Illuminated Manuscripts

Illuminated Manuscripts

Initials

Régine Pernoud, Those Terrible Middle Ages! Debunking the Myths (San Francisco

Ignatius Press, 2000).

One ornamented letter is enough to reveal what artistic creation could be in the Romanesque period. Let us not even speak of those that recount, for instance, an entire biblical or historical scene. A quite simple initial, in its essential, readable, recognizable form, is found taken up anew by every copyist, every illuminator, who made it his own and developed its inner possibilities, so to speak. It can be almost intoxicating; one becomes a veritable maze of foliage and interlacing, another gives birth to an animal that ends in a man's face, or a man becomes a monster or angel or demon; nevertheless, the letter has not been betrayed; it remains, but ceaselessly recreated. And this is without doubt what characterizes Romanesque art (and Gothic art as well, despite certain excesses that marked its end): respect for the essential function within a perpetual rediscovery of its inherent possibilities. (44)

The image, the knowledge we have of the Middle Ages through architecture, sculpture, stained-glass windows, frescoes, even tapestries--"open air" documentation--represents not even a hundredth part of what we might learn from the reproduction of manuscript miniatures, if this were systematically carried out with the means of color reproduction we have available today. It is quite surprising that in the audio-visual era nothing has yet been undertaken in this sense on the requisite scale. A profound gap will remain in our knowledge of the Middle Ages as long as the necessary effort has not been carried out in this domain. (151)

Apropos Videos

• How parchment is made - BBC (4 minutes)
• Illuminations - Treasures of the Middle Ages - BBC
• The Making Of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts - Dr Sally Dormer
• Drawings in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts - Dr Sally Dormer
• Illuminated Psalter Manuscripts - Dr Sally Dormer

Ecclesial Art Project

• Celtic knots