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

by J. H. Middleton

Philip the Bold of Burgundy, who died in 1404, was an enthusiastic patron of literature and of the miniaturists art; as was also Charles V. of France (1337-1380). A typical example of this school of manuscripts is a magnificent folio, formerly in the Perkins collection[^[135]], of Les cent Histoires de Troye, a composition in prose and verse written by Christina of Pisa[^[136]] about 1390. This magnificent volume contains one hundred and fifteen delicately executed miniatures, the first of which represents Christina presenting her book to Philip of Burgundy.

Interesting details.

Interesting details.These miniatures and others of the same class are very interesting for their accurate representations of contemporary life and customs. The costumes, the internal fittings and furniture of rooms, views in the streets and in the country, feasts, tournaments, the king amidst his courtiers, scenes in the Court of Justice, and countless other subjects are represented with much minuteness of detail and great realistic truth. We have in fact in the miniatures of this class of manuscripts the first beginning of an early school of genre painting, which in its poetic feeling and sense of real beauty ranks far higher than the ignoble realism of the later Dutch painters.

MS. Chronicles.

MS. Chronicles.One rather abnormal class of manuscript, which belongs both to this period and the following (the fifteenth) century, consists of French or Latin Chronicles of the World beginning with the Creation and reaching down to recent times, written and illuminated with numerous miniature paintings on great rolls of parchment, often measuring from fifty to sixty feet in length. These are usually rather coarse in execution.

Sir John Froissart's Chronicles, and their continuation from the year 1400 by Enguerrand de Monstrelet, were favourite manuscripts for sumptuous illumination among the courtier class both of France and England.

MS. travels.

MS. travels.Among the many illuminated books of travel which were produced during the latter part of the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries one noble example in the Paris library may be selected as a typical example. This is a large folio manuscript entitled Les Merveilles du Monde, containing accounts in French of the travels of Sir John Mandeville, Marco Polo and others. This manuscript was written about the year 1412 for the Duke of Burgundy and was given by him to his uncle the Duc de Berri. Its numerous miniatures are very delicate and graceful, of elaborate pictorial style, with views of landscapes and carefully painted buildings, street scenes and other realistic backgrounds to the figure subjects, all executed with great patience and much artistic feeling. The richly illuminated borders to the text are filled with elaborate foliage, in which real and conventional forms are mingled with fine decorative results.

MS. poems.

MS. poems.In the fourteenth century the growing love for national poetry and the more widely spread ability to read and write, which in previous centuries had been mostly confined to ecclesiastics, led to the production of a large number of illuminated manuscripts of works such as the Quest of the Holy Grail, including the whole series of the Chansons de Geste with the Lancelot and Arturian romances, the Roman de la Rose, one of the most popular productions of the fourteenth century, and a whole class of Fabliaux or short stories in verse dealing with subjects of chivalrous and romantic character.