[28] For a copious and exhaustive account of the “Hortus,” see “Het Gildeboek,” Utrecht, 1877, v. i. Also Engelhardt, Herrad v. H., etc., 8°, with atlas of twelve plates, 1818.
The title began thus: “Incipit hortus deliciarum, in quo collectis floribus scripturarum assidue jucundetur turmula adolescentularum.” In the Rhytmus came the lines:—
“Salve cohors virginum
Hohenburgensium
Albens quasi lilium
Amans dei filium
Herrat devotissima
Tua fidelissima
Mater et ancillula
Cantat tibi cantica
Sic et liber utilis
Tibi delectabilis
Et non cesses volvere
Hanc in tuo pectore.”
In the Netherlands, which mostly at this time lay within the boundary of Lotharingia or Lorraine, the style of illumination was much the same as in other German districts. Gospel-books and Psalters, however, exhibit features somewhat akin to English work.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the continental methods prevail in more solid painting and less penwork.
Of the twelfth-century work of Germany examples are exceedingly numerous, stretching over every province from West to East, as Westphalia, the Palatinate, Burgundy, Switzerland and Bavaria, extending even into Bohemia. An Evangeliary in the University Library at Prag agrees altogether with those of Germany.
Towards the middle of the twelfth century, with the accession of the House of Hohenstaufen (1138, etc.), arose a new style, since called Romanesque, of which many examples are to be found in various libraries. It is not very easy to select the most typical examples, but one good and typical MS. is found in a Gospel-book at Carlsruhe, which contains some capital miniatures of this most thoroughly German style.
Under Frederick Barbarossa, as under the Caroling Emperors and the Othos, we may note a wave of new life, especially in Saxony. A contrast as regards artistic ability to the “Hortus Deliciarum” is the Gospel-book executed for Henry the Lion at the convent of Helmershausen, once in the Cathedral Library at Prag, and bought by King George of Hanover.[29] In the page of the Eusebian Canons we see features which take us across the plains of Lombardy to the doors of S. Michele of Pavia, and to the churches of Venice. The columns rest on crouching animals. Allegorical figures are introduced striving with each other as in the later Gothic illuminations. A half-nude figure of Faith vanquishes the champion of Paganism. On the dedication page sits the Madonna with SS. John Baptist and Bartholomew, and below them the patron saints of Brunswick, Blaize, and Egidius leading forth the Duke and his wife, Mathilda. It may indeed be called a splendid book. Among the rest of the pictures, some of them within richly decorated borders, occurs the usual representation of the Duke and his Duchess receiving crowns. The figures are well drawn, even elegant, the draperies good, and the colouring skilful.
[29] See F. Culemann in Neue hannov. Zeitung, 1861, Nos. 22-4.
One of the many characteristic MSS. of this period to be seen in continental libraries is the “Mater Verborum” of the monk Conrad, of Scheyern in Bavaria, a noted scribe, illuminator, goldsmith, and grammarian. The subject is one that scarcely gives promise of lending itself to pictorial illustration, but after the successful attempts of Theodulf we may be prepared for anything in the way of diagram and symbol. Imagine a dictionary in which not only actual objects are pictorially represented, but also abstract terms. Music, philosophy, virtues and vices illustrated by historical instances—sacred subjects treated in the manner of the glass painters which is so commonly found in German and French work of this period.
Of twelfth-century illumination in general it may be said that it shows a marked effort towards true artistic design and subtle beauty of linear outline. Some of the noblest curve-drawing, with rich and massive grouping of foliages, is to be found in the ornamental initials and dignified border designs presented on the later examples of the century, and it is very interesting to observe the rapid pace at which the climax is reached in mere calligraphic ornament after the opening of the Gothic period. Initials become smaller but exquisitely drawn, and reasonable expression takes the place of the senseless stare or grotesque exaggeration of attitude and feature which detract from the artistic value of all preceding efforts. To conclude our list of German illuminations of purely monastic production, we will bring forward one more example of women's work, which whether as regards its curious illustrations of symbolism, or its richly foliaged geometrical backgrounds and borders, is one of the most interesting MSS. in any collection. It is the Evangeliary of the Abbess Uota, or perhaps, rather, Tuota of Niedermünster, a lady of the House of the Counts of Falckenstein (1177-80); or of Utta, abbess from 1009 to 1012, but more probably the former. Another, Tutta, ruled the abbey from 920 to 934, and still another 1239-42. This precious MS., which Cahier has very fully described as the “Manuscrit du Niedermuenster de Ratisbonne,” is now in the Royal Library at Munich (Cimel. 35). Some writers, in speaking of it, have classed it among the MSS. of the eleventh century, but it is too refined and too well done for that period, and, indeed, that it belongs to the latter part of the twelfth is almost proved from the work itself. Perhaps it was the profusion of inscriptions or legends placed all over the miniatures that gave the idea of its belonging to the eleventh century. In this respect the MS. certainly resembles the Evangeliary of Luxeuil already described. The miniature of the Crucifixion is very remarkable. Besides the figure of Christ showing a return to the primitive Syriac idea,[30] instead of the figures as usual of Mary and John, here are given allegorical figures of Life and Death. (Cf. Fest. in exaltatione sce crucis. Ad Laudes, 14th Sept.). Perhaps the best commentary on these old figures is the “Biblia Pauperum,” as it is commonly called, or as it should be called, the Bible of the poor preachers. It also has the old allegories and inscriptions rendered into later forms.
[30] Cf. the Rabula MS. at Vienna.
As for the texts or inscriptions, they would require a commentary to themselves—not to speak of translations and remarks upon the calligraphy. One of these remarkable miniatures may be described, as it depicts the presentation of the volume to the Madonna. Our Lady in the centre of the design is seated on a Byzantine sedile with the infant Jesus on her knees. She is crowned, and has the nimbus, and appears as if intended to represent the glory of the Church. Her hand is raised as in the act of teaching. Christ, also, has the nimbus, but with the cross upon it, and raises his hand in the attitude of benediction. In the tympanum of the semicircle over the Madonna, written in letters of gold on purple, surrounded by the word “Sancta” in ordinary ink, is the monogram of Maria, having a small sun and moon above it, and other inscriptions, partly Latin, partly Greek. Below the Madonna, on the left, stands the abbess, her knees slightly bent, holding up her book, and clothed in the costume of her Order, but coloured, no doubt, simply for artistic reasons. Thus she wears a blue veil and a claret-coloured robe. In the reversed semicircle before her is another monogram, Uota or Tuota, a name which perhaps may be translated Uta, Utta, Ida, etc. It has been said already who she is likely to have been. It does not follow, of course, that she herself wrote or illuminated the book she is presenting, but judging from similar instances, as e.g. Herrade of Landsberg and Hrosvita of Gandersheim, she may have done so.
Still the work looks technically too masterly for anyone not a trained artist to have done. In the corners are small quadretti, containing busts of the four cardinal virtues:—Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude; and in circlets in the centre of each border are Faith, Hope, and Charity, the latter twice, at top and bottom. A number of extraordinary beasts fill up little niches in the design, which may possibly be also symbolical, but possibly also nothing but artistic fancies. The other miniatures we must pass over. Nevertheless those representing the four evangelists are worth examination;[31] the ornamentation being especially rich and elaborate. Let us now turn our attention to a new element—a new spirit we might term it—which was manifesting itself in Italy and France. We cannot too strongly insist upon the fact that whatever appears in illumination has appeared first in architecture and its auxilliary arts. Now we have to see how this fact begins to change almost entirely the character of the ornamentation of books. During the latter part of the twelfth century, when precisely we cannot say, nor where, a new form of architecture began to show itself. This new style, laying aside both the classic cornice and the Romanesque arch, makes use of a new vertical principle of construction, called in French the ogive or arch, composed of two sections only, instead of the whole semicircle. By some fatality, of which no exact explanation can be given, English writers have given this new style the name of Gothic. Scores of cathedrals throughout Europe are called Gothic cathedrals, whereas in all probability, if we exclude Sweden, there is only one really Gothic building in the world, that is the Tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna, and none of the so-called Gothic cathedrals are in the least like it. As to the invention itself, it has been claimed by almost every nationality in Europe. There can be no doubt that accidentally, or otherwise, the pointed arch had been used often enough without any idea of its adoption as a principle of construction even in ancient buildings. The famous gate at Mycœne is one instance. This is not the place to discuss the question, so we let it pass. We could point out long and elaborate arguments intended to prove that it originated in England—that it originated in France—in Germany.[32] Possibly they may all be right in a sense, for most probably the origin was not in any particular locality, but in the religious spirit of the time. It was a general revival of the Church itself that was its cause. If any special locality has more reason on its side than another, it is probably France, but as we say, that is not an essential point. It must suffice us here that it arose, and that by the end of the twelfth century it was a fact. And the remarkable part about it is that it was by the influence of lay artists and especially of the freemasons that it became the accepted architecture of Christendom.
[31] For more about them, see Cahier, Mélanges d'Archéologie, etc.
[32] Not to mention theories, which are endless.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ILLUMINATION
The Gothic spirit—A “Zeitgeist” not the invention of a single artist nor of a single country—The thirteenth century the beginning of the new style—Contrast between North and South, between East and West, marked in the character of artistic leaf-work—Gradual development of Gothic foliage—The bud of the thirteenth century, the leaf of the fourteenth, and the flower of the fifteenth—The Freemasons—Illumination transferred from the monastery to the lay workshop—The Psalter of St. Louis—Characteristics of French Gothic illumination—Rise of the miniature as a distinct feature—Guilds—Lay artists.
We have now reached the parting of the ways. The study of Nature is fast superseding the dogmas of the monastic code, and what some writers have characterised as the hieratic is giving way to the naturalistic treatment of art. Like the pointed architecture itself, it is an outcome of the spirit of the age. Exactly when it begins we cannot say. As in the physical sciences, our limits are necessarily somewhat arbitrary to suit our convenience in classification. We take the beginning of the thirteenth century as a convenient dividing line between old and new. We accept it as the boundary between the artistic sway of the East and South—and that of the West and North—between the lifeless fetters of prescription and the living freedom of invention. The contrast between the two is very strongly marked. The soft and curling foliages of the sunny South are for a season giving way to the hard and thorny leafage of the wintry North. It would seem as if pointed architecture began with the hard and frozen winter of its existence, and if it had been the plan or design of one individual we might have accepted this peculiarity as part of the scheme, and all that followed as a natural consequence and development. But it is curious that as a system worked out by many minds pointed architecture should thus begin. First come thorns and cusps and lanceolate forms without foliage. Then, not perfect leaves, but buds. In due time the bud opens, at first into the profile coil, and by-and-by into the full-spread leaf. Then comes the flower, and finally the fruit. After that, rottenness and decay. It is curious that this should actually take place through a course of centuries. That it should be reflected in book illumination is simply the usual order of things—the fact has been frequently observed, and as it is curious, we call attention to it. But, as we have said, the great change itself was brought about by the influence of lay artists, and chiefly by the freemasons.
Who and what the freemasons were everybody is supposed to know, but on inquiry we find very few people indeed know anything definite about them. Of course we do not refer to the friendly societies or social guilds that now bear the name, but to the mediæval builders. “Everybody knows,” says Batissier,[33] “that the study of the sciences and of literature and the practice of the various branches of art took refuge in the monasteries during the irruptions of the barbarians and the strife of international war. In those retreats, not only painting, sculpture, engraving on metals, and mosaic, but also architecture were cultivated. If the question arose about building a church, it was nearly always an ecclesiastic who furnished the plan and monks who carried out the works under his direction. The brethren in travelling from convent to convent naturally exercised a reciprocal influence over each other. We conceive, then, that the abbeys of any given Order would put in vogue the same style, and that the art would be modified under certain points of view, in the same manner in each country.”
[33] Hist. de l' Art Monumental, p. 466, Paris, 1845, I. 8°.
“It is certain, moreover, that outside the cloisters there were also troops of workmen not monastics, who laboured under the direction of the latter.”
“Masons were associated among them in the same way as other trade corporations. It was the same with these corporations in the South as with the communes—the débris of the Roman organisation; they took refuge in the Church, and had arrived at a condition of public life and independence, when order was established between the commune, the Seignory, and the Church.”
“During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these corporations were organised into recognised fraternities having their own statutes, but there is abundant evidence of their having a much earlier existence.”
“A great number of masons were trained in Italy, and came from Lombardy, which in the tenth century even was an active centre of civilisation. Italy had its corporations of masons called maestri comaccini, enjoying exclusive privileges, who, having passed the different degrees of apprenticeship, became 'accepted'[34] masons, and had the right of exercising their profession wherever they might be. The sovereigns of different countries granted them special privileges, and the popes protected them in all Catholic countries where they might travel. Thus the lodges grew and prospered. The Greek artists who had fled from Constantinople during the various Iconoclast persecutions had got themselves enrolled in the ranks of the freemasons, and taught their fellow-masons their Byzantine methods.”
[34] German “angenommen.”
“Speedily these corporations spread through France, England, and Germany, where they were employed almost exclusively by the religious Orders, in building their churches and conventual buildings.”
While, therefore, the general plan and rules of construction were common to all members of the fraternity, the details were almost entirely left, under regulations, to the individual taste of certain members of each band of workmen, who, being all qualified artists, were quite capable of putting in execution, and with masterly skill, any such minutiæ of ornament as might be left to their discretion.[35] Local illuminators would thus speedily get hold of every novelty, and the page of the Psalter or Bible would become, as a French writer has explained it, a vitrail sur velin. If not indeed exclusively following the stained glass, they copied the mural decorations, and so we find the backgrounds of the miniatures, whether fitted into the initials or placed separately in framed mouldings, faithfully reproducing the imbrications, carrelages, panellings, and diapers of these mural enrichments.
[35] Governor Pownall (“Observations on the Origin and Progress of Gothic Architecture, and on the Corporation of Freemasons,” Archæologia, 1788, vol. 9, pp. 110-126) was of opinion that “the Collegium or Corporation of Freemasons, were the first formers of Gothic architecture into a regular and scientific order by applying the models and proportions of timber framework to building in stone,” and that this method “came into use and application about the close of the twelfth or commencement of the thirteenth century.”
See also Gould (R.F.), History of Freemasonry, vol. i. p. 259, note. “Without going so far as to agree with Governor Pownall that the Freemasons invented Gothic, it may be reasonably contended that without them it could not have been brought to perfection, and without Gothic they would not have stood in the peculiar and prominent position that they did, that there was mutual indebtedness, and while without Freemasons there would have been no Gothic...without Gothic the Freemasons would have formed but a very ordinary community of trades unionists.”
To select an example of Gothic illumination which shall exemplify the earliest features of the pointed style is not an easy matter, notwithstanding the number of thirteenth-century MSS. which still exist in public collections. In the National Library at Paris are several such MSS. One that decidedly marks the change from the German work hitherto in vogue is the Psalter of St. Louis (Nat. Lib., Paris., Lat. 10525), which contains nearly eighty small, delicately executed miniatures. It was completed about 1250. Its noticeable features are a vastly improved dexterity in draughtsmanship, which displays a refined certainty of touch, enabling the artist to express his intention with unhesitating freedom. The drawing thus produced in outline is filled in with flat tints of body-colour, without gradation or any attempt at brush-work shading. Whatever finishing in this respect might be thought necessary was added with the pen. Nothing could show more clearly that it is simply and frankly imitative of stained glass. As in the glass the black outline is left for definition. No colour is used on hands of faces except a slight touch of red on the cheeks and lips. The prevailing colours are rich blue and bright scarlet. Perhaps the illuminator would have been better advised had he neglected some of the harder features of this kind of work. Not considering that the limits of the glass painter did not apply to his vellum, he fettered himself unnecessarily, and instead of a picture he has only succeeded in producing a surface enamel, or a mere reticulation of surface-patterns. This very defect has by some writers been held up to admiration as the true perfection of all illumination. Its flatness was applauded because it had to be shut up in a book, and was therefore the only appropriate way of making a picture for such a purpose. But whoever would dream that because a picture, painted in due perspective and proper light and shade, was to be shut up in a book that the figures represented in relief would actually be crushed. Such reasoning is most puerile. The supposed parallel case of a carpet or hearth-rug representing groups of flowers—even if the latter ever did deceive the domestic cat—does not in the least affect the most childish conception of a picture in a book. We see it in a scene in light and shade, we enjoy and admire its reliefs, but at the same time we know it is a picture, and that it is quite flat. The two tests of knowledge never interfere with each other. To suppose they do is to suppose a case of imbecility that even a lunatic must laugh to scorn. So far, therefore, we think the illuminator mistaken in slavishly copying the limitations of the glass-painter. It is no very great knowledge of nature that is shown in these drawings. There is a good example of the method of study followed by thirteenth-century artists in the sketch-book of a French mason named Villars de Honnecourt, still kept in the National Library at Paris.[36] In this book the artist has made drawings, as he says, from the life—some are views, others drawings of objects of art; one represents a lion of the mediæval heraldic type, yet the artist assures us it is from the life. But there is no real accuracy, everything is done with reference to some canon. It is, however, quite free from the Byzantine influence, though by no means free from a certain tincture of symbolism. The nude is rarely attempted, but when it is it is certainly less ugly than in Carolingian and Romanesque. To return to the Psalter—the style of the figures is rather graceful, attitudes are gentle and modest, though the inclination of head and body are such as to suggest a sort of undulatory movement in walking that is scarcely natural. The forms are slender, and the limbs occasionally beyond the owner's control—sometimes even deformed. The feet are small and weak—now and then over-twisted. The hands more delicate than formerly, especially when open. Faces are gently oval and sometimes expressive.
[36] It has been published as the Album of V. de H., Paris, 1858.
Sometimes the “histories” are placed in initial letters, the grounds of which, when not of burnished gold, consist of imitations of mural carrelages, chequers, etc., or rich enamelled patterns imitative of engraved traceries on metal. In other cases they are placed in frame-mouldings, consisting of a bar or beading of gold supporting an inner bar of coloured and polished wood or enamel work—the polish being represented by a fine line of white along the centre. For illustrations of this precious volume the reader may refer to Labarte, Hist. des Arts industriels, album, pl. 92 (Paris, 1864).
Now that the monasteries had ceased to be the exclusive nurseries of art and literature, the masters of the different arts and crafts usually belonged to the middle classes of the towns, where at first each art or craft had its own fraternity, and as the idea of trade-association crew, the crafts most nearly related would form a guild or corporation. All who joined these corporations bound themselves to work only as the ruler of the guild permitted. Nor were outsiders allowed to compete with them in their own branches, so exclusive was the protection of the guild.
Each confraternity had its altar in some particular church, whose patron saint became the protector of the guild. And indeed the constitution of the guild included even political rights and obligations—military service among the rest, like other feudal institutions. Each town had its own special corporations, which thus led to the formation of separate schools of art; while travelling apprenticeships gave the opportunity to all of acquiring knowledge not accessible at home. Members were accustomed to travel and to attach themselves to the service of various princes, receiving appointments as “varlets” or “escripvains” or “enlumineurs,” which sometimes obliged them to resign their membership. Occasionally they became political agents and even ambassadors.
It will be remembered that, some pages back, we noticed the fact that in Western illumination generally the design of the page depended upon the initial letter, or that at least the initial was the principal object of it. In the thirteenth century, although the initial had very much diminished in size, the same principle still prevailed. The letter itself was formed of some fabulous long-necked and long-tailed animal or bird, mostly a dragon as conceived by the mediæval artist. The head framed more or less on that of the mastiff or lion, or both; the legs of a bird of prey; the body and tail of a serpent; wings of heraldic construction to suit the form of the letter. While the body of this unspeakable beast formed the body of the letter, the tail was indefinitely extended to sweep down the margin of the text and round the base of it, so as to form a border, while not unfrequently slender branches would spring from it to form coils here and there ending in a kind of flower-bud, the extremity of the tail forming a similar coil. Very soon, however, the animal form was abandoned, and the letter made simply as a decorated initial or capital. If possible, one of its limbs was made to sweep up and down the “margin” and along the bottom or top as before. Where the interior is not occupied by a “history,” we find coiled stems ending in profile leaves or buds.
At the same time the text has diminished in size, sometimes down to dimensions no greater than those of an ordinary printed book of to-day, but often beautiful and regular as the clearest printing. Such a book is the Bible written by a certain William of Devon, now in the British Museum (Roy. MS. 1 D. 1). A description of this beautiful MS. may be seen in Bibliographica, vol. i. p. 394, written by Sir E.M. Thompson. Here, though the writing is that of an Englishman, the style is completely French.
Another MS. deserving of study is a richly illuminated Bible now in the Burney Collection of our National Library (No. 3). Another, which, owing to its being recommended for study by the late John Ruskin, was once known as the Ruskin Book, is Add. MS. 17341, which contains many fine initials with border and bracket foliages similar to those of the Evangeliary of the Sainte Chapelle, now in the National Library, Paris (MS. Lat. 17326). Both the MSS. show the contemporary peculiarity of presenting Bible characters, excepting divine personages, apostles, and evangelists in ordinary local costume. Paris, of course, is the city where most, and perhaps the best, of these MSS. are preserved; but those named above, in London, are also among the finest known examples.
CHAPTER II
RISE OF NATIONAL STYLES
The fourteenth century the true Golden Age of Gothic illumination—France the cradle of other national styles—Netherlandish, Italian, German, etc.—Distinction of schools—Difficulty of assigning the provenance of MSS.—The reason for it—MS. in Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge—The Padua Missal—Artists' names—Whence obtained.
Through the thirteenth century is the epoch of the Gothic renaissance, it is the fourteenth to which really belongs the title of the Golden Age. The style of work remains precisely the same, only it grows. It changes from the bud to the leaf. It casts off the severity and much of the restraint of its earlier character. To the grace of youth it adds beauty, the beauty of adolescence. To fourteenth-century illumination we can give no higher praise than that it is beautiful. Not, indeed, because of its deliberate limitations, but in spite of them. For after ages have taught us that if in pure ornament and resplendent decorative completeness the pages of the fourteenth century cannot be surpassed, in miniature historiation it must take a second place. The skilled illuminators of the later schools are the masters of the mere picture. For surely no judge of art could possibly assert that the miniatures of the Grunani Breviary or of the Brera Graduals as miniatures are inferior to those of the Psalter of St. Louis, the Berry Bible, or the Prayer-book of Margaret of Bavaria. Yet these are typical MSS. of the highest rank. Hence we say that while the illumination of the Golden Age of the art was beautiful, it was not absolutely perfect. It is not to be taken by modern students as the only possible model or basis simply because it was the best of its kind. There is no such despotism in art. To those who think it the only possible form of book decoration, let it be so by all means, but we may as well hope to clothe our soldiers in chain or plate armour, and send the elite of our nobility on another crusade to Jerusalem, or satisfy our universities with the quod libets and quiddities of the trivium and quadrivium, as hope to make popular to the England of the twentieth century the artistic tastes of the fourteenth. We indulge in no such dreams. If we are to have illuminated books, our own age must invent them. The illuminators of the Bibles, Romances, Mirrors, and Chronicles of the fourteenth century no doubt did their best, and we honour and praise them for it. We think their work among the loveliest gratifications of the eye that can be imagined. But the eye is very catholic—it has immense capacities for enjoyment. The window of the soul opens on illimitable prospects, and if the soul be satisfied for the time, it is not necessarily repleted for ever. Golden ages are cyclical, and it may be that the glory of the books of the future shall surpass all the glories of the past.
By 1350 France had absorbed all the antecedent varieties of illumination. From France, therefore, spring all the succeeding styles now considered national.
And as is most natural, these styles develop by proximity—the nearest to French being Netherlandish. The next, as a result of immediate intercourse, Italian. Then German, Spanish, and the rest, as intercourse gave opportunity. It is not always an easy matter to say offhand whether a MS. is French or Flemish. In the earlier days it is not easy to say whether it be French or English, or even whether French or Italian. But the distinctness comes later on.
In the fifteenth century the Italian, German, French, and English are quite distinct varieties. Towards the sixteenth the Netherlandish is quite as distinct. But the styles of Spain, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, though possessing features which identify them to an experienced eye, are to the ordinary spectator merely sub-varieties of Netherlandish, Italian, or German.
With regard to the distinctions of schools or local centres within the same country, the evidence of probable origin has to be corroborated by historic fact. It is not safe without further proof than that afforded by general features to affirm that this or that MS. was executed at Paris, Dijon, Amiens, or Limoges in France; or at Ghent, Bruges, or elsewhere in Flanders; or whether a MS. be Rhenish or Saxon, Bavarian or Westphalian, in Germany; Bolognese, Florentine, Siennese, Milanese, or Neapolitan in Italy; or executed at Westminster, St. Albans, Exeter, or elsewhere in England. Nevertheless the special characteristics of all these schools are quite distinguishable. In the attempt to distinguish them, although the diagnosis may be perfectly accurate, the actual facts may be otherwise accounted for. Hence the danger to which even the experienced connoisseur is liable. For example, certain MSS. are written in a fine Bolognese hand, which it is proved were actually executed in Flanders; others that one would feel sure were Netherlandish, were illuminated in Spain. Some very fine typical Flemish miniatures were painted in Italy; certain Florentine miniatures were the work of artists residing in Rome. Milanese illumination is quite distinguishable from Neapolitan, and Venetian from both, yet the school is not proof of the provenance.
Illuminators, like other craftsmen, travelled from city to city, and princes employed men, who resided in their patrons' palaces, who yet had learned their art many leagues away. How often we find the names of artists with the words Dallemagna, il Tedesco, le Poitevin, Veronese, Franco, Crovata, etc., employed in Italian houses, indicating the place of their nativity. So that even when we know every feature of the work we have much to learn ere we can say with truth that it was executed in such and such a city. We must take into account details which are liable to escape the ordinary observer, such as quality of vellum or paper, choice of pigments, mode of application, and other particulars quite distinct from style of ornament or varieties of form in foliage. In the Fitzwilliam Library at Cambridge is an Italian MS., the characteristics of whose ornamentation are unequivocally French, but whose mode of treatment shows not only that it is Italian but that it is Milanese, but whether executed in Milan or not is more than anyone can affirm. In the British Museum is a magnificent service-book called the Padua Missal, but the probability is that the Paduan artist who painted its splendid pages, painted them at Venice. That it was executed for Sta. Justina, at Padua, is no proof that the work was done in that city.
In monastic times we have seen why the artist rarely signed his name. After the thirteenth century the lay artist had no such scruples, and hence we often find particulars of origin and purpose which explain all we wish to know. But if the MSS. themselves do not contain the particulars, very often the account-books of cathedrals and other establishments for which the books were illuminated, give the details of price and purpose, and add the names of the artists. The household expense books, guild books, municipal records, and the journals of the painters themselves are fertile sources of information. And if we seek with sufficient diligence these will probably be the means by which it may eventually be found.
CHAPTER III
FRENCH ILLUMINATION FROM THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY TO THE RENAISSANCE
Ivy-leaf and chequered backgrounds—Occasional introduction of plain burnished gold—Reign of Charles VI. of France—The Dukes of Orleans, Berry, and Burgundy; their prodigality and fine taste for MSS.—Christine de Pisan and her works—Description of her “Mutation of Fortune” in the Paris Library—The “Roman de la Rose” and “Cité des Dames”—Details of the French style of illumination—Burgundian MSS., Harl. 4431—Roy. 15 E. 6—The Talbot Romances—Gradual approach to Flemish on the one hand and Italian on the other.
In addition to the expanding ivy leaf which forms the chief feature of fourteenth-century book-ornament, we find the miniaturist as a further improvement adding delicate colour in the faces. Also that instead of the invariable lozenging or diapering of the background he occasionally makes a background of plain burnished gold. And as if to prove that his predecessors were really hampered with the restrictions imposed by their imitations of painted glass, he begins to try his best to paint up his miniatures into real pictures with high lights on draperies and shading upon the folds. A certain amount of flatness, however, still remains, but it scarcely seems to have been the intention or aim of the painter. There is a similar flatness in the work of all the early schools of painting, which had no reference whatever to the destination of the picture. See, for instance, the Origny Treasure Book in the Print Room at Berlin (MS. 38), and the Life of St. Denis in the National Library at Paris (Nos. 2090-2), both MSS. dating somewhere about 1315. The drapery shading in the latter MS. is no longer the work of the pen, but brush-work in proper colour. The Westreenen Missal in the Museum at the Hague, which dates about 1365, though not a French MS., is an example of the fact that by the middle of the century the tradition of penwork outline and flat-colouring had become pretty nearly obsolete.
The reign of the afflicted Charles VI. of France, disastrous in the extreme to the material welfare of his own subjects, full of untold misery to the poor, and of oppression to the growing community of artisans and traders, was nevertheless, as regards literature and the arts, a period of progress and even splendour. The King's incapacity, by affording his uncles and brothers opportunities for fingering the revenues during the self-appointed and irresponsible regencies, enabled them to gratify their magnificent tastes in the purchasing of costly furniture and the ordering of splendid books. Louis of Orleans, usually credited with the worst of this prodigality, was by no means singular in his conduct. His uncle, the Duke of Berry, while daily earning the execrations of the tax-payers by his unscrupulous employment of the public money, was constantly enriching his library, and both he and his brothers and nephews were in the habit of sending priceless volumes, illuminated by the best artists, as wedding and birthday gifts, to each other, or their wives or acquaintances. We talk, and justly, of the fine taste and noble love of literature of Jean de Berry. His contemporaries, at least those beneath his own rank, looked upon him as a tyrant and plunderer. His disastrous administration of Languedoc was described as “one long fête where the excess of expenditure was rivalled only by the excess of scandal.” If the marmousets could have hanged him they would. In default they hanged his treasurer.
All this maladministration was very wrong, but we cannot afford to burn the MSS. in consequence, for the Bible, the “Grandes Heures,” and other books once possessed by the wicked Duke, are among the most precious relics of any age. Add to them the beautiful volumes of poetry and romance composing the contemporary literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and we have treasures that we dare not relinquish.
By the beginning of the fifteenth century pure French illumination was losing its own characteristics and acquiring others. In the North, in Flanders and Brabant, Franche-Comté and the Burgundian Dukedom generally, it was becoming that peculiar kind of French which had received the name of Burgundian. It can scarcely be said to be Flemish enough to rank as Netherlandish, yet neither can it stand side by side with “French of Paris.”
Let us look at a few examples. There is the Book of Offices in the Library of St. Geneviève at Paris (Bibl. Lat. 66), also the St. Augustine in the same library. Also a small crowd of volumes in the Royal Library at Brussels, another in the National Library at Paris. One of the richest examples known is the “Psalter of the Convent of Salem,” in the University Library at Heidelberg. Other grand MSS. are the two volumes of the “Mutacion de Fortune” of Christine de Pisan and the “Cité des Dames” of the same authoress. The volume of her poems, etc., in the British Museum, is a marvellously fine work (Harl. 4431). The greater part of this volume is in the earlier or “Berry” style, i.e. the fine pen-sprays of ivy leaf of burnished gold. But the first grand border is altogether transitional, consisting of the pen-sprays of golden ivy leaf alternating with sprays of natural flowers. This innovation, it has been said, was due to the school of van Eyck, but as no proof is forthcoming that J. van Eyck ever worked on illuminating we may be content to say that it arose about 1413, and that probably it came from Bruges. It is the beginning of the Burgundian style. But the ornamental leafage is different from ordinary Brugeois, inasmuch as it is “pearled” along the central veins, and is not symmetrical. The pearling is perhaps a suggestion from glass painting. It was very early adapted in German foliage work. On the first fly-leaf are several signatures, including the name and device of Louis Gruthuse: “Plus est en vous Gruthuse.” The miniatures still remain French with mostly panelled backgrounds, some with landscape. It is evidently a transitional document.
14TH CENT.
Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 2897, fol. 184
14TH CENT.
Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 2952, fol. 22
The works of Christine de Pisan, the popular—one may fairly say fashionable—authoress, were perhaps among the best known and most widely read while Caxton was setting up his press at Westminster, as she was among the most welcome guests at the Courts of Charles VI. and Philip of Burgundy. She was the daughter of a distinguished Venetian savant, Thomas de Pisan, who had come at the invitation of Charles le Sage to Paris as “Astrologue du Roi.” At the age of fifteen Christine, who was as beautiful as she was accomplished, became the wife of a Picard gentleman named Estienne Castel. Two years afterwards the death of the King brought trouble upon her father, and with it sickness and despondency. Then followed sorrow upon sorrow. Whilst she was herself still burdened with the cares of early motherhood her father died, and within nine years from her marriage the sudden death from contagion, of her husband, to whom she was most fondly attached, left her a widow with two little children dependent upon her, and with only what she herself could earn as a means of livelihood. She was not yet twenty-six years old. To assuage her misery she betook herself to study and the composition of essays and poetry. Her works speedily brought her the recognition of distinguished personages; her children were provided for, and she herself soon acquired both fortune and reputation. Charles VI. allowed her a pension, and she composed for his Queen, Isabella of Bavaria, several important treatises. Among her numerous compositions were “Les cens Histoires de Troyes” in verse, “Le Chemin de longue estude,” “La Mutacion de Fortune,” and a Life of Charles V., the latter composed at the request of Philip the Good of Burgundy. But the work which sets off her wit and learning to the best advantage was an allegorical essay on Womanhood, which she called “Le Trésor de la Cité des Dames.” Altogether her works include fifteen books and about sixty smaller writings, which she dedicated to the King and Queen of France, the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, and the princesses and princes of the Court.
One beautifully illuminated copy of the Mutation of Fortune in two volumes is a curious example of its title, for one volume of it is in the National Library at Paris (fonds fr. 603) and the other in the Royal Library at Munich. In the former we have her portrait. In a blue gown she sits at her writing-desk busy at her work. On her head is the muslin-draped and high-peaked “hennin.” Beside her a table covered with a green cloth and laden with crimson and violet-bound books and an inkstand. Her chair has a high back, and the floor is of the usual kind seen in illuminations; that is, as if composed of a parquetry of coloured woodwork or of tiles of various kinds of marble. On the sill of the Gothic-latticed window, through which we catch a glimpse of the blue sky, stands a vase of flowers. Not perhaps an ideal lady's boudoir, but still an apartment of taste, and an altogether charming little picture. In the second miniature of the Munich volume Christine is standing in a chamber—in the same costume as above described. The pictures on the walls are—a fortress, a watchman, two knights, a prince with crown and sceptre, seated on his throne, surrounded by courtiers; a duel; and a martyr having his head struck off. Just such mediæval subjects as we may expect in a fifteenth-century mansion.
In a copy of the “Cité des Dames” at Munich is another portrait of Christine. The book is an Apology for the feminine sex, and it is well thought out. It appears that the conversation of the time was not always free from rather severe sarcasm concerning the ladies. We learn from Du Verdier that the continuator of the Romance of the Rose narrowly escaped most condign chastisement from some of the insulted sex at the French Court for the base insinuations in his poem against the character of women. Christine herself heartily disapproved of the Romance of the Rose, and wrote a sharp criticism upon it. Her “Cité des Dames” is an elaborate confutation of the opinion that women are naturally more immoral and less capable of noble studies or high intellectual attainments than men. In her introduction she says: “I reflected why men are so unanimous in attributing wickedness to women. I examined my own life and those of other women to learn why we should be worse than men, since we also were created by God. I was sitting ashamed with bowed head and eyes blinded with tears, resting my chin on my hands in my elbow-chair, when a dazzling beam of Light flashed before me, which came not from the sun, for it was late in the evening. I glanced up and saw standing before me three female figures wearing crowns of gold, and with radiant countenances. I crossed myself, whereupon one of the three addressed me. 'Fear not, dear daughter, for we will counsel and help thee. The aphorisms of the Philosophers are not Articles of Faith, but simply the mists of error and self-deception.'” The three ladies or goddesses are Fame, Prudence, and Justice, and they command Christine under the supervision of Reason (or Commonsense) to build a city for the noblest and best of her own sex. So the city was begun, and the elect, allegorically, let into it. In varied ranks following one another came goddesses and saintly women, Christian and heathen women—among them walks as leader the Queen of the Amazons. “Queen” Ceres, who taught the art and practice of agriculture. Queen Isis, who first led mankind to the cultivation of plants. Arachne, who invented the arts of dyeing, weaving, flax-growing, and spinning. Damphile, who discovered how to breed silkworms. Queen Tomyris, who vanquished Cyrus. The noble Sulpicia, who shared her husband's exile, and many others, among whom may be seen Dame Sarah, the wife of Abraham, Penelope, Ruth, and the Saints Katharine, Margaret, Lucia, and Dorothea. In the first miniature on the left sits Christine with a coif upon her head and a great book on her lap; on her left hand is the plan of her new city, while opposite stand the three ladies already spoken of as her advisers, furnished with building tools and giving her their advice. On the right she appears again in elegant costume with hewn stones and a trowel assisted by two workmen who are busily at work. Before her is an unfinished wall and several completed towers. In two other miniatures the gradual progress and entire completion of the city are shown, and in the foreground of each Christine and her three patronesses as before. Other examples deserving of extended notice are the Shrewsbury Romances (Roy. 15 E. 6) and Augustine, Cité de Dieu (Roy. 14 D. 1), two great folios, the former most interesting for its miniatures—the latter as a fair example of the rougher kind of Lille work, bold in design, good drawing. The choice of colours includes marone, blue, green, and gold. The ornaments, as usual, consist of sprays of ivy leaf and grounds filled in with treillages of natural flowers, among which are the daisy, viola tricolor, thistle, cornbottle, and wild stock. Fruits and vegetables also, as grapes, field peas, and strawberries. The miniatures include a few rather coarse grisailles.
A little volume (Harl. 2936) contains exquisitely drawn Brugeois scrolls in monochrome on grounds of the same colour or plain gold or black. Lastly we may mention “Les Heures de la Dame de Saluces,” otherwise called the “Yemeniz Hours,” in the British Museum (Add. 27967), a large octavo, as an example of transitional Burgundian. Here the secondary borders have mostly the penwork ivy leaf with Brugeois corners and with strawberries, etc., in the midst of the sprays. Among the foliages grotesque figures frequently appear. The principal pages, however, are more like Harl. 4431, yet without the ivy-leaf tendrils. The miniatures are still Gothic, but richer and deeper in colour than ordinary French work. It would appear that two different artists were employed—one decidedly French, the other Netherlandish, and of a more individual character, still with French accessories. Every page has a border of some kind. Among the flowers the thistle is peculiar in having a golden cup next the down. The work generally resembles, in some parts, 4431 Harl.; in others, and perhaps more strongly, 15 E. 6. The colours are chiefly blue, scarlet, rose-pink, green, and gold.
We have now pretty nearly worked our way into Flemish illumination. The after-history of French as developed through the influence of Italy on the schools of Paris and Tours must have a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER IV
ENGLISH ILLUMINATION FROM THE TENTH TO THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
Organisation of the Monastic scriptoria—Professional outsiders: lay artists—The whole sometimes the work of the same practitioner—The Winchester Abbeys of St. Swithun's and Hyde—Their vicissitudes—St. Alban's—Westminster—Royal MS. 2 A. 22—Description of style—The Tenison Psalter—Features of this period—The Arundel Psalter—Hunting and shooting scenes, and games—Characteristic pictures, grotesques, and caricatures—Queen Mary's Psalter—Rapid changes under Richard II.—Royal MS. 1 E. 9—Their cause.
In a former chapter we left our native schools of illumination at work on such MSS. as the Devonshire and Rouen Benedictionals, and with the reputation of being the best schools of the kind in Christendom. Mention also is made elsewhere in dealing with monastic art of the usages of the scriptoria. Such usages, of course, could only obtain in houses where scribes themselves were to be had. Hence we should discover, were it not otherwise known, that writing and illumination, even in the monastic age, were not confined absolutely to the cloister.
With respect to the secular scribes, who sometimes worked in the monastery, sometimes at their own homes, in those days when the monastic orders still did most of the book-production, there were three classes of specialists. These were the Librarii or ordinary copyists; the Notarii or law-scribes, whose business lay in copying deeds, charters, and such-like instruments, and taking notes in the courts; and Paginators or Illuminatores. It sometimes happened, as we have said, that in some monastery or other, no monastic was found qualified to undertake any of these duties. It then fell to the prior or abbat to seek the assistance of professional outsiders. The paging and rubrication, putting in initials in the spaces left by the common scribe, and, if needed, the addition of pictures or marginal drawings and ornaments, caricatures, heraldic illustrations, etc., were the proper work of the illuminator, but it often happened that the same man had to do the whole work from the commencement to the finish. The Chronicon Trudonense tells us: “Graduale unum propria manu formavit, purgavit, pinxit, sulcabit, scripsit, illuminavit, musiceque notavit syllabatim.” Several of our old English chronicles, of which the MSS. exist in the British Museum and elsewhere, seem to be of this description.
Reference has been made to the scriptoria at Winchester, i.e. at St. Swithun's and the New Minster. It is the latter foundation which is usually referred to in speaking of Winchester work. The Monastery of the Holy Trinity or the New Minster was founded in the first year of his reign by King Edward, son of Alfred, no doubt in obedience to his father's wish, if not absolutely in the terms of his will. Its first charter is dated 900 (for 901) and the second in 903. In the latter document the abbey is spoken of as dedicated to the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to St. Peter, and is amply endowed under the Augustinian Rule. In 965, not without trouble and resistance, it was converted into a Benedictine abbey. In 968 Ethelgar, who had been trained at Glastonbury and Abingdon, became abbat, and from this time the New Minster became famous for both discipline and the production of MSS. As we walk along the High Street of Winchester now we find the story in moss-grown stones or other memorials how, among other methods, William the Norman punished the monks for their English warlike proclivities by walling them up nearly close to their church with the walls of his royal palace. In the old time, when the two monasteries stood side by side—St. Swithun's is close behind the New Minster—“so closely packed together,” says the old chronicler,[37] “were the two communities of St. Swithun and St. Peter that between the foundation of their respective buildings there was barely room for a man to pass along. The choral service of one monastery conflicted with that of the other, so that both were spoiled, and the ringing of their bells together produced a horrid discord.” The result of this was, first the above-mentioned hemming in of the younger establishment and eventually its migration to another site in Hyde Meadow. Here while the monastic buildings suffered much through fires and other disasters, the Rule remained until 1538, when it was surrendered into the King's hands, and the abbat, prior, and nineteen monks, the last survivors of this once-famous foundation, were pensioned.