Illuminated Manuscripts
Charlemagne was the most famous ruler of the middle ages and a key figure in European history. He had a vision to revive Europe's cultural life, which had collapsed after the fall of the Roman Empire in the A.D. 400's. He was devoted to improving education and culture. His palace school educated clergymen and trained teachers for schools throughout his empire. Are you beginning to wonder what this tale has to do with illuminated manuscripts? Well, scholars at the schools throughout Charlemagne's empire collected and copied ancient Roman manuscripts which otherwise would have been lost forever. They also wrote new books about Christian history, tradition, and thought. Renewed interest in learning made the manuscripts important for teaching both a scholarly life and a religious life. Illuminated books came to represent wealth and power. This revival of appreciation for learning and culture is referred to as the Carolingian Renaissance. The cultural revival begun by Charlemagne had a profound and lasting effect on European civilization.
Why Illuminations?
Medieval scribes made important contributions to the development of the modern book. The scribes instituted the practice of separating words by spaces, where formerly the Greeks and Romans had run all the words together. They used capital and lower case letters and created punctuation to make reading easier.
The term "illumination" now commonly refers to the application of borders, decorated initials, and illustrations in a text. These paintings developed in many styles according to the monasteries' geographic location or place in history, such as Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Realist, English, French, Irish, Flemish, Spanish, and Italian. All the styles used six basic forms of decoration: 1) animals and human figures, 2) branches with leaves or berries, 3) geometric designs, 4) ornamental letters, 5) braids and knots, 6) scrollwork.
The artists created paintings of holy scenes to honor God and commemorate religious holidays. They also decorated bestiaries (books of animals), romances, histories, legends, and books of hours (prayer books). Often their paintings showed scenes of everyday life: people working in their homes and in their gardens, spending time with their families, conducting business.
From a practical point of view, illuminations helped the reader find his way around the text - the decorated initials gave a visual clue to the contents of the page. Certainly illuminated books were appreciated as works of art and were commissioned and collected as such. Perusing the books that
Latest Articles