Illuminated Manuscripts Part 6

The copyist's last words after his task was completed are often very full of weariness--sometimes pious, sometimes hankering after fleshly l.u.s.ts, occasionally quite too dreadful to repeat. "May Christ recompense for ever him who caused this book to be written." At the end of a Life of St. Sebastian: "Ill.u.s.trious martyr, remember the monk Gondacus who in this slender volume has included the story of thy glorious miracles. May thy merits a.s.sist me to penetrate the heavenly kingdom; and may thy holy prayers aid me as they have aided so many others who have owed to them the ineffable enjoyments both of body and soul." Wailly quotes the following: "Dextram scriptoris benedicat mater honoris" ("May the mother of honour bless the writer's right hand"). A very common ending is "Qui scripsit scribat semper c.u.m Domino vivat" ("He who wrote, let him write; may he ever live with the Lord"). Another: "Explicit expliceat. Bibere scriptor eat" ("It is finished. Let it be finished, and let the writer go out for a drink"). Another ending is "Vinum scriptori reddatur de meliori" ("Let wine of the best be given to the writer"). And again: "Vinum reddatur scriptori, non teneatur" ("Let wine be given to the writer; let it not be withheld"). Here is the recompense wished for by a French monk: "Detur pro pena scriptori pulcra puella" ("Let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains," or "as a penance") The monks enjoyed puns, as "bibere," a common pun on "vivere." One writer groans thus: "Scribere qui nescit, nullum putat esse laborem" ("Whoso knows not how to write, thinks it is no trouble").

As time goes on, after the tenth century, it is noticeable that the more beautiful a ma.n.u.script becomes in its writing the less accurate becomes its Latinity. And so the monks who once were noted for learning, gradually lose their grip on Latin. The ma.n.u.scripts executed in Benedictine abbeys became inaccurate--almost illiterate. Faults of ignorance of words; misrendering of proper names; blundering in the inept introduction of marginal notes and confounding such notes with the text, showing that the heart of the copyist was not in his work nor his head capable of performing it. His hand is simply a machine, which when it goes wrong does so without remorse and without shame. So in the greater houses, men were appointed whose sole business was to supervise the copyists--in fact, to supply the brains, while the scribe furnished the manipulation of the pen. Even they, however, did not always succeed to perfection, as very few of them were too well furnished with scholarship. There were not many Alcuins or Theodulfs in the twelfth century. What they did usually keep free from serious error were the books used in their own services. It was the aim, particularly among the Cistercian houses, to have their liturgical texts absolutely without fault. In respect of illumination, there was a great quarrel between the Abbey of Citeaux and that of Cluny. The great Abbey of Clugny (or Cluny) in ancient Burgundy was founded in 910, and in the course of a century or obtained a degree of splendour, influence, and prosperity unrivalled by any other mediaeval foundation. It possessed enormous wealth and covered Western Europe with its affiliated settlements. Under Peter the Venerable, when the controversy began, it was the chief monastic centre of the Christian world. The words of Pope Urban II., when addressing the community, were: "Ye are the light of the world."

The grand Basilica at Cluny was completed in 1131, and, until the erection of St. Peter's at Rome, was the largest church in Christendom, and even then was only ten feet shorter than the Roman edifice. The building is a masterpiece of architectural beauty and ma.s.siveness, being with its narthex added by Abbat Roland de Hainaut, no less in length than 555 feet. The splendour of the church, its gorgeous tombs and mausoleums, its huge coronals for lights of bra.s.s, silver, and gold--the grand candelabrum before the altar, with its settings of crystal and beryl--the mural painting of the cupola, and the general luxury and magnificence of the whole const.i.tuted an unpardonable sin in the eyes of the stern and self-denying Cistercians. Hence arose long disputes between the abbats of the two houses about t.i.thes and other matters.

Among the other matters were included questions of candlesticks and bindings and gildings of books. The two houses were long at variance on the right definition of luxury in living, and this variance may to this day be observed in their separate and distinct styles, both of architecture and the ornamentation of books. The use of gold was still continued in the older Benedictine abbeys, but was long forbidden in the Cistercian, almost all the ornament of the latter being confined to pen-drawing and the use of coloured inks. The employment of gold for the text of ma.n.u.scripts so common in the ninth century became rare in the eleventh. Only here and there do we hear of such volumes. Where the gold lettering still lingers, it is confined to the first page or two, and the same may be said of the purple vellum. A certain monk, Ademar, who died at Jerusalem in 1034, wrote a Life of St. Martial of Limoges entirely in letters of gold; but it was quite an exceptional volume.

Another example occurs in an Evangeliary, which was probably a copy of a ninth-century model, as at first glance it might be a.s.signed to that age, but on closer examination it is found that in one of the borders is a medallion bearing the name of the Emperor Otho, showing that it cannot be later than the latter part of the tenth century. It is now in the National Library at Paris.

Before speaking of Othonian illumination it may be well to refer to that of the Netherlands in these earlier centuries.

The most ancient writings known in this district were charters and other doc.u.ments, and the pious effusion of the occupants of the monasteries, such as St. Amand, Lobbes, Stavelot, etc.

It was the revival of art and literature under Charlemagne that was the beginning of artistic calligraphy, then followed the production of books outside the monasteries, cla.s.sical authors, chronicles, and mirrors of various sciences. In the eleventh century we find monastic books and others of which the ornamentation is sometimes even splendid, such as Psalters, Evangeliaries, Bibles, and Missals, glowing with gold and colours. Already the Abbeys of Stavelot and Liege were high-cla.s.s centres of production. St. Martin's of Tournay had a famous scriptorium also, noted for the beauty of its writing and its grand initial letters.

Immediately following St. Martin's, the Abbeys of Gembloux, St. Bavon at Ghent, and others, produced or acquired MSS. of the most sumptuous kind, and before the thirteenth century the Netherlands had established quite a distinguished reputation.

In a later chapter we shall deal with the development of its remarkable schools, whose work eventually took rank, not only among the most artistic, but the most prolific in Europe.

CHAPTER XIV

OTHONIAN ILLUMINATION

Departure from Carolingian--Bird and serpent--Common use of dracontine forms in letter-ornament--Influence of metal-work on the forms of scroll-ornament--The vine-stem and its developments--Introduction of Greek taste and fashion into Germany--Cistercian illumination--The Othonian period--Influence of women as patronesses and pract.i.tioners--German princesses--The Empress Adelheid of Burgundy--The Empress Theophano--Henry II. and the Empress Cunegunda--Bamberg--Examples of Othonian art.

Perhaps the first departure towards a new style arising out of the elements of Carolingian illumination is in the combination of the bird and serpent used for letter forms and continued into coils of vine-stem and foliage in combination with golden panelled frames or pilasters. The monsters thus produced seem to be a revival of the dracontine forms of the semi-barbarous Celtic and early Frankish arts. But the difference in elegance and refinement of drawing and beauty of colouring is very great indeed. Other animal forms are also made use of, nor is the human figure altogether absent. Sometimes entire letters are made up of the latter in various att.i.tudes. Little scenes ill.u.s.trative of the subject which the initial commences are often placed within it, as, for instance, in the B of the first psalm.[19]

[19] A characteristic Othonian Evangeliary of the eleventh century, executed at the Abbey of Stavelot, may be seen in the Royal Library at Brussels.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIBLIA SACRA 12TH CENT. (LATE) _Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 2799, fol. 185 v._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EVANGELIA (PARIS USE) C. 1275 _Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 17341, fol. 120 v._]

Many twelfth-century initials look like designs in metal-work placed on the panelled grounds of coloured enamels. But the rapid development of the vine-stem coils out of the stemless foliages of the Carolingian and Winchester styles is one of the wonders of the early German revival after the accession of the Emperor Otho I. A still greater improvement takes place after the marriage of his son Otho II. to the Princess Theophano, daughter of Roma.n.u.s II., attributable, no doubt, to a fresh accession of artistic enthusiasm from the home of the new Empress. In point of elegance of design, beauty of curve, adaptation of every part to its share in the composition, nothing could be finer than the initial letters of the Othonian period of illumination. The year 963 introduced Greek fashions and Greek artists into Germany, the results of which are at once traceable in the increased splendour of monastic illumination in that country. The details of Greek ornament become the fillings of the frames and panels of the large initials.

The Cistercian illuminators, or rather calligraphers, while they constantly repudiate the golden splendour and monstrous follies of their rivals, absolutely excel in this same ornamental draughtsmanship. What, for example, could be finer than the pen-drawing of the great Arnstein Bible in the British Museum (Harl. 2800)? The ornament is mostly in a red ink, with flat-coloured blue, green, or yellow backgrounds, but it is not to be surpa.s.sed. No, the interlacements and coils, foliages and panels of the twelfth century are absolutely among the finest examples of ornamental lettering ever conceived. Illuminating seemed at this epoch to be more and more closely following the details of contemporary architecture, and so paving the way to the next great variety of the art, which is looked upon by some writers as the real beginning of mediaeval illumination.

It must be admitted, however, that the excellence limits itself to the ornament. The human figure is wretchedly incorrect--even barbarous. It may be asked why is this? How is it that while the decorative portion of an illuminated book is beautiful in the highest degree, both in line and colour, and yet occasionally the artist seems not to have the remotest idea of the true shape of hands and feet or any part of the human body?

Of course the usual explanation offered is that monastic education did not permit the study of the nude, and hence the monkish ignorance of figure drawing. But that is scarcely an excuse for the monstrous hands and feet and exaggerated facial expression of the miniatures. The Italian monk Angelico, in spite of his monastic limitations, succeeded in a most graceful rendering of the figure, and a charming delicacy in the forms of the hands. As in some instances the artist does reach a fair standard, it must be admitted that where he does not is owing to actual inability in himself and not in his system. The three emperors who give the name of Othonian to the period immediately succeeding the Carolingian ruled Germany, and had much to do with the ruling of Italy, from 936, when Otho I., called the Great, succeeded Henry the Fowler about five years before the death of Athelstan, whose sister Eadgyth[20]

was Otho's first wife. His mother Mathilda was the patroness of the cloister-schools for women, working in them personally. She herself taught her servants and maids the art of reading. Her daughter Mathilda, the famous Abbess of Quedlinburg, in 969 persuaded the Abbat Wittikind of Corvey to write the History of the Saxon Kings, Henry her father, and Otho her brother (now in the Royal Library at Dresden). Hazecha, the Treasury-mistress of Quedlinburg, also employed the monks of Corvey, with whose beautiful initial drawing she was greatly pleased, to illuminate her own Life of St. Christopher. The beautiful but imperious Princess Hedwig, another of Otho's sisters, read Virgil with Ekkehard of St. Gall, and taught the child Burchard Greek, while Otho's niece Gerberga, Abbess of Gandersheim, was the instructress of the celebrated Hrosvita, "the oldest German poetess." And this reminds us that at this time the women-cloisters of Germany and the Netherlands were among the most active centres of learning and book-production. The great monument of feminine erudition and artistic skill, called the "Hortus Deliciarum," was of a somewhat later time, but other examples still exist, among them the beautiful Niedermunster Gospels of the Abbess Uota, now at Munich. A wood-cut by Albert Durer prefixed to the first edition of Hrosvita's works (Nurnberg, 1501) represents the nun Hrosvita kneeling before the Emperor and beside the Archbishop Wilhelm of Mainz presenting her book.[21] As to the literary labours of Hrosvita, this is not the place to discuss them. She is simply an incidental figure in our view of the brilliant Court of the Othos. A MS. of her works 500 years after her death was found among the dust of the cloister-library at St.

Emmeram of Regensburg by Conrad Celtis, and, as we have seen, printed for the first time in 1501. Thus she stands out as an ill.u.s.tration of the fact often alluded to, of the importance of feminine foundations in the monastic scheme.

[20] The chroniclers are rather confused as to the name of this Princess.

[21] It is thought, however, by some that the figure behind is that of the Abbess--not the Archbishop. See Durer Soc. Portfolio for 1900.

Her picturesque story of the romantic adventures of Adelheid of Burgundy, her marriage in 947 to King Lothaire of Italy, her widowhood and perils, her misfortunes and eventual marriage to the Emperor Otho, reads more like a chapter from the _Morte d'Arthur_ or the _Arabian Nights_ than a veracious history of real people. The Empress Adelheid was, indeed, a remarkable woman, and the nun of Gandersheim is full of her praises. In her younger days she had been a zealous patron and protectress of the Abbey of Cluny, which stood on her native land of Burgundy, and her sympathies remained always with the religious houses.

In this respect, indeed, she was a worthy successor of the pious Mathilda and her daughters. She died in her seventy-first year in her Abbey of Selz in Elsa.s.s, leaving a memory rich in benefits to the monastics, especially those of Cluny, and venerated as the patroness of many an illuminated volume of poems or theology, not to mention the liturgical books executed at her expense for use in her various foundations. The tenth century seems to have been an age of ill.u.s.trious women. No sooner do we leave the story of Adelheid than we enter upon that of the young wife of Otho II., the Empress Theophano, daughter of the Greek Emperor, Roma.n.u.s II. When little more than a child she was married to the son of Adelheid, he himself being in his twentieth year in the year 972, and in the city of Rome. The young Greek Princess who had been reared amid the luxury and splendour of the Eastern capital at once became the fashion--the manners of her Byzantine household became those of her Roman court, and were transplanted to her German home at Bamberg. Artists, limners, copyists, musicians, scholars, formed part of her retinue, and at once the German Court became the rival of those of England, Byzantium, Cordova, and Rome.

It was, indeed, a Renaissance, an awakening in literature, art, and social life. Nor did its glory fade until eclipsed by the succeeding rivalries of France and Italy. Theophano survived her husband, who died in 983, and proved herself a capable Regent during the infancy of her son Otho III. She, however, did not live to see his early death, nor indeed to see that of the aged Adelheid, who survived her eight years, and died in the same year (999) as Otho's aunt, Matilda, Abbess of Quedlinburg.

The death of Otho III. in 1002 did not affect materially the steady advance of monastic art. Bamberg, St. Gall, Corvey, Luxeuil, Bobbio, Monte Ca.s.sino continued their accustomed labours. Under the Capetian Kings the French foundations maintained the reputations they had won during the Carolingian times, while others were added from time to time throughout the Rhineland, Limousin, and the South of France, where the Romanesque or Byzantine tastes had not yet penetrated, and whose work therefore remained distinct from that of Italy and the German Empire.

Henry II. and the Empress Cunigunda made Bamberg the great centre of German art, and it is to Bamberg, St. Gall, Luxeuil, Monte Ca.s.sino, and Magdeburg that we have to look for the finest productions of the eleventh century. Among the earlier works of the Othonian period we may mention the famous Gospel-book executed for the minister of Otho II., Egbert, Archbishop of Treves, and known as the Codex Egberti. It was written in 980 at Reichenau on the Lake of Constance (or Bodensee, as it is locally known) by two monks, Kerald and Heribert, whose dwarfish figures appear beneath that of the archbishop on the frontispiece. It contains fifty-seven illuminations and several folios of violet parchment with golden ornaments and lettering. But its pictures are rather remarkable, mostly the figures are too short and the limbs and extremities badly drawn, but in some of the statelier personages the error is reversed and they are too tall--this seems to be owing to Greek influence, while the Byzantine taste shows itself in the treatment of the border-foliages. Beasts are unnatural--demons and swine are alike, both in form and colour (Pub. Lib., Treves).

An Evangeliary, formerly in the Cathedral Treasury at Bamberg, but now in the Royal Library at Munich (Cimel. 58), is a good example of the kind of work that at first glance appears to be actually Carolingian both in the figures, att.i.tudes, and treatment of drapery, but which on closer examination proves to be really due to the reign of Otho II. In this MS. the beginning of St. Matthew contains four medallions--two of Henry I. (the Fowler), one of Otho I., his son, and another of his grandson, Otho II. (Nat. Lib., Paris, Lat. 8851).

A still more notable MS. is kept in the Munich Library (Cimel. 58), containing a two-paged picture of tributary cities bringing gifts to the Emperor Otho III. In the painting in this MS., notwithstanding the exaggerated solemnity of expression, the faces are well drawn and the features carefully modelled. The painting is in the Greek manner, as is also the general character of the draperies. The small, ill-drawn feet are by no means comparable with the heads.

The Imperial crown is square, like those of the Magi in the Bremen MS.

now in the Library of Brussels, or like that of Baldwin as Emperor of Constantinople. In the several enthronements which occur among the Imperial miniatures at Munich there are important and significant differences which might not be noticed unless pointed out.

The changes in the shape and treatment of the orb, for instance, mean more than a mere advance in enrichment, or an improvement in artistic skill. The difference indicates a change in political usage. In the miniature of Charles it does not occur at all; in that of Otho III. it is a mere symbol; in that of Henry II. it is the actual emblem of sovereignty presented by the Pope to the Emperor, to be held by the latter in token of his invest.i.ture.

It was Selden's opinion that the orb, surmounted by the cross, never appears in western art until the time of Henry II. Thus it is here one of the many seemingly insignificant details which, in the miniature art of the Middle Ages, contribute to the elucidation of History.

CHAPTER XV

FRANCONIAN ILLUMINATION

The later Saxon schools--Bernward of Hildesheim--Tuotilo and Hartmut of St. Gallen--Portrait of Henry II. in MS. 40 at Munich--Netherlandish and other work compared--Alleged deterioration of work under the Franconian Emperors not true--Bad character of the eleventh century as to art--Example to the contrary.

The MS. just referred to (Munich, Cimel. 58) brings us most probably to the time of the third. Otho, but it is really with his father's marriage to the Princess Theophano that the great revival in the arts began, and the names of St. Bruno of Cologne and Augsburg, Gerbert, Bernward of Hildesheim, Tuotilo, Salomon, Hartmut, Folchard, and Sintramn of St.

Gallen, are, as it were, points of light and centres of expanding circles of artistic skill. Bruno and Gerbert are too well known to need any further remark. Bernward of Hildesheim, made bishop there in 992 by Theophano, and tutor to her son Otho III., "excelled no less in the mechanical than in the liberal arts. He was an excellent penman, a good painter, and as a household manager was unequalled." Such is Tangmar's tribute to his pupil's character. He was, indeed, an enthusiast in painting, mosaic, and metal-work, and used to collect all the objects of art he could lay hands on, to form a museum or studio for the instruction of a cla.s.s of art students and workmen. The collection was formed mainly out of the numerous presents brought to the young Emperor from foreign, and especially Greek and Oriental, princes, and contained many examples of beautiful metal-work and Greek illumination. His own Cathedral of Hildesheim was supplied with jewelled service-books, in part at least the work of his own hand. The chalices and incense-burners and the ma.s.sive golden corona or candelabrum of the cathedral were also the productions of his own workshops. The mural paintings, too, were executed by himself. His handiwork, so lovingly described by his old schoolmaster Tangmar, may still be seen in Hildesheim, where visitors to that quaint old Saxon city are told that the bronze gates of the cathedral and the jewelled crucifix were placed there by the venerable bishop himself in 1015, while in the cathedral-close rises a column adorned with bronze reliefs from the Life of Christ, authoritatively declared to be the work of his own hands--let us say they came out of his own workshops, in the year 1022, nearly a thousand years ago. St.

Bernward was canonised by Celestine III. in 1194. His sarcophagus is in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Michael at Hildesheim. Of Tuotilo, the pupil of Moengall (or Marcellus), it is said that he was physically almost a giant; just the man, says his biographer, that you would choose for a wrestler. He was a good speaker, had a fine musical voice, was a capital carver in wood, and an accomplished illuminator. Like most of the earlier monks of St. Gallen, he was a clever musician, equally skilful with the trumpet and the harp. And the charm about it all was that he was always cheerful and in excellent spirits, and in consequence a general favourite. Nor is this all. Besides being teacher of music in the upper school to the sons of the n.o.bility, he was cla.s.sical tutor, and could preach both in Latin and Greek. His chief accomplishments, however, were music and painting, and on these his reputation mainly rests. He composed songs, which, like an Irish bard, he sang to the harp--the popular instrument of this Irish foundation. Being thus multifariously accomplished (he was, by the way, an excellent boxer), he was much in request, and by the permission of his abbot travelled to distant places. One of his celebrated sculptures was the image of the Blessed Virgin for the cathedral at Metz, said to be quite a masterpiece. Nay, he was even a mathematician and astronomer, and constructed an astrolabe or orrery, which showed the courses of the planets.

This allusion to the astrolabe reminds us that it was Abbat Hartmut of St. Gallen, who was also an accomplished illuminator, who constructed a large map of the world--one of the extremely few that until that time the world had ever seen.

St. Gallen and its artists, however, must not be permitted to monopolise our attention too long. The reader must for the rest refer to Dr. Rahn and the writers whom he quotes. Sometimes it is said that the illuminations of the eleventh century are proofs of the rapid decline of art, and to demonstrate the fact that they are frankly hideous, some writers bring forward instances such as the miniatures of a Missal, especially a Crucifixion, said to be at Paris,[22] and a MS. at Berlin said to have been executed in the earlier days of the Franconian dynasty (1034-1125) containing another Crucifixion, which, though not quite so horrible as the one just referred to, is sufficiently bad. These miniatures are irredeemably barbaric and not in any sense typical of the age. Such examples, in fact, can be found in any age and in any country.

Were they really representative of the best art of the time, there might be an excuse for their reproduction, but they are not, and therefore no reliance can be placed on their evidence.

[22] _Le Livre, etc._, par M.P. Louisy, Paris, 1886, 8, p. 79.

In the miniatures of MSS. executed for the Othos and Henrys of the early Saxon dynasty the worst they can be charged with, as compared with the periods before and after them, is slavish imitation. The portrait of Henry II. (Saint Henry, husband of Cunegunda) in MS. 40 at Munich is by no means barbaric--it is more Greek than anything else--but it is down to the smallest element of composition a direct imitation of the similar portrait of Charles the Bald in the Emmeram Gospels. It is not a copy, for there is a significant difference in the att.i.tudes of the emperors.

Henry holds a sceptre in his right hand and an orb in his left, like Otho III. in the miniature already described, whereas Charles is empty handed. Then both on the Emperor's head and on the smaller figures the crowns are different--the panelling of the Imperial canopy is different, and, of course, there is a different inscription. Lastly, it may be said that some of the differences are improvements. Another change is characteristic--Charles was beardless, Henry has a pointed beard.

It is true this is an example belonging to the very brightest years of the Othonian revival. But to pa.s.s over other Saxon MSS., there are extant examples from Evroul (when Roger de Warenne, son of the great Earl of Surrey, practised as a scribe and illuminator on his retirement to that monastery), St. Martin's of Tournay, St. Amand, Benedictbeuern, Lobbes, and Weissobrunn could all boast accomplished calligraphers. The last establishment produced the celebrated Diemudis, who, though a woman, was distinguished by a most extraordinary activity and skill.

Nor are these all that could be named, for by no means least among them we may quote Monte Ca.s.sino, many of whose elegant productions have been published by the present occupants of the monastery. Then the Greek miniaturists of the eleventh century are once more to the front. The famous Slav Evangeliary of Ostromir (1056-67) shows us a MS. probably executed for a governor of Novgorod, which contains by no means despicable work, whether in the figures of the evangelists or the ornamental borders. Of course, in Greek MSS. we know pretty well what to expect; fairly good ornament, rich details of embroidery, etc., wilfulness of colour in architecture, mannerism in the att.i.tudes and faces, but good, clever technic and bright gold.

Lastly, there is the celebrated Evangeliary given to San Benedetto of Mantua by the Countess Matilda now in the Vatican, enriched with little miniatures from the Life of the Virgin, which Lanzi declares surpa.s.s everything else he ever saw of the same period.

The Poitevin MS. at Poitiers, a biographical compilation of saints in honour of St. Radegonde, though nothing wonderful, is worth recording as a transitional example just before the close of the century. As an example of the latter part of a continual deterioration, it should be worse than anything preceding. Yet it is not so. It is certainly heavy and rather dull, and the drawing far from excellent, but it is also, on the other hand, far from "frankly horrible." In introducing examples of other schools into this chapter the writer's object has solely been to vindicate the illuminators of the eleventh century from the sweeping charge sometimes made against them of absolute deterioration. Of the school directly under our notice, the charge is certainly not true, and the wretched stuff cited in support of it can only be looked upon as accidental salvages of no artistic value whatever.