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

by J. H. Middleton

French Manuscripts.

Psalter of St Louis.

Psalter of St Louis.During the thirteenth century "the art of illumination as it is called in Paris"[^[126]] flourished under the Saintly King Louis IX. (1215-1270) as much as it did in England under Henry III. Manuscripts of most exquisite beauty and refinement were produced in Paris, in style little different from those of the Anglo-Norman school. One of the most beautiful and historically interesting is a Psalter (Paris, Bibl. Nat.) which is said to have been written for St Louis about 1260. This is a large folio, copiously illustrated with sacred subjects minutely painted on a ground of burnished gold enriched by tooling. Many of the miniatures are framed in a beautiful architectural composition of cusped arches, with delicate open tracery supported by slender columns.

Perfect finish.

Perfect finish.Fig. [22] gives the bare design of one of the historiated initials in this lovely manuscript, the capital B at the beginning of the Psalms. In the upper part is the scene of David watching Bathsheba bathing; and below is a kneeling figure of the king adoring Christ in Majesty. No reproduction can give any notion of the exquisitely delicate painting, or of the splendour of its burnished gold and colours. The historical scenes from the Old Testament have, after the usual fashion of the time, the Hebrew warriors and their enemies represented as mediaeval knights in armour.

Fig. 22. A page from the Psalter of Saint Louis, written about the year 1260, by a French scribe.

Archaism of detail.

Archaism of detail.It should, however, be observed that in this and many other French and English miniatures of the time the ancient warriors are represented not in the armour of the actual date of the execution of the manuscript, but with the dress and arms of a couple of generations earlier. The monastic artists were not skilled archaeologists, but they wished to suggest that the scene they were painting was one that had happened long ago, and therefore they introduced what was probably the oldest armour they were acquainted with—that of their grandfathers' or great-grandfathers' time. This is an important point, as in many cases a wrong judgment has been formed as to the date of a manuscript from the mistaken supposition that contemporary dress and armour were represented in it.

It is just the same with the thirteenth century art of England. Paintings executed for Henry III. in his Palace at Westminster had representations of knights in the armour of William the Conqueror's time or a little later. In later times, especially in the fifteenth century, this naïve form of archaeology was given up, and the heroes of ancient and sacred history are represented exactly like kings and warriors of the artist's own time.