Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages

J >> Julia De Wolf Addison >> Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages

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It now becomes our part to study the books themselves, and see
what results were obtained by applying all the arts involved in
their making.

The transition from the Roman illuminations to the Byzantine may
be traced to the time when Constantine moved his seat of government
from Rome to Constantinople. Constantinople then became the centre
of learning, and books were written there in great numbers. For
some centuries Constantinople was the chief city in the art of
illuminating. The style that here grew up exhibited the same features
that characterized Byzantine art in mosaic and decoration. The
Oriental influence displayed itself in a lavish use of gold and
colour; the remnant of Classical art was slight, but may sometimes
be detected in the subjects chosen, and the ideas embodied. The
Greek influence was the strongest. But the Greek art of the seventh
and eighth centuries was not at all like the Classic art of earlier
Greece; a conventional type had entered with Christianity, and is
chiefly recognized by a stubborn conformity to precedent. It
is difficult to date a Byzantine picture or manuscript, for the
same severe hard form that prevailed in the days of Constantine
is carried on to-day by the monks of Mt. Athos, and a Byzantine
work of the ninth century is not easily distinguished from one of
the fifteenth. In manuscripts, the caligraphy is often the only
feature by which the work can be dated.

In the earlier Byzantine manuscripts there is a larger proportion
of Classical influence than in later ones, when the art had taken
on its inflexible uniformity of design. One of the most interesting
books in which this classical influence may be seen is in the Imperial
Library at Vienna, being a work on Botany, by Dioscorides, written
about 400 A. D. The miniatures in this manuscript have many of
the characteristics of Roman work.

The pigments used in Byzantine manuscripts are glossy, a great deal
of ultramarine being used. The high lights are usually of gold,
applied in sharp glittering lines, and lighting up the picture with
very decorative effect. In large wall mosaics the same characteristics
may be noted, and it is often suggested that these gold lines may
have originated in an attempt to imitate cloisonne enamel, in which
the fine gold line separates the different coloured spaces one from
another. This theory is quite plausible, as cloisonne was made by
the Byzantine goldsmiths.

M. Lecoy de la Marche tells us that the first recorded name of an
illuminator is that of a woman--Lala de Cizique, a Greek, who
painted on ivory and on parchment in Rome during the first Christian
century. But such a long period elapses between her time and that
which we are about to study, that she can here occupy only the
position of being referred to as an interesting isolated case.

The Byzantine is a very easy style to recognize, because of the
inflexible stiffness of the figures, depending for any beauty largely
upon the use of burnished gold, and the symmetrical folds of the
draperies, which often show a sort of archaic grace. Byzantine
art is not so much representation as suggestion and symbolism.
There is a book which may still be consulted, called "A Byzantine
Guide to Painting," which contains accurate recipes to be followed
in painting pictures of each saint, the colours prescribed for the
dress of the Virgin, and the grouping to be adopted in representing
each of the standard Scriptural scenes; and it has hardly from
the first occurred to any Byzantine artist to depart from these
regulations. The heads and faces lack individuality, and are outlined
and emphasized with hard, unsympathetic black lines; the colouring
is sallow and the expression stolid. Any attempt at delineating
emotion is grotesque, and grimacing. The beauty, for in spite of
all these drawbacks there is great beauty, in Byzantine manuscripts,
is, as has been indicated, a charm of colour and gleaming gold
rather than of design. In the Boston Art Museum there is a fine
example of a large single miniature of a Byzantine "Flight into
Egypt," in which the gold background is of the highest perfection
of surface, and is raised so as to appear like a plate of beaten
gold.

There is no attempt to portray a scene as it might have occurred;
the rule given in the Manual is followed, and the result is generally
about the same. The background is usually either gold or blue, with
very little effort at landscape. Trees are represented in flat
values of green with little white ruffled edges and articulations.
The sea is figured by a blue surface with a symmetrical white pattern
of a wavy nature. A building is usually introduced about half as
large as the people surrounding it. There is no attempt, either,
at perspective.

The anatomy of the human form was not understood at all. Nearly
all the figures in the art of this period are draped. Wherever
it is necessary to represent the nude, a lank, disproportioned
person with an indefinite number of ribs is the result, proving
that the monastic art school did not include a life class.

Most of the best Byzantine examples date from the fifth to the
seventh centuries. After that a decadence set in, and by the eleventh
century the art had deteriorated to a mere mechanical process.

The Irish and Anglo-Saxon work are chiefly characterized in their
early stages by the use of interlaced bands as a decorative motive.
The Celtic goldsmiths were famous for their delicate work in filigree,
made of threads of gold used in connection with enamelled grounds.
In decorating their manuscripts, the artists were perhaps
unconsciously influenced by this, and the result is a marvellous
use of conventional form and vivid colours, while the human figure
is hardly attempted at all, or, when introduced, is so conventionally
treated, as to be only a sign instead of a representation.

Probably the earliest representation of a pen in the holder, although
of a very primitive pattern, occurs in a miniature in the Gospels
of Mac Durnam, where St. John is seen writing with a pen in one
hand and a knife, for sharpening it, in the other. This picture
is two centuries earlier than any other known representation of
the use of the pen, the volume having been executed in the early
part of the eighth century.

Two of the most famous Irish books are the Book of Kells, and the
Durham Book. The Book of Kells is now in Trinity College, Dublin.
It is also known as the Gospel of St. Columba. St. Columba came,
as the Chronicle of Ethelwerd states, in the year 565: "five years
afterwards Christ's servant Columba came from Scotia (Ireland)
to Britain, to preach the word of God to the Picts."

[Illustration: DETAIL FROM THE DURHAM BOOK]

The intricacy of the interlacing decoration is so minute that it
is impossible to describe it. Each line may be followed to its
conclusion, with the aid of a strong magnifying glass, but cannot
be clearly traced with the naked eye. Westwood reports that, with a
microscope, he counted in one square inch of the page, one hundred
and fifty-eight interlacements of bands, each being of white, bordered
on either side with a black line. In this book there is no use of
gold, and the treatment of the human form is most inadequate.
There is no idea of drawing except for decorative purposes; it
is an art of the pen rather than of the brush--it hardly comes
into the same category as most of the books designated as
illuminated manuscripts. The so-called Durham Book, or the Gospels
of St. Cuthbert, was executed at the Abbey of Lindisfarne, in 688,
and is now in the British Museum. There is a legend that in the
ninth century pirates plundered the Abbey, and the few monks who
survived decided to seek a situation less unsafe than that on the
coast, so they gathered up their treasures, the body of the saint,
their patron, Cuthbert, and the book, which had been buried with
him, and set out for new lands. They set sail for Ireland, but a
storm arose, and their boat was swamped. The body and the book
were lost. After reaching land, however, the fugitives discovered
the box containing the book, lying high and dry upon the shore,
having been cast up by the waves in a truly wonderful state of
preservation. Any one who knows the effect of dampness upon parchment,
and how it cockles the material even on a damp day, will the more
fully appreciate this miracle.

Giraldus Cambriensis went to Ireland as secretary to Prince John,
in 1185, and thus describes the Gospels of Kildare, a book which
was similar to the Book of Kells, and his description may apply
equally to either volume. "Of all the wonders of Kildare I have
found nothing more wonderful than this marvellous book, written
in the time of the Virgin St. Bridget, and, as they say, at the
dictation of an angel. Here you behold the magic face divinely
drawn, and there the mystical forms of the Evangelists, there an
eagle, here a calf, so closely wrought together, that if you look
carelessly at them, they would seem rather like a uniform blot
than like an exquisite interweavement of figures; exhibiting no
perfection of skill or art, where all is really skill and perfection
of art. But if you look closely at them with all the acuteness of
sight that you can command, and examine the inmost secrets of this
wondrous art, you will discover such delicate, such wonderful and
finely wrought lines, twisted and interwoven with such intricate
knots and adorned with such fresh and brilliant colours, that you
will readily acknowledge the whole to have been the work of angelic
rather than human skill."

At first gold was not used at all in Irish work, but the manuscripts
of a slightly later date, and especially of the Anglo-Saxon school,
show a superbly decorative use both of gold and silver. The "Coronation
Oath Book of the Anglo-Saxon Kings" is especially rich in this
exquisite metallic harmony. By degrees, also, the Anglo-Saxons
became more perfected in the portrayal of the human figure, so
that by the twelfth century the work of the Southern schools and
those of England were more alike than at any previous time.

[Illustration: IVY PATTERN, FROM A 14TH CENTURY FRENCH MANUSCRIPT]

In the Northern manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
it is amusing to note that the bad characters are always represented
as having large hooked noses, which fact testifies to the dislike
of the Northern races for the Italians and Southern peoples.

The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be considered to stand
for the "Golden Age" of miniature art in all the countries of Europe.
In England and France especially the illuminated books of the thirteenth
century were marvels of delicate work, among which the Tenison
Psalter and the Psalter of Queen Mary, both in the British Museum,
are excellent examples. Queen Mary's Psalter was not really painted
for Queen Mary; it was executed two centuries earlier. But it was
being sent abroad in 1553, and was seized by the Customs. They
refused to allow it to pass. Afterwards it was presented to Queen
Mary.

At this time grew up a most beautiful and decorative style, known
as "ivy pattern," consisting of little graceful flowering sprays,
with tiny ivy leaves in gold and colours. The Gothic feeling prevails
in this motive, and the foliate forms are full of spined cusps.
The effect of a book decorated in the ivy pattern, is radiant and
jewelled as the pages turn, and the burnishing of the gold was
brought to its full perfection at this time. The value of the creamy
surface of the vellum was recognized as part of the colour scheme.
With the high polish of the gold it was necessary to use always
the strong crude colours, as the duller tints would appear faded
by contrast. In the later stages of the art, when a greater realism
was attempted, and better drawing had made it necessary to use
quieter tones, gold paint was generally adopted instead of leaf, as
being less conspicuous and more in harmony with the general scheme;
and one of the chief glories of book decoration died in this change.

[Illustration: MEDIAEVAL ILLUMINATION]

The divergences of style in the work of various countries are well
indicated by Walter de Gray Birch, who says: "The English are famous
for clearness and breadth; the French for delicate fineness and
harmoniously assorted colours, the Flemish for minutely stippled
details, and the Italian for the gorgeous yet calm dignity apparent
in their best manuscripts." Individuality of facial expression,
although these faces are generally ugly, is a characteristic of
Flemish work, while the faces in French miniatures are uniform
and pretty.

One marked feature in the English thirteenth and fourteenth century
books, is the introduction of many small grotesques in the borders,
and these little creatures, partly animal and partly human, show
a keen sense of humour, which had to display itself, even though
inappropriately, but always with a true spirit of wit. One might
suppose on first looking at these grotesques, that the droll expression
is unintentional: that the monks could draw no better, and that
their sketches are funny only because of their inability to portray
more exactly the thing represented. But a closer examination will
convince one that the wit was deliberate, and that the very subtlety
and reserve of their expression of humour is an indication of its
depth. To-day an artist with the sense of caricature expresses
himself in the illustrated papers and other public channels provided
for the overflow of high spirits; but the cloistered author of the
Middle Ages had only the sculptured details and the books belonging
to the church as vehicles for his satire. The carvings on the
miserere seats in choirs of many cathedrals were executed by the
monks, and abound in witty representations of such subjects as
Reynard the Fox, cats catching rats, etc.; inspired generally by
the knowledge of some of the inconsistencies in the lives of
ecclesiastical personages. The quiet monks often became cynical.

The spirit of the times determines the standard of wit. At various
periods in the world's history, men have been amused by strange and
differing forms of drollery; what seemed excruciatingly funny to
our grandparents does not strike us as being at all entertaining.
Each generation has its own idea of humour, and its own fun-makers,
varying as much as fashion in dress.

In mediaeval times, the sense of humour in art was more developed
than at any period except our own day. Even-while the monk was
consecrating his time to the work of beautifying the sanctuary,
his sense of humour was with him, and must crop out. The grotesque
has always played an important part in art; in the subterranean
Roman vaults of the early centuries, one form of this spirit is
exhibited. But the element of wit is almost absent; it is displayed
in oppressively obvious forms, so that it loses its subtlety: it
represents women terminating in floral scrolls, or sea-horses with
leaves growing instead of fins. The same spirit is seen in the
grotesques of the Renaissance, where the sense of humour is not
emphasized, the ideal in this class of decoration being simply to
fill the space acceptably, with voluptuous graceful lines,
mythological monstrosities, the inexpressive mingling of human and
vegetable characteristics, grinning dragons, supposed to inspire
horror, and such conceits, while the attempt to amuse the spectator
is usually absent.

In mediaeval art, however, the beauty of line, the sense of horror,
and the voluptuous spirit, are all more or less subservient to
the light-hearted buoyancy of a keen sense of fun. To illustrate
this point, I wish to call the attention of the reader to the wit
of the monastic scribes during the Gothic period. Who could look at
the little animals which are found tucked away almost out of sight
in the flowery margins of many illuminated manuscripts, without seeing
that the artist himself must have been amused at their pranks, and
intended others to be so? One can picture a gray-hooded brother,
chuckling alone at his own wit, carefully tracing a jolly little
grotesque, and then stealing softly to the alcove of some congenial
spirit, and in a whisper inviting his friend to come and see the
satire which he has carefully introduced: "A perfect portrait of
the Bishop, only with claws instead of legs! So very droll! And
dear brother, while you are here, just look at the expression of
this little rabbit's ears, while he listens to the bombastic utterance
of this monkey who wears a stole!"

[Illustration: CARICATURE OF A BISHOP]

Such a fund of playful humour is seldom found in a single book as
that embodied in the Tenison Psalter, of which only a few pages
remain of the work of the original artist. The book was once the
property of Archbishop Tenison. These few pages show to the world the
most perfect example of the delicacy and skill of the miniaturist.
On one page, a little archer, after having pulled his bow-string,
stands at the foot of the border, gazing upwards after the arrow,
which has been caught in the bill of a stork at the top of the
page. The attitude of a little fiddler who is exhibiting his trick
monkeys can hardly be surpassed by caricaturists of any time. A
quaint bit of cloister scandal is indicated in an initial from
the Harleian Manuscript, in which a monk who has been entrusted
with the cellar keys is seen availing himself of the situation,
eagerly quaffing a cup of wine while he stoops before a large cask.
In a German manuscript I have seen, cuddled away among the foliage,
in the margin, a couple of little monkeys, feeding a baby of their
own species with pap from a spoon. The baby monkey is closely wrapped
in the swathing bands with which one is familiar as the early
trussing of European children. Satire and wrath are curiously blended
in a German manuscript of the twelfth century, in which the scribe
introduces a portrait of himself hurling a missile at a venturesome
mouse who is eating the monk's cheese--a fine Camembert!--under his
very nose. In the book which he is represented as transcribing, the
artist has traced the words--"Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad
iram, ut te Deus perdat." ("Wicked mouse, too often you provoke me
to anger--may God destroy thee!")

In their illustrations the scribes often showed how literal was
their interpretation of Scriptural text. For instance, in a passage
in the book known as the Utrecht Psalter, there is an illustration
of the verse, "The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver
tried in the furnace, purified seven times." A glowing forge is
seen, and two craftsmen are working with bellows, pincers, and
hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that
a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace. Another example of
this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin, where
two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in
illustration of the text about the wicked, "who whet their tongue
like a sword."

There is evidence of great religious zeal in the exhortations of
the leaders to those who worked under them. Abbot John of Trittenham
thus admonished the workers in the Scriptorium in 1486: "I have
diminished your labours out of the monastery lest by working badly
you should only add to your sins, and have enjoined on you the
manual labour of writing and binding books. There is in my opinion
no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical
books.... You will recall that the library of this monastery...
had been dissipated, sold, or made way with by disorderly monks
before us, so that when I came here I found but fourteen volumes."

It was often with a sense of relief that a monk finished his work
upon a volume, as the final word, written by the scribe himself,
and known as the Explicit, frequently shows. In an old manuscript
in the Monastery of St. Aignan the writer has thus expressed his
emotions: "Look out for your fingers! Do not put them on my writing!
You do not know what it is to write! It cramps your back, it obscures
your eyes, it breaks your sides and stomach!" It is interesting
to note the various forms which these final words of the scribes
took; sometimes the Explicit is a pathetic appeal for remembrance
in the prayers of the reader, and sometimes it contains a note of
warning. In a manuscript of St. Augustine now at Oxford, there
is written: "This book belongs to St. Mary's of Robert's Bridge;
whoever shall steal it or in any way alienate it from this house,
or mutilate it, let him be Anathema Marantha!" A later owner,
evidently to justify himself, has added, "I, John, Bishop of Exeter,
know not where this aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book,
but acquired it in a lawful way!"

The Explicit in the Benedictional of Ethelwold is touching: the
writer asks "all who gaze on this book to ever pray that after the
end of the flesh I may inherit health in heaven; this is the prayer
of the scribe, the humble Godemann." A mysterious Explicit occurs
at the end of an Irish manuscript of 1138, "Pray for Moelbrighte
who wrote this book. Great was the crime when Cormac Mac Carthy
was slain by Tardelvach O'Brian." Who shall say what revelation
may have been embodied in these words? Was it in the nature of a
confession or an accusation of some hitherto unknown occurrence?
Coming as it does at the close of a sacred book, it was doubtless
written for some important reason.

Among curious examples of the Explicit may be quoted the following:
"It is finished. Let it be finished, and let the writer go out for
a drink." A French monk adds: "Let a pretty girl be given to the
writer for his pains." Ludovico di Cherio, a famous illuminator
of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon
which he had long been engaged: "Completed on the vigil of the
nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on an empty stomach." (Whether
this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether Ludovico
considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be
especially acceptable, the reader may determine.)

There is an amusing rhymed Explicit in an early fifteenth century
copy of Froissart:

"I, Raoul Tanquy, who never was drunk
(Or hardly more than judge or monk,)
On fourth of July finished this book,
Then to drink at the Tabouret myself took,
With Pylon and boon companions more
Who tripe with onions and garlic adore."

But if some of the monks complained or made sport of their work,
there were others to whom it was a divine inspiration, and whose
affection for their craft was almost fanatic, an anecdote being
related of one of them, who, when about to die, refused to be parted
from the book upon which he had bestowed much of his life's energy,
and who clutched it in his last agony so that even death should
not take it from him. The good Othlonus of Ratisbon congratulates
himself upon his own ability in a spirit of humility even while
he rejoices in his great skill; he says: "I think proper to add
an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which
was given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as yet a little
child, I was sent to school and quickly learned my letters, and
I began long before the time of learning, and without any order
from my master, to learn the art of writing. Undertaking this in a
furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, I got a habit
of holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers afterwards
able to correct me on that point." This very human touch comes down
to us through the ages to prove the continuity of educational
experience! The accounts of his monastic labours put us to the blush
when we think of such activity. "While in the monastery of Tegernsee
in Bavaria I wrote many books.... Being sent to Franconia while I
was yet a boy, I worked so hard writing that before I had returned
I had nearly lost my eyesight. After I became a monk at St. Emmerem,
I was appointed the school-master. The duties of the office so fully
occupied my time that I was able to do the transcribing I was
interested in only by nights and in holidays.... I was, however,
able, in addition to writing the books that I had myself composed,
and the copies which I gave away for the edification of those who
asked for them, to prepare nineteen missals, three books of the
Gospels and Epistles, besides which I wrote four service books for
Matins. I wrote in addition several other books for the brethren
at Fulda, for the monks at Hirschfeld, and at Amerbach, for the
Abbot of Lorsch, for certain friends at Passau, and for other
friends in Bohemia, for the monastery at Tegernsee, for the
monastery at Preyal, for that at Obermunster, and for my sister's
son. Moreover, I sent and gave at different times sermons, proverbs,
and edifying writings. Afterward old age's infirmities of various
kinds hindered me." Surely Othlonus was justified in retiring when
his time came, and enjoying some respite from his labours!

Religious feeling in works of art is an almost indefinable thing,
but one which is felt in all true emanations of the conscientious
spirit of devotion. Fra Angelico had a special gift for expressing
in his artistic creations is own spiritual life; the very qualities
for which he stood, his virtues and his errors,--purity,
unquestioning faith in the miraculous, narrowness of creed, and
gentle and adoring humility,--all these elements are seen to
completeness in his decorative pictures. Perhaps this is because
he really lived up to his principles. One of his favourite sayings
was "He who occupies himself with the things of Christ, must ever
dwell with Christ."

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