13 November 2020
PhD placement on Irish manuscripts
Are you doing a PhD using medieval or early modern manuscripts written in Irish? Perhaps you are considering a curatorial career? We are now advertising an opportunity to do a placement with us in the medieval manuscripts section at the British Library in 2021.
The Library holds a collection of over 200 Irish manuscripts which includes many important medical, literary and legal texts. Two of these manuscripts have recently been on loan. The 16th-century legal and grammatical miscellany compiled by Domhnall Ó Duibhdábhoirenn (Egerton MS 88) was loaned to Galway City Museum in 2019.
An Irish legal and grammatical miscellany: Egerton MS 88, f. 65r
And we loaned the Gospels of Máel Brigte (Harley MS 1802), produced in Armagh in the 12th century, to the Ulster Museum in Belfast this year.
The evangelist symbol of the lion of St Mark: Harley MS 1802, f. 60v
We are now advertising a placement for a PhD student with experience working with manuscripts written in Irish. The placement will focus on creating new online records and updating existing records in our Archives and Manuscripts catalogue. The placement is available for three months full-time, or up to six-months part-time, between May and December 2021. Full details are on our website.
The Library is currently participating in the Digital Resources for the Medieval Gaelic World network, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Irish Research Council. This network is focusing on the impact of digitisation on research into medieval Ireland and Scotland. We hope to extend the digital coverage of our Irish manuscripts in the future. The online catalogue records that the placement student works on will be an important first step towards that goal.
As well as working on the catalogue records, the successful applicant will be involved in a range of different curatorial activities. These will include helping to promote awareness and understanding of the Irish manuscripts in the Library’s collection so, if you fit the bill, you could find yourself writing your own posts about Irish manuscripts for this Blog next year.
The scheme is open to all current PhD students who have the right to study in the UK. International PhD students are eligible to apply, subject to meeting any UK short-term study visa requirements. Further details about eligibility, funding, conditions and how to apply are also on our website. The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday 18 December.
If you have any queries about the placement, you can email our colleagues in the Research Development team ([email protected]) who will be happy to help.
Claire Breay
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12 November 2020
Ottonian imperial style in Echternach Gospel-books
After the break-up of Charlemagne’s empire, his heirs continued his policy of patronising and commissioning great works of art. The king of East Francia, Otto I (d. 973), revived Charlemagne’s title of Holy Roman Emperor in 962, and together with his son and grandson (also Ottos) gave his name to a monumental, imperial artistic style now known as Ottonian art. These emperors and their Salian successors (a subgroup of Franks from the Lower Rhine area), Conrad II (r. 1024-39), and Henry III (r. 1039-56) commissioned some of the finest illuminated Gospel-books ever made.
A small but incredibly lavish group of these manuscripts were produced at the wealthy Benedictine Abbey of St Willibrord in Echternach, in modern day Luxembourg, 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Trier. These include two manuscripts now in the British Library, one in the Harley collection (Harley MS 2821) and one in the Egerton collection (Egerton MS 608).
One of the most remarkable aspects of the Harley Echternach Gospels is their use of fictive textiles as decoration, including facing pages painted to resemble silk before the individual Gospels. In many Echternach manuscripts the patterns are monochrome or in varying shades of the same colour, and include animals familiar from Byzantine silks, often in facing or opposing pairs. In the Harley example the patterns are more colourful and centralized, and resemble the patterns of Late Antique weaving or mosaic floors.
These decorative pages may serve to make the opening of the Gospel text a more revelatory event. In this sense they may be similar to the actual silk curtains remaining in some manuscripts which can be lifted to view individual miniatures, such as those in the Arnstein Bible which we blogged about previously.
In addition to their independent use as carpet pages, the textile patterns are used as marginal decoration for the first time in the Echternach Gospel-books (Nordenfalk, Codex (1971), p. 98). This is seen, for example, in the full border around the Evangelist portrait of St Mark and the facing depiction of the Nativity.
The painting of the figures is also highly stylised, using jewel-like vibrant colours. In content they are indebted to earlier models, with some innovations. For example, according to tradition, St Mark established the Church in Alexandria and was the first bishop there; in the Harley Echternach Gospels, he wears a chasuble, or outer vestment of a bishop, and he makes a gesture of blessing. This contrasts with the more typical portraits in which the Evangelists are depicted in the act of writing out their texts.
Opposite each of the Evangelists in the Harley Echternach Gospels is a full-page scene, reflecting four important episodes arranged in chronological order: the Annunciation faces St Matthew; the Nativity, St Mark; the Crucifixion, St Luke; and the Ascension, St John. This selection may result from the contraction of a much longer narrative cycle that appears in three of the surviving Echternach Gospel-books.
The Echternach Gospel-book in the Egerton collection has been digitised recently as part of The Polonsky Foundation Medieval England and France 700-1200 project. The similarities in composition, content and style with the Harley Echternach Gospels are immediately apparent. For example, the Evangelist portrait of St Mark also depicts him seated frontally, holding a book on his lap and making a gesture of blessing. His chair features dog-head and feet terminals, and St Mark is flanked by columns and curtains, with his symbol of the lion above. Opposite, the Nativity scene parallels the two-level composition in an enclosed architectural space, with the Child and animals above St Joseph and the Virgin.
The Egerton Echternach Gospels is a slightly smaller book and doesn’t include the patterned textile margins that are so prominent a feature of the more elaborate Echternach Gospel-books. However, it retains its thick original oak binding, with a hollow in the front cover. Originally it is likely that this space was filled with an ivory or metalwork plaque, and perhaps relics, indicating the importance and status of this still lavish Gospel-book.
Kathleen Doyle
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Further reading
Carl Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus Upsaliensis: An Echternach Gospel-Book of the Eleventh Century (Stockholm, 1971).
Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: A Historical Study, 2nd edition (London, 1999), pp. 186-205.
Part of the Polonsky Digitisation Project
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09 November 2020
Lewis of Caerleon manuscript saved for the nation
In August 1485, as the Battle of Bosworth raged and King Richard III was toppled from the throne of England, an astronomer lay imprisoned at the Tower of London. Lewis of Caerleon, the personal physician to Elizabeth Woodville (wife of King Edward IV) and Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of King Henry VII), had incurred Richard's wrath by his loyalty to the Tudor cause. Lewis owed his life ultimately to Henry's victory at Bosworth, enabling him to continue his study of eclipses, equinoxes and other astronomical observations.
The opening page of the manuscript: Add MS 89442, p. 1
Following the intervention of the Culture Secretary, on the recommendation of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, the most significant manuscript of the works of Lewis of Caerleon has recently been acquired by the British Library. Made in the 1480s–90s, and possibly begun while Lewis was held at the Tower, this manuscript has been in private hands for the last 500 years. It contains the most complete collection of his works, including texts that are unattested elsewhere, and is a lavish presentation copy, presumably designed as a gift for an important patron or institution. The manuscript retains its original binding, in near-pristine condition, and contains an unparalleled series of astronomical tables. Its acquisition will allow scholars of medieval astronomy and science — many of whose predecessors were unaware of the manuscript's existence — to identify Lewis's sources, to verify his calculations, and to gain new insight into the significance of his research.
The contemporary, blind-stamped binding of the manuscript: Add MS 89442
Lewis of Caerleon (d. in or after 1495) was born in Wales, before studying medicine at the University of Cambridge and possibly also at Oxford. It has long been recognised that he bridged the gap between medieval Oxford astronomers, such as Simon Bredon (d. 1372) and Richard Wallingford (d. 1336), both fellows of Merton College, and his early modern English successors. It is equally notable that Lewis of Caerleon drew upon the work of Arabic astronomers such as Al-Battānī (d. 929), Jabir ibn Aflah (d. c. 1160), and Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (d. 1087), all of whom are named in this compilation (‘Albategni’, ‘Geber’, ‘Arzachel’). But Lewis did not merely copy the works of previous astronomers, since he actively improved and expanded upon their observations using his own calculations.
An astronomical table attributed to Lewis of Caerleon, entitled: ‘Tabula equacionis dierum in motu et in tempore per me Lodowycum Caerlyon noviter facta anno domino .1485. in turre Londoniarum’: Add MS 89442, p. 121
Now that this manuscript is publicly accessible online, we anticipate that more will be discovered about the circumstances of its manufacture and its early ownership. There are indications that it was made under Lewis's own supervision, since there are numerous self-references (‘per me Lodowycum’) and annotations throughout the manuscript, while his signature (‘Lewys’) is found in many places. The first recorded owner was the historian and antiquary Sir Henry Spelman (d. 1641), who bought the manuscript on 11 April 1606. It then passed by descent through his family, until being listed as lot 3 in the sale catalogue of Spelman's library by the London bookseller John Harding, auctioned on 28 November 1709. Our manuscript next appears in the sale of the library of Walter Clavell (d. by 1740), before ending up in the library of the Earls of Macclesfield at Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire. There it remained until the manuscripts of the 9th Earl of Macclesfield were auctioned, with some exceptions including the present volume, at Sotheby’s, London, in 2004–05.
One of astronomical diagrams in the manuscript: Add MS 89442, p. 31
More recently, after leaving the Macclesfield collection, this manuscript had been sold to an overseas purchaser. After the Culture Secretary's intervention, its export was deferred temporarily to allow a UK-based institution to raise the matching funds to buy it. This was especially challenging due to the difficult circumstances brought about by Covid-19, but the British Library was finally able to raise the funds to purchase this manuscript in August 2020. We are extremely grateful to the following for generously supporting the acquisition of this manuscript: the Shaw Fund, the T. S. Blakeney Fund, the Bernard H. Breslauer Fund of the American Trust for the British Library, the British Library Collections Trust, the Friends of the National Libraries, and those who wish to remain anonymous.
An eclipse table attributed to Richard Wallingford and expanded by Lewis of Caerleon: Add MS 89442, p. 65
The newly-acquired manuscript of the works of Lewis of Caerleon has been assigned the shelfmark Add MS 89442. It can be viewed in its entirety on the Library's Universal Viewer, and in due course (once Covid restrictions are lifted) it can be consulted by researchers in our Manuscripts Reading Room. By acquiring the manuscript for the nation, the British Library hopes to encourage more research into the writings of this important medieval astronomer and physician, his relationship to the royal court, and his influence upon later scientists. This manuscript is a remarkable witness to the work of Lewis of Caerleon, and we are delighted that it will now be available for study by future generations.
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29 October 2020
Byland Abbey ghost stories: a guide to medieval ghosts
On an overcast day in October, the ruins of Byland Abbey in North Yorkshire seem just the place to meet a medieval ghost. Nestled beneath the towering crags of Sutton Bank, the crumbled walls are pensive with memories and secrets. The dramatic outline of a rose window gapes into the sky as though crying out from a past long distant but not wholly dead. Fittingly enough, it was here that a monk wrote down one of the most important collections of ghost stories to survive from medieval Europe.
The stories, twelve in total, were written in the early 15th century on the blank pages of a manuscript containing a collection of rhetorical and theological works, now British Library Royal MS 15 A XX (ff. 140v-143 and ff. 163v-164v). Despite being written in Latin, the language of the Church, the stories are mostly set among the rural communities of North Yorkshire. They are full of references to real local places, names of people and everyday details. Their clear local roots and lack of narrative structure gives them the feeling of folktales and hearsay.
A Latin edition of the stories was published by the great manuscript scholar and horror writer M.R. James in 1922, and English translations are available by A.J. Grant (1924), and Saint Anselm College (2014). But for anyone who hasn’t time to read the stories in full (or doesn’t dare), we’ve condensed the key points into this helpful guide to medieval ghosts. Perhaps it will come in handy this Halloween...
What are medieval ghosts?
The ghosts in the Byland stories are not the evil forces which seek to harm humanity in many modern horror tales. They are mostly people from the community who have died without confessing sins, righting wrongs or otherwise preparing for a ‘good death’. The ghosts cannot get to heaven until these issues have been resolved, so they rise from their graves to seek help from the living.
The sins in question tend to be relatively mundane. Story IX tells of a ghost whose crime is ‘a matter of a sixpence’. In Story VI, the ghost of a canon of Newburgh Priory is tormented for stealing silver spoons. In Story VII, a hired hand is punished for overindulging his oxen, feeding them on his master’s corn and letting them plough the land too shallowly.
The ghosts try a variety of tactics for persuading people to help. Story I tells of an enterprising ghost in the area of Rievaulx who helps carry a sack of beans in return for absolution. In Story III, the rather forlorn ghost of Robert of Kilburn wanders around the village at night, standing at windows and doors, waiting to see if anyone would come out and help. Eventually the priest hears his confession and he is able to rest in peace.
What do ghosts look like?
The Byland ghost stories include some wonderfully gruesome descriptions of the ghosts' appearances. They are clearly envisioned as decaying corpses, rather like modern zombies. In Story III, the ghost speaks not with his tongue but from the inside of his bowels, which are hollow and echoing like an empty cask. The shortest tale, Story V, tells of a man who witnesses a woman carrying a ghost on her back, when ‘he saw the hands of the woman sink deeply into the flesh of the ghost as though the flesh were rotten and not solid but phantom flesh’.
The appearance of these ghosts was clearly influenced by the art of the period. In Story II, the ghost appears ‘in the likeness of a man of great stature, horrible and thin, like one of the dead kings in pictures’—a reference to the popular imagery of the Three Living and the Three Dead Kings.
However, the Byland ghosts are also able to shape-shift and they appear in such assorted forms as: a horse, a revolving hay-cock with a light in the middle, a raven with sparks of fire shooting from its sides, a dog, a she-goat, a bullock without a mouth or eyes or ears, and a revolving piece of canvas (perhaps a precursor to the classic white sheet?).
What should you do if you meet a ghost?
The best thing to do in this situation is to talk to the ghost and find out what it wants. Ghosts aren’t able to speak to living people unless someone conjures them, which involves calling them to speak in the name of God. But if you are planning on meeting with ghosts, you may wish to bring protection. In Story II, when Snowball the tailor goes to keep an appointment with a ghost, he draws a magic circle around himself and uses an array of amulets.
The worst thing you can do if you meet a ghost is to try to resist it. Snowball the tailor finds that his attempts to repel the ghost with his sword are completely ineffectual: it just feels like he’s striking a peat-stack. In Story IX, a ghost follows a man for 80 miles, throws him over a hedge and catches him on the other side. When the man finally speaks to the ghost, it tells him ‘If you’d conjured me in the first place, I wouldn’t have hurt you’.
How do you get rid of a ghost?
The best way to get rid of a ghost is to help it out. In most of the stories, the ghosts will quietly rest in peace once their unfinished business has been resolved. However, some ghosts are more troublesome. Story IV tells of the particularly malevolent ghost of James Tankerlay, rector of Cold Kirby, who walks from his grave at night and blows out the eye of his former mistress. The monks of Byland Abbey take action by having his corpse exhumed and cast into the present-day popular wild swimming spot, Lake Gormire.
Several other stories also hint that ghosts are averse to water: in Story I, the ghost will not cross the river, and in Story II, the ghost screams at the suggestion of meeting by Hodge Beck. This trope of supernatural creatures being unable to cross water has persisted into modern literature such as Dracula and Lord of the Rings.
The Byland ghost stories give us a glimpse of the kinds of tales that were probably once widespread but were rarely written down. They reveal medieval people’s very real fear of death and the uncertainties of what lay beyond, but also a surprising compassion for the undead.
So next time you hear something go bump in the night, don’t be afraid. Chances are the ghost won’t try to throw you over a hedge or do anything more sinister—it just needs a willing ear and a helping hand.
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Further reading
For the Latin text, see:
M.R. James, 'Twelve Medieval Ghost-Stories', The English Historical Review, 37 (1922), pp. 413-22.
For English translations, see:
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
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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.
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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.
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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
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***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! ***
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