Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

Want of life in Byzantine Art.After this period of decay during the tenth and eleventh centuries, Byzantine art began to revive, largely under the influence of the West; the original life and spirit had, however, passed away, and the subsequent history of Byzantine art is one of dull monotony and growing feebleness, the inevitable result of a continuing copying and recopying of older models.

It is rather as a modifying influence on the art of the West that Byzantine painting continued to possess real importance. As a distinct and isolated school, Constantinople fell into the background at the time of the iconoclasts and never again came to the front as an artistic centre of real importance[^[46]].

CHAPTER V.

Manuscripts of the Carolingian Period.

The Age of Charles the Great.

The Age of Charles the Great.The age of Charles the Great and his successors. Charles the Great, who was elected King of the Franks in 768, and in the year 800 became Emperor of the West, did much to foster all branches of art—architecture, bronze-founding, goldsmith's work, and more especially the art of writing and illuminating manuscripts. The Imperial Capital, Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), became a busy centre for arts and crafts of all kinds, and various monasteries throughout the Frankish kingdom became schools of manuscript illumination of a very high order of excellence.

Fig. 10. An initial P. of the Celtic-Carolingian type, of the school of Alcuin of York.

Alcuin of York. The Gospels of Alcuin. Northumbrian influence.

Alcuin of York.It was specially with the aid of a famous English scholar and manuscript writer, Alcuin of York[^[47]], that Charles the Great brought about so remarkable a revival both of letters and of the illuminator's art, and created what may be called the Anglo-Carolingian school of manuscripts. From 796 till his death in 804 Alcuin was Abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Martin at Tours; and there he carried out various literary works for Charles the Great, and superintended the production of a large number of richly illuminated manuscripts. Alcuin's most important literary work was the revision of the Latin text of the Bible, the Vulgate, which since Saint Jerome's time had become seriously corrupted. The Gospels of Alcuin.The British Museum possesses (Add. Manuscripts, No. 10546) a magnificently illuminated copy of the Vulgate as revised by Alcuin, which, there is every reason to believe, is the actual manuscript which was prepared for Charles the Great either by Alcuin himself or under his immediate supervision. This splendid manuscript is a large folio in delicate and beautifully formed minuscule characters, with the beginnings of chapters in fine uncials; it is written in two columns on the purest vellum. The miniature paintings in this manuscript show the united influence of various schools of manuscript art. The figure subjects are mainly classical in style, with fine architectural backgrounds of Roman style, drawn with unusual elaboration and accuracy, and even with fairly correct perspective. The initial letters and all the conventional ornaments show the Northern artistic strain which Northumbrian influence.Alcuin himself introduced from York. Delicate and complicated interlaced patterns, such as were first used in the wonderful sixth and seventh century manuscripts of the Celtic monks, are freely introduced into the borders and large capitals.