The Art of Needle-work, from the Earliest Ages Part 31

Books often brought excessive prices in the middle ages. In 1174, Walter, Prior of St. Swithin's at Winchester, and afterwards abbot of Westminster, purchased of the monks of Dorchester in Oxfords.h.i.+re Bede's Homilies and St. Austin's Psalter, for twelve measures of barley, and a pall on which was embroidered in silver the history of Birinus converting a Saxon king.

About 1400, a copy of John de Meun's Roman de la Rose was sold before the palace-gate at Paris for forty crowns, or 33_l._ 6_s._ 6_d._

In Edward the Third's reign, one hundred marks (equal to 1000_l._) were paid to Isabella de Lancaster, a nun of Ambresbury, for a book of romance, purchased from her for the king's use.

Warton mentions a book of the Gospels, in the Cotton Library, as a fine specimen of Saxon calligraphy and decorations. It is written by Eadfrid, Bishop of Durham, in the most exquisite manner. Ethelwold his successor did the illuminations, the capital letters, the picture of the cross, and the Evangelists, with infinite labour and elegance; and Bilfred, the anchorite, covered the book, thus written and adorned, with silver plates and precious stones. It was finished about 720.

The encouragement given in the English monasteries for transcribing books was very considerable. In every great abbey there was an apartment called "The Scriptorium;" where many writers were constantly busied in transcribing not only the Service Books for the choir, but books for the Library. The Scriptorium of St. Alban's Abbey was built by Abbot Paulin, a Norman, who ordered many volumes to be written there, about 1080. Archbishop Lanfranc furnished the copies. Estates were often granted for the support of the Scriptorium. That at St.

Edmundsbury was endowed with two mills. The t.i.thes of a rectory were appropriated to the Cathedral convent of St. Swithin, at Winchester, _ad libros transcribendos_, in the year 1171.

Nigel in the year 1160 gave the monks of Ely two churches, ad libros faciendos.

When the library at Croyland Abbey was burnt in 1091, seven hundred volumes were consumed which must have been thus laboriously produced.

Fifty-eight volumes were transcribed at Glas...o...b..ry during the government of one Abbot, about the year 1300. And in the library of this monastery, the richest in England, there were upwards of four hundred volumes in the year 1248.

But whilst there is sufficient cause to admire the penmen of former days, in the mere transcription of books, shall we not marvel at the beauty with which they were invested; the rich and brilliant illuminations, the finely tinted paintings, the magnificent and laborious ornament with which not merely every page, but in many ma.n.u.scripts almost every line was decorated! They, such as have been preserved, form a valuable proportion of the riches of the princ.i.p.al European libraries: of the Vatican of Rome; the Imperial at Vienna; St. Mark's at Venice; the Escurial in Spain; and the princ.i.p.al public libraries in England.

The art of thus illuminating MSS., now entirely lost, had attained the highest degree of perfection, and is, indeed, of ancient origin. In the remotest times the common colours of black and white have been varied by luxury and taste. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus mention purple and yellow skins, on which MSS. were written in gold and silver; and amongst the eastern nations rolls of this kind (that is gold and silver on purple), exquisitely executed, are found in abundance, but of a later date. Still they appear to have been familiar with the practice at a much more remote period; and it is probable that the Greeks acquired this art from Egypt or India. From the Greeks it would naturally pa.s.s to the Latins, who appear to have been acquainted with it early in the second century. The earliest specimen of purple or rose-coloured vellum is recorded in the life of the Emperor Maximinus the younger, to whom, in the commencement of the third century, his mother made a present of the poems of Homer, written on purple vellum in gold letters. Such productions were, however, at this time very rare. The celebrated Codex Argenteus of Ulphilas, written in silver and gold letters on a purple ground, about 360, is probably the most ancient existing specimen of this magnificent mode of calligraphy. In the fourth century it had become more common: many ecclesiastical writers allude to it, and St. Jerome especially does so; and the following spirited dialogue has reference to his somewhat condemnatory allusions.

"Purple vellum Greek MSS.," says Breitinger, "if I remember rightly, are scarcer than white crows!"

BELINDA. "Pray tell us 'all about them,' as the children say."

PHILEMON. "Well, then, at your next court visit, let your gown rival the emblazoned aspect of these old purple vellums, and let stars of silver, thickly 'powdered' thereupon, emulate, if they dare, the silver capital Greek letters upon the purple membranaceous fragments which have survived the desolations of time! You see, I do not speak _coldly_ upon this picturesque subject!"

ALIMANSA. "Nor do I feel precisely as if I were in the _frigid_ zone!

But proceed and expatiate."

PHILEMON. "The field for expatiating is unluckily very limited. The fact of the more ancient MSS. before noticed, the _Pentateuch_ at _Vienna_, the fragment of the Gospels in the British Museum, with a Psalter or two in a few libraries abroad, are all the MSS. which just now occur to me as being distinguished by a _purple tint_, for I apprehend little more than a _tint_ remains. Whether the white or the purple vellum be the more ancient, I cannot take upon me to determine; but it is right you should be informed that St. Jerom denounces as _c.o.xcombs_, all those who, in his own time, were so violently attached to your favourite purple colour."

LISARDO. "I have a great respect for the literary attainments of St.

Jerom; and although in the absence of the old Italic version of the Greek Bible, I am willing to subscribe to the excellence of his own, or what is now called the _Vulgate_, yet in matters of taste, connected with the harmony of colour, you must excuse me if I choose to enter my protest against that venerable father's decision."

PHILEMON. "You appear to mistake the matter St. Jerom imagined that this appet.i.te for purple MSS. was rather artificial and voluptuous; requiring regulation and correction--and that, in the end, men would prefer the former colour to the intrinsic worth of their vellum treasures."

We must not omit the note appended to this colloquy.

"The general idea seems to be that PURPLE VELLUM MSS. were intended only for 'choice blades,' let us rather say, tasteful bibliomaniacs--in book collecting. St. Jerom, as Philemon above observes, is very biting in his sarcasm upon these 'purple leaves covered with letters of gold and silver.'--'For myself and my friends (adds that father), let us have lower priced books, and distinguished not so much for beauty as for accuracy.'

"Mabillon remarks that these purple treasures were for the 'princes'

and 'n.o.blemen' of the times.

"And we learn from the twelfth volume of the Specileginum of Theonas, that it is rather somewhat unseemly 'to write upon purple vellum in letters of gold and silver, unless at the particular desire of a prince.'"

"The _subject_ also of MSS. frequently regulated the mode of executing it. Thus we learn from the 28th Epistle of Boniface (Bishop and Martyr) to the abbess Eadburga, that this latter is entreated 'to write the Epistles of St. Peter, the master and Apostle of Boniface, in letters of gold, for the greater reverence to be paid towards the Sacred Scriptures, when the Abbess preaches before her carnally-minded auditors.'"

About the close of the seventh century the Archbishop of York procured for his church a copy of the Gospels thus adorned; and that this magnificent calligraphy was then new in England may be inferred from a remark made on it that "inauditam ante seculis nostris quoddam miraculam."

This art, however, shortly after declined everywhere; and in England the art of writing in gold letters, even without the rich addition of the purple-tinted material, seems to have been but imperfectly understood. The only remarkable instance of it is said to be the charter of King Edgar, in the new Minster at Winchester, in 966. In the fourteenth century it seems to have been more customary than in those immediately preceding it.

But we have been beguiled too long from that which alone is connected with our subject, viz., the _binding_ of books. Probably this was originally a plain and unadorned oaken cover; though as books were found only in monastic establishments, or in the mansions of the rich, even the cover soon became emblematic of its valuable contents.

The early ornaments of the back were chiefly of a religious character--a representation of the Virgin, of the infant Saviour, of the Crucifixion. Dibdin mentions a Latin Psalter of the ninth century in this primitive and substantial binding, and on the oaken board was riveted a large bra.s.s crucifix, originally, probably, washed with silver; and also a MS. of the Latin Gospels of the twelfth or thirteenth century, in oaken covers, inlaid with pieces of carved ivory, representing our Saviour with an angel above him, and the Virgin and Child.

The carved ivory may probably be a subsequent interpolation, but it does not the less exemplify the practice. But as the taste for luxury and ornament increased, and the bindings, even the clumsy wooden ones, became more gorgeously decorated--the most costly gems and precious stones being frequently inlaid with the golden ornaments--the shape and form of them was altogether altered. With a view to the preservation and the safety of the riches lavished on them, the bindings were made double, each side being perhaps two inches thick; and on a spring being touched, or a secret lock opened, it divided, almost like the opening of a cupboard-door, and displayed the rich ornament and treasure within; whilst, when closed, the outside had only the appearance of a plain, somewhat clumsy binding.

At that time, too, books were ranged on shelves with the leaves in front; therefore great pains were taken, both in the decoration of the edges, and also in the rich and ornamental clasps and strings which united the wooden sides. These clasps were frequently of gold, inlaid with jewels.

The wooden sides were afterwards covered with leather, with vellum, with velvet,--though probably there is no specimen of velvet binding before the fourteenth century; and, indeed, as time advanced, there is scarcely any substance which was not applied to this purpose. Queen Elizabeth had a little volume of prayers bound in solid gold, which at prayer-time she suspended by a gold chain at her side; and we saw, a few years ago, a small devotional book which belonged to the Martyr-King, Charles, and which was given by him to the ancestress of the friend who showed it to us, beautifully bound in tortoise-sh.e.l.l and finely-carved silver.

But it was not to gold and precious stones alone that the bindings of former days were indebted for their beauty. The richest and rarest devices of the needlewoman were often wrought on the velvet, or brocade, which became more exclusively the fas.h.i.+onable material for binding. This seems to have been a favourite occupation of the high-born dames about Elizabeth's day; and, indeed, if we remember the new-born pa.s.sion for books, which was at its height about that time, we shall not wonder at their industry being displayed on the covers as well as the insides[127]. But very probably this had been a favourite object for the needle long before this time, though unhappily the fragility of the work was equal to its beauty, and these needleworked covers have doubtless, in very many instances, been replaced by more substantial binding.

The earliest specimen of this description of binding remaining in the British Museum is "Fichetus (Guil.) Rhetoric.u.m, Libri tres. (Impr. in Membranis) 4to. Paris ad Sorbonae, 1471." It has an illuminated t.i.tle-page, showing the author presenting, on his knees, his book to the Pope; and it is decorated throughout with illuminated letters and other ornaments; for long after the invention of printing, blank s.p.a.ces were left, for the capitals and headings to be filled up by the pencil. Hence it is that we find some books quite incomplete; these s.p.a.ces having been left, and not filled up.

When the art of illuminating still more failed, the red ink was used as a subst.i.tute, and everybody is acquainted with books of this style.

The binding of Fitchet's 'Rhetoric' is covered with crimson satin, on which is wrought with the needle a coat-of-arms: a lion rampant in gold thread, in a blue field, with a transverse badge in scarlet silk; the minor ornaments are all wrought in fine gold thread.

The next in date which I have seen there is a description of the Holy Land, in French, written in Henry VII.'s time, and illuminated. It is bound in rich maroon velvet, with the royal arms: the garter and motto embroidered in blue; the ground crimson; and the fleurs-de-lys, leopards, and letters of the motto in gold thread. A coronet, or crown, of gold thread, is inwrought with pearls; the roses at the corners are in red silk and gold; and there is a narrow border round the whole in burnished gold thread.

There is an edition of Petrarch's Sonnets, printed at Venice in 1544.

It is in beautiful preservation. The back is of dark crimson velvet, and on each side is wrought a large royal coat-of-arms, in silk and gold, highly raised. The book belonged to Edward VI., but the arms are not his.

Queen Mary's Psalter, containing also the history of the Old Testament in a series of small paintings, and the work richly illuminated throughout, had once an exterior worthy of it. The crimson velvet, of which only small particles remain to attest its pristine richness, is literally thread-bare; and the highly-raised embroidery of a ma.s.sy fleur-de-lys is also worn to the canvas on which it was wrought. On one side scarcely a gold thread remains, which enables one, however, to perceive that the embroidery was done on fine canvas, or, perhaps, rather coa.r.s.e linen, twofold: that then it was laid on the velvet, seamed to it, and the edges cut away, the st.i.tches round the edge being covered with a kind of cordon, or golden thread, sewed over;--just, indeed, as we sew muslin on net.

There are three, in the same depository, of the date of Queen Elizabeth. One a book of prayers, copied out by herself before she ascended the throne. The back is covered with canvas, wrought all over in a kind of tentst.i.tch of rich crimson silk, and silver thread intermixed. This groundwork may or may not be the work of the needle, but there is little doubt that Elizabeth's own needle wrought the ornaments thereon, viz., H. K. intertwined in the middle; a smaller H.

above and below, and roses in the corners; all raised high, and worked in blue silk and silver. This is the dedication of the book: "Ill.u.s.trissimo ac potentissimo Henrico octavo, Angliae, Franciae, Hiberniaeq. regi, fidei defensori, et secundum Christum ecclesiae Anglicanae et Hibernicae supremo capiti. Elizabeta Majest. S. humillima filia omne felicitatem precatur, et benedictionem suam suplex pet.i.t."

There is in the Bodleian library among the MSS. the epistles of St.

Paul, printed in old black letter, the binding of which was also queen Elizabeth's work; and her handwriting appears at the beginning, viz.

"August.--I walk many times into the pleasant fields of the Holy Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodliesome herbes of sentences by pruning: eate them by reading: chawe them by musing: and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together: that so having tasted thy sweeteness I may the less perceive the bitterness of this miserable life."

The covering is done in needlework by the queen (then princess) herself: on one side an embroidered star, on the other a heart, and round each, as borders, Latin sentences are wrought, such as "Beatus qui Divitias scripturae legens verba vert.i.t in opera."--"Vicit omnia pertinax virtus." &c., &c.[128]

There is a book in the British Museum, very _pet.i.te_, a MS containing a French Pastoral--date 1587--of which the satin or brocade back is loaded with needlework in gold and silver, which now, however, looks heavy and tasteless.

But the most beautiful is Archbishop Parker's, "De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae:" A.D. 1572.

The material of the back is rich green velvet, but it is thickly covered with embroidery: there has not indeed, originally, been s.p.a.ce to lay a fourpenny-piece. It is entirely covered with animals and flowers, in green, crimson, lilac, and yellow silk, and gold thread.

Round the edge is a border about an inch broad, of gold thread.

Of the date of 1624 is a book of magnificent penmans.h.i.+p, by the hand of a female, of emblems and inscriptions. It is bound in crimson silk, having in the centre a Prince's Feather worked in gold-thread, with the feathers bound together with large pearls, and round it a wreath of leaves and flowers. Round the edge there is a broader wreath, with corner sprigs all in gold thread, thickly interspersed with spangles and gold leaves.

All these books, with the exception of the one quoted from Ballard's Memoirs, were most obligingly sought out and brought to me by the gentlemen at the British Museum. Probably there are more; but as, unfortunately for my purpose, the books there are catalogued according to their authors, their contents, or their intrinsic value, instead of their outward seeming, it is not easy, amidst three or four hundred thousand volumes, to pick out each insignificant book which may happen to be--

"In velvet bound and broider'd o'er."