Note.—This diagram suggests a simple treatment of an initial word in colours and gold. The graphic method employed by heralds for indicating these—by lines and dots—is here discarded for the stronger contrasts of black, white, and “grey.”
The letters contained inside the initial P are kept distinct—(1) crimson (“grey” in diagram) being used solely for the patches of ground adjoining the (gold) letters, and for filling the hollow part of the (gold) P, the whole word stands out in crimson and gold; (2) the floral pattern is also in gold, but it does not cover or hide any part of the word.
The remaining ground is green inside and blue outside the P. The dots
are in red on the green ground, in cream with a red centre dot on the blue.
The gold throughout is outlined black, and the blue ground has a black outline, separated from it by a white line.
In some MSS. there are two side-borders on a page, one springing from the Initials on the left, the other sending branches into the gaps on the right (see Plates [XVII.], [XVI.]). In some cases the two pages of an opening are balanced by a side-border in each of the wide side margins (p. [428]).
Backgrounds of Initials (see pp. [188]–[193], [421]–[23]) and borders are treated very similarly. It may be noted that, where a solid-stem pattern cuts up the ground into small pieces, these are often painted in different colours—commonly red, and green, and blue (see pp. [209], [430]). And the groups of dots (fig. [129])—in white or other colours—may fill the interstices of a background, putting the finishing touch to the even covering and pleasant intricacy of the decoration (comp. p. [201]). Or little flowers and leaves may be used instead—growing from a thin (white) stem which appears to twine throughout the main pattern—just as the smaller plants in a hedge creep and twine among the larger stems. There is no better model in nature for the illuminator than a country hedgerow. [p214]