From the fragments of Charles the Bald's Bible.
From British Museum, Harl. 7551.
The learned have disputed hotly whether this portrait is intended for that of Charlemagne, or of Charles the Bald, his grandson. Whether this manuscript, which, in all respects, except beauty in the figure-subjects, I look upon as the finest I have ever seen, was executed in the days of the former or latter monarch, is of no very great moment, as its leading features would harmonize very well with accredited reliques of either. It still contains no less than 339 pages, and is one blaze of illumination from the first page to the last.[[54]] The large initial letters are quite Saxon in form; the borders, of which there are endless and beautiful varieties, are more strictly classic in character than is usual in Caroline manuscripts; and the pictures are in an indeterminate style, between Greek, Latin, and that original Frankish, which subsequently absorbed in Western Europe all previous tradition, and grew into the peculiar type of French 12th century work—the progenitor of the pure Gothic of the 13th.
Ample materials happily exist for tracing the gradual development of this Frankish element; at first through the works of the immediate descendants of Charlemagne, and subsequently through various liturgical works, collected from suppressed abbeys, and preserved for the most part in the Imperial library at Paris. Of these, some of the most important are, the Bible of Louis le Debonnaire, executed in the eighth year of his reign; the Gospels of the same monarch; and the Sacramentaire de Metz,—all produced for sons of Charlemagne. The first-named is of the barbaric style, on which Alcuin and others improved; the second contains some very curious symbolic initial letters; and the third, a good deal of originality, both in ornaments and figures.
The principal volumes still preserved, once belonging to the grandsons of Charlemagne, appear less original in several respects, than do those executed for his sons. Thus, in the case of Louis le Debonnaire's eldest son Lothaire, whose Gospels, written and decorated at the Abbey of St. Martin, at Tours, exhibit a mixed Latin and Saxon style, with but little specifically Frankish work,—and thus also in the person of Lothaire's youngest brother, Charles the Bald, whose two celebrated Bibles, the one known as the Bible of St. Denis, and the other as that presented to the monarch by Count Vivien, abbot of the same monastery at which the Gospels of Lothaire were executed,—illustrate a similar composite, but scarcely original, style. The former manuscript is illuminated with intertwined lacertine monsters, knotwork, single (but not the three-whorl) spirals, and rows of red dots following many of the leading outlines, all of which may be regarded as distinctive features of the Hiberno-Saxon school; while the latter, with several of the above peculiarities freely introduced, combines an unmistakable classicality, shown in the various figure-subjects, and especially in the arcading which encloses the Eusebian Canons at the commencement of the volume.
The British Museum is fortunate in possessing in the Harleian MS.—No. 7551—a curious collection of ancient Biblical fragments, and amongst these are a few pages taken from a Bible executed for Charles the Bald. From these Mr. Tymms has selected the elegant Alphabets, initial letters, and ornaments which are to be found in plates [1], [2], and [3], of this manual. In these the student will not fail to recognize what he may have already observed in studying the specimens given from the Charlemagne Bible (Technical manual, plates [1], [2], and [3]), that while the form of the text and the ornamental borderings are founded on antique models, the initial letters scarcely ever fail to exhibit in their Celtic animals' heads and interlaced strap-work the influence of Alcuin and the Saxon scribes.
We can feel but little surprise at the production of such works at the Abbey of St. Martin, at Tours, for it was within the walls of that "Paradise," as Alcuin calls it, that the Saxon sage gave all the latter years of his life to the recension of the Holy Scriptures,[[55]] and to the organization of a "scriptorium" worthy of his affectionate patron.
The impulse given to the Art of Illumination in that celebrated establishment was speedily communicated to rival scriptoria in other localities; thus from the abbeys of St. Martial, at Limoges, from Metz, Mans, St. Majour in Provence, Rheims, St. Germain and St. Denis at Paris, issued, from the age of Charlemagne to the 13th century, an almost uninterrupted series of highly-illuminated volumes, many of which still remain to attest the vigorous efforts by which the foreign elements were gradually thrown aside in France, to make way for that expressive and original outline style[[56]] which achieved its greatest power in the early part of the 13th century. The throes and struggles by which this was achieved, are singularly well shown by a page engraved in Count Bastard's splendid work from the "Apocalypse of St. Sever," written during the first half of the 11th century. The page presents a curious emblematical frontispiece, the general form of which is perfectly Oriental; the border ornaments are founded on Cufic inscriptions; the animals which decorate the Arabian framework are classical; and the interlacing fretwork of several portions of the design is purely Saxon.
Many Byzantine features were brought into French illumination through the schools at St. Martial's and the other abbeys of Limoges, but it was at Paris itself that the greatest changes and improvements were effected; thus, at St. Germain and St. Denis were produced, during the first half and middle of the 11th century, two volumes, still existing in the Imperial Library of France, which distinctly show the budding of "Gothic." The St. Germain "Mysteries of the Life of Christ" is illustrated by many original and very spirited outline compositions, some of which are slightly coloured; while the "Missal of St. Denis," of a few years later, displays that peculiar grace and naïveté in the action and expression of the figures, together with that soft elegance in foliated ornament, which for several centuries remained a dominant excellence in the best French illuminations.
As classical tradition and Hiberno-Saxon intricacies died out in France to make way for the true Mediæval styles, so did they, although somewhat more slowly, in England, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. In Italy, a degeneracy occurred, from which the revival at length, under Cimabue and Giotto, was as rapid and brilliant as the previous collapse appears to have been fatal.[[57]]
Alike from any such complete change, complete degeneracy, or ultimate attainment of life and perfection, the genuine Greek style of the Byzantine empire was exempted. That Oriental splendour of gold and colour by which so early as the days of Justinian the Great, it sought to gloss over the feebleness of its reminiscences of classical beauty, remained the unchanged leading characteristic of its illuminations down to the final extinction of the empire in 1453.