Illuminated manuscript

Lore & Background

The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts are a small number from late antiquity, and date from between 400 and 600 CE. Examples include the Vergilius Romanus, Vergilius Vaticanus, and the Rossano Gospels. The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance. While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted.

Most manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment until the 2nd century BCE, when a more refined material called vellum, made from stretched calf skin, was supposedly introduced by King Eumenes II of Pergamum. This gradually became the standard for luxury illuminated manuscripts, although modern scholars are often reluctant to distinguish between parchment and vellum, and the skins of various animals might be used. The pages were then normally bound into codices (singular: codex), that is, the usual modern book format, although sometimes the older scroll format was used, for various reasons. A very few illuminated fragments also survive on papyrus.

Books ranged in size from ones smaller than a modern paperback, such as the pocket gospel, to very large ones such as choirbooks for choirs to sing from, and Atlantic bibles, requiring more than one person to lift them. Paper manuscripts appeared during the Late Middle Ages. The untypically early 11th century Missal of Silos is from Spain, near to Muslim paper manufacturing centres in Al-Andalus. Textual manuscripts on paper become increasingly common, but the more expensive parchment was mostly used for illuminated manuscripts until the end of the period.

Very early printed books left spaces for red text, known as rubrics, miniature illustrations and illuminated initials, all of which would have been added later by hand. Drawings in the margins (known as marginalia) would also allow scribes to add their own notes, diagrams, translations, and even comic flourishes. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century but in much smaller numbers, mostly for the very wealthy. They are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages; many thousands survive.

Reader's Guide

Art historians classify illuminated manuscripts into their historic periods and types, including (but not limited to) Late Antique, Insular, Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance manuscripts. There are a few examples from later periods. Books that are heavily and richly illuminated are sometimes known as 'display books' in church contexts, or 'luxury manuscripts', especially if secular works.

In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is the most widely recognized illuminated manuscript in the Anglosphere, and is famous for its insular designs. The Romanesque and Gothic periods saw the creation of many large illuminated complete bibles. The largest surviving example of these is The Codex Gigas in Sweden; it is so massive that it takes three librarians to lift it.

Other illuminated liturgical books appeared during and after the Romanesque period. These included psalters, which usually contained all 150 canonical psalms, and small, personal devotional books made for lay people known as books of hours that would separate one's day into eight hours of devotion. These were often richly illuminated with miniatures, decorated initials and floral borders.

They were costly and therefore only owned by wealthy patrons, often women. As the production of manuscripts shifted from monasteries to the public sector during the High Middle Ages, illuminated books began to reflect secular interests. These included short stories, legends of the saints, tales of chivalry, mythological stories, and even accounts of criminal, social or miraculous occurrences. Some of these were also freely used by storytellers and itinerant actors to support their plays.

One of the most popular secular texts of the time were bestiaries. These books contained illuminated depictions of various animals, both real and fictional, and often focused on their religious symbolism and significance, as it was a widespread belief in post-classical Europe that animals, and all other organisms on Earth, were manifestations of God. These manuscripts served as both devotional guidance and entertainment for the working class of the Middle Ages.