Illuminated Manuscripts
Types of Illuminated Manuscripts
The handwritten manuscript book was the dominant form for over one thousand years. During that period a vast number of books were produced, both religious and secular, covering wide range of subjects.
Bibles
Religious texts account for a large proportion of manuscript books. Of particular importance was the Bible, or parts thereof. Many of the most famous early manuscripts were Gospel books, which combined the accounts of the life of Christ into one volume. Gospel books usually included canon tables which listed the passages that were the same in each Gospel.
Complete Bibles were also produced, in which case the contents usually occupied several volumes, since a book made of parchment or vellum was quite bulky. Bibles intended for public use were often quite large, being intended to impress the members of the congregation with their splendour. Smaller volumes were made for personal use, or sometimes for travelling clergy. By the thirteenth century, smaller Bibles were also being produced for student use. Initially bibles were written in Latin, but Bibles written in the vernacular (or common language of the people) gradually came into use - by the tenth century in England and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries elsewhere. In the case of the Lindisfarne Gospels an Anglo-Saxon translation was added between the lines of the original text several centuries after the book was made.
The Apocalypse
The Apocalypse or Book of Revelations was a popular subject for manuscripts, particularly in France and England in the thirteenth century. The book recounts St John’s visions, including those that tell of the end of the world, a topic that provided plenty of scope for imaginative illustrations.
Service Books
A range of books were made for use during communal church services, containing the various prayers, readings, chants and instructions for the conduct of the Mass. Eventually these were combined into a single volume known as the Missal.
The Sherborne Missal
The Sherborne Missal is in the collection of the British library which has made a digital version available online. Note the massive size of the volume. This is an example of a book that was made for public and not private use.
Psalters
The psalter was another form of religious text, containing the contained the text of the 150 Psalms. Psalters were intended for private use by monks, nuns and lay people. They were also used as an aid in teaching children to read. A single volume psalter generally contained a cycle of calendar pages, used for calculating feast days and commemorating the lives of the saints, the psalms themselves, and a collection of canticles and creeds. If created for private use they also contained other texts/prayers chosen by person commissioning the volume. In addition to the calendar pages, which often depicted the labours of the seasons and the signs of the zodiac, the decoration usually consisted of miniatures preceding the text and decorated initials at the main divisions in the text. In some instances the illustrations depicted scenes from the text; in other cases a recognised set of images was used.
The Burnet Psalter
This impressive site includes large colour images of each page of the Burnet Psalter, the text in Latin and an English translation, as well as technical information about the manuscript.
The Breviary
The Breviary was a prayer book used by the clergy as the principal service book for the Divine Office, a series of eight services that took place at fixed intervals during the day. The Breviary included a set of calendar pages, the basic instructions for each ‘hour’, the psalter, specific prayers for each day of the year, and a range of texts for various saint’s days. In some cases a short service in honour of the Virgin Mary was also included.
Books of Hours
One of the most popular books in the late middle ages, the Book of Hours was a personal prayer book used by the laity. The Book of Hours had evolved as a specific form by the end of the thirteenth century and by the fourteenth century it had replaced the Psalter as the principal text for private devotion, being particularly popular in Flanders and France. Its popularity was due to changing attitudes to personal devotion, increased levels of literacy and a wealthier population which could afford to purchase personal copies of books. The Book of Hours was based on the eight canonical hours or divine offices, sets of prayers and readings that were intended to be spoken at intervals during the day. In a Book of Hours the hours are seen as a commentary on the life of the Virgin Mary, and the illuminations often illustrated specific episodes in her life. A Book of Hours might also include a set of calendar pages, extracts from the Gospels, the seven Penitential Psalms, the Office of the Dead and a litany of the Saints. A variety of other prayers and readings could also be included according to the owner's preferences and their budget Books of Hours were often regarded as a status symbol and the most splendid copies are richly decorated with full page miniatures, half or three quarter page miniatures, elaborate initials, borders and line fillers. It should be noted however that majority of Books of Hours produced were considerably more modest than the best known examples.
The Book of Hours
This web site is related to a Book of Hours held in the Frick library at the University of Pittsburgh. It provides background information as well as a generous number of illustrations and a bibliography on Books of hours.
Musical manuscripts
Following the introduction of musical notation, musical manuscripts began to be produced. Choir books, called antiphonaries, contained the words and music for the parts of the church service that were sung. Musical manuscripts were generally large (up to 600 x 450mm) so a number of people could follow from one book
The State Library of South Australia Antiphonal
This web site provides extensive background information and images of each page of the 13th century Italian antiphonal held in the State Library of South Australia. Note the large format (570 x 395 mm).
Lives of the Saints
A large body of literature concerning the saints developed during the medieval period. Accounts of the lives of the various saints were regarded as a model for saintly behaviour and were popular reading, especially during the thirteenth century following the production of the Golden Legend, a compilation of saints’ lives. Lives of the Saints were written in Latin and in various vernacular languages.
Bestiaries
Bestiaries were popular during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They contained illustrations, descriptions and stories about a wide variety of creatures, both real and imagined. Bestiaries were often written in the vernacular.
The Aberdeen Bestiary
This digitised edition of the Aberdeen Bestiary, produced by Aberdeen University, provides background information about the manuscript, images of folios, transcription and translation of text, and a discussion of how the manuscript was made.
Histories, chronicles and ancient texts
Translations of a variety of ancient texts, such as those by Aristotle, Plutarch and Virgil were produced in manuscript form as were a variety of different histories and chronicles which described recent as well as past events.
Romances and literature
In the later medieval period increased levels of literacy meant that there was a demand for contemporary literature, often written in the vernacular. The writings of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Chaucer were produced in manuscript form, often with accompanying illuminations.
Herbals
Herbals were books that dealt with culinary and medicinal properties of plants. Later Herbals were illustrated.
Textbooks
From the twelfth century textbooks on the topics of theology, law, medicine, arithmetic, astronomy, logic and grammar were more widely available. These were produced in all sizes and to suit a range of budgets.
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