From such early examples Byzantine art advanced to a maturer style in the 9th and 10th centuries, two MSS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris being types of the best work of this time. These are: the copy of the sermons of Gregory Nazianzen (MS. Grec. 510), executed about the year 880 and containing a series of large miniatures, some being of the highest excellence; and a psalter of the 10th century (MS. Grec. 139), among whose miniatures are examples which still maintain the old sentiment of classical art in a remarkable degree, one in particular, representing David as the psalmist, being an adapted copy of a classical scene of Orpheus and the Muses. The same scene is repeated in a later Psalter in the Vatican: an instance of the repetition of favourite subjects from one century to another which is common throughout the history of medieval art. At the period of the full maturity of the Byzantine school great skill is displayed in the best examples of figure-drawing, and a fine type of head and features is found in the miniatures of such MSS. as the Homilies of Chrysostom at Paris, which belonged to the emperor Nicephorus III., 1078-1081, and in the best copies of the Gospels and Saints’ Lives of that period, some of them being of exquisite finish. By this time also the scheme of decoration was established. Brilliant gilded backgrounds, give lustre to the miniatures. Initial letters in gold and colours are in ordinary use; but, it is to be observed, they never become very florid, but are rather meagre in outline, nor do they develop the pendants and borders which are afterwards so characteristic of the illuminated MSS. of the west. By way of general decoration, the rectangular head-pieces, which are such prominent features in Greek MSS. from the 10th to the 13th centuries, flourish in flowered and tesselated and geometric patterns in bright colours and gold. These are palpably of Oriental design, and may very well have been suggested by the woven fabrics of western Asia.

But Byzantine art was not destined to have a great history. Too self-contained and, under ecclesiastical influence, too much secluded from the contact with other ideas and other influences which are vitally necessary for healthy growth and expansion, it fell into stereotyped and formal convention and ran in narrow grooves. A general tendency was set up to paint the flesh tints in swarthy hues, to elongate and emaciate the limbs, to stiffen the gait, and generally to employ sombre colours in the miniatures, the depressing effect of which the artist seems to have felt himself compelled to relieve by rather startling contrasts of bright vermilion and lavish employment of gold. Still the initials and head-pieces continued to retain their brilliancy, of which they could scarcely be deprived without losing their raison d’être as decorative adjuncts. But, with all faults, fine and delicate drawing, with technical finish in the applied colours, is still characteristic of the best Greek miniatures of the 10th to 12th centuries, and the fine type of head and features of the older time remains a tradition. For example, in the Gospel lectionary, Harleian MS. 1810, in the British Museum, of the 12th century, there is a series of scenes from the life of Christ which are more than usually free from the contemporary conventionalism and which contain many figures of noble design. After the 12th century there is little in the art of Greek MSS. to detain us. The later examples, as far as they exist, are decadent and are generally lifeless copies of the earlier MSS.

Byzantine art, as seen in Greek MSS., stands apart as a thing of itself. But we shall have to consider how far and in what manner it had an influence on western art. Its reaction and influence on Italian art have been mentioned. That that influence was direct is manifest both in the style of such works as the mosaics of Italy and in the character of the paintings of the early Italian masters, and eventually in the earliest examples of the illuminated MSS. of central and southern Italy. But it is not so obvious how the influence which the eastern art of the Greek school undoubtedly exercised on the illuminated MSS. of the Frankish empire was conveyed. All things considered, however, it seems more probable that it passed westward through the medium of Italian art rather than by actual contact, except perhaps in accidental instances.

We turn to the west of Europe, and we shall see how in the elaborately ornamented Frankish MSS. of the Carolingian school was combined the lingering tradition of the classical style with a new and independent element which had Franco-Lombardic. grown up spontaneously in the north. This new factor was the Celtic art which had its origin and was brought to perfection in the illuminated MSS. of Ireland and afterwards of Britain. It will therefore be convenient to trace the history of that school of book ornamentation. But before doing so we must dispose, in few words, of the more primitive style which preceded the Carolingian development in western continental Europe. This primitive style, which we may call the native style, as distinguished from the more artificially compounded art of the revival under Charlemagne, seems to have been widely extended throughout the Frankish empire and to have been common in Lombardy, and to some degree in Spain, as well as in France, and is known as Merovingian and Franco-Lombardic. This kind of ornamentation appears chiefly in the form of initial letters composed of birds, fishes and animals contorted into the shapes of the alphabetical letters; and in a less degree of head-pieces and borders filled with interlacings, or bands, or geometrical patterns, and even details of animal life. In these patterns, barbarous as they usually are, the influence of such artistic objects as mosaics and enamels is evident. The prevailing colours are crude green, red, orange and yellow, which hold their place with persistence through successive generations of MSS. This native style also, in course of time, came under Celtic influence, and adopted into its scheme the interlaced designs of animal forms and other details of the ornament of the north. It is therefore necessary to bear in mind that, side by side with the great series of Carolingian MSS., executed with all possible magnificence, there was existent this native school producing its examples of a more rustic character, which must be taken into account when studying the development of the later national style in France, in the 10th and succeeding centuries.

To turn now to the Celtic style of ornament in MSS. This we find in full development in Ireland as early as the 7th century. The Irish school of book ornamentation was essentially a native school working out its own ideas, created and Celtic fostered by the early civilization of the country and destined to have a profound influence on the art of Britain and eventually on that of the continent. It may be described as a mechanical art brought to the highest pitch of perfection by the most skilful and patient elaboration. Initials, borders and full-page designs are made up of interlaced ribbons, interlaced and entangled zoomorphic creatures, intricate knots, spirals, zig-zag ornaments, and delicate interwoven patterns, together with all kinds of designs worked out in red dots—all arranged and combined together with mathematical accuracy and with exquisite precision of touch; and painted in harmonious colours in thick pigments, which lend to the whole design the appearance of enamel. Gold is never used. In the production of his designs the Irish artist evidently took for his models the objects of early metal work in which the Celtic race was so skilled, and probably, too, the classical enamels and mosaics and jewelry which had been imported and copied in the country. The finest example of early Celtic book ornamentation is the famous copy of the Gospels known as the Book of Kells, of the latter part of the 7th century, preserved in Trinity College, Dublin: a miracle of minute and accurate workmanship, combining in its brilliant pages an endless variety of design.

But, with all his artistic excellence, the Irish artist failed completely in figure drawing; in fact he can hardly be said to have seriously attempted it. When we contemplate, for example, the rude figures intended to represent the evangelists in early copies of the Gospels, their limbs contorted and often composed of extraordinary interlacings and convolutions, we wonder that the sense of beauty which the Irish artist indubitably possessed in an eminent degree was not shocked by such barbarous productions. The explanation is probably to be found in tradition. These figures in course of time had come to be regarded rather as details to be worked into the general scheme of the ornament of the pages in which they occur than representations of the human form, and were accordingly treated by the artist as subjects on which to exercise his ingenuity in knotting them into fantastic shapes.

Passing from Ireland, the Celtic style of book ornamentation was naturally practised in the monastic settlements of Scotland, and especially in St Columba’s foundation in the island of Iona. Thence it spread to other houses in Lindisfarne Gospels. Britain. In the year 635, at the request of Oswald, king of Northumbria, Aidan, a monk of Iona, was sent to preach Christianity in that kingdom, and became the founder of the abbey and see of Lindisfarne in Holy Isle off the Northumbrian coast. Here was established by the brethren who accompanied the missionary the famous school of Lindisfarne, from which issued a wonderful series of finely written and finely ornamented MSS. in the Celtic style, some of which still survive. The most perfect is the Lindisfarne Gospels or St Cuthbert’s Gospels or the Durham Book, as it is more commonly called from the fact of its having rested for some time at Durham after early wanderings. This MS., written in honour of St Cuthbert and completed early in the 8th century, is in the Cottonian collection in the British Museum—a beautiful example of writing, and of the Celtic style of ornament, and in perfect condition. The contact with foreign influences, unknown in Ireland, is manifested in this volume by the use of gold, but in very sparing quantity, in some of the details. An interesting point in the artistic treatment of the MS. is the style in which the figures of the four evangelists are portrayed. Here the conventional Irish method, noticed above, is abandoned; the figures are mechanical copies from Byzantine models. The artist was unskilled in such drawing and has indicated the folds of the draperies, not by shading, but by streaks of paint of contrasting colours. Explanations of such instances of the unexpected adoption of a foreign style are rarely forthcoming; but in this case there is one. The sections of the text have been identified as following the Neapolitan use. The Greek Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, arrived in Britain in the year 688 and was accompanied by Adrian, abbot of a monastery in the island of Nisita near Naples; and they both visited Lindisfarne. There can therefore be little doubt that the Neapolitan MS. from which the text of the Durham Book was derived, was one which Abbot Adrian had brought with him; and it may also be assumed that his MS. also contained paintings of the evangelists in the Byzantine style, which served as models to the Northumbrian artist.

The Celtic style was thus established through the north of England, and thence it spread to the southern parts of the country. But, for the moment, the account of its further development in Britain must be suspended Carolingian. in order to resume the thread of the story of the later classical influence on the illumination of MSS. of the Frankish empire. Under Charlemagne, who became emperor of the West in the year 800, art revived in many branches, and particularly in that of the writing and the illumination of MSS. During the reigns of this monarch and his immediate successors was produced a series of magnificent volumes, mostly biblical and liturgical, made resplendent by a lavish use of gold. The character of the decoration runs still, as of old, in the two lines of illustration and of pure ornament. We find a certain amount of general illustration, usually of the biblical narrative, in pictorial scenes drawn in freehand in the later classical style, and undoubtedly inspired by the western art of Rome. But those illustrations are small in number compared with the numerous examples of pure ornament. Such ornament was employed in the tables of the Eusebian canons, in the accessories of the traditional pictures of the evangelists, in the full-page designs which introduced the opening words of the several books of Bibles or Gospels, in the large initial letters profusely scattered through the volumes, in the infinite variety of borders which, in some MSS., adorned page after page. In all this ornament the debased classical element is prominently in evidence, columns and arches of variegated marbles, and leaf mouldings and other architectural details are borrowed from the Roman basilicas, to serve as decorations for text and miniature. The conventional portrait-figures of the evangelists are modelled on the Byzantine pattern, but with differences which appear to indicate an intervening influence, such as would be exercised on the eastern art by its transmission through Italy. Such figures, which indeed become, in course of time, so formal as almost to be decorative details along with their settings, grew stereotyped and passed on monotonously from artist to artist, always subject to deterioration, and were perpetuated especially in MSS. of German origin down to the 11th and 12th centuries.

Plate II.

PSALTER OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.—LATE TWELFTH CENTURY.
(British Museum. Royal MS. 2A. xxii.)