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Article

Aberdeen Bestiary  

Jane Geddes

Deluxe manuscript (Aberdeen, U. Lib., MS. 24) made in England around 1200. It is remarkable for its lavish illustrations, amply covered in gold leaf; for the wealth of its codicological data and for its close relationship to the Ashmole Bestiary. The book was left unfinished, so sketches and the detailed instructions for its colouring and assembly remain visible. The last few pages were completed in the 14th century. The book begins with a Creation cycle of full-page miniatures culminating in Adam Naming the Animals and Christ in Majesty. A portrait or narrative illustration of each animal precedes every text description.

The manuscript contains the press mark of King Henry VIII’s library, mainly assembled after the dissolution of the monasteries, but its provenance before 1542 is not known. Muratova (1986, pp. 118–144) uses cumulative information from a group of related manuscripts to suggest a provenance in the north-east Midlands; Geddes (...

Article

Yaqut al-Musta‛simi  

Nabil Saidi

[ Jamāl al-Dīn ibn ‛Abdallah al-Mawṣulī Yāqūt al-Musta‛ṣimī ]

(d Baghdad, 1298).

Ottoman calligrapher. Yaqut served as secretary to the last Abbasid caliph, al-Musta‛sim (reg 1242–58), and reportedly survived the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 by seeking refuge in a minaret. He perfected the ‘proportioned script’ developed by Ibn Muqla and refined by Ibn al-Bawwab , in which letters were measured in terms of dots, circles and semicircles ( see Islamic art, §III, 2(iii) ). By replacing the straight-cut nib of the reed pen with an obliquely cut one, Yaqut created a more elegant hand. A master of the classical scripts known as the Six Pens (thuluth, naskh, muḥaqqaq, rayḥān, tawqī‛ and riqā‛), he earned the epithets ‘sultan’, ‘cynosure’ and ‘qibla’ of calligraphers. He is said to have copied two manuscripts of the Koran each month, but surviving examples are rare (e.g. 1294; Istanbul, Topkapı Pal. Lib., E.H. 74). Despite their small size, a typical folio has 16 lines of delicate ...

Article

Alchemy  

Laurinda Dixon

Ancient science from which modern chemistry evolved. Based on the concept of transmutation—the changing of substances at the elemental level—it was both a mechanical art and an exalted philosophy. Practitioners attempted to combine substances containing the four elements (fire, water, earth, and air) in perfect balance, ultimately perfecting them into a fifth, the quintessence (also known as the philosopher’s stone) via the chemical process of distillation. The ultimate result was a substance, the ‘philosopher’s stone’, or ‘elixir of life’, believed capable of perfecting, or healing, all material things. Chemists imitated the Christian life cycle in their operations, allegorically marrying their ingredients, multiplying them, and destroying them so that they could then be cleansed and ‘resurrected’. They viewed their work as a means of attaining salvation and as a solemn Christian duty. As such, spiritual alchemy was sanctioned, legitimized, and patronized by the Church. Its mundane laboratory procedures were also supported by secular rulers for material gain. Metallurgists employed chemical apparatus in their attempts to transmute base metals into gold, whereas physicians and apothecaries sought ultimately to distill a cure-all elixir of life. The manifold possibilities inherent in such an outcome caused Papal and secular authorities to limit and control the practice of alchemy by requiring licences and punishing those who worked without authorization....

Article

Ambrosian Bible  

Sarit Shalev-Eyni

Thirteenth-century Ashkenazi illuminated Bible (Milan, Ambrosiana, MSS. B.30–32 INF). One of the earliest illuminated Hebrew manuscripts originating in Germany, it is a giant manuscript in three volumes, containing the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible. As attested by a colophon at the end of the first volume, the Bible was commissioned by Joseph ben Moses from Ulmana, possibly referring to Ulm in Swabia or to Nieder-Olm in the Rhineland. The Bible was copied by Jacob ben Samuel and was massorated and vocalized by Joseph ben Kalonymus in collaboration with another masorete. The first part was completed between 1236 and 1238. The three volumes were illuminated by two artists, whose style is related to the 13th-century school of Würzburg. Illustrations with biblical scenes are located mainly within the initial word panels of the various biblical books, or at their end. Some of the illustrations carry a messianic or eschatological meaning. A broad cosmological composition occupies an opening at the end of the third volume, suggesting an impressive climax for the entire Bible. The full page miniature on the right illustrates the seven heavens, accompanied by the four animals of Ezekiel’s vision and the luminaries (fol. 135...

Article

Arnulfus de Kayo  

French, 13th century, male.

Illuminator.

A number of miniatures are attributed to this artist, particularly those in a book he wrote in Amiens in 1286.

Article

Arthurian legends in medieval art  

Alison Stones

Artistic manifestations of Arthurian legends antedate surviving textual traditions and sometimes bear witness to stories that have not survived in written form. Thus the Tristan sculptures (c. 1102–17) carved on a column from the north transept of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela show that the story was in circulation at least a generation before the earliest surviving written text was composed. The one surviving manuscript of Béroul’s Tristan is unillustrated, while the fragments of Thomas’s version include a single historiated initial showing Tristan playing the harp (Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS. Fr. d. 16, fol. 10). Although Eilhart von Oberge’s Tristrant, composed in the late 12th century, is the earliest version of the Tristan story to survive complete, the only surviving illustrated copy dates from the 15th century (c. 1465–75; Heidelberg, UBib., Cpg 346), while the Munich manuscript of Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan was made in south Germany ...

Article

Ashmole Bestiary  

Debra Higgs Strickland

Richly illustrated bestiary manuscript (275×185mm, 105 fols; Oxford, Bodleian Lib., Ashmole 1511), written in Latin and illuminated probably in southern England around 1210. The original patron is unknown. It contains the text and illustrations of a complete bestiary, with prefatory Creation scenes and excerpts from Genesis and part of Hugh de Folieto’s Aviarium (Book of Birds). It is a luxury manuscript with lavish use of gold leaf, sometimes tooled, in the backgrounds of the full-page miniatures and numerous smaller framed animal ‘portraits’. Its images are especially notable for their ornamental qualities, evident in both the pictorial compositions and a wide variety of geometric framing devices. The prefatory cycle includes a full-page miniature of Adam Naming the Animals. The Ashmole Bestiary is considered a ‘sister’ manuscript to the Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen, U. Lib., MS. 24), to which it is iconographically very closely related, but owing to major stylistic differences the two manuscripts have been attributed to different artists. The chronological relationship between the two has been disputed: based on proposed workshop methods, Muratova (...

Article

Astrology in medieval art  

Sophie Page

Astrology is the art of predicting events on earth as well as human character and disposition from the movements of the planets and fixed stars. Medieval astrology encompassed both general concepts of celestial influence, and the technical art of making predictions with horoscopes, symbolic maps of the heavens at particular moments and places constructed from astronomical information. The scientific foundations of the art were developed in ancient Greece, largely lost in early medieval Europe and recovered by the Latin West from Arabic sources in the 12th and 13th centuries. Late medieval astrological images were successfully Christianized and were adapted to particular contexts, acquired local meanings and changed over time.

Astrology developed into a scientific branch of learning in ancient Greece, but because of the opposition of the Church Fathers it was transmitted to early medieval Europe in only fragmentary form in technically unsophisticated textbooks and popular divinatory genres. Literary and scientific texts provided more general ideas about the nature and attributes of the planets which were influential on later iconography. The first significant astrological images appear in 11th-century illustrated astronomical texts (e.g. London, BL, Cotton MS. Tiberius BV), which were acquired and produced by monasteries to aid with time-keeping and the construction of the Christian calendar....

Article

Bestiary  

Robert G. Calkins

Book that describes and draws Christian moralizations from the characteristics and habits of animals, birds, fish, reptiles, and even minerals, real and imaginary. It was especially popular during the Middle Ages in western Europe. Its core early Christian text, partly informed by Indian, Hebrew, and Egyptian legends and known as the Physiologus (often translated as ‘The Naturalist’ or ‘Natural Historian’, but perhaps more appropriately understood as the ‘Philosopher of Natural History’), was originally composed in Greek, probably in Alexandria during the first half of the 2nd century AD. Ethiopian, Syrian, and Armenian translations of the Greek text appeared by the 5th century. A Latin translation, possibly available in the 4th century, was circulating by the early 6th. A fragmentary Old English poetic text dates from the first half of the 8th century. In the earliest Latin Bestiaries (12th century), the Physiologus text is interpolated with excerpts from the De animalibus...

Article

Bobbio  

Michael Richter

Monastery in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Approximately 50 km south of Piacenza in the Apennines, it was founded c. ad 613 through the cooperation of the Lombard king Agilulf (reg 590–615) and the Irish abbot and saint Columbanus (c. 540–615). Its nucleus was an older dilapidated church dedicated to St Peter. Columbanus died on 23 November 615, but his name and renown remained alive in the following centuries. Through cooperation with the Lombard monarchs as well as later the Carolingian kings, Bobbio became a very prominent monastery in Northern Italy. In 628 it was granted the earliest monastic exemption from supervision by the local diocesan, the bishop of Tortona. The community of Bobbio apparently lived according to the Rule of Columbanus as well as the Rule of Basil of Caesarea. The presence of the Rule of St Benedict cannot be documented there before the early 9th century. Bobbio became a known not only as a centre of Irish learning but also as a centre of grammatical as well as computational studies. Its early library also contained Classical texts as well as important palimpsests (a ‘catalogue’ survives from the late 9th century). In the late 9th and early 10th centuries (a period of economic decline) important illuminated manuscripts were produced there. The abbatial church was rebuilt under Abbot Agilulf (...

Article

Border, manuscript  

M. A. Michael

The elaboration of the margins of a manuscript with decorative or figural motifs. The development of decoration for otherwise blank margins on a page with text is associated with the evolution of the decorated and historiated initial (see Initial, manuscript; for borders accompanying full-page miniatures, see Miniature §I). It forms part of a developing scheme of hierarchies in the decoration of the manuscript, which in turn is linked to the page design and punctuation of the text. In its earliest phase, border ornament was closely tied to the form of the initial, so that by the 12th century parts of the initial were elongated to the extent that they affected the design of the page. In the Gothic period, however, borders became a more independent form of decoration, and pages of lesser importance were also included in the decorative scheme.

Another factor in the development of border decoration was the use of penwork initials, particularly in the Canon law and theology books copied at the university towns of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford in the Early Gothic period. In these textbooks, the decoration of initials of varying importance formed part of the visual organization of the page to enable easier reference. This hierarchical system of decoration for secular texts may have influenced the introduction of a similar system into the growing numbers of liturgical books owned by the laity. In addition, there seems to have been an association between the increased decoration of a text and its veneration, so that Psalters and Books of Hours, in particular, used as part of a programme of private devotion, were lavishly decorated both in a way that made them more accessible to the layman and in order to emphasize their sacredness. The amount of decoration used in a book can also help to gauge the cost of its production. This consideration, combined with the hierarchy of borders that had emerged by the end of the 13th century, was important in shaping the decorative programme of a manuscript; whether borders covered one or more margins on a page would depend on the amount of money spent and the relative importance of the text they framed....

Article

William de Brailes  

Claire Donovan

(fl c. 1230–60).

English illuminator. A William de Brailes (variously spelt) is cited in six documents (c. 1230–60) relating to Oxford. These establish that he lived with his wife Celena in Catte Street among other professionals engaged in book production. None of these documents, however, mentions his trade. It seems most probable that the documented William de Brailes may be identified with the illuminator W. de Brailes, whose name appears in two manuscripts associated with Oxford. The name occurs twice in a Book of Hours (c. 1240; London, BL, Add. MS. 49999; see), beside historiated initials that open the final prayers. Both initials contain the bust of a tonsured figure, one of which (fol. 43r) is identified by a caption in French that clearly identifies his profession: w. de brail’ qui me depeint. In the Last Judgement miniature of the six leaves from a Psalter in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (...

Article

Brailes, William of  

British, 13th century, male.

Painter, miniaturist, illuminator. Murals, designs for stained glass.

In 1260 this artist was working in the scribes' and illuminators' district of Oxford. He illustrated various manuscripts and psalters between 1230 and 1250, among them The Last Judgement and a Sarum Book of Hours...

Article

Breviary  

Nigel J. Morgan

Liturgical book containing the psalms, readings from the scriptures, the Church Fathers or the lives of the saints, antiphons, and prayers that constitute the Divine Office for each day of the Christian Church year (see Service book). The Divine Office comprises the daily devotions observed at the eight canonical hours of the day (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline), arranged around the psalms, so that all 150 psalms are read each week. Its text covers two distinct sections: the Temporal (or Proper of Time), containing the offices for Sundays and festivals commemorating the life of Christ and the weekdays of the year; and the Sanctoral (or Proper of Saints), with offices for the feast days of saints. Supplementary offices for certain occasions, for instance the Office of the Dead and Little Office of the Virgin, were sometimes added to the daily office, and a full version of the Breviary usually includes the whole ...

Article

Byzantine influence in Western medieval art  

Rebecca W. Corrie

In the 20th century, discussion of the relationship between Byzantine art and the art of the Latin West evolved in tandem with scholarship on Byzantine art itself. Identified as the religious imagery and visual and material culture of the Greek Orthodox Empire based at Constantinople between ad 330 and 1453, studies of Byzantine art often encompassed Post-Byzantine art and that of culturally allied states such as Armenian Cilicia, Macedonia, and portions of Italy. As such fields as Palaiologan family manuscripts and wall paintings, Armenian manuscripts, and Crusader manuscripts and icons emerged, scholars identified new intersections between Western medieval and Byzantine art. Subtle comparisons emerged with the recognition that Byzantine art was not static but changed over time in style and meaning, although most analyses identified Byzantine art as an accessible reservoir of the naturalistic, classicizing styles of antiquity. Scholars considering the 7th-century frescoes at S Maria Antiqua and mosaics at S Maria in Cosmedin, both in Rome, and the 8th-century frescoes at Castelseprio and Carolingian manuscripts such as the Coronation Gospels of Charlemagne (Vienna, Schatzkam. SCHK XIII) used formal comparisons with works such as pre-iconoclastic icons at St Catherine’s Monastery on Sinai, along with the history of Byzantine iconoclasm, to argue for the presence of Greek painters in the West. Similarly, Ottonian and Romanesque painting and luxury arts, such as ivories, provided examples of the appropriation of Byzantine imperial imagery. Yet the study of works such as the great 12th-century ...

Article

Cantigas de Santa María  

Beatrice Radden Keefe

Collection of 420 Galician–Portuguese songs composed in the second half of the 13th century at the court of Alfonso (reg 1252–84). The Cantigas are preserved in four 13th-century manuscripts, three of which are illustrated.

Two of the illustrated Cantigas manuscripts are thought to have once formed a deluxe edition of the songs commissioned by Alfonso X. The two volumes are now split between Madrid (Escorial, Real Bib. Monasterio S Lorenzo, MS. T.I.1) and Florence (Bib. N. Cent., MS. B.R.20). The first volume, the Códice rico at the Escorial, has over 200 miniatures, most of them full-page and divided into six narrative panels with ornamental borders and captions, illustrating songs which begin on the facing page. The companion volume, in Florence, is unfinished and possibly disordered, with miniatures in various stages of completion and no added musical notation. The scenes in both volumes were clearly directly influenced by the interests and ideology of Alfonso X, and he appears in them on occasion, as in the opening miniature of the Códice rico, where he is shown reciting from a scroll, flanked by six men also holding scrolls. Mostly the scenes illustrate miracle narratives involving the Virgin and songs written in praise of her (...

Article

Charter  

James D’Emilio

Legal document typically written in documentary script on a single parchment sheet and authenticated by subscriptions, notarial signs or seals. In archives, originals were sometimes stitched into booklets or rolls. Notarial charters were registered, while deeds of ecclesiastical and civil institutions were copied in cartularies organized by place, date or issuer. Charters include contracts, property transactions, marriage agreements, dispute settlements, official privileges and decrees.

Besides their value as historical documents, collections of early medieval charters, such as those at St Gall, Lucca or Catalonia, furnish insights into law, literacy and linguistic change. In the mid- to late Middle Ages, the texts, scripts and physical features of papal bulls, charters from monastic or episcopal scriptoria, and the burgeoning output of royal chanceries and civil notaries chart pathways of education and cultural exchange geographically and through social strata. In relation to medieval art, charters have fourfold importance. As historical sources, some document artists, patrons or artworks. Signed and dated originals of known provenance help to date manuscripts and reveal practices of scribes and scriptoria responsible for book production and illumination. In contrast with the dearth of medieval artists’ signatures, signed charters represent a sizeable corpus of securely attributed work with ample contextual information that facilitates study of individual style and artistic careers. Lastly, some are of artistic interest for their execution in a book hand or embellishment with decoration comparable to that in manuscripts: decorated lettering; calligraphic flourishes; the chrismon, cross and other religious symbols; validation signs, monograms and seals; and, rarely, illuminations....

Article

Christina Psalter  

Marina Vidas

French illuminated manuscript (295×140 mm, 174 fols; Copenhagen, Kon. Bib., GKS 1606 4°), made in Paris c. 1230 with later additions. Its original textual components are: a Calendar, the Psalms, Canticles, Hymns, Litany, and Collects. In its present state the pictorial programme consists of 24 calendrical medallions representing the signs of the zodiac and the labours of the month and 24 Christological miniatures on burnished grounds, preceding the Psalter proper. The Psalter text is illuminated with eight historiated initials, of which six show Davidian subjects, as well as with many decorative initials and line endings. The manuscript is named after Princess Christina of Norway (1234–62), the daughter of Håkon IV (reg 1217–63), who in an early 14th-century inscription on the pastedown of the back cover is stated to have owned the Psalter. Manuscript evidence—the Cistercian saints in the Calendar, the Litany made for the use of the royal abbey of St‑Germain‑des‑Prés, the employment of three miniature painters who worked on the three-volume ...

Article

Conrad von Scheyern  

German, 13th century, male.

Copyist, illuminator.

The Munich library has several manuscripts produced by this copyist, and a variety of authors cite, altogether, more than 30 books that he wrote and decorated.

Munich (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek)

Article

Giovanni da Monte Cassino  

Patrick M. de Winter

(fl 1278–82).

Italian illuminator. The treasury documents of Charles I, King of Naples and Sicily (reg 1266–85), record that when the German illuminator Minardus was not available, the King had directed that the monk Giovanni da Monte Cassino should be his substitute. Giovanni thus illuminated a translation into Latin of Rhazes’s medical encyclopedia al- Ḥāwī (Paris, Bib. N., MS. lat. 6912). In August 1282 Johannes de Nigellis, royal physician and librarian, paid him two and a half ounces of gold for two and a half months of work (‘faciendis ymaginibus’) on this mammoth treatise and perhaps also on another text. Giovanni, not recorded at the abbey of Monte Cassino itself, worked from the palace of the archbishop of Naples. His small compositions set within initials are explicative, with gesticulating figures on gold grounds, framed by stiff acanthus ornaments or tendrils. His work suggests roots in the scriptoria of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem but recast to reflect the French-influenced illumination favoured at the Angevin court. Most remarkable are the three miniatures on folio 1 depicting the Prince of Tunis giving the Arabic text to Angevin envoys, the presentation to Charles I, and the King commissioning the translation from Farag Moyse of the School of Salerno. Attributed to Giovanni is the illustration, with simplified compositions, of another copy of the same treatise entitled in Latin ...