21 October 2020
Angels in Manuscripts
Angels pop up all over the place in medieval manuscripts, from Books of Hours to handbooks on magic. They are key players in Old and New Testament stories and feature in decorative borders. Join us for a tour of some of the wonderful images of angels in British Library manuscripts and the many varied contexts in which they appear.
Angelology
An illustrated treatise by Francesc Eiximenis discusses the properties of angels, for instance ‘How an angelic spirit has no body and yet it can take on corporeal form by entering a body’ and the characteristics of good and bad angels. Each man and woman must choose between the angels’ path of goodness and the evil ways of the devil, as shown in this miniature below.
The Breviari d’Amour, an encyclopaedic work in the Catalan language with the emphasis on theological and courtly traditions, contains a section on the offices or tasks of angels, which include seeing off the devil, interceding with Christ for humanity and carrying souls to Heaven.
Angels in the Old Testament
Angels play a leading role in some of the best-known stories in both the Old and New Testaments. In Genesis, when Adam and Eve are banished from Paradise for eating the forbidden fruit, an angel with a flaming sword bars the gate to the garden and they are forced out into the world where they have to work hard for their livelihood.
In the Old Testament story of Jacob, grandson of Abraham, he has a vision of a ladder reaching to heaven with angels climbing up and down, and he hears God’s voice blessing him from above. In his old age, returning home to the land of Canaan after a long exile, he wrestles with an angel all night, remaining unbeaten, and receives a blessing, being given the name ‘Israel’. These two episodes are illustrated as part of a prefatory set of images from the Bible in the Omne Bonum, an alphabetical encyclopedia of general knowledge written by James le Palmer, Clerk of the Exchequer in c. 1360.
Angels and the Birth of Christ
The Feast of the Annunciation is one of the most important in the medieval church calendar. Pictures of the Angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary to announce that she will give birth to Christ are found in Books of Hours, Missals, Psalters and Bibles. A search using the term ‘Annunciation’ in the ‘Image description’ field of our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts produces 166 results, one of the earliest being the Echternach Gospels from the mid-11th century, where a full-page illumination of this scene precedes the Gospel of Matthew.
Angels sometimes appear in scenes of the Nativity, including this charming depiction of a helpful angel preparing a bath for the newborn Christ in the stable, while the baby plays with the donkey, Mary rests, and Joseph looks on with his arms crossed. This is just one example of how useful angels can be to have around.
Angels in Revelation
Angels play a key role as the agents of God’s plan for the end of the world in Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. They guide John in his vision and bring about disasters on earth: seven angels are given seven trumpets to blow, causing a series of cataclysmic events, and later, seven angels use seven censers to pour out plagues on earth.
In Revelation, a war takes place in heaven between the forces of good, led by the archangel Michael and the evil followers of the dragon, or the devil. The Tiberius Psalter from mid-11th century Winchester contains a colour outline drawing of St Michael defeating the dragon, as part of a series of scenes from the Bible.
Angels in saints lives
Two of the leading English saints, Cuthbert and Guthlac, were visited by angels, as shown in their illustrated hagiographies. According to the Venerable Bede’s account of his life, St Cuthbert, who became bishop of Lindisfarne, was visited in his youth by an angel disguised as a weary traveller. In this scene, Cuthbert has seated the traveller at his table and is washing his feet, showing Christ-like humility. Here the artist has cleverly dressed the figure in the hooded cloak of a traveller or pilgrim, but has included angels’ wings to show his true nature.
The life of Guthlac, the Mercian hermit-saint, is told in a series of roundels on a parchment roll produced in Lincolnshire in c. 1200. He builds a cell on the island of Crowland, where he is visited by an angel and St Bartholemew.
Good and Bad Angels
As Revelation shows, not all angels are benign. In the Divine Comedy, when Dante reaches paradise with Beatrice, they see the Archangels Michael and Raphael battling the bad angels (who fell from grace with Lucifer) and casting them into hell.
Beliefs about angels were not always sanctioned by the Church as they could sometimes cross over into the occult. A book of magic from the 16th century known as the Sworn Book of Honorius has a section on how to summon heavenly intermediaries so that they will impart knowledge of all things to the user. Both good and bad angels are pictured and named on this page. The images themselves were believed to have magical properties.
Good and bad, useful and militant, it's clear that angels hold an important place in medieval illumination. Explore more amazing images on our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts and Digitised Manuscripts sites.
Chantry Westwell
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
06 October 2020
Early medieval interlace – a distinctive or ubiquitous feature?
Regular readers of this blog are likely familiar with splendid examples of ‘Insular’ art — the art of the islands of Britain and Ireland from the 7th to 9th centuries. The iconic Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the most well-known, but you can also admire several examples on the webspace for the recent Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition.
As is clear from this initial from the Tiberius Bede, one of the main decorative elements of Insular art is the incorporation of delicately drawn interlacing knotwork designs. The inside of the letter is decorated with interlacing ribbons on a black ink background. The tongue of the beast’s head at the top of the letter also interweaves with itself. Patterns like this are still closely associated with Irish, Scottish, and Welsh cultural identity, often called ‘Celtic knotwork’.
Intricate interlace designs are also an important element of the style of manuscript art known as ‘Franco-Saxon’. ‘Franco’ refers to Francia (the kingdom of the Franks), where this style originated. The ‘Saxon’ part of the term refers to the incorporation of Insular decorative motifs (when this term was coined in the late 19th century Insular art was often called ‘Hiberno-Saxon’). In general, the Franco-Saxon style is characterised by a fusion of motifs based on Insular models and features of layout, decoration, and script of the Carolingian manuscript tradition. The Carolingian dynasty seized control over the area roughly corresponding to modern-day France from 751, expanded the kingdom, and ruled (intermittently) until 987.
Interlace is usually described as one of the most defining Insular components of the Franco-Saxon style. Interlace decoration has also been seen as evidence of the spread of this style to the scriptorium of Saint-Martin of Tours during the second half of the 9th century. The Benedictine abbey of Saint-Martin of Tours was one of the most influential centres of manuscript production in the Carolingian empire in the early decades of the century. However, in 853 Tours was attacked by one of the Norse war bands who carried out raids along the rivers of France. To help restore the Abbey’s destroyed library, books from other Carolingian centres were sent to the monks of Tours. We know that at least one of those manuscripts was a Franco-Saxon manuscript from Saint-Amand, one of the main centres of the Franco-Saxon style.
Consequently, the decoration in manuscripts made at Tours in the decades after the attack of 853 has been described as incorporating the Franco-Saxon style into the diverse and well-developed Tours style. This Gospel book from Tours, digitised as part of the Polonsky project (Add MS 11849), is one example of this. The golden ribbons that both form the outline of the ligature ‘LI’ (Liber) (book) as well as interlaced designs within the letter and at their terminals, have been compared to decorated initials in well-known Franco-Saxon manuscripts.
But there is a problem with using the presence of interlace as a distinguishing feature of an early medieval style. When you start to look at early medieval manuscripts from across northern Europe, you quickly notice that interlacing knotwork decoration is an omnipresent decorative element.
For example, in the area that is now Belgium and the Southern Netherlands, interlace in a slightly different variant was also common during this period. Here it is incorporated within the stem of the initial ‘D’ as well as in a design within the letter, in red and brown ink.
Similarly, interlace is also present in contemporary manuscripts that were most likely made in Brittany, which was never incorporated fully into the Carolingian empire. Perhaps that is why manuscript art from this area often continued to resemble Frankish manuscripts created before the spread of Carolingian influence (i.e. before c. 750).
Further south, in Northern Italy, early medieval manuscripts also feature interlace in their decorated initials. This is apparent in a late 8th-early 9th manuscript (now Cotton MS Nero A II), which has a large initial ‘D’, with its ascender swooping to the left. The letter incorporates knotwork patterns within its rounded bowl, while another interlace design of thicker ribbons continues and reaches inside the bowl.
Insular artists, responsible for creations like the Lindisfarne Gospels, undeniably mastered the basic principles of interlacing knotwork and created incredibly intricate and imaginative designs. As a type of pattern in itself, however, it was such a ubiquitous feature of early medieval European art that its presence in a manuscript does not necessarily indicate specifically Insular influence.
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
Part of the Polonsky Digitisation Project
Supported by
03 October 2020
The Bamberg Book of Relics
The Bamberg Book of Relics (Add MS 15689) represents the medieval treasure trove of Bamberg Cathedral. It contains more than 100 illustrations of highly decorated containers with the physical remains of holy men and women, fragments of the sites they visited, and the objects they touched. The relics and their containers (reliquaries) are organised by shape, and include banners, vestments, vessels (monstrances), busts, caskets and crosses. Among the most prized relics are those associated with the life of Christ, such as hair of the Virgin Mary, pieces of the Holy Cross, one of the nails from the Crucifixion, and incense that the Three Magi presented to the infant Christ.
A reliquary containing incense that the Three Magi presented to Christ: Add MS 15689, f. 6r
Prominent in this manuscript are the relics of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II (973–1024) and his wife Cunigunde of Luxembourg (975–1040). Henry, the last monarch of the Ottonian dynasty, and Cunigunde, a descendant of Charlemagne, were strongly connected to Bamberg. Upon their marriage, Henry gave Cunigunde his land in Bamberg as a wedding gift. In 1002, he founded Bamberg Cathedral, which was consecrated on his birthday in 1012, and in 1007 he established the new bishopric of Bamberg. As founders and patrons, Henry and Cunigunde were buried inside Bamberg Cathedral. Their shared tomb, made by the famous German sculptor Tilman Riemenschnieder (c. 1460–1531), can still be seen today.
Henry and Cunigunde were canonised in 1146 and 1200 respectively, which makes them the only saintly imperial couple in history. Among their relics are Henry’s banner that he took with him in his various wars; according to this manuscript, he was carrying it with him when St Lawrence, St Adrian and St George appeared to aid him in battle.
The banner and Star Mantle of Henry II: Add MS 15689, f. 2r
The manuscript testifies to the veneration of Henry and Cunigunde's garments. A blue mantle may represent Henry's Star Mantle (‘Sternenmantel’), which features astrological signs and images of Christ, saints, and the symbols of the four Evangelists, in gold embroidery. Henry or Cunigunde donated the mantle to Bamberg Cathedral where it is kept today in the Diocesan Museum, making it the oldest surviving European cope. Another blue mantle seems to represent the Cope of Cunigunde, which features gold-embroidered scenes relating to the life of Christ and the martyrdoms of St Peter and St Paul, the patron saints of Bamberg Cathedral. These are also the main subjects of Cunigunde’s Great Mantle, another important garment that is perhaps depicted below the Cope.
The Cope and Great Mantle of Cunigunde: Add MS 15689, f. 3r
Other relics that are associated with Henry and Cunigunde concern contact relics — objects they touched during their lives — and physical remains. An example of the first category is the sword of St Adrian, an early Christian military officer and martyr, and which was used by Henry to fight ‘unbelievers’ (‘unglaubigen’).
St Adrian's sword: Add MS 15689, f. 3v
Another contact relic is Cunigunde’s glove, still featuring her wedding ring. According to medieval legend, she once dropped it while praying in Bamberg Cathedral, but it was miraculously caught and returned to her by a ray of sunlight.
Cunigunde’s glove and marriage ring: Add MS 15689, f. 20r
Several of the reliquaries contained physical remnants of the imperial couple, including monstrances with fragments of Henry’s lower jaw and throat, and a crystal jug with a lock of Cunigunde’s hair.
Reliquaries with the lower jaw and throat of Henry II: Add MS 15689, f. 4r
A reliquary with Cunigunde’s hair: Add MS 15689, f. 20v
Since the 14th century, Bamberg Cathedral has presented its relics in public. The Book of Relics was used for announcing the various objects as they were displayed, sometimes from an elevated location, to Bamberg’s citizens. Like the cathedral’s relics of Christ and the Virgin Mary, those of Henry and Cunigunde were given an important sacred status, with the citizens believing that they could gain absolution of sin by beholding them.
A public presentation of Bamberg Cathedral’s relics: Add MS 15689, f. 36r
You can now follow in this medieval tradition by seeing some of the most splendid relics from the Bamberg Book of Relics on display at Bamberg Cathedral. The Diocesan Museum is currently showing the manuscript in an exhibition on the imperial garments, that runs until 1 November 2020.
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
22 September 2020
Great medieval bake off
With the return of the Great British Bake Off to our screens, it’s the perfect time to crack out the baking skills! We’ve explored before how baking skills were highly valued in the Middle Ages, so this time we thought we’d put some medieval recipes to the test. Using authentic recipes from manuscripts held in the Library, amateur bakers from the BLMedieval team are battling it out to be crowned the Medieval Bake Off Champion. Who will triumph?
On your marks, get set, bake!
Ellie's recipe: sambocade
Take and make a crust in a trap, and take cruddes and wryng out þe wheyze, and drawe hem þurgh a straynour, and put in þe straynour crustes. Do þerto sugar the þridde part and somdel whyte of ayren, and shake þerin blomes of elren, and bake it up with eurose, and messe it forth.
Take and make a crust in a dish and take curds and wring out the whey and draw them through a strainer and put in the crust. Add a third part of sugar and some egg whites and shake in elderflowers and bake it up with rose water and serve it up.
Named after the Latin for the common elder tree (sambucus nigra), sambocade is a curd tart flavoured with elderflowers. I mixed 550g curd cheese (I used a Polish variety called twaróg) with 1/3 of a cup of unrefined demerara sugar, 3 egg whites, the flowers from 5 heads of fresh elderflowers (picked when they were in season in May), and a dash of rosewater. I also departed from the recipe by adding a dash of elderflower cordial. I made a shortcrust pastry shell in a 9-inch tart dish, blind-baked it at 160° for 10 minutes in a fan oven, then added the filling and baked it for about 50 minutes. By then, the tart was golden on top and the filling had set to a springy consistency which rippled satisfyingly when I tapped it with the back of a spoon.
I 'messed it forth' and was surprised to find that the filling tastes powerfully floral, with the elderflower and rose combining into a glorious bouquet of flavour. The curd is rich and slightly tangy with a crumbly and juicy texture, contrasting with the crisp pastry. It reminds me of Yorkshire curd tarts, fragrant hedgerows and long summer days in the countryside.
Clarck’s recipe: comadre
Take figus reysingus, pyke hem clene, and scalde hem in wyne, and grynde hem smal. Cast sugur in þo self wyne, and founde hem to gedre, and drawe hit up þorow a straynour, and alye up þi frute þerwyt. Take peres and apples, pare hem, take þe best and grynde small, and do þerto. Set a potte on þe fyre, with oyle, and cast al þis þerin, and styre hyt and hepe hit wel fro brennyng. Wen hit his ifoundede, cast þerto poudur gynger, canel, galinga, clowes hole, and maces hole. Cast þerto pines a lytel fryede in oyle, and salt. Wen hit is ifryede, take hit up anon, and do hit in a vessel, and let hit cole, wene hit is colde kerve hit oute with a kynne [sic] on smale peces, as myche as þi lytel fyngur, and close hit in gode paste, and fry hem in oyle harde, and serve hem forth.
Take figs and raisins, pick them clean, scald them in wine, and grind them small. Add sugar to the same wine and mix them together. Push it [the wine] through a strainer and mix your fruit with it. Take pears and apples, peel them, take the best pieces and grind them small. Set a pot with oil on the fire and put everything in it, stir it, and prevent it from burning. When it is mixed, add ginger powder, cinnamon, galingale, whole cloves, and whole nutmeg seeds. Add pine nuts briefly fried in oil and salt. When it is fried, take it out and put it in a vessel and let it cool. When it is cold, cut out with a knife small pieces that are the size of your little finger. Roll the pieces in good pastry, fry them hard in oil, and serve them forth.
Comadre is a pastry filling that, as its possible Latin source comedere (to devour) suggests, is gobble-worthy indeed. After cutting up and boiling about half a kilo of figs and raisins in red wine with a few teaspoons of sugar, I mashed the figs and raisins up with peeled and cored apples and pears (5 of each). I left the fruit mixture to simmer in an open pan for about 20 minutes while stirring and adding the required spices —using galangal paste for ‘galinga’— and fried and salted pine nuts to my own liking. After leaving the filling in the fridge for a couple of hours, I took finger-sized portions and wrapped them in dairy-free pastry dough. Instead of frying the pastries in oil, I baked them in the oven for about 15 minutes at 220°C. Rich in flavour and with a long and refreshing aftertaste, comadre, also known as ‘comedie’, put a smile to my face.
Calum’s recipe: crispis
Take floure of payndemayne and medle hyt with wyte of eyren. Set wyte gres on þo fyre in a chaufer and do þi batur þerin coyntely with þo fyngurus, and bake hyt a lytel. If þow wolt colour hyt with alkenet ifoundede. take hem up, and cast on sugur, and serve hyt forth.
Take flour of pandemain (a fine white bread) and mix it with egg white. Put white grease (fat or lard) in a pan and add the batter carefully with your fingers and bake it a little. If you wish, colour it with alkenet (a herb used as a red colorant). Take them out, sprinkle with sugar and serve it up.
The recipe for crispis (the Middle English word for ‘curly’ or ‘wrinkled’) from the Forme of Cury is one of the simplest in the collection, only requiring a few ingredients to make. Perhaps this is the reason why versions of the dish are common to almost all major recipe collections that survive from the late medieval period. The recipe appears to describe a type of battered fritter – a cross between a pancake and doughnut, but without a filling.
For my interpretation of the recipe, I whisked three egg whites together with a small amount of water and about two tablespoons of honey. Then I took 50g of plain flour, made a well in the top and folded in the wet ingredients to create the batter. The mixture fell apart rather quickly when I added it to the oil, so I incorporated more flour to thicken. The batter eventually came together and gained a smooth consistency. I dropped a tablespoon of the mix into a pan of oil about 2 inches deep and fried it on a medium heat, flipping it over so that both sides would colour equally. The cooking time was short, no more than 3 minutes. The edges of the fritters crimped as they puffed up, so that they resembled a kind of Yorkshire pudding. I topped the finished plate of crispis with a few dollops of honey and a thick dusting of icing sugar. The result was a delicious bite-size snack with a soft crumb and a light texture that was not overly sweet, but dangerously moreish!
In the absence of Paul and Prue, we asked the public to decide who will be the winner of Great Medieval Bake Off. Voting via our online poll has now closed and we can confirm that the winner is Ellie with her delicious sambocade! Her prize: a medieval handshake and a copy of the Library's renowned unicorn cookbook. Thanks to all who took part!
And if this blogpost has whetted your appetite, take a look at the delicious line-up of digital events celebrating, exploring and debating food as part of the British Library’s food season (14 September-20 October 2020).
Ellie Jackson, Clarck Drieshen and Calum Cockburn
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
***disclaimer: these recipes were made in the authors' own time and at their own expense. No Library resources were used in the making of these medieval treats! ***
03 September 2020
The Holy Kinship
The brief references to the family of the Virgin Mary and Christ in the Bible inspired the development of extra-biblical traditions that were popular in the Middle Ages. In his account of the birth of the Virgin Mary in The Golden Legend, the Dominican Jacobus de Voragine described the Virgin’s immediate family in some detail, in relationships that have come to be known as the Holy Kinship.
One of the most intriguing and rare depictions of these connections occurs in the extensive prefatory material to the Queen Mary Psalter (Royal MS 2 B VII). In a recent study, only four other Gothic manuscript images of the Kinship were identified (Stanton 1996). This lavish manuscript was made probably in London in the first quarter of the 14th century, and illustrated by one very talented artist.
According to Voragine’s account, the Virgin Mary’s mother, St Anne, had three husbands, Joachim, Cleophas and Salome, and had a daughter with each of them, all called Mary. In the Psalter, Anne with each of her husbands appears in the lowest register of the image.
Directly above are the daughters of each marriage together with their husbands, in this case identified with their names written in the bar below that separates the two registers. Here St Joseph and the Virgin Mary are on the left, Alphaeus and the second daughter Mary (known as Mary Cleophas) in the centre, and Zebedee and the third Mary (known as Mary Salome) are the right.
The figures in the top two registers are the sons of these unions. In the second, the Virgin is shown again, holding the Christ Child on her lap. Next to them is St James the Less, one of the four sons of Mary Cleophas, and next to him St James the Great, the son of Mary Salome.
In the top register Christ appears on his own to the left, here in Majesty, holding a globe of the world. Next to him are Sts Simon and Jude, two further sons of Mary Cleophas who became apostles, and St John the Evangelist, the other son of Mary Salome.
The caption written in Anglo-Norman French below confirms the relationships:
Seint anne fu mariez a iii mariz a Joachim a Cleophe a Salomee. E ele enfaunta les iii maries. Joseph out la p[ri]mère. Alpheus la ii Zebedeus la iii. La p[ri]mère marie aporta ih[esu] c[ri]st. La secu[n]de porta seint Jake alphei e sent symo[n]. e seint Jude la iii porta seint Jake de galice Zebedeie seint Johan evvangeliste.
Saint Anne was married to three husbands: to Joachim, to Cleophas and to Salome. And she bore children, the three Marys. Joseph married the first [Mary], Alpheus the second, Zebedee the third. The first Mary carried Jesus Christ. The second carried St James the son of Alphaeus [the Less] and St Simon and St Jude. The third carried St James of Galicia [the Great] by Zebedee and St John the Evangelist.
(Transcription and translation by Chantry Westwell)
This French summary is similar to a Latin poem given in the Golden Legend:
Anna solet dici tres concepisse Marias,
Quas genuere viri Joachim, Cleophas, Salomeque.
Has duxere viri Joseph, Alpheus, Zebedeus.
Prima parit Christum, Jacobum secunda minorem,
Et Joseph justum peperit cum Simone Judam,
Tertia majorem Jacobum volucremque Johannem.Anna is usually said to have conceived three Marys,
Whom her husbands Joachim, Cleophas, and Salome begot.
These [Marys] the men Joseph, Alpheus, and Zebedee took in marriage.
The first bore Christ; the second bore James the Less,
Joseph the Just, with Simon [and] Jude;
The third, James the Greater and the winged John.(Translation by Ryan 1993, II, chapter 131, p. 150)
This diagrammatic presentation emphasises the importance of the Virgin and Christ by picturing each twice. Perhaps this also relates to the image on the facing page, which is a large Tree of Jesse. The four registers of the Holy Kinship correspond with the levels of the Tree. At the bottom the recumbent Jesse, the ancestor of David, is at the same level as Anne, the ancestor of the Virgin. Unlike most representations of the Tree of Jesse, this one doesn’t feature the Virgin or Christ who appear instead in the Kinship diagram.
The text of the Golden Legend as it relates to the Holy Kinship is derived from earlier commentaries. The earliest known account in Old English is included in a 12th-century copy, now Cotton MS Vespasian D XIV:
Anna 7 Emeria wæron gesustre. Of Emeria wæs geboren Elisabeth, Johannes moder þæs fulhteres. Of Anna wæs geboren Maria Cr[is]tes moder. 7 þa þa hire were Joachim wæs forðfaren, þa genam Anna æfter Moyses æ oðerne were, þe wæs genæmd Cleophas. Of þan heo hæfde an oðre dohter, seo wæs eac genæmd Maria æfter þære ærre dohter, þas man cleopeð Maria Cleophe for heo wæs his dohter. Ða beweddede Cleophas Iosephe his broðre Marian þæs hælendes moder þe wæs his steopdohter. 7 his age ne dohter Mariæn he geaf Alpheon, of þære wæs geboren Jacob se læsse, 7 se oðer Joseph. Ðes Jacob wæs geclypod Jacobus Alphei for he wæs Alphees sune. Ðaget æfter Cleophas deaðe Anna æft[er] þære lage genam þone þridde were, þan wæs to name Salomas, of him heo hæfde þa þridde dohter, 7 þa heo genæmden eac Marien, for þære deorewurðnysse of þære forme dohter, 7 forþan þe se ængel brohte þone name. Seo wæs bewedded Zebedeo, of þære wæron geborene Jacob se mycele, 7 Joh[ann]es se godspellere. Maria wæs læsse Jacobes moder, 7 Maria wæs mare Jacobes moder 7 Joh[ann]es þæs gospelleres, 7 Maria seo Magdalenissce sohton urne Drihten mid smerigeles inne his þruge þa þa he bebyriged wæs.
Anna and Emeria were sisters. Of Emeria was born Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist. Of Anna was born Mary, mother of Christ. And when her husband Joachim had passed on, then Anna according to the law of Moses, took another husband, who was named Cleophas. From him she had another daughter, who was also named Mary after the older daughter, whom her husband called Mary Cleophas because she was his daughter. Then Cleophas married Mary, mother of the Saviour, who was his step-daughter, to his brother Joseph. And he gave his own daughter Mary to Alpheus, from whom was born James the Less, and another Joseph. This James was called James Alpheus, because he was Alpheus’ son. After the death of Cleophas, Anne following the law took a third husband, who was named Salome, from whom she had a third daughter, and she was also named Mary, because of the preciousness of her first daughter, and because an angel brought her the name. She was married to Zebedee, from whom were born James the Great and John the Evangelist. Mary was the mother of James the Less, and Mary was the mother of James the Greater and John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene sought our Lord with ointment inside his tomb when he had been buried.
(Transcription and translation by Calum Cockburn)
The earliest English depiction of the Kinship has been identified by Park and Naydenova-Slade as marginal drawings in a 12th-century commentary from Kirkham Priory in Yorkshire, now Arundel MS 36. This manuscript was digitised as part of the Polonsky Foundation England and France 800-1200 project, available on the British Library's Digitised Manuscripts site, and on the Bibliothèque nationale de France project website.
Here the images are limited to busts of three couples, each labelled with their names below: at the top, Joachim and St Anne, in the centre, St Joseph and the Virgin with the dove of the Holy Spirit, and at the bottom, Alpheus and Mary Cleophas. The images appear in the margins of a prologue to the following text entitled De Nativitate Sanctae Mariae. This letter or prologue does not describe the Holy Kinship. Instead, Park and Naydenova-Slade suggest that its inclusion is a visual commentary on a passage in the Nativitate on the children of St Joseph.
Kathleen Doyle
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
Further reading
Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. by William Granger Ryan, 2 vols (Princeton: University Press, 1993), II, chapter 131.
Anne Rudloff Stanton, 'La Genealogye Comence: Kinship and Difference in the Queen Mary Psalter', Studies in Iconography, 17 (1996), 177-214.
David Park and Mellie Naydenova-Slade, ‘The earliest Holy Kinship image, the Salomite controversy, and a little-known centre of Learning in northern England in the twelfth century’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 71 (2008), 95-119.
Part of the Polonsky Digitisation Project
Supported by
30 August 2020
Elizabeth Elstob, Old English scholar, and the Harleian Library
Elizabeth Elstob (1683–1758) is considered to be the first female scholar of Old English and one of the earliest advocates of women’s education. She was supported in her scholarly pursuits by Robert Harley (1661–1724), 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, the founder of the Harley collection, and his Library-Keeper Humfrey Wanley (1672–1726), another renowned scholar of Old English.
The youngest of eight siblings born to a merchant family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Elizabeth initially received private education under her mother’s tutelage. When her mother died in 1691, she was sent to her uncle Charles Elstob, Prebendary of Canterbury, who was opposed to the education of women. Despite his disapproval, Elizabeth began studying ancient and modern languages. She subsequently moved in with her brother William, a clergyman and scholar in Oxford, who introduced her to the leading Old English scholars of their day. In 1702, they moved to London where she began publishing major works on the Old English language.
An engraved portrait of Elizabeth Elstob: Add MS 29300, f. 39r
Among Elizabeth’s publications were an edition of the Latin Athanasian Creed with an Old English interlinear gloss (1708); an edition and translation of the Old English Life of Pope Gregory the Great by the Benedictine monk Ælfric of Eynsham (1709); and The Rudiments of Grammar for the English-Saxon Tongue (1715). The latter was the first grammar of Old English published in modern English. Up to that point, scholarship on Old English had been mostly in Latin, so this was an important publication for making the study of Old English more accessible to students and amateur female scholars alike. While preparing a complete edition of Ælfric’s Homilies, she worked with her brother William on his editions of the Old English adaptation of Orosius’s History of the World and Old English legal texts.
The initials of William Elstob and Elizabeth Elstob from a transcript of Textus Roffensis which they collated with the original manuscript in 1712: Stowe MS 960, f. 3r
During her career, Elizabeth received the support of Robert Harley at a time when he practically was Prime Minister and enjoyed great proximity to Queen Anne (1665–1714). On two occasions, she petitioned Harley for financial support from Queen Anne in order to publishing her edition of Ælfric’s Homilies. She was successful in her second attempt, as evidenced from a letter in which she thanked him ‘for so great a Favour’.
Elizabeth Elstob’s letter to Robert Harley: Harley MS 7524, f. 30r
During her career, Elizabeth was in close contact with Humfrey Wanley, Library-Keeper of the Harleian collection. Aside from consulting manuscripts herself at the Bodleian Library and the Cottonian Library, she made ample use of Wanley’s catalogue of Old English manuscripts that he had published in 1705 with the support of Robert Harley. Her respect for his work is clear from a letter dated 1709, in which she explained that she abandoned her plan to make an edition of the Psalms in Old English after learning that Wanley was already working on an edition of the Bible in Old English:
‘I had a design upon the Psalms, but since that, Mr. Wanley tells me he is preparing the whole Bible: of which the Psalms make a part, I cannot allow myself to interfere with so excellent a person, tho’ he has been so generous as to offer me, all the assistance he can give’
Elizabeth Elstob on Humfrey Wanley: Add MS 29300, f. 40r
Wanley also greatly valued Elizabeth’s scholarly work. He transcribed a manuscript at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, for her publication on the Old English Life of St Gregory, and he incorporated a number of her works into the Harleian Library. Elizabeth sent him a genealogy of the Elstob family to the year 1710, and a separate descent of her mother’s family, which traced her ancestry back to Brochwel Ysgithrog, a 6th-century king of Powys. Wanley was clearly impressed with the genealogies that she had expanded by researching and citing Old English and Latin sources. He inserted them into a 17th-century manuscript with pedigrees from the Palatinate of Durham; in cataloguing the manuscript, he attributed them to ‘that ingenious virgin gentlewoman Mrs Elstob’ (A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1808–12), II, p. 29).
The ancestry of Elizabeth Elstob’s mother Jane Hall, drawn up by her for Humfrey Wanley: Harley MS 1397, f. 238r
Wanley also expressed his appreciation when, in 1712, Elizabeth presented him a facsimile reproduction on parchment of an early 12th-century manuscript containing the 'Annals of Rochester' (Textus Roffensis), an important source for the study of law in early medieval England. Wanley paid her five guineas and catalogued the manuscript, noting that 'Mrs Elstob hath finely imitated the Hand-writing of the [...] Textus Roffensis' (Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts, II, p. 272).
Elizabeth Elstob’s facsimile of Textus Roffensis, featuring an initial decorated with Christ and a dragon: Harley MS 1866, f. 9r
The Harleian Library also obtained a second parchment manuscript with a facsimile of Textus Roffensis written and decorated by Elizabeth Elstob.
Elizabeth Elstob’s facsimile of King Alfred’s laws: Harley MS 6523, f. 9r
In 1715, Elizabeth’s scholarly career came to an abrupt end when her brother died suddenly. She was left with financial debts from their joint publishing projects and without any support, since Queen Anne had died before sending her the funding secured by Robert Harley. Perhaps in an attempt to flee her creditors, Elizabeth left London for Evesham (Worcestershire) where she lived in relative anonymity as a teacher at an elementary school for girls. She never returned to her scholarship and left her magnum opus, the complete edition of Ælfric’s Homilies, unfinished: her manuscript volumes survive at the British Library as Lansdowne MSS 370–374 and Egerton MS 838. However, Elizabeth Elstob did remain attached to the Harley collection in some small way. From 1739 until her death in 1758, she was governess to the children of Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (1715–1785), duchess of Portland, who, as granddaughter of Robert Harley, had inherited the Harley collection. Perhaps Elizabeth felt some comfort in returning to the family who had supported her scholarly pursuits, and whose collection, formed under her friend Wanley's direction, preserved her work.
Mechtild Gretsch, 'Elizabeth Elstob: A Scholar's Fight for Anglo-Saxon Studies', Anglia, 117 (199), 163–300, 481–524.
Jacqueline Way, '"Our Mother-Tongue": The Politics of Elizabeth Elstob's Antiquarian Scholarship', Huntington Library Quarterly, 78:3 (2015), 417-440.
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
27 August 2020
Digitisation of the Sherborne Missal
Weighing as much as the average 5-year-old child and containing more paintings than most art galleries, the Sherborne Missal is a titan of a manuscript. The breath-taking quality of its artwork has inspired art historians to declare it, 'the unrivalled masterpiece of English book production in the fifteenth century' (Kathleen Scott), and 'beyond question the most spectacular service book of English execution to have come down to us from the later Middle Ages' (Janet Backhouse).
It is particularly exciting, then, to announce that this exceptional manuscript is now available to view in full as a pilot project in our Universal Viewer.
The Sherborne Missal (Add MS 74236) is a service book containing all the texts required for celebrating Mass on the different feasts, holidays and saints’ days throughout the year. It was made for the Benedictine abbey of St Mary in Sherborne, Dorset, between approximately 1399 and 1407.
We know a surprising amount about the people responsible for creating the Sherborne Missal, largely because it calls attention to its patrons and makers at every opportunity. The book was probably commissioned by Robert Brunyng, the abbot of Sherborne from 1385–1415, whose image appears in the manuscript about a hundred times. It is hard to think of another medieval person for whom such a remarkable number of portraits survive. These portraits may also provide some insight into Brunyng’s tastes and personality. In two instances he is depicted with a group of small hunting dogs, which scholars have suggested may be his personal hounds. On many of the feast days he is shown wearing exceptionally fine vestments of brocade, embroidery and jewels.
On a number of occasions Brunyng is depicted together with Richard Mitford, bishop of Salisbury from 1396–1407, who may also have played a role in the patronage of the manuscript or was perhaps included to emphasise Sherborne Abbey’s close relationship with the bishopric.
The principal artist, a Dominican friar named John Siferwas, included his portrait and coat of arms several times in the manuscript. In one extraordinary instance, he depicted himself floating in the lower margin, his habit entwined around the branch of a rose bush which forms the lower border to the page, in the same way that angels are represented throughout the manuscript. Another of his surviving works is the Lovell Lectionary (Harley MS 7026), commissioned by John, Lord Lovell, for presentation to Salisbury Cathedral.
The Sherborne Missal also provides portraits of the master scribe, John Whas, who was probably a monk of Sherborne Abbey. Whas recorded his name in several colophons, for example, emphasising the physical effort of scribal work: 'John Whas the monk has worked to write this book, and rose early, his body becoming much wasted in the process' (Librum scribendo Ion Whas monachus laborat, Et mane surgendo corpus multum macerabat, p. 661).
With decoration on nearly all of its 694 pages, the Sherborne Missal contains thousands of images. It is particularly famous for its series of 48 highly illusionistic depictions of British birds in the margins of the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass, most of them inscribed with their names in Middle English. These birds are unique in medieval manuscript illumination both for their ornithological accuracy and for the rich variety of species shown.
Local pride in Sherborne and its venerable history is a running theme throughout the manuscript. The Preface of the Mass features a series of portraits of 25 bishops of Sherborne from the creation of the diocese in 705 to the transfer of the bishopric to Salisbury in 1075. Clearly the Abbey was eager to emphasise its historic significance as the original site of the bishop’s seat.
There is also a series of roundels in the lower borders of the Ordinary and Canon of the Mass that contain portraits of historic benefactors of the Abbey. They hold charters recording their gifts, the large seals hanging down into the margins.
Local Dorset saints are similarly prominent in the manuscript, such as St Juthwara, a pious virgin of the 6th century whose relics were housed at Sherborne Abbey. It is said that after being beheaded by her stepbrother, St Juthwara picked up her head and put it back on.
Select pages of the Sherborne Missal were previously published online as part of the Library's Turning the Pages project in 2002. We are now delighted to make the entire manuscript available to view through a pilot project on the Library’s Universal Viewer, a new viewer which offers a range of improved features. This pilot will be extended to include further collection items in due course.
The Sherborne Missal was purchased by the British Library in 1998 with generous support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
21 August 2020
Online resources for medieval manuscripts
In November 2018, we launched The Polonsky Foundation England and France 800-1200 Project. This ground-breaking collaboration between the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France digitised a total of 800 medieval manuscripts from our two collections. The British Library’s curated website, Medieval England and France, 700–1200 now includes its own downloadable list of all 400 British Library manuscripts that were featured in the project, in spreadsheet format and as a PDF. This list can be accessed from the website’s About page.
The bilingual site (available in both English and French) also offers our readers a wealth of resources on the early medieval period, including:
- Six broad themes covering art, history, science, religion, making manuscripts, and medieval manuscript collections today.
- 30 articles on a variety of subjects, from medieval science and maths to early medical knowledge, bindings, and monastic libraries.
- 148 collection items, providing short introductions to some of the most stunning manuscripts digitised during the project.
- Ten people pages, focusing on a selection of the major figures and authors active in England and France during the Middle Ages, from Bede and Anselm of Canterbury, to Emma of Normandy and William of Malmesbury.
- A video series that explores all the steps needed to make a manuscript, narrated by Patricia Lovett MBE, as well as two additional videos discussing scribal culture and the role of law in early medieval England, featuring Professors Julia Crick and Nick Vincent.
- Two animations based on accounts of the crane and the whale from an early medieval bestiary (Harley MS 4751).
- A glossary that defines important terms relating to medieval culture and art.
- An overview of the project itself and the collaboration between the British Library and Bibliothèque nationale de France.
We hope you enjoy exploring the Medieval England and France 800-1200 site and all the manuscripts digitised in the project!
Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval
Part of the Polonsky Digitisation Project
Supported by
Medieval manuscripts blog recent posts
- A knight's tale
- Annual manuscripts weigh-in
- Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts
- Medieval Women exhibition
- Chaucer at the Bodleian
- Interim information sources for British Library manuscripts
- Garendon cartulary acquired by the British Library
- Chaucer’s works go online
- The largest Greek manuscript?
- PhD Studentship opportunity: Medieval Women's Religious Communities
Archives
Tags
- Africa
- Alexander exhibition
- Ancient
- Anglo-Saxons
- Animals
- Black & Asian Britain
- British Library Treasures
- Calendars
- Classics
- Decoration
- Digital scholarship
- Early modern
- Elizabeth and Mary exhibition
- English
- Events
- Exhibitions
- Fashion
- Featured manuscripts
- French
- Gold exhibition
- Greek
- Harry Potter
- Humanities
- Illuminated manuscripts
- International
- Ireland
- Latin
- Law
- Leonardo
- LGBTQ+
- Literature
- Magna Carta
- Manuscripts
- Maps
- Medieval
- Medieval history
- Middle East
- Middle east
- Modern history
- Music
- Olympics
- Palaeography
- Polonsky
- Printed books
- Rare books
- Research collaboration
- Romance languages
- Royal
- sacred texts
- Sacred texts
- Science
- Scotland
- Slavonic
- South East Asia
- Visual arts
- Women's histories
- Writing