(Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 8850. 12 × 7½ inches)
The hand-lettered pages are enclosed in plain borders of green or red tint, with outside rules of gold. Each picture page covers the entire leaf. Every now and then, superimposed upon the solid background of the margins, are tiny figures so far superior in freedom of design to the major subjects as to make one wonder why the more pretentious efforts are not farther advanced than they are. Yet why should we be surprised that an artist, under the influence of centuries of precedent and the ever-present aversion to change, should move slowly in expressing originality? As it is, the pages of Saint Médard give us for the first time motivation for the glorious development of the art to come in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The rise of Gothic influence forms the great dividing line between the old, or ecclesiastic, and the new, or naturalistic, spirit in monastic art. The Psalter of Saint Louis, a Gothic manuscript of the thirteenth century, in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is an example of this transition that I like to study.
By the beginning of the thirteenth century the initial—which in the Celtic style had dominated the entire page—was losing its supremacy, becoming simply one factor in the general scheme. A delicate fringe work or filigree of pen flourishes, which had sprung up around the initial as it became reduced in size, was later to be converted into a tendril or cylindrical stem, bearing a succession of five leaves and leaflets of ivy, usually entirely filled with burnished gold. Small figures, and, later, groups of figures, take the place of the linear ornament in the interior of the letter, and calligraphy and miniature painting become successfully fused. An exact date cannot be assigned, as it was the result of a slow and gradual growth.
From certain references made in the Calendar pages of the Psalter, it is evident that the manuscript was copied and illuminated between the year 1252, when Queen Blanche of Castile died, and the death of Saint Louis in 1270. What a story this book could tell! Written in French in red ink on one of the front end leaves is this inscription:
This Psalter of Saint Louis was given by Queen Jeanne d’Evreux to King Charles, son of King John, in the year of our Master, 1369; and the present King Charles, son of the said King Charles, gave it to Madame Marie of France, his daughter, a nun at Poissy, on Saint Michel’s Day, in the year 1400
The Psalter contains 260 leaves of parchment, 8½ by 6 inches. Of these, seventy-eight are small, beautiful miniatures, depicting the principal scenes in the early books of the Old Testament, and eight are illustrations to the Psalms (page [132]), the remaining leaves being occupied by the text. In these miniatures is shown a refinement and delicacy of treatment combined with unusual freedom in execution. Here is one of the best examples of the reflection of the stained-glass windows of the Gothic cathedrals ([opp. page]), to which reference has already been made. There is no shading whatever. The body color is laid on the design in flat tints, finished by strokes of the pen.
PSALTER OF SAINT LOUIS. Gothic, 13th Century