Palæography / Notes upon the History of Writing and the Medieval Art of Illumination

by Bernard Quaritch

The Italian saints are always those of the Roman calendar, but St. Zenobio is seldom found outside of Tuscany. SS. Bernardinus of Siena and Nicolas of Tolentinum are Italian saints of the fifteenth century more frequently found in Italian calendars (after 1450) than in calendars of other countries. In the case of the latter two, their names are sometimes useful in fixing a limit for the age of a book, because MSS. of the time of their canonisation are numerous. The dates of beatification of some earlier saints such as Thomas Becket, Francis, Dominic, and King Louis, are also occasionally of service; but as a rule the names of the saints in the calendars are far older than the thirteenth century.

The Fourteenth Century in Italy and Germany

To go back to the fourteenth century. In Italy the broken Lombard had given way to the general adoption of the modern gothic. Some excellent decorative work began to appear in the borders and miniatures of MSS. executed in Northern and Central Italy. As a rule in the earlier times, Italian miniatures were rude in drawing, and barbaric in colour like German and Spanish work; but in the thirteenth century a distinct Italian type arose, based at first on imitation of the semi-Byzantine art of Calabria and Sicily; but soon growing more national under the influence of Giotto. There is no resemblance in style or manner between the miniatures and borders of Italian artists, and those of Northern Europe. The figures and faces are painted with opaque colour, and a broad brush; giving altogether a stronger impression of representing real men and women, than the exquisite drawing of the French artists, in which faces were washed with colour after having had the features drawn in with a pen or a fine brush. ([Plate 12] shows the style of illustration used at Venice in the first half of the fourteenth century, in which there is a curious combination of French-like calligraphy with the painty miniatures of the home school of art.) There was in fact more of modelling in the Italian illuminator's work in its purely national stage from about 1350 to 1450. After the later date a more subtle and minute delicacy in the drawing altered the character of the pictorial work. The borders which prevailed during 1320 to 1420 are also quite different from French work. Broad foliage of architectonic pattern hangs in soft tints of red and blue from a long upright slender pole like an ornamental curtain-rod, and little buds or drops of burnished gold fall here and there within the line of sight, but there is no attempt to fill up the spaces with any elaborate scheme of twining branches and real leaves and flowers, as in the French parallels. The writing is usually square and gothic, but with few of the oblique angles and little projecting points that are seen in Western gothic. The Lombardic hand of Eastern and Southern Italy, had left no trace in the script which succeeded it. The round and beautiful Carolingian letter of North Italy had a distinct influence in moulding the Italian gothic, and preserving its freedom from Teutonic angularities. It had lasted longer here than in other countries, but Spanish Visigothic was also a late lingerer, and did not succumb to French influence till the thirteenth century.

In Germany, the fourteenth century proceeded as elsewhere to produce a closely packed difficult Gothic letter, and also to introduce an ugly cursive which came generally into use in the next century. In decoration, the old Germanic style had given way to the influence of French and Italian work, and a sort of new school was created, which in the following century became distinctively German. The cursive writing alluded to was an ugly rapid script deformed from the minuscule, which was very largely used in the fifteenth century, and developed in time the handwriting which still prevails in Germany, although gradually giving way to the Roman.

English Work in the Fourteenth Century

The cursive hand in England, as used between 1250 and 1550 for all purposes, and in legal documents for a long time afterwards, seems to have grown up in the early part of the thirteenth century. It is quite unlike the earlier charter hand, although it must have been derived from it. For the first century or more of its use, it is remarkable by reason of the long strokes which are broad and heavy above, but taper into thin lines below, those heavy heads being bifurcated in the earlier times and looped in the later. During the thirteenth and a great part of the fourteenth century it looked handsome, and could be read without difficulty; from the late part of the fourteenth century onwards it deteriorated both in aspect and in clearness. Nothing resembling this English hand was used on the continent, except (in a slight degree) in the notes written sometimes on the margins of philosophical and legal books, by means of a hard leaden stylus. Another cursive was also employed, which was merely the rapid writing of the gothic minuscule, like that of Germany; but this appeared rather on the continent.

It has been remarked that the Norman conquest introduced a new fashion in writing; but the observation is too strong. That event led gradually to the disuse of writing in the angular Anglo-Saxon letters, but had little influence on the fashion of the script used for writing Latin, which had become round and clear since the tenth century. The Carolingian reformation had failed to supersede the Anglo-Irish hand, but its influence extended far enough to improve the shape even of the purely English letters. In Ireland, the angular character had fixed its type which has not since varied.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the English, as has been said above, began to relinquish the lead in calligraphy and ornamentation, which they had held since the twelfth. The Latin Bibles which had been produced towards the end of the twelfth century were usually folios of good size, written in a large and fine hand, and decorated with miniatures of the type seen in the Huntingfield Psalter. The fashion of the thirteenth century inclined to work of smaller dimensions, and the Bibles came out in small octavo or duodecimo size until the end of the century approached, when there was a tendency to revert to small folios. In the fourteenth century, a favourite size was quarto or small quarto. The illustrations in MSS. of both twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and of the beginning of the fourteenth, were similar in style, but varying in appearance according to the space allowed the artist.

French Work in the Fourteenth Century

The French took the lead in the fourteenth century, especially during the second half. There was not much to choose in the writing of the time in any country, but it was best in Italy. It was in the dainty adornment of their illuminated MSS., and in the fine and delicate beauty of the pictorial designs, that the French school now assumed its place of pre-eminence. The Apocalypse was a favourite book in the first half of this century, as it had been in the twelfth, and artists delighted in drawing pictures of its strange visions. These pictures were seldom quite original in design, since the earliest delineations had acquired a sort of traditional authority, but they were sufficiently variant in particulars to exhibit the strength of the artist. Diapered and chequered patterns came more prominently into fashion along with the older use of burnished gold, for backgrounds; and a great deal of excellent work was done. An example from a French Apocalypse is given on [plate 13]. In most cases, the picture was drawn with a fine brush and the colours delicately washed in afterwards. French artists attained to singular perfection in this dainty method of illustration, and nothing of the kind excels some of the superior specimens. Amongst them will be found a number of charming Books of Hours executed at Bourges, Tours, and Paris, for Charles V of France and his brothers. Whatever may be thought of the beautiful paintings in Flemish and Italian MSS. at the end of the fifteenth century, it is undeniable that the last thirty years of the fourteenth produced French work which will hold its own against the illumination of any period or of any country. It is curious as showing how little the warfare against Edward III had affected the progress of art in France.