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shewhomustAs I was saying, we slipped in to the Fitzwilliam Museum on our way south, to admire their new acquisition, the Macclesfield Psalter. The excitement about this richly painted little prayer book comes from two directions. On the one hand, it seems to have appeared from nowhere: this isn't a case of a national treasure which was languishing in a private collection, it was completely unknown until the library of the Earl of Macclesfield came up for auction in 2004. On the other hand, we do know exactly where it fits in: it is closely related to two other manuscripts created in East Anglia in the first third of the fourteenth century.
The first thing the Fitzwilliam did with their shiny new toy was to take it to pieces - that is, they removed the binding. (I don't know how sympathetic the old binding was, but it's noticeable that the tops of the pages have been shaved down into the illumination, presumably to fit the book onto a shelf.) And before the Psalter is given a new binding, it has been placed on display, so that instead of seeing a book open at whichever page the curator has chosen, you see a whole gallery of double pages, pinned in their cases like gaudy butterflies.
Taking Folio 76 recto as an example: Psalm 51 is one of those which begins with an elaborately illuminated capital, to help the reader find their way through the text. The text is:
And so on: there are capitals with scenes illustrating the interpretation of the Old Testament as a prophecy of the New, while at the bottom of the page a rabbit jousts with a dog, a monkey diagnoses the malady of a bed-ridden bear, a man is startled by a giant skate and grotesques with heads at both ends peer out of the foliage. The colour and the gold are so richly applied that they show through the translucent vellum, yet the figures are delicately and often realistically painted.
We had arrived in Cambridge so late that we barely had time to step into the larger gallery, in which the University showed off some of its existing collection of manuscripts: but within three steps of the doors were treasures, glowing in the dimly lit room. Here is The Bible which belonged to Saint Augustine of Canterbury, that is, the copy of the Bible with which Christianity was first brought to southern England (probably, admits the Fitzwilliam - according to "a long established tradition" and certainly in the country by the late seventh century). Aelfric's Homilies in clear black script sit next to a volume made for the court of Charlemagne, gold letters on a purple marbled background, as brilliant but hard to read (unless the lighting is just so) as any of the excesses of web design. If I were a dragon, this is the cave and this is the hoard around which I would curl my scaly tail.
Later, in London, we called in at the British Library, mainly for purposes of shopping: but we did drop in to say "Hello" to the Lindisfarne Gospels - "Our gospels", says![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler. But in fact "our gospel", the one to which Durham has a historic connection, is the Saint Cuthbert Gospel of Saint John, formerly known as "the Stonyhurst Gospel". It is the copy of Saint John's Gospel which belonged to Saint Cuthbert and was buried with him. I saw it once, long ago, in an exhibition of the treasures of Saint Cuthbert, and it has stayed with me as the model of the beauty of unadorned text. It is on show at the British Library, but closed, because it is still in its original binding, the oldest original western binding not only in the Library, but in Europe.
The first thing the Fitzwilliam did with their shiny new toy was to take it to pieces - that is, they removed the binding. (I don't know how sympathetic the old binding was, but it's noticeable that the tops of the pages have been shaved down into the illumination, presumably to fit the book onto a shelf.) And before the Psalter is given a new binding, it has been placed on display, so that instead of seeing a book open at whichever page the curator has chosen, you see a whole gallery of double pages, pinned in their cases like gaudy butterflies.
Taking Folio 76 recto as an example: Psalm 51 is one of those which begins with an elaborately illuminated capital, to help the reader find their way through the text. The text is:
"Quid gloriaris in malitia,(That's Psalm 52 in the Authorised Version: "Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man?"), and since it's the decoration that captures the attention, it's worth pointing out that the text, bar a few conventional abbreviations, is perfectly legible. The decorated capital is probably the hardest part of it to decipher - the circle within which Doec slaughters the priests of Nob (it says here) with their tonsures and their panic-stricken hand-waving, is not an O but a Q, its tail provided by a dragon on whose neck Doec has placed his neatly shod feet. This unequal battle is counterpointed at the bottom of the page by an equally heroic combat between a warrior and a snail (the Museum's little booklet describes this as "snail attack" as if this were an everyday occurrence).
Qui potens es in iniquitate?"
And so on: there are capitals with scenes illustrating the interpretation of the Old Testament as a prophecy of the New, while at the bottom of the page a rabbit jousts with a dog, a monkey diagnoses the malady of a bed-ridden bear, a man is startled by a giant skate and grotesques with heads at both ends peer out of the foliage. The colour and the gold are so richly applied that they show through the translucent vellum, yet the figures are delicately and often realistically painted.
We had arrived in Cambridge so late that we barely had time to step into the larger gallery, in which the University showed off some of its existing collection of manuscripts: but within three steps of the doors were treasures, glowing in the dimly lit room. Here is The Bible which belonged to Saint Augustine of Canterbury, that is, the copy of the Bible with which Christianity was first brought to southern England (probably, admits the Fitzwilliam - according to "a long established tradition" and certainly in the country by the late seventh century). Aelfric's Homilies in clear black script sit next to a volume made for the court of Charlemagne, gold letters on a purple marbled background, as brilliant but hard to read (unless the lighting is just so) as any of the excesses of web design. If I were a dragon, this is the cave and this is the hoard around which I would curl my scaly tail.
Later, in London, we called in at the British Library, mainly for purposes of shopping: but we did drop in to say "Hello" to the Lindisfarne Gospels - "Our gospels", says
durham_rambler. But in fact "our gospel", the one to which Durham has a historic connection, is the Saint Cuthbert Gospel of Saint John, formerly known as "the Stonyhurst Gospel". It is the copy of Saint John's Gospel which belonged to Saint Cuthbert and was buried with him. I saw it once, long ago, in an exhibition of the treasures of Saint Cuthbert, and it has stayed with me as the model of the beauty of unadorned text. It is on show at the British Library, but closed, because it is still in its original binding, the oldest original western binding not only in the Library, but in Europe.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-14 08:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-14 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-14 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 12:49 am (UTC)Did you see the rabbit funeral, with mourners and a pall?
Nine
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Date: 2005-12-15 12:42 pm (UTC)I half remember an episode in the Roman de Renart where Couart the hare is sent off as messenger - obviously, because he's so fleet of foot. But the illumination shows him on horseback... (a quick Google reguses to help. Sorry.)