Illuminated Manuscripts of the Early Middle Ages

The illuminated manuscript was the dominant art form of the early Middle Ages. In a period when monumental sculpture was in decline, when fresco and mosaic were confined to a few great centers, and when most works of art were produced for the liturgy or for royal gift-giving, the manuscript — and especially the gospel book, the psalter, the sacramentary, the bible, and the prayer book — was the most prestigious object the culture could produce. The scriptoria of Iona, Lindisfarne, Wearmouth-Jarrow, Tours, Reims, Corbie, Reichenau, St. Gall, and the great imperial and monastic foundations of the period trained generations of scribes, illuminators, and binders. Their products are among the most studied objects in the history of Western art. For the broader context, early medieval art and architecture sets out the broader context; for the Insular and Anglo-Saxon manuscript tradition in detail, see the Insular and Anglo-Saxon art; for the Carolingian and Ottonian manuscript tradition, see the Carolingian and Ottonian art; and for the broader monastic context, see the monasticism and the Benedictine Rule. The famous Irish and Anglo-Saxon gospel books are treated in the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

The illuminated manuscript is so named because the decoration was originally applied with gold and silver leaf, which caught the light of the candle or the window and seemed to make the page glow. The Latin illuminare — to light up, to enlighten — gave the technique its name, and the verb carried a theological resonance: the decorated page was understood to be a form of sacred illumination, an aid to prayer, and a witness to the Word of God. The illuminator of the manuscript was understood to be working in sacred service, and the most elaborate manuscripts were sometimes signed by their makers in formulaic colophons that invoke divine protection on the work and the worker.

The Scriptoria

A scriptorium was the writing room of a monastery, a cathedral, or an imperial court. In the early Middle Ages, the scriptorium was typically a separate room, often near the cloister, where the monks or hired scribes worked under the supervision of an armarius or librarian. The scriptorium was a quiet, well-lit space, with individual desks for the scribes, a supply of parchment, pigments, inks, and binding materials, and a strict discipline of work and prayer. The Rule of St. Benedict, examined in the Rule of St. Benedict article, set the framework for monastic work in the scriptorium: the scribes were to work in silence, to pray before and after their work, and to dedicate their labor to God.

The major scriptoria of the early Middle Ages can be divided into regional and chronological groups. The Insular scriptoria of Iona, Lindisfarne, Durrow, Kells, and the Continental foundations of Bobbio and St. Gall produced the great gospel books of the Irish and Anglo-Saxon tradition. The Anglo-Saxon scriptoria of Wearmouth-Jarrow, Canterbury, and Winchester produced the great bibles, gospel books, and prayer books of the Northumbrian and West Saxon traditions. The Carolingian scriptoria of Tours, Reims, Corbie, Saint-Denis, and the court school at Aachen produced the great bibles, psalters, and liturgical books of the imperial program. The Ottonian scriptoria of Reichenau, Hildesheim, Trier, Regensburg, Echternach, Cologne, and Bamberg produced the great gospel books, sacramentaries, and pericopes of the Ottonian imperial program.

The scriptorium was not always confined to a single foundation. The leading scribes and illuminators of the period were sometimes itinerant, working for patrons in different cities and producing manuscripts for the great cathedrals, monasteries, and courts of Europe. The leading scholars of the Carolingian period — Alcuin of York, Theodulf of Orléans, Walafrid Strabo, Lupus of Ferrières, and many others — were often abbots or bishops who supervised scriptoria, but they were also scholars, theologians, and poets whose works circulated widely. The great manuscripts of the period are the products of a sophisticated patronage network that linked the imperial and royal courts, the great monasteries, the cathedrals, and the leading scholars of the age.

Parchment and Parchment Production

Parchment, prepared animal skin, was the standard writing material of the early Middle Ages. The skins of calves, sheep, goats, and pigs were prepared by soaking in lime, scraping, stretching, and drying, and the resulting sheets were smooth, durable, and well suited to writing and painting. Parchment was expensive: the skins of perhaps 150 calves were required to produce a single bible of the size of the Codex Amiatinus or the Vivian Bible. The production of parchment was a major industry, and the great scriptoria maintained their own parchment workshops.

The quality of the parchment varied. The finest parchment, called uterine vellum or uterine parchment, was made from the skins of unborn or newborn calves and was smooth, fine, and well suited to the most delicate painting. The standard parchment for the great gospel books, bibles, and liturgical books was uterine vellum or fine vellum, and the lesser manuscripts were written on coarser parchment prepared from the skins of adult animals. The color of the parchment also varied: most parchment was cream or off-white, but some was prepared with a green or purple dye, and the purple parchment of the Carolingian and Byzantine imperial manuscripts was the most prestigious and most expensive.

The preparation of the parchment for writing was a careful process. The skins were cut into sheets, the sheets were folded into gatherings, the gatherings were sewn into quires, and the quires were bound into the final book. The format of the book — the size of the sheets, the number of quires, the ruling of the lines, the order of the texts — was determined in advance, and the parchment was prepared to fit. The ruling of the lines, the pricking of the margins, and the marking of the page divisions were all done before the writing began.

Scripts and Writing

The script of the early Middle Ages is conventionally divided into four main families: the Roman, the Insular, the Carolingian, and the later pre-Gothic scripts. The Roman capital, the Roman uncial, and the Roman half-uncial were the scripts of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. The Insular half-uncial and the Insular majuscule, developed in the Irish and Anglo-Saxon scriptoria of the seventh and eighth centuries, are among the most distinctive scripts of the period. The Carolingian minuscule, developed at the court of Charlemagne and the scriptoria of Tours and Corbie in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, became the standard book hand of the Latin West and the basis of the modern Roman type. The development of the Carolongian minuscule is treated in detail in the dedicated long-tail.

The script of a manuscript was a major element in its visual character. The Insular scripts, with their heavily decorated letterforms, their elaborate capitals, and their ornament, are among the most distinctive scripts in the history of Western writing. The Carolingian minuscule, with its clear, well-spaced letterforms, its consistent size, and its legibility, set the standard for the medieval book hand. The pre-Gothic and Gothic scripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries continued the Carolingian tradition but introduced new features, including the breaking of the curves, the use of compressed letterforms, and the development of more elaborate capitals.

The writing of the manuscript was a labor of years. The great bibles of the Carolingian period, of which the Vivian Bible is the most famous, were produced by teams of scribes working under the supervision of an armarius. The great gospel books of the Insular period, of which the Book of Kells is the most famous, were produced by a small number of scribes and illuminators working in a single scriptorium over a period of years. The most elaborate manuscripts were sometimes the work of a single artist, but the great bibles and liturgical books of the period were generally the products of a team.

Pigments and Painting

The pigments of the early medieval illuminator were a small but extremely well-chosen palette. The most expensive pigment was ultramarine, made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli imported from Afghanistan. The most prestigious was purple, made from the secretions of the murex sea snail and reserved for the imperial and aristocratic manuscripts. The other pigments included vermilion (cinnabar), malachite, azurite, orpiment, red ochre, yellow ochre, lead white, vine black, and bone black. The pigments were ground in water or in a binding medium (egg, gum, or glue) and applied with brushes of various sizes made of squirrel, marten, or other soft hair.

The application of the pigments to the parchment required considerable skill. The illuminator first prepared the parchment with a thin layer of gesso, then sketched the composition in lead or chalk, then applied the colors in a sequence of layers, then added the final details of the face, the hands, and the ornament. The gold leaf, which gave the technique its name, was applied with a thin layer of gesso or with egg white, and was then burnished with a polished stone or a tooth to produce a brilliant, reflective surface.

The pigments of the early medieval manuscript painter have proved remarkably durable. The lapis lazuli ultramarine, the cinnabar vermilion, the malachite green, and the azurite blue of the great Insular, Carolingian, and Ottonian manuscripts have not faded significantly over the centuries, and the surviving examples retain their saturated colors. Some pigments have changed over the centuries: the orpiment yellow has often darkened to brown, the lead white has sometimes blackened with exposure to sulfur in the air, and the verdigris green has often turned to brown. But the overall color schemes of the great manuscripts are well preserved.

The Decoration of the Manuscript

The decoration of the manuscript was the most distinctive visual contribution of the scriptorium. The decorative program of a great gospel book or bible typically included the canon tables (concordance tables of the four gospels, placed at the beginning of the book), the evangelist portraits, the decorated initials at the beginning of each book, the running titles, the marginal ornament, and the full-page miniatures. The Insular gospel books added the famous carpet pages — full-page geometric and zoomorphic designs placed at major divisions of the text — and the inhabited initials — large decorated letters filled with figures, animals, and ornament. The Carolingian and Ottonian manuscripts added the architectural framing of the canon tables, the use of the classical author portrait, and the development of the narrative miniature.

The iconography of the decoration was drawn from the Bible, the lives of the saints, the liturgical year, and the symbolic vocabulary of the early Christian and medieval Church. The evangelist portraits showed the four gospel writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — in various poses, with their symbols (the man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle) and their attributes. The scenes from the life of Christ — the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Baptism, the Transfiguration, the Entry into Jerusalem, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Pentecost — formed the core of the visual program of the great gospel books. The scenes from the Old Testament — the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the sacrifice of Isaac, the Exodus, the prophets, and the kings — were added in the great bibles and in the illustrated books of the Old Testament.

The ornament of the manuscript was the most distinctive contribution of the scriptorium. The Insular scriptoria developed the abstract ornamental vocabulary of interlace, spirals, key patterns, and zoomorphic forms that became the most distinctive feature of the Insular tradition. The Carolingian and Ottonian scriptoria developed the classical acanthus scroll, the vine scroll, the roundel, the rinceau, and the architectural framing that became standard features of the medieval book. The combination of figural imagery and ornamental decoration, of classical and Christian elements, of the Roman inheritance and the local tradition, is the most characteristic feature of the early medieval illuminated manuscript.

The Survival of the Manuscripts

The survival rate of early medieval manuscripts is remarkably high. The libraries of Bobbio, St. Gall, Reichenau, and a handful of other monasteries preserved many of the finest examples through the centuries. The Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Codex Amiatinus, the Book of Durrow, and the great Carolingian and Ottonian bibles and gospel books have survived in their original monastic libraries for more than a thousand years. The dispersal of the monastic libraries in the sixteenth century, the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, and the secularization of the religious foundations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries all brought many great manuscripts into the public libraries and private collections of Europe and America.

The study of early medieval manuscripts is one of the most active areas of modern art history and codicology. The major libraries of Europe — the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Vatican Library, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, and the great American libraries of the Morgan, Yale, and Harvard — all hold important collections of early medieval manuscripts. The Trinity College Library in Dublin, where the Book of Kells has been housed since the seventeenth century, is the single most important repository of Insular manuscripts.