OTHONIAN ILLUMINATION
Departure from Carolingian--Bird and serpent--Common use of dracontine
forms in letter-ornament--Influence of metal-work on the forms of
scroll-ornament--The vine-stem and its developments--Introduction of
Greek taste and fashion into Germany--Cistercian illumination--The
Othonian period--Influence of women as patronesses and
practitioners--German princesses--The Empress Adelheid of Burgundy--The
Empress Theophano--Henry II. and the Empress
Cunegunda--Bamberg--Examples of Othonian art.
Perhaps the first departure towards a new style arising out of the
elements of Carolingian illumination is in the combination of the bird
and serpent used for letter forms and continued into coils of vine-stem
and foliage in combination with golden panelled frames or pilasters. The
monsters thus produced seem to be a revival of the dracontine forms of
the semi-barbarous Celtic and early Frankish arts. But the difference in
elegance and refinement of drawing and beauty of colouring is very great
indeed. Other animal forms are also made use of, nor is the human figure
altogether absent. Sometimes entire letters are made up of the latter in
various attitudes. Little scenes illustrative of the subject which the
initial commences are often placed within it, as, for instance, in the B
of the first psalm.[19]
[19] A characteristic Othonian Evangeliary of the eleventh century,
executed at the Abbey of Stavelot, may be seen in the Royal Library at
Brussels.
[Illustration:
BIBLIA SACRA
12TH CENT. (LATE)
_Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 2799, fol. 185 v._]
[Illustration:
EVANGELIA (PARIS USE)
C. 1275
_Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 17341, fol. 120 v._]
Many twelfth-century initials look like designs in metal-work placed on
the panelled grounds of coloured enamels. But the rapid development of
the vine-stem coils out of the stemless foliages of the Carolingian and
Winchester styles is one of the wonders of the early German revival
after the accession of the Emperor Otho I. A still greater improvement
takes place after the marriage of his son Otho II. to the Princess
Theophano, daughter of Romanus II., attributable, no doubt, to a fresh
accession of artistic enthusiasm from the home of the new Empress. In
point of elegance of design, beauty of curve, adaptation of every part
to its share in the composition, nothing could be finer than the initial
letters of the Othonian period of illumination. The year 963 introduced
Greek fashions and Greek artists into Germany, the results of which are
at once traceable in the increased splendour of monastic illumination in
that country. The details of Greek ornament become the fillings of the
frames and panels of the large initials.
The Cistercian illuminators, or rather calligraphers, while they
constantly repudiate the golden splendour and monstrous follies of their
rivals, absolutely excel in this same ornamental draughtsmanship. What,
for example, could be finer than the pen-drawing of the great Arnstein
Bible in the British Museum (Harl. 2800)? The ornament is mostly in a
red ink, with flat-coloured blue, green, or yellow backgrounds, but it
is not to be surpassed. No, the interlacements and coils, foliages and
panels of the twelfth century are absolutely among the finest examples
of ornamental lettering ever conceived. Illuminating seemed at this
epoch to be more and more closely following the details of contemporary
architecture, and so paving the way to the next great variety of the
art, which is looked upon by some writers as the real beginning of
mediæval illumination.
It must be admitted, however, that the excellence limits itself to the
ornament. The human figure is wretchedly incorrect--even barbarous. It
may be asked why is this? How is it that while the decorative portion of
an illuminated book is beautiful in the highest degree, both in line and
colour, and yet occasionally the artist seems not to have the remotest
idea of the true shape of hands and feet or any part of the human body?
Of course the usual explanation offered is that monastic education did
not permit the study of the nude, and hence the monkish ignorance of
figure drawing. But that is scarcely an excuse for the monstrous hands
and feet and exaggerated facial expression of the miniatures. The
Italian monk Angelico, in spite of his monastic limitations, succeeded
in a most graceful rendering of the figure, and a charming delicacy in
the forms of the hands. As in some instances the artist does reach a
fair standard, it must be admitted that where he does not is owing to
actual inability in himself and not in his system. The three emperors
who give the name of Othonian to the period immediately succeeding the
Carolingian ruled Germany, and had much to do with the ruling of Italy,
from 936, when Otho I., called the Great, succeeded Henry the Fowler
about five years before the death of Athelstan, whose sister Eadgyth[20]
was Otho's first wife. His mother Mathilda was the patroness of the
cloister-schools for women, working in them personally. She herself
taught her servants and maids the art of reading. Her daughter Mathilda,
the famous Abbess of Quedlinburg, in 969 persuaded the Abbat Wittikind
of Corvey to write the History of the Saxon Kings, Henry her father, and
Otho her brother (now in the Royal Library at Dresden). Hazecha, the
Treasury-mistress of Quedlinburg, also employed the monks of Corvey,
with whose beautiful initial drawing she was greatly pleased, to
illuminate her own Life of St. Christopher. The beautiful but imperious
Princess Hedwig, another of Otho's sisters, read Virgil with Ekkehard of
St. Gall, and taught the child Burchard Greek, while Otho's niece
Gerberga, Abbess of Gandersheim, was the instructress of the celebrated
Hrosvita, "the oldest German poetess." And this reminds us that at this
time the women-cloisters of Germany and the Netherlands were among the
most active centres of learning and book-production. The great monument
of feminine erudition and artistic skill, called the "Hortus
Deliciarum," was of a somewhat later time, but other examples still
exist, among them the beautiful Niedermünster Gospels of the Abbess
Uota, now at Munich. A wood-cut by Albert Dürer prefixed to the first
edition of Hrosvita's works (Nürnberg, 1501) represents the nun Hrosvita
kneeling before the Emperor and beside the Archbishop Wilhelm of Mainz
presenting her book.[21] As to the literary labours of Hrosvita, this is
not the place to discuss them. She is simply an incidental figure in our
view of the brilliant Court of the Othos. A MS. of her works 500 years
after her death was found among the dust of the cloister-library at St.
Emmeram of Regensburg by Conrad Celtis, and, as we have seen, printed
for the first time in 1501. Thus she stands out as an illustration of
the fact often alluded to, of the importance of feminine foundations in
the monastic scheme.
[20] The chroniclers are rather confused as to the name of this Princess.
[21] It is thought, however, by some that the figure behind is that of
the Abbess--not the Archbishop. See Dürer Soc. Portfolio for 1900.
Her picturesque story of the romantic adventures of Adelheid of
Burgundy, her marriage in 947 to King Lothaire of Italy, her widowhood
and perils, her misfortunes and eventual marriage to the Emperor Otho,
reads more like a chapter from the _Morte d'Arthur_ or the _Arabian
Nights_ than a veracious history of real people. The Empress Adelheid
was, indeed, a remarkable woman, and the nun of Gandersheim is full of
her praises. In her younger days she had been a zealous patron and
protectress of the Abbey of Cluny, which stood on her native land of
Burgundy, and her sympathies remained always with the religious houses.
In this respect, indeed, she was a worthy successor of the pious
Mathilda and her daughters. She died in her seventy-first year in her
Abbey of Selz in Elsass, leaving a memory rich in benefits to the
monastics, especially those of Cluny, and venerated as the patroness of
many an illuminated volume of poems or theology, not to mention the
liturgical books executed at her expense for use in her various
foundations. The tenth century seems to have been an age of illustrious
women. No sooner do we leave the story of Adelheid than we enter upon
that of the young wife of Otho II., the Empress Theophano, daughter of
the Greek Emperor, Romanus II. When little more than a child she was
married to the son of Adelheid, he himself being in his twentieth year
in the year 972, and in the city of Rome. The young Greek Princess who
had been reared amid the luxury and splendour of the Eastern capital at
once became the fashion--the manners of her Byzantine household became
those of her Roman court, and were transplanted to her German home at
Bamberg. Artists, limners, copyists, musicians, scholars, formed part of
her retinue, and at once the German Court became the rival of those of
England, Byzantium, Cordova, and Rome.
It was, indeed, a Renaissance, an awakening in literature, art, and
social life. Nor did its glory fade until eclipsed by the succeeding
rivalries of France and Italy. Theophano survived her husband, who died
in 983, and proved herself a capable Regent during the infancy of her
son Otho III. She, however, did not live to see his early death, nor
indeed to see that of the aged Adelheid, who survived her eight years,
and died in the same year (999) as Otho's aunt, Matilda, Abbess of
Quedlinburg.
The death of Otho III. in 1002 did not affect materially the steady
advance of monastic art. Bamberg, St. Gall, Corvey, Luxeuil, Bobbio,
Monte Cassino continued their accustomed labours. Under the Capetian
Kings the French foundations maintained the reputations they had won
during the Carolingian times, while others were added from time to time
throughout the Rhineland, Limousin, and the South of France, where the
Romanesque or Byzantine tastes had not yet penetrated, and whose work
therefore remained distinct from that of Italy and the German Empire.
Henry II. and the Empress Cunigunda made Bamberg the great centre of
German art, and it is to Bamberg, St. Gall, Luxeuil, Monte Cassino, and
Magdeburg that we have to look for the finest productions of the
eleventh century. Among the earlier works of the Othonian period we may
mention the famous Gospel-book executed for the minister of Otho II.,
Egbert, Archbishop of Trèves, and known as the Codex Egberti. It was
written in 980 at Reichenau on the Lake of Constance (or Bodensee, as it
is locally known) by two monks, Kerald and Heribert, whose dwarfish
figures appear beneath that of the archbishop on the frontispiece. It
contains fifty-seven illuminations and several folios of violet
parchment with golden ornaments and lettering. But its pictures are
rather remarkable, mostly the figures are too short and the limbs and
extremities badly drawn, but in some of the statelier personages the
error is reversed and they are too tall--this seems to be owing to Greek
influence, while the Byzantine taste shows itself in the treatment of
the border-foliages. Beasts are unnatural--demons and swine are alike,
both in form and colour (Pub. Lib., Trèves).
An Evangeliary, formerly in the Cathedral Treasury at Bamberg, but now
in the Royal Library at Munich (Cimel. 58), is a good example of the
kind of work that at first glance appears to be actually Carolingian
both in the figures, attitudes, and treatment of drapery, but which on
closer examination proves to be really due to the reign of Otho II. In
this MS. the beginning of St. Matthew contains four medallions--two of
Henry I. (the Fowler), one of Otho I., his son, and another of his
grandson, Otho II. (Nat. Lib., Paris, Lat. 8851).
A still more notable MS. is kept in the Munich Library (Cimel. 58),
containing a two-paged picture of tributary cities bringing gifts to the
Emperor Otho III. In the painting in this MS., notwithstanding the
exaggerated solemnity of expression, the faces are well drawn and the
features carefully modelled. The painting is in the Greek manner, as is
also the general character of the draperies. The small, ill-drawn feet
are by no means comparable with the heads.
The Imperial crown is square, like those of the Magi in the Bremen MS.
now in the Library of Brussels, or like that of Baldwin as Emperor of
Constantinople. In the several enthronements which occur among the
Imperial miniatures at Munich there are important and significant
differences which might not be noticed unless pointed out.
The changes in the shape and treatment of the orb, for instance, mean
more than a mere advance in enrichment, or an improvement in artistic
skill. The difference indicates a change in political usage. In the
miniature of Charles it does not occur at all; in that of Otho III. it
is a mere symbol; in that of Henry II. it is the actual emblem of
sovereignty presented by the Pope to the Emperor, to be held by the
latter in token of his investiture.
It was Selden's opinion that the orb, surmounted by the cross, never
appears in western art until the time of Henry II. Thus it is here one
of the many seemingly insignificant details which, in the miniature art
of the Middle Ages, contribute to the elucidation of History.