Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages Part 21

There was some difficulty in obtaining ma.n.u.scripts to copy. The Breviary was usually enclosed in a cage; rich parishioners were bribed by many ma.s.ses and prayers, to bequeath ma.n.u.scripts to churches. In old Paris, the Parchment Makers were a guild of much importance.

Often they combined their trade with tavern keeping, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Rector of the University was glad when this occurred, for the inn keeper and parchment maker was under his control, both being obliged to reside in the Pays Latin.

Bishops were known to exhort the parchment makers, from the pulpit, to be honest and conscientious in preparing skins. A bookseller, too, was solemnly made to swear "faithfully to receive, take care of, and expose for sale the works which should be entrusted to him." He might not buy them for himself until they had been for sale a full month "at the disposition of the Masters and Scholars."

But in return for these restrictions, the bookseller was admitted to the rights and privileges of the University. As clients of the University, these trades, which were a.s.sociated with book making, joined in the "solemn processions" of those times; booksellers, binders, parchment makers, and illuminators, all marched together on these occasions. They were obliged to pay toll to the Rector for these privileges; the recipe for ink was a carefully guarded secret.

It now becomes our part to study the books themselves, and see what results were obtained by applying all the arts involved in their making.

The transition from the Roman illuminations to the Byzantine may be traced to the time when Constantine moved his seat of government from Rome to Constantinople. Constantinople then became the centre of learning, and books were written there in great numbers. For some centuries Constantinople was the chief city in the art of illuminating. The style that here grew up exhibited the same features that characterized Byzantine art in mosaic and decoration. The Oriental influence displayed itself in a lavish use of gold and colour; the remnant of Cla.s.sical art was slight, but may sometimes be detected in the subjects chosen, and the ideas embodied. The Greek influence was the strongest. But the Greek art of the seventh and eighth centuries was not at all like the Cla.s.sic art of earlier Greece; a conventional type had entered with Christianity, and is chiefly recognized by a stubborn conformity to precedent. It is difficult to date a Byzantine picture or ma.n.u.script, for the same severe hard form that prevailed in the days of Constantine is carried on to-day by the monks of Mt. Athos, and a Byzantine work of the ninth century is not easily distinguished from one of the fifteenth. In ma.n.u.scripts, the caligraphy is often the only feature by which the work can be dated.

In the earlier Byzantine ma.n.u.scripts there is a larger proportion of Cla.s.sical influence than in later ones, when the art had taken on its inflexible uniformity of design. One of the most interesting books in which this cla.s.sical influence may be seen is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, being a work on Botany, by Dioscorides, written about 400 A. D. The miniatures in this ma.n.u.script have many of the characteristics of Roman work.

The pigments used in Byzantine ma.n.u.scripts are glossy, a great deal of ultramarine being used. The high lights are usually of gold, applied in sharp glittering lines, and lighting up the picture with very decorative effect. In large wall mosaics the same characteristics may be noted, and it is often suggested that these gold lines may have originated in an attempt to imitate cloisonne enamel, in which the fine gold line separates the different coloured s.p.a.ces one from another. This theory is quite plausible, as cloisonne was made by the Byzantine goldsmiths.

M. Lecoy de la Marche tells us that the first recorded name of an illuminator is that of a woman--Lala de Cizique, a Greek, who painted on ivory and on parchment in Rome during the first Christian century. But such a long period elapses between her time and that which we are about to study, that she can here occupy only the position of being referred to as an interesting isolated case.

The Byzantine is a very easy style to recognize, because of the inflexible stiffness of the figures, depending for any beauty largely upon the use of burnished gold, and the symmetrical folds of the draperies, which often show a sort of archaic grace. Byzantine art is not so much representation as suggestion and symbolism.

There is a book which may still be consulted, called "A Byzantine Guide to Painting," which contains accurate recipes to be followed in painting pictures of each saint, the colours prescribed for the dress of the Virgin, and the grouping to be adopted in representing each of the standard Scriptural scenes; and it has hardly from the first occurred to any Byzantine artist to depart from these regulations. The heads and faces lack individuality, and are outlined and emphasized with hard, unsympathetic black lines; the colouring is sallow and the expression stolid. Any attempt at delineating emotion is grotesque, and grimacing. The beauty, for in spite of all these drawbacks there is great beauty, in Byzantine ma.n.u.scripts, is, as has been indicated, a charm of colour and gleaming gold rather than of design. In the Boston Art Museum there is a fine example of a large single miniature of a Byzantine "Flight into Egypt," in which the gold background is of the highest perfection of surface, and is raised so as to appear like a plate of beaten gold.

There is no attempt to portray a scene as it might have occurred; the rule given in the Manual is followed, and the result is generally about the same. The background is usually either gold or blue, with very little effort at landscape. Trees are represented in flat values of green with little white ruffled edges and articulations.

The sea is figured by a blue surface with a symmetrical white pattern of a wavy nature. A building is usually introduced about half as large as the people surrounding it. There is no attempt, either, at perspective.

The anatomy of the human form was not understood at all. Nearly all the figures in the art of this period are draped. Wherever it is necessary to represent the nude, a lank, disproportioned person with an indefinite number of ribs is the result, proving that the monastic art school did not include a life cla.s.s.

Most of the best Byzantine examples date from the fifth to the seventh centuries. After that a decadence set in, and by the eleventh century the art had deteriorated to a mere mechanical process.

The Irish and Anglo-Saxon work are chiefly characterized in their early stages by the use of interlaced bands as a decorative motive.

The Celtic goldsmiths were famous for their delicate work in filigree, made of threads of gold used in connection with enamelled grounds.

In decorating their ma.n.u.scripts, the artists were perhaps unconsciously influenced by this, and the result is a marvellous use of conventional form and vivid colours, while the human figure is hardly attempted at all, or, when introduced, is so conventionally treated, as to be only a sign instead of a representation.

Probably the earliest representation of a pen in the holder, although of a very primitive pattern, occurs in a miniature in the Gospels of Mac Durnam, where St. John is seen writing with a pen in one hand and a knife, for sharpening it, in the other. This picture is two centuries earlier than any other known representation of the use of the pen, the volume having been executed in the early part of the eighth century.

Two of the most famous Irish books are the Book of Kells, and the Durham Book. The Book of Kells is now in Trinity College, Dublin.

It is also known as the Gospel of St. Columba. St. Columba came, as the Chronicle of Ethelwerd states, in the year 565: "five years afterwards Christ's servant Columba came from Scotia (Ireland) to Britain, to preach the word of G.o.d to the Picts."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DETAIL FROM THE DURHAM BOOK]

The intricacy of the interlacing decoration is so minute that it is impossible to describe it. Each line may be followed to its conclusion, with the aid of a strong magnifying gla.s.s, but cannot be clearly traced with the naked eye. Westwood reports that, with a microscope, he counted in one square inch of the page, one hundred and fifty-eight interlacements of bands, each being of white, bordered on either side with a black line. In this book there is no use of gold, and the treatment of the human form is most inadequate.

There is no idea of drawing except for decorative purposes; it is an art of the pen rather than of the brush--it hardly comes into the same category as most of the books designated as illuminated ma.n.u.scripts. The so-called Durham Book, or the Gospels of St. Cuthbert, was executed at the Abbey of Lindisfarne, in 688, and is now in the British Museum. There is a legend that in the ninth century pirates plundered the Abbey, and the few monks who survived decided to seek a situation less unsafe than that on the coast, so they gathered up their treasures, the body of the saint, their patron, Cuthbert, and the book, which had been buried with him, and set out for new lands. They set sail for Ireland, but a storm arose, and their boat was swamped. The body and the book were lost. After reaching land, however, the fugitives discovered the box containing the book, lying high and dry upon the sh.o.r.e, having been cast up by the waves in a truly wonderful state of preservation. Any one who knows the effect of dampness upon parchment, and how it c.o.c.kles the material even on a damp day, will the more fully appreciate this miracle.

Giraldus Cambriensis went to Ireland as secretary to Prince John, in 1185, and thus describes the Gospels of Kildare, a book which was similar to the Book of Kells, and his description may apply equally to either volume. "Of all the wonders of Kildare I have found nothing more wonderful than this marvellous book, written in the time of the Virgin St. Bridget, and, as they say, at the dictation of an angel. Here you behold the magic face divinely drawn, and there the mystical forms of the Evangelists, there an eagle, here a calf, so closely wrought together, that if you look carelessly at them, they would seem rather like a uniform blot than like an exquisite interweavement of figures; exhibiting no perfection of skill or art, where all is really skill and perfection of art. But if you look closely at them with all the acuteness of sight that you can command, and examine the inmost secrets of this wondrous art, you will discover such delicate, such wonderful and finely wrought lines, twisted and interwoven with such intricate knots and adorned with such fresh and brilliant colours, that you will readily acknowledge the whole to have been the work of angelic rather than human skill."

At first gold was not used at all in Irish work, but the ma.n.u.scripts of a slightly later date, and especially of the Anglo-Saxon school, show a superbly decorative use both of gold and silver. The "Coronation Oath Book of the Anglo-Saxon Kings" is especially rich in this exquisite metallic harmony. By degrees, also, the Anglo-Saxons became more perfected in the portrayal of the human figure, so that by the twelfth century the work of the Southern schools and those of England were more alike than at any previous time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IVY PATTERN, FROM A 14TH CENTURY FRENCH Ma.n.u.sCRIPT]

In the Northern ma.n.u.scripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries it is amusing to note that the bad characters are always represented as having large hooked noses, which fact testifies to the dislike of the Northern races for the Italians and Southern peoples.

The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be considered to stand for the "Golden Age" of miniature art in all the countries of Europe.

In England and France especially the illuminated books of the thirteenth century were marvels of delicate work, among which the Tenison Psalter and the Psalter of Queen Mary, both in the British Museum, are excellent examples. Queen Mary's Psalter was not really painted for Queen Mary; it was executed two centuries earlier. But it was being sent abroad in 1553, and was seized by the Customs. They refused to allow it to pa.s.s. Afterwards it was presented to Queen Mary.

At this time grew up a most beautiful and decorative style, known as "ivy pattern," consisting of little graceful flowering sprays, with tiny ivy leaves in gold and colours. The Gothic feeling prevails in this motive, and the foliate forms are full of spined cusps.

The effect of a book decorated in the ivy pattern, is radiant and jewelled as the pages turn, and the burnishing of the gold was brought to its full perfection at this time. The value of the creamy surface of the vellum was recognized as part of the colour scheme.

With the high polish of the gold it was necessary to use always the strong crude colours, as the duller tints would appear faded by contrast. In the later stages of the art, when a greater realism was attempted, and better drawing had made it necessary to use quieter tones, gold paint was generally adopted instead of leaf, as being less conspicuous and more in harmony with the general scheme; and one of the chief glories of book decoration died in this change.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEDIaeVAL ILLUMINATION]

The divergences of style in the work of various countries are well indicated by Walter de Gray Birch, who says: "The English are famous for clearness and breadth; the French for delicate fineness and harmoniously a.s.sorted colours, the Flemish for minutely stippled details, and the Italian for the gorgeous yet calm dignity apparent in their best ma.n.u.scripts." Individuality of facial expression, although these faces are generally ugly, is a characteristic of Flemish work, while the faces in French miniatures are uniform and pretty.

One marked feature in the English thirteenth and fourteenth century books, is the introduction of many small grotesques in the borders, and these little creatures, partly animal and partly human, show a keen sense of humour, which had to display itself, even though inappropriately, but always with a true spirit of wit. One might suppose on first looking at these grotesques, that the droll expression is unintentional: that the monks could draw no better, and that their sketches are funny only because of their inability to portray more exactly the thing represented. But a closer examination will convince one that the wit was deliberate, and that the very subtlety and reserve of their expression of humour is an indication of its depth. To-day an artist with the sense of caricature expresses himself in the ill.u.s.trated papers and other public channels provided for the overflow of high spirits; but the cloistered author of the Middle Ages had only the sculptured details and the books belonging to the church as vehicles for his satire. The carvings on the miserere seats in choirs of many cathedrals were executed by the monks, and abound in witty representations of such subjects as Reynard the Fox, cats catching rats, etc.; inspired generally by the knowledge of some of the inconsistencies in the lives of ecclesiastical personages. The quiet monks often became cynical.

The spirit of the times determines the standard of wit. At various periods in the world's history, men have been amused by strange and differing forms of drollery; what seemed excruciatingly funny to our grandparents does not strike us as being at all entertaining.

Each generation has its own idea of humour, and its own fun-makers, varying as much as fashion in dress.

In mediaeval times, the sense of humour in art was more developed than at any period except our own day. Even-while the monk was consecrating his time to the work of beautifying the sanctuary, his sense of humour was with him, and must crop out. The grotesque has always played an important part in art; in the subterranean Roman vaults of the early centuries, one form of this spirit is exhibited. But the element of wit is almost absent; it is displayed in oppressively obvious forms, so that it loses its subtlety: it represents women terminating in floral scrolls, or sea-horses with leaves growing instead of fins. The same spirit is seen in the grotesques of the Renaissance, where the sense of humour is not emphasized, the ideal in this cla.s.s of decoration being simply to fill the s.p.a.ce acceptably, with voluptuous graceful lines, mythological monstrosities, the inexpressive mingling of human and vegetable characteristics, grinning dragons, supposed to inspire horror, and such conceits, while the attempt to amuse the spectator is usually absent.

In mediaeval art, however, the beauty of line, the sense of horror, and the voluptuous spirit, are all more or less subservient to the light-hearted buoyancy of a keen sense of fun. To ill.u.s.trate this point, I wish to call the attention of the reader to the wit of the monastic scribes during the Gothic period. Who could look at the little animals which are found tucked away almost out of sight in the flowery margins of many illuminated ma.n.u.scripts, without seeing that the artist himself must have been amused at their pranks, and intended others to be so? One can picture a gray-hooded brother, chuckling alone at his own wit, carefully tracing a jolly little grotesque, and then stealing softly to the alcove of some congenial spirit, and in a whisper inviting his friend to come and see the satire which he has carefully introduced: "A perfect portrait of the Bishop, only with claws instead of legs! So very droll! And dear brother, while you are here, just look at the expression of this little rabbit's ears, while he listens to the bombastic utterance of this monkey who wears a stole!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARICATURE OF A BISHOP]

Such a fund of playful humour is seldom found in a single book as that embodied in the Tenison Psalter, of which only a few pages remain of the work of the original artist. The book was once the property of Archbishop Tenison. These few pages show to the world the most perfect example of the delicacy and skill of the miniaturist.

On one page, a little archer, after having pulled his bow-string, stands at the foot of the border, gazing upwards after the arrow, which has been caught in the bill of a stork at the top of the page. The att.i.tude of a little fiddler who is exhibiting his trick monkeys can hardly be surpa.s.sed by caricaturists of any time. A quaint bit of cloister scandal is indicated in an initial from the Harleian Ma.n.u.script, in which a monk who has been entrusted with the cellar keys is seen availing himself of the situation, eagerly quaffing a cup of wine while he stoops before a large cask.

In a German ma.n.u.script I have seen, cuddled away among the foliage, in the margin, a couple of little monkeys, feeding a baby of their own species with pap from a spoon. The baby monkey is closely wrapped in the swathing bands with which one is familiar as the early trussing of European children. Satire and wrath are curiously blended in a German ma.n.u.script of the twelfth century, in which the scribe introduces a portrait of himself hurling a missile at a venturesome mouse who is eating the monk's cheese--a fine Camembert!--under his very nose. In the book which he is represented as transcribing, the artist has traced the words--"Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad iram, ut te Deus perdat." ("Wicked mouse, too often you provoke me to anger--may G.o.d destroy thee!")

In their ill.u.s.trations the scribes often showed how literal was their interpretation of Scriptural text. For instance, in a pa.s.sage in the book known as the Utrecht Psalter, there is an ill.u.s.tration of the verse, "The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in the furnace, purified seven times." A glowing forge is seen, and two craftsmen are working with bellows, pincers, and hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace. Another example of this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin, where two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in ill.u.s.tration of the text about the wicked, "who whet their tongue like a sword."

There is evidence of great religious zeal in the exhortations of the leaders to those who worked under them. Abbot John of Trittenham thus admonished the workers in the Scriptorium in 1486: "I have diminished your labours out of the monastery lest by working badly you should only add to your sins, and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books. There is in my opinion no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books.... You will recall that the library of this monastery...

had been dissipated, sold, or made way with by disorderly monks before us, so that when I came here I found but fourteen volumes."

It was often with a sense of relief that a monk finished his work upon a volume, as the final word, written by the scribe himself, and known as the Explicit, frequently shows. In an old ma.n.u.script in the Monastery of St. Aignan the writer has thus expressed his emotions: "Look out for your fingers! Do not put them on my writing!

You do not know what it is to write! It cramps your back, it obscures your eyes, it breaks your sides and stomach!" It is interesting to note the various forms which these final words of the scribes took; sometimes the Explicit is a pathetic appeal for remembrance in the prayers of the reader, and sometimes it contains a note of warning. In a ma.n.u.script of St. Augustine now at Oxford, there is written: "This book belongs to St. Mary's of Robert's Bridge; whoever shall steal it or in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be Anathema Marantha!" A later owner, evidently to justify himself, has added, "I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where this aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way!"

The Explicit in the Benedictional of Ethelwold is touching: the writer asks "all who gaze on this book to ever pray that after the end of the flesh I may inherit health in heaven; this is the prayer of the scribe, the humble G.o.demann." A mysterious Explicit occurs at the end of an Irish ma.n.u.script of 1138, "Pray for Moelbrighte who wrote this book. Great was the crime when Cormac Mac Carthy was slain by Tardelvach O'Brian." Who shall say what revelation may have been embodied in these words? Was it in the nature of a confession or an accusation of some hitherto unknown occurrence?

Coming as it does at the close of a sacred book, it was doubtless written for some important reason.

Among curious examples of the Explicit may be quoted the following: "It is finished. Let it be finished, and let the writer go out for a drink." A French monk adds: "Let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains." Ludovico di Cherio, a famous illuminator of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon which he had long been engaged: "Completed on the vigil of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on an empty stomach." (Whether this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether Ludovico considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be especially acceptable, the reader may determine.)

There is an amusing rhymed Explicit in an early fifteenth century copy of Froissart:

"I, Raoul Tanquy, who never was drunk (Or hardly more than judge or monk,) On fourth of July finished this book, Then to drink at the Tabouret myself took, With Pylon and boon companions more Who tripe with onions and garlic adore."

But if some of the monks complained or made sport of their work, there were others to whom it was a divine inspiration, and whose affection for their craft was almost fanatic, an anecdote being related of one of them, who, when about to die, refused to be parted from the book upon which he had bestowed much of his life's energy, and who clutched it in his last agony so that even death should not take it from him. The good Othlonus of Ratisbon congratulates himself upon his own ability in a spirit of humility even while he rejoices in his great skill; he says: "I think proper to add an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as yet a little child, I was sent to school and quickly learned my letters, and I began long before the time of learning, and without any order from my master, to learn the art of writing. Undertaking this in a furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, I got a habit of holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me on that point." This very human touch comes down to us through the ages to prove the continuity of educational experience! The accounts of his monastic labours put us to the blush when we think of such activity. "While in the monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria I wrote many books.... Being sent to Franconia while I was yet a boy, I worked so hard writing that before I had returned I had nearly lost my eyesight. After I became a monk at St. Emmerem, I was appointed the school-master. The duties of the office so fully occupied my time that I was able to do the transcribing I was interested in only by nights and in holidays.... I was, however, able, in addition to writing the books that I had myself composed, and the copies which I gave away for the edification of those who asked for them, to prepare nineteen missals, three books of the Gospels and Epistles, besides which I wrote four service books for Matins. I wrote in addition several other books for the brethren at Fulda, for the monks at Hirschfeld, and at Amerbach, for the Abbot of Lorsch, for certain friends at Pa.s.sau, and for other friends in Bohemia, for the monastery at Tegernsee, for the monastery at Preyal, for that at Obermunster, and for my sister's son. Moreover, I sent and gave at different times sermons, proverbs, and edifying writings. Afterward old age's infirmities of various kinds hindered me." Surely Othlonus was justified in retiring when his time came, and enjoying some respite from his labours!

Religious feeling in works of art is an almost indefinable thing, but one which is felt in all true emanations of the conscientious spirit of devotion. Fra Angelico had a special gift for expressing in his artistic creations is own spiritual life; the very qualities for which he stood, his virtues and his errors,--purity, unquestioning faith in the miraculous, narrowness of creed, and gentle and adoring humility,--all these elements are seen to completeness in his decorative pictures. Perhaps this is because he really lived up to his principles. One of his favourite sayings was "He who occupies himself with the things of Christ, must ever dwell with Christ."

It is related that, in the Monastery of Maes Eyck, while the illuminators were at work in the evening, copying Holy Writ, the devil, in a fit of rage, extinguished their candles; they, however, were promptly lighted again by a Breath of the Holy Spirit, and the good work went on! Salvation was supposed to be gained through conscientious writing. A story is told of a worldly and frivolous brother, who was guilty of many sins and follies, but who, nevertheless, was an industrious scribe. When he came to die, the devil claimed his soul. The angels, however, brought before the Throne a great book of religious Instructions which he had illuminated, and for every letter therein, he received pardon for one sin. Behold! When the account was completed, there proved to be one letter over!

the narrator adds navely, "And it was a very big book."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ILLUMINATION BY GHERART DAVID OF BRUGES, 1498; ST.

BARBARA]