Illuminated Manuscripts Part 8

"Salve cohors virginum Hohenburgensium Albens quasi lilium Amans dei filium

Herrat devotissima Tua fidelissima Mater et ancillula Cantat tibi cantica

Sic et liber utilis Tibi delectabilis Et non cesses volvere Hanc in tuo pectore."

In the Netherlands, which mostly at this time lay within the boundary of Lotharingia or Lorraine, the style of illumination was much the same as in other German districts. Gospel-books and Psalters, however, exhibit features somewhat akin to English work.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the continental methods prevail in more solid painting and less penwork.

Of the twelfth-century work of Germany examples are exceedingly numerous, stretching over every province from West to East, as Westphalia, the Palatinate, Burgundy, Switzerland and Bavaria, extending even into Bohemia. An Evangeliary in the University Library at Prag agrees altogether with those of Germany.

Towards the middle of the twelfth century, with the accession of the House of Hohenstaufen (1138, etc.), arose a new style, since called Romanesque, of which many examples are to be found in various libraries.

It is not very easy to select the most typical examples, but one good and typical MS. is found in a Gospel-book at Carlsruhe, which contains some capital miniatures of this most thoroughly German style.

Under Frederick Barbarossa, as under the Caroling Emperors and the Othos, we may note a wave of new life, especially in Saxony. A contrast as regards artistic ability to the "Hortus Deliciarum" is the Gospel-book executed for Henry the Lion at the convent of Helmershausen, once in the Cathedral Library at Prag, and bought by King George of Hanover.[29] In the page of the Eusebian Canons we see features which take us across the plains of Lombardy to the doors of S. Michele of Pavia, and to the churches of Venice. The columns rest on crouching animals. Allegorical figures are introduced striving with each other as in the later Gothic illuminations. A half-nude figure of Faith vanquishes the champion of Paganism. On the dedication page sits the Madonna with SS. John Baptist and Bartholomew, and below them the patron saints of Brunswick, Blaize, and Egidius leading forth the Duke and his wife, Mathilda. It may indeed be called a splendid book. Among the rest of the pictures, some of them within richly decorated borders, occurs the usual representation of the Duke and his d.u.c.h.ess receiving crowns.

The figures are well drawn, even elegant, the draperies good, and the colouring skilful.

[29] See F. Culemann in _Neue hannov. Zeitung_, 1861, Nos. 22-4.

One of the many characteristic MSS. of this period to be seen in continental libraries is the "Mater Verborum" of the monk Conrad, of Scheyern in Bavaria, a noted scribe, illuminator, goldsmith, and grammarian. The subject is one that scarcely gives promise of lending itself to pictorial ill.u.s.tration, but after the successful attempts of Theodulf we may be prepared for anything in the way of diagram and symbol. Imagine a dictionary in which not only actual objects are pictorially represented, but also abstract terms. Music, philosophy, virtues and vices ill.u.s.trated by historical instances--sacred subjects treated in the manner of the gla.s.s painters which is so commonly found in German and French work of this period.

Of twelfth-century illumination in general it may be said that it shows a marked effort towards true artistic design and subtle beauty of linear outline. Some of the n.o.blest curve-drawing, with rich and ma.s.sive grouping of foliages, is to be found in the ornamental initials and dignified border designs presented on the later examples of the century, and it is very interesting to observe the rapid pace at which the climax is reached in mere calligraphic ornament after the opening of the Gothic period. Initials become smaller but exquisitely drawn, and reasonable expression takes the place of the senseless stare or grotesque exaggeration of att.i.tude and feature which detract from the artistic value of all preceding efforts. To conclude our list of German illuminations of purely monastic production, we will bring forward one more example of women's work, which whether as regards its curious ill.u.s.trations of symbolism, or its richly foliaged geometrical backgrounds and borders, is one of the most interesting MSS. in any collection. It is the Evangeliary of the Abbess Uota, or perhaps, rather, Tuota of Niedermunster, a lady of the House of the Counts of Falckenstein (1177-80); or of Utta, abbess from 1009 to 1012, but more probably the former. Another, Tutta, ruled the abbey from 920 to 934, and still another 1239-42. This precious MS., which Cahier has very fully described as the "Ma.n.u.scrit du Niedermuenster de Ratisbonne," is now in the Royal Library at Munich (Cimel. 35). Some writers, in speaking of it, have cla.s.sed it among the MSS. of the eleventh century, but it is too refined and too well done for that period, and, indeed, that it belongs to the _latter part_ of the twelfth is almost proved from the work itself. Perhaps it was the profusion of inscriptions or legends placed all over the miniatures that gave the idea of its belonging to the eleventh century. In this respect the MS. certainly resembles the Evangeliary of Luxeuil already described. The miniature of the Crucifixion is very remarkable. Besides the figure of Christ showing a return to the primitive Syriac idea,[30] instead of the figures as usual of Mary and John, here are given allegorical figures _of_ Life and Death. (Cf. Fest. in exaltatione sce crucis. Ad Laudes, 14th Sept.).

Perhaps the best commentary on these old figures is the "Biblia Pauperum," as it is commonly called, or as it should be called, the Bible of the poor preachers. It also has the old allegories and inscriptions rendered into later forms.

[30] Cf. the Rabula MS. at Vienna.

As for the texts or inscriptions, they would require a commentary to themselves--not to speak of translations and remarks upon the calligraphy. One of these remarkable miniatures may be described, as it depicts the presentation of the volume to the Madonna. Our Lady in the centre of the design is seated on a Byzantine _sedile_ with the infant Jesus on her knees. She is crowned, and has the nimbus, and appears as if intended to represent the glory of the Church. Her hand is raised as in the act of teaching. Christ, also, has the nimbus, but with the cross upon it, and raises his hand in the att.i.tude of benediction. In the tympanum of the semicircle over the Madonna, written in letters of gold on purple, surrounded by the word "Sancta" in ordinary ink, is the monogram of Maria, having a small sun and moon above it, and other inscriptions, partly Latin, partly Greek. Below the Madonna, on the left, stands the abbess, her knees slightly bent, holding up her book, and clothed in the costume of her Order, but coloured, no doubt, simply for artistic reasons. Thus she wears a blue veil and a claret-coloured robe. In the reversed semicircle before her is another monogram, Uota or Tuota, a name which perhaps may be translated Uta, Utta, Ida, etc. It has been said already who she is likely to have been. It does not follow, of course, that she herself wrote or illuminated the book she is presenting, but judging from similar instances, as _e.g._ Herrade of Landsberg and Hrosvita of Gandersheim, she may have done so.

Still the work looks technically too masterly for anyone not a trained artist to have done. In the corners are small quadretti, containing busts of the four cardinal virtues:--Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fort.i.tude; and in circlets in the centre of each border are Faith, Hope, and Charity, the latter twice, at top and bottom. A number of extraordinary beasts fill up little niches in the design, which may possibly be also symbolical, but possibly also nothing but artistic fancies. The other miniatures we must pa.s.s over. Nevertheless those representing the four evangelists are worth examination;[31] the ornamentation being especially rich and elaborate. Let us now turn our attention to a new element--a new spirit we might term it--which was manifesting itself in Italy and France. We cannot too strongly insist upon the fact that whatever appears in illumination has appeared first in architecture and its auxilliary arts. Now we have to see how this fact begins to change almost entirely the character of the ornamentation of books. During the latter part of the twelfth century, when precisely we cannot say, nor where, a new form of architecture began to show itself. This new style, laying aside both the cla.s.sic cornice and the Romanesque arch, makes use of a new vertical principle of construction, called in French the _ogive_ or arch, composed of two sections only, instead of the whole semicircle. By some fatality, of which no exact explanation can be given, English writers have given this new style the name of Gothic. Scores of cathedrals throughout Europe are called Gothic cathedrals, whereas in all probability, if we exclude Sweden, there is only one really Gothic building in the world, that is the Tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna, and none of the so-called Gothic cathedrals are in the least like it. As to the invention itself, it has been claimed by almost every nationality in Europe. There can be no doubt that accidentally, or otherwise, the pointed arch had been used often enough without any idea of its adoption as a principle of construction even in ancient buildings. The famous gate at Mycne is one instance. This is not the place to discuss the question, so we let it pa.s.s. We could point out long and elaborate arguments intended to prove that it originated in England--that it originated in France--in Germany.[32] Possibly they may all be right in a sense, for most probably the origin was not in any particular locality, but in the religious spirit of the time. It was a general revival of the Church itself that was its cause. If any special locality has more reason on its side than another, it is probably France, but as we say, that is not an essential point. It must suffice us here that it arose, and that by the end of the twelfth century it was a fact. And the remarkable part about it is that it was by the influence of lay artists and especially of the freemasons that it became the accepted architecture of Christendom.

[31] For more about them, see Cahier, _Melanges d'Archeologie, etc._

[32] Not to mention _theories_, which are endless.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

THE GOLDEN AGE OF ILLUMINATION

The Gothic spirit--A "Zeitgeist" not the invention of a single artist nor of a single country--The thirteenth century the beginning of the new style--Contrast between North and South, between East and West, marked in the character of artistic leaf-work--Gradual development of Gothic foliage--The bud of the thirteenth century, the leaf of the fourteenth, and the flower of the fifteenth--The Freemasons--Illumination transferred from the monastery to the lay workshop--The Psalter of St.

Louis--Characteristics of French Gothic illumination--Rise of the miniature as a distinct feature--Guilds--Lay artists.

We have now reached the parting of the ways. The study of Nature is fast superseding the dogmas of the monastic code, and what some writers have characterised as the hieratic is giving way to the naturalistic treatment of art. Like the pointed architecture itself, it is an outcome of the spirit of the age. Exactly when it begins we cannot say. As in the physical sciences, our limits are necessarily somewhat arbitrary to suit our convenience in cla.s.sification. We take the beginning of the thirteenth century as a convenient dividing line between old and new. We accept it as the boundary between the artistic sway of the East and South--and that of the West and North--between the lifeless fetters of prescription and the living freedom of invention. The contrast between the two is very strongly marked. The soft and curling foliages of the sunny South are for a season giving way to the hard and th.o.r.n.y leaf.a.ge of the wintry North. It would seem as if pointed architecture began with the hard and frozen winter of its existence, and if it had been the plan or design of one individual we might have accepted this peculiarity as part of the scheme, and all that followed as a natural consequence and development. But it is curious that as a system worked out by many minds pointed architecture should thus begin. First come thorns and cusps and lanceolate forms without foliage. Then, not perfect leaves, but buds. In due time the bud opens, at first into the profile coil, and by-and-by into the full-spread leaf. Then comes the flower, and finally the fruit.

After that, rottenness and decay. It is curious that this should actually take place through a course of centuries. That it should be reflected in book illumination is simply the usual order of things--the fact has been frequently observed, and as it is curious, we call attention to it. But, as we have said, the great change itself was brought about by the influence of lay artists, and chiefly by the freemasons.

Who and what the freemasons were everybody is supposed to know, but on inquiry we find very few people indeed know anything definite about them. Of course we do not refer to the friendly societies or social guilds that now bear the name, but to the mediaeval builders. "Everybody knows," says Batissier,[33] "that the study of the sciences and of literature and the practice of the various branches of art took refuge in the monasteries during the irruptions of the barbarians and the strife of international war. In those retreats, not only painting, sculpture, engraving on metals, and mosaic, but also architecture were cultivated. If the question arose about building a church, it was nearly always an ecclesiastic who furnished the plan and monks who carried out the works under his direction. The brethren in travelling from convent to convent naturally exercised a reciprocal influence over each other.

We conceive, then, that the abbeys of any given Order would put in vogue the same style, and that the art would be modified under certain points of view, in the same manner in each country."

[33] _Hist. de l' Art Monumental_, p. 466, Paris, 1845, I. 8.

"It is certain, moreover, that outside the cloisters there were also troops of workmen not monastics, who laboured under the direction of the latter."

"Masons were a.s.sociated among them in the same way as other trade corporations. It was the same with these corporations in the South as with the communes--the _debris_ of the Roman organisation; they took refuge in the Church, and had arrived at a condition of public life and independence, when order was established between the commune, the Seignory, and the Church."

"During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these corporations were organised into recognised fraternities having their own statutes, but there is abundant evidence of their having a much earlier existence."

"A great number of masons were trained in Italy, and came from Lombardy, which in the tenth century even was an active centre of civilisation.

Italy had its corporations of masons called _maestri comaccini_, enjoying exclusive privileges, who, having pa.s.sed the different degrees of apprentices.h.i.+p, became 'accepted'[34] masons, and had the right of exercising their profession wherever they might be. The sovereigns of different countries granted them special privileges, and the popes protected them in all Catholic countries where they might travel. Thus the lodges grew and prospered. The Greek artists who had fled from Constantinople during the various Iconoclast persecutions had got themselves enrolled in the ranks of the freemasons, and taught their fellow-masons their Byzantine methods."

[34] German "angenommen."

"Speedily these corporations spread through France, England, and Germany, where they were employed almost exclusively by the religious Orders, in building their churches and conventual buildings."

While, therefore, the general plan and rules of construction were common to all members of the fraternity, the details were almost entirely left, under regulations, to the individual taste of certain members of each band of workmen, who, being all qualified artists, were quite capable of putting in execution, and with masterly skill, any such minutiae of ornament as might be left to their discretion.[35] Local illuminators would thus speedily get hold of every novelty, and the page of the Psalter or Bible would become, as a French writer has explained it, a _vitrail sur velin_. If not indeed exclusively following the stained gla.s.s, they copied the mural decorations, and so we find the backgrounds of the miniatures, whether fitted into the initials or placed separately in framed mouldings, faithfully reproducing the imbrications, _carrelages_, panellings, and diapers of these mural enrichments.

[35] Governor Pownall ("Observations on the Origin and Progress of Gothic Architecture, and on the Corporation of Freemasons," _Archaeologia_, 1788, vol. 9, pp. 110-126) was of opinion that "the Collegium or Corporation of Freemasons, were the first formers of Gothic architecture into a regular and scientific order by applying the models and proportions of timber framework to building in stone," and that this method "came into use and application about the close of the twelfth or commencement of the thirteenth century." See also Gould (R.F.), _History of Freemasonry_, vol. i. p. 259, note. "Without going so far as to agree with Governor Pownall that the Freemasons invented Gothic, it may be reasonably contended that without them it could not have been brought to perfection, and without Gothic they would not have stood in the peculiar and prominent position that they did, that there was mutual indebtedness, and while without Freemasons there would have been no Gothic...without Gothic the Freemasons would have formed but a very ordinary community of trades unionists."

To select an example of Gothic illumination which shall exemplify the earliest features of the pointed style is not an easy matter, notwithstanding the number of thirteenth-century MSS. which still exist in public collections. In the National Library at Paris are several such MSS. One that decidedly marks the change from the German work hitherto in vogue is the Psalter of St. Louis (Nat. Lib., Paris., Lat. 10525), which contains nearly eighty small, delicately executed miniatures. It was completed about 1250. Its noticeable features are a vastly improved dexterity in draughtsmans.h.i.+p, which displays a refined certainty of touch, enabling the artist to express his intention with unhesitating freedom. The drawing thus produced in outline is filled in with flat tints of body-colour, without gradation or any attempt at brush-work shading. Whatever finis.h.i.+ng in this respect might be thought necessary was added with the pen. Nothing could show more clearly that it is simply and frankly imitative of stained gla.s.s. As in the gla.s.s the black outline is left for definition. No colour is used on hands of faces except a slight touch of red on the cheeks and lips. The prevailing colours are rich blue and bright scarlet. Perhaps the illuminator would have been better advised had he neglected some of the harder features of this kind of work. Not considering that the limits of the gla.s.s painter did not apply to his vellum, he fettered himself unnecessarily, and instead of a picture he has only succeeded in producing a surface enamel, or a mere reticulation of surface-patterns. This very defect has by some writers been held up to admiration as the true perfection of all illumination. Its flatness was applauded because it had to be shut up in a book, and was therefore the only appropriate way of making a picture for such a purpose. But whoever would dream that because a picture, painted in due perspective and proper light and shade, was to be shut up in a book that the figures represented in relief would actually be crushed. Such reasoning is most puerile. The supposed parallel case of a carpet or hearth-rug representing groups of flowers--even if the latter ever did deceive the domestic cat--does not in the least affect the most childish conception of a picture in a book. We see it in a scene in light and shade, we enjoy and admire its reliefs, but at the same time we know it is a picture, and that it is quite flat. The two tests of knowledge never interfere with each other. To suppose they do is to suppose a case of imbecility that even a lunatic must laugh to scorn. So far, therefore, we think the illuminator mistaken in slavishly copying the limitations of the gla.s.s-painter. It is no very great knowledge of nature that is shown in these drawings. There is a good example of the method of study followed by thirteenth-century artists in the sketch-book of a French mason named Villars de Honnecourt, still kept in the National Library at Paris.[36] In this book the artist has made drawings, as he says, from the life--some are views, others drawings of objects of art; one represents a lion of the mediaeval heraldic type, yet the artist a.s.sures us it is from the life. But there is no real accuracy, everything is done with reference to some canon. It is, however, quite free from the Byzantine influence, though by no means free from a certain tincture of symbolism. The nude is rarely attempted, but when it is it is certainly less ugly than in Carolingian and Romanesque. To return to the Psalter--the style of the figures is rather graceful, att.i.tudes are gentle and modest, though the inclination of head and body are such as to suggest a sort of undulatory movement in walking that is scarcely natural. The forms are slender, and the limbs occasionally beyond the owner's control--sometimes even deformed. The feet are small and weak--now and then over-twisted. The hands more delicate than formerly, especially when open. Faces are gently oval and sometimes expressive.

[36] It has been published as the Alb.u.m of V. de H., Paris, 1858.

Sometimes the "histories" are placed in initial letters, the grounds of which, when not of burnished gold, consist of imitations of mural _carrelages_, chequers, etc., or rich enamelled patterns imitative of engraved traceries on metal. In other cases they are placed in frame-mouldings, consisting of a bar or beading of gold supporting an inner bar of coloured and polished wood or enamel work--the polish being represented by a fine line of white along the centre. For ill.u.s.trations of this precious volume the reader may refer to Labarte, _Hist. des Arts industriels_, alb.u.m, pl. 92 (Paris, 1864).

Now that the monasteries had ceased to be the exclusive nurseries of art and literature, the masters of the different arts and crafts usually belonged to the middle cla.s.ses of the towns, where at first each art or craft had its own fraternity, and as the idea of trade-a.s.sociation crew, the crafts most nearly related would form a guild or corporation. All who joined these corporations bound themselves to work only as the ruler of the guild permitted. Nor were outsiders allowed to compete with them in their own branches, so exclusive was the protection of the guild.

Each confraternity had its altar in some particular church, whose patron saint became the protector of the guild. And indeed the const.i.tution of the guild included even political rights and obligations--military service among the rest, like other feudal inst.i.tutions. Each town had its own special corporations, which thus led to the formation of separate schools of art; while travelling apprentices.h.i.+ps gave the opportunity to all of acquiring knowledge not accessible at home.

Members were accustomed to travel and to attach themselves to the service of various princes, receiving appointments as "varlets" or "escripvains" or "enlumineurs," which sometimes obliged them to resign their members.h.i.+p. Occasionally they became political agents and even amba.s.sadors.

It will be remembered that, some pages back, we noticed the fact that in Western illumination generally the design of the page depended upon the initial letter, or that at least the initial was the princ.i.p.al object of it. In the thirteenth century, although the initial had very much diminished in size, the same principle still prevailed. The letter itself was formed of some fabulous long-necked and long-tailed animal or bird, mostly a dragon as conceived by the mediaeval artist. The head framed more or less on that of the mastiff or lion, or both; the legs of a bird of prey; the body and tail of a serpent; wings of heraldic construction to suit the form of the letter. While the body of this unspeakable beast formed the body of the letter, the tail was indefinitely extended to sweep down the margin of the text and round the base of it, so as to form a border, while not unfrequently slender branches would spring from it to form coils here and there ending in a kind of flower-bud, the extremity of the tail forming a similar coil.

Very soon, however, the animal form was abandoned, and the letter made simply as a decorated initial or capital. If possible, one of its limbs was made to sweep up and down the "margin" and along the bottom or top as before. Where the interior is not occupied by a "history," we find coiled stems ending in profile leaves or buds.

At the same time the text has diminished in size, sometimes down to dimensions no greater than those of an ordinary printed book of to-day, but often beautiful and regular as the clearest printing. Such a book is the Bible written by a certain William of Devon, now in the British Museum (Roy. MS. 1 D. 1). A description of this beautiful MS. may be seen in _Bibliographica_, vol. i. p. 394, written by Sir E.M. Thompson.

Here, though the writing is that of an Englishman, the style is completely French.

Another MS. deserving of study is a richly illuminated Bible now in the Burney Collection of our National Library (No. 3). Another, which, owing to its being recommended for study by the late John Ruskin, was once known as the Ruskin Book, is Add. MS. 17341, which contains many fine initials with border and bracket foliages similar to those of the Evangeliary of the Sainte Chapelle, now in the National Library, Paris (MS. Lat. 17326). Both the MSS. show the contemporary peculiarity of presenting Bible characters, excepting divine personages, apostles, and evangelists in ordinary local costume. Paris, of course, is the city where most, and perhaps the best, of these MSS. are preserved; but those named above, in London, are also among the finest known examples.

CHAPTER II