CHAPTER XI.
Illuminated Manuscripts of the Teutonic School after the Tenth Century.
| German MSS. of the XIth century. |
German MSS. of the XIth century.Though in the main the eleventh century was a period of artistic decadence, mentioned above as having succeeded the brilliant Carolingian period (see page [78]), yet we find that in certain places in Germany there was a very distinct beginning of artistic revival, especially in the illumination of manuscripts, about the middle of the eleventh century and even earlier. A school of magnificently decorative art began then to be developed, and though the drawing of the human figure was still weak, yet effects of the noblest decorative character were produced by manuscript illuminators, foreshadowing that marvellous climax of manuscript art which was reached in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
| Missal of Henry II. |
Missal of Henry II.Fig. [29] shows a sumptuously decorative page from an eleventh century manuscript Missal which was executed for the Emperor Henry II. (now in the Munich library). On a brilliant diapered background in gold, red and blue, a standing figure of the Emperor is crowned by Christ, who sits within a vesica aureole. The Emperor receives from two angels the great Cross Standard of the Empire and a sword. His arms are supported by a saint on each side, Saints Ulrich and Emmeram. The whole page is a superb piece of decoration, and is specially interesting because illuminations of this type were evidently used by the earliest painters of stained glass windows to supply them with designs.
Fig. 29. A page from the Missal of the Emperor Henry II.
Fig. [30] illustrates a stained glass figure of King David, one of five lancet-windows from the Cathedral of Augsburg, executed about 1065, when the Church was consecrated, and probably about the oldest existing example of a figure in stained glass. The manuscript-like type of the design is very evident.
