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._
_Robert of Gloucester._
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[94], 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. 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[95].
_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[96].
_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[97]. 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._
_Martyrdom of St Thomas._
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.[98] 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. 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[99].
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[100].
_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[101]".
_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[102]. 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._
_William Torell._
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 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[103]; 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[104]. 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[105].
_MS. Bibles._
_Historiated 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[106], the text is
frequently much contracted, and the characters are of almost microscopic
size[107]. In these smallest Bibles the initials are mostly ornamented with
conventional leaves and grotesque dragon monsters; but in the larger
manuscripts the initials at 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[108].
_Bible of Mainerius._
_Benedictine scribes._
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 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[109]. And probably some work of the kind was
done in every Benedictine House[110].
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[111]. 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[112].
_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[113].
_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[114].
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[115].
_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[116]. 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_[117], 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_[118]
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"[119] 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[120], 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[121]. 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[122],
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[123]. 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[124].
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[125], 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.