J. H. Middleton

The beauty of MSS.

The beauty of MSS.The Monastic Scribes. It may be interesting to consider what were the causes that made the illuminated manuscripts of the mediaeval period among the most perfect and beautiful works of art that the world has ever produced. No one can examine the manuscripts of any of the chief European countries down to the fourteenth century without a feeling of amazement at their almost unvarying perfection of execution, the immense fertility of fancy in their design, and the utterly unsparing labour that was lavished on their production. Moreover the manuscripts of this earlier period, before their production became a commercial art in the hand of secular scribes, are especially remarkable for their uniform excellence of workmanship, and their complete freedom from any signs of haste or weariness on the part of their scribes and illuminators.

Conditions of life. Absence of hurry.

Conditions of life.Now the fact is that the countless illuminated manuscripts which were produced in so many of the Benedictine and other monastic Houses of Europe were executed under very exceptionally favourable circumstances^[207]. In the first place the monastic scribe lived in a haven of safety and rest in the middle of a tumultuous and war-harassed world. While at work in the scriptorium he was troubled with no thoughts of Absence of hurry.any necessity to complete his task within a limited time in order to earn his daily bread. Food and clothing of a simple though sufficient kind were secured to him, whether he finished his manuscript in a year or in twenty years. He worked for no payment, but for the glory of God and the honour of his monastic foundation, and last, but not least, for the intense pleasure which the varying processes of his work gave him.

Pleasant work.

Pleasant work.No one who examines a fine mediaeval manuscript can help seeing in it the strongest marks of the delight which the illuminator had in his work; and this sort of retrospective sympathy with the pleasure of the workman in his work is an important element in the beauty of ancient works of art of many different kinds and dates, from the simple but beautiful wheel-turned vase of the Greek potter, down to the carved foliage in a Gothic church, or the complicated ornamentation of an illuminated initial.

Relief from monotony.

Relief from monotony.Again, it should be remembered that the life of a mediaeval monk was a very uneventful and monotonous one, and even the most pious soul must at times have felt a weariness in the oft-repeated and lengthy Offices which made him spend so large a proportion of each day within the Choir of his monastic church. Thus it was that his work as an illuminator of manuscripts provided the one great relief from his otherwise grey and monotonous life, from which he turned to revel in every variety of fanciful shape and of varied arrangement of gleaming gold and brilliant pigments. Here at least was no monotony, but the fullest scope for imaginative fancy and the love of variety which is inborn in the human mind.

Scope for humour. Grotesque figures.

Scope for humour.In the illumination of his manuscript the monastic scribe, even when decorating a sacred book, could lay aside for a moment the solemn religious thoughts to which his vows had bound him; he could sport with every variety of grotesque monster and of Pagan imagery, and could find vent for his repressed sense of fun and humour by the introduction of caricatures and pictorial jokes of all kinds among the foliage of his borders and initials without any fear of reproof on the part of his superiors^[208]. Grotesque figures.Fig. 52 from a French fourteenth century manuscript shows a characteristic example of an illuminators humorous fancy, a grotesque Bishop, with a mitre made out of a pair of bellows.

Fig. 52. Grotesque figure from a French manuscript of the fourteenth century.

Very frequently the jealousy which existed between the Regular and the Secular Clergy is expressed in the pictorial sarcasms of the monastic illuminators. This feeling, on the Secular side, is vividly set forth in the amusing Latin Poems of Walter Map^[209], who, toward the close of the twelfth century, was the Parish Priest of a little church in the Forest of Dean^[210]. Walter Map's satire is mainly directed against the Cistercian order of monks, with whom he was specially brought into contact owing to his parish being situated near the Cistercian Abbey of Flaxley.

Humorous scene.Fig. 53. from a German manuscript of the end of the twelfth century, now in the Chapter library of Prague Cathedral, gives an interesting example of the introduction of a humorous scene into a grave work, Saint Augustine's De civitate Dei. The illuminator, who was named Hildebert, has been worried by a mouse, which stole his food; and here on the last leaf of the manuscript he represents himself interrupted in his work and throwing something at the mouse which is nibbling at his food. These explanatory words are written on the open page of his book,

Portrait of the scribe.At the feet of the scribe a lad named Everwinus, possibly a monastic novice, is seated on a low stool, drawing a piece of ornamental scroll-work. The Monk Hildebert's desk is in the form of a lectern supported by a carved lion; in it are holes to hold the black and red inkhorns, and two pens or brushes. In his left hand the scribe holds the usual penknife, and another pen is stuck behind his ear.

Short hours of labour.There is yet another of the conditions under which the monastic scribe worked which was not without important effect on the unvarying excellence of his work, and that was that he could never remain long enough at work, at any one time, for his hand or eye to get wearied. Owing to the constantly recurring Choir services, the Seven Hours, which he had to attend, the monastic scribe could probably never continue labouring at his illumination for more than about two hours at a time.

No weariness.The importance of this fact is very clearly seen when we compare one of the earlier monastic manuscripts with one of the fifteenth century French or Flemish Books of Hours, executed by a professional secular scribe. Thus in the older manuscripts the firmness of line and delicate, crisp touch never relaxes, and the artist's evident sense of power and the joy in his manual dexterity lasts without diminution from the first to the last page of his book.

Variety of labour.Additional beauty is given to the mediaeval manuscripts by the fact that each scribe commonly did much important work in the preparation of his inks and pigments; in some cases even to the beating out of the gold leaf he was about to use in his miniatures and borders^[211]. No colours bought of a dealer in a commercial age could ever equal in beauty or in durability the pigments that an illuminator made or at least prepared for his own use. And his command over the materials of his art would greatly enhance his pleasure in using them, to say nothing of the relief given by the variety of his labours.

Varied schemes of ornament.All these influences, combined with others which it might be wearisome to dwell upon, combined to make the manuscripts of the pre-commercial period works of the most unvarying perfection of technique, unspeakably rich in the varied wealth of fancy shown in their decorative schemes, as well as in the minute detail of each part. The illuminated ornament in one place is concentrated into a gem-like miniature within the narrow limit of a small initial letter. At another place it spreads out into the splendour of a full-page picture, which swallows up most of the text, and covers the whole page with one mass of burnished gold and brilliant colour. Or again, springing from its roots in an illuminated capital, it grows over the margin and frames the text with a mass of richly designed and exquisitely graceful foliage.

Every possible scheme of decoration is to be found in these manuscripts; but in all cases the illuminator is careful to make his painted ornament grow out of and form, as it were, an integral part of the written text, which thus becomes not merely a book ornamented with pictures, but is a close combination of writing and illumination, forming one harmonious whole in a united scheme of decorative beauty^[212].

Monastic Scriptoria.The Scriptoria of Monasteries. As I have previously mentioned, it was more especially the Benedictine monasteries^[213] that were the centres for the production of mediaeval manuscripts^[214]. I will therefore describe the usual arrangements of the Scriptorium in a Benedictine House.

In early times, in the eighth and ninth centuries for example, the Scriptorium and library appear usually to have been a separate room, near or over the Sacristy, and adjoining the Choir of the church^[215].

Scriptoria in cloisters.During most of the mediaeval period, however, and in England down to the suppression of the Abbeys by Henry VIII., the system was to devote one whole walk or alley of the cloister, that nearest to the church, to the double purpose of a Scriptorium and library. This was naturally the warmest and dryest portion of the cloister, at least in most cases when the usual arrangement was followed of placing the cloister on the south side of the nave of the Abbey church^[216].

Monastic library.This north walk (as it commonly was) of the cloister faced south and so received plenty of sun; at each end of it a screen was placed to shut it off from the rest of the cloister, which formed a sort of common living-room for the monks^[217]. Along one side of this alley of the cloister were fixed, against the wall of the church, oak cupboards (armaria), with strong locks and hinges, to receive the manuscripts which formed the library of the monastery^[218]. At Westminster and in other Benedictine monasteries the marks showing where these armaria were fixed are visible on the cloister wall or rather along the wall of the church, which forms one side of this walk of the cloister.

Scribes' carrels.Down the middle of the alley a clear passage was left, and the other side of the passage, that opposite the bookcases, was occupied, at least in the fourteenth century, and probably much earlier, by a row of little wooden box-like rooms called carrels^[219], each of which was devoted to the use of one scribe. As a rule there were either two or three of these carrels to each bay or compartment of the cloister. They were commonly made of wainscot oak, about six by eight feet in plan or even less; just big enough to hold the seated scribe and his large desk, on which rested the manuscript he was copying, and the one he was writing, with some extra shelf space for his black and red inkhorns, his colours and other implements; see fig. 53 on p. 209.

These little rooms were provided with wooden floors and ceilings, so as to be warm and dry; they were set close against the traceried windows, which in most cloisters ran all along the internal sides of the four alleys.

Cloister at Gloucester.The cloister of Gloucester Abbey^[220] has a slightly different arrangement. Here a series of stone recesses, each intended to hold a carrel, extends all along the side of this walk^[221] of the cloister. There are two of these recesses to each bay, and the lower part of the outer wall, instead of consisting of open tracery, is of solid masonry, pierced only by a small glazed window to give light to the scribe; above the carrel recess there is the usual large arch filled in with tracery; see fig. 54^[222].

When provided with these and other wooden fittings, the cloister of a Benedictine Abbey would not have been either in appearance or fact as cold and comfortless as such places usually look now. With a small portable brazier the monastic scribe in his little wooden cell was safe from damp and probably fairly warm even in cold weather.

Cloister at Durham.The Rites and Monuments of Durham^[223] (Cap. XLI.) give the following very interesting description of the carrels with which the Durham cloister was fitted up;

In the sixteenth century, owing to the introduction of printed works, the books in the Benedictine monastery of Durham had become too numerous for the row of almeries along the north walk of the cloister to hold them; and so a separate room was provided as a second library. The present library at Durham is the old Dormitory or Dorter of the Monks with all its "cubicles" or sleeping-carrels removed.

Other monastic Scriptoria.In the Houses of other religious foundations the arrangements for the writing of manuscripts were different from those of the Benedictines. In a Convent of Dominican Friars, for example, each friar worked in his own cell where he slept, and in a Carthusian monastery each monk had a complete little house and garden with a small study and oratory and a larger room, where his labours, literary or mechanical, were carried on.

The Dominican House of San Marco in Florence, of which Fra Beato Angelico was a member, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was famous for the magnificent manuscripts that were illuminated there; see above, p. 190. And various other Convents of Dominican Friars in Italy were important centres of manuscript illumination. Some of the Regular Canons were also famous as illuminators, especially the Austin Canons.