofdrawings. The scribe, in fact, copying from anearlier example, could exactly space out the wordsof the titles to fit the artist's copies. In one ortwo instances, the text itself is spaced out to admitof the insertion of drawings.As a companion to the two specimens selectedfrom the Tenison ms., we have added to the samePlate an interesting example from another copy ofthe same poem. But the manuscript from which itis taken is altogether English,

both inwriting andornamentation. It is the Cottonian ms., CleopatraC. viii., of the first half of the eleventh century. Thescene represents Humility taking flight to Heavenin the presence of the Virtues :

-' auratis przestringens aera peiinisIn celum se virgo rapit ; mirantur euntemVirtutes, tolluntque animos in vota volentesIre simul '

The flying figure of Humility is particularly graceful,and is only marred by the exaggeration of theopen hand, a fault w^hich appears also in the otherfigures. The difficulty which, in the early stagesof art, seems always to have been experienced bythe artist when dealing with the open hand ornaked foot appears to be more prominently broughtbefore us in Anglo-Saxon outline drawings. When21


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSthe hand is clasped or the foot is booted, a fairly-true proportion is observed. Sometimes the faultof drawing even goes to the other extreme, and thebooted feet of women are often drawn abnormallysmall. But, when the fingers of the open hand orthe toes of the naked foot have to be drawn, thedetails are immediately exaggerated.

Judging from the examples which have descendedto us, the southern style of Anglo-Saxon book-ornamentation seems to have been brought to thehighest perfection at Winchester, as one wouldnaturally expect to be the case in the chief city ofthe kingdom and under the patronage of the suc-cessive kings from the latter part of the tenthcentury down to the period of the Norman Con-quest. Many of the finest extant manuscripts ofthis class were produced in the great religioushouses of that city ; and of these the most beautifuland elaborate is the Benedictional of St. ^thelwold,the property of the Duke of Devonshire, and justlydescribed by Westwood as ' the noblest of all thesurviving productions of later Anglo-Saxon art.'It contains the ancient benedictional of the see ofWinchester, and was written and ornamented underthe direction of .4ithelwold, who succeeded to thebishopric in 963 and died in 984. The date of themanuscript may therefore be placed about the year970. It has as many as thirty illuminated minia-tures and thirteen other ornamental pages, andoriginally contained even more, as some have evi-dently been cut out of the volume. To get an ideaof the colouring of the miniatures, nearly all of whichare fully painted and profusely gilded, the readermust refer to Westwood's Mhiiatures and Orna-ments, plate xlv. As we have already noted above,in the case of the Cottonian Psalter (Vespasian22


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W. r.ricjt". l''n>"


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSA. i.), the extensive use of gold as a means of decora-tion in these grand examples of southern work is nodoubt to be attributed to the increasing influence ofthe Byzantine school of ornamentation which heldsway on the continent. We have to content our-selves here with presenting a reduced reprint (Plate 5,the Adoration of the Magi) of one of the plates inArchaeologia, vol. xxiv., where the whole series ofminiatures is very carefully engraved, which willconvey a fairly sufficient idea of the finished drawingand elaborate ornamentation of the original.As a specimen of the best style of the figure-drawing of this school we place before the reader avery beautiful miniature (Plate 6) of the Crucifixionfrom the Harleian ms. 2904, a Psalter, of thesame age as the yEthelwold Benedictional and alsoprobably executed at Winchester. Westwood haseulogised this miniature as the finest of its kind.The outlines and modelling of the limbs and otherdetails are drawn in a pinkish bistre, and the under-robes of the Virgin and St. John in pale blue.Importance is given to the figure of the Saviour, inthe usual manner, by rendering the accompanyingfigures on a smaller scale ; but, in order to maintainsymmetry in the design and to bring them intoproper position, the latter are placed upon twomounds. While the drawing has the good qualitiesof grace and refinement, the faults of the school, towhich we have above referred, are conspicuous inthe drawing of the hands and naked feet of thedisciple, and in the hump-backed pose and dispro-portionate smallness of the lower part of the figureas well as of the feet of the Virgin.Our remarks on the southern school of Anglo-Saxon art have been chiefly confined to the drawingof the figure - designs or miniatures ; but a few23


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSwords must be given to the subject of its decora-tion. In connection with the miniatures or in full-page ornamental designs the artist most frequentlydrew a border surrounding the page and composedof conventional foliage interlaced and entwinedwith the supporting framework of the border.There can be no doubt that the germ of this foliageis to be found in the classical architectural leaf-mouldings which were imitated so much in Prankishilluminated manuscripts and were conveyed by thatchannel to the notice of our native artists. Agood illustration of this development is before usin the border of the page which has been selectedfrom the ^thelwold Benedictional (Plate 5). Inthe small compartments of the frame are seensections of leaf-moulding confined within bounds,as in the case of ordinary architectural decoration ;in the large rosettes which form the corner-piecesthe foliage is in luxuriant growth and interlaces itsshoots and leaves with the framework. The colourswhich the Anglo-Saxon used in his decorations areusually bright, and the effect of this variety of tintsintroduced in the border-designs is very pleasing.As has already been said, gold is profusely appliedin the manuscripts of Winchester origin ; but inother examples we find colours alone employed.Of the latter type is the page which forms thesubject of Plate 7, taken from the Arundel MS. 60,a Latin Psalter of the eleventh century. Theframework is made of long rods, perhaps osier-wands, which are tinted with pale yellow and areconnected together at the corners by rings of thesame colour. The foliage is in tints of red, blue,and green, relieved with white, and is laid on abackground coloured in sections with stone-blueand green. The initial letter Q is in keeping with24


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSthe style of the border and has the same colouring.In general, foliage forms a conspicuous part of thelarge ornamental initial letters of southern Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, together with interlaced knotsa detail of ornament which, as well as the entwin-ing just described, is doubtless due to the influenceof the northern school.To conclude this article, we will briefly describea manuscript which is not an artistic work in theway that we may regard the volumes from whichthe preceding illustrations have been drawn, butwhich is of so much importance for the insight weobtain from it into the method of work of theAnglo-Saxon book-illustrator, that we may regardits survival as a most fortunate circumstance forthe history of English art. It is one of thevolumes of the Cottonian collection (Claudius B.iv.) and contains the Anglo-Saxon paraphrase ofthe Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua by ^Ifricthe Grammarian, written early in the eleventhcentury and illustrated with numerous coloureddrawings. These drawings do not pretend to beartistic ; indeed many of them are very rough, theobject of the draughtsman being to illustrate thetext, not to decorate the book. At the same timesome of the series, which are chiefly in outline andonly slightly

tinted with colour, are not withoutmerit. We give one of them in the upper part ofPlate 8, representing the scene of the journey ofAbraham with Lot and with their herds and flocksto Bethel, ' unto the place of the altar which he hadmade there ' (Gen. xiii. 4). But the greater numberof the drawings in the volume are painted withbody-colour, and, as towards the end of the manu-script a large proportion of them are unfinishedand have been left in different stages of progress,D 25


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSwe see exactly how the work was done. First thecolours of the dresses were applied with the brushin patches, without any previous outline beingdrawn with the pen or pencil, so that a designwhich has been left in this initial stage has all theappearance of a set of variously coloured stencilslaid haphazard across the page. It is, however,quite evident that no mechanical means wereemployed for marking out the different shapes, butthat the artist trusted entirely to his eye to guidehis hand. The facility with which this part of hiswork was composed could only have been the resultof considerable practice. Next, the heads, limbs,hands, details of dress, etc., were drawn in outline,the features were added ; and the picture wasthen presumably complete. In the lower part ofPlate 8 we have a section from one of thesehalf-finished designs. It represents Moses, with anenormous pair of horns fitted to his head, dividingthe promised land among the children of Israel.Here the dresses have been blocked in in body-colour in the way described, and the heads andlimbs have been sketched in ; the final touches,however, such as the indications of the features,have not been added. But this design, as wellas one or two others in the book, is peculiar inhaving undergone a further treatment from a differ-ent hand. It will be seen that the folds of the coatsor tunics of the two figures to the right and left ofMoses, and the hands of one of them, are drawn in,above the other work, in the agitated style of Anglo-Saxon art. Whether it was intended thus to finishoff the other designs in the manuscript cannot bedetermined ; perhaps not. But, however that maybe, this last addition is evidently the work of askilful artist, who may have been merely exercisinghis hand on a few figures in an idle moment.26


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II

From the Twelfth to the FourteenthCenturyHE changes wrought in Eng-land by the Norman Conquest,which at this distance of time

appear to us in many respectsso abrupt, are in no depart-ment more marked than inthat of the production ofmanuscripts, whether in theircharacter of writing or in their

style of ornamentation. The abrupt suddennessof the change is perhaps more apparent than real.If we examine the English manuscripts of theeleventh century we find that the influence of thehandwriting of the continent had already manifesteditself on this side of the Channel long before the in-vasion of England was dreamt of; and there is nodifficulty

in believing that, even if that invasion hadnever taken place, the handwriting of English scribeswould in course of time have gradually developedon the lines into which it was more hurriedly forcedby the transfer of power to the Normans. Thatthere was, however, a marked change wrought bythe Conquest will not be disputed. The numberof Mss. of this period which have descended to usis quite large enough to satisfy us on this point.With regard to the ornamentation of manuscripts27


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSwe have unfortunately only a scanty amount ofmaterial by which to form an opinion ; but judgingfrom what remains, and following the analogy ofthe course of the handwriting, there can be littledoubt that the change in style was here also verydecided.The change was an advantage and gain to Englishdraughtsmanship. The grafting of the foreign styleon the outline-drawing of the Anglo-Saxon school,which we have described in a former article, cer-tainly lent to the latter a strength which checkedthe affectation towards which it was tending.Without this foreign infusion, the figures of the^ Anglo-Saxon draughtsman would probably havebeen subject to increasing exaggeration of theirleading characteristics and have ended in beingmere grotesques. On the other hand, the fine free-hand drawing, which actually resulted from thecombination of the English and Norman schools,is a conspicuous feature in manuscripts ornamentedin England during the next three centuries ; andwe may trace the favour shown to this style ofdrawing in our country to the success with whichoutline-drawing had been so long practised underthe Anglo-Saxon kings.

But, besides artistic draughtsmanship which hadscope for its efforts in the paintings or miniaturesof the manuscript, there is that other side of book-ornamentation which, all through the progress ofthe art in the Middle Ages, runs with it, generallysubordinate, but sometimes even excelling the minia-ture-drawing, namely, the purely decorative side,as seen in the border and the initial letter. Theskill required for this department was of a moremechanical nature than that which the miniaturedemanded ; and, although the fertile invention of28


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSthe decorator and his facile dexterity in executionare often marvellous, the draughtsman of theminiature was usually an artist of a higher order.At first the distinction is not so great, drawing anddecoration would be executed by the same hand ;but in the later Middle Ages the two branches werequite separate and were cultivated by different classesof artists. We must not lose sight of this fact inestimating the character of the manuscripts whichpass in review before us.In the nature of things, illuminated manuscripts,which, like all other works of art, were scarcely tobe produced but under peaceful conditions, couldhave been executed in no great numbers at a periodwhen so many changes were in progress as afterthe Norman Conquest. That few should have beenhanded down to us from this time is no great wonder.It was probably only in the great monasteries thatthere existed the skill and means for their pro-duction ; and when we bear in mind the destructionand loss which attended the dispersion of themonastic libraries at the time of the suppressionof the monasteries, we may deem it a happy acci-dent that we possess even such few examples asexist.We must begin our review some hundred yearsafter the date of the Conquest, first taking in ourhands two manuscripts of a typical character, theone coming from the old Anglo-Saxon capital '^and seat of art and literature, Winchester, theother from the later founded house of Westminster,where the new foreign influence more stronglyprevailed.The first of these two manuscripts is in theCottonian collection of the British Museum, andbears the press-number, Nero C. iv. It contains29


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSthe Psalter, written in Latin and Norman-Frenchin parallel columns, perhaps soon after the middleof the twelfth century. From entries in the ac-companying calendar and a reference in one of theprayers, we ascertain that the place of its originwas the monastery of St. Swithun at Winchester,and that it became the property of the nuns ofShaftesbury Abbey in Dorsetshire not long afterits completion. The part of the volume which nowconcerns us is a series of miniatures which precedethe text and which illustrate the scheme of theRedemption, traced from the Fall of Man, throughthe Deluge, the Patriarchs, the life of Joseph, thegiving of the Law, the life of David and of Christ,to the Last Judgment. These drawings are veryremarkable in style, and the fact of our knowing theplace where they were executed renders them par-ticularly valuable as being specimens of the schoolwhich had formerly produced so many magnificentexamples ofAnglo-Saxon illumination. The contrastbetween them and such a series as that containedin the Benedictional of St. .^thelwold (see above,p. 22) is sufficiently marked in general character.The delicacy of the older drawings gives place to abolder and stronger style ; and yet in details wemay trace affinities which show that the traditionsof a hundred years of earlier date still influencedthe artists of Winchester in the days of the earlyPlantagenets.The miniature which has been selected for repro-duction (Plate 9) on a reduced scale representstwo scenes : David delivering the lamb from thelion's mouth ; and Samuel anointing David. Inthe first, David tending his flock stands on theleft, on the right he is seen rescuing the lamb ; therepetition of the principal figure in different actions30


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSbeing, it is hardly necessary to remind the reader,not unusual in mediaeval art. The tree which fillsthe background, with its curiously close-packed topof foliage and its wide-spreading branches, is notthe least interesting feature in the scene, for in it(as also, to some extent, in the leafage of theborder) we can recognise a connection with theluxuriant leaf-ornamentation of Anglo-Saxon manu-scripts of the southern school. And, before dis-missing the scene, we may note an instance of thesurvival of the memory of early classical models inthe attitude of the two dancing kids. ' Ici escustDavid al liun un veille ' is the Norman-Frenchtitle. In the second scene David, the youngest(and therefore here represented as very decidedlythe smallest) of the sons of Jesse, is anointed kingby Samuel in the presence of his father and hisbrethren : ' Ici enunist Samuel li prophete Daviden rei par ly cumant Deu.'The most distinctive characteristic of the draw-ing of this series of illustrations lies in the treat-ment of the drapery, which clings to the limbs andindicates their outlines in a very forcible manner.This peculiarity is to some degree observable inthe Mss. of the Anglo-Saxon period, as, for in-stance, in the Benedictional of St. ^thelwold, andmay perhaps be a special mark of the style of theWinchester school of the twelfth century, for wefind it again in the drawings in the great Bible ofthat time, still preserved in the Chapter Library ofWinchester (see Facsimiles of the PalaeographicalSociety, Series ii., Plates i66, 167). Another sur-vival of the older school is found in the liberalapplication of gilding. In the page before us, thenarrow frame on which the titles are inscribed,the borders of some of the robes and the personal

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSornaments, David's crook (in the upper scene),Samuel's horn, and details of the foliage of thetree are gilt with dull gold, and the same pro-fusion is found in other miniatures of the series.The colours are chiefly different shades of red andgreen, for the most part lightly washed in. Thebackground was originally painted light blue, butthe colour has almost entirely discharged.The drawing of all the miniatures of the seriesis not of equal merit; and that which has beenselected is one of the best. But, taken as a whole,they afford very remarkable material for the studyof that side of English art of the period in whichthe sentiment of the Anglo-Saxon school was stilla not unimportant element. There are, however,among them two paintings which may for a momentengage our attention. They are not English incharacter; and their presence is not one of theleast interesting points in connection with thisvolume. They are entirely Italian in drawing andin colouring; but how they came to be includedin the series we shall never know. They are notmere haphazard insertions ; but, as appears fromtheir setting and the Norman-French titles writtenas in the English drawings of the series, they wereexecuted expressly for the book. Who could havebeen the artist ? Was he an Englishman who haddwelt in Italy and had been trained as an artist inthe Italian school ? Or are they the work of someItalian monk or traveller who made return for thehospitality of the house of St. Swithun by leavingbehind him these testimonies of his artistic skill ?Who shall decide? The one drawing representsthe Death of the Virgin, the other her Enthrone-ment ; and both are remarkable for the excellenceand bold character of their execution. When we

32


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSschool, and which will bear comparison withNorman work of the period. Xhfi-jnanuscriptjsa very beautiful Psalter in the Old Royal collectionin the British Museum, numbered 2 A. xxii. Thewriting is distinctively English, of that charmingtype which places the twelfth-century manuscriptsof England in the very front rank of caligraphy ;and the prominence given in the calendar andprayers to St. Peter and to St. Edward the Con-fessor would be quite sufficient to show that thevolume originated at Westminster, even withoutits identification by an entry in the inventory ofthe abbey. It is of the period of the later yearsof Henry the^Seeojid's reign. As is usual withPsalters of this period it has a series of miniaturespreceding the text. One of these is here given(Plate 10) representing the Psalmist playing on theharp. He is clad in three garments : an under-robe of white shaded with blue, which is seen onthe forearm and covering the ankles ; an upper-robeof pale violet, with a gilt jewelled border at thetop and round the open sleeve, and with an orangeborder round the bottom ; and a cloak of palebrown madder lined with ermine and having agilt jewelled border at the bottom. His shoesare open down the front and disclose stockingsof orange ; the footstool is chocolate dappled withwhite. The harp is of straw-yellow. The throneis constructed of various materials, indicated byslate-blue, green, orange, and white ; the cushionis orange. The back of the throne is deep ultra-marine, the use of which becomes so prevalent inFrance in the next century and often determinesthe nationality of the manuscripts of that country.The background of the niche in which the throneis set is of burnished gold (a material of ornament34


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10.


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSwhich now begins to make its appearance) which,however, has flaked off in part ; and the corniceis of white, shaded with pale green, the brick-work of the two corners being slate -blue. Thefeatures are pallid, and are worked up with white,applied in a thick pigment ; the hair is brown.This treatment of the features we are inclined toaccept as a mark of English work ; and it is veryobservable in the illumination of manuscripts ofthis country at a later time. We should also pointto the peculiar salmon pink colour of the outerborder, worked with a leaf-design in white, as anindication of English origin ; and also in particularto the thin line of green with which this border isedged. Green-edging is very prevalent in Englishillumination of this period.The drawing of this miniature is in the broadstyle characteristic of its period ; and the samebreadth oF treatment is to be observed in the,details of merely decorative designs, as initialletters and borders. In the larger manuscriptsof the twelfth century we find numerous examplesof initials of unusually grand dimensions, formedof interlacing and twining patterns, in which foliageon a bold scale occupies a prominent part, whileanimals of various kinds play among the branches.As the century advances these large initials be-come more refined in their details, preparing usfor the delicately minute work of the next century.The contrast, indeed, between the broad styleof the twelfth century and the minute style of the"thirteenth century is so striking that we are aptto think the change more sudden than perhaps itreally was. It is true, however, that the periodof transition was not very extended, and therapid and general disuse of large volumes and the

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSadoption of a smaller scale, particujarly for themultitudes of Bibles which, were prod^uced in thethirteentH centuiy, affected the art of illuminationin a remarkable degree. It is from the period^ ofthe latter part of the twelfth century that we havea steady and continuous development of the initial,the border, and the miniature connected with theinitial and border, running through the next threecenturies. All that had been done in book-decora-tion previously to this time belongs to what we maycall the older school. Illumination now takes anew departure ; and the reign of brilliant colouringand highly burnished gold commences. In fact,the term illumination is now appropriately appliedin reference to the highly decorative art which ishenceforth practised through the thirteenth, four-teenth, and fifteenth centuries.

X Plate 1 1 represents a page of a Latin Bible pj\ about the middle of the thirteenth century, nowJthe Royal MS. I. D. i in the British Museum.[The scribe has given his name, WillelmusDevoniensis ; but there is no indication howor whence the volume passed into the RoyalLibrary. It is a very beautiful manuscript, writtenon fine vellum in a perfect style of penmanship,and decorated with miniatures and numerousinitials, all executed with great skill in richcolours and burnished gold. The large initial Pof the plate has a stem composed of three bandsof gold, blue, and lake respectively, relieved withpatterns in white ; and the bow of the letter is filledwith diapered work on a ground of lake. TheApostle Paul wears an under-robe of vermilionand an upper-robe of blue lined with green. Thesheath of his sword, which is placed across hisshoulder, hilt upwards, is of gold ; and he holds^.6


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îî; t I iV- J fyKf*^-

nomma fimnnitUio Titit(0attictt111 CDmino fcmvo'- mtin ditogBUixTt- a)oafha itmnomfrroiniD^ lioiiptomiinis\j20VA; cfltclnl folittm fm?Omomiu oibnc tobfcaatontmmgratttm atttonfvfnroncs itttihnoTtfcanrapuo oatm- (fe pa^ '^^ ^ '? fta- qminj amaUUia.qttcmm; Uoncfame stquammtsft qita laus difnpitntlict cqgtiatpqticdtdtnmsi aotptftts.? attdifU^1 utdifhsmmtH)ccagtttt uetisva08 cm:itol/tum .CautfU6 fitmaufinCDtnmo ufljrtfrtxtqmtanoem.aliqntoitfl(ut(hsô)ntfcratftîfmrtflHitS-ocatvaTtanmmsno qt\oprpmunaindo- ego cnt otBtumqunfnmfitfftttois ttfttoilnimiuatt


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSunfolded the scroll of his Epistle to the Colossians.Green, blue, red, lake, and gold arc employed inthe finials of the letter ; and also compose the initialC of the prologue and its pendant. . -,In the large initial we have an example of thecombination of the miniature with the initial andpartial border, a combination which is typical ofbook - decoration of the thirteenth century. Inmanuscripts of earlier periods the miniature wasa painting which usually occupied a page indepen-dently of the text, as, for example, in the psalterswhich have provided the two plates which havejust been presented to the reader ; or, if insertedin the text, it was not connected with the decora-tion of the page. It was in fact an illustrationand nothing more. But now, while the miniatureis still employed in this manner independentlyof the text, the miniature-initial also comes intocommon use, the miniature therein, however, con-tinuing to hold for some time a subordinate placeas a decorative rather than as an illustrative feature.In course of time, with the growth of the border,the twofold function of the miniature as a meansof illustration and also of decoration is satisfiedby allowing it to occupy part or even the whole ofa page as an independent picture, but at the same

, time set in the border which has developed from/ the pendant of the initial. This development of/ the border it is extremely interesting to follow ;and so regular is its growth, and so marked are thenational characteristics which it assumes, that the

perjod and j)lace of origin of an illuminated manu-. script may often be accurately determined from the 1V details of its borders alone. ^

In the plate before us we see that the pendantsor finials of the initials are simple in style and37


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSrestricted in extent, and that they terminate insimple buds or cusps. In the next stage, char-acteristic generally of the fourteenth century, thependants put out branches, and the buds growinto leaves ; and thus, gradually extending, theborder finally surrounds the entire page.We have already referred to the difficulty whichis often experienced of pronouncing decisively onthe nationality of illuminations of this time pro-duced in England and the neighbouring continentalcountries. With respect to the particular manu-script which we are considering, and having regardto the decoration alone, the general style closelyfollows the methods of the school of NorthernFrance ; but we should adjudge the volume toEngland, chiefly on account of the large employ-ment of lake, a favourite colour with Englishartists of this time, and partly on account of thequality of the gold. That metal, it has beenobserved, as used in French manuscripts, ratherinclines towards a copper tint, which is neverdiscernible in the illuminations of this country.The drawing of the little figures and details inthe initials of the thirteenth century is, in general,remarkably fine and clean. The features of thehuman face are indicated by very light pen-linesalone without any attempt at modelling. Conse-quently there is a certain meagreness of aspect andtendency to over-refinement ; which, however, isperfectly in keeping with the minute character ofthe decoration generally. Though we may not rateilluminations of this style and period as artisticproductions so highly as those which succeededthem, yet the effect which they produce is alwayspleasing, and we never cease to admire the inventionand ingenuity which the thirteenth century artist38


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSdisplays in filling to the best advantage the cir-cumscribed spaces which the fashion of the dayleft at his disposal in the texts and margins ofmanuscripts.As the century proceeds we are sensible of anexpansion in style. As the handwriting graduallyrelaxes its severe stiff character and assumes acertain roundness and pliancy in its strokes, sothe rather rigid drawing of the middle of the centurybegins to bend into those more yielding lines whichare typical of the art of the fourteenth century.Our next example is selected, as an instance ofhighly-finished decoration of the later half of thethirteenth century, from the Additional ms. 24686in the British Museum, known as the TenisonPsalter, from its having once formed part of thelibrary of Archbishop Tenison. This Psalter is oneof the most beautiful illuminated English manu-scripts of its time, but unfortunately only in part,for it was not finished in the perfect style in whichit was begun. The whole book is illuminated, butin the first quire of the text the ornamentation isof peculiar beauty and differs in style from thatof the rest of the volume. It appears, from theevidence of coats of arms and other indications, tohave been undertaken as a royal gift on the in-tended marriage of Alphonso, son of King Edwardthe First, with a daughter of Florent, Count ofHolland, which, however, was never accomplishedowing to the young prince's death in the year1284. The book was afterwards finished in aninferior style, and was probably given to the prin-cess Elizabeth, fourth daughter of Edward theFirst, who was married successively to John, Countof Holland, and to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl ofHereford and Constable of England. 39


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSIn Plate 12 is produced one of the pagesof the quire ornamented for Alphonso ; and the

progress of the art, when compared with that ofWilliam of Devon's Bible, is at once manifest.There is more freedom in the drawing, the stiff-ness of the earlier examples is in great measureovercome ; and the pendant has thrown out abranch which has already put forth leaves. Agreat variety of colours, blue, rose, vermilion, lake,green, brown, as well as burnished gold, is em-ployed in the composition of the large initial andits accompanying pendant and border ; and thesmall initials are of gold laid on a ground of blueor lake, and filled with lake or blue ; while theribbons which fill up the spaces at the ends of theverses are alternately of the same colours and aredecorated with patterns in silver on the blue andin gold on the lake.

The group of the dismounted knight despatchinga gryphon, which has proved too much for thehorse, upon whose dying body the expectant ravenhas already perched, is tinted in lighter colours.It is an instance of the use to which marginal spacewas frequently put, particularly by English artists,for the introduction of little scenes, such as episodesin romances or stories, games, grotesque combats,social scenes, etc., often drawn with a light freehand and most artistic touch. Without these littlesketches, much of the manners and customs, dress,and daily life of our ancestors would have remainedfor ever unknown to us.

In connection with this free style of drawingjust referred to, we must for a moment turn fromthe subject of illumination to cast an eye upon itsemployment for the main illustration in manu-scripts of a character not necessarily needing the40


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSartistic treatment of such choice books as theBibles and Psalters which form the bulk of illumi-nated manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies. In the Winchester Psalter describedabove we had examples of the bold style whichwas the result of Norman influence upon the nativeschool of drawing of that place. From the dearthof material we cannot unfortunately follow thecourse of its development; but that free outline-drawing was cultivated as a means of illustrationof historical books, whether sacred or profane, isquite certain, as is proved by such examples as wehave. One of the monasteries best known to usfor the production of its manuscripts was St.Albans Abbey; and the man who, above allothers, is famous for his work there, both as awriter and as an artist, was the monk, MatthewParis. Some have doubted whether all the manu-scripts which have been ascribed to him could havebeen the work of one pair of hands, and whetherthey should not be pronounced to be the pro-ductions of a school rather than of an individual.Be that as it may, the fact remains that we havea number of volumes written in one style, if notby one hand, and, accompanying several of them,very well - executed drawings of an illustrativecharacter.

Plate 13 is taken from a scene in Matthew Paris'sLife of Offa, in the Cottonian ms. Nero D. i.The drawing represents a scene from the Life ofOffa, king of Mercia, the founder of St. AlbansAbbey. The son of Wasrmund, king of theAngles, he was born blind and dumb, and, althoughat the age of seven he received his sight, hestill remained a mute. On the left margin, thechild Offa kneels in prayer before the altar withinF 41


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSa church : ' Offa orans et oblatus Deo ' ; his afflic-tions being told in two hexameter lines :

' Ve, vc, quo fato regali stem[m]ate nato,Os michi mutescit, oculorum lumen ebescit.', At the age of thirty he was still incapable ofspeech, and the king was growing old ; and thepeople were uneasy at the prospect of a dumbman sitting on the throne. This was the oppor-tunity of the traitor Rigan, one of the nobles, whoput forward a claim to the throne and gatheredhis followers. In a truce that was arranged a greatcouncil was held for many days, and on the lastday Offa was present ; and in his grief his heartwas so moved that his tongue was loosed and hespake boldly before the wise men. Here King' Warmundus ' sits in state upon his throne ; beforehim Offa, by the grace of God, Whose protectingarm is outstretched from heaven, stands ' sanuset elegans efifectus,' while three of the king's nobles,' proceres,' offer up praises to God for the miracle.Rigan, ' qui et Aliel dicebatur,' turns away as hedefies the king and his son, with the words, ' Te,rex delire, cum filio diffiducio,' in company withan evil-faced follower, a ' suggestor malorum.'After making due allowance for imperfect know-ledge of perspective and faults in proportion, whichare common to the time and not characteristic ofthe individual, no one can fail to admire the bold-ness of the outlines and the artistic treatment ofthe drapery ; nor can it be denied that the draughts-man, whether Matthew Paris himself or some otherworker in the scriptorium of St. Albans, was acapable and skilful illustrator.We now take leave of the thirteenth centuryand enter on the period when the art of book-42


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSdecoration in England reached its highest standardof excellence. And we commence our review ofthe work of that period with the very finest manu-script of its kind, probably unique in its com-bination of excellence of drawing, brilliance ofillumination, and extent and variety of subjects.The Royal ms. 2 B. vii., commonly known as' Queen Mary's Psalter,' is a thick volume of 320leaves, of large octavo size, which, as we learn froma note on the last leaf, was on the point of beingcarried beyond seas when the ' spectatus et honestusvir,' Baldwin Smith, a customs officer in the portof London, wisely laid hands on it and presentedit to the Queen in October 1553. It is bound incrimson velvet worked on each cover with a largepomegranate,the Queen's badge, which had beenthat of her Spanish mother,but now much worn ;and it has gilt corner plates, and clasp fittings(the clasps themselves no longer exist) engravedrespectively with the lion, the dragon, the portcullis,and the fleur-de-lis of the Tudor royal house.The manuscript is of the beginning of thefourteenth century, executed in the best style ofEnglish art of that time. The first fifty-six leavesare occupied by a series of most exquisite minia-ture drawings, illustrating Bible history from theCreation down to the death of Solomon, andgenerally arranged two on a page. Each drawingis accompanied with a description in French, some-times in rhyming verse ; and it is to be observedthat the narrative is not always strictly confinedto the Bible account, but occasionally embodiesapocryphal details. Nothing can be more charm-ing than the delicate execution of these drawings,Hghtly sketched with a perfect touch and exactprecision, and very slightly tinted with colours,"^ 43


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSviolet, green, and brown. Our Plate 14 gives usthe two scenes of Joseph making himself known tohis brethren, and receiving his father and motheron their arrival in Egypt ; but the artist has for-gotten that Rachel had died long before. Thedescriptive titles are as follows :

' Lors respond ioseph : ne aiez pour : tut de gre lai fetpur vos mesfetz cunustre. Car ioe su Ioseph vostre frereqe vous vendistes a seneschal de Egypte. Lors touz crientmercij. Alez qere nostre pere et nostre mere, car cink aunssunt unkore a venir de grant famine. Car de seht {i.e. sept)ne sunt qe deus passez. E il sount alez qere. si les ounta Ioseph lur fiz amenez. dount grant ioie estoit.'

' Icij est lacob e sa femme amenee en Egypte a Iosephlur fitz. Comen Ioseph been venie soun pere e sa mere.'

The frame, as in the rest of the series, is composedof simple bands of vermilion, with green quatre-foils at the corners, from each of which springs astem with three leaves lightly touched with greenor violet.The elegant outline of the figures and the easyflow of the lines of the drapery could have beenattained only after long practice by a skilful hand ;and we should specially notice, as characteristic ofthe time, the peculiar sway given to the humanfigure, which, though perhaps rather affected, is notan unpleasing attitude.

The next division of the manuscript containsthe Psalter, with Litany, etc., ornamented with aprofusion of miniatures of various scenes from theLife of Christ, followed by a series of the Resurrec-tion and Last Judgment, and figures of the saintsand martyrs, besides initials and miniature-initialsand borders, all illuminated in the very first stylewith brilliant colours and burnished gold. Thedrawing of these miniatures is also of the highest44


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amy

K

15.


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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSexcellence ; and the general character of the sumptu-ously decorated pages of this part of the volumemay be seen from the coloured Plate 15, whichmay be pronounced a successful reproduction. Itrepresents the Last Judgment, standing at the com-mencement of the Litany. In it we have the fullminiature within a border, the miniature -initialwith its pendants, and the commencement of thetext with its own ornament. But, in addition tothese highly illuminated miniatures, this portionof the volume has in the lower margins a seriesof tinted drawings executed in the style of theseries of Bible illustrations which occupy the firstpart. The subjects of these drawings are of amost varied character. Hunting scenes, picturesof animal life, escapades of Reynard the Fox,illustrations of popular stories, dancing groups,tilting scenes, combats of grotesque creatures, sportsand pastimes, follow one another in endless variety,and are succeeded by miracles of the Virgin andscenes from the lives and passions of the saints.In the drawing at the foot of the plate, Saul isreceiving the letters to Damascus for the persecu-tion of the saints. The possession of such a master-piece as Queen Mary's Psalter gives us cause toregret that the modesty of the illuminators of theMiddle Ages forbade them to append their namesto their works.

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSdecoration of the miniature (by which term we heremean the actual picture, without accessories, suchas the border in which it is framed), and thedecoration of the initial and border. Decorationcould, of course, enter into, and form a part of, aminiature only in the times when the miniaturewas still regarded rather as an ornament for thebook than as a work of art in itself, and beforethe knowledge of perspective and a proper under-standing of landscape-painting raised it to the im-portant artistic position which it attained in thesecond half of the fifteenth century. Such decora-tion naturally invaded and occupied the background,and in that position it played a very important partin the general effect. And it will be understoodthat what is here said of the miniature or indepen-dent picture also applies to the miniature which sooften occupies the body of the initial letter.In the coloured facsimile, Plate 15, which ac-companied the preceding article we have examplesof different styles followed by the illuminatorsof the early fourteenth century in dealing withthe decoration of the miniature. In the uppercompartment the background is of burnished goldpounced or punctured with a hard point; thatof the lower compartment is filled with diaper-work ; and the initial is treated with a combina-tion of the two styles, the interior of the Rbeing gilt, while the square upon which it is laid,as on a background, is diapered. Gilding anddiapering form the chief methods of ornarnentationin such positions in the fourteenth century, subject,however, to certain modifications. The gold isalways brilliant, and is generally pounced in variouspatterns, sometimes very elaborately. It must,however, be understood that such ornamented gild-

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSlandscape really makes progress ; but our nativeEnglish manuscripts fail us at this period, and wehave to go to French and Flemish and Italianilluminations to learn the last stages of the strugglebetween the ornamental background and the land-scape. Early in the century we may certainly finda picture of natural scenery only, without anyconventional background ; but more frequentlythe diaper or conventional background still holdssome part of the field. And, in those instanceswhere the landscape prevails, the drawing remainswithout perspective, and the artist crowds the scenewith unproportioned details in his attempt to re-present the distant view. It was only when thehorizon was found, after the middle of the cen-tury, that the conventional background entirelydisappeared. When the artist had once discoveredthe power of rendering nature in true perspective,the need for such adventitious aids as a gilt ordiapered background no longer existed ; the incon-gruity of applying such decoration became self-evident ; and the miniature, emancipated fromdecoration, was treated in the hands of the skilledpainters of the late fifteenth century as an artisticwork.No doubt this development of the miniature wasalso in some degree due to the expansion of litera-ture, which gave a wider field for the e.xercise of theminiaturist's art. He was not now confined toreligious service books, as he had been almostexclusively in the earlier centuries. Romances,translations from Greek and Latin authors, andoriginal works of general literature, now came intovogue and invited a style of illustration altogetherdifferent from that which had been followed inmanuscripts of a religious or liturgical character.G

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ENGLISH ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTSThus, while the latter still demanded their share ofattention and while the artist had still to satisfy thefashionable demand for sumptuous Books of Hoursand others of a like nature, he could now give morerein to his imagination in the production of minia-tures suitable for the new secular literature ; andthis liberty no doubt reacted in some degree on theconventional ideas which the practice of so manycenturies had connected with the illumination ofsacred works. Had the latter continued to formthe only vehicles for the expression of the minia-turist's art, it is not improbable that the decorativeside of his work would have still held its ground tothe exclusion of landscape other than conventional.We may find an analogy to this in our modernfeeling with regard to the stained-glass windows ofour churches. The dim, religious light of ourplaces of worship is not suited to our dwelling-houses and public buildings ; and accordingly thedesigns on stained glass are almost always requiredfor sacred purposes. Hence convention has beenestablished, and will probably be maintained aslong as Gothic architecture holds sway ; and theartist reverts to mediaeval examples for his inspira-tion. So rooted has this idea of reversion to thedesigns of the Middle Ages become, not only for thetreatment of figures, but also for details of orna-ment and for accessories, that the introduction of amodern style in a church window offends the sensesas being totally inappropriate even in a modernbuilding.The forms of decoration of the miniature whichhave just been described are not confined toEngland, but are common to the countries of North-western Europe. The gilt background and thediaper are found in manuscripts of France andso


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ENGLISH ILLUMIiNATED MANUSCRIPTSFlanders, very similar in style to those of thiscountry ; differences in colouring and treatment,however, affording criteria for distinguishing thenationality of the several examples. In the decora-tion of the ornamental initial and border thedivergence is far greater; and, in course of time,a style is developed which is peculiarly English.While in France there developed the lightly-sprinkled ivy-leaf border, which is one of the dis-tinguishing

marks of theearly

fifteenth centurymanuscripts of that country ; and while the artists,of the Low Countries, first following the same lines,afterwards gradually introduced natural objects,fruits, flowers, insects, etc

english illuminated manuscripts

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