13 February 2020
In Praise of the Psalms
When we were cataloguing a Psalter manuscript as part of the Polonsky Foundation England and France digitisation project, we identified a previously unrecognised copy of the text known as De laude psalmorum ('In praise of the Psalms'). This short Latin treatise explains why saying the Psalms was considered spiritually beneficial, and which Psalms were good for which purposes. It opens a window onto how medieval people understood one of the most important liturgical and devotional books of the Middle Ages, the Psalter.
Harley MS 2928 was made in 12th-century Aquitaine (now in southern France). The main part of this book is a copy of the book of Psalms, with four now quite damaged miniatures, an exposition of Christian hymns, and a copy of part of the Gospel of John in the Old Occitan language. As was typical for Psalters in this period, a number of prayers and texts related to prayers have been included in the manuscript, including De laude psalmorum on ff. 192v-194r.
This text, which some scholars believe to be the work of Alcuin of York, was extremely popular in medieval Europe. The scholar Jonathan Black has identified 193 copies of De laude psalmorum, or of parts of it, from all over Europe and dating from the 9th to the 16th centuries, including five at the British Library (Add MS 37768, Royal MS 5 E IX, Add MS 36929, Cotton MS Tiberius C VI, and Royal MS 2 A XXII) (Jonathan Black, Mediaeval Studies (2002)). As this work was not an official part of church liturgy, but instead something to be undertaken because the reader him- or herself personally wanted to pray and praise God, its readers and copyists must have believed it to be particularly useful.
In its full version, which is found in Harley MS 2928, De laude psalmorum offers eight reasons why the reader might wish to say the Psalms, and a selection of Psalms which are good for those purposes. For example, if you are afflicted by trouble and spiritual temptation, you are told to sing Psalms 21, 63 and 68 . Other reasons for singing the Psalms include the desire to praise God, the confession of sins, and the feeling of having been abandoned by God. Throughout the text, a great deal of importance is placed on the reader's inner state of mind, and his or her own wish to pray: each of the eight sections begins with the words 'si vis' ('if you wish') or similar, and the reader is told to sing the Psalms 'intima mente' ('in your innermost mind') or 'compuncto corde' ('with a goaded heart').
Harley MS 2928 is not an especially high-status manuscript. Folio 193 is a little misshapen, and there is a hole in it, through which – completely coincidentally – we can see the word 'gratiam' ('grace').
But Harley MS 2928 is not the only manuscript digitised for the Polonsky Foundation England and France project which contains part of De laude psalmorum. Cotton MS Titus D XXVI, half of an 11th-century manuscript known as Ælfwine's Prayerbook, includes a brief list, written in Old English, of devotions to perform first thing in the morning, including singing Psalm 66 (see Kate Thomas, Notes & Queries (2012)). The author of this text comments:
'Ne mæg ænig mann on his agen geþeode þa geswinc 7 þara costnunga nearonessa, þe him onbecumað, Gode swa fulfremedlice areccan, ne his mildheortnesse biddan, swa he mæg mid þillicum sealmum 7 mid oþrum swilcum'
('No man can tell God so effectively, in his own language, of the hardship and oppression of the temptations which come to him, nor ask his mercy, as he can with these psalms and with other such').
This is closely adapted from the advice given in De laude psalmorum:
‘nullatenus potest tua propria lingua nec humano sensu tam perfecte miseriam tuam ac atribulacione angustiamque diversarum tribulacione explicare et illius misericordiam implorare quam in his psalmis et ceteris his similibus’
('You cannot in any way, in your own language, nor in human thought, so perfectly explain your suffering, and the trouble and constriction of various temptations, and ask his mercy as in these psalms and in others similar to them').
This quotation, short though it is, shows how a popular text could be copied by scribes in different places, and in different languages, across the centuries. One of the exciting things about the Polonsky Foundation England and France 700-1200 project has been the discovery of new copies of texts and of the common interests which bring manuscripts from England and France together.
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03 February 2020
Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution
The exhibition Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution opens at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent this week, aiming to bring the medieval world of the Flemish court painter to life and contextualise his ground-breaking developments in oil painting. Around twenty works by Jan van Eyck (b. before 1390, d. 1441) have survived to the present day and are now housed at institutions around the world. Over half of these will be displayed in the museum for the next two months, most notably ‘The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’, a 15th-century altarpiece from St Bavo’s Cathedral that has recently undergone extensive restoration. The exhibition will display these items alongside pieces by Van Eyck’s contemporaries from France, Spain, Italy and Germany, gathering together numerous examples of late medieval painting, miniature art, sculpture and drawings.
The British Library has loaned to the exhibition two medieval manuscripts that particularly highlight the artistic environment in which Van Eyck was working. The first is a beautifully illuminated Book of Hours produced in Paris in around 1410 for a French aristocratic or possibly royal patron (Egerton MS 1070). Around 1440 it came into the possession of the bibliophile René of Anjou, King of Naples (b. 1409, d. 1480) and subsequently five full-page illustrations were added at key points in the manuscript, apparently at the request of the Neapolitan king who wanted to customize it for his own use. Most recent scholars have attributed these added illustrations to Barthélemy d'Eyck (b. c. 1420, d. after 1470), a Netherlandish artist known to have worked for René in the middle of the fifteenth century. He also seems to have been a member of Jan van Eyck’s family, though the exact nature of their relationship remains unclear.
The additions to the manuscript include a painting of René’s coat of arms, followed by a view of Jerusalem, showing two of the city’s most sacred sites, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock.
Another addition is a macabre personification of Death wearing a golden crown, which was added directly before the Office of the Dead. It might be a portrait of the king himself, a reminder to René to live wisely. The worm-eaten corpse clasps a scroll inscribed ‘Memento homo quod sinis es et in sinere reverteris’ (Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you will return), while in front of him a textile is displayed, bearing the king’s arms.
The exhibition also features the first volume of a five-part Latin Vulgate bible, made in Liège in around 1430 and later housed at the Benedictine monastery of St Jacques in the city. This volume has been recently digitised and now can be viewed online (Add MS 15254). The first page of the Book of Genesis (f. 13r) opens with a decorated initial letter I(n Principio), containing illustrations of the days of Creation. At the side of the initial is a column of angels holding scrolls with quotations from the writings of St Augustine of Hippo (b. 354, d. 430). Beneath them is a kneeling cleric, who possibly represents the manuscript’s patron.
Other illustrations were added to the page at a later date, and these display a close resemblance to a style typically used for panel painting during this period. In the lower margin, two pairs of Christian and pagan scholars are shown debating the creation of the world: St Augustine and the Greek philosopher Aristotle (b. 384 BC, d. 322 BC) on one side, and Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) and the Arabic philosopher Averroes (b. 1126, d. 1198) on the other. Meanwhile, in the right-hand margin appear representations of three Old Testament prophets. Though the identity of the manuscript’s illuminator remains unknown, the style of the added illustrations has been closely compared with that of Van Eyck and it is likely that the two artists were working in the same circle in the Meuse region (now covering parts of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands).
We strongly recommend that you go to see both these manuscripts on display at Van Eyck: An Optical Revolution which runs at the Museum of Fine Arts (MSK), Ghent, from 1 February until 30 April 2020.
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31 January 2020
The Trees of the Sun and the Moon
In modern times, ‘Moon Trees’ are trees that grew from the seeds that were taken into the Moon’s orbit by Apollo 14, which launched for the third manned mission to the Moon on 31 January in 1971. Medieval people, in contrast, would have associated ‘Moon Trees’ with an entirely different undertaking: the campaign begun in 326 BC by Alexander the Great (353–323 BC), king of the Greek empire of Macedon, with a view to conquering the world. The fictional 4th-century Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem (Letter of Alexander to Aristotle) tells that Alexander, during his expedition to India, visited a grove with two holy trees. Inside the grove, he met a high priest of more than ten feet tall who explained that one tree was male, could speak the Indian language, and foretold one’s future at the rising of the Sun; the other tree was female, could speak Greek, and foretold one’s future at the rising of the Moon. After Alexander prayed at the feet of the holy trees, they answered him that he would conquer the world but die from poisoning in Babylon before he could return home.
Alexander and his followers praying at the Trees of the Sun and the Moon guided by a high priest (England, 1333–c. 1340): Royal MS 19 D I, f. 32r
The oracle trees feature in several Alexander narratives. One of these is the Roman d'Alexandre en prose, a French translation of a 10th-century Latin version of a Greek Alexander romance, spuriously attributed to the historian Callisthenes (c. 360–c. 327 BC). In illustrated copies of this narrative, the oracle trees are sometimes conflated with the ‘Dry Tree’, another tree that Alexander visited and in whose branches he found the phoenix, a legendary self-resurrecting bird.
The Trees of the Sun and the Moon and the Dry Tree (Rouen, 1444–1445): Royal MS 15 E VI, f. 18v
The oracle trees were well-known to medieval encyclopaedists and chroniclers. In the 13th-century L’Image du monde (Mirror of the World), Gautier de Metz referred to them as reference points. In the 13th-century Speculum Historiale (Mirror of History), Vincent of Beauvais stated that the balm of the trees allowed the priests at the grove to live for 300 years. The 14th-century Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden attributed their longevity to the trees’ apples. A unique Middle English translation of the Polychronicon in Harley MS 2261 (f. 25v) describes the trees as follows:
‘The Trees of the Sun and the Moon are in India, and by their apples priests live for 500 years’
[‘The trees of the sonne and of the moone be in ynde, by the apples of whom prestes lyffede by vc yeres’]
John Mandeville, the supposed author of a fictional travel memoir describing the wonders of the Holy Land, Africa, and Asia, located the ‘Trees of the Sun and the Moon that spoke to King Alexander’ (‘tres of þe sunne and of þe monne þat spak to kyng alysaundre’) in a desert beyond the unidentified river ‘Beaumare’, but noted that he was unable to visit the trees because of the dangerous animals in the desert, such as dragons, serpents, lions and elephants.
Dangerous animals surrounding the grove of the Trees of the Sun and the Moon, in Mandeville’s Travels (England: 1st half of the 15th century): Harley MS 3954, f. 64r
The Trees of the Sun and the Moon were also included on medieval world maps (mappaemundi). The Higden map (Royal MS 14 C IX, f. 1v), for example, marks the spot where ‘Alexander prayed for an answer from the trees’ (‘hic alexander petebat responsum ab arboribus’). Other mappaemundi, such as the 12th-century Tournai Map of Asia (Add MS 10049, f. 64v) and the 13th-century Psalter world map (Add MS 28681, f. 9r), also illustrate the oracle trees.
The Trees of the Sun and the Moon (Arbor Solis and Arbor Lunae) close to the Garden of Eden on the Psalter world map (London, 1262–1300): Add MS 28681, f. 9r
The ‘Oracle of the Sun and the Moon’ (Oraculum solis et lunae) next to the Red Sea (Rubrum Mare) on the Tournai Map of Asia (possibly Tournai, 12th century): Add MS 10049, f. 64v
With increasing expeditions into Asia, mapmakers began to prefer Africa as the location of legendary sites. It is for this reason that the Harleian Mappemonde (Add MS 5413), which was produced around 1540, does not locate the oracle trees in India but in sub-Saharan Africa. Their name has been changed as well, and they are now simply referred to as ‘The Trees of the Moon’ (‘Les arbres de la lune’). These changes suggest that the mapmaker conflated these trees with the equally legendary ‘Mountains of the Moon’. According to the Greek geographer Ptolemy (c. AD 100–c. 170)’ in his Geographia, these mountains were the source of the river Nile. A certain merchant named Diogenes who was crossing East Africa discovered them and observed that their snow-melt created two lakes from which the Nile originates. On the Harleian Mappemonde, the Trees of the Moon are placed exactly below the Mountains of the Moon.
The Trees of the Moon on the Harleian Mappemonde (possibly Dieppe, c. 1540): Add MS 5413
The Mountains of the Moon in Ptolemy’s Geographia (Florence, 3rd quarter of the 15th century): Harley 7182, f. 85r
As people continued to explore the world , belief in the existence of the Trees of the Sun and the Moon waned. Ironically, it is because of continued explorations — namely, the Apollo 14 mission, which gave us the Moon Trees — that their name continues to this day.
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21 January 2020
Animals on coats of arms
We invite you to explore some of the wildlife that can be found in our heraldic manuscripts. Medieval and early modern coats of arms — visual designs symbolising the heritage and achievements of individuals and families — are teeming with animal life. These animals are depicted according to heraldic conventions, but sometimes they also display fabulous features originating from medieval illustrated ‘books of beasts’, known as bestiaries.
It can sometimes be difficult to understand what these borrowings from the bestiary tradition represent. Luckily, we have a guide book at our disposal, namely the 15th-century Middle Scots Deidis of Armorie (found in Harley MS 6149). This ‘heraldic bestiary’ explains what the behaviours and appearances of animals on coats of arms indicate about the origins of specific families. The manuscript containing the Deidis of Armorie has recently been digitised and can be found on our Digitised Manuscripts site. In this blogpost we'll study some extraordinary heraldic animals up close.
The Deidis of Armorie (Scotland, c. 1494): Harley MS 6149, ff. 16v–17r
We start with the heraldic ostrich, happily chomping on its staple food: horseshoes and keys. This imagery originates from the bestiary tradition, which supposed that the animal had remarkable digestive abilities, enabling it to consume and process iron. What does the ostrich's presence on a coat of arms mean? According to the Deidis of Armorie, it signified that the first bearer of these arms ate hard things — in other words, they were as tough as nails — and that they had a defiant nature (‘eite hard thingis and [wes] diffailland of natur’).
The ostrich as a heraldic crest (England, 17th century): Harley MS 4926, f. 8v
Tigers are often depicted on coats of arms gazing into mirrors. According to bestiaries, this imagery illustrated the method by which robbers could steal a tigress’s cub. The cub-nappers would be pursued by the tigress, but could deceive her by dropping a mirror on the ground. The tigress would stop to look into the mirror, mistake her own reflection for her stolen cub, and start nursing it, allowing the thieves to get away. The Deidis of Armorie claims that those who first bore the tiger on their coats of arms were feigning, cunning and deceitful (‘dissimilit, wyly, and double in his dedis’).
The tiger on a coat of arms (England, 4th quarter of the 16th century-1st quarter of the 17th century): Harley MS 6106, f. 68v
The heraldic elephant typically sported a tower or castle on its back. This imagery corresponds with the bestiary tale that male elephants were used in battle, and that men built castles filled with armed soldiers upon them. The Deidis of Armorie interprets a coat of arms inhabited by such an elephant as a sign that its first bearer was large and virtuous, and carried great burdens during their life (‘gret of body and of vertu, berand gret birdingis’).
The elephant on a coat of arms (England, c. 1632): Harley MS 6060, f. 109r
The heraldic pelican is found sitting on its nest while feeding its young with its own blood. Bestiaries told that the father pelican killed his young when they struck him with their wings, and that the mother subsequently revived them with her blood. The Deidis of Armorie explains that whoever first adopted a pelican on his coat of arms took vengeance on his neighbours when they harassed him, but that they were subsequently restored through him as well (‘[þai] wald have vengeance of his nixt nychtpuris quhen þai did oppressioun [bot] nychtburis scalit his blud for till heill þaim of his vengeance’).
The pelican on a coat of arms (England, 16th century): Harley MS 709, f. 22r
The heraldic panther is another wonderful sight. In line with the bestiary descriptions, coats of arms present it as a friendly animal with multi-coloured spots, issuing ‘flames’ out of its mouth and ears. The latter represent the sweet-smelling belch that the animal was wont to issue after a meal. Although the panther is not part of the Deidis of Armorie, Rodney Dennys (The Heraldic Imagination (Fakenham: Cox & Wyman, 1975), pp. 143–44) has pointed out that heraldic manuscripts sometimes interpret the animal’s multi-coloured spots as symbols for the many virtues of the arms’ bearer.
The panther as a heraldic supporter (England, c. 1600-1609): Harley MS 6156, f. 24r
We end our tour with the heraldic salamander. Bestiaries claimed that the salamander was a fire-resistant animal, and so we find it basking in flames of fire on coats of arms. The salamander is not covered by the Deidis of Armorie , but Dennys suggested that its presence on a coat of arms signified that its first bearer had survived great danger. James Douglas (1426–1488), 9th Earl of Douglas and 3rd Earl of Avondale, was among the first to display the animal on his coat of arms, perhaps alluding to his surviving a failed insurrection against King James II of Scotland, and subsequently escaping to England.
The salamander as a heraldic crest (England, 17th century): Harley MS 5818, f. 13v
If you would you like to see more heraldic animals, and to explore the symbolism behind them, we would encourage you to look out the Deidis of Armorie on Digitised Manuscripts.
The text quoted here can be found in Luuk A. J. R. Houwen, The Deidis of Armorie: A Heraldic Treatise and Bestiary, I, The Scottish Text Society, Fourth Series, 22 (Edinburgh: The Scottish Text Society, 1994).
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01 January 2020
New year, new manuscripts
Long-term readers of this Blog may know that we periodically publish lists of our digitised manuscripts (our last list was published in June 2019). As a special treat to celebrate the New Year, today we are releasing a new update to our lists of manuscript hyperlinks. We hope this makes it easier for you to explore our amazing digitised treasures.
There are now over 2900 Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern manuscripts on our Digitised Manuscripts website and more are being added all the time. For a full list of what is currently available, please see this PDF: Download Full-list-digitised-mss-dec-2019. This is also available as an Excel spreadsheet: Download Full-list-digitised-mss-dec-2019 (this format cannot be downloaded on all web browsers).
The Library's Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern team has been busy as ever over the last 6 months, working to make more manuscripts available online. All the images included in this blogpost are from manuscripts that we have digitised since June 2019. To admire our most recent additions to the Digitised Manuscripts site, take a look at this list of manuscripts published since June 2019. PDF: Download Digitised_mss_jun_2019_dec_2019. Excel: Download Digitised_mss_jun_2019_dec_2019.
You can find out how to make the most of Digitised Manuscripts in this previous blogpost. Many images of our manuscripts are also available to download from our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts which is searchable by keywords, dates, scribes and languages.
We hope you have a very Happy New Year and enjoy exploring Digitised Manuscripts!
Visit our Medieval England and France website to discover how to make a medieval manuscript, to read beastly tales from the medieval bestiary, and to learn about medieval science, medicine, monastic libraries and more.
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27 December 2019
Knight v griffin
You may have heard about the medieval knight’s rivalry with the snail, which we featured in this famous blogpost. But knights also had a more fearsome natural adversary, a fabulous creature from Ethiopia or India, with the body of a lion and the wings, head and (occasionally) talons of an eagle. That beast was none other than the griffin.
Images and descriptions of knights fighting griffins abound in medieval art and literature. They range from the woodcarvings on the benches of Norwich Cathedral and St Botolph’s Church at Boston (Lincolnshire) to the margins of medieval manuscripts, such as this Psalter (Add MS 24686), originally intended as a wedding gift for Prince Alphonso (d. 1284), son of King Edward I.
A knight spearing a griffin, in the Alphonso Psalter (England, late 13th century to early 14th century): Add MS 24686, f. 18r
The notion of knights and griffins in combat was influenced by the accounts found in bestiaries and natural encyclopedias. In the English translation of De proprietatibus rerum (‘On the Properties of Things’) by Bartholomaeus Anglicus (Harley MS 614, f. 104v), it was claimed that the griffin ‘greven boþe hors and man’ (‘harms both horses and men’). Another account is found in a fictional travel memoir attributed to Sir John Mandeville, describing the wonders of the Holy Land, Africa and Asia. This evokes the image of the creature carrying a knight on horseback back to its nest:
‘þe gryffoun hath a body gretter þan viij lyonys and gretter and strangere þan C. Eglys for he wyl bere to hys nest flyande a gret hors and a man on hym’
(‘The griffin has a body that is larger than eight lions and larger and stronger than a hundred eagles, since he will carry to his nest a large horse with a man on top of it.’)
A griffin carrying a knight and horse to its nest (eastern England, 2nd quarter of the 15th century): Harley MS 3954, f. 54v
In the Roman d’Alexandre, a 12th-century romance describing Alexander the Great’s legendary exploration and conquest of the world, it was recounted that, after leaving the legendary country of ‘Tradiaque’, Alexander lost many men in a battle with griffins. Eventually, his archers managed to shoot them out of the air. The artist who decorated one manuscript of the Roman d’Alexandre in the late 13th-century (Harley MS 4979) depicted a griffin lifting a knight in full armour into the air, thereby demonstrating its great strength.
Alexander the Great slaying a griffin (northern France or southern Netherlands, 1st quarter of the 14th century): Royal MS 20 A V, f. 67v
A very early representation of a knight fighting a griffin features on a 12th-century wax seal attached to a charter (Harley Charter 44 E 19) in which William Basset, abbot of St Benet of Hulme (1127-1134), Norfolk, granted the lease of the manor of Heigham in Norwich to Richard Basset (I) of Weldon. The seal of Richard Basset features a knight in full chain armour with a Norman helmet and shield, and striking with his sword a griffin holding a naked man in its jaws.
Richard Basset’s seal (England, 1127–1134): Harley Charter 44 E 19
This seal once belonged to Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602–1650), an antiquary whose collection formed the cornerstone of the Harleian library. In his autobiography, D’Ewes mentioned viewing it on 4 August 1632, and considering it ‘the oldest [seal] that I ever saw’ (J. Halliwell-Phillipps, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (1845), II, p. 76). Seeing its fragile state, he had it ‘three times tricked out [i.e. outlined] by a most skilful hand, and [I] had two of those copies or draughts very exactly depicted or coloured’.
After acquiring the seal, D’Ewes referred to it as ‘the most precious monument in my library’. Great was his dismay, therefore, when he discovered that a portion containing the griffin's wings and the top of the tail had broken off in 1636. Luckily, he found consolation in the colour copies he had made of it:
‘[M]y vexation and trouble would have been much the greater had I not preserved the true form and colour of the same seal in those exact draughts I had caused to be identically delineated and coloured from it.’
So far, scholars have known of only one early modern hand-drawn copy of the seal — when it was still more or less intact — made by Sir William Dugdale (1605–1686), antiquary and herald, for Sir Christopher Hatton’s Book of Seals, begun in 1640. We have now discovered an older and possibly more accurate copy while cataloguing the Harley manuscripts. This copy of the seal features in Harley MS 6152, at the end of several hand-drawn reproductions of charters related to the Basset family. According to Humfrey Wanley (1672–1726), Keeper of the Harley collection, the reproductions were made by or at the instruction of Sir Simonds D’Ewes. Next to the copy, someone has added a note in which they testify to its accuracy by comparing it with the original seal. As the note is dated to 15 September 1632, it was made shortly after D’Ewes viewed the seal. All of this suggests that the version in Harley MS 6152 is one of the two colour copies that D’Ewes referred to in his autobiography.
A copy of Richard Basset’s seal (England, before or in 1632): Harley MS 6152, f. 12r
The seal’s symbolic meaning is unknown, but the image of a fabulous creature — such as the dragon or wyvern — devouring a naked man became more common on coats of arms designed during the age of heraldry, from the middle of the 12th century. The knight fighting the griffin may refer to the Basset family’s military valour or expeditions in faraway countries — where griffins were thought to live — during the Crusades. At the very least, we can deduce that medieval artists and heralds were drawing upon centuries-old precedents whenever they illustrated knights and griffins in combat.
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25 December 2019
Christmas at Sainte-Chapelle
It is midnight on 24th December in the great city of Paris, sometime in the last quarter of the 13th century. Paris is the most populous city in Europe with around 200,000 residents, and it is the centre of learning, government and commerce in France. Tonight all is quiet in the city's many ports, markets, workshops, lecture halls and council chambers, but the sound of chanting is rising from the churches, filling the cold night with warm music. Within the walls of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité, the clergy of the royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle are celebrating the feast of the Nativity from a beautiful new book.
The book is a Gospel Lectionary, a collection of the Gospel passages to be read during the mass throughout the year. They are arranged in calendar order, beginning with the season of Advent. The Gospel readings for each day of the year were established in the early Middle Ages and, with a few local variations, were traditional throughout the churches of Western Europe. Like the entire service, the readings are all in Latin.
At Christmas, three masses are performed throughout the day. The reading for Midnight Mass is Luke 2:1-14, which tells how Joseph and Mary travelled to the city of Bethlehem, where Mary gave birth to Jesus in a stable and laid him in a manger. Meanwhile, shepherds watching their flocks were visited by an angel, who announced to them the birth of Christ and explained where to find him.
As the deacon reads the words, he can see the events delicately illustrated in the decorated letter that opens the reading. Almost every one of the readings in this luxurious lectionary begins with an illustrated letter, 262 in total. The letters, known as ladder initials, are slender and towering, divided into horizonal tiers and topped with gothic architectural features, much like the magnificent building for which the manuscript was made.
The upper level of the letter shows the Nativity scene—Mary reclining in bed, Joseph sitting behind, the baby Jesus lying in a high altar-like manger being nuzzled by the ox and the ass. The lower level shows the surprised shepherds and equally surprised sheepdog encountering the angel, who points urgently up to the Nativity above. The top of the initial features alternating Gothic pinnacles and gables, similar to the distinctive exterior of Sainte-Chapelle (below).
After Midnight Mass, the clergy and congregation of Sainte-Chapelle go to bed, their heads filled with the joyful words and bright images. Later, the community returns to the church for the second service of the day, the Dawn Mass. The reading continues with Luke 2:15-20, in which the shepherds go to Bethlehem, find the Holy Family and glorify God.
The decorated letter shows the Nativity in the upper scene, almost but not quite the same as before. Mary has now crossed her arms, and with her wistful expression she seems to illustrate the line of Luke 2:14, 'Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart'. She is also now covered by a blue quilt with a red lining, perhaps Joseph's cloak from the previous scene. On the lower level, the shepherds are praising God, two of them reverently raising their arms and one clutching his hands to his heart. Their arrival is signified by the gothic architectural structure under which they now stand. With its pointed arch containing two trilobe arches and a quatrefoil medallion, the structure closely resembles a design that is repeated along the lower walls of Sainte-Chapelle's upper chapel (below).
The third and most important mass of Christmas, distinguished with the largest and most elaborate decorated initial in the lectionary, was celebrated during the day. The reading is John 1:1-14, 'In the beginning was the Word', which describes how the Word of God created the world and then became flesh in the person of Christ.
In the decorated initial, the six days of Creation, the seventh day of divine rest and the Crucifixion are represented inside barbed quatrefoils. The scenes emphasise the message of the Gospel reading, adding the solemn reminder that Christ's human birth meant that he could die a human death, and so achieve salvation for humanity. The slender column of quatrefoil medallions is reminiscent of Sainte-Chapelle's soaring windows with their panels of geometric glasswork (below).
As the service comes to an end, the clergy and congregation of Sainte-Chapelle gaze around the chapel. The winter sunshine is streaming through the stained-glass windows and the lofty vaults are pointing the way to heaven. Those within sight of the book can see sacred history minutely represented inside letters that echo the architecture of the building. For a moment, the events of the Christmas story seem be to present within the gothic splendour of Sainte-Chapelle. Everyone is filled with wonder as they leave the chapel and head to their Christmas feasts.
The Sainte-Chapelle Gospel lectionary is currently on view as part of the Sacred Texts display in the British Library's Treasures Gallery, open on the readings for the dawn and daytime masses on Christmas Day. Visit us to see this festive treat in person (check our seasonal opening hours).
Merry Christmas from the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Section of the British Library!
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21 December 2019
Two Peters of Notre-Dame
It has been eight months since tragedy struck Notre-Dame, the iconic cathedral of Paris, when fire broke out on its roof on 15 April 2019. The cornerstone of Notre-Dame was laid in 1163 (though construction on the site may have begun as early as 1160) and it was fully completed around 1250. But the presence of a religious community headed by the Bishop of Paris on the Île de la Cité – the island in the Seine at the heart of Paris – was already long-established. There had been a church or a cathedral there since possibly as early as the 4th century.
Moreover, at the time of the building of the new Gothic cathedral, the cathedral school of Notre-Dame enjoyed a far-reaching reputation, largely due to outstanding scholars such as Peter Lombard (d. 1160) and Peter Cantor (d. 1197). This resulted in close connections between the influential intellectual sphere of Paris and the English ecclesiastical and scholastic elite. Some of these connections are evident in surviving manuscripts that have been digitised as part of the Polonsky Foundation England and France 700-1200 project.
12th-century Paris was celebrated throughout Europe as the leading place for the study of theology and the liberal arts. One of the personalities that inspired this acclaim was the theologian Peter Lombard (d. 1160) . It was also largely due to him that the cathedral school of Notre-Dame became one of the main schools of the emerging University of Paris.
Originally from Lombardy in north-western Italy, Peter initially lacked any influential French contacts or relations. But by 1145 he had made such a name for himself as a teacher of theology that he was invited to be the magister (‘master’ or ‘teacher’) of the cathedral school of Notre-Dame, and was appointed as Bishop of Paris shortly before his death.
Peter’s most influential work, the Four Books of Sentences, became the standard theology textbook for much of the Middle Ages, but his commentaries on the Psalms were also exceptionally widely circulated. The speed with which his works were disseminated is illustrated by the two copies of his commentary on the Psalms digitised by the Polonsky England and France project (Add MS 54229 and BnF, Latin 17271) which were made in England, possibly during Peter’s own lifetime or shortly after his death. You can read more about the innovations in page layout that Peter Lombard’s commentary inspired in this article about the tradition of Glossed Psalters.
During the first phase of the building of the new Notre-Dame cathedral, another exceedingly influential theologian called Peter became closely associated with the cathedral chapter. It is unclear when he arrived in Paris to teach, but around 1183 he had become the Cantor of Notre-Dame, and is therefore known as Peter Cantor, or Peter the Chanter (d. 1197). The position of Cantor was the second highest in rank of the members of the cathedral chapter. The Cantor’s work involved managing the activities of the choir: for example, supervising liturgical services and teaching the choristers. However, based on documentary evidence of his activities, it seems that Peter mainly focused on teaching theology and engaging in church government.
In the 1190s Peter assembled his teachings on practical morality developed during his long career as a theology lecturer into the work Verbum abbreviatum (roughly ‘Abridged sayings’). This text quickly became popular throughout Europe and almost 100 copies are known to have been in circulation during the medieval period.
Two manuscripts containing the Verbum abbreviatum (Add MS 35180 and Cotton MS Claudius E I) were copied in England and are especially early examples of the text. Indeed, the oldest of the two (Cotton MS Claudius E I) might have been copied as early as the year of Peter Cantor’s death. This early date is suggested by the ending statement, or explicit, of the text:
‘[Here] ends the Verbum abbreviatum of Master Peter, the foremost Chanter of Paris, afterwards a novice of Longpont, in which place he died [as a] novice.’
(Explicit verbum abbreviatum magistri Petri primus cantoris Parisiensis, postea novicii Longipontis, in quo novicius defunctus est.)
This refers to the fact that Peter Cantor was elected dean of the cathedral chapter of Reims in 1196, but on his way there he stopped at the Cistercian abbey of Longpont. While there he became ill and died in January 1197. The precise details are unclear, but this explicit seems to suggest that shortly before his death he joined the Cistercian community at Longpont but died before he could take his vows.
Perhaps this news had been recently received by the scribe of the manuscript. In any case, it shows that details about the author, as well as copies of his texts, could spread quickly across the Channel to England.
Emilia Henderson
@minuscule_eth
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