29 October 2012
Off With Her Head! Pictures from the Prose Tristan
Miniatures of (above) Tristan and his mentor arriving at a castle and (below) Tristan arriving in Cornwall by ship; from Roman de Tristan en prose, last quarter of the 13th century or first quarter of the 14th century, Italy (Genoa), Harley MS 4389, f. 15v.
Tristan and Isolde are two of the great lovers of medieval
literature, and their doomed affair was retold in several different versions. The
British Library's Harley MS 4389 contains an incomplete copy of the Roman de Tristan in French prose, enlivened
by a large number of coloured drawings illustrating the story. They are not
the highly finished productions of elite illuminators, but nevertheless they
hold tremendous appeal.
The overall impression given by these pictures is of
movement and dynamism. The most common subjects are battles (between two
knights or as part of a chaotic mêlée) and travel. Ships recur again and again:
carrying passengers, approaching castles, even standing in the background of a
combat. In one stretch of six consecutive miniatures, only one does not contain
a ship. The visual emphasis on Tristan's travel transforms him into an
itinerant figure, wandering through the world of Cornwall,
Ireland and Gaul.
Detail of a miniature of Tristan (left) fighting Morholt; from Roman de Tristan en prose, last quarter of the 13th century or first quarter of the 14th century, Italy (Genoa), Harley MS 4389, f. 18v.
The drawings are sometimes simple and formulaic,
particularly when depicting battles between knights. The repetition creates a visual
continuity, as knights travel by ship through a landscape dotted with
opportunities for combat. But the illustrations do not wholly eschew the
specific, and some are immediately identifiable. Below, for example, is the
story of Tristan's birth. Tristan's parents were also ill-fated lovers: when
his father's kingdom was attacked, his mother fled in secret. Their story ended
with the king killed in battle, and the queen dead in childbirth. In this
picture, Tristan's mother lies dead in a field, and her waiting woman, holding
the infant Tristan, has been found by two knights who will take him to be
raised in exile by loyal retainers.
Detail of a miniature of the death of Tristan's mother; from Roman de Tristan en prose, last quarter of the 13th century or first quarter of the 14th century, Italy (Genoa), Harley MS 4389, f. 5r.
The best-known part of Tristan's story, in the Middle Ages
as well as today, was his love for Isolde. Tristan had been sent to Ireland
to retrieve the princess Isolde, his uncle King Mark's betrothed. On the way
back, the two fell in love when they unwittingly drank a love potion intended
for Isolde to share with her future husband. Their subsequent clandestine
affair became a source of great tension between Tristan and his uncle, who
suspected the truth and periodically plotted against Tristan, the most skilled
knight in his court.
Detail of a miniature of Isolde (far left, in a rare appearance) and the Beautiful Giantess, watching the duel between Tristan and Brunor (far right); from Roman de Tristan en prose, last quarter of the 13th century or first quarter of the 14th century, Italy (Genoa), Harley MS 4389, f. 59v.
In the illustrations of Harley 4389, however, this iconic
affair is given very little attention. Isolde appears only rarely, even as
other women are given greater attention. Two miniatures, for example, are
devoted to the story of the Beautiful Giantess. Tristan and Isolde have travelled
to a country where it is the custom that the lord, Brunor, cut off the head of
any lady less beautiful than his own love, the Beautiful Giantess. Tristan kills
Brunor, but afterwards the people demand that he uphold custom and decapitate
the Beautiful Giantess, as Tristan showed himself the stronger knight and all
agree Isolde is the more beautiful lady. Tristan does not wish to, but, when
threatened with his own death, complies. The illustrators' choice of what to
draw, and what not to, creates a distinct reading of the text.
Detail of Brunor lying dead while Tristan decapitates the Beautiful Giantess; from Roman de Tristan en prose, last quarter of the 13th century or first quarter of the 14th century, Italy (Genoa), Harley MS 4389, f. 60v.
Nicole Eddy
26 October 2012
What's on Digitised Manuscripts? The Top 10
The British Library's Digitised Manuscripts site, launched in September 2010, is now over two years old. You may not have noticed everything that has appeared online so far, so here are our medieval and early modern highlights, in approximate chronological order:
The St Cuthbert Gospel (Add MS 89000)
Add MS 89000, f. 34r
The Lindisfarne Gospels (Cotton MS Nero D IV)
The Old English Hexateuch (Cotton MS Claudius B IV)
The Theodore Psalter (Add MS 19352)
Add MS 19352, f. 57v
Gerald of Wales (Royal MS 13 B VIII)
Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum and Chronica maiora (Royal MS 14 C VII)
Royal MS 14 C VII, f. 2r
Sumer Is Icumen In (Harley MS 978)
The Gorleston Psalter (Add MS 49622)
The Smithfield Decretals (Royal MS 10 E IV)
The Psalter of Henry VIII (Royal MS 2 A XVI)
Royal MS 2 A XVI, f. 30r
More content is being added on a regular basis, and updates will appear on this blog and via our Twitter feed, @blmedieval. Which highlights would you have chosen?
24 October 2012
Bad News Birds
Detail of an owl in a decorative border; from a description of the Holy Land by Martin de Brion of Paris, France, 1540, Royal MS 20 A. iv, f. 3v
Everyone knows the image of the wise old owl. But the bird had a very different reputation in the Middle Ages. At that time, it was a bird of ill-omen, believed to frequent tombs and dark caves. It would fly only at night, and, according to some sources, flew backwards. On the rare occasions when the owl ventured out during the day, it got no better treatment from its fellow birds than it did from medieval bestiaries: they would raise a terrible clamour and attack in a mob.
Detail of a miniature of an owl being mobbed by other birds; from a bestiary, England, 2nd quarter of the 13th century, Harley MS 4751, f. 47r
With the allegorical gloss typical of bestiary descriptions, the owl's preference for darkness over light made it a figure of the unbeliever, who had yet to embrace the light of the Christian gospel. This hidden significance, as well as its distinctive, sometimes goofy appearance, no doubt prompted its use in decorative motifs and among the marginal grotesques of books of hours.
Miniature of an owl being mobbed by other birds; from The Queen Mary Psalter, England, 1310-1320, Royal MS 2 B. vii, f. 128v
Among its other faults, the owl was considered an extremely dirty animal, invariably soiling its nest. Because of this, as well as its other unpleasant associations, it was strongly identified with sickness. The term bubo, derived from the Greek word for the groin, was the term for a type of swelling symptomatic of colorectal cancer. The Latin word for 'owl' was also bubo (although the two uses are etymologically unrelated), and due to the bird's unsavoury associations, it was believed that the swelling had taken its name from the animal, as a filthy and unpleasant affliction, as well as a bad omen for the patient's prognosis.
Detail of a miniature of an owl; from the Liber medicinarum by John of Arderne, England, 2nd half of the 15th century, Harley MS 5401, f. 46r
This explains the appearance of the owl in the margins of some medical manuscripts. In the image above, a rather jaunty little horned owl stands beside the passage describing the medical bubo. Such an image would likely function as a mnemonic aid and reference tool. The physician or medical student, paging through the book, would see bubo the owl and immediately know he had located the passage on bubo the ailment, a functional play on words.
Nicole Eddy22 October 2012
Paging through Troilus and Criseyde
The beginning of Book I; from Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, England, 2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century, Harley MS 2392, f. 1r
Geoffrey Chaucer is probably the most famous English poet of the Middle Ages, well known for his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer wrote other works besides the Tales, however. Before setting his pen to the famous story-telling contest, his greatest work was probably the long romance in five books called Troilus and Criseyde. Out of 16 extant manuscripts, 6 are today at the British Library.
Detail of a portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer; from The Canterbury Tales, England, c. 1410, Lansdowne MS 851, f. 2r
Troilus and Criseyde were legendary lovers during the Trojan War. Today that conflict is more familiar from stories about the Trojan horse, or the judgment of Paris. But for several centuries in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the courtly love affair between Troilus and the fickle Criseyde was a popular and familiar part of the Trojan story. Criseyde, the beautiful daughter of a Trojan priest, professed her undying love to Troilus. But when her father defected to the Greek side, she was sent to join him, and became the mistress of the Greek warrior Diomedes. The story appeared in a number of different works, both literary and historical: Shakespeare even based one of his tragedies on the plot (Troilus and Cressida).
While the Trojan prince Troilus, son of Priam, was a character mentioned by Homer and other ancient Greek authors, those classical versions of his story are very different from the medieval tale. According to the Greek authors, there was a prophecy that the fate of the city of Troy was tied up with that of its prince, and that if Troilus was killed, Troy too would fall. Troilus's death at the hands of Achilles, therefore, doomed the city that shared his name. There was no mention of a love affair.
Detail of a miniature of a battle and, to the right, Troilus greeting his mother, Queen Hecuba; from the Histoire ancienne jusq'à César, Italy (Naples), c. 1330-c. 1340, Royal MS 20 D. i, f. 139v
The love story was the invention of the 12th-century author Benoît de Sainte-Maure. It was expanded in the 14th century by Boccaccio, whose most famous work the Decameron, a collection of tales framed by a story-telling competition, would have its own afterlife in Chaucer's canon. Chaucer's transformation of Troilus's story as he found it in Boccaccio's Il Filostrato was therefore part of a larger adaptation of the best of contemporary Italian literature into a new English poetic.
The British Library's Troilus manuscripts all date from the 15th century -- a few decades, that is, after the death of the author. Their pages, while calligraphically beautiful with their decorative borders and letters picked out in red and blue, are not elaborately illustrated. But they allow us the experience of participating in the literary avant-garde of the late Middle Ages.
The first page of Book IV; from Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, England, 1st half of the 15th century, British Library, Harley MS 2280, f. 57r.
Nicole Eddy
15 October 2012
Elephants on Parade
Detail of a miniature of an elephant; from a herbal, Italy (Lombardy), c. 1440, Sloane MS 4016, f. 50v.
Consider the elephant. While elephants may have been thin on the ground in medieval Europe, the animals were still a vivid part of the medieval imagination, in bestiaries and other texts, where the exotic and frankly unbelievable descriptions were variously interpreted and misinterpreted by illuminators.
In India, so the story went, elephants were sent into battle as moving fortresses, with wooden towers on their backs, protecting the men inside. This is the image of the ‘elephant and castle’ that became widespread in heraldic iconography, and whose best-known survival today is in the name of Elephant and Castle in south London. Something to think about next time you're on the Bakerloo line!
Miniature of an elephant and castle; from a bestiary, England, 2nd quarter of the 13th century, Harley MS 4751, f. 8r.
Elephants were also recommended ingredients in medicines, although such exotic treatments were hopefully better known in theory than in practice. In a medical book like Harley 1585 we find a variety of uses. The ivory of their tusks, when ground down, was thought to clear up blemishes. And, for a patient passing blood in his urine, drinking the blood of an elephant could act as a sovereign cure. Have a headache? Elephant dung, applied directly to the head, ‘sets the pain to flight wondrously’! Now there’s a remedy unlikely to be sold at the local pharmacy.
Miniature of an elephant; from Liber medicinae ex animalibus, attributed to Sextus Placitus, Southern Netherlands (Meuse Valley), 3rd quarter of the 12th century, Harley MS 1585, f. 67v.
The most detailed descriptions, however, can be found in medieval bestiaries, where anecdotes about elephants’ habits are paired with moral interpretations of these traits as Christian allegories. The elephant, as it turns out, was far from prolific. A female could breed only once in her life, when she led her mate far to the east, where mandrake grew. This remarkable plant, whose roots resembled human beings, was an effective elephant aphrodisiac: without it, mating was impossible. When it was time to give birth, the female would enter the waters of a lake, to protect herself and her vulnerable calf from the elephant’s principal antagonist -- the only predator large enough to constitute a threat -- the dragon. Adam and Eve, it was explained, were like the male and female elephant, and the mandrake represented the forbidden fruit Eve led her husband to taste. After the Fall, the couple were banished into the uncertainty of the world, signified by the undulating waters of the lake.
Detail of a miniature of an elephant and a dragon; from a bestiary, England, between 1236 and c. 1250, Harley MS 3244, f. 39v.
The elephant was also vulnerable to another kind of fall, this one literal -- although it too was also routinely allegorized. The unfortunate elephant, it was said, had no knees, but walked on legs whose bones were a single fused column. The elephant could not therefore bend over: the trunk was useful there! Nor could it sleep lying down, but leaned against a tree. A hunter could capture the fearsome beast, therefore, by creeping up and sawing through the trunk of the tree. When the trunk broke, the elephant would topple to the ground and be unable to raise itself. Unable, that is, without the help of a much smaller elephant (a type of Christ for its humility) who would come and lift its fallen comrade with its trunk.
Details of miniatures of an elephant and castle and a herd of elephants; from the Rochester Bestiary, England, c. 1230, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, f. 11v.
- Nicole Eddy
12 October 2012
More Gorleston Psalter 'Virility': Profane Images in a Sacred Space
This is the second of a two-part series about the marginalia of the Gorleston Psalter; for more information, please see the post "Virile, if Somewhat Irresponsible" Design.
The existence of marginalia – particularly of the blasphemous, sexual, or scatological varieties – was for a long time a source of unease and uncertainty for manuscript scholars. One explanation for its presence was the suggestion that medieval illuminators suffered from a horror vacui (or fear of empty space), which presumably required them to fill empty pages at random. Other scholars characterized marginalia as essentially meaningless, purely decorative sources of distraction. Another approach was for scholars to simply ignore it entirely; the original description of the Gorleston Psalter in the British Library Catalogue, for example, scarcely mentions the manuscript’s marginalia at all.
f. 98v: detail of a marginal scene of a hybrid nun with a cowled grotesque, now mostly erased
Marginalia can sometimes be shocking for modern viewers who have never encountered it before. Whilst giving tours of the recent Royal exhibition, I was frequently asked whether these kinds of images were created by later 'vandals' to undermine the sacred nature of the original texts. In reality, the reverse is often true; it is not uncommon to find that subsequent owners of a manuscript have either erased or defaced paintings that they presumably found particularly troubling. There are several occurrences of this kind of later revision in the Gorleston Psalter. In light of what was allowed to remain, these must have been considered horrifyingly offensive – I leave the original subject of one instance (f. 98v, above) to your imaginations.
Not all the miniatures in the Gorleston Psalter are so potentially explosive, however. The manuscript features a number of images of everyday life in 14th century England, similar to those found in the Rutland Psalter and the Luttrell Psalter (Add MSS 62925 and 42130, both of which will be included in Digitised Manuscripts). See below for two scenes that must have been very common sights for the original readers of this manuscript - disregarding the outsized butterfly, of course.
f. 153v: detail of a marginal scene of a man plowing with oxen, with a butterfly above
f. 193r: detail of a marginal scene of man working on a forge
But these sorts of 'normal' images are in the distinct minority. Along with animals behaving strangely and people behaving badly, most of the Gorleston Psalter's pages also feature grotesques and hybrids, creatures that are part-animal, part-man, and even sometimes part-foliate border (see below).
f. 94v: detail of a marginal scene of a man watching a mass in an historiated initial
A few of the fabulous creatures populating Gorleston's folios can be seen engaging in a direct interaction with the 'proper' text itself. On f. 94v, for example, the figure emerging from the border looks to be extremely interested in the Mass depicted in the initial above him. On a number of occasions in the Psalter, the reader him or herself is the subject of (perhaps) mocking attention.
f. 123r: detail of a marginal creature pulling a face
Another subset of Gorleston's marginalia (and marginalia in general) is that which depicts the monde renversé – or upside-down world – where the usual rules are turned on their heads and the lines between humans and animals are blurred. A few particularly charming examples:
f. 164r: detail of a marginal scene of rabbits conducting a funeral procession
f. 106v: detail of a marginal scene of a rabbit and another animal playing music
f. 102v: detail of a miniature of a man on horseback encountering a monkey displaying its hindquarters
The last image above may be startling to today's readers, but it is far from anomalous. The Gorleston Psalter, like many manuscripts from this period, exhibits an apparently endless fascination with the examination of bottoms. A lot of ink has been spilt explaining the presence of these profane images in what is essentially a sacred space - the Psalter is, of course, a book of prayer, intended for personal religious observance and devotion. How can we then explain the presence of the following?
f. 104r: detail of a marginal scene of a grotesque hybrid examining another’s hindquarters
f. 61r: detail of a marginal scene of a man displaying his hindquarters
f. 82r: detail of a marginal scene of a nude bishop chastising a defecating cleric
Criticism of these kinds of images is nearly as old as the images themselves. The most famous (and freqently cited) is that of Bernard of Clairvaux, who asked: 'What excuse can there be for these ridiculous monstrosities...? One could spend the whole day gazing fascinated at these things, one by one, instead of meditating on the law of God. Good Lord, even if the foolishness of it all occasion no shame, at least one might balk at the expense.' (Bernard of Clairvaux, Excerpts from the Apologia to Abbot William of St-Thierry, VII.30; see here for more).
But the fact that so many patrons did not balk at the expense implies that many people considered these ridiculous monstrosities to be desirable, even valuable. In the last 30 years or so, significant efforts have been made to understand marginalia in its proper context; there are many theories about its function and purpose (see for example Lillian Randall's Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts or Michael Camille's Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art). The margins may have been a safe place for subversion against cultural norms, a sort of carnival on the page. They might serve as demonstrations of artistic skill, or as creative parody, intended to evoke the laughter that they still succeed in drawing from us today. Many kinds of marginalia also functioned as additional commentary on the text that they surround, or as anti-examples, moral guides about what not to do. One suspects that is the case with the kind of image below, which shows a man in a monk's cloak emptying a purse of coins before a woman - presumably in exchange for her sexual services.
f. 142r: detail of a marginal scene of a monk offering money to a woman
A complete and comprehensive explanation for all of these fantastic images still eludes us, but perhaps that is the point. To me, the very impossibility of capturing the meaning of marginalia is the source of its power, and a sign that the lines between sacred and profane in the medieval era were much more complicated and fluid than we have heretofore imagined. I will leave you with a few more examples of mysterious marginalia, those that are (thus far) unclassifiable. Any suggestions on interpretation are, as always, very welcome.
f. 48v: detail of a marginal scene of a man vomiting, presumably in a begging bowl held out by a grotesque (there are several similar scenes in the manuscript; if you wish to pursue the subject further, please see f. 62r or f. 124v)
f. 146r: detail of a marginal scene of a hybrid monkey in a monk’s cloak, sawing a pile of books (?)
f. 209r: detail of a marginal scene of a man whipping a noosed rabbit
There is an embarrassment of riches with the Gorleston Psalter's marginalia. Please have a look at the manuscript on our Digitised Manuscripts site, or follow us on Twitter at @blmedieval; over the coming weeks we will be tweeting more images from this extraordinary manuscript.
- Sarah J Biggs
11 October 2012
'Virile, if Somewhat Irresponsible' Design: The Marginalia of the Gorleston Psalter
This is the first of a two part-series on this extraordinary manuscript and its extraordinary marginalia. Please check the blog tomorrow for the second bit!
f. 8r: Historiated initial 'B'(eatus) of the Tree of Jesse, with marginal scenes of a hunt and David and Goliath
If reader enquiries are any indication, the most recent addition to our Digitised Manuscripts site has been eagerly – even impatiently – anticipated. We are very happy to end the agony of suspense and to let everyone know that the Gorleston Psalter (Add MS 49622) is now online; please click here for the fully-digitised version.
The Gorleston Psalter dates from c. 1310, and has pride of place among a group of similar Psalters which 'are the special glory of the East Anglian school of book-decoration' (according to Sydney Cockerell, who wrote a book about the Gorleston Psalter in 1907 before it entered the British Museum's collections). The Psalter was originally produced for a person associated with the church of St Andrew's, Gorleston (Norfolk), from which it derives its name, but exactly who this person was remains a mystery.
f. 10r: Detail of an historiated initial ‘C'(um) of an elderly bearded layman in prayer, possibly the manuscript's original patron
A bearded layman makes a number of appearances throughout the manuscript, usually in attitudes of religious devotion (see, for example, f. 10r), and these images may represent the original patron. One candidate for this position is Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk and Marshal of England (c. 1245 – 1306), but more recently it has been suggested that the honours may lie with John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey (1286 – 1347), whose arms can be seen throughout the manuscript. Additional evidence for this theory could come from the overwhelming number of rabbits that feature in the Gorleston Psalter, seen occasionally in their warrens – a possible visual pun on the Earl's family name (see below, and the bas-de-page of the Beatus page, at the top).
f. 177v: detail of a marginal scene of rabbits sharing their warren with a stag
Soon after the manuscript's creation it came into the possession of Norwich Cathedral Priory, where an extra miniature, prayers and a litany were added c. 1320-1325 (ff. 7r-7v & ff. 226r-228r). The original manuscript seems to have been written c. 1310 by a single scribe, who worked in close collaboration with a group of illuminators. This workshop may have been located in Gorleston itself, and seems to have been a prolific one. A number of other manuscripts have well-established connections to Norfolk in general and Gorleston in particular, including the Stowe Breviary (c. 1322-1325, BL Stowe MS 12), the St Omer Psalter (c. 1330-1340, BL Yates Thompson MS 14), the Douai Psalter (Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 171, almost completely destroyed during WWI), and the famous Macclesfield Psalter (c. 1330, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 1-2005).
f. 107v: Historiated initial 'E' of the resurrected Christ with musicians below, and marginal images of musicians and a knight holding arms
The Gorleston Psalter may be among the earliest surviving products of this group, and is typically richly illuminated – or, to quote Cockerell – the Psalter exhibits a 'virile, if somewhat irresponsible' design. It is not clear which aspect of the manuscript's decoration earned it this semi-pejorative characterization, but I suspect that the most likely culprit is the wild profusion of marginalia and bas-de-page images that are found throughout it.
f. 45v: detail of two marginal hybrid grotesques
f. 190v: detail of a marginal scene of a fox seizing a duck, with 'sound effects' added in a later hand, reading ‘queck’ [quack] (with thanks to Erik Kwakkel of Leiden for recently featuring this detail on Twitter)
It is difficult for our modern minds to conceive of a world in which holy miniatures could co-exist with silliness and misbehaviour, but this is certainly the case; close examination of these manuscripts have shown that far from being marginal, these images were a crucial part of the programmes of illumination, planned in advance and carefully executed. But it is not always completely clear what function these marginal images served. Check in tomorrow for a further exploration of this question - and, of course, many more spectacular images.
- Sarah J Biggs
08 October 2012
Describing Medieval Manuscripts
For those of you unfamiliar with medieval manuscripts, here are some handy tips to help you tell your quires from your graduals.
The British Library's Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts supplies a helpful glossary to the terms used in describing medieval manuscripts. The glossary is reproduced there with the kind permission of Michelle P. Brown and the publishers of her Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms (Malibu and London: The J. Paul Getty Museum in association with The British Library, 1994). This online glossary provides explanations of the common terms you may encounter, from Abbreviations ("often used to save space and effort when writing") to Zoomorphic Initial ("an initial partly or wholly composed of animal forms").
A zoomorphic initial found in London, British Library, MS Harley 2798, f. 151r.
A quick glance highlights the breadth of technical terms used by manuscript specialists, such as Backdrawings, Palimpsests and Xylographs (there had to be something beginning with "X"). Also featured is a glossary of Hebrew terms, from Aggadah to Yom Kippur.
We also recommend the excellent guide by Barbara A. Shailor, The Medieval Book: Illustrated from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press in association with The Medieval Academy of America, 1991). There you will find succinct accounts embracing writing materials, scripts, decoration and bindings, all illustrated with examples from the Beinecke Library at Yale.
So, what are Quires? Our glossary defines them as "the 'gatherings' or 'booklets' of which a book is formed". A Gradual refers to "the principal choirbook used in the mass", but is also "the response and versicle to the Epistle reading that constitutes one part of the mass".
A page from a Gradual, London, British Library, MS Arundel 71, f. 9r.
We recommend that you study the glossary whenever you encounter a new expression. Maybe some day you may also find yourself immersed in the world of manuscript culture.
With thanks to our former colleague, Catherine Yvard, who provided the online version of Michelle Brown's glossary.
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