The Small Hartmut Bible (Kleine Hartmut-Bibel, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 7)

This is something new. I've had this back burner project for a year of so I call 10,000 manuscripts. Basically it was an attempt to gather together a record of all of the "important" illuminated manuscripts. The number 10,000 is probably too small, especially as my sense of what is "significant" has expanded since I conceived the project. I'm now, in addition to the "important" manuscripts, also interested in finding models for my own (at this point theoretical) attempts at illumination, which often means much less well know manuscripts. Now the project should probably be something more like "100,000 manuscripts", but I'm not going to live that long. I'm especially not going to live long enough as long as it is a back burner project, so I need to movie it up. Although I can't devote my life to it, I am going to move it up to a middle burner, at least.

As part of the project I've been browsing through the thousands of manuscripts various libraries around the world have made online facsimiles of, looking for interesting manuscripts.  Right now I'm looking at the library at the monastery of St Gall. They have 580 full manuscripts online, and the number is ever growing. They started in 2005 and have been adding ever since. Their latest batch was put up last month.

So let's look at some of the things I've found:

First up is the Small Hartmut Bible (Cod. Sang. 7). Hartmut was the vice-abbot of St Gall in the middle of the 9th century. I'm assuming that there's a "Big Hartmut Bible" out there as well. The Small Hartmut Bible contains the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus.

The text is in a varient of Carolingian minuscule, and is written in a single column of 25 lines. Titles are in uncials, and the capitals are in red. There is not enough original decoration to warrant notice, but there are two later additions that I find interesting.

The first is this beast.

Added probably in the 9th or tenth century. Obviously someone doodling, or testing a new pen. The beast is described as a "Rising lion with vegetal ram horns, lion's paws, and tail between his legs, with the end of dog head. From the mouth a branch grows.  The inscription is "omnis sapientia a dno. Deo est et cum illo fuit et ii ave" I like this beast and can seeing using it as a model sometime in my own illumination.

The second addition is this:

A portrait of Hartmut, who sponsored the book, added later, perhaps in the 12th Century. I like this because I can use it as a model for initial line drawing of a human figure.

As a bonus the book has one very nice initial. By itself, it would not have been enough for me to include it, as there is no way I can include every manuscript with a pen work initial, but I'm glad to have it as a model nonetheless.

So that's the Small Hartmut Bible. Not a great work, but with a couple of nice things, and great doodle of a beast.

Limoges Enamal Châsse.

I must confess a certain ignorance when it comes to medieval metalwork and enamels. But here is a pretty thing.

This is Châsse or casket from Limoges, c. 1190-1200. A Châsse was a reliquary shaped sort of like a house with a sloping roof and triangular gabled ends. Limoges was center enamel work at the time. This is Champlevé enamel. Champlevé is created by casting a metal piece with impressions for the area to be enameled. The depressions are then filled with powdered glass. The entire piece is the fired and the glass melts and fuses with the metal.

This is reliquary for St. Thomas Becket. The main body shows his murder while the roof shows his entombment. On the end is a saint, probably Becket himself.

The reliquary is in the Musée de Cluny in Paris.

Image wikipedia.

Apse Painting from Sant Climent de Taüll

The Valle de Boi in Catalonia, with nine standing Romanesque churches and several ruins in about 85 square miles, has the densest concentration of Romanesque architecture in the world. The largest and best preserved of these churches is Sant Climent de Taüll, consecrated in 1123.

Catalonia in the 12th century was not a prosperous region and the builders of the church could not afford expensive mosaics, so the church was decorated with fresco. These frescoes are amongst the extant Romanesque murals. The apse mosaic is a Christ in Majesty, with Christ seated on the throne of the world. He is flanked by angels and is above medallions bearing the four beasts of the apocalypse. Mozarabic influence is seen in the broad bands of color that form the background.

In 1922 the murals of Sant Climent de Taüll were removed to protect them from theft and are now in the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona.

Image Credit:
Wikipedia.

Borgund stave Church

This is the Borgund Stave Church in Borgund, Norway The church was built in the late 12 or early 13th century and is the best preserved medieval stave church. A stave church is a wooden church made with a type of post and beam construction. Almost all surviving stave churches are in Norway. One survives in Sweden and one was moved to what is now Poland. A similar, Anglo-Saxon palisade church survive in England. Although only a few of these churches remain, they were, at one time fairly common throughout northern Europe. Because masonry and other stone work survives better than construction in wood, it easy for modern viewers to loose sight of the reality that much medieval architecture was actually in made of perishable materials.




Image credits, Wikipedia.

Jeremiah, Church of Saint-Pierre, Moissac

The Church of Saint-Pierre, Moissac was on of the stopping points in southern France on the great pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. The church and its cloister host one of the greatest and best preserved collections of Romanesque sculpture in France. Amongst the sculpture is the famous Jeremiah contained within the trumeau (center post) on the south portal. The front of the trumeau has three sets of crossed lions. The lions create a gently scalloped contour along the sides of the trumeau, mirroring the the deeply scalloped jambs on either side of the portal. On the right side of the trumeau, is the sculpture of the prophet Jeremiah. The elongated body and graceful cross-legged posture rises and falls above the over-sized feet to match the scalloping on the front of the trumeau. The hair and beard are stylized plaits formed of groups of incised parallel lines. The stylized drapery clings to the body. The face, unusually well preserved for a sculpture positioned so easily within reach of vandals, is delicate and expressive. The entire effect is not one of portraiture, but instead one of idealized spirituality and reflection.








Image credits:

Detail of head, Emmanuel (epierre) on Flickr.
Portal, Elena Giglia (eg65) on Flickr.
Frontal view and oblique view, tilina25 on Flickr.

Yates Thompson Bede

Today's manuscript (British Library, Yates Thompson 26) is a twelfth century copy of Bede's prose Life of Cuthbert. (Bede also wrote a verse Life of Cuthbert). This manuscript was produced in northern England in the last quarter of the twelfth century, probably at Durham. It is know to have been at Durham during the later fourteenth century and early fifteenth century. The manuscript has 150 surviving folios with 46 full page miniatures. This miniature shows Cuthbert setting sail with two disciples. All of the illustrations are set before the gold background within the heavy colored frame seen here. This has the effect of emphasizing the otherworldly nature of the scene. This is after all an illustration of a Saint. This is one of my favorite manuscript pages. I particularly love the way the water is piled up in alternating shades of blue into a mound.