23 December 2013
Medieval Top Ten
It’s that time of the year when we all look back at what we have accomplished (and also when we so frequently resort to clichés like ‘it’s that time of year’). It has been a fantastic 12 months for our blog, due in large part to our fabulous readers. We thought we’d take this chance to highlight our ten most popular posts, which were chosen by you (or at least chosen by your clicks!). In true countdown fashion, we’ll start with:
10. Anglo-Saxon Treasures Online: the announcement about our department’s very first uploads to Digitised Manuscripts (it seems so long ago!); we were off to an excellent start with the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Old English Hexateuch.
Beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, from the Lindisfarne Gospels, Cotton MS Nero D IV, f. 27r
9. Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts Online: an exciting announcement about the inclusion of more than 100 Hebrew manuscripts to our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts site, with a full list of hyperlinks included!
Initial word panel Shir (‘song’ inhabited by a unicorn and a bear, from the Duke of Sussex’s German Pentateuch, Add MS 15282, f. 296v
8. Robert the Bruce Letter Found at British Library: a post highlighting the exciting discovery by Professor Dauvit Broun, University of Glasgow, of a previously-unknown letter from Robert the Bruce to Edward II.
Detail of the letter from Robert the Bruce to Edward II, Cotton MS Titus A XIX, f. 87r
7. St Cuthbert Gospel Saved for the Nation: a celebration of the British Library’s acquisition of the late 7th century St Cuthbert Gospel after the most successful fundraising campaign in the Library’s history. Now in our collections as Add MS 89000, you can now view the fully-digitised manuscript online.
Front binding of the St Cuthbert Gospel, Add MS 89000
6. White Gloves or Not White Gloves: not to wreck the surprise or anything, but the answer (almost always) is not.
5. Loch Ness Monster Found at British Library: another amazing discovery by our unstoppable research team! We’ll just leave it at that.
Image of the Loch Ness Monster, as recovered using RZS©
4. Hwæt! Beowulf Online: we were thrilled to publicise the digitization of one of the Library’s great treasures, the Beowulf manuscript (Cotton MS Vitellius A XV; click the link for the fully-digitised version). And many of you seemed equally thrilled!
Detail of the opening words of Beowulf: ‘Hwæt!’ (‘Listen!’), Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, f. 132r
3. Lolcats of the Middle Ages: far and away the most popular post from our on-going series on medieval animals – for obvious reasons, we think.
Detail of a miniature of mice laying siege to a castle defended by a cat, from a Book of Hours, Harley MS 6563, f. 72r
2. Knight v Snail: this piece on the prevalence of images of knights fighting snails in the margins of 13th and 14th century manuscripts was great fun to write, and it was even more enjoyable to see the fantastic response it received. It set a British Library record for the most hits in a single day, was picked up by the Guardian, and most gratifying, many of you wrote in with some excellent thoughts on this mysterious marginalia; thank you so much!
Detail of a knight battling a snail in the margins of a 14th century Psalter, Add MS 49622, f. 193v
So now, with no further ado, we come to…
1. Unicorn Cookbook Found at the British Library: the discovery of this gem of a manuscript, shrouded in secrecy for months, met with an amazing reaction when it was finally revealed on 1 April 2012, and it continues to be a perennial favourite.
Detail of a unicorn on the grill in Geoffrey Fule’s cookbook, Additional MS 142012, f. 137r
Thanks from all of us in the Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts section! Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter: @BLMedieval.
- Sarah J Biggs
18 December 2013
Put It In Your Pocket
This small format copy of the Gospels (one of our most recent uploads to Digitised Manuscripts) is about the size of a modern pocket dictionary and was produced in Ireland in the late eighth or early ninth century. The original work contained initials with interlace decoration and miniatures of the Evangelists, of which only the portrait of St Luke remains (see below). The stylised image of Luke is within a framework containing zoomorphic patterns characteristic of Irish decoration in this period.
Evangelist miniature of St Luke, Ireland, 750-850, Add MS 40618, f. 21v
To make the book small and portable, a tiny pointed Irish minuscule script has been used, written with a very fine quill pen, and there are numerous abbreviations throughout. Some are based on the shorthand devised by Cicero’s secretary, Tiro, in the Classical period, and revived for use in the copying of scholarly and religious texts in the 8th century. For example, on line 1 of the right hand column below, ‘÷’ stands for est in factus est.
Text page with decorated initials 'In P'(rincipio), Ireland, 750-850, Add MS 40618, f. 50r
This Gospel book from Ireland was still in use in England in the 10th century and was ‘modernised’ at this time. The original interlace initials were scratched off with a knife, and Anglo-Saxon style initials with zoomorphic decoration were painted over. Of particular interest is that this is the earliest surviving example of the use of lapis lazuli in a manuscript in Britain (see Michelle Brown (2007), p. 17).
At the same time, two miniatures painted in the mid 10th century were inserted. One is of St Luke again, this time in profile, seated on a large cushioned throne with an ox (his Evangelist symbol) emerging from the drapery above his head, holding a golden book.
Added miniature of St Luke, England, 920-950, Add MS 40618, f. 22v
The style of this miniature and the one of St John below is characteristic of Canterbury manuscripts; they are richly painted, with a generous use of gold and brightly coloured pigments. However, the copious hanging drapery visible in both images is more a feature of Carolingian style and these examples are unique in Anglo-Saxon illumination.
Added miniature of St John, England, 920-950, Add MS 40618, f. 49v
The last page of St John’s Gospel was re-written, as the colophon on f. 66v states, by an Anglo-Saxon scribe, Eduardus diaconus, probably at the same time that the decoration was added. It has been suggested that there are stylistic and technical links with additions to other manuscripts created on behalf of King Athelstan, such as those in the Athelstan Psalter (Cotton MS Galba A XVIII).
Added final page of St John’s gospel with scribal colophon, England, 920-950, Add MS 40618, f.66r
- Chantry Westwell
16 December 2013
An Old World View of the New
It is not often that our medieval manuscript curators have the opportunity to work on any material that concerns the Americas, but it does occasionally happen. While we were preparing for the recent upload of Add MS 33733, we came across one miniature within that volume that contains a remarkable, if troubling, view of the New World and its inhabitants.
Detail of a miniature of cannibals attacking the members of a Spanish expedition to America in 1530, Add MS 33733, f. 10r
Add MS 33733 is more commonly known as The Triumphs of Charles V. It is made up of a series of 12 miniatures illustrating episodes from the reign of Emperor Charles V of Spain (1500-1558), accompanied by quatrains in Spanish explaining each scene. It was possibly produced for Philip II, the son of Charles V and King of Spain and Portugal (1527-1598), and dates from the 3rd quarter of the 16th century. For many years the exquisite miniatures in the Triumphs were attributed to Giorgio Giulio Clovio (1498-1578), a noted Croatian artist who spent most of his working life in Italy and was active in the same circles as Michelangelo. Recent scholars, however, believe it is more likely that the paintings were produced by a follower or pupil of Clovio, who based his work on a series of engravings published in Antwerp in 1556 by Hieronymus Cock. Whatever the artist’s name might have been, the illuminations he created throughout the manuscript are both impressively executed and breathtakingly detailed. He was clearly inspired by the momumental painting style of the era, even going so far as to include a suitable gilt frame around each miniature.
Detail of a miniature of the Duke of Cleves submitting to Charles V, from the Triumphs of Charles V, Italy or the Netherlands, c. 1556-c. 1575, Add MS 33733, f. 12r
Considering the title of the manuscript, it is unsurprising that the majority of the illuminations depict a notable moment of military or political triumph for the Emperor Charles V (see above). But one seems to be an outlier. On f. 10r can be found the miniature below, an illustration of a Spanish expedition to America in 1530.
Detail of a miniature of cannibals attacking the members of a Spanish expedition to America in 1530, from the Triumphs of Charles V, Italy or the Netherlands, c. 1556-c. 1575, Add MS 33733, f. 10r
This disquieting scene is accompanied by a quatrain on the facing folio (f. 9v), which reads:
Los Indios que hasta aquí de carne humana / Pacían como fieros y indomados / Con virtud y con fuerça soberana / Los veys por César ya domesticados.
A very loose translation: ‘The Indians, who until now had gorged themselves on human flesh like wild and untamed beings, by the virtue and sovereign power of Charles have been domesticated’.
The association of native Americans with cannibalism goes back to nearly the first moment of European contact with these lands. In fact, the very word ‘cannibal’ itself is derived from ‘Canib’ (or 'Carib'), the name of a tribe of people who lived in the West Indies at the time of Columbus’ arrival. In his diary Columbus recorded that the neighbouring Taino people ‘have said that they are greatly afraid of the Caniba’. Several historians have pointed out that Columbus’ use of the word ‘said’ could charitably be described as problematic, since most of his communication with indigenous peoples was carried out through hand gestures, but later attempts at armed resistance on the part of the Caniba solidified his opinion of them as nearly-inhuman savages.
Detail of a miniature of cannibals attacking the members of a Spanish expedition to America in 1530, Add MS 33733, f. 10r
In a 1494 despatch to the Spanish court, Columbus advocated the enslavement of ‘these cannibals, a people very savage and suitable for the purpose, and well-made and of good intelligence.’ Queen Isabella agreed, and in 1503 declared that any of the ‘said cannibals’ who resisted Spanish authority or conversion to Christianity could be legally taken as slaves by the conquistadors. This provided a significant incentive for the conquering Spaniards to describe any newly-encountered people as savages and cannibals, and gory descriptions of these ‘inhuman’ tribes and their practices abound in their accounts.
Detail of a miniature of cannibals attacking the members of a Spanish expedition to America in 1530, Add MS 33733, f. 10r
Isabella’s edict was reconfirmed by a number of subsequent rulers of Spain, including Charles V himself. Enslavement was viewed as a fitting punishment for those intransigent enough to refuse either conquest or conversion, but it was also considered beneficial for the slaves themselves, who could be civilized and saved from eternal damnation. With this in mind, it becomes clear why the scene of carnage above would have been viewed by his contemporaries as one of Charles V’s ‘triumphs’. It is disturbing to think that the subjugation and near-annihilation of an entire race of people could have become an object of royal pride, but it did. We sometimes describe certain of our manuscripts as having ‘long shadows’, reaching back into the past and still touching us today; this one casts a longer shadow than most.
- Sarah J Biggs
11 December 2013
The Constitution of Athens
Of all the Greek papyri now in the British Library, perhaps the most treasured, and certainly the most visually striking, is the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens, which describes the development of the Athenian Constitution down to 403 BC, and the operation of the government at the time of writing in the 330s or 320s BC. The work is one of some 158 constitutions of Greek city-states known in antiquity to have been produced by the school of Aristotle (or perhaps by Aristotle himself). Until the end of the nineteenth century, this text was known only from brief quotations by later authors, and the text seemed to be one of those key works from antiquity that we would never retrieve.
The beginning of the Constitution of Athens (Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία), 78 – c 100, Papyrus 131.
Then, in the space of a decade or so, two separate discoveries were made. In 1879, two leaves from a papyrus codex were acquired by the Ägyptische Museum in Berlin, dating perhaps from the second century AD and containing fragments, with marginalia, of the Constitution of Athens (These leaves are now P. Berol. 5009, formerly P. Berol. 163). In 1890, three rolls, followed shortly afterwards by a fourth, arrived at the British Museum in London. The rolls were quickly identified as containing the Constitution of Athens by Frederic G. Kenyon (aged only twenty-seven, and just recently hired by the Department of Manuscripts), and the discovery was announced publicly in The Times in January 1891. A critical edition by Kenyon followed (significantly revised in subsequent editions), as did an English-language translation. The rolls were framed and hung in the Reading Room of the British Museum for many years.
Section of the Constitution of Athens (Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία), in its frame, 78 – c 100, Papyrus 131.
Yet to refer to the papyrus as the Constitution of Athens is to tell only part of the story. In fact, the rolls had initially been used to record farm accounts of an estate near Hermopolis, in Egypt, in 78-79 AD. The other side (the verso) of the first roll was initially used to record part of a commentary on Demosthenes’ speech In Midiam. Some time around the end of the first century, the Constitution of Athens was recorded on the verso of all four rolls, and the column and a half of the commentary on Demosthenes was crossed out.
Section including the crossed-out commentary on Demosthenes, Papyrus 131.
At this time (the writing of the Constitution), some additional papyrus was attached to the end of this roll, to accommodate the eleventh column of the Constitution of Athens (now on the far left of f. 2r, or the far right of f. 2v). On the recto of this additional papyrus are some fragments of scholia (comments) on Callimachus’ Aetia, though whether this was written before or after the section was added to the papyrus roll is uncertain. Papyrus was frequently re-used in this way, and many other papyri in the British Library’s collection contain multiple texts (see, for example, the Gospel of Thomas, written on the back of a survey list).
For more information about the papyrus, and for further reading, see the catalogue entry either on Digitised Manuscripts or on SOCAM.
- Cillian O'Hogan
09 December 2013
What's Your Favourite Manuscript?
Earlier this year, a selection of the British Library's medieval manuscripts featured in a special article in the FT Weekend Magazine. For those of you who missed this first time round, those manuscripts included (drumroll, please) Beowulf, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, the Golf Book and the Harley Golden Gospels. Not your typical medieval books -- you can read the accompanying blogpost here, with links to digital images of the manuscripts in question.
This is one of our favourites, what about you? The miniature of St John in the 9th-century Harley Golden Gospels: London, British Library, MS Harley 2788, f. 161v.
Alice Fishburn, auuthor of the article, interviewed a number of the British Library's curators as part of the feature. And one question we were all asked was: "what's your favourite manuscript?". As I recall, a couple of curators plumped for the Harley Golden Gospels, on account of its sheer beauty and its shimmering golden letters; another colleague took the safer option, and preferred not to nominate a favourite manuscript, on the grounds that each and every one is a unique artefact, with its own intrinsic interest.
You may like to nominate a manuscript from our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, like this 12th-century Canterbury passionale: London, British Library, MS Arundel 91, f. 36v.
That got us thinking -- what is your favourite manuscript? We'd love to hear from you, and in the coming weeks we'll add a selection to an updated version of this post. You might choose something from the Anglo-Saxon era, say, or a 15th-century Book of Hours, or maybe that dusty old tome which you studied for your dissertation, the one which had lain overlooked for years but which you fell in love with. No rules apply, save to say that we'd prefer it if your favourite came from the British Library's collections! You may like a little help, so have a look at our Digitised Manuscripts site or the Library's Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.
Does Leonardo da Vinci rock your boat? Let us know! London, Britiash Library, MS Arundel 263, ff. 84v + 88r.
So there's your challenge for this week. Send your nominations by Twitter to @blmedieval, or as a comment at the end of this post. It would be lovely if you could tell us in a few words why a particular manuscript is so special to you. And we will try to acknowledge each and every response.
Julian Harrison
05 December 2013
Happy Hanukkah!
Today is the last day of Hanukkah; the Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts section hopes you have had (and will continue to have) a very happy Festival of Lights - Hanukkah Sameach!
Full-page miniature of a menorah surrounded by Temple instruments, from a Hebrew Bible (the 'Duke of Sussex's Catalan Bible) with masorah magna and parva, Spain (Catalonia), 3rd quarter of the 14th century, Add MS 15250, f. 3v
Full-page miniature of a menorah surrounded by Temple instruments, from a Hebrew Bible (the 'King's Bible), Spain (Catalonia), last quarter of the 14th century, Kings MS 1, f. 3r
Detail of a man lighting the Hanukkah lamp, from Decisions of Isaiah of Trani the Younger (Pisqei Rabbi Yeshayah Aharon), Italy (Bologna), 1374, Or 5024, f. 19r
04 December 2013
The Romance of Mont Saint-Michel
Part holy shrine, part legendary castle, the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel is one of the most romantic spots in Europe; it has been a site of miracles and the destination of countless pilgrims for over a thousand years. The story goes that in 708 the archangel Michael told Aubert, the Bishop of Avranches, to build a church on Mont Tombe for him. St Aubert ignored him at first, but the archangel returned and reputedly burned a hole in Aubert’s skull with his finger. The Bishop realized that he could ignore the archangel no longer and Mont Tombe was dedicated to Michael on October 16, 708. St Aubert built the first church on the island and it has been known as Mont Saint-Michel ever since.
Mont Saint-Michel as viewed along the Couesnon River, photo by David Iliff (via Wikipedia Commons, license: CC-BY-SA 3.0)
The verse history of Mont Saint-Michel or Li Romanz du Mont Saint-Michel was composed by Guillaume de Saint-Paier, (now Saint-Pois in the diocese of Avranches), who was a young monk in the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel in the time of the abbot Robert of Torigni, between 1154 and 1186. His work, written in the Norman dialect of Old French c. 1160, is based on Latin texts and charters found in a 12th-century cartulary of the monastery (Avranches, BM 210) and in later copies. In the prologue Guillaume says that he wrote the Roman to instruct pilgrims who did not know the history of the monastery. The British Library has the only two surviving medieval copies of the work and a new arrival on our Digitised Manuscripts website is the earliest copy, which dates from the last quarter of the 13th century (Add MS 10289). This manuscript has been in our online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts for some time, with a small selection of images, but now every page is available to view. The text is of great interest to historians of Western Normandy and scholars of the Norman dialect, for which it is an early example.
Detail of a painting of Mont Saint Michel burning, from 'Li Romanz du Mont Saint-Michel', France (Normandy), 1375-1400, Add MS 10289, f. 45v
The monastery is shown engulfed in flames in this image in the lower margin. The buildings fell into disrepair after a severe fire in 922 and in 966 Richard, Duke of Normandy, established an order of Benedictine monks there, who started to reconstruct the church. They brought in craftsmen from Italy and started work in 1017. The abbey was finished in 1080 and pilgrims flocked to the island to worship St Michael, even when the abbey was in English hands much later, during the Hundred Years War. The Monks of Mont Saint-Michel were revered for their copying skills and there has been a library there since the 10th century. Our manuscript has an inscription, Iste liber est de thesauraria montis running along the right-hand margin on f. 1, showing that it was in the library in the 15th century.
Historiated initial 'M'(olz) of two pilgrims at the beginning of 'Li Romanz du Mont Saint-Michel' and inscription in the margin, France (Normandy), 1375-1400, Add MS 10289, f. 1r
When the Maurists took over control of the monastery from the Benedictines in the 17th century, they reorganised the books and manuscripts, and they wrote ex-libris inscriptions in many of the books, Ex monasterio sancti Michaelis in periculo maris (‘From the monastery of Mont Saint Michel, in danger from the sea’). But it was the destructive force of humanity, rather than the sea that posed the greatest danger to the monks and their library. During the French Revolution the libraries of nobles and monasteries were confiscated for the public and the 3550 books and 299 manuscripts from the abbey were piled into carts, guarded by the National Guard, and crossed the sands to the mainland. They were piled in a damp storeroom in the municipal offices of Avranches, together with other monastic archives and in 1835, when they were catalogued by la Société d’archéologie d’Avranches, only 199 remained. At this time they were moved to the new Hotel de Ville and remain in the collections of the city of Avranches.
Our manuscript was already in the hands of an English collector, Richard Heber, by this time, and was purchased from him by the British Museum in 1836.
The ‘Romance of Mont Saint-Michel’ is only a third of the volume. The rest is a collection of moralistic and religious texts and medical recipes, including a recipe for a lotion to whiten the skin
Recipe for ‘Ognement espruve por blanchir’ on the lower half of the page, France (Normandy), 1375-1400, Add MS 10289, f. 81v
On ff. 129v-132v can be found Andre de Coutances Le romanz des Franceis or Arflet, a violent anti-French satire composed in around 1200. It was written in response to a French satire, in which King Arthur/Alfred is portrayed as Arflet, le roi des buveurs, a drunken Northumbrian king whose crown is usurped by the cat, Chapalu. De Coutances defends the English by attacking meagre French cuisine and mocking their reputation as dice-players and cowards in the face of battle. Their king, Frollo, is lazy and even lies in bed while his boots are being fastened.
The satire begins, ‘Reis Arflet de Nohundrelande...’ and is written in four-line verses or laisses, each beginning with a coloured initial.
Text page with the opening lines of the satire, Arflet or Le romanz des franceis, France (Normandy), 1375-1400, Add MS 10289, f. 129v
- Chantry Westwell
01 December 2013
A Calendar Page for December 2013
For more details on calendar pages or the Golf Book, please see the post for January 2013.
The necessary work of preparing for winter continues on this full-page miniature for December. In the foreground, a man and a woman are slaughtering one of the pigs that was fattened in November, and catching its blood in a pan. Behind them, people are busy baking bread in a large oven, watched over by attentive birds. In the background, we can see a stag, hunted by horses and hounds, leaping over a gate. In the bas-de-page below, several men are playing at what appears to be a most entertaining (if dangerous) game: tug-of-war on sledges. On the following page can be found a roundel containing a goat for the zodiac sign Capricorn, alongside the saints' days for December. Interestingly, the feast day of Thomas Becket has remained unaltered, probably because this manuscript was not in England during the Reformation (for more on this question, see our post Erasing Becket). At the bottom of the folio, two men are sledging on a frozen pond, while others, including a man carrying a white hare, are gathered around a warming fire.
Calendar page for December with a miniature of people slaughtering a pig and baking bread, from the Golf Book (Book of Hours, Use of Rome), workshop of Simon Bening, Netherlands (Bruges), c. 1540, Additional MS 24098, f. 29v
Calendar page for December with a bas-de-page scene of men sledging and warming themselves by a fire, from the Golf Book (Book of Hours, Use of Rome), workshop of Simon Bening, Netherlands (Bruges), c. 1540, Additional MS 24098, f. 30r
Medieval manuscripts blog recent posts
- Chaucer’s works go online
- Births, births and (more) births
- An illustrated Old English Herbal
- A Calendar Page for December 2016
- A Calendar Page for November 2016
- A Calendar Page for October 2016
- A Calendar Page for September 2016
- A Calendar Page for August 2016
- Manuscript the Tube
- A Calendar Page for July 2016
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