SEMI-BARBARIC ILLUMINATION
Visigothic--Merovingian--Lombardic--Extinction of classic art--Splendid
reign of Dagobert--St. Eloy of Noyon--The Library of Laon--Natural
History of Isidore of Seville--Elements of contemporary art--Details of
ornament--Symbolism--Luxeuil and Monte Cassino--Sacramentary of
Gellone--"Prudentius"--"Orosius"--Value of the Sacramentary of Gellone.
To reach the beginning's of these various degenerate and illiterate
attempts at book-work we have only to watch the last expiring gleams of
classic art beneath the ruthless footsteps of the barbarian invaders of
the old Roman Empire.
In the sixth century the light of the old civilisation was fast fading
away. Perhaps we may look upon the so-called splendour of the reign of
Dagobert in France as the spasmodic scintillations of its latest moments
of existence. The kingdom of Dagobert, after 631, was almost an empire.
For the seven years preceding his death, in 638, he ruled from the Elbe
and the Saxon frontier to that of Spain, and from the Atlantic Ocean to
the confines of Hungary. It was during his reign that we read of the
skill in metal-work of the celebrated St. Eloy of Noyon, the rival of
our own St. Dunstan.
St. Eloy or Eligius (588-659) began his artistic career as the pupil of
Abbo, the goldsmith and mint-master to Chlothaire II., and rose from the
rank of a goldsmith to that of Bishop of Noyon. Among his handiwork were
crowns, chalices, and crosiers, and he is reputed to have made the chair
of bronze-gilt now in the National Library at Paris, called the
_fauteuil_ of Dagobert, and many other works, which disappeared either
during the wars of Louis XV. or those of the Revolution of 1789. He
founded the Abbey of Solignac, near Limoges, and it is not improbable
that the reputation of this city for metal-work and enamelling may be
dated from his foundation. With such works as those of Eloy before them,
it is difficult to believe that the wretched and puerile attempts at
ornamental penmanship and illumination which are shown at Laon and other
places as the work of this period can possibly represent the highest
efforts of the calligrapher. But we must remember that St. Eloy was an
extraordinary genius in his art, and that the bulk of the clergy, not to
mention ordinary workmen, were very ignorant and ill-taught. Very few,
indeed, were men who could be considered cultured. Gregory of Tours, the
historian, and Venantius Fortunatus, the hymn-writer, are among the few.
In the Library at Laon, M. Fleury describes a MS. of the Natural History
of Isidore of Seville, which is looked upon as a work of reference both
as regards art and learning. It was at one time a very popular book,
being a Latin cyclopædia, dealing with the sciences and general
knowledge of the time; yet the example referred to by M. Fleury shows us
only a crowd of initials learnedly styled by the Benedictine authors and
others "ichthio-morphiques" and "ornithoeides," _i.e._ made up of fishes
and birds, and about equal in quality and finish to the efforts of a
very ordinary schoolboy.
These initials betray an utter decadence from the beautiful uncials of
the fifth and sixth centuries, seen in the St. Germain's Psalter, for
example, now in the National Library at Paris. The colours are coarse
and badly applied, and even where brightest are utterly unrefined and
without taste.
Notwithstanding, however, the apparently total eclipse or extinction of
Roman art in Gaul, or, as it must henceforth be called, France, it is
claimed by M. Fleury[13] that the interlacements which constitute the
principal feature of these earlier Merovingian MSS. are derived from the
remains of Roman mosaics found profusely at Blanzy, Bazoches, and Reims.
This may be so, but those mosaics would not account for the same
features in the Irish work, for the Romans never reached Ireland as
occupants or colonists.
[13] See later.
Take another example from the Laon collection, the History of Orosius.
The first page is a type of the species to which it belongs, and,
moreover, a good sample of the earliest efforts of all pictorial art. An
ordinary rectangular cross occupies the centre of the page. The centre
shows us the Lamb of the Apocalypse and St. John. On the arms are the
beasts which typify the Evangelists--their emblems, as they are
sometimes called. We notice that they are all symbolic, and not intended
to be natural imitations of reality. The various animals scattered about
the page are all symbolic--all have a mystical interpretation and
_raison d'être_. A border-frame, passing behind each extremity of the
cross, contains a number of dog-like animals, some plain, others
spotted, while the body of the cross itself is occupied with attempts at
foliage ornaments. In the left upper corner are the letters "X P I," in
the right "I H V," thick foliage springing from the "I" and "V" and
falling back over the monogram. In the lower corners are two fishes and
two doves, each pair hanging to a penwork chain.
The emblem of John, on the upper extremity of the cross, is an
eagle-headed and winged man holding a book; its opposite one of Lucas at
foot is a singularly conceived anthropoid and winged ox, also with a
book. On the left Marcus, whose head is indescribable; and on the right
Matthew, with human head, the rest of the figures being as before. The
eye in all the figures is a most remarkable feature. Both in the
pictures and the initials of this MS. the outline has been drawn in
black ink, and the colours yellow, red, brown, and green applied
afterwards.
As the new masters of the West were not so much interested in the
artistic remains of the mangled civilisation they were endeavouring to
destroy as in mastery and military success, it was left for the
monasteries and the church to see to the welfare of books and monuments.
In the seventh century it was the monasteries that saved almost all we
know of the preceding centuries. During the turmoil of the period from
the fifth to the eighth century we find certain quiet corners where
learning and the arts still breathed, grew, and dwelt in security.
Lérins, founded by St. Honoratus of Aries; Luxeuil by Columbanus, Bobbio
his last retreat; and, above all, Monte Cassino, the great pattern of
monasticism, the Rule of whose founder was destined to become the basis
of all later Orders, were each of them steadily labouring to rescue the
civilisation daily threatened by the ravage of war, and to preserve it
for the benefit of the ignorant hordes who, because of their ignorance,
now only aimed at its entire destruction. We have seen how these monks
and clerics, with more goodwill than ability, did their best to adorn
the books which came into their hands. It is a poor show, but there is
no better. It is absolutely our only record of how civilisation managed
to struggle through the storm.
Let us, then, be thankful even for the Laon "Orosius," for the
Sacramentary of Gellone, and the Mozarabic Liturgies of Puy. They are
among the links between ancient and mediæval art.
As already stated, the handwriting of Merovingian MSS. is mainly an
adaptation of the Roman uncial, as it is in Irish and Lombardic, or, we
might say, everywhere else. Abbreviations we still uncommon. Where
minuscules are used, the writing is not quite so legible as in the
larger hands, but we are not met by the singular difficulties of some of
the Lombardic texts.
A few solitary texts of the earliest time are in capitals, such as the
really handsome "Prudentius" of the Paris National Library, where the
entire text of the great Christian poet is boldly inscribed in the
centre of a large white page of vellum, like a series of separate
inscriptions. The first few words are "rubrished" in the antique manner.
The MS. is supposed to date previous to the year 527. A little later
than this St. Columbanus founded the monastery of Luxeuil, and later
still, viz. in 616, that of Bobbio.
If we turn to the Visigothic area, including the South of France and the
entire peninsula of Spain, our first and typical example is the
celebrated Sacramentary of Gellone. This MS. dates, it is said, from the
eighth century. It is written throughout in Visigothic uncials, though
executed in the South of France. Its ornamentation is frankly barbaric.
The colours used are yellow, red, and green. The great initials are
double lined, and the interlinear space filled in with a flat tint of
colour and lines of red dots, as in the Book of Kells occasionally
follow the contours. Here, also, are the fish or bird-form letters as in
the Laon "Orosius." Now and then occurs a tiny scene--perhaps a fight
between two grotesque brutes, neither fish, nor fowl, nor beast known to
the naturalist, but a horrible compound of the worst qualities of each.
The human figure, when it occurs, is childishly shapeless. But the
design and treatment, nevertheless, bear witness to a lively imagination
and considerable knowledge of Christian symbolism. It is these mental
qualities which, in spite of the manifest absence of manual skill,
render the Gellone Evangeliary one of the most precious monuments of its
time. Of the rest of the MSS. of this wretched period we will say
nothing.
"Non ragioniam di lor', ma guard' e passa."
We are glad to hurry on for another century or so, remembering that the
leading idea now is the development of the initial letter.