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| Initials by English Illuminators, 12th and 13th Century. |
Art historians classify illuminated manuscripts into their historic
periods and types, including (but not limited to) Late Antique, Insular, Carolingian manuscripts, Ottonian manuscripts, Romanesque manuscripts, Gothic manuscripts, and Renaissance manuscripts.
There are a few examples from later periods. The type of book that was
most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a "display
book", varied between periods. In the first millennium, these were most
likely to be Gospel Books. The Romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles – one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it. Many Psalters
were also heavily illuminated in both this and the Gothic period.
Single cards or posters of vellum, leather or paper were in wider
circulation with short stories or legends on them about the lives of
saints, chivalry knights or other mythological figures, even criminal,
social or miraculous occurrences; popular events much freely used by
story tellers and itinerant actors to support their plays. Finally, the Book of Hours,
very commonly the personal devotional book of a wealthy layperson, was
often richly illuminated in the Gothic period. Other books, both
liturgical and not, continued to be illuminated at all periods. The
Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style,
versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas.
See Medieval art
for other regions, periods and types. Reusing parchments by scraping
the surface and reusing them was a common practice; the traces often
left behind of the original text are known as palimpsests.
The Muslim World and in particular the Iberian Peninsula, with their traditions of literacy
uninterrupted by the Middle Ages, were instrumental in delivering
ancient classic works to the growing intellectual circles and universities of Western Europe all through the 1100s, as books were produced there in large numbers and on paper
for the first time in Europe, and with them full treatises on the
sciences, especially astrology and medicine where illumination was
required to have profuse and accurate representations with the text.
The Gothic period, which generally saw an increase in the production
of these beautiful artifacts, also saw more secular works such as chronicles and works of literature illuminated. Wealthy people began to build up personal libraries; Philip the Bold
probably had the largest personal library of his time in the mid-15th
century, is estimated to have had about 600 illuminated manuscripts,
whilst a number of his friends and relations had several dozen.
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| Initial letters from French manuscript, 15 Century. |
Up to the twelfth century, most manuscripts were produced in monasteries in order to add to the library or after receiving a commission from a wealthy patron. Larger monasteries often contained separate areas for the monks who specialized in the production of manuscripts called a scriptorium.
Within the walls of a scriptorium were individualized areas where a
monk could sit and work on a manuscript without being disturbed by his
fellow brethren. If no scriptorium was available, then “separate little
rooms were assigned to book copying; they were situated in such a way
that each scribe had to himself a window open to the cloister walk.” The separation of these monks from the rest of the cloister indicates just how revered these monks were within their society.
By the fourteenth century, the cloisters
of monks writing in the scriptorium had almost fully given way to
commercial urban scriptoria, especially in Paris, Rome and the
Netherlands.
While the process of creating an illuminated manuscript did not change,
the move from monasteries to commercial settings was a radical step.
Demand for manuscripts grew to an extent that the Monastic libraries
were unable to meet with the demand, and began employing secular scribes
and illuminators.
These individuals often lived close to the monastery and, in certain
instances, dressed as monks whenever they entered the monastery, but
were allowed to leave at the end of the day. In reality, illuminators
were often well known and acclaimed and many of their identities have
survived.
First, the manuscript was “sent to the rubricator, who added (in red or other colors) the titles, headlines,
the initials of chapters and sections, the notes and so on; and then –
if the book was to be illustrated – it was sent to the illuminator.”
In the case of manuscripts that were sold commercially, the writing
would “undoubtedly have been discussed initially between the patron and
the scribe (or the scribe’s agent,) but by the time that the written
gathering were sent off to the illuminator there was no longer any scope
for innovation.”
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| Practice coloring this large illuminated "M" from the 12th Century. Use a variety of ink pens, gel pens and metallic inks to decorate the narrow, delicate design work. |
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| Have young students draw a large grid and then fill in each square space with one of their initials. Then encourage them to decorate each similar square with a repeating pattern. In this lesson they can learn about patterns, symbols, shapes, color and division. |
View Illuminated Manuscripts:
Illuminated Manuscript Resource Online:
- Digital Scriptorium
- British Library, catalogue of illuminated manuscripts
- Collection of illuminated manuscripts. From the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum in The Hague.
- On-line demonstration of the production of an illuminated manuscript from the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge
- On-line demonstration of the production of an illuminated manuscript from the BNF, Paris. Text in French, but mostly visual.
- Nancy Ross, Resources for English Illuminated Manuscripts.
- British Library, Glossary of Manuscript Terms, adapted from Michelle Brown, Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms (1994), ISBN 0-89236-217-0
- Herbert, J. A. (1911), Illuminated Manuscripts, online book.
- Illuminated Manuscripts', Book by John W. Bradley, from Project Gutenberg
- CORSAIR. Thousands of digital images from the Morgan Library's renowned collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts
"Illuminated Manuscripts". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.- Diringer, David. The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1982. Print.
- Lessons in the Art of Illuminating, by W. J. Loftie
- Greenia, George D. "The Politics of Piety: Manuscript Illumination
and Narration in the Cantigas of De Santa Maria." Hispanic Review 61.3
(1993): 325–44. JSTOR. Web. 17 Apr. 2010. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/475069>.
Modern Illuminated Manuscripts:
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