Studies in Manuscript Illumination, 1200-1400 1904597394, 9781904597391

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Studies in Manuscript Illumination 1200–1400

Studies in Manuscript Illumination 1200–1400

Lucy Freeman Sandler

The Pindar Press London 2008

Published by The Pindar Press 40 Narcissus Road London NW6 1TH · UK

Copyright © 2008 The Pindar Press All rights reserved

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-904597-39-1 (hb) ISBN 978-1-904597-61-2 (pb)

Printed by GRAFILUR, S.A. Avda. Cervantes, no 51, Ed. no 21 48970 Basauri, Spain This book is printed on acid-free paper

Contents Introduction

i MARGINALIA AND WORD IMAGERY

I

A Series of Marginal Illustrations in the Rutland Psalter 

II

Reflections on the Construction of Hybrids in English Gothic Marginal Illustration

12

III

A Bawdy Betrothal in the Ormesby Psalter

33

IV

The Word in the Text and the Image in the Margin: The Case of the Luttrell Psalter

45

V

The Study of Marginal Imagery: Past, Present, and Future

76

VI

Pictorial and Verbal Play in the Margins: The Case of British Library, Stowe MS 49

127

The Images of Words in English Gothic Psalters

150

VII

1

DEVOTIONAL, VISIONARY, AND SELF-IMAGES VIII IX

Face to Face with God: A Pictorial Image of the Beatific Vision

197

The Image of the Book-owner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-definition

216

X XI

The Wilton Diptych and Images of Devotion in Illuminated Manuscripts

249

The Chantry of Roger of Waltham in Old St Paul’s

277

ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND SCHOLARLY TEXTS XII

Notes for the Illuminator: The Case of the Omne Bonum

315

XIII

Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio in an English Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century

350

XIV

Encyclopedia

386

XV

Illustrations of Canon Law in the ‘Omne Bonum’, an English Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century

409

Index-Making in the Fourteenth Century: Archbishop Arundel’s Copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham

442

The Role of Illustrations in James le Palmer’s ‘Omne Bonum’ 

457

XVI

XVII

XVIII John of Metz, The Tower of Wisdom

484

STUDIES OF INDIVIDUAL MANUSCRIPTS, ARTISTS AND THEMES XIX

The Historical Miniatures of the Fourteenth-Century Ramsey Psalter

501

XX

Peterborough Abbey and the Peterborough Psalter in Brussels

520

XXI

A Follower of Jean Pucelle in England

547

XXII

Christian Hebraism and the Ramsey Abbey Psalter

582

XXIII

An Early Fourteenth-Century English Breviary at Longleat

606

XXIV

An Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter in the Escorial

643

XXV

A Fragment of the Chertsey Breviary in San Francisco

682

XXVI

Jean Pucelle and the Lost Miniatures of the Belleville Breviary

690

XXVII The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent

751

XXVIII Bedford in Brooklyn

761

Index

783

Acknowledgements

793

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Introduction

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HE essays collected in this volume are arranged under four headings, ‘Marginalia and Word Imagery,’ ‘Devotional, Visionary and SelfImages,’ ‘Illustrated Encyclopedias and Scholarly Texts,’ and ‘Studies of Individual Manuscripts, Artists and Themes.’ The earliest study, ‘A Series of Marginal Illustrations in the Rutland Psalter,’ published in 1959 while I was a graduate student at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, marks the beginning of a long-term fascination with marginal imagery. In that essay, influenced by the thinking of Meyer Schapiro and John Plummer, I focused on the role of the medieval illuminator in forming and shaping — in short, creating — marginalia, an approach I continued to explore subsequently in ‘Reflections on the Construction of Hybrids in English Gothic Marginal Illustrations’ (1981), ‘Verbal and Pictorial Play in the Margins: The Case of Stowe 49’ (1998), and, most recently, ‘In and around the Text: The Question of Marginality in the Macclesfield Psalter,’ published in 2007 in the Cambridge Illuminations Conference Papers. The last two of these studies of marginal imagery, together with ‘A Bawdy Betrothal in the Ormesby Psalter’ (1985) are more than formalist analyses since they deal with questions of contextual meaning and reception. Reflection about the varied ways in which marginalia have been studied led to the publication in 1997 of an essay on the ‘state of the question,’ ‘The Study of Marginal Imagery, Past, Present, and Future.’ One of the ways of attempting to understand marginalia is to explore the reciprocal relationships between the images and the texts on a given page. This approach bore fruit in ‘The Word in the Text and the Image in the Margin: The Case of the Luttrell Psalter’ (1996) and ‘The Images of Words in English Gothic Psalters (The Saunders Lecture 1997)’ (2000), in which marginal as well as non-marginal images were studied in relation to

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the text of the psalter. Image-text relationships have since been the subject of an on-going series of studies of manuscripts produced in the second half of the fourteenth century for members of the Bohun family, which will be collected together at a future date. The second section of the present volume collects four essays that look at the effect of manuscript imagery on its viewing, reading, and meditating audience. In ‘The Image of the Book-owner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-Definition’ (1993) I was concerned with how the artist created visual personas or surrogates for the owners of books. ‘The Chantry Chapel of Roger of Waltham in Old St Paul’s’ (2003) connected the manuscript image of one of these book-owners with the self-image of his chantry chapel, in whose construction, furnishing, and liturgical offices he took a personal interest and had recorded in careful detail. The ways in which fourteenth and early fifteenth century book-owners were depicted in devotion before sacred figures and the multiple functions of such images was the subject of ‘Manuscript Images of Devotion and the Wilton Diptych’ (1997); and a visionary image of the Divine itself, as seen by the devout, was analyzed in ‘Face to Face with God: A Pictorial Image of the Beatific Vision’ (1986). The genesis of the third section of this collection was a doctoral dissertation on the Psalter of Robert de Lisle (1964), subsequently published (The Psalter of Robert de Lisle in the British Library, London, 1983, rev. paperback edition, London, 1999), which led to further studies of the kinds of pictorial diagrams that are an important feature of the manuscript (‘John of Metz, The Tower of Wisdom,’ 2002). Such diagrams are teaching tools employing images to organize verbal material and to communicate it in a memorable way; further, the images add to the meaning of the whole, which becomes a pictorial-verbal amalgam whose sum is greater than its parts. Beyond the interplay between images and words in diagrams, in the 1980s I became interested in examining the role played by illustrations in other sorts of texts whose purpose was to provide information, in particular, medieval encyclopedias. My focus was a unique, and unfinished, fourteenth century encyclopedia, Omne bonum, compiled, and written in his own hand, by James le Palmer, a scribe in the London Exchequer. Research for what became a two-volume monograph on the encyclopedia (Omne bonum: A Fourteenth Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, London, 1996) inspired a number of essays on related subjects, which are collected

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here: ‘Notes for the Illuminator: The Case of the Omne bonum’ (1989); ‘Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio in an English Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century’ (1990); ‘The Canon Law Illustrations of the Omne Bonum, an English Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century’ (1997); ‘The Role of Illustrations in James le Palmer’s “Omne bonum” ’ (2002); and on another work designed and copied by James le Palmer, ‘Index-making in the Fourteenth Century: Archbishop Arundel’s Copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham’ (2001). I also include in this section the English version of a general essay on medieval illustrated encyclopedias, which was published in Italian in the Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale (1995). The last section of this volume of essays collects a number of studies, which are perhaps less disparate than appears at first sight, since most of them are related to longer works. ‘A Follower of Jean Pucelle in England’ (1970) developed further my analysis of the pictorial style of one of the artists of the Psalter of Robert de Lisle, whom I called the Majesty Master; and the study of the oeuvre of Jean Pucelle led to an effort to reconstruct the lost miniatures he painted in the Belleville Breviary (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS lat. 10483–10484), which are described in a contemporary exposition included in the manuscript. Study of the Psalter of Robert de Lisle made it necessary to learn as much as possible about illuminated manuscripts produced in England during the first half of the fourteenth century, and this research eventually produced a general study (Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, A survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, V, ed. J. J. G. Alexander, London, 1986), as well as my contributions to the exhibition catalogue, The Age of Chivalry, English Art 1200–1400, London, 1987, both written at the invitation of Jonathan J. G. Alexander. In addition, several monographs on individual ‘East Anglian’ manuscripts (The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and other Fenland Manuscripts, London, 1970; The Ramsey Psalter, facsimile commentary, Graz, 1999; and The Peterborough Bestiary, facsimile commentary, Luzern, 2003), have either been preceded or followed by related articles: ‘Peterborough Abbey and the Peterborough Psalter in Brussels’ (1970); ‘Christian Hebraism and the Ramsey Abbey Psalter’ (1972); and ‘The Historical Miniatures of the Fourteenth-Century Ramsey Psalter’ (1969). In the course of my work on the general survey of fourteenth-century manuscripts, I came upon quite a few books that presented interesting problems. One of these was James le Palmer’s encylopedia, Omne bonum,

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which, in addition to the monograph to which I have already referred, inspired an essay discussing Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding in the light of the Omne bonum illustration of ‘Clandestine Marriage’ (‘The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent,’ 1984). In addition, I include in this section two further articles developed from my general survey, ‘An Early Fourteenth Century English Breviary at Longleat’ (1976), and ‘An Early Fourteenth Century English Psalter in the Escorial’ (1979), both on manuscripts I first ‘discovered’ via photographs in the Conway Library of the Courtauld Institute. Two publications in this section owe their existence to friends in the world of manuscript studies, who brought the books to my attention: James H. Marrow, who first asked my opinion about photographs of an English fourteenth-century manuscript he had seen in the University of San Francisco, which I then published as ‘A Fragment of the Chertsey Breviary in San Francisco’ (1983); and Jonathan J. G. Alexander, who thought I might be interested in an early fifteenth-century Parisian manuscript in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which I recently published in a Festschrift for James Marrow (‘Bedford in Brooklyn,’ 2006). * * * The essays included in this volume have not been updated, either textually or bibliographically. It seemed to me that printing them unchanged would present a kind of intellectual autobiography. Within each section they are arranged in order of publication. A collection of essays written over a period of nearly fifty years brings back many memories of the individuals I have come to know along the way, from my first teacher, Frances Godwin of Queens College of the City University of New York, to my professors at Columbia University and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, Meyer Schapiro, John Plummer, Harry Bober, and Otto Pächt, to those most generous advisers at the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Biblothèque nationale de France, Julian Brown, Richard Hunt, and François Avril, and in the Paleography Room of Senate House Library of London University, Joan Gibbs. For any manuscript scholar, colleagues are the lifeblood of productive research. Without their friendship, advice, and knowledge, I could not have written these essays or become the scholar I have. In some cases, their help

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and encouragement is acknowledged specifically in the texts of the individual articles, but beyond that, I am indebted to, among many others unnamed here, and in ways I can scarcely specify, Jonathan J. G. Alexander, the late Janet Backhouse, Mary Carruthers, Christopher de Hamel, Isabelle Hyman, Joseph and DeeDee Levine, the late Tilly de la Mare, James Marrow, Ruth Mellinkoff, Elly and Harvey Miller, Nigel Morgan, Jane Rosenthal, Kathleen Scott, Kathryn Smith, and last, my husband, Irving Sandler, who truly deserves nomination as an honorary medievalist. Finally, I acknowledge with gratitude the editors and publishers of the works in which these essays originally appeared, the institutional owners of the manuscripts discussed, the suppliers of photographs, and the libraries housing research materials that have been essential for my study of medieval illumination. Thanks are due also to Brendan Sullivan, compiler of the index of the present volume, and to its publishers, Liam Gallagher and Tom Symonds of the Pindar Press, for their fine work. LONDON, 14 JULY 2006

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I MARGINALIA AND WORD IMAGERY

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A Series of Marginal Illustrations in the Rutland Psalter*

I

N general, studies of marginal illustrations have been based on one of three approaches; the first attempts to find literary passages or nonmarginal illustrations from which the marginalia are derived;1 the second, taking cognizance of the fact that the above sources can explain only a minority of the marginalia, finds the phenomenon intriguing but irrational;2 the third attempts to explain the marginalia through the idea of a

* This article is an expansion of one aspect of my master’s essay on Formal Principles of Marginal Illustration in English Psalters. The essay was written at Columbia University under the guidance of Dr. John Plummer, to whom I am grateful for perceptive criticism of my original researches. The present article was prepared with the aid of helpful suggestions from Professor Harry Bober. 1 See J. A. Herbert, Schools of Illumination, London, 1914–1918, Pt. 2, p. 5, who states: ‘Mention should be made, in this connexion of the illustrated Bestiaries, which . . . form a class of considerable importance in twelfth- and thirteenth-century illumination, not only in themselves but even more on account of their influence in supplying subjects for the humorous marginal decoration of Horae, Psalters, and other manuscripts of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.’ Horst W. Janson (Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, London, 1952, p. 171) states that: ‘The zoological lore of Bestiaries and encyclopaedias furnished less material for drôleries than one might expect. A good deal of it did not readily lend itself to translation into pictorial terms, and the designers of grotesques were not inclined to struggle with this problem since their imagination had always been nourished by visual rather than literary stimuli.’ 2 For instance, see Pierpont Morgan Library, The Animal Kingdom, an Exhibition, New York, 1940–41, p. 65: ‘Sometimes a fable or a scene from the Bestiary is represented, but more frequently the illustrations are inspired by pure fantasy.’

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cultural process which produces parallels to marginal illustrations in other artistic, or in literary, forms.3 To these approaches may be added a fourth, one which examines the internal structure of a given group of marginal illustrations. The formal inter-relationships — from the overall composition to the smallest detail of gesture — are the means which make manifest the iconographical content. To apply this approach to the Rutland Psalter is the aim of this brief study. It is possible that the sources of some of the marginalia of the Rutland Psalter may be discovered within the covers of the manuscript itself. The Rutland Psalter, a mid-thirteenth-century English manuscript, contains 102 marginal illustrations on consecutive pages.4 Certain of the apparently isolated illustrations of the manuscript are actually held together by a chain of relationships in which a number of motifs are manipulated in a complex and shifting manner. One such group comprises nine related marginal compositions (Figs. 2–10). 1. Fig. 2 (fol. 68 vo.) shows a man who stands on a hillock gesturing at a bird perched on top of a scrollwork design. 2. Fig. 3 (fol. 106 vo.) shows a man who stands on a hillock gesturing at a monkey in a tree. 3. Fig. 4 (fol. 102 ro.) shows a centaur on a hill who shoots at a small creature in a tree. 4. Fig. 5 (fol. 49 ro.) shows a man holding aloft a grotesque winged serpent. 5. Fig. 6 (fol. 103 vo.) shows a man gesturing at a reptile grotesque which he holds in his left hand. 6. Fig. 7 (fol. 104 ro.) shows a man and a grotesque facing each other. 7. Fig. 8 (fol. 77 vo.) shows a grotesque man gesturing at a humanheaded reptile. The man stands on the reptile’s tail. 8. Fig. 9 (fol. 101 ro.) shows a man gesturing at a tree.

3 Lillian M. C. Randall (‘Exempla as a Source of Gothic Marginal Illumination,’ The Art Bulletin, XXXIX, 1957, p. 101) finds the marginalia related to a way of thinking which results in the parallel phenomena of the exemplum in preaching and the marginal illustration in the prayer book. 4 Grantham, England, Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle. The provenance of the manuscript is debated. It has been published in complete facsimile by Eric Millar, The Rut/and Psalter, Oxford, 1937. The marginal illustrations begin on fol. 9 ro. with the text of the psalter, but do not continue after fol. 113 ro., the beginning of the hundredth psalm.

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9. Fig. 10 (fol. 84 ro.) shows a grotesque human gesturing at a naked man. There is a hillock between the two figures. Similar gesticulating figures recur in almost all of these compositions. The grouping of each figure with a bird, an animal, a grotesque, a tree, or even another figure, resembles that found in the calendar picture for May which appears at the beginning of the manuscript. The latter is the standard subject for this month — it contains five motifs — a prince, a falcon, two trees, and a ground area (Fig. 1). In the pictures of the marginal complex studied here, the number, kind, and scale of these elements are changed about, sometimes, in fact, with so much freedom that there is little reminder of the hawking scene. None of the scenes of the group is as complete as the calendar picture. The circular frame is eliminated in all instances, while the entire lower margin of the page serves as the ground of the scene. This white field is not subject to the spatial limits of the ringed gold ground of the calendar picture. The prince in the calendar scene is bound by the frame and his setting defined by the trees on either side. He steps out of the circular frame and this movement enhances the spatial definition. In all of the group of marginal illustrations, however, both the frame and the left-hand tree are eliminated. Thus, the symmetrical or static element is removed from these compositions. The freedom from the frame also enables the artist to expand gestures; in almost all instances the conventional figure of the calendar is replaced by an active figure whose gesticulation is an exaggeration of the slight movement of the prince in the framed picture. The most common figure type in the marginalia of this group is a man who stands with one leg raised and one arm bent at the elbow. This figure either holds some object in his hand or gestures at something. In most of the pictures the figure holds, or indicates, a creature which is ultimately related to the hawk of the calendar scene. These creatures vary greatly in size and kind. Only one is actually a bird, and it is not a hawk. The element of the calendar scene which is least frequently found in the marginal group is the right-hand tree. A tree appears only three times and one of these instances is completely unvegetal in character. On the other hand, the least important element of the calendar picture, the ground, is considerably more in evidence in the marginal group. The expanse of the empty lower margin seems to have encouraged experimentation with the ground line. The two most nearly complete marginal scenes differ greatly from each

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other. The scene in Fig. 2 is closest to the calendar picture. But if there is an immediately apparent relationship, there is also a world of difference. The marginal scene has been transposed to a world of the common man which mirrors the realm of the calendar nobleman. There is a witty contrast in the substitution of a jay5 for a hawk, and a growth of luxuriant red penwork for the tree. The fantastic tree, the ordinary youth and the silly jay give the marginal picture the quality of a spoof on the idea of ‘dreams of glory.’ In the second of these more complete marginal pictures, the man and the tree are separated (Fig. 3). The man appears to gesture helplessly across a void to a monkey — not a bird — half hidden in a tree. The apparent distance between these figures is vast because the man is raised on an enormous baroque hillock. He looks like a mountaineer at the top of a peak attempting to attract the attention of someone in the valley. If heroism is intended, it is mockery; the man is only half-clothed, and the object of his attention is only a monkey. Through substitution of one kind of figure for another, and through changes in scale relationships, the artist has created an image interesting in itself and further enriched by allusion to a familiar calendar picture. A third scene in this group also contains the figure, the animal and the tree (Fig. 4). Perhaps this picture is more reminiscent of the zodiacal scene for November, Sagittarius, the Archer, than it is of the May calendar scene. The front legs of the centaur are human rather than equine. In this feature, there is more of an element of the human figure than is usual in the representation of centaurs. The relationship between the ‘centaur’ and his target, a weak looking non-descript, appears to be a variant of that found between the figure and the animal in the scene discussed above. The two marginalia form a contrast. Whereas the ‘centaur’ is threatening, the man in the other scene is ridiculous, even helpless; whereas the monkey has an overtone of grinning evil,6 the non-descript is as helpless and victimized as the man. In four of the marginal scenes, the tree is eliminated and the composition is restricted to the relationship between man and an animal. The animal is no longer a bird but has become a reptilian or dragon-like grotesque. In only one of these scenes does the creature have wings (Fig. 5). This scene shows the half-draped man of Fig. 3 struggling with a bird-dragon as if trying to launch the creature into the air. The position of the arms is shared by 5 6

Eric Millar (op. cit., p. 50) identifies this bird. See H. W. Janson, op. cit., passim.

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other marginalia of the group, but here, as in Fig. 4, the gesture has a mechanical justification as well as an expressive connotation. Two of the four scenes mentioned above are on facing pages; the artist has juxtaposed them with a complementary relationship in mind (Figs. 6 and 7). The figure on one page (Fig. 6) is among the smallest of all the marginal figures in the manuscript. He holds an equally small and dainty reptile as if it were a house pet. The figure is delicately proportioned; he is poised lightly and fastidiously on the bumpy ground. On the facing page, a metamorphosis has occurred. Although both human figures have the same absolute size, the proportions are completely different. The man in Fig. 7 is broad and squat, with an extremely large square-jawed head. Instead of being clothed in flowing drapery, he wears a garment which cuts his body into horizontal chunks. But most different from the facing scene is the relationship between man and animal. The small monster has grown up into a ferocious snarling beast. The one man gently chides the animal; the second is cowed by him. In fact, the gesture of the large beast is an exaggerated translation of that of the man in the other picture. The second man moves away from the beast; the latter has pre-empted the mound which is usually the territory of the human being. In the last of this group of four scenes, a similar impulse toward witty metamorphosis appears (Fig. 8). The man in this scene has turned bestial and the animal has a human head. The ‘man’s’ skin is dark; he has a tail flung between his legs, his features are grotesque, and he admonishes the human-headed reptile with vigor. This illustration is very far in appearance and significance from the May calendar picture. Another marginal composition contains a man and a tree, both reminiscent of the calendar scene, but not the bird (Fig. 9). The gesture of the figure which appears in the hawking scene is carried over even though it has no object in the marginal illustration. The meaning of the gesture changes because of this absence. The combination of the empty tree and the standard gesture has evidently suggested the position of the head and the facial expression. The figure is turned into a soloist singing a solitary melody. One other picture associated with the group may be considered as the most explicit example of a process which underlies all nine pictures (Fig. 10). In this marginal scene, both the animal and the tree are eliminated and their places taken up by an ugly pugilist type who sits in a cave. The prince in the hawking scene has become a grotesque-a bestial creature who bears, however, an unnerving resemblance to a human being. His arm is raised in

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a gesture similar to that of the delicate young man of Fig. 6. The most astonishing aspect of the scene is the placement of the hillock. In other scenes of this group, the man’s foot rests on a mound. In Fig. 3, this mound is of enormous size and the man is perched on it with both feet. In the present scene, the hillock is even more grandiose in proportions, but it has been removed from under the foot of the gesturing grotesque. He has to hold up his leg with his own hand. The scene is not only amusing in itself, but its meaning is enhanced by its relationship to the other scenes of the group. The group of marginal illustrations which has been discussed forms a series in the sense that one scene provides the impetus for the creation of another. The process which underlies this creation differs from that which forms the basis for other serial or cyclical marginal illustrations. For series of religious marginal subjects and for some secular marginal cycles, there is a source in traditional non-marginal illustrative cycles.7 Other secular marginal cycles, especially those of the fourteenth century, seem to be based on single non-marginal scenes. The Luttrell Psalter is an example of this kind.8 The latter contains a series of agricultural marginalia showing detailed study of the entire process of farming from breaking the ground to bringing in the harvest. This cycle is related to traditional calendar pictures, but the summary images of the calendar are expanded through observation of nature into a true narrative sequence.9 For instance, an important cycle of religious marginal illustrations is contained in the Tickhill Psalter (New York Public Library, Spencer Collection, ms. 26), fols. 3 ro.–6 ro., where the story of Genesis from the Creation to the Sacrifice of Isaac appears. See Donald Drew Egbert, The Tickhill Psalter, New York, 1940. Queen Mary’s Psalter (London, British Museum, Royal ms. 2 B. VII) contains a cycle of Bestiary illustrations in the margins, fols. 85 vo.–130 vo. See Sir George Warner, Queen Mary’s Psalter, London, 1912. The Psalter of Queen Isabella of England (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. gall. 16) contains two marginal cycles, one religious, fols. 7 vo.–123 vo., one from the Bestiary, fols. 9 ro.–64 ro. This early fourteenth-century manuscript is written in Latin and French on alternating pages. The Old Testament scenes appear in the margins of the Latin pages and the Bestiary subjects are found in the margins of the French pages. See Donald Drew Egbert, A Sister to the Tickhill Psalter, New York, 1935. For a further discussion of cycles of marginal illustrations, see Lillian M. C. Randall, loc. cit., p. 102. 8 London, British Museum, Add. ms. 42, 130, fols. 170 ro.–173 vo. This manuscript has been published by Eric Millar, The Luttrell Psalter, London, 1932. 9 Olga Koseloff (‘Representations of the Months and Zodiacal Signs in Queen Mary’s Psalter,’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXII, 1942, pp. 77–88) notes that: ‘Until the XIV century, and even later, a single figure — rarely two or more — traditionally symbolizes the months’, although she points out that Queen Mary’s Psalter is itself unique for its time in containing 7

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MARGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE RUTLAND PSALTER

1. Rutland Psalter, Grantham, England, Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle, fol. 3 ro. Calendar picture for May. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

2. Rutland Psalter, fol. 68 vo. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

3. Rutland Psalter, fol. 106 vo. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

7

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4. Rutland Psalter, fol. 102 ro. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

5. Rutland Psalter, fol. 49 ro. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

6. Rutland Psalter, fol. 103 vo. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

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MARGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE RUTLAND PSALTER

7. Rutland Psalter, fol. 104 ro. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

8. Rutland Psalter, fol. 77 vo. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

9

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9. Rutland Psalter, fol. 101 ro. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

10. Rutland Psalter, fol. 84 ro. (Photo: Pierpont Morgan Library.)

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In the Rutland Psalter, a process of expansion also occurs. This process works not only from a generic image (the May calendar scene) but from one marginal picture to the next. The basis of the expansion process is not naturalism but a manipulation of motifs. The manipulation is carried on for its own sake. Marginal illustrations thus become the basis for the creation of more marginal illustrations.10 It may be suggested that the naturalistic approach of fourteenth-century marginalia grows out of an imaginative process of the kind observed in the marginal illustrations of the Rutland Psalter.11

narrative scenic representations of the months. She finds these illustrations to be explained by a close iconographical relationship with a calendar cycle in an eleventh-century Hymnal, London, British Museum, Cotton ms. Julius A. VI. It also seems possible that the calendar illustrations of Queen Mary’s Psalter are themselves reflections of the expansion of narrative cycles in the fourteenth century. 10 Richard H. Randall, Jr. (‘Frog in the Middle,’ Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, VII, No. 10, p. 274) mentions instances in the fourteenth-century Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (New York, Metropolitan Museum) in which individual figures are used as sources for additional marginal drawings by being altered in a number of imaginative ways. This process is more complex in the Rutland Psalter, for the artist is manipulating more than one figure at a time and can thus alter relationships between figures as well as the structure of individual figures. 11 The rarity of thirteenth-century manuscripts with marginal illustrations on consecutive pages would, however, provide difficulties in proving that a naturalistic approach actually grows out of the imaginative process.

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Reflections on the Construction of Hybrids in English Gothic Marginal Illustration*

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N 1932, Eric Millar, Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum, published a comprehensive study of the early fourteenth-century English Luttrell Psalter, of whose marginal illustrations he said: ‘The mind of a man who could deliberately set himself to ornament a book with such subjects . . . can hardly have been normal.’1 He gave several examples, saying that among the ‘worst’ is a creature with houndlike head who chews up a spray of foliage (Fig. 1). It has a petaled collar joined to a birdlike body with talons, and a tail changing in form from serpentine to foliate. On the same page a duck-billed bird head with diaphanous dragonfly wings is attached to a parti-colored beast’s body whose tail is replaced by a piglike head with a snout clasped by a golden ring.2 On another page, Millar cited a human skull, with circular openings for the eye sockets and mouth, which is attached to two vertebrae and a pair of wings seen from the rear, then a vaselike body also in rear view, out of which emerges a foliate tail of clover flowers (Fig. 2). In the bottom margin of this page a mild and mournful doglike head is attached to a crouching body protected by shell-like armor from which a leafy tail grows.3 I believe Millar’s diagnosis of the Luttrell Psalter artist’s mental state to * A version of this article was presented at a symposium on fantastic medieval animals held at Mount Holyoke College in 1977. 1 Eric G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter, London, 1932, 16. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, made for Geoffrey Luttrell, of Irnham, Lincs., before 1340, probably in the 1320s. 2 Fol. 186. 3 Fol. 213.

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be quite wrong. Indeed, the only sense in which this particular illuminator may be said to depart from the norm is that he is far above average in artistic imagination. The types of creatures which Millar saw as the hideous products of a disturbed mind are in fact so normal in fourteenth-century English manuscript illumination that they are repeated from one manuscript to another. For example, the leonine-human head atop animal legs on the Beatus page of the Vaux Psalter (Fig. 3)4 is duplicated exactly on the Penitential Psalms page of the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours (Fig. 4),5 a manuscript from the same workshop. Such hybrids may also be traced from one side of a leaf to the other, as occurs consistently in a book of hours in the British Library, Harley MS 6563,6 and some of them in the Luttrell Psalter itself were copied from the main text into the margins of the calendar.7 Moreover, in one and the same manuscript and sometimes on one and the same page, hybrid monsters are associated on an equal basis with scenes of daily life, fabliaux, religious themes, foliage, flowers, fruit, and real animals and birds. The Exultate deo page from the Ormesby Psalter, for instance (Fig. 5), has a lush foliate border with stylized and real leaves and flowers, among which are oak, strawberry, and sweet pea. In the right-hand margin the plantlike stalk or tendril to which these leaves are attached forms itself into an interlace knot, and in the left-hand margin the same vegetal substance is transmuted into two battling dragons, necks intertwined and biting their own backs. Among the other creatures incorporated into the border are a naturalistic bird, a pair of wrestlers harangued by a humanoid hybrid, a young man who has dropped sword and shield in fear of a giant snail, and a pair of battling hybrids — both human above and animal below — whose weapons consist of a fairly orthodox sword and shield for the left figure and a pot and spoon for the right.8 These examples from the 4 London, Lambeth Palace Lib. MS 233, fol. 15. Sometimes called the Bardolf-Vaux Psalter, executed c. 1310 (see D. D. Egbert, The Tickhill Psalter, New York, 1940, 101–8, 189–204). 5 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Mus. MS 242, fol. 55v. Probably made for the marriage of Joan Fitzpayn and Richard Grey, c. 1300–1310 (see Egbert, Tickhill Psalter, 90–94, 175–81). 6 Executed probably in the 1320s, with prolific marginalia on every page, but not yet studied in detail. For reproductions see Lilian M. C. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966, Figs. 35, 98, 99, 161, 232, 233, 434, 435. 7 Cf. fols. 1 and 86, 2 and 93, 3 and 91v, etc. (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, 23, n. 4). 8 Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 366, fol. 109, Psalm 80. Begun in the late thirteenth century, the page in question was decorated c. 1310, and the book was altered and given by

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1. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 186 (after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

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2. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 213 (after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

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3. Vaux Psalter, London, Lambeth Palace Lib. MS 233, fol. 15 (detail)

4. Grey-Fitzpayn Hours, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Mus. MS 242, fol. 55v (detail)

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Ormesby Psalter show that the normal in the margins of English Gothic manuscripts is a melange of the real, the unreal, the parodic, the playful, the nightmare, the spiritual, the profane, and even the obscene. It is a world in which composite creatures — animal and human hybrids — appear to play a rightful and accepted part. Some Gothic marginal animal or human hybrids would not, I imagine, have offended Eric Millar, since long pictorial and literary traditions lie behind them. In this category I would put ancient Mediterranean and Oriental composites — centaurs, mermaids, dragons, griffins, harpies, and the like, all of which survived into the Middle Ages. The Rutland Psalter, for example9 — the earliest manuscript with copious marginalia — contains a number of centaurs, dragons, and harpies, and the Luttrell Psalter — among others — has a mermaid and a griffin.10 The focus of this essay, however, is not the kind of English Gothic hybrid for which there is a traceable ancestry, pictorial or literary, but the kind for which names do not exist — which in fact are sometimes called non-descripts11 — the kind which are, I believe, the products of medieval artistic invention, working nevertheless in accordance with certain discernible principles of order and construction. It seems to me that what these hybrids require first to raise them to a level of comprehensibility, if not acceptability, is a descriptive vocabulary which would attempt to characterize their fundamental patterns of construction, or, in other words, to answer the question: Are there any general rules for the ways the component parts of these hybrids are put together? This, of course, would be only the first step in a complete account of Gothic hybrids. The subject also demands an analysis of the character of their individual components and a survey of common choices for juxtaposition. Which animals, for example, occur most frequently in hybrid combinations? Are the parts drawn from real animals — perhaps defined broadly as any creature described in the Bestiary, whether really real or not — or are they new inventions, or somehow altered or deformed? Next, what the monk Robert of Ormesby to Norwich Cathedral Priory in the 1320s (see S. C. Cockerell and M. R. James, The Ormesby Psalter, the Bromholm Psalter, Two East Anglian Psalters at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Oxford, 1926). 9 Belvoir Castle, Duke of Rutland; e.g., fols. 33, 58v (centaurs), 12v, 20v, 91 (dragons), 44v, 86v (harpies). Mid-thirteenth century, of uncertain provenance (see the facsimile, Eric G. Millar, The Rutland Psalter, Oxford, 1937). 10 Fols. 70v and 160v (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pls. 21c, 73). 11 E.g., Eric G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, Paris and Brussels, 1928, 7.

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are the hybrids doing? Are they battling, biting, grimacing, playing, or working? Finally, are the hybrids represented in isolation, or do they interact with other pictorial material, hybrid or otherwise? While attempts to answer some of these questions can be made with the aid of Lilian Randall’s invaluable corpus of Gothic marginal illustrations,12 much remains to be done. The present essay is limited to the first question alone, that is, the underlying patterns of construction of hybrid creatures, and further limited to examples from English Gothic manuscripts. As I see it, there are six different modes of construction. The first, and most common, may be called sequential. Sequential hybrids are composed of two or three sections, comparable to the head, the trunk, and the limbs of human beings, or the head, body with appendages, and tails of beasts and birds. In the case of hybrids, each section is of a distinctly different kind. Again the Ormesby Psalter provides characteristic examples, such as the head of an owl, the body and legs of a camel, and an oak-leaf tail; or a human head and hands — those of a cripple — emerging from the shell of a snail (Fig. 6).13 The most frequent sequence is human to animal to foliate. Found in numerous examples in the Rutland Psalter, one instance shows a capped human torso with human arms, and a serpentine lower body which ends in a spiral of foliage; another has a capped and bearded human head, and a reptilian body again ending in a foliate spiral framing a vignette of a cat captured by mice; a third is a Neanderthal-faced human torso, with reptilian lower parts, picking fruit from his own luxuriant foliate tail (Fig. 7).14 The juncture of the human with the animal part is often masked by a neckerchief, cowl, cape, or some folded piece of drapery. And when an entire human torso is joined to animal legs, a skirt may split apart to reveal the emerging limbs while hiding the exact manner of their joining, as in an ursine creature with human arms in the Luttrell Psalter.15 But with animalheaded hybrids the juncture of the head of one beast with the body of another is usually marked sufficiently by the difference in form, color, and surface pattern so that neckerchiefs and the like are not always supplied. In the Luttrell Psalter a bearded human head, with a spirelet hat, is joined to 12 Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts, with 739 illustrations from approximately 230 manuscripts. 13 Fol. 131. 14 Fols. 99, 61, and 45v (Millar, Rutland Psalter). 15 Fol. 207v (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 167).

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the serpentine body by a scarf and a protective shield (Fig. 8), while a pale, bovine head is connected directly to a feathered body (Fig. 9).16 Because the body portion of sequential hybrids is so often reptilian, the joining of the tail to the rest is often a matter of gradual transformation of animal substance into vegetal. This kind of metamorphosis is common in the historiated initial frames and decorative borders of contemporary manuscripts, as, for example, on the framed Beatus page of the Peterborough Psalter in Brussels, in which a snaky animal substance undergoes a transformation into vinelike tendrils tipped by leaves.17 One further observation about the tails of sequential hybrids: while the upper or front portion of a hybrid is often animal, the back or lower portion is rarely human, and when it is, as in the Luttrell Psalter, where a bovine-humanoid head and a lizard-like body end in the exposed posterior of a crawling human being (Fig. 10), the result is a heightened degree of monstrosity.18 Sequential hybrids seem to be constructed rationally because they are comparable to the order of parts of animals or human beings. As far as I know, almost all the hybrids inherited by the Middle Ages from the Classical literary or pictorial tradition are of the sequential type. Pliny, for example, described the Leucrocota as having the head of a badger, the neck, breast, and tail of a lion, and cloven hoofs;19 and Aristotle, citing Ctesias, described the Mantichora as human-headed, lion-bodied, and scorpiontailed.20 This is also the mode of construction St. Bernard referred to in his catalogue of ‘these ridiculous monsters . . . a four-footed beast with a serpent’s tail, a fish with a beast’s head, the forepart of a horse trailing half a goat behind it, or a horned beast bearing the hinder parts of a horse.’21 But Bernard also railed against another type of hybrid construction which was most uncommon in Antiquity — ‘many bodies,’ he says, ‘are seen there

Fols. 79v, 155v. Brussels, Bibl. Royale MS 9961–62, fol. 14. Made for Geoffrey of Crowland, Abbot of Peterborough, between 1299 and 1318 (see L. F. Sandler, The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and Other Fenland Manuscripts, London and New York, 1974, Fig. 296). 18 Fol. 177. 19 Pliny, Hist. Nat., Bk. VIII, ch. 30 (see Pliny, Natural History, III, Loeb Classical Library, London and Cambridge, 1956, 55). 20 Aristotle, Historia animalium, Bk. II, ch. 1 (see Works of Aristotle, trans. D. W. Thompson, IV, Oxford, 1910, 501a). 21 From the letter of St. Bernard to William, Abbot of St.-Thierry (see Elizabeth G. Holt, A Documentary History of Art, I, Garden City, N.Y., 1957, 21). 16 17

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under one head.’22 This mode of construction, typically medieval, may be called bifurcation. A two-bodied female centaur in the Rutland Psalter23 — an example of Gothic bifurcation — is a complete aberration from the Classical type. Bifurcated hybrids, then, consist of one head, usually frontal, joined to two identical bodies, each shown in profile. Striking examples may be drawn from the Luttrell Psalter. In one, the necks of two beast bodies emerge from the enormous circular mouth opening of a single doglike head (Fig. 11).24 In another, identical foliate-tailed animal bodies are joined to a bald human head with a projecting tongue of exaggerated length.25 No wonder that the bifurcated hybrid was the type that disturbed Eric Millar more than others. Not only are the parts individually and conjointly outrageous, but the very mode of construction is an offense against nature and tradition. Equally outside natural law is a third mode of construction found in Gothic hybrids. This is a kind that survived until — or was reinvented — in the twentieth century and named the Pushmipullyu by Hugh Lofting’s Dr. Dolittle.26 Pushmipullyus have a single body, to the extremities of which are attached two identical heads — in the case of Dr. Dolittle’s creation, those of horses. A more ribald modern example comes from a cartoon in Penthouse magazine showing a two-headed stork with the caption, ‘One of us is an asshole!’ (Fig. 12).27 Again the Luttrell Psalter provides medieval hybrid examples. One has two humanoid heads, two serpentine necks ending in jackets, and a single body with bearlike claws; another shows two club-wielding human torsos attached to a single animal body (Fig. 13).28 The fourth mode of hybrid construction may be called dual orientation. Unlike sequential hybrids, whose components all face in the same direction, these creatures consist of parts reversed in relation to each other. Some of 22 Ibid. I wish to thank my colleague Prof. Larissa Warren Bonfante for calling to my attention the occasional appearance of single-headed, double-bodied lions, griffins, and sphinxes in Orientalizing ceramics and gems. 23 Fol. 111 (Millar, Rutland Psalter). 24 Fol. 194v. 25 Fol. 175v (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 103). 26 Hugh Lofting, The Story of Doctor Dolitt/e, 1st ed., London, 1920, ch. X. The Amphisbaena — a snake with heads at either end — is the only Bestiary animal of this sort (see The Bestiary, ed. T. H. White, New York, 1960, 177). An Amphisbaena in the Rutland Psalter (fol. 82) causes an adjacent crouching nude man to scratch his head in amazement. 27 Penthouse magazine, Feb. 1977, 66. 28 Fols. 195, 211 (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pls. 142, 174).

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them seem to reflect the contorted beasts of ancient steppe art, such as the Scythian gold bear, or the multiple twists of the composite beasts in the cross pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels.29 But in many Gothic examples the reversal of direction is less sinuous and more abrupt. In the Luttrell Psalter, for instance, there is a pale frontal face out of whose mouth emerges the hindquarters of a beast seen from the rear, and in another case, a frontal human lifts his arms to display the rear view of a long-tailed beast whose feet are again seen frontally (Fig. 14).30 Or, in a different kind of reversal, the same manuscript provides a profile dog head — facing right — attached to a profile beast body — facing left.31 The last-mentioned hybrid has human hands where the feet should be. Just this kind of misplacement of parts characterizes the fifth mode of hybrid construction. One variant is the substitution of hands for feet, as above, or, in another example from the Luttrell Psalter, a fish walking on human hands.32 Hands or heads can also be misplaced at the tips of tails, as in the Ormesby Psalter where a doglike head, twisted back over a rear-view human body, peers at its own long tail tipped with a human index finger pointing with a vulgar gesture at its human backside (Fig. 15).33 But still more striking is the type of hybrid which may be called two-faced, the kind in which a face or head — not just a finger — is actually found in the position ordinarily occupied by the posterior of a creature. When one or both heads have human elements, their conjunction is fraught with lewd connotations, as witness the pair of woodwoses in the Treatise of Walter of Milemete (Fig. 16).34 A balding, bearded male in the Ormesby Psalter has a shirt folded back to reveal the head of a fierce creature biting a branch of foliage.35 A pale female head in the Luttrell Psalter, with translucent batwing headdress, is attached to a bestial body whose rear end is replaced by a menacing blue humanoid head, beetle-browed, knobby-nosed, and openmouthed, either swallowing its own tail or sticking out an extraordinarily See, for example, the Treatise of Walter of Milemete, Oxford, Christ Church Lib. MS 92, fols. 31v, 36, 57v, 58 (M. R. James, The Treatise of Walter de Milemete, Oxford, 1913, Pls. 62, 71, 114, 115), made c. 1326 for Edward III. 30 Fols. 146v (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 45),201. 31 Fol. 193v (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 139). 32 Fol. 173 (Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 98). 33 Fol. 72. 34 Fol. 44v. 35 Fol. 55v (Cockerell and James, Two East Anglian Psalters. Pl. VII). 29

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long tongue (Fig. 17).36 One page in the Yale Cluniac Psalter shows two ‘addorsed’ two-faced hybrids (Fig. 18); the left creature actually has three heads, two at one end and one at the other, all different, and the whole composition offers a catalogue of features suggesting an anal-oral fixation — vomiting and open mouths being particularly notable.37 Finally, I would like to include the kind of hybrid characterized by absence or excess of parts. It was not beyond the Classical imagination to conceive of races of mankind lacking parts of the body, such as sciapods or acephalic men, or races having parts extremely misproportioned, such as dwarfs, and these creatures recur in the manuscripts under discussion here.38 Hybrids based on the same principles are common in manuscripts, too, sometimes in pointed juxtaposition with entirely human examples. One page in the Milemete Treatise, for instance, shows both an axe-bearing dwarf, itself an anachronism, and a creature whose bearded human head rests between animal hindquarters which end in human hands using a cripple’s crutches, surely an allusion to the truncation of the body (Fig. 20).39 The most common deformation, in fact, is the elimination of the trunk so that the head of a hybrid rests directly on top of the lower portion of the body. Further examples occur in the Ormesby Psalter, one of which has a haranguing human head atop human legs between which an animal tail tipped with pointing finger emerges (Fig. 5),40 and in the Milemete Treatise, where an armless acrobat has animal legs attached to his chin, or a leonine mask fiercely grips his legs between his teeth.41 The opposite of absence of parts is their excess. Here too the Middle Ages inherited from Antiquity the conception of three-headed dogs, sevenheaded dragons, and the like. Usually it was the head that was multiplied, and often misplaced as well. The Yale Psalter, for example, offers several cases of creatures with as many as five different heads (Fig. 19), including Fol. 184v. New Haven, Yale Univ., Beinecke Lib. MS N. 417, fol. 64v. Executed in the 1320s probably for the Cluniac priory of Thetford, Norf. (see K. V. Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia, Sydney, 1969, 257–58). 38 Sciapod, Treatise of Walter of Milemete, fol. 44v (James, Milemete, Pl. 88); acephalic man, Rutland Psalter, fol. 57 (Millar, Rutland Psalter). The Rutland Psalter contains an especially piquant human example of absence and excess of parts in the confrontation of a nude man with one leg and another nude with four legs and a crutch (fol. 64; see Millar). 39 Fol. 55v. 40 Fol. 109. 41 Fols. 59, 58v (James, Milemete, Pls. 117, 116). 36 37

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squawking, predatory birds and grotesque human caricatures, some with knobby noses, some with hooked noses, some with projecting tongues, some open-mouthed and vomiting.42 It may be remembered that the Apocalyptic beast and dragon, the Devil, and the mouth of Hell all follow the same principle of construction in the Gothic period. In conclusion, I would like to return to the question of the normality of hybrid monsters. At the beginning of this essay I tried to justify my own conviction on what might be called statistical grounds. Artistic forms so common and so transferable cannot be abnormal. Next, I have attempted to make these hybrids comprehensible by showing that they follow orderly systems of construction. Artistic forms that appear to obey rules cannot be abnormal either. But the worrying question remains: Even if normal, what is their meaning? Are hybrids purely playful, idly capricious, smuttily titillating — in other words, lacking in seriousness commensurate with that of the sacred texts whose margins they decorate? It does seem that marginal hybrids offer all-too-human relief from the unremitting seriousness of religious texts; and their boundless variations represent individualistic creative efforts by artists for whom comparable freedom to innovate would not be dreamed of in illustrating standard religious subjects. And yet I believe that these hybrids also reflect a spiritual world view which, in the Gothic period, was highly conscious of the sinfulness and evil that beset mankind. How appropriate are such obscenely two-faced creatures, with their open mouths, their projecting tongues, their spitting and vomiting actions, as visual embodiments of sins such as blasphemy and gluttony! To quote a fourteenth-century sermon, ‘and the blasphemer stykinge out his tongue in a mervaylous horryble ugsome and ferefull manner, as black as pytche, so that no persone durst come nere hym. . . . And he contynued ever swerynge, blasphemynge and bledynge tull he expired and was deed.’43 Or on gluttony, the English Dominican John Bromyard preached, ‘One day they stuff; on the next they send for the doctor to relieve them. . . . These glotons beth never glad bot that they mowe waste much mete and drynke, and studye in what manner they mowe ad raw here fulness to be again hungre ofte for to ete and drynke.’44 It seems to me that the serious and pessimistic dark side of medieval thought that asks ‘What is man . . . but a Fol. 43, and another example on fol. 52v. Quoted by G. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, Cambridge, 1933, 424. 44 Ibid., 446. 42 43

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5. Ormesby Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 366.109

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6. Ormesby Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 366, fol. 131 (detail)

7. Rutland Psalter, Belvoir Castle, Duke of Rutland, fol. 45v (detail, after Millar, The Rutland Psalter)

8. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 79v (detail, after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

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9. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 155v (detail, after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

10. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 177 (detail, after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

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11. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 194v (detail, after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

12. Cartoon in Penthouse magazine, February, 1977

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13. Luttrell Psalter, London. British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 211 (detail, after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

14. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 201 (detail, after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

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15. Ormesby Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 366, fol. 72 (detail)

16. Treatise of Walter de Milemete, Oxford, Christ Church MS 92. fol. 44v (detail, after James, The Treatise of Walter de Milemete)

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17. Luttrell Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 184 (detail, after Millar, The Luttrell Psalter)

18. Yale Psalter, New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Lib. MS N.417, fol. 64v (detail)

19. Yale Psalter, New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Lib. MS NA17. fol. 64v (detail)

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20. Treatise of Walter de Milemete, Oxford, Christ Church MS 92, fol. 55v (after James, The Treatise of Walter de Milemete)

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stynkynge slime, and after that a sake ful of donge, and at the last mete to wormes . . .’45 is revealed in the most graphic — and uniquely visual — manner by the hybrids discussed in this essay.

G. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England, Cambridge, 1926, 341, quoting a sermon in which the phrase is attributed to St. Bernard. 45

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A Bawdy Betrothal in the Ormesby Psalter*

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NTIL Jan Van Eyck gave the wedding portrait a complex, layered meaning (Fig. 2), depictions of solemn betrothal or wedding rites were usually straightforward, uncomplicated images showing a man offering a woman a ring (Fig. 3), or a couple joining right hands in the presence of a priest and sometimes witnesses. Symmetry of composition and frontality of pose evoke visually the solemnity of the ritual, as they do in Van Eyck’s painting. The great majority of pre-Eyckian betrothal and marriage images serve as illustrations of canon-law texts, such as Gratian’s Decretum, executed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.1 Actual betrothal and marriage customs during this time were generally at variance with ecclesiastical standards. Marriage continued to be privately contracted, at the most, in the presence of family or friends, and without benefit of clergy — and consequently ‘clandestine’ in the eyes of the Church; no clear distinction between betrothal and marriage existed, so that betrothal was often followed by consummation, without the formalities of marriage. Legal records, particularly those of local ecclesiastical courts, show that a good many vestiges of tribal marriage traditions survived into the high Middle Ages — the kidnap, rape, or purchase of the bride — and that these, in fact, contributed to the vigor of the Church’s efforts to

* I am grateful to my colleague Robert Raymo for numerous bibliographical references to medieval literature. 1 For a large number of reproductions of illustrations of betrothals and marriages, see A. Melnikas, The Corpus of Miniatures in the Manuscripts of Decretum Gratiani. Rome, 1975, III (causae XXVII–XXXVI).

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impose the opposing view of marriage as a Christian sacrament, a public exchange of mutual consent, indissoluble once freely contracted.2 Literary as well as legal documents reveal a situation different from the Christian ideal. Courtly romances, epics, fabliaux, and proverbial sayings offer a secular view of marital, pre-marital and extra-marital relations between men and women as fickle, inconstant, bigamous. Fabliaux in particular hold the ideal of Christian marriage up to the mocking mirror of reality.3 In fabliaux, courtship and marriage are a joke, a game, and the prize is the seduction of the woman, married or unmarried, the humiliation of an unwanted suitor, or the cuckolding of a husband. Yet these tales are not recounted in a spirit of moral or social criticism.4 They are good, bawdy fun, manifestations of low comedy, in the words of Joseph Bédier, ‘contes à rire en vers.’5 The vast pictorial realm of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century marginal illustrations contains numerous visual images paralleling the low comedy spirit of the fabliaux, but none more vivid than the ‘betrothal’ vignette in the Ormesby Psalter (Figs. 1, 4), one of the most richly illuminated English manuscripts of the early fourteenth century.6 The vignette shows a couple On marriage customs, see L. F. Sandler, ‘The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent,’ Art Bulletin, LXVI, 1984, 490, and n. 11, there referring to M. Sheehan, O.S.B., ‘The Formation and Stability of Marriage in Fourteenth-Century England: Evidence of an Ely Register,’ Medieval Studies, XXXIII, 1971, 228–63; R. H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, London, 1974, esp. 26–31; G. Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth Century France, Baltimore and London, 1978; idem, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, New York, 1983; see also H. A. Kelly, Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer, Ithaca, 1975. 3 On fabliaux, see P. Nykrog, Les fabliaux: Étude d’histoire littéraire et de stylistique médiévale, Copenhagen, 1957, with extensive bibliography. Since Nykrog, see T. D. Cooke and B. L. Honeycutt, eds., The Humor of the Fabliaux: A Collection of Critical Essays, Columbia, Mo., 1974, and T. D. Cooke, The Old French and Chaucerian Fabliaux, A Study of their Comic Climax, Columbia, Mo., 1978. The standard edition (cited as MR I–VI) is A. de Montaiglon and G. Raynaud, Recueil général et complet des fabliaux des XIIIe et XIVe siècles, imprimés ou inédits, publiés avec notes et variantes d’après les manuscrits, Paris, 1872–90. 4 Cooke (as in note 3), 139–42. 5 In the first and fundamental modern study of the genre, Les fabliaux. Études de littérature populaire et d’histoire littéraire du moyen âge (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, 98), 2nd. ed., Paris, 1895, 30. 6 Oxford, ‘Bodleian Library, Ms. Douce 366. See S. C. Cockerell and M. R. James, Two East Anglian Psalters at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1926, with numerous reproductions, and L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285–1385 (A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, ed. J. J. G. Alexander, V), London, 1985, no. 43. 2

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on either side of the central axis of the lower margin, woman on the left, man on the right. At their feet, between them, is a dog. The man offers a ring to the woman, and she extends her hand to receive it. So far, the actors and the grouping presage Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding in an almost uncanny way. Of course, this is a false impression; both works simply refer independently to the formalized representations of betrothals and marriages characteristic of canon-law illustrations, although the axial dog in each case is an anomaly unknown in legal books. The man in the Ormesby Psalter is a young knight, young because he is beardless and has short hair bound with a fillet, and knightly because he holds a falcon in his gloved hand and wears a dagger or short sword. The hound, a hunting dog, belongs to him. The woman is a young lady of high rank; she is elegantly clothed, wears her hair bound in a net and her head covered with a flyaway scarf, the headdress of a maiden, as worn also by the virgin in the marginal illustration of the tale of the slaying of the unicorn in the same manuscript (Fig. 5). As the dog belongs to the man (unlike the fluffy lap dog in the Arnolfini Wedding, who faces the viewer, this hound faces its master), so a nut-eating squirrel is the pet of the maiden. Pet squirrels belonging to aristocratic young ladies are depicted in other contemporary manuscripts, notably in a marginal vignette in the Luttrell Psalter,7 where one sits on the shoulder of a princess travelling in a royal coach (Fig. 6). The Ormesby couple is silhouetted against the open space between the bottom of the text and the broad colored band of the border through which a foliate strand runs, separating the figures above from a pair of animals below. Directly under the maiden a profile cat crouches; and below the youth a mouse peeks out of its hole. Cat-and-mouse games are common in marginal illustrations: in the Luttrell Psalter, for instance, on one page a cat toys with a mouse held in its paws (Fig. 7); on another, the mouse is already in the cat’s mouth.8 Occasionally, in the topsy-turvy marginal world, the victims have their revenge, but it takes four mice to overpower a single cat, as in a vignette in the thirteenth-century Rutland Psalter, where mice string up a helpless feline — like lilliputians capturing Gulliver.9 7 London, British Library, Add. Ms. 42130. See E. G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter, London, 1932, with reproduction of almost all illustrations. 8 Ibid., fol. 13. 9 London, British Library, Add. Ms. 62925. See E. G. Millar, The Rutland Psalter, Oxford, 1937, facsimile, fol. 61.

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In the Ormesby Psalter, cat faces mouse as girl faces boy; from this confrontation it is visually evident that the cat is to be understood in relation to the female and the mouse to the male. A number of other pages of the Ormesby Psalter show one or more comparable figure groups that mimic the main marginal group in the bas-de-page: for example, below a combat between a knight and a dragon are two confronting hares, one armed with a sword and the other with a club, while in the ‘haut-de-page’ two fighting cocks face off;10 in another bas-de-page two men stripped to their underclothes wrestle, while in the upper margin two human-animal hybrids battle, one armed with a sword and shield, the other with a kettle and a spoon;11 in a third example, a violent match between a lion and a bear is echoed in the biting and hair-pulling contest between two unarmed nude men on the beasts’ backs (Fig. 8). The cat and mouse beneath the feet of the betrothal couple are more than just a visual echo; the animal pair also augment, or modify, the meaning of the subject above. Since the time of Aristotle, the female cat has been understood as a lecherous predator, enticing the male to sexual commerce;12 the obscene terms ‘cat-house’ and ‘pussy’ are current descendants of this line of thought. The prey of the cat is the mouse; by analogy, the mouse becomes the other half of the equation — cat-female equals mouse-male. ‘Mouse,’ for instance, was used as a figurative expression for the male organ by the female speaker in a fifteenth-century English lyric, ‘Our Sir John’: ser John ys taken In my mouse-trappe; ffayne wold I have hem both nyght and day, he gropith so nyslye a-bought my lape, I have no pore to say hym nay.13 In the Ormesby Psalter the cat and mouse introduce a gross sexual note that mocks the refined, courtly tone of the betrothal scene above. In fact, however, some features of the courtship scene itself encourage a similar

Cockerell and James (as in note 6), Psalm 97, fol. 128. Ibid., Psalm 50, fol. 109. 12 B. Rowland, Animals with Human Faces, A Guide to Animal Symbolism, Knoxville, 1973, 52–53. 13 R. H. Robbins, ed., Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, Oxford, 1952, 20–21. 10 11

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obscene reading. The dagger of the young man, for instance, projects from his clothing at a sharp angle; it is not worn on a visible belt, but appears shockingly like a part of his anatomy uncovered and revealed. In fabliaux, the words for weapons and the male sexual organ, and for aggression and sexual assault, are often interchangeable: ‘De la point du vit la point;/El con le met jusqu’a le coille,’14 for example, is a violent description of sexual intercourse using the metaphor of weaponry and attack. The double-entendre of the Ormesby suitor’s dagger is not unique in marginal illustrations. In the Luttrell Psalter, for instance, a man crouches, pleading, at the feet of a woman, who subdues him by pressing her right palm against his head while flourishing her weapon, a distaff, in her left hand (Fig. 9). The man’s weapon, a dagger, projects from his clothing at a sharp angle, as in the Ormesby Psalter. In this encounter, the ‘weak’ woman, armed only with a distaff, is clearly the aggressor, while the ‘strong’ man, his ‘weapon’ at the ready, is submissive. Comparable reversal of traditional roles — the woman as sexually rapacious rather than the male — is the joke of fabliaux such as ‘La demoiselle qui sonjoit.’15 The ring offered by the young man in the Ormesby Psalter is the traditional token of betrothal; its size, however, is exceptionally large. On one level, the enlarged ring is symbolically appropriate to betrothal imagery; but by its very size, it would fit the dagger of the youth better than the finger of the girl. Some suspicion at least may arise that the ring refers, as it did from the time of Ovid, to the female pudendum: ‘Anule, formosae digitum vincture puellae . . . tam bene convenias, quam mecum convenit illi’ (Amores II.xv).16 In a general way, the falcon and the hound refer to the pursuit of women as well as animals. Hawk and hound are ubiquitous aspects of courtly life as represented throughout Gothic art. As for the squirrel, the third animal component of the Ormesby betrothal, it was common enough as a ladies’ pet. Could it too have a double meaning? Small, furry animals belong tra-

14 ‘Boisvin de Provins’ (MR V 61). See T. D. Cooke, ‘Pornography, the Comic Spirit, and the Fabliaux,’ in Cooke and Honeycutt (as in note 3), 146 f., who translates the passage as ‘He stuck her with the head of his prick/and shoved it in her cunt clear up to his balls.’ 15 Ibid., 155–156. 16 Cited by P. W. Ross, Chaucer’s Bawdy, New York, 1972, 195, and translated there as ‘O ring, that art to circle the finger of my fair lady . . . mayst thou fit her as well as she fits me.’

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1. Psalm 101, Ormesby Psalter. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce Ms. 366. fol. 131 (photo: Bodleian Library).

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2. Jan van Eyck, Arnolfini Wedding. London, National Gallery (photo: National Gallery).

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40 3. Betrothal, Gratian, Decretum causa XXVll. Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms. 354, fol. 208, detail.

4. Betrothal, Ormesby Psalter. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce Ms. 366, fol. 131, detail (photo: Bodleian Library).

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5. Slaying of the Unicorn, Ormesby Psalter. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce Ms. 366, fol. 55v, detail (photo: Bodleian Library).

6. Princess in the Royal Coach, Luttrell Psalter. London, British Library, Add. Ms. 42130, fol. 181v, detail (photo: British Library).

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7. Cat and Mouse, Luttrell Psalter. London, British Library, Add. Ms. 42130. fol. 190, detail (photo: British library).

9. Man Defeated by Woman, Luttrell Psalter. London, British Library, Add. Ms. 42130, fol. 60. detail (photo: British Library).

8. Fighting Men and Beasts, Ormesby Psalter. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce Ms. 366, fol. 147v, detail (photo: Bodleian Library).

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ditionally to the ‘iconography of sensuality.’17 Nowhere is this demonstrated more graphically than in the fabliau ‘De L’escuiruel.’18 The erotic climate is set at the beginning by a dialogue in which a mother reluctantly gives a lesson in the ‘facts of life’ to her daughter. Mother: ‘Et une chose vous desfent/Sor toutes autres mout trés bien/Que ja ne nommez cele rien/Que cil homme portent pendant.’19 Daughter: ‘ . . . dites moi/Comment il a à non et qoi . . . Est ce la rien, qui à mon sire/Entre les jambes li pent, dame?’20 After twenty-five lines of teasing rhymed exchange, the mother finally says, ‘Je te di bien que ce est vit,’21 whereupon the daughter launches into an exuberant chanting repetition of the forbidden word, ‘vit.’ All this is overheard by a young man who grows so excited that ‘Si tint sa main desoz ses dras,/Son vit commence à paumoier /Tant qu’il l’avoit fet aroidier.’22 In this state he presents himself to the young lady, who asks him: ‘ ‘‘Dites moi . . ./Que vous tenez”; et il li dist:/“Dame, ce est .1. escuiruel;/Volez le vous?

R. J. Pearcy, ‘Modes of Signification and the Humor of Obscene Diction in the Fabliaux,’ in Cook and Honeycutt (as in note 3),176, n. 9, there citing D. W. Robertson, ‘The Doctrine of Charity in Medieval Gardens,’ Speculum, XXVI, 1953, 24–49 and idem, A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives, Princeton, 1962, 112–13, 190–207. In one fabliau, ‘La sorisete des estopes,’ (MR IV 158 ff.) a mouse, instead of standing for the male, as in the Ormesby Psalter vignette, stands for the female ‘con,’ which a bride claims to her naive bridegroom has been left behind at her mother’s. He goes to retrieve it and is given a basket containing a mouse, the mother claiming it is the ‘con.’ Robertson, 1962, 190–94, notes the frequency with which small, furry creatures held by ladies are paired with hawks held by young men in amatory images: To him, these small animals represent the ‘object of the lover’s quest,’ in other words, they are female sexual symbols. Depending on the context, however, it would seem that both mice and squirrels may refer to the private parts of either sex. In commenting on the Ormesby Psalter vignette (p. 194), Robertson also suggests that the girl has given the boy the ring; the gestures of the two do not make this conclusion certain, and the composition as an entity suggests that the ring is the offering of the boy to the girl, as in a formal betrothal. 18 MR V 101–106. 19 My translations in notes 19–24 include literal equivalents of the obscene terms for sexual parts, both male and female, as they are found in the fabliaux. ‘And one thing is forbidden absolutely/Above all others/You must never say the name of this “nothing”/That a man has hanging down.’ 20 ‘Tell me/What is its name and why . . . Is it a “nothing” that my lord has/Hanging between his legs, mother?’ 21 ‘I tell you truly that it is a prick.’ 22 ‘So he put his hand beneath his clothes/He begins to handle his prick/So that he made it hard.’ 17

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— Oïl mon vuel,/Aus mains le tenisse je ore!’’ ’23 The seduction, willingly abetted by the girl, continues, the author introducing more figurative expressions in a similar vein. The girl asks if the squirrel eats nuts, and laments that she herself has eaten all she had. ‘ ‘‘Ne t’en chaut, bele,” dist Robin,/“Quar voir il [the squirrel] les querra mout bien’’ ’: ‘ ‘‘Et où?’’ ’ she asks, ‘ ‘‘Par foi, en vostre ventre.’’ ’ ‘ ‘‘Je ne sai par où il i entre.’’ ’ ‘ ‘‘Par vostre con . . .’’ ’ ‘ ‘‘Puis . . . Son escuiruel li mist el con’’ ’ and she, ‘ ‘‘En riant dist: ‘Que Dieu i soit!/Sire escuiruel, or del cerchier!/Bones nois puissiez vous mengier!’’ ’24 Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century literature suggests that every element of the Ormesby Psalter ‘betrothal’ has a dual meaning. The shadow world of seduction lies beneath the surface of formal courtship, its existence made known through pictorial equivalents to figurative expressions found in the written language, what has been called the ‘obscene diction’ of the 25 fabliaux. It has been said that medieval figurative expressions for the sexual act and for the sexual parts of the body were limited only by an author’s ingenuity,26 although a few, primarily feline, became so firmly established that they have persisted to the present. The latest expression of the comic spirit of the fabliau (survival, or revival?) — and a remarkable literary analogue of the Ormesby Psalter vignette — is a brief story by Barry Yourgrau, published in 1984, and titled ‘Domestic Farce.’27 It begins: ‘A man comes home and finds his wife in bed with a squirrel . . . He sees the nuts strewn all over his wife’s clothes on the floor . . .’ At first he thinks the scene is very funny, but then he becomes murderously furious and goes after the squirrel with an axe: ‘You and your goddamned pets,’ he screams. The squirrel escapes and thinks (the last line), ‘Where the hell does he get off calling me a “pet”!’ ‘ “Tell me . . ./What you are holding”; and he says to her/“Lady, it is a squirrel;/do you want it’’ ’ — ‘ “Yes, it is my wish/That I might hold it in my hands now.’’ ’ 24 ‘ “Don’t upset yourself, pretty one” says Robin/“For truly he [the squirrel) will be able to find them very easily”: “And where?” “By my faith, in your belly,’’ ’ ‘ “I don’t know how he will get in,’’ ’ ‘ “Through your cunt . . ,’’ ’ ‘Then . . . he puts his squirrel in her cunt,’ ‘Laughing, she says, “By God!/Sir squirrel, now look in it!/May you eat good nuts!’’ ’ 25 Pearcy (as in note 17), 163–96. 26 Ibid., 166. The author distinguishes between figurative expressions and euphemisms. The latter, more limited in number, and neutral in character, are all in use today (e.g., to sleep with). 27 In B. Yourgrau, A Man Jumps out of an Airplane, New York, 1984, 45. I am indebted to my colleague Carol H. Krinsky for bringing this literary vignette to my attention. 23

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The Word in the Text and the Image in the Margin: The Case of the Luttrell Psalter* The psalter (London, BL, Add. MS 42130) made in the second quarter of the fourteenth century for the English landowner Geoffrey Luttrell includes about forty examples of marginal word illustration, or imagines verborum. Some images are simple equivalents of the sense as well as the words and phrases in the psalms, some are pictorial examples of text passages, some picture words out of context, some are collections of word-images from separate text passages, and some are even based on single syllables. The imagines verborum of the Luttrell Psalter reinforce the process of reading by revealing all of the riches, both apparent and concealed, in the text.

I

MAGES of words are childhood delights — Alice in Wonderland’s tail/tale1 — but they belong to an adult mode of expression with a long, rich, and varied history. Among the characteristically medieval manifestations are the anthropomorphized images of letters and even contraction signs typical of Merovingian manuscripts; simple word-pictures in historiated initials, such as, for instance, the ubiquitous figure pointing to his eyes

* Lilian Randall and I met forty years ago through a shared interest in marginal illustrations in medieval manuscripts. From time to time I have revisited this subject and, on each occasion, have turned first to Dr. Randall’s pioneering study Images in the Margins of Illuminated Manuscripts (Berkeley, 1966), the fundamental source for all devotees of the phenomenon of manuscript marginalia. It is a privilege to acknowledge my scholarly debt to Dr. Randall with this paper in her honor. 1 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, illus. John Tenniel (London, 1865), 37.

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in the D of Psalm 26 (The Lord is my light); and complex pictorial entities that correspond to strings of words or phrases, such as those of the Utrecht Psalter.2 Illustrations like those of the Utrecht Psalter are usually called literal, but of course they entail interpretation, based either on customary understanding of the meaning of the word or words, or specific exegesis. In this way, the psalmist’s cry at the beginning of Psalm 21 of the Vulgate, ‘O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me,’ and the lines further on, ‘Thou hast brought me down into the dust of death,’ and ‘they parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots,’ are translated pictorially into an image of the cross of the Crucifixion, the instruments of the Passion, and the cast-off mantle of Christ.3 Indeed, instances of what might be called ‘pure,’ non-contextual translation of words into images are not so common in the Utrecht Psalter, much as such verbal metaphors as the ‘sheep to be eaten’ of Psalm 43 or the ‘wicked’ who ‘walk around’ of Psalm 11 have produced direct illustrations that have attracted considerable attention — not unreasonably since they strike the post-medieval mentality as amazing perversions of the ‘real’ meaning of the words.4 On the spectrum of text-image relationships, nothing could seem more opposite, at first sight, than the mode of illustration in the Utrecht Psalter and that of marginal illustration in Gothic manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The illustrations of the Utrecht Psalter precede the texts of the individual psalms, so they might be said to be in the text; in dimensions they are exactly the width of the three columns of the text. The purpose of the images is to evoke the words, to redouble or reinforce their meaning, and to provide a visual gloss. Gothic marginal illustrations, on the other hand, are not only physically outside the text, but their purpose is obscure, their relation to the sense of the text often seeming to be one of complete indifference, irrelevance, or even contrariness. To borrow the famous question of Saint Bernard, ‘What profit is there in those ridiculous monsters . . . to what purpose are those

Utrecht, Rijksuniversiteit Bibl., MS 32. See Utrecht-Psalter (Graz, 1984), I (facsimile) and II (commentary by F. Van Der Horst and J. H. A Engelbregt). 3 Utrecht, Rijksuniversiteit Bibl., MS 32, fols. 12–12v. See Utrecht-Psalter I and II, 67. 4 Utrecht Psalter, fols. 25–25v and 6v. Psalm 43 was selected by H. W. Janson as the illustration of the Utrecht Psalter in History of Art, 1st ed. (New York, 1962), Fig. 327. 2

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1. Ps. 91:17. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 167 (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 86.]

2. Ps. 101:7–8. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 178 (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 108.]

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3. Ps. 87:4–7. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 157v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 67.]

4. Ps. 86:4. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 157 (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 66.]

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5. Ps. 93:6. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, Col. 169. [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 90.]

6. Ps. 104:16. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 186v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 125.]

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7. Ps. 32:20. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 62v (detail).

8. Ps. 88:21. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 160v. [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 73.]

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9. Ps. 43:4. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 83v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 25f.]

10. Ps. 104:3–4. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 185v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 123.]

11. Ps. 87:9. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 157v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 67.]

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12. Ps. 87:19. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 158v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 69.]

13. Ps. 102:7. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 180v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 112.]

14. Ps. 21:6. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 21 (detail).

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15. Ps. 83:3–4. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 152v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 57.]

16. Ps. 34:13. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 66 (detail).

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17. Ps. 88:43–45. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 162v. [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 77.]

18. Ps. 82:16. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 152 (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 56.]

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19. Ps. 80:9. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 149v (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 51.]

20. Ps. 27:1. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 53 (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 8.]

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21. Ps. 29:4. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 55v.

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22. Ps. 105:41. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 193v. [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 139.]

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23. Ps. 80:11. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 150 (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 52.]

24. Ps. 90:10–11. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 166 (detail). [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 84.]

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25. Ps. 88:7–9. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 159v. [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 71.]

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26. Ps. 88:12–14. Luttrell Psalter. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 160. [From E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932), Pl. 72.]

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unclean apes . . . those fighting knights’5 in the marginal illustrations of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century religious texts used in Christian worship? Saint Bernard protested that the grotesque sculptured decorations of Romanesque cloisters had a seductive fascination that could turn the monk from his proper meditation on the law of God.6 How much greater, then, the potential danger of marginal illustrations in prayerbooks, adjacent to the sacred words themselves. In modern times, many explanations of this kind of marginal imagery have been proposed.7 Saint Bernard’s views notwithstanding, marginalia have been interpreted as harmless, meaningless decoration;8 as didactic or allegorical, intended to inculcate Christian morality by visualizing its evil opposite;9 as an eruption of a popular, ‘low,’ comic, or grotesque spirit, playful and life-affirming;10 as evidence of the freedom of the artist to invent in the unregulated spaces of the page-borders;11 or as apotropaic, protecting 5 Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia ad Guillelmum Sancti-Theoderi abbatem, J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, Series latina, 182 (Paris, 1854), 916; I use the translation of Meyer Schapiro, ‘On the Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque Art’ in Romanesque Art: Selected Papers (New York, 1977), 6. 6 Bernard, Apologia, Pat. lat., 916: ‘ut magis legere libeat in marmoribus quam in codicibus, totumque diem occupare singula isla mirando. quam in lege Dei meditando.’ The phrase ‘in lege Dei meditando’ parallels Ps. 1:2: ‘sed in lege Domini voluntas eius, et in lege eius meditabitur die ac nocte.’ The line has a special reverberation because Ps. 1 is the first psalm recited at matins in the liturgical office. 7 The most searching interpretative study to date is M. Camille, Image on the Edge, The Margins of Medieval Art (London, 1992); see also P. Gerson, ‘Margins for Eros,’ Romance Languages, 5 (1993), 47–53, discussing the word-images of the north French hours of the 1330s divided between the British Library (Add. MS 36684) and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (MS M.754). 8 E. Male, The Gothic Image, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (New York, 1958), 47–62. 9 H. Helsinger, ‘Images on the Beatus Page of Some Medieval Psalters,’ Art Bulletin, 53 (1971), 161–76; K. R. Wentersdorf, ‘The Symbolic Significance of Figurae Scatalogicae in Gothic Manuscripts,’ in Word Picture and Spectacle (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1984), 1–19; M. Caviness, ‘Patron or Matron? A Capetian Bride and a Vade Mecum for Her Marriage Bed,’ Speculum, 68 (1993), 333–62. 10 Cf. M. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. H. Iswolsky (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), esp. 1–21, referring primarily to the ‘grotesque realism’ in ‘folk culture’ and passing lightly (27, n. 8) over visual imagery, which perhaps would have provided an obstacle to his sharp distinction between official and folk culture, since the two meet in the texts and the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts. 11 M. Schapiro, ‘Marginal Images and Drôlerie,’ Speculum, 45 (1950), 684–86 (review of Randall, Images in the Margins).

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the words of the text with a fence of images, monstrous and even obscene.12 Would recognition that a large number of Gothic marginal images apparently without relation to the text can in fact be ‘read’ as literal illustrations contribute to our understanding of the function, meaning, and purpose of the phenomenon of manuscript marginalia? Few manuscripts offer a better testing ground than the Luttrell Psalter, commissioned by the English landowner Geoffrey Luttrell in the second quarter of the fourteenth century.13 On page after page, the Luttrell Psalter is provided with marginalia of utmost variety, from pious religious vignettes to biographical genre scenes of farming and feasting, to parodic episodes from a monde renversé, to the most fantastic monsters, the kind Saint Bernard characterized as having a ‘marvelous and deformed beauty’14 and Eric Millar termed the product of a mind that ‘can hardly have been normal.’15 About forty cases can be found in the Luttrell Psalter of illustrations explicable in one way or another by reference to the text. The number is far greater than that considered by either Millar, who was the first student of the manuscript, or by Michael Camille, one of the most recent.16 In this study, I will present my findings, analyzing the various kinds of text-image relationship that fall generally into the word-picture category, and then address the question raised earlier: does the recognition of text-image relations in marginal illustration help us to gain a new understanding of this perplexing and fascinating phenomenon. The point of departure is the simple case of words in the text, either nouns or verbs, and the direct representation of their visual equivalents in the Ruth Mellinkoff, in ‘Some Thoughts on Marginal Motifs,’ a paper delivered in the session, ‘Marginal Imagery,’ at the Twenty-Ninth International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 5–8 May 1994. 13 London, BL, Add. MS 42130. E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1932);]. Backhouse, The Luttrell Psalter (London, 1989); M. Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord: The Ploughman and the Social Order in the Luttrell Psalter,’ Art History, 10 (1987), 423–54. Millar dated the manuscript between 1335 and 1340, the date of death of Geoffrey Luttrell’s wife, who is depicted on fol. 202v, since he believed that the illustrations represented the ‘decadence’ of the so-called East Anglian style; for a differing view, and a dating to 1325–1330, see L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, V, ed. J. J.G. Alexander (London, 1986), I, 118–21, no. 107. 14 ‘Quaedam deformis formositas, ac formosa deformitas’ (Apologia, Pat. lat., 916), as translated in Schapiro, ‘Aesthetic Attitude,’ 6. 15 Millar, Luttrell Psalter, 16. 16 Millar (Luttrell Psalter, 13) noted nine cases and Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ 434–36 added several more. See also Backhouse, Luttrell Psalter, 14. 12

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margin. For example, opposite the words of Vulgate Ps. 91:7,17 ‘The foolish man shall not know; nor will the stupid man understand these things,’ is a fool (Fig. 1), shown in much the same way as in the historiated initial at the beginning of Ps. 52, ‘The fool hath said in his heart: there is no God’.18 In a similar case, the pictorial response to Ps. 101:7-8, ‘I am become like to a pelican of the wilderness . . . and as a sparrow all alone on the housetop,’ is a small bird perched on one branch of a marginal tree and a pelican at the summit (Fig. 2). But the pelican, invoked by the grieving psalmist as a bird of solitude, is represented visually as a Christian symbol, sacrificing itself for the sake of its young by feeding them with blood from its own pierced breast. Just as they do in the Utrecht Psalter, symbolically meaningful words of the text automatically elicit appropriate visual counterparts. Both the fool and the pelican would have been common components of an illuminator’s repertory of mental and pictorial images; in the same category fall the pictorial equivalents for the musical instruments and performance so frequent in the psalms. Some text pages of the Luttrell Psalter are entirely surrounded by music-makers with their instruments and dancers, in response to words such as ‘exultate,’ ‘jubilate,’ ‘cantate,’ and ‘psallite.’19 These images illustrate both the letter and the spirit of the text, as does the multi-component illustration of Ps. 87:4–7, ‘For my soul is filled with evil; and my life hath drawn nigh to hell . . . . Like the slain sleeping in the sepulchre whom thou rememberest no more . . . . They have laid me in the lower pit; in the dark places, and in the shadow of death.’ There (Fig. 3), the vertical margin is filled with a remorseful soul (in its standard manifestation as a naked human being), the mouth of hell, and the shrouded body in the tomb. Other direct pictorial responses to the words produce less familiar images. Ps. 86:4, ‘Behold the foreigners, and Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians, these were there,’ is matched with a marginal figure of a darkskinned, bare-foot, exotically clothed ‘Ethiopian’ (Fig. 4); or, more elaborately, and translating an entire verse pictorially, Ps. 93:6, ‘They have slain 17 Psalm numbering follows the Vulgate and unless noted psalm quotations are from the Douay-Rheims version. 18 Ps. 52, fol. 98v; Backhouse, Luttrell Psalter, Fig. 9. The marginal fool in Fig. 1 (fol. 167) wears the short-sleeved and tabbed robe characteristic of the clothing of scholars, possibly a response to the words ‘cognoscet’ (shall know) and ‘intelliget’ (will understand) in the text. 19 See for example Ps. 35, 97, 99, and 104 (fols. 68, 174v, 176, and 185v); Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pls. 20a, 101, 104, and 123.

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the widow and the stranger; and they have murdered the fatherless,’ is coupled with three vignettes of murder, of which the central one shows the victim in the clothing and headdress of a widow and the lower, the slaughter of children (Fig. 5). Beyond translating words and phrases into their direct pictorial equivalents, many other Luttrell marginalia are related to the text indirectly. One of the mechanisms for the production of such images is the pictorial example of the verbal term. For instance, below the historiated initial of Psalm 26, showing a figure pointing to his eye, is a vignette of the murder of Saint Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, a marginal example of the words of line 3, ‘If armies in camp should stand together against me . . . if a battle should rise up against me.’20 This example, of course, represents an exposition of the text in terms of recent history. Another pictorial example is the illustration of Ps. 104:16, ‘And He called a famine upon the earth,’ the last line of text directly above the vignette of a leper in a wheeled litter, his begging bowl at his side, adjacent to a well-dressed man who is opening his purse (Fig. 6). This too draws on a contemporary association, linking hunger, poverty, and leprosy.21 Other pictorial examples, while suiting the action to the words, present the actors in unexpected guises, for example, Ps. 32:20, ‘Our soul waiteth for the Lord, for he is our helper and protector.’ To this line, at the bottom of the page, corresponds a strange blue man running away from a monster and pointing toward the word ‘protector’ (Fig. 7). Some pictorial examples interpret text phrases in Christian terms, for instance, Ps. 44:3, ‘Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips.’22 In Christian exegesis, the psalm was called an epithalamium, or nuptial hymn, of Christ and the Church; the Church was also embodied by Mary, the Virgin mother of Christ. This understanding of the psalm accounts for the historiated initial showing the Virgin and Child. What is more, the proximity of the line including the phrase ‘diffusa est gracia in labiis tuis’ to the bottom margin seems to have elicited the illustration of the Annunciation, in which the scroll of the angel, customarily Ps. 26, fol. 51; Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 7. The image is unusual in showing a haloed figure, with the Lord in a separate framed rectangle at the upper right corner of the border. 21 See M. Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages, trans. A. Goldhammer (New Haven, 1986) and most recently, G. Guest, ‘A Discourse on the Poor: The Hours of Jeanne D’Evreux,’ Viator, 26 (1995), 153–80. 22 Ps. 44:3, fol. 86, last two lines; Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 27d. 20

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filled with the words ‘Hail Mary full of grace’ but in this case blank, might almost be filled with the psalm phrase immediately above. The Annunciation is the first of a long marginal series of subjects from the lives of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. The series began at this particular point because of the evocative power of the words of Psalm 44. Two further cases of the generation of long cycles of marginal illustrations from words or phrases at a particular point in the text occur in the Luttrell Psalter. The most well-known genre scenes in the manuscript, they form a kind of pictorial biography of the Luttrell family, as Michael Camille has observed.23 First is at Ps. 93:18, where, as Camille noted, the artist’s literal response to the figural phrase ‘my foot is moved’ is the plow, whose foot moves through the earth.24 The plowing scene is followed by seven more sequential scenes of peasant labor, from sowing to harvesting.25 A second series starts on the page whose last line is from Ps. 113:4, ‘the works of the hands of men.’26 In the psalm, the works in question are pagan idols of silver and gold and their makers are condemned. In the marginal cycle, the words are isolated from this context. Spread over four pages, the sequence consists of a series of food preparation scenes ending in the service of dinner to Geoffrey Luttrell and his family and clerical retainers.27 Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ 423–54. Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ 435 and Fig. 1. 25 Fols. 170–173v; Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pls. 92–99. Backhouse, Luttrell Psalter, Figs. 17, 21, 22, 25, 26, and 29 (color). Backhouse (Luttrell Psalter, 14) noted that this marginal cycle accompanies a series of Psalms (94–96) of thanksgiving for the bounty of God. 26 Ps. 113 (pt. 2)–114:4, fols. 206v–208; Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pls. 165–68 and Backhouse, Luttrell Psalter, Figs. 47–48. 27 Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ 439–42 identified the psalm associated with the Luttrells at dinner as Ps. 115:3–4, but quoted correctly the Vulgate text of Ps. 114:3–4. Taking his cue from Millar (Luttrell Psalter, 49), who had commented on the ‘expressions of hopeless misery on the faces of most of the diners,’ Camille related the physiognomies to the words of the psalm, ‘I met with trouble and sorrow.’ This, I believe, is a case of the imposition of a modern interpretation on facial expressions that were characteristic of the Luttrell artist no matter what the pictorial subject, or, for that matter, the adjacent text passage. Similar heavily shadowed eyes and downturned mouths recur throughout the manuscript. Camille went on to claim that the lifting of a cup by Geoffrey Luttrell on fol. 208 was a ‘direct illustration’ of the words ‘Calicem salutaris accipiam et nomen Domini invocabo’ (I will take the chalice of salvation; and I will call upon the name of the Lord) of Ps. 115:13, but the reader would have to turn to fol. 209 to find this text passage. In my view, ‘literal’ illustrations and the texts to which they are related must be visually available simultaneously, whether it is a question of the response of the artist to the words or the response of the reader to the pictures. 23 24

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Here too, I think, the artist was responding to a single prominent text phrase with a non-contextual example nicely attuned to the interests of the commissioner of the manuscript, Geoffrey Luttrell. The cooks roasting chickens represent the kind of imaginative leap from words to images that is characteristic of quite a few marginal illustrations in the Luttrell Psalter. They follow several patterns: first, the direct image of a word or phrase triggers a pictorial complex that does not correspond to the entirety of the text of which the word or phrase is a part. So, for example, Ps. 88:21: ‘I have found David my servant: with my holy oil I have anointed him.’ In the adjacent margin, Christ, attended by an angel, anoints the forehead of a man lying in a bed (Fig. 8). This is not the anointing of David. Instead, the unction appears to be the sacrament given to the dying.28 Thus, the artist has superimposed a new layer of visual meaning by focusing his attention on the words ‘with my holy oil I have anointed him.’ This marginal scene has a pious tone, in keeping with the tenor of the text even if not with the words themselves. But in other cases, wordequivalents are the kernels around which wholly non-contextual pictorial complexes are elaborated. Ps. 43:4, ‘For they have not got the possession of the land by their own sword; neither did their own arm save them,’ referring to Israel’s triumph over the Gentiles not by the sword but by the hand of God, takes up the last three lines of a page. In the marginal vignette immediately below, a grimacing blue-skinned man astride a horse spears a hybrid snail with a weapon held in his right arm (Fig. 9). The seeds for the development of the scene seem to have been the words ‘gladius’ (sword) and ‘brachium’ (arm). Indeed, ‘brachium’ is directly above the raised right arm of the warrior. As much as the action suits the word, the end result is noncontextual, that is, unrelated to the larger sense of the text. A similar case is the illustration in the lower margin of the page whose last line is Ps. 104:3–4, ‘let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.’ Here it seems probable that through a process of wordplay ‘cor’ has elicited the horns, one of them silver, blown by the pushmipullyu-like hybrid immediately below, since, although in Latin cor is heart, it only takes the addition of a single letter to create cornu, or horn (Fig. 10). By far the most complex scene of this type is the illustration that correCf. the representation of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction on the page illustrating Ps. 26 in the Belleville Breviary (Paris, BNF, ms. lat. 10483, fol. 17v). See V. Leroquais, Les bréviaires manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France (Paris, 1934), plate vol., Pl. 29. 28

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sponds to Ps. 87:9 (Fig. 11). The illustrations in the side margin of this page have already been mentioned (Fig. 3). At the bottom, the last line of text is ‘Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me’ (Douay-Rheims translation) or, in other words, ‘thou hast alienated those known to me from me.’ Attached to the word ‘notos’ (those known to me) is a hook from which a funnel hangs over the mouth of a man lying helplessly suspended. Beside him another man with a ewer is pouring liquid through the funnel into the first man’s mouth. Janet Backhouse described this scene as ‘an unidentified game of skill, one of many mysterious pastimes which cannot now be explained.’29 That may be, as there are certainly many marginal representations of sports and games in the Luttrell Psalter.30 Nevertheless, the marginal image has a thread of connection, both literal and figural, with the words of the text, above all with the accusative plural ‘notos.’ Noti means those known, but in the nominative singular form, nota, it also means an identifying mark, or a quality or brand of wine, and with just this meaning it is translated visually in the line-filler of Ps. 87:19, ‘Friend and neighbors thou hast put far from me and my acquaintance [notos meos], because of misery,’ where the fillerblock is composed of a series of wine jugs (Fig. 12). Indeed, the multiple meanings of noti and nota seem to have elicited a rich variety of responses from the Luttrell artist. In the form ‘notas’ (things that are known), the term occurs in Ps. 102:7, ‘He hath made his ways known to Moses’ (Notas fecit vias suas Moysi). Two images are related to this verse (Fig. 13). First is the series of six bright gold rings on the marginal oakleaf foliage. Nowhere else in the abundant marginal foliage of the manuscript are comparable ring-motifs found. Here it seems that the rings are equated with the word ‘notas’ in its common meaning of ‘mark’ or ‘sign.’ The second image inspired by ‘notas’ turns up in the line-filler at the end of the same verse, where a hybrid eyes, or takes note (from the verb notare) of, the words of the text. Now, to return to Ps. 87:9 and the mysterious ‘game’ between the two marginal figures. It may be that the image of pouring liquid from a ewer into a funnel was elicited by the link between ‘notos’ and wine. It could also be that the immediately preceding verse, ‘Thy wrath is strong over me: and all thy waves thou has brought in upon me,’ played a role in inspiring the marginal imagery. The verbal image of water pouring over the psalmist may 29 30

Backhouse, Luttrell Psalter, 61. Catalogued by Millar, Luttrell Psalter, 15, citing about ten examples.

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be reflected, not only in the liquid draining from the funnel, but in the pose of the figure itself, since it is similar to common images of David drowning in historiated initials for Psalm 68, which begins, ‘Save me O God: for the waters are come in even unto my soul.’31 And finally, it seems possible that the ‘os’ of ‘notos’ had some part in the placement of the hanging funnel over the os — that is, the mouth — of the suspended man. Visual syllabification of this sort was used elsewhere in the Luttrell Psalter for the imaginative production of marginal images, that is, the creation of images based not on phrases, or single words, but on single syllables, which themselves are complete words — a picture-building technique familiar from rebuses and the game of charades. Such cases are not so common in the manuscript, but they are well worth noting. A first example is found in Ps. 21:26, ‘I will pay my vows in the sight of them that fear him’ (in conspectu timentium). In the side margin of the page, an archer with a longbow strings an arrow, whose tip is poised directly over the syllable ‘spec’ at the end of the line (Fig. 14). Conspecto. is from the verb conspicere (to behold), but ‘spec’ is also part of the noun spiculum, the point of an arrow. So the picture suits the action, not to the word but to the syllable.32 A second example is linked with Ps. 83:3–4. Here the last line on the page reads ‘For the sparrow hath found herself a house.’ A direct visual translation of the word sparrow has already been cited (Fig. 2). But here is an astonishing scene of two naked men, one seated on a stool and the other standing, engaged foot to foot in an antic two-step (Fig. 15). Could this be another mysterious medieval game?33 Perhaps, but it certainly is easier to account for if the word immediately above the two feet is divided into its syllabic components. ‘Passer’ becomes pas-ser, and pas in French and pes in See, for example, the psalter of Elizabeth de Bohun (c. 1338/1355) formerly in the collection of Viscount Astor, Ginge Manor, fol. 101v; L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, I, 123–24, no. 111; II, illus. 286. 32 For an identical response to the phrase ‘in conspectu suo’ see the thirteenth-century Rutland Psalter (London, BL, Add. MS 62925, fol. 87v). In the Rutland Psalter the phrase is at the end of the last line of text on the page; directly below a grotesque human shoots an arrow into the upended rear of a grotesque merman, the arrow attached to the extended descender of the letter p of ‘conspectu’; see Randall, Images in the Margins, Fig. 502; Camille, Image on the Edge, 22 and Fig. 6. 33 Cf. the Rutland Psalter (London, BL, Add. MS 62925, fol. 43v) for similar footwrestling on the page with Ps. 38:1–7, not apparently elicited by the words of the text; see E. G. Millar, The Rutland Psalter (Oxford, 1937), facsimile. 31

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Latin mean step and foot. There seems no doubt that the artist was familiar with French, as he was with Latin, and that he was as capable of puns in one language as the other. Further, it appears that the nakedness of the figures was inspired by the text line immediately above, ‘My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God’ (cor meum et caro mea exsultaverunt in Deum vivum). This is a case of de-contextualized translation of the word ‘caro’ (flesh). Most of the examples of word-pictures mentioned so far were inspired by nouns, but marginal images were also generated by verbs of action, as, for example, the previously cited correlation between such imperatives as ‘jubilate,’ ‘cantate,’ ‘psallite,’ and ‘exultate’ and marginal images of musicmaking and dancing. Verbs of aggressive action, such as ‘to pursue,’ ‘to trouble,’ ‘to destroy,’ ‘to kill’ — so common in the psalms — were particularly prone to vivid visual translation. Just as with nouns, the actions depicted might suit the verb but not the phrase or the sense of the text. Although such a line as ‘they have slain the widow and the stranger; and they have murdered the fatherless’ was indeed translated in entirety (Fig. 5), sometimes the verb, extracted from its context, became the base for the imaginative construction of a narrative more specific than the action suggested by the words of the psalm. For example, Ps. 34:13, ‘when they were troublesome to me,’ is the last line of the page (Fig. 16) above a vignette showing a hybrid spearing a half-clothed bearded human. The hybrid — grotesque, anti-natural, and hence imbued with evil — is a vivid evocation of the unspecified ‘them that devise evil against me’ (Ps. 34:4), against whom the psalmist is crying out. The words of Ps. 88:43–45 (Fig. 17) elicit two successive images in the vertical margin: first, ‘Thou has set up the right hand of them that oppress him: thou has made all his enemies to rejoice. Thou hast turned away the help of his sword; and hast not assisted him in battle,’ exemplified by the vignette of armored soldiers battling a non-military civilian; and second, ‘Thou hast made his purification to cease: and thou hast cast his throne down to the ground.’ The word ‘destruxisti,’ in the Douai-Rheims translation ‘thou hast made to cease,’ literally means ‘thou hast destroyed,’ and this is the key to the action of the man kicking the pieces of wood, which perhaps should be equated with the throne cast down (‘collisisti’) to the ground. Although this figure looks like the victim in the vignette above, the imaginative patterns to which the two subscribe differ. In the first case, the action and the actors parallel what is recounted in the text; in the second,

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the actor and action in the text are attributed to the Lord, ‘angry with thy anointed [David],’ but in the image the actor is an ordinary human. Thus the verb describing the action was detached from its context when the image was painted — a typical case of decontextualization. Another, still more striking, example of verbal decontextualization is the translation of ‘persequeris’ (thou shalt pursue) of Ps. 82:16 — the last line on the page — into a hybrid monster, who, with cape flying, bounds across the bottom margin (Fig. 18). Many of the lower margins of the Luttrell Psalter are filled with large, single hybrids shown in profile, often opposed in direction to the left-to-right direction of the words of the text, but usually stationary.34 This is one of the times when details of pose are related to the text lines immediately above, and consequently the creature is more active than usual. Again, it should be emphasized that only the action, not the actor, is related to the text, in which the pursuer is the Lord, not the evil-doer. It may be that the illustration of a battle-ready hybrid (Fig. 19) below Ps. 80:9, ‘Hear, O my people, and I will testify to thee,’ developed from a reading of the verb ‘contestabor,’ not as ‘I will testify,’ its Latin Vulgate meaning, but as ‘I will contest,’ that is, ‘dispute.’ Of course in modern English, and French too, to contest refers to physical as well as verbal fights and no longer has anything to do with testimony. But the now-standard meaning only began to emerge in the thirteenth century with the technical phrase contestatio litis, joining of a legal issue, or litigation.35 Nevertheless, the illustration may actually provide some evidence of a change in usage before it was recorded in any surviving written text. In addition to verbs of violent action, other verbs of motion also have marginal equivalents, Especially striking are those that lend themselves to images in the vertical margins. Two examples are derived from the verb to lift up: Ps. 92:3, ‘The floods have lifted up, O Lord: the floods have lifted An exception is the implied movement of the wheeled dragon on fol. 184, according to Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’ 435, responding to the line overleaf (Ps. 103:26), ‘This sea dragon which thou hast formed to play therein.’ Camille cited P. Meredith and J. Marshall, ‘The Wheeled Dragon in the Luttrell Psalter,’ Medieval English Theatre, 2 (1980), 70–73, interpreting the wheeled dragon as a stage machine responding to the verb ad illudendum, in the Vulgate sense, to play therein, in medieval Latin referring to play-acting. See the comment above, note 26. 35 See Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (London, 1981), s.v. ‘contestari;’ also C. DuCange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis (Paris, 1883–1887), s.v. contestare. In Vulgate Latin the word for to contest was contendere. 34

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up their voice,’ the last two lines on the page, corresponding to the action of a human hybrid lifting up a smaller man on his shoulders;36 and Ps. 101:11, ‘Because of thy anger and indignation: for having lifted me up thou hast thrown me down,’ the top two lines on the page, corresponding to another human-hybrid hoisting himself up on the foliated branch in the upper margin.37 In both cases the verbal action is isolated from the context. The verb to descend also inspired marginal equivalents. The same phrase, ‘them that go down into the pit’ (descendentibus in lacum) in Ps. 27:1 and Ps. 29:4, again received two different marginal responses (Figs. 20 and 21). In the first instance, a man falls down from a horse. Pictorial metaphor might have played a part in this vignette, since according to the psalm it is the wicked that go down into the pit, and a significant example of wickedness, Pride — the root of all the vices — is frequently pictured as falling off a horse.38 In the second instance, however, there is no evident correlation with the sense of the text. Here the verb to descend was isolated from the context in the shaping of the visual response. The corresponding pictorial action is a hybrid woman holding a vessel upside down and pouring out a stream of liquid that descends down the vertical margin. At the same time, to descend seems to have been the stimulus for visualization on the same page of the verbal opposite — to ascend — not in the text at all. This ‘thinking in antonyms’ accounts for the action of the man climbing up the marginal foliate-tail of the female hybrid from below.39 Two further devices for the production of marginal word-images are marked by contrasting approaches: first, a word or phrase in the text has a visual counterpart in a detail of a marginal image; and conversely, the visual counterparts of multiple words or phrases from separate places in the text on the same page are pulled together as elements in a single marginal image. Ps. 92:3, fol. 168; Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 88. Ps. 101:11, fol. 178v; Millar, Luttrell Psalter, Pl. 117. 38 E.g., the Tree of Vices in the thirteenth-century French Vergier de soulas (Paris, BNF, ms. fr. 9220, fol. 6), citing Pride as the root of all the vices, with a pictorial example of a man falling from a horse into the mouth of Hell. 39 The visualization of the concept of descending by means of the flow of liquid and ascending by means of climbing, as inventive as it appears to be in the Luttrell Psalter, has in fact an interesting parallel in an earlier fourteenth-century English manuscript, the Ramsey Psalter (St. Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. Cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 108v), where similar images provide the visual ‘instructions’ for the correct placement, or rather replacement, of a text line originally omitted by the scribe; see L. F. Sandler, The Peterborough Psalter and Other Fenland Manuscripts (London, 1974), Fig. 345. 36 37

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For example, the first line on the page with the text of Ps. 105:41 includes the word ‘hands,’ from ‘And he delivered them into the hands of the nations,’ and this may account for one feature of the extraordinary marginal grotesque with hands replacing his feet, a feature made still more prominent by reversal of direction vis-à-vis the rest of the body (Fig. 22). Details of other marginal grotesques also may have been inspired by words in the text, for instance, a beardless, armless, dark-haired, foliate-tailed hybrid with remarkable curving horns on the page with Ps. 80:11. The horns could be the imaginative leap responding to the text line ‘For I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt’ (Fig. 23). Of course it was Moses who led the Hebrew people out of Egypt, and the visual symbol of Moses for the Middle Ages was his horns,40 this surely explaining the detail of the marginal image. The second approach, that is, the concentration of disparate words into a single marginal entity, produced some of the most vivid and memorable images in the Luttrell Psalter. One is a construct whose components have both a direct and a metaphorical relation to scattered words and phrases in the text of Ps. 90: 1 0-11 (Fig. 24): ‘There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling. For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.’ In the margin immediately adjacent to these lines, a man seated astride a snarling blue humanoid hybrid, surely an embodiment of ‘evil,’ beats, or ‘scourges,’ the creature with a club, from which, in apparent illogic, hangs a silver key. The key makes sense however if it is understood in connection with the verb ‘custodiant’ (they have charge, or they guard) in the text. The other image (Fig. 25) has been compared to the stone crosses erected by Edward I in memory of his wife Eleanor, who died in 1290.41 It is held aloft by a man balancing on one foot; at its base sits a small figure, hand raised to brow in a gesture of wonderment; on the cross are three crowned female figures, effigies of Eleanor, and near its summit just below the pennant, a crucified Christ. The adjacent text is from Ps. 88:7–9: ‘For who in the clouds can be compared to the Lord: or who among the sons of God shall be like to God? God, who is glorified in the assembly of the saints: great and terrible above all them that are about him. O Lord God of hosts, who is like to thee? thou art mighty, O Lord, and thy truth is round 40 41

See R. Mellinkoff, The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought (Berkeley, 1970). Millar, Luttrell Psalter, 40.

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about thee.’ Metaphorically the stone structure is raised up in the clouds, and God — or the Son of God, that is, the crucified Christ — is glorified above all them that are about him — the female figures. God is great and terrible, hence the seated man’s gesture of wonder. The representation of a freestanding polygonal structure may have been sparked by the twicerepeated term ‘in circuitu’ (round about), and the strongman holding the structure up is literally ‘potens’ (mighty). Facing this page is the continuation of the text of the same Psalm 88, lines 12-14 (Fig. 26): ‘Thine are the heavens and thine is the earth: the world and the fullness thereof thou has founded: the north and the sea thou hast created. Thabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name: thy arm is with might. Let thy hand be strengthened and thy right hand exalted: justice and judgment are the preparation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before thy face.’ Here the key words are ‘mare’ (the sea), ‘brachium cum potencia’ (powerful arm), ‘firmetur manus tua’ (strengthened hand), ‘sedis tue’ (thy throne or seat), and ‘precedent faciem tuam’ (go before thy face). Together these terms may be combined into a new sentence that corresponds to the marginal image of rowers seated in a boat pulled by two men. It would read something like this: ‘With their strong hands they go before the faces of men seated in a boat rowed through the sea by the power of their arms.’ The image of the four men in the boat rowing for all they are worth in an empty sea is impossible to forget. The picture is certainly memorable; could it also be that the purpose of such imagines verborum was actually mnemonic, that is, that they are mnemonic devices intended to implant the words of the psalms into the memory? The fourteenth-century Oxford theologian Thomas Bradwardine wrote a treatise on memory, De memoria artificiali, recently made widely known in a translation by Mary Carruthers.42 Bradwardine recommended that images of things, ideas, or words to be remembered should be wondrous and intense, not average, but extreme.43 Images should denote or exemplify things or should replace the syllables of words with counterparts in Latin, or, as Bradwardine said, in another language.44 Almost magically, all of Bradwardine’s techniques for the construction of mental images of words, things, and ideas seem to have been employed in 42 M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory, a Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990), 281–88. 43 Carruthers, Book of Memory, 282. 44 Carruthers, Book of Memory, 285.

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the actual images in the margins of the Luttrell Psalter. But I believe that it would be wrong to conclude that such images were seriously intended to aid in memorization of the adjacent text.45 Bradwardine, like other medieval writers on artificial memory, was concerned with remembering things not currently available in written form, primarily things heard. He allowed that mnemotechnique could be used for things seen and things read, but clearly the resulting images were to be mental, not actual.46 So, if there was a written text that you wanted to remember, you would construct mental images of its words, you would not look at already provided visual exempla, puns, and rebuses. Moreover, Bradwardine stressed that the images of things to be remembered were to be fashioned by the individual for himself. This would make it unlikely that marginal images created by an artist could be used effectively for mnemonic purposes by someone else. Although the generic similarities between images in the margins and those described by Bradwardine are striking, the purposes of actual and mental word pictures are not the same. I believe that the Luttrell imagines verborum represent the artist’s response to the text, not to render the psalms more readily memorable, but to provide a heightened and intensified experience of reading, through the discovery and appreciation of all the riches both apparent and concealed in the words. If the words gave rise to the images, the images disclosed the depths of meaning in the text. Implicit in this interdependent relation between marginal and nonmarginal is the importance of active reading rather than passive hearing. Originally the words of the psalms were written down to record speech, and for those without literacy, or without books, they were apprehended aurally,

In this I disagree with Suzanne Lewis, ‘Beyond the Frame: Marginal Figures and Historiated Initials in the Getty Apocalypse,’ J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, 20 (1992), 71–74, who cited a number of imagines verborum in the chapter initials of a thirteenthcentury English Apocalypse: ‘Such images are not iconographical, nor do they illustrate the content of a particular text, but instead serve to make each page memorable and remind the reader that the text contains matter to be committed to memory.’ The word-images of the Getty Apocalypse were placed on pages whose entire upper halves were filled with framed miniatures; these would certainly have been amply sufficient to make each page memorable. As far as committing the text-matter to memory, one wonders what the purpose of such an exercise would have been for the owner of such a splendid book. Would it not be more reasonable to expect the imagines verborum of the text initials to have encouraged the possessor of the book to read it over and over again. 46 Carruthers, Book of Memory, 287. 45

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through hearing and recitation.47 But the imagines verborum of the Luttrell Psalter employ a mode of visual apprehension. Both words and images are to be read, using the faculty of sight.48 Seeing the images made the effort to find their meanings in the words rewarding. It seems clear, moreover, that the experience of reading the words was itself enhanced by the unusually elaborate calligraphy of the volume, exceptional even among luxury illuminated manuscripts of the time.49 We can conclude that the book provided Geoffrey Luttrell a sustained, repeatable, and incremental experience of reading, an experience derived from seeing words as well as images. The Luttrell Psalter is a magnificent and complex book. The meanings of its marginal illustrations are certainly multiple and diverse, and by no means are all of the marginalia imagines verborum. But I believe it should be recognized that words in the text and images in the margin — even when apparently opposed — both belong to a visual system. Imagines verborum recur consistently in contemporary luxury illuminated manuscripts. As in the Luttrell Psalter, marginal word-images — and perhaps all marginal images — in contemporary books intended for individual use, whether sacred or secular, gave focus and rewarding depth of meaning to reading, a visual activity that increasingly characterized the mental culture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

See especially W. J. Ong, Orality and Literacy, The Technologizing of the Word (London, 1982); also F. Bäuml, ‘Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,’ Speculum, 55 (1980), 237–65; and further, Carruthers, Book of Memory, 17–18, 27–28, and 94–95. 48 Cf. M. Camille, ‘Seeing and Reading: Some Visual Implications of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,’ Art History, 8 (1985), 32, equating texts and images as ‘secondary representations, external to, but always referring back to, the spontaneous springs of speech.’ 49 The text is written in precissa script between upper as well as lower ruled lines; many penstrokes end with spiral flourishes; and there are very few abbreviations. 47

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The Study of Marginal Imagery: Past, Present, and Future* Dedicated to John Plummer

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OR the last decade or so thinking about images in the margins of medieval manuscripts has moved to center stage, with the recognition of the relevance of marginalia to political and cultural conceptions of ‘center’ and ‘periphery,’ ‘hegemonic’ and ‘otherness,’ ‘privileged’ and ‘marginalized.’1 Interest in codicology as a method for studying illuminated manuscripts has also undoubtedly led to a focus on areas or aspects of the page beyond or apart from text and conventionally placed illustrations.2 * This essay originated as a keynote paper read at a conference of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, ‘Undefined Fields in Medieval Books,’ organized by Linda L. Brownrigg and held in Oxford in July 1994. 1 Epitomized by Michael Camille’s widely reviewed Image on the Edge: Margins of Medieval Art (London: Reaktion Books, 1992). 2 Codicology, the examination of all the physical aspects of manuscript books — material, pricking, ruling, script, marginal instructions, initial letters, rubrics, illustrations, collation of gatherings, and binding (to put the main features in sequential order) — has traditionally been a focus of the study of the oldest text manuscripts. The treatment of illuminated manuscripts, however — especially those of the later Middle Ages when the writing and illumination of manuscripts was done by different individuals — has often focused on pictorial imagery in isolation from the context of the book. The most important modern exponent of this approach was Millard Meiss, whose magisterial work, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry, 5 vols. (London: Phaidon, 1967–8; and New York: Braziller, 1974), contains over one thousand illustrations, the vast majority of them full-page miniatures or details of framed images extracted from their manuscript settings. The investigation of pictorial images in their physical context that was undertaken by L. M. J. Delaissé may be

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Literary theory with its emphasis on the reader in the creation of the work of literature has provided a ready parallel for the interpretation of marginal imagery as a visual response to a verbal — or visual — text, altering the totality with images differing from manuscript to manuscript.3 The essay that follows is intended as a reflection on the present state of thinking about marginal imagery. The first part is exposition, defining marginal illustration as a physical component of the manuscript page, and characterizing the varieties of marginal imagery, in order to lay the groundwork for the second part, a consideration of the meaning or meanings that have been proposed for the forms and formats of marginalia. ‘Marginal imagery’ and ‘marginalia’ are terms that bring to mind not all images in the margins of illuminated manuscripts4 but primarily those of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century books, especially those produced in

considered as a reaction to Meiss’s approach; see Delaissé, ‘Towards a History of the Medieval Book,’ Divinitas 2 (1967): 423–35; and ‘The Importance of Books of Hours for the History of the Medieval Book,’ in Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E. Miner (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1974), 203–25. The work of Delaissé has inspired numerous recent studies of manuscript production in all its phases, as well as investigations concentrating on ‘lesser’ aspects of manuscript illumination, such as minor decoration in initials and borders, and in turn a revived interest in the procedures of all those involved in the production of the finished manuscript. See, for example, Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, Proceedings of the Second Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988, ed. Linda L. Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills, Calif.: Anderson-Lovelace, 1990); and Making the Medieval Book: Techniques of Production, Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of The Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1992, ed. Linda L. Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills, Calif.: Anderson-Lovelace, 1995). 3 Sketched out by Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York: Routledge, 1982), 170–71; see also Franz H. Bauml, ‘Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,’ Speculum 55 (1980): 249–55; and ReaderResponse Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 4 For example, in the Byzantine world the marginal illustration of psalters was common in the ninth and tenth century. Historical texts, such as the chronicles of Matthew Paris in the thirteenth century, were also illustrated in the margins. Under circumstances that are usually unknown, illustrations were sometimes introduced into the margins of texts for which there was otherwise no pictorial tradition; see, for example, the early thirteenthcentury copy of De Similitudinibus of Anselm of Canterbury (BL, Cotton Cleop. C.XI), for whose illustrations see Nigel J. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1190—1250, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 4, I, ed. Jonathan 1. G. Alexander (London: Harvey Miller, 1982), 106–7, no. 60. I intend to consider the nature of these illustrations and their relation to the Anselm text in a further study.

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1. Huntingfield Psalter (England, c. 1210–20); PML, M.43, fol. 33v. (Photo: The Pierpont Morgan Library.)

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2. Ormesby Psalter (England, text decoration c. 1280); Bod. Lib., Douce 366, fol. 16r. (Photo: The Bodleian Library.)

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3. Breviary of Saint-Maur of Verdun (France, 1288–1304); BNF, lat. 1029 A, fol. 10r. (Photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France.)

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northern Europe.5 ‘Marginalia’ refers to the sorts of images that fairly consistently show an inversion of the ‘normal’ dependent relationship between text and image. Marginal images represent a whole array of themes and motifs not characteristic of ‘normal’ types of illustrations such as historiated initials or miniatures; and furthermore, they demonstrate forms of compositional organization that differ from those found in what we may call ‘mainline’ images. In sum, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the marginal space between the block of script and the page limits could and did have a special resonance for the manuscript illuminator. The various components of manuscript pages with marginal illustrations and the physical relationships among these elements are my point of departure. Historically, marginal images first appeared in association with the extended finials of initial letters (Fig. 1). In fact, painted marginal illustrations almost never occur in manuscripts devoid of imagery in other parts of the book’s pages, whether it is a matter of historiated or decorated initial letters, borders, or framed miniatures.6 The general course of development in the thirteenth century saw the initial finials increasingly uncoil into the margins and then the extensions — often animate in character — attract figural material (Fig. 2). Marginal extensions often were carried around the entire page, creating borders (Fig. 3),7 a design practice echoed in the linking of multiple, smaller initials with vertical bars, which themselves acquired finials, extensions, and hosted figural elements (Fig. 4). Line fillers were also extended into the margin and treated in the same way as initial finials (Fig. 5). Although in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Studies of marginal imagery have concentrated on northern manuscripts, above all those made in England and French Flanders. The phenomenon was important in Italy as well, for example in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Bibles and law books from Bologna, but neither the marginalia themselves nor their relation to those of the North have been studied extensively. 6 One as-yet-little-studied form of marginal imagery is the product of the scribe rather than the illuminator. As the work of scribes such imagery consists largely of pen-drawn text articulations, responses, explications, and commentaries, which range in form from manicules to figural vignettes. For one recent study see Michael Camille, ‘At the Edge of the Law: An Illustrated Register of Writs in the Pierpont Morgan Library,’ in England in the Fourteenth Century, Proceedings of the 1991 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Nicholas Rogers (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1993), 1–14. Sometimes, however, scribal marginalia show little dependence on or response to the text. See Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘Verbal and Pictorial Play in the Margins: The Case of Stowe 49,’ Illuminating the Book: Makers and Interpreters, forthcoming. 7 First observed by Georg Swarzenski in André Michel, Histoire de l’art depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu’à nos jours, II, 1 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1906), 349. 5

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margins of the page were recognized as a special space, it is nonetheless clear that marginal imagery that is physically tied to material located within the text, either in actual placement — as with line fillers — or in meaning — as with initial letters — cannot be considered as completely alien to the other areas of the page. In this sense, marginality is always relative. Although most marginal images occur in conjunction with marginal extensions from initial finials and are found on text pages of manuscripts, they also occur on pages with framed miniatures, either alone or with various amounts of text. Without an actual physical tie to the miniature frames the marginal images may nevertheless take the pictures into account thematically (Fig. 6), serving as pictorial footnotes, commentaries, exempla, antitheses8 — in other words fulfilling all the roles generally played by images in the margins of text pages. On the other hand, marginal images may appear to be totally unrelated in meaning to the main pictorial material on the page. It is worth looking more closely at the physical relation between marginal figural material and the marginal framework or border. Sometimes, indeed, figural motifs are isolated, materializing without a matrix (Fig. 7); sometimes they are separated from the marginal framework by a gap, even a pregnant gap; and sometimes figures themselves may compose the border (Fig. 8). More often than not, however, the marginal extension creates a frame, ground, or background for the figural imagery (Fig. 9), and, on occasion, a ceiling or an articulation that allows the placement of figural motifs within, above, and below. Finally, the marginal framework may be designed to emphasize the closure of the area below the text, the bas-de-page, a practice linked with the introduction of complex, coherent figural compositions (Fig. 10). The provision of a ground line for marginal imagery transforms the empty area beyond the text from a two-dimensional surface continuous with that on which the letters are written into a three-dimensional space (Fig. 11). Of course, a defined ground line is not entirely necessary for this See, for example Lilian M. C. Randall, ‘Games and the Passion in Pucelle’s Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux,’ Speculum 47 (1972): 246–57; Madeline H. Caviness, ‘Patron or Matron? A Capetian Bride and a Vade Mecum for Her Marriage Bed,’ Speculum 68 (1993): 333–62; and most recently, Gerald B. Guest, ‘A Discourse on the Poor: The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux,’ Viator 26 (1995): 154–80. All of these studies touch on the relationships between marginalia and miniatures of the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection). 8

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transformation, which may be effected by the treatment of the figural material itself (Fig. 12). And although the side margins of a page may be transformed spatially into a series of superimposed units, each with a real or implied base line, they are more often used for figural elements that take advantage of directionality, either upward or downward (Fig. 13). It is typical of marginal composition that multiple figural images are scattered or strewn in apparently miscellaneous ‘lineup’ (Fig. 14), and this mode of composition is most striking because it is not expected in ‘normal’ images containing multiple figures. But other modes of marginal composition are also important: heraldic, for instance, in which elements are arranged mirror-like around a central axis (Fig. 15); or ‘narrative,’ that is, ‘reading’ order, paralleling the left to right manner of reading the text (Fig. 16). Marginal images are often limited to the first page of the text or to the beginnings of its chief subdivisions. Also characteristic of marginal imagery, however, are sequences of marginalia continued throughout a volume. These, of course, may actually comprise a pictorial narrative, secular or religious,9 or a series of examples of a single theme such as the bestiary.10 Occasionally, they become a self-referential series, in which one image is developed in form from another, without ‘telling a story’ (Figs. 17-18).11 Serial narrative marginalia, even series of serial narrative marginalia, are particularly characteristic of English fourteenth-century manuscripts. See the Taymouth Hours (BL, Yates Thompson 13) and the Smithfield Decretals (BL, Royal 10.E.iv), both with biblical history, miracles of the Virgin, lives of saints, fabliaux, and chivalrous tales; and the Luttrell Psalter (BL, Add. 42130), with scenes from the life of Christ as well as agricultural and meal preparation sequences. In the Taymouth Hours, however, the marginal sequence of the Hours of the Virgin — the infancy, public life and passion of Christ — is continuous with the subjects of the historiated initials and miniatures at the main divisions of the text; for summaries of subjects see Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 5, ed. Jonathan J. G. Alexander (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), vol. 2, nos. 98, 101 and 107, 10 See in particular the Psalter of Queen Isabella (Bayer. Staatsbibl., gall. 16; England, 1303–c. 1308), with bestiary subjects in the bas de pages of the French translation of the Psalms (the bas de pages of the Latin Psalm text, together with the smaller Psalm initials, contain a continuous Old Testament cycle); for bibliography see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, vol. 2, no. 27. See further the Queen Mary Psalter (BL, Royal 2.B. vii; England, c. 1310–20), with multiple non-chronological series: bestiary, single combats of knights, hybrids, and animals; for a facsimile see George Warner, Queen Mary’s Psalter (London: British Museum, 1912). 11 For example, the mid-thirteenth-century English Rutland Psalter (BL, Add. 62925); see Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘A Series of Marginal Illustrations in the Rutland Psalter,’ Marsyas 8 (1959): 70–84. 9

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This last is a kind of invention characteristic of marginal composition and seldom emulated elsewhere in manuscript illumination. The visual material assembled in the margins of a page is primarily animate — that is, vegetal, or animal, a term that includes human beings, quadrupeds, insects, birds, fish, serpents, and various kinds of hybrids, which are also usually formed or composed of living components. The word ‘assembled’ is used advisedly because marginal material is often disparate in essential character and may be presented without the spatial, proportional, hierarchical, or scale order and relationships found either in the natural world or in non-marginal pictures (Fig. 19). The marginal framework itself is animate and metamorphosing, from one form of life to another; the marginal motifs may be heterogeneous, not to scale, and not in ‘natural’ relationship to each other; and hybrid and ‘normal’ images are found side by side. Yet, although marginal illustrations do not usually echo the order of nature or the order represented in framed images, their naturalism, or illusionism, is often raised to a level not equally characteristic of miniatures — a naturalism of detail or of the vignette. They are marked by accuracy in form, in color, or in surface texture — or all three. The ornithologist Brunsdon Yapp, for example, both named and graded the birds on the Beatus page of the Peterborough Psalter in Brussels: ‘a cock, a poorish horned owl, a poor goldfinch, a probable robin, a swan or duck, a fair goshawk, a poor jay, an unrecognizable, . . . almost certainly a jackdaw, two ravens, a good crane, two unrecognizables that are possibly crows or ravens, a good crane, a bird that might be based on a hoopoe . . .’ (Fig. 20).12 The figure of David playing the harp in the initial on this same page is in comparison merely conventionally graceful in the ‘Gothic’ manner. The margins are also the locus of another highly specific kind of ‘real’ world imagery, which refers to particular individuals, families, or dynasties connected with the patronage of the book by means of heraldic devices (Fig. 21). Marginal heraldry is the ‘portraiture’ and sometimes the group portraiture of the late thirteenth and the fourteenth century. It identifies individuals, with or without associated representations in human form, and it associates individuals with each other, mapping out a social or geo-

12 BR, MS 9961–62; England, c. 1300. See Brunsdon Yapp, ‘The Birds of English Medieval Manuscripts,’ Journal of Medieval History 5 (1979): 336.

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graphical nexus, as for instance when marginal shields refer to marriages, to family dynasties, or to feudal allegiances.13 If on the one hand marginal images refer to the real world, equally characteristic of marginalia is the tremendous abundance, variety, and inventiveness of images that are physically abnormal and ‘real’ primarily in the imagination. Some indication of their range is given by the various terms used to identify them — monsters, grotesques, hybrids, drolleries, babewyns — even the perfunctory ‘nondescript’14 for creatures so ubiquitous that Lilian Randall did not ‘count’ them in her groundbreaking survey of images in the margins.15 Because they are so characteristic of marginal imagery, we may recall the various permutations of the monstrous. Apart from grotesques of ancient lineage with conventional names — chimeras, mermaids, griffins, grylli, marvels of the east — the most common types are hybrids of sequential construction, each segment formed of a different material substance, usually in hierarchical order, human, animal, foliate. Other modes of hybrid construction are bifurcated, palindromic (that is, with two similar ends), or inverted or reversed. Hybrids may also have misplaced body parts.16 Marginal imagery can be described either in terms of actors — as the grotesques enumerated above — or in terms of action. Marginal actions may be episodes with analogues in standard categories of non-marginal See, for example. the Alphonso Psalter (BL, Add. 24686), begun in 1283–84 in connection with the intended marriage of Alphonso, son of Edward I and Margaret, daughter of the Count of Holland, with their arms paired in the margin of the Beatus page. The Gorleston Psalter (BL, Add. 49622; England, c. 1310–20) margins include a profusion of heraldic shields associated with major ecclesiastic institutions and with the great nobility of England (the arms of the king of England are represented in the frame of the Beatus initial), although the manuscript was apparently intended for local use in the parish church of Gorleston, Suffolk. Marginal shields in manuscripts made for members of the Bohun family, Earls of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton, in the last third of the fourteenth century trace the dynastic connections of the family with the royal line; see M. R. James and Eric G. Millar, The Bohun Manuscripts (London: Oxford University Press, 1936). For the above manuscripts see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, vol. 2, nos. 1, 50, and 133–41. 14 Eric G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the XIVth to the XVth Centuries (Paris: G. van Oest, 1928), 7. 15 Lilian M. C. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 15. 16 Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘Reflections on the Construction of Hybrids in English Gothic Marginal Illustration,’ in Art, the Ape of Nature. Studies in Honor of H. W. Janson, ed. Moshe Barasch and Lucy Freeman Sandler (New York: Abrams, 1981), 51–66. 13

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imagery illustrating verbal texts. These would include religious subjects, as in Bibles and service books;17 vignettes of occupational activity parallel to pictures in calendars;18 knightly battles and chivalric trysts, as in romances;19 and animals as in bestiaries.20 But a large category of marginal actions comprises genre scenes from daily life that are, by and large, without analogue in other forms of manuscript imagery. Where else indeed in the world of images are backgammon games, bakers baking, ball games, banqueting, barbering, beating, begging, bellringing, blacksmithing, blindfolding, boating, bowling, or butchering visible — to cite the entries under the letter ‘B’ in Lilian Randall’s survey of marginal themes.21 Such actions are often played out in a world whose main feature is that it is topsy-turvy, a monde renversé, in various ways and to various degrees. Some of the mechanisms involved include, first, role reversal — the rabbits hunting the hunter, the mice stringing up the cat; second, vast amounts of parody — the fox preaching to the chickens or engaging in other renardian activities, or apes aping every imaginable kind of human conduct; third, figures manifestly human, or humanoid, or at least hybrid human engaging in socially inappropriate acts; and, finally, figures in physically improbable or impossible actions or situations, whether the actors are human, animal, or hybrid.22 The kind of marginal imagery that is the subject of this essay is found in books: what kind of books? By the end of the thirteenth and throughout the fourteenth century the main textual settings of marginalia were the psalter and the book of hours. These books often had pictorial programs of considerable complexity, involving miniatures, historiated initials, and line fillers as well as an elaborate hierarchy of scribal and painted decoration — in addition, of course, to marginal extensions, borders, and figural imagery. It seems worthy of notice that the main illustrations — miniatures or historiated initials — did not directly illustrate the content of the texts, that is, the Psalms and devotions to the Deity and the Virgin. In the psalter, for example, the Old Testament text is likely to be preceded by a series of Notably in the Luttrell Psalter, c. 1325–35 (fols. 86r–103r), a long series of subjects from the life of Christ comparable to those found in the prefatory cycles of psalters. 18 See Randall, Images in the Margins, s.v. ‘Calendar derivations (possibly),’ 74. 19 See Randall, Images in the Margins, s.v. ‘Knight and woman,’ 139, ‘Knights,’ 140, etc. 20 Both the Psalter of Queen Isabella (fols. 9–64, rectos only) and Queen Mary’s Psalter (fols. 85v–131r) contain extensive marginal bestiary cycles. 21 Randall, Images in the Margins, 67–74 passim. 22 Collected by Randall, Images in the Margins, primarily under name of the actor, viz., rabbit, hybrid-man, etc. 17

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miniatures representing the life of Christ. The historiated initials and the main divisions of the text may show events from the life of David, the author of the text, or actions based on single words and phrases rather than the underlying sense of the text, or subjects glossing the text, interpreting it in christological terms.23 In the Hours of the Virgin, typically, the Psalms and prayers at each canonical hour are illustrated with miniatures or historiated initials in a narrative sequence, either a series of events from the passion of Christ or the life of the Virgin, or both.24 The dichotomy between text and these images in psalters and books of hours is comparable to that between text and marginalia. Indeed, it could be significant that texts that did not lend themselves easily to direct illustration were so often enhanced with marginalia. Any search for the reasons that the pictorial programs of psalters and books of hours are augmented by marginal illustrations should take into account the way these texts were used, and by whom. For both clergy and laity illustrated psalters and books of hours served as devotional literature and aids to meditation, and for the laity in particular such books were used to learn to read, enabling laypersons to recite and perhaps memorize the Psalms and other prayers.25 Richly illustrated psalters and books of hours also served as talismen, as overt demonstrations of piety, and as documents 23 See Gunther Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert: Studien zur Geschichte der Buchmalerei in England, Frankreich und den Niederlanden (Kiel: n.p., 1938), taking into account text illustrations but not prefatory cycles; and Victor Leroquais, Les psautiers manuscrits latins des bibliothèques publiques de France, 3 vols. (Macon: Protat Frères, 1940), listing the pictorial subjects of all the psalters surveyed. There is no recent critical study of illustrated psalters, in contrast to the proliferation of works on books of hours (see n. 24). 24 On books of hours see Victor Leroquais, Les livres d’heures manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 2 vols. and atlas (Paris [Macon: Protat Frères], 1927), supplement (Macon: Protat Frères, 1943); John Harthan, Books of Hours and their Owners (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977); Janet Backhouse, Books of Hours (London: British Library, 1985); and Roger S. Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life (New York: George Braziller, 1988). 25 See, for example, the well-known case of the English psalter of the end of the twelfth century (Leiden, Univ. Lib. MS 76A), subsequently belonging to Blanche of Castile and St Louis, which bears a fourteenth-century inscription, ‘Cist psaultiers fuit monseigneur saint Looys qu fu roys de France, ouquel il aprist en s’enfance.’ For orality, literacy, memory, and education, the chief recent general discussions are in Ong, Orality and Literacy; Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, England 1066–1307, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), with extensive bibliography on these subjects, 335–45. See, in addition, Pamela Sheingorn, ‘ “The Wise Mother”: The Image of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary,’ Gesta 32 (1993): 69–80.

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of economic, social, or intellectual status.26 However related or unrelated to the devotional text, marginalia must be reckoned as playing an important part in the process of shaping the reader’s experience and underscoring his or her ideology. Both the typical actors, and to a certain extent the actions, of marginalia are found in other areas of the manuscript pages, in particular in initial letters and in line fillers, components of the mise-en-page at the interface of the text and the margins (Figs. 2, 5). Initial frames themselves are frequently animate, hybrid; in other words, they are composed of the same substances as their marginal extensions and the marginal figures related to them. Within painted initials, apart from those that are clearly ‘historiated,’ the fields are filled as a matter of course with foliage, geometric and abstract patterns, human heads, heraldic shields, and also with animals, hybrid monsters, and even compact versions of monde renversé motifs such as the ape playing the harp.27 Furthermore, images at what Michael Camille has called ‘the edge,’28 that is, the border site, are not exclusive to illuminated manuscripts. Examples from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century architectural sculpture are familiar, for instance, in corbels and projecting waterspouts of church exteriors, providing ready parallels to the jutting line endings of contempoInformation about the attitudes of medieval owners toward their devotional books can be derived from a number of sources: first, the occasional comments and the estimates of value in inventories and wills; second, from injunctions recommending the use of prayerbooks for literary and moral education and for spiritual nourishment; third, from literary parodies of the vanity of book-owners, and even from licentious marginal images of reading ‘in private’ (for the latter, see the visual trope of the fox coupling from the rear with a reading rabbit, reproduced in Randall, Images in the Margins, Figs. 193–95); and, finally, from inscriptions, coats of arms, and pictorial images of owners in manuscripts and of donors with books in panel paintings. See Susan Groag Bell, ‘Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay Piety and Ambassadors of Culture,’ Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7 (1982): 742–67; Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘The Image of the Book-owner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-definition,’ in England in the Fourteenth Century, 58–80; and Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘The Wilton Diptych and Manuscript Images of Devotion,’ in The Wilton Diptych and Court Art in the Reign of Richard II, ed. Dillian Gordon, Caroline Elam, and Claude Blair (London: Harvey Miller, forthcoming). 27 For example, Oxford, All Souls Coll. MS 6, England, c. 1250–55 (fol. 18r), a harpplaying ape; for others, see Nigel J. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1250–1285, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 4, 2, ed. Jonathan J. G. Alexander (London: Harvey Miller, 1988), no. 101. 28 Camille, Image on the Edge. 26

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rary manuscripts; similarly, human, hybrid, and animal creatures play or nestle in the luxuriant foliage of Gothic capitals and arched openings.29 A developing marginal area in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century and later medieval architecture, or rather architectural furnishing, was the carved misericord.30 Misericords, which support the bottoms of human beings, are highly susceptible to imagery that can be called ‘low’; the physical setting is literally charged with the weight or freight of the human body, unlike the margins of the page.31 Nevertheless, the range of imagery is parallel, although religious themes are less common than in manuscripts.32 Beyond the world of the visual, marginal themes have corollaries in the world of the verbal, to the extent that we know it by its written record. This means not only works of ‘literature’ written to be read from, or recited, and having a conventional formal structure, such as sermons, romances, and fabliaux, but also a whole range of oral discourse, whether sayings, charms, curses, proverbs, riddles, mottoes, puns, or more elaborate rhymes, tales, and plays, not written down originally but passed on literally by word of mouth. It is clear that some marginal images could have served as illustrations for written texts. The multitude of chivalric themes could be used as illustrations for romances, just as religious themes in the margins could serve as illustrations for Bibles, psalters, and so on. Should it be concluded, then, that these texts themselves were the sources of the marginal illustrations? No, it should first be considered whether the text source was generally illustrated. If so, it is only reasonable that for the artist a known pictorial image would be a more likely inspiration than the text it accompanied. More perplexing, though, is the question of the sources of marginal illustrations that are related to texts not usually illustrated: fabliaux, for example, or indeed, collections of exempla and narrationes for use in sermons. Are such illustrations to be understood as derived from a reading of the relevant text in its written form, by the artist or by some hypothetical For examples see Samuel Gardner, English Gothic Foliage Sculpture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1927); see also Camille, Image on the Edge, 77–97. 30 See Christa Grossinger, ‘Misericords,’ in Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England. 1200–1400, ed. Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), 122–24; and Christa Grossinger, ‘English Misericords of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries and their Relationship to Manuscript Illuminations,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 38 (1975): 97–108. 31 See Camille, Image on the Edge, 93–97. 32 See G. L. Remnant, A Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). 29

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‘scholarly adviser,’ or rather should such marginal imagery be supposed to share the same fund of oral material drawn upon by written texts? Michael Camille has offered a provocative answer: ‘Text and image are secondary representations, external to but always referring back to, the spontaneous springs of speech.’33 But this is to consider marginalia independent of their actual context. St. Bernard’s anguished question — ‘what profit is there in those ridiculous monsters, . . . to what purpose are those unclean apes . . . those fighting knights?’34 — has elicited multiple answers in this century, and it is to these that I would like to turn now. Bernard has his descendants, who view marginal imagery, either in toto or in its more grotesque manifestations, with horror and disgust. Eric Millar in 1932 wrote the following concerning the Luttrell Psalter (Fig. 22): ‘It is not easy to do justice to the powers of imagination displayed, even if of a decidedly morbid tendency. The mind of a man who could deliberately set himself to ornament a book with such . . . hideous creatures . . . can hardly have been normal.’ Millar concluded that the ‘remarkable array of grotesque monsters that forms so conspicuous a part of the decoration is . . . a serious disfigurement from an artistic point of view’35 and endorsed Sidney Cockerell’s evaluation of 1907 that the Luttrell Psalter represented the ‘East Anglian’ style in its decadence.36 Again in reference to the Luttrell Psalter, Margaret Rickert called the grotesques ‘hideous and vulgar,’ and she made the general observation about marginal imagery that ‘a tremendously rich and interesting variety of subject matter . . . is still further enlivened by the artists’ keen observation and extraordinary ability to represent things as they saw or imagined them. Unfortunately this wealth of material is not always kept under control by a feeling for good design . . .’37 In 1967 Derek Turner echoed this response to the marginalia of the Luttrell Psalter with the comment: ‘The scale of these scenes and even more so of the grotesques is disproportionately large, and Michael Camille, ‘Seeing and Reading: Some Visual Implications of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,’ Art History 8 (1985): 32. 34 I quote here from Meyer Schapiro’s translation in ‘On the Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque Art,’ in Art and Thought: Issued in Honour of Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday (London: Luzac, 1947); rpt. in Meyer Schapiro, Romanesque Art: Selected Papers, vol. I (New York: George Braziller, 1993), 6. 35 Eric G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter (London: British Museum, 1932), 16. 36 Sidney C. Cockerell, The Gorleston Psalter (London: Chiswick Press, 1907), 2. 37 Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages (London: Penguin, 1954), 148, 138–39. 33

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the whole decoration of the MS. is characterized by a crudity and frequently ugliness of effect and design.’38 Two significant differences from St. Bernard characterize these views of marginalia. First, unlike Bernard, these twentieth-century critics do not find monsters alluring; Bernard wrote of a ‘marvellous and deformed beauty, that beautiful deformity,’ saying that ‘so many and so marvellous are the varieties of shapes on every hand, that we are more tempted to read in the marble [that is, the carved capitals of the cloister] than in our books.’39 Cockerell’s, Millar’s, Rickert’s, and Turner’s artistic tastes — which could be called distinctly retardataire — clearly influenced their evaluation. The second difference from St. Bernard is that whereas he asked what such imagery was doing in a monastic setting, this group of twentieth-century critics — perhaps characteristic of a kind of art history focusing on taste and connoisseurship — was completely non-contextual in approach, never raising questions of individual or societal meaning of marginalia in the England of the fourteenth century. Most other interpreters of marginal imagery have been less ready to reject the monstrous and the grotesque out-of-hand and have attempted to come to terms with it in a variety of ways. Emile Mâle, for example, had a much more tolerant view than did Cockerell, his contemporary. Somewhat paternalistically, however, Mâle saw the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as a cultural springtime, a period of gaiety and childlike serenity, of youthful joy in the discovery and replication of nature, and emphasized that ‘all the imaginary animals conceived by the thirteenth century are not so terrible; the greater number bear the mark of a gay invention or goodhumored raillery.’40 He claimed never to have found — in the French manuscripts he had examined — anything distasteful or obscene in the margins.41 To Mâle, marginal monsters and grotesques were essentially meaningless decoration, merely solutions to design problems. Although such creatures might have originated in the depths of popular consciousness, by the thirteenth century they had become only ‘echoes of a vanished world.’ Meaning, Mâle thought, had to be conscious and purposeful; Derek Turner, in the introduction to Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library (London: British Museum, 1967), 32. 39 Translated by Schapiro, ‘Aesthetic Attitude,’ 6. 40 Emile Mâle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 58. 41 Ibid., 62. 38

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unconscious meaning, popular meaning, was not worth investigating,42 a view that would now be recognized as innocently pre-Freudian. His insistence that marginal imagery was meaningless responded to what he saw as a prevailing over-emphasis on symbolism in the interpretation of medieval art. Citing the excesses of nineteenth-century writers, he commented that the idea that ‘the tiniest flower or smallest grinning monster has a meaning which the medieval theologians can reveal to us’ only proves that ‘the old craftsmen were never so subtle as their modern interpreters.’ After all, Mâle remarked, St. Bernard’s attack on grinning monsters in no way implied a recognition that they had any symbolic value, and, as far as Mâle was concerned, that settled the question.43 But others since have not been convinced, as is evident from several recent studies. First, echoing St. Bernard’s characterization of the temptations of the marvelous in the marginal, Howard Helsinger in 1971 commented: ‘Seduced by the worldliness of marginal drolleries and grotesques, we have often forgotten that it is just the familiar, the common, and the worldly which are likely to be seized on for allegorical expression of spiritual truths.’44 Helsinger allowed that many marginal images are trivial or meaningless, but he seems to have been influenced by Erwin Panofsky’s conception of disguised symbolism.45 Given the right context — to Panofsky, the Arnolfini Wedding, for instance, and to Helsinger, the Beatus pages of psalters — ‘profane acts can be sanctified,’46 and such apparently secular subjects as the deer hunt and the joust could be glossed as struggles between good and evil, a view Helsinger argued was supported by medieval exegesis of the Psalms. Helsinger modestly limited his allegorical interpretation to genre or biblical scenes of hunting and fighting, and he did not touch on the comic or parodic battles that take place on some of the same Beatus pages — the dog chasing the rabbit, an ape chasing a boar or a squirrel, two hounds snarling at each other (Figs. 3, 23). For these there were no theologically sanctioned interpretations, so the question of their spiritual or moral meaning was left open. Ibid., 58–60. Ibid., 47–49. 44 Howard Helsinger, ‘Images on the Beatus Page of some Medieval Psalters,’ Art Bulletin 53 (1971): 161. 45 See Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 1:131–48. 46 Helsinger, ‘Images on the Beatus Page,’ 176. 42 43

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However, the symbolic significance of a wider range of marginal themes was addressed by Karl Wentersdorf in his 1984 essay for Word, Picture and Spectacle.47 To Wentersdorf the whole monde renversé of marginalia was to be understood as a ‘total reversal of everything ordained for mankind by the Almighty.’ The margins were the symbolic domain of the Devil and their habitues ‘pictorial reminders of the diabolic dangers eternally hovering over the heads even of those engaged in prayer and contemplation.’48 This is a view I had earlier put forward in an article on the construction of hybrids, although not as the sole explanation of the power of marginal imagery.49 Wentersdorf ’s article is titled ‘The Symbolic Significance of Figurae Scatalogicae in Gothic Manuscripts,’ and it focuses on a particular aspect of marginal imagery — bluntly, ass-kissing, ass-kicking, breaking wind, and defecating. Wentersdorf concluded that it is likely that these lewd acts ‘concretize commonplace Christian views about sin and the Devil’50 that have deep roots in religious tradition and were expressed in sermons, dramas, and tales. Figurae scatalogicae stand for the defiance of divine law — or, as Wentersdorf observed — for the opposite, the rejection of Satan, in which bodily excretion represents the rejection of sin.51 In either case, for Wentersdorf it was not a matter of the vulgarly amusing or Mâle’s gay raillery. The latest scholar not to be amused by marginal imagery is Madeline Caviness. In an article on the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux she wrote that the tiny marginalia of the hours ‘pulsate with male sexual energy,’ ‘encoding aggressive phallic forms in visual puns and metaphors,’ insistently imaging sexuality as ‘repulsive and bestial and penetration . . . as aggressive and wounding.’52 Just as for Wentersdorf, for Caviness marginal imagery is symbolic — it embodies evil — but hers is not symbolism manifested in genre or parodic subjects but in fantastic creatures, or chimeras, as she termed them.53 She called attention to the profusion of shaggy, horned, long-tailed 47 Karl P. Wentersdorf, ‘The Symbolic Significance of Figurae Scatalogicae in Gothic Manuscripts,’ in Word, Picture. and Spectacle, ed. Clifford Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1984), 1–19. 48 Ibid., 4. 49 Sandler. ‘Reflections on the Construction of Hybrids,’ in Art, the Ape of Nature, ed. Barasch and Sandler, 62. 50 Wentersdorf, ‘Figurae Scatalogicae,’ 5. 51 Ibid., 8. 52 Caviness, ‘Patron or Matron?’ 353, 355. 53 Ibid., 334.

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creatures, armed with clubs, crooks, rods, and inflated bladders, and blowing bagpipes and other wind instruments in the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (Fig. 24). By a process Caviness characterized as ‘modern woman freeassociation,’ she concluded that all these creatures transform the marginal space into a forbidden phallic zone. The images in the margins have a ‘powerful distraction,’ she wrote, yet are ‘sufficiently repellent as to direct the eye back into the words’ and thus ‘they control the reader.’54 And reader control, according to Caviness, was the purpose of the males who commissioned the manuscript, advised on its program of illustration, and produced the book — all for the obedience-training of its female recipient, Jeanne d’Evreux. Caviness’s interpretation of marginal imagery is selfconsciously autobiographical. For myself, I reject its implication that other modern women must, as a matter of course, see things the same way or else fail to recognize the degree to which we are dominated by male power. Interestingly, Caviness’s response to the marginal grotesques of the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux was as horrified as that of the males, Cockerell, Millar, and Turner to those of the Luttrell Psalter, a book made for a man. What they called crudity, she called aggressive male sexuality. But the question remains: what was the response of the medieval reader? This cannot be answered by Caviness’s examination of her own response, no matter how sincere and searching that is. Was Jeanne d’Evreux repulsed and threatened by the aggressive and nightmarish forms of marginal imagery just because she was a woman? Following this line of interpretation, can it be said that if marginal imagery was intended to school Jeanne d’Evreux in appropriate female behavior, then the monsters in the margins of the Luttrell Psalter could have served to reinforce Geoffrey Luttrell’s sense of his own masculinity? Or did such images evoke a world of evil and sin to be shunned by women and men alike? Or did these images actually, as St. Bernard implied, exert a powerful attraction, the attraction of the marvelous, the fascination of the frightening — something like science fiction and horror films exert for modern audiences? There is no reason to reject any of these interpretations except insofar as universal or exclusionary claims are made for them. Emile Mâle’s denial that marginal images originating in the depths of popular consciousness retained any meaning in the thirteenth century has, of course, been rejected long since. We are sensitive to the persistence of 54

Ibid., 348–49.

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memory — oral and visual — even to the present day. What then is the meaning of so-called popular imagery? In his magisterial study of 1940, Rabelais and his World, which reached the West in English translation in 1968, Mikhail Bakhtin described the sphere of popular images as a carnival and comic ‘second world,’ totally apart from official or high culture.55 He identified popular imagery with what he called grotesque realism. Grotesque realism was not the vehicle of negative moral criticism, nor was it the purely ‘recreational’ drollerie. Nor, although Bakhtin used the term ‘degradation,’ did grotesque realism evoke the dark, evil world of Satan. Rather, degradation meant the ‘lowering of all that is high, spiritual, abstract . . . to the material level, to the sphere of earth and body’ — and Bakhtin believed that the bodily was deeply positive. ‘Degradation’ meant ‘to bury, to sow and to kill simultaneously, in order to bring forth something more and better.56 Thus, in Bakhtin’s view, both Wentersdorf ’s demonic figurae scatalogicae and Caviness’s phallically aggressive hybrids would be profoundly and universally regenerative. Bakhtin, of course, was primarily concerned with popular images that had been fixed in written form or in records of speech and performance. He passed almost completely over visual manifestations of grotesque realism. Indeed, in one sense they would have provided an obstacle to his sharp distinction between official and folk culture, for the two cultures meet in the texts and the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts. However, Bakhtin admitted that all medieval people participated ‘more or less’ in folk culture.57 In other words, folk culture was not limited to the peasant class. Indeed, it should be stressed that its written and visual manifestations in manuscripts were available primarily to the educated and the wealthy. Bakhtin’s contribution to our understanding of marginal imagery was to attribute a positive, regenerative value to grotesque realism. But it was left to Aron Gurevich to demonstrate the interdependence between Bakhtin’s two distinct and separate worlds of high seriousness and grotesque realism.58 Grotesque realism — comedy, parody, deformity — were employed, as 55 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge: M. I. T. Press, 1968), esp. 5. 56 Ibid., 18–21. 57 Ibid., 5. 58 Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, trans. Janos M. Bak and Paul. A. Hollingsworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. chap. 6.

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Gurevich commented in his discussion of sermon exempla, for serious, pious, didactic purposes. As he wrote, ‘high’ and ‘low’ were inevitably contiguous.59 Moreover, Gurevich refined Bakhtin’s limitation of popular imagery to the comic aspects of the grotesque. He pointed out how often the grotesque was frightful, arousing nervous laughter. He rightly asked whether what to Bakhtin — or to any modern person — might be a comic demon ‘was so amusing for medieval people, who believed in the reality of demons? They surely laughed . . . [but] laughter was an admission that behind life’s most ordinary, commonplace phenomena there is invariably revealed something supernatural. Laughter was the emotional acknowledgement of the eternal antagonism of good and evil, sacred and profane, which lay at the base of the medieval world-view.’60 More recent studies have considered the utility of marginalia. Ruth Mellinkoff has reaffirmed the association of popular imagery with deep wellsprings in folk culture, but unlike Bakhtin and Gurevich, she focused on visual imagery. In a paper read at the International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University in 1994, Mellinkoff boldly claimed an apotropaic meaning for all grotesque imagery in manuscripts, whether in initials, initial frames, or page margins. Pointing to numerous traditional protective emblematic figures — obscene, monstrous, warlike — posted on the walls of castles, the gates of cities, and the outsides of churches, which were used to ward away danger from human beings, Mellinkoff attributed a parallel function to manuscript marginalia. They protect and preserve the book and the words it contains. Mellinkoff ’s thesis, which awaits publication, is certainly not a key that opens all the different locked doors closing off marginal imagery to our understanding. It does, however, point to yet another layer of meaning, and it offers an additional explanation of what we still see today as the considerable and yet mysterious vitality and power of marginal imagery. Like Mellinkoff, Mary Carruthers has also focused on the function of marginalia in relation to the book in itself. If the contents of books are valuable and need to be protected by apotropaic images, they are also to be digested, learned, and remembered. In her book on memory in the Middle Ages Carruthers pointed out the frequent use of marginal imagery that translates literary metaphors of the pursuit or hunt for knowl-

59 60

Ibid., 183. Ibid., 193.

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edge into pictorial images of hunting and fishing.61 Her observations did not attempt a universal definition of meaning in marginal imagery, but they do offer a persuasive explanation of themes common on the opening pages of many different kinds of texts, not just psalters where Helsinger had seen a symbolic meaning of the struggle between good and evil. All generalizations about the meaning of marginal imagery may seem inadequate when we confront a particular manuscript. For each book I think there are questions we must ask in relation to the particular circumstances of its production — who wanted it made, for whom was it made, who made it, and how. Answering these questions manuscript by manuscript may clarify the meaning of the marginalia of each particular book and enhance our understanding of marginal imagery in a more general way. For example, the meaning of marginalia to the owner or user of the book was investigated at some length by Michael Camille in his study of the Luttrell Psalter, an essay with a typically Camillean punning title, ‘Labouring for the Lord,’62 the lord in this case being Geoffrey Luttrell, for whom the psalter was made, as a prominent inscription records (fol. 202v). The owner portrait accompanying this inscription is preceded by a considerable number of marginal images of activities that took place on Luttrell’s lands, affording us Luttrell’s idealized view of peasants laboring for their lord. Camille’s study suggests, of course, that any marginal genre subjects are likely to reflect the societal point of view of the owners of the book. It is common wisdom that the artists, like the peasants, were hired hands, and in satisfying their patrons submerged their own concepts of social order — to the extent that they differed from those of their employers — in the interests of maintaining their professional status. Yet, conversely, other images in the Luttrell Psalter fall into a category that Meyer Schapiro saw as the province of artistic freedom and selfexpression. I am thinking of the brilliantly inventive monsters. For Schapiro, as we know from his article on the ‘Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque Art’63 and from his short review of Lilian Randall’s survey, marginal images offer ‘convincing evidence of the artist’s liberty, his unconstrained possession of the space, which confounds the view of medieval art Carruthers, Book of Memory, 246–48. Michael Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord: The Ploughman and the Social Order in the Luttrell Psalter,’ Art History 10 (1987): 423–54. 63 Schapiro, in Romanesque Art, 1–25. 61 62

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as a model of systematic order and piety.’64 In short, in the margins a medieval artist could behave with the aesthetic and expressive self-awareness of a modern artist. Camille, however, approaches the freedom of the artist in the creation of marginal imagery in another way. If Schapiro suggested that such images arose from ‘primitive impulses and feelings’65 uninfluenced by the proximity of the text on the page, Camille, in his wide-ranging study, Image on the Edge, saw them as the free response of the artist to the actual words. ‘At the edge he was free to read the words for himself and make what he wanted of them.’66 The idea of marginalia as imagines verborum has been ‘in the air’ for some time,67 but even Camille, who has made the most extensive investigation of the subject, has not been very systematic, and his enthusiasm for finding out just what the artist wanted to make of the words has led him to some colossal misjudgments, which critics have been quick to expose.68 Yet looking at marginal imagery in relation to the words themselves is an approach that can be immensely fruitful. For example, examination of the Gorleston Psalter and the Luttrell Psalter with the idea of making an informal catalogue of cases yields about twenty-five instances of word visualization in the Gorleston Psalter (Fig. 4) and nearly forty in the Luttrell. These are substantial figures, suggesting that systematic study of these and further manuscripts is warranted.69 First of all, these psalters include an abundance of words or phrases for which there are relatively straightforward pictorial equivalents or images created in part or in toto by association or exemplification: for example, from the Luttrell Psalter, floreat and roses flowering and nocte and a black bat (Fig. 25). A more complex form of pictorial word association is the Luttrell vignette of Christ administering the sacrament of Extreme Unction adjacent to ‘oleo sancto meo unxi eum,’ words in the Psalm relating to the anointing of David as king (Fig. 26). Second, we find

64 ‘Marginal Images and Drôlerie,’ Speculum 45 (1970): 684–86; rpt. in Meyer Schapiro, Late Antique, Early Christian and Medieval Art (New York: George Braziller, 1979), 97–98. 65 ‘Marginal Images and Drôlerie,’ 197. 66 Camille, Image on the Edge, 42. 67 See, for example, Carruthers, Book of Memory, 226–29; and Paula Gerson, ‘Margins for Eros,’ Romance Languages 5 (1993): 47–53. 68 See reviews by Christopher de Hamel (The Art Newspaper, no. 19 [June 1992]: 15) and Jeffrey Hamburger (Art Bulletin 75 [1993]: 319–27), among others. 69 See Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘The Word in the Text and the Image in the Margin: The Case of the Luttrell Psalter,’ Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54 (1996): 87–99.

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etymological marginalia that transform the syllables of words into images of the totality of other words, sometimes in other languages, so that the pas of passer, which means ‘sparrow’ in Latin, is translated into an antic two-step or paso doble (Fig. 27). Finally, instead of individual words broken down, there are marginalia constructed of the visual equivalents of words taken out of their sense units and gathered together to make new coherent pictorial entities. To cite just one example, again from the Luttrell Psalter: ‘Thine are the heavens and thine is the earth: the world and the fulness thereof thou hast founded; the north and the sea thou hast created. Thabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name; thy arm is with might. Let thy hand be strengthened and thy right hand exalted’ (Psalm 88:12–14). Here the words and phrases mare, brachium, potencia, and firmetur manus tua are used as the basis for a pictorial vignette which might be read as ‘In the sea men use the power of their arms’ (Fig. 28). Who can forget the image of the four men in the boat rowing for all they are worth in an empty sea? It is certainly memorable, but could such imagines verborum also be mnemonic, that is mnemonic devices? The fourteenth-century Oxford theologian Thomas Bradwardine wrote a treatise on memory, made known to us by Carruthers, in which he recommended that images of things, ideas, or words to be remembered should be wondrous and intense, not average, but extreme. Images should denote or exemplify things, they should be chained together to represent ideas or sentences, or they should replace the syllables of words with counterparts in Latin, or, as Bradwardine said, in another language.70 Almost like magic, all of Bradwardine’s techniques for the construction of mental images of words, things, and ideas seem to be paralleled in the actual images in the margins of manuscripts. But it would be premature to conclude, as Suzanne Lewis has in relation to similar images in the historiated initials of the Dyson Perrins Apocalypse — now in the Getty Museum — that they were seriously intended to aid in memorization ad verbum of the adjacent text.71 We must recall that Bradwardine, and other medieval writers on artificial memory, was concerned with remembering things not currently available in written

Carruthers, Book of Memory, 281–88. Suzanne Lewis, ‘Beyond the Frame: Marginal Figures and Historiated Initials in the Getty Apocalypse,’ J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 20 (1992): 53–76. See also Lewis, Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-century Illuminated Apocalypse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 250–53. 70 71

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4. Gorleston Psalter (England, c. 1310–20); BL, Add. 49622, fol. 191v. (Photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art.)

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5. Psalter (Flanders, c. 1320–30); Bod. Lib., Douce 5, fol. 177r. (Photo: The Bodleian Library.)

101

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6. Queen Mary’s Psalter (England, c. 1310–20); BL, Royal 2.B.VII, fol. 132r (Photo: George Warner, Queen Mary’s Psalter [London: British Museum, 1912], Pl. 175.)

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7. Gorleston Psalter (England, c. 1310–20); BL, Add. 49622, fol. 99v. (Photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art.)

103

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8. Book of Hours (England, early 14th c.); Norwich, Castle Museum, MS 158.926 4f., fol. 95r (Photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art.)

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9. York Hours (England, c. 1300); London, private collection (formerly Dyson Perrins, MS 12), fol. 76r. (Photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art.)

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10. Tickhill Psalter (England, 1303–14); NYPL, Spencer 26, fol. 26v. (Photo: The New York Public Library.)

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11. Rutland Psalter (England, c. 1250–60); BL, Add. 62925, fol. 84r. (Photo: By permission of the British Library.)

107

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12. Rutland Psalter (England, c. 1250–60); BL, Add. 62925, fol. 83v. (Photo: By permission of the British Library.)

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13. Book of Hours (England, 2nd quarter, 14th c.); BL, Harley 6563, fol. 6v. (Photo: By permission of the British Library.)

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14. Book of Hours (France, after 1318–1330s); PML, M.754, fol. 114r. (Photo: The Pierpont Morgan Library.)

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15. Psalter and Hours of Yolande of Soissons (Northern France, late 13th c.); PML, M.729, fol. 247r. (Photo: The Pierpont Morgan Library.)

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16. Psalter (England, c. 1300); Oxford, Jesus College, D.40, fol. 110r. (Photo: The Principal and Fellows of Jesus College, Oxford.)

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17. Rutland Psalter (England, c. 1250–60); BL, Add. 62925, fol. 68v. (Photo: By permission of the British Library.)

113

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18. Rutland Psalter (England, c. 1250–60); BL, Add. 62925, fol. 106v. (Photo: By permission of the British Library.)

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19. Ormesby Psalter (England, border c. 1310); Bod. Lib., Douce 366, fol. 71v. (Photo: The Bodleian Library.)

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20. Peterborough Psalter (England, c. 1300); BR, MS 9961–62, fol. 14r. (Photo: Camille Gaspar and Frederic Lyna, Les principaux manuscrits à peintures de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Société française de reproductions de manuscrits à peintures [Paris, 1937], vol. 1, Pl. XXIV.)

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21. Alphonso Psalter (England, 1283–84); BL, Add. 24686, fol. 11r. (Photo: By permission of the British Library.)

117

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22. Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1320–30); BL, Add. 42130, fol. 195v. (Photo: Eric G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter [London: British Museum, 1932], Pl. 143.)

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23. Gorleston Psalter (England, c. 1310–20); BL, Add. 49622, fol. 8r. (Photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art.)

119

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24. Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (Paris, 1325-28); MMA, Cloisters Collection, fol. 155r. (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

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25. Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1320–30); BL, Add. 42130, fol. 164r. (Photo: Eric G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter [London: British Museum, 1932], Pl. 80.)

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26. Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1320–30); BL, Add. 42130, fol. 160v. (Photo: Eric G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter [London: British Museum, 1932], Pl. 73.)

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27. Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1320–30); BL, Add. 42130, fol. 152v. (Photo: Eric G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter [London: British Museum, 1932], Pl. 57.)

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28. Luttrell Psalter (England, c. 1320–30); BL, Add. 42130, fol. 160r. (Photo: Eric G. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter [London: British Museum, 1932], Pl. 72.)

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form, primarily things heard.72 He allowed that mnemotechnique could be used for things seen and things read, but clearly the resulting images were to be mental, not actual. So, if you had a written text that you wanted to remember, you would construct mental images of its words rather than looking at already provided visual exempla, puns, and rebuses. And that brings me to a second caveat about the efficacy of marginalia as mnemonic images. Bradwardine stressed that the images of things to be remembered were to be fashioned by the individual for himself.73 This would make it unlikely that marginal images created by an artist could be used effectively for mnemonic purposes by someone else. Yet the generic similarities between images in the margins and those described by Bradwardine are haunting. Bradwardine did, in fact, refer in his treatise to patterning images after the work of artists,74 and some of his vivid descriptions may have been conditioned by actual pictures. But where does this leave the question of marginal imagery and the mnemonic? Like Bradwardine’s hypothetical constructors of mental images of words, the creators of marginal images often visualize unique, and ‘wondrous and intense’ responses to the text. But this, I believe, is not primarily so that the text may be the more readily remembered, but so that the experience of reading the text may be heightened and intensified through the discovery and appreciation of all the riches apparent and concealed in the words. Is a single interpretation of marginal imagery possible? As my review demonstrates, the answer is manifestly not, much as partisans of one or another view have insisted. Most investigations of marginal imagery have been limited in scope to one or another aspect — generic, parodic, scatological, monstrous — and conclusions about meaning have often been excessively categorical as a result. It should be stressed in conclusion that any one book containing marginalia is likely to include images of more than one type. Rather than looking at one kind of image in all books, therefore, ‘This example concerns memory for things-listened-to [de memoria auditorum]; but truly, concerning memory for things-seen [de memoria visorum], as likewise for memory of things-written [de memoria scripture], anyone may help himself according to similar rules’; trans. Carruthers, Book of Memory, 287. 73 Bradwardine states, for example, that ‘it is not fully possible to give specific advice that applies to all people. But each should take pains to adapt this advice to his memory in his own way, and most prudently conserve his version without variation’; trans. Carruthers, Book of Memory, 285. 74 ‘For a thing entirely abstract, of the sort as God, an angel, infinite space, and such matters are, place an image as the painters make it . . .’; trans. Carruthers, Book of Memory, 284. 72

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it would be better to look at all kinds of image in any one book — or more ambitiously, all books with marginalia — and to consider every aspect of their meaning, including contradictory and overlapping meanings. Recent codicological studies of manuscripts have taught us to consider the page and the book as a whole from the point of view of its physical making; a no less wholistic approach to marginal imagery might yield new understanding of a subject that has fascinated, horrified, and perplexed historians for the last hundred years.

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Pictorial and Verbal Play in the Margins: The Case of British Library, Stowe MS 49

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RITISH LIBRARY, Stowe MS 49,1 a copy of the thirteenth-century Dominican Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda sanctorum,2 was written in England around 1300 by a scribe who identified himself in a colophon as

1 Because of the secrecy enjoined on the contributors to this collection of essays, the following article must be the only piece of writing I have done during the last thirty years that owes no direct debt to Janet Backhouse. Over all this time she has been unfailingly generous with help of all kinds, even at an ocean’s distance. So, bearing in mind Janet Backhouse’s own interest in the personalities behind the pages of medieval books, which has led her to introduce an entire array of fascinating patrons, owners, and scribes to modern readers, I offer this exposition of the verbal and pictorial wit — and the human foibles — of the fourteenthcentury scribe Alanus, with admiration, gratitude, and affection. 2 On the Legenda sanctorum, or Legenda aurea, compiled between 1252 and 1260, see, most recently, B. Fleith, Studien zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der lateinischen Legenda aurea, Société des Bollandistes, Subsidia Hagiographica 72 (Brussels, 1991). The standard edition is Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, ed. T. Graesse (rptd Osnabrück, 1965); see also Jacobus da Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, transl. W. G. Ryan, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1993). On Stowe MS 49 see Catalogue of the Stowe Manuscripts in the British Museum I (London, 1895), pp. 27–8. The manuscript was bequeathed to St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster by Robert de Elmham, a canon (d. 8 March 1365/6). Elmham, a King’s Clerk, was granted a prebend at St Stephen’s Chapel in 1358 on account of his service to Queen Isabella (Cat. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, XI, A.D. 1358–61 [London, 1911], p. 136). In the account book of the household expenses of Queen Isabella for 1357–8, the last year of her life (London, BL, Cotton MS Galba E. xiv, fol. 32), Elmham is identified as the ‘principal chaplain of the queen’s chapel’, presumably in Hertford Castle; he was her almoner, and accompanied her on a pilgrimage to Canterbury in October 1357. Elmham was buried in Westminster Abbey (B. Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages [Oxford, 1977], p. 378), and arranged for masses in his memory to be celebrated

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Alanus, ‘not white haired . . . but black throughout the body, toothless’,3 a teasing play on white and black, young and old. Equally witty are the pen drawings that Alanus introduced into the lower margins of the book, in many cases by extending the descenders of letters in the last text line to form human or hybrid figures engaged in obscenely funny — or simply amusing — actions. Among these marginal images is one exceptionally elaborate multi-figured composition, the starting point of this essay (Fig. 1). Situated at the foot of the second page of the life of St Cecilia,4 the drawing consists of seven profile figures. Moving in a line from right to left, they appear to form a family group (including an infant) on their way somewhere, using walking sticks and weighed down with various items of equipment. Each has something to say, the words written above their heads and tied to their mouths by linear strings. They speak their lines in English, the texts comprising a group conversatio previously unpublished.5 First in the procession is a small male — a youth — apparently wearing only a pointed hood, using a walking stick, his red tongue projecting between his lips, and saying — twice over — ‘they die because of heat’ (English modernized). Next comes a pair of youths, facing each other. One, wearing a hooded cape over a tight-sleeved garment, points to the other, dressed similarly and in addition muffled in a hat with a red cuff. They share a walking stick and say together, ‘Sire we die for cold’, their words inverting the complaint of the first youth. The ‘sire’, from the context both master and father, is a taller figure, hook-nosed, scraggily bearded, wearing annually in St Stephen’s Chapel (London, BL, Cotton MS Faustina B. viii, fol. 16, a fifteenth-century copy of an indenture of 1373 by Elmham’s executors). How, where, or when Elmham acquired the Legenda sanctorum is unknown. 3 For the colophon, see Catalogue of the Stowe Manuscripts, p. 28. The cataloguer noted that the colophon differed slightly from the form usual in manuscripts of the Legenda sanctorum. For the additions and insertions, and a translation, see the Appendix. 4 Life of St Cecilia, fols. 219v–221v. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the story of St Cecilia told by the Second Nun was based primarily on the account in the Legenda sanctorum; see G. H. Gerould, W. F. Bryan and G. Dempster, eds., Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (rptd, New York, 1958), p. 671. It has been suggested that Chaucer chose the story of St Cecilia, the only saint’s life in the Canterbury Tales, in commemoration of the installation of the Benedictine Adam Easton as Cardinal-Priest of Sta Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, some time between 1381 and 1384; see M. Giffin, Studies on Chaucer and His Audience (Quebec, 1956), pp. 29–48. See also M. Carruthers, ‘Inventional Mnemonics and the Ornaments of Style: The Case of Etymology’, Connotations, 22 (1992), 104–8, on the role of etymology in the account of St Cecilia. 5 For the text, see the Appendix.

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1. Legenda sanctorum, St Cecilia. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 220.

2. Rutland Psalter, Ps. 42, England, c. 1250–60. London, BL, Add. MS 62925, fol. 47.

129

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130 3. Luttrell Psalter, Ps. 40, England, c. 1325–35. London, BL, Add. MS 42130, fol. 79v.

4. Smithfield Decretals, England, c. 1330–40. London, BL, MS Royal 10 E iv, fol. 149v.

5. Breviary of Reginald of Bar, France, 1302–4. London, BL, Yates Thompson MS 8, fol. 198v.

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a coif, a short cape over a tight-sleeved garment and carrying an axe in his right hand and a jar in his left. Attached at various points to his person are a spoon, a pair of shoes, a water jug, a broad-brimmed hat — and an infant in a back sling. The man chides the complaining pair of youths by saying, ‘Lo your little brother goes before that has but an hood upon’, and the infant on his back, his finger stuck in his red mouth, cries ‘wa we’. Bringing up the rear are two more boys, one clothed in a short cape and long-sleeved belted robe, on his shoulder a pole with a cup and two ewers, and on his back a wicker basket. He complains, ‘Sire I bear over-heavy’. The last boy, trudging along, knee bent, body at an angle and using a walking stick, carries a harp on his back, and replies, ‘they nay bear not the worst’. In present-day terms we respond to this scene as to a sit-com episode. We have heard all this ‘yes you did, no I didn’t’ before; it is still amusing, and indeed our entertainment is increased by the recognition of the longevity of this particular comic tradition. For us too the representation in written form of ordinary prose speech, especially of ‘baby talk’ is humorous, and we assume that this was also the case seven hundred years ago, when first-person dialogue in written form was usually in rhyme. Yet the ‘situation’ of the sit-com episode is elusive today, and the setting — on a page devoted to the martyrdom of a female saint — offers no immediately evident assistance in the interpretation of the image. To recapture more completely the meaning of the vignette, as it might have been understood in the fourteenth century, we should ask — and attempt to answer — a number of questions, first about the scene itself, then about the immediate textual context, then about the image as one of many scribal drawings in a single book, about the person and ideology of the scribe, and finally about his projected audience and the impact of such a volume on its readers. Who are these travellers, where are they going in the cold, and why? They belong to a general medieval social category of the wayfarer, to use the term of Jusserand.6 Wayfarers were poor, inadequately clothed, and driven to the road by urban or rural dispossession. Modern writers such as Michel Mollat have pointed out the cost of the economic growth of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the ‘rising prices . . . increasing taxes, and the exploitation of manual labour’ coupled with food shortages caused by sixteen exceptionally severe winters between 1250 and

6

J. J. Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (4th edn, New York, 1950).

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1350.7 The impoverished begged: lepers displayed their bandaged limbs hoping for pity; the able-bodied entertained for pennies; or they peddled portable wares; they picked up odd jobs; they sought alms at abbeys, cathedrals and parish churches, whose clergy were obligated by church statute to practise the works of mercy — to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and receive guests.8 It can be seen that the figures in Stowe MS 49 share several attributes of itinerants as they are represented in contemporary manuscript images. First, they are literally ‘on the road’, travel indicated by their representation in a single processional line of profiles, even though their feet have disappeared because of cropping of the lower margin of the page. Second, they are a motherless family, since it is a man, the father, who carries an infant on his back. In fact, almost none of the figures carrying infants in back slings or baskets in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century representations are women (Fig. 2).9 Women with babies ordinarily ‘rocked the cradle’ at home. The implication of images of men carrying babies is not only that there is no home but also that the mother is dead. Such a pathetic situation would elicit acts of charity, and indeed, infants were sometimes ‘borrowed’ by beggars for just this purpose.10 Alternatively, the fact that an infant was still in the care of one of its parents might itself have been considered as praise-

7 M. Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History (New Haven and London, 1986), pp. 158–9, passim. See also B. Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris (Cambridge, 1987); B. Tierney, Medieval Poor Law: A Sketch of Canonical Theory and Its Application in England (Berkeley, 1959); and G. B. Guest, ‘A Discourse on the Poor: The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux’, Viator 26 (1995), 154–80. 8 See Tierney, Medieval Poor Law, pp. 67–109. Tierney quotes the Synodal Statutes of Walter de Cantilupe, Bishop of Worcester, 1240, ‘We command that all clerics, and especially monks, shall exercise hospitality . . . according to the extent of their resources and without murmering’ (p. 99), and also an address of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, to the papal curia in 1250 ‘. . . the works of pastoral care . . . consist in the feeding of the hungry, in giving drink to the thirsty, in clothing the naked, in visitation of the sick and prisoners, especially of one’s own parishoners, to whom the temporal goods of the churches belong’ (p. 101). 9 For numerous references, see L. M. C. Randall, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), s.v. Man with basket on back, Beggar and child in sling on back. 10 Mollat, Poor in the Middle Ages, p. 245, noting ‘half-naked babies borrowed or rented from some other indigent’.

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worthy — or almsworthy — in view of the very common contemporary tragedy of the complete abandonment of children.11 The travellers of Stowe MS 49 are certainly inadequately clothed and they complain vigorously about the cold. Bare feet and sparse or ragged clothing are the standard visual insignia of the destitute (Fig. 3). At the same time, the father and others in the group seem to have ewers, cups and even spare shoes to peddle (Fig. 4); and they can sing to the accompaniment of the harp, like travelling jongleurs (Fig. 5). Their walking sticks might also suggest physical weakness from hunger or illness, but the way was rough for all wanderers, and a staff is the generic emblem of the traveller, whether beggar, pedlar, pilgrim or jongleur. In the case of Stowe MS 49, indeed, the father is openly capable of or actively looking for manual labour since he carries an axe; and the jar he holds does not have the standard shape of the beggar’s bow1.12 He is not one of those able-bodied beggars who were the subject of such ill-feeling in the fourteenth century,13 when widespread poverty with its consequent vagabondage and mendicancy coincided with intense ecclesiastical controversy on the subject of able-bodied begging by the mendicant orders.14 Although there is no sign that the Stowe MS 49 wanderers are lepers, the physiognomic characterization of the father, that is, the prominent hooked On abandonment of children, see J. Boswell, The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York, 1988); for a fourteenth-century illustration, see the encyclopedia Omne bonum, London, BL, Royal MS 6 E vii, fol. 104v (Boswell, Figs. 13–4). 12 Beggars’ bowls were shallow open circular containers, as held by the lepers of Stowe MS 49, fols 169 and 197 (Figs. 10 and 11). 13 See Guest, ‘A Discourse on the Poor’, pp. 176–80 for written expressions of scorn for beggars, including Friend in the Romance of the Rose: ‘I recall well that beggars who are sound of body [have no shame]; they go around forcing themselves in everywhere with sweet speeches of flattery, and they show the ugliest exterior to all those who meet them, while they hide the fairest interior in order to deceive those who give to them. They go around saying that they are poor when they have fat doles and a lot of money stored away’ (ll. 8099–8109, transl. C. Dahlberg [Hanover, N.H., 1986], p. 151). Cf. Langland in Piers Plowman (W. Langland, Piers Plowman, the C-Text, ed. D. Pearsall [Exeter, 1994], p. 164,): ‘For he Ioat begeth or biddeth, but yf he haue nede,/He is fals and faytour and defraudeth the nedy/And also gileth hym Ioat gyueth and taketh agayne his wille’ (Passus IX, ll. 63–5). 14 For the ecclesiastical controversy as it affected England, see, most recently, P. R. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature (Princeton, 1986) and K. Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard Fitzralph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), esp. pp. 350–451. 11

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nose, suggests another kind of outcast, the medieval Jew. Despite the common folkloric image, Jews were not so closely associated with peddling in the Middle Ages as they have been in later times.15 In Stowe MS 49 the motif may well make a generic reference to social outcasts rather than a specific reference to Jews, since paupers are caricatured by hawk — or pug — noses in other manuscript images.16 The most it seems possible to say is that the hooked nose is just one of a whole cluster of motifs in the Stowe vignette that add up to a collective image of wayfaring, or vagabondage. To my knowledge, the vignette in Stowe MS 49 is unique in collecting all these elements in a single image. The Stowe vignette is in the middle of the text of the life of St Cecilia, whose feast day is on 22 November, so that in a general way at least, the complaints of the cold travellers are appropriate to the chill of the late Autumn. St Cecilia was a Roman who remained a virgin by persuading her husband to convert to Christianity on their appointed wedding night and who subsequently devoted herself to the burial of Christian martyrs until she finally became one herself.17 It is evident that there is no connection between her legend and the image below. Nor does the association of St Cecilia with music-making, which dates only from some time in the fifteenth century,18 provide an explanation of the harp in the illustration. It could also be conceived that the Stowe travellers might be heading for a fair held on the feast of St Cecilia but no fair connected with her name is known to have existed in England,19 nor in fact are many English churches or hosThere is some evidence that in the late thirteenth century Jews were pedlars in small luxury articles, perhaps pawn-forfeits, but Jews were restricted by statute to residence in a few urban centres and could be arrested if they were found elsewhere; see C. Roth, A History of the Jews in England (Oxford, 1941), pp. 71, 1I5; also P. Elman, ‘Jewish Trade in Thirteenth Century England’, Historia Judaiaca I (1938–9), 91–104. 16 Mollat, Poor in the Middle Ages, citing the fourteenth-century Bible Moralisée, Paris, BN, MS fr. 147. On visual stigmatization of Jews as outcasts see, most recently, R. Mellinkoff, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages I (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 127–30. 17 Legenda aurea, ed. T. Graesse, pp. 711–7; cf. Tbe Golden Legend, transl. W. G. Ryan, pp. 318–23. 18 L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien III (Paris, 1958), pp. 280–1. The connection of St Cecilia with music derived from the passage in the legend describing her exalted response to the sound of the organ (not in any case a harp) during her nuptial rites. 19 Cf. E. W. Moore, The Fairs of Medieval England, An Introductory Study (Toronto, 1985). The fair closest in date to the feast of St Cecilia was that of Bury St Edmunds, which began on St Edmund’s eve, 19 November; Moore, pp. 21–2. Jacobus de Voragine did not 15

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pitals dedicated to the saint,20 nor does she appear to have played the important role in popular piety enjoyed by other female saints such as Margaret and Catherine. Consequently, the reason for the juxtaposition of this marginal vignette and this particular text remains obscure. A fuller appreciation of the vignette of the wayfarers may be gained by examining the image in the context of the rest of the marginal drawings of the Stowe Legenda sanctorum. Many of these marginalia are generated from ascenders or descenders of letters on the top or bottom text line, or from short additional lines at the bottom right of rectos of folios, or catchwords at the ends of gatherings, or from marginal text corrections made by the scribe himself. The images generated often continue to generate, in that they consist of organic forms that ‘grow’ up or down into the margins (Fig. 6). In other cases too there is an active physical relationship between image and the text: especially striking are the syllables, words, or letters sniffed, chewed, or gobbled up by the figural forms (Fig. 7). A few of the marginalia however clearly respond to the meaning of words and phrases in the text. For example, a catchword ‘esset qui iniuste’ is elaborated with a crowned king related to the last text line above, which contains the word imperator (Fig. 8). More contextually, a tonsured figure with a clenched fist corresponds to a line in the adjacent text telling of a canon regular who was so angry at St Bernard that he struck him (Fig. 9).21 Nevertheless, the relationship of many marginalia to the text is as obscure as that of the vignette of the wayfarers. Yet many of the marginal images make a kind of sense when they are considered as a group independent of the text. First of all the manuscript include the life of St Edmund Martyr in the Legenda sanctorum. There is a distant possibility that the positioning of the vignette of the travellers in Stowe MS 49 was influenced by acquaintance with the Bury fair, which was in progress during the time of the feast of St Cecilia. 20 Cf. F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications or England’s Patron Saints, 3 vols. (London, 1899). 21 The passage is worth quoting at length because it revolves around books, and this might have appealed to the sophisticated humour of the scribe of Stowe MS 49: ‘A canon regular came to Bernard and asked him insistently to receive him as a monk. The saint did not consent and urged him to return to his church. “Well then,” said the canon, “why do you recommend the pursuit of perfection in your books, if you do not grant it to one who yearns for it? If I had your books in my hands, I would tear them to pieces.” Bernard: . . . “What I have commended in my books is reform of morals, not changes of place.” The canon, furious, rushed at him and struck him in the face . . .’ (Golden Legend, transl. Ryan, II, pp. 101–2).

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has two more drawings related to the wayfarers in that they also represent social outcasts. Both show lepers. One, naked, attacked by flies, or maggots, sits with bloody leg stumps between three-legged stools of the kind used by lepers as crutches as he holds out a begging bowl (Fig. 10). He speaks, but unfortunately the lines have been erased and cannot be deciphered. The other, scraggily-bearded, wears a ragged coif and hobbles on crutches, the stump of one leg held up at an awkward angle. He is watched impassively by a man with his arm placed rather jauntily on his hip, possibly, from the combination of beret or pileus and coif, a figure of higher social status (Fig. 11). In the second place, like the wayfarers, almost all the other human figures, or human-headed hybrids, in Stowe MS 49 are male. Indeed, the marginal world of the manuscript is almost exclusively male. Women, when they appear, are associated with the devil (Fig. 12), they are are cursed by the devil — ‘jop tord’ (plop turd) (Fig. 13) — and they even kiss him (Fig. 14). They are so nasty that they have to be muzzled by grotesque bandages in parody of fashionable fourteenth-century female chin-straps (Fig. 15). As for men, they kiss the devil too (Fig. 16), and also dogs and birds (Fig. 19),22 but most often they kiss other men.23 In one case a male with a short beard and an Adam’s apple faces a cross-dressed stubble-bearded male, veiled like a woman, his lips parted to receive the fruited sprig issuing from the mouth of the transvestite (Fig. 15). Moreover, males in Stowe MS 49 are also arse-kissers or arse-lickers, and arse-sniffers (Fig. 18). One fool — literally — is actually penetrated anally (Fig. 17), and another’s entire torso has been transformed into the male genitalia (Fig. 20). Thus, males in this manuscript indulge in ‘tom-foolery’ and may be said to ‘fool around’ with other men. Far from being ‘doodles’ welling up from the scribal sub-conscious, the marginalia of Stowe MS 49 seem to be self-aware and sophisticated comments on la comédie humaine. Their gestures and actions project an attitude of amused superiority or even scorn toward the subjects depicted. Speech too, that of the wayfarers for instance, is treated, like that of Shakespeare’s comic figures, as full of unconscious wit calculated, by the scribe, to enterMan kissing bird, fol. 43. E.g., fol. 59v, stubble-bearded man in coif kissing clean-shaven man in hood; fol. 134v, clean-shaven man in hood kissing long-bearded male hybrid wearing hood; fol. 225, fat-faced stubble-bearded bare-headed man kissed by stubble-bearded man wearing cuffed hat. 22 23

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tain a privileged audience of auditory voyeurs.24 And of course the language is the demotic English — in contrast with the literary Latin of the text. Moreover, the marginal world created by the scribe of Stowe MS 49 is male by choice. The amorous heterosexual escapades ordinarily associated with contemporary marginal illustration are entirely absent. Even cases of ‘kiss my ass’, depicted with varied participants in other manuscripts,25 are presented in Stowe MS 49 as male-to-male encounters. And finally, like the wayfarers, almost all the male characters in the margins are from the secular world; clerics and clerical pecadillos, so common in contemporary marginalia, are not to be found here. The marginalia of Stowe MS 49 provide examples of what Meyer Schapiro called the freedom of the artist to express in the margins what he could not in text illustrations, ‘evidence of the artist’s liberty, his unconstrained possession of the space, which confounds the view of medieval art as a model of systematic order and piety’.26 It is difficult to conceive that ‘he who ordered the manuscript’, to quote from Alanus’ colophon, asked the scribe to produce anything more specific than a well-written text, so the scribe seized the opportunity for marginal elaboration on his own initiative. Yet I think that Alanus knew his audience well, anticipated its response to his drawings and shared with it the sense of belonging to an exclusivist fraternity, an ‘in-group’. Can the identity of the ‘in-group’ that constituted the viewing audience for the marginalia of Stowe MS 49 be specified? Possibilities that come to mind are university members, clerical canons, and monastic communities. University members, secular priests and canons, friars, and monks, who lived a collegiate life, whether at Oxford or Cambridge, in a cathedral close, 24 In the top margin of fol. 209 (All Souls), however, the words seem to mock the text self-consciously: three heads are lined up above the top line of text — a demonic hybrid with a winged headdress, a knobby-hatted open-mouthed man, and a bishop. They say, respectively, ‘ho, ho’, ‘ha, ha, ha’, and — perhaps, since it has been erased — ‘he, he, he’, a sequence remarked on in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn, Oxford, 1989), s.v. ‘He’. In addition, above the knobby-hatted figure is inscribed, ‘knopping’, the still-used colloquial, ‘nobbin’. 25 The marginalia of the fourteenth-century Gorleston Psalter (London, BL, Add. MS 49622) include two cases of ‘ass-kissing’, with varied human- and bird-hybrid participants (fols. 104, 157v) and several kissing couples — male and male (fol. 21v), male and devil (fol. 56) and female and male (fol. 197). 26 M. Schapiro, ‘Marginal Images and Drôlerie’ Speculum 45 (1970), 684, reprinted in idem, Late Antique, Early Christian and Medieval Art (New York, 1979), p. 197.

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or in a convent, could well have had attitudes of contemptuous familiarity or amused superiority toward societal unfortunates. All were clerics in one degree or another. And clerics were forbidden ‘commerce’ with women and were encouraged by Church teaching to view women as creatures of the devil. Isolated from the female sex, they were exposed to the temptations of ‘buggery’. The repeated grotesque and comic representations of this and allied themes in Stowe MS 49 suggest a near obsession with the homoerotic, an obsession revealed and perhaps also sublimated by translating forbidden thoughts and acts into funny and phantasmagoric images, and by attributing forbidden behaviour, not to clerics, but to members of secular society. Furthermore, recent studies by Fleith and Boureau have shown that the text of the Legenda sanctorum was itself addressed to a clerical audience.27 A copy dated 1312, possibly owned by the Augustinian Canons of Beuerberg in the diocese of Freising, has an explanation, ‘. . . presentem librum novum passionale pro utilitate . . . et praeposito pro informatione et eruditione omnium ecclesiasticarum personarum comparatum esse’.28 Boureau characterized Jacobus de Voragine’s text as encyclopedic, ‘une somme narrative et dogmatique, plus riche et plus doctrinale qu’un calendrier, plus systématique qu’un simple recueil, plus didactique qu’un ensemble des biographies’,29 stressing its parallels with other scholastic compendia. Certainly the etymologies that precede each saint’s life would have appealed to educated readers, and the chapter lists and theme-indexes included in many copies represent finding-aids typical of thirteenth- and fourteenthcentury ‘academic’ texts. Moreover, numerous copies were produced by using the pecia system characteristic of production in university centres.30 The Legenda sanctorum was evidently used in a variety of ways. It may

See Fleith, Studien zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der lateinischen Legenda aurea, pp. 38–9, detailing and then rejecting the beliefs of earlier scholars that the Legenda sanctorum was written for and read by or to the laity. See also A. Boureau, La Légende dorée, Le système narratif de Jacques de Voragine (Paris, 1984), pp. 21–5, characterizing the text as a ‘manuel de reference’ for preachers. 28 ‘. . . the present book, the Novum passionale [Legenda sanctorum], had been prepared for usefulness to . . . and intended for the instruction and learning of all clerical individuals’; Fleith, Studien, pp. 38–9, n. 118, citing Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl., Clm 5126. 29 Boureau, La Légende dorée, p. 21. 30 Fleith, Studien, pp. 40, 41, n. 134, citing K. Kunze, ‘Jacobus de Voragine’ in Verfasserlexikon. Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters, eds. K. Ruh, G. Keil, et al., IV (Berlin, 1983), pp. 455 ff., and 337–40. 27

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have been read in private by clerics;31 it is listed among liturgical books in library catalogues;32 it was bequeathed to rectors of parish churches;33 and it was very probably employed in connection with the preparation of sermons and in the training of preachers in the studia of the mendicant orders.34 Indeed, from the available evidence of inscriptions, colophons, and from other documentary sources, many copies of the Legenda sanctorum appear to have been used institutionally rather than individually. Examples of known provenance survive from houses of Dominican and other religious and monastic orders, from secular and monastic cathedrals, and from university colleges at Paris, Cambridge, and Oxford,35 but from only a few Boureau, La Légende dorée, p. 24, citing the introduction to the Bollandistes edition of the Acta sanctorum (December), (Brussels, 1940), p. x. 32 Fleith, Studien, p. 39. 33 Ibid. 34 Boureau, La Légende dorée, pp. 21–4; Fleith, Studien, pp. 39–41, 406–13. 35 From the catalogue of more than 1,000 complete and partial copies of the Legenda sanctorum in Fleith’s Studien (pp. 55–331), the following English examples may be noted (Fleith nos. in brackets): Aberdeen, University Library, MS 240, beg. fourteenth century, given to St Paul’s Cathedral possibly before 1458 by Thomas Graunt, cathedral treasurer (LA 2); Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 131, fourteenth century, Italian script (?), pledged in 1428 by Mag. John Fayer, scholar of Peterhouse, to Mag. Thomas de Castrobernardi, monk of Durham Cathedral Priory, and given by Fayer to Peterhouse (LA 124); Cambridge, Peterhouse, MS 132, thirteenth/fourteenth century, from Ramsey Abbey (LA 125); Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.1 (338), fourteenth century, given to Winchester Cathedral Priory in early fifteenth century by Dom. Robertus Cramborne (LA 126); Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.8.20 (1395) and University Library, MS Ee.VI.31, beg. fourteenth century, given to St Edmund’s House, Cambridge (Gilbertine) in fifteenth century by Mag. Johannes Hamworth (LA 128); Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff.V.31, 1299, written by Helias Toreni, presb., given by J. Frome, fl. 1350, to Christ Church, Canterbury (LA 132); Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.II.18, thirteenth–fourteenth century, owned by Fr. Johannes de Draytone, monk of Winchester Cathedral Priory (LA 133); Durham Cathedral Library, MS B.IV.39A, fourteenth century, from Durham Cathedral Priory (LA 174); Hereford Cathedral Library, MS O.4.XIV, fourteenth century, given to Hereford in mid-fifteenth century by Mag. Johannes Bayly, canon and precentor (LA 274); Hereford Cathedral Library, MS O.5.XIII, fifteenth century, given to Hereford in fifteenth century by Mag. Owen Lloyd, canon (LA 275); London, BL, Harley MS 3657, fourteenth century, from the charnel chapel of St Michael, Evesham Abbey (LA 369); Oxford, Bod.L, MS Bodl. 336, beg. fourteenth century, belonged to W. de Ledeberi, monk of Christ Church, Canterbury (LA 577); Oxford, Bod.L, MS Laud. Misc. 489, thirteenth century, belonged to Durham Cathedral Priory (LA 594); Oxford, Lincoln College, MS 65, fourteenth century, given to Lincoln College by the founder, 1427 (LA 599); Salisbury Cathedral Library, MS 40, beg. fourteenth century, given to Salisbury in fifteenth century by Mag. Thomas Cyrceter, canon (LA 795); Vatican, BA, MS Ottob. lat. 331, fourteenth 31

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7. Legenda sanctorum, St John Baptist. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 96.

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6. Legenda sanctorum, St Denis. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 194.

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8. Legenda sanctorum, St Pelagius. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 239v.

9. Legenda sanctorum, St Bernard. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 148. 10. Legenda sanctorum, Sts. Prothus and Jacintus. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 169.

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11. Legenda sanctorum, St Luke. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 197.

12. Legenda sanctorum, Purification of the Virgin. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 45.

13. Legenda sanctorum, All Saints. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 206.

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14. Legenda sanctorum, St Peter Martyr. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 75.

15. Legenda sanctorum, St Jerome. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 185.

16. Legenda sanctorum, St Bernard, London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 147.

17. Legenda sanctorum, St Denis. London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 193v.

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144 18. Legenda sanctorum, Resurrection of the Lord, London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 65.

19. Legenda sanctorum, St Denis, London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 193v.

20. Legenda sanctorum, St Sebastian, London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 30.

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parish churches or lay owners.36 In sum, the textual background of the Legenda sanctorum — clerical, scholarly, institutional — is not at odds with the character of the scribal marginalia in Stowe MS 49. Alanus, the scribe of the Stowe Legenda sanctorum, may have been a cleric himself — literally an institutional insider — rather than a professional scribe-for-hire. The colophon of Stowe MS 49 offers some support for this proposal. Longer than the standard colophon of the Legenda sanctorum,37 it invokes the Deity on behalf of the scribe, the owner of the book, the commissioner, and ‘each person looking through and reading or comprehending with devotion any passage contained in it’ and ends with an anathema ‘that he who looks through this book may not steal it, lest he drop dead suddenly’. These phrases suggest that the volume was to be used in an institutional setting. What kind of institution? Here I think we have to return to the phrase from the colophon quoted at the beginning of this essay, in which Alanus describes himself as entirely black throughout the body, ‘niger in toto per corpus’. I interpret this as meaning clothed entirely in black, and consequently conclude that Alanus was a black monk — a Benedictine — and that the Stowe Legenda sanctorum was destined for readers in the monastic community of a Benedictine abbey.38 By the close of the thirteenth century, black monks were not strictly century, from Austin Friars Convent, Cambridge (LA 909). The preceding list was checked against and supplemented by N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (2nd edn., London, 1964), from which the following may be added: Cambridge, University Library, MS Mm.III.14, fourteenth century, from Durham Cathedral Priory. 36 From Fleith, Studien, the following English examples: Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 277, beg. fourteenth century, given to Pembroke College in fifteenth century by a former scholar, Mag. J. Sowthom, rector of Forncett, Norfolk, for the use of Dom. Thomas Floraunse during his lifetime (LA 123); London, Lambeth Palace Library. MS 222, 1356, written by William de Weston, vicar of Crich, Derbyshire, given to Crich by Richard Bankes, vicar. 37 See Appendix. 38 Other interpretations of ‘entirely black throughout the body’ are possible, but less satisfactory in my view: 1) ‘Niger’ might have been Alanus’ surname, as concluded by the Benedictines of Le Bouveret, Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux des origines au xvie siècle, I (Fribourg, 1965), p. 146; 2) Alanus might have been distinctively dark skinned; however the qualification of ‘niger in toto’ by ‘per corpus’ appears to suggest not the entire body but a part below the head, which Alanus had already characterized as ‘canus’, hence the possibility that ‘niger in toto per corpus’ refers to the colour of the clothing rather than the skin. 3) Alanus might have been a Blackfriar rather than a Benedictine; the emphasis on ‘niger in toto’ seems to preclude this possibility since Dominicans wore habits of black and white, and were called Blackfriars to distinguish them from Greyfriars, or Franciscans.

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cloistered, but engaged on a daily basis in pastoral, economic, and political contact with the surrounding secular community. The monastic borough or town owed the abbey rents, taxes, and tolls, and in turn the abbey was obligated for spiritual welfare, dispensation of charity, hospital care, and legal justice in the town, both for inhabitants and transients. The relationship was not usually amicable, and from a monastic point of view, was potentially threatening.39 It is this relationship between monastic community and secular society that I believe is reflected in Alanus’ marginal drawings in Stowe MS 49. They show how well he knew the outside world, depicting it with contemptuous familiarity, and presenting it by turns as grotesquely funny, and disgustingly sinful, all the while maintaining his distance from that which seems to have fascinated him the most.

39 See N. M. Trenholme, The English Monastic Boroughs, University of Missouri Historical Studies, II, 3 (Columbia, Mo., 1927); D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, I (Cambridge, 1948), pp. 263–9; S. Reynolds, An Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (Oxford, 1977); for recent studies of specific abbeys see R. Gottfried, Bury St Edmunds and the Urban Crisis: 1290–1539 (Princeton, 1982) and Charters of the Medieval Hospitals of Bury St Edmunds, ed. C. Harper-Bill, Suffolk Records Society, Suffolk Charters, XIV (Woodbridge, 1994); G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster 1200–1540 (Oxford, 1989), with extensive bibliography.

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Appendix Standard Colophon of the Legenda sanctorum (London, BL, Add. MS 11882, English, dated 1312) ‘Quod ipse nobis prestare dignetur qui vivit et regnat deus per omnia secula seculorum amen.’ (May God himself deign to help us, who lives and reigns for ever and ever amen.) Colophon of Legenda sanctorum, London, BL, Stowe MS 49 (fol. 244v) ‘Quod ipse nobis prestare dignetur ut ipse cuius iste liber est & ipsius procurator ipsiusque scriptor. & omnis40 in ipsum cernens & legens aut aliquod verbum quod in eo continetur devote intelligens; vitam perducat sempiternam & leticiam indeficientem; Qui vivit & regnat cum deo patre in unitate spiritui sancti deus; per omnia secula seculorum. amen.41 amen. amen. amen.42 Qui non sum canus scripsi qui 40 The beginning of the colophon as far as ‘omnis’ is written in black ink to the left of a natural hole in the parchment. 41 From ‘in ipsum cernens’ to ‘amen’ each pair of lines is written alternately in red and black. 42 Written in red.

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dicor alanus Sed niger in toto per corpus dente remoto. Exoro Christum librum qui cernit in istum Ne quin invadat fine repente cadat’. (May God who lives and reigns for ever and ever together with the Father and the Holy Spirit deign to help us so that he whose book this is and its commissioner and its writer and each person looking through and reading or comprehending with devotion any passage contained in it may be brought to eternal life and unending joy. amen. amen. amen. amen. I who am called Alan, who am not white-haired but black throughout the body, toothless, wrote. I implore Christ that he who looks through this book May not steal it lest he drop dead suddenly.)43 Marginal Dialogue in Legenda sanctorum London, BL, Stowe MS 49, fol. 220 Left to right in a procession moving from right to left, all figures in profile: 1. small male clad only in hood, red tongue projecting between lips, with walking stick, says: hi dye fore hete hi dye for hete

they die for heat they die for heat

2. (facing right) small male hooded and short caped pointing to the next figure, a male with hat with red cuff and hooded cape, say together: Sire We dye for kalde

Sire we die for cold

I would like to thank Prof. A. C. de la Mare, Dr Scot McKendrick, and Prof. Robert Raymo for suggestions about the translation of the colophon. 43

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APPENDIX

3. large man bearing axe with sharp red-banded spike at bottom, holding jar, hooked nose, bearded, wearing coif, carrying infant with finger in red mouth in hood of cape, and with red-trimmed pot, ewer, spoon and shoes hanging from his clothing, says: lo yore littel bOyer gas bifore yat haves bot an hod opon

lo your little brother goes before that has but an hood upon

4. hooded infant, sucking finger, says: WaWe 5. small hatless male, short cape and long-sleeved, belted robe, carrying two poles over shoulders, one with a cup and two ewers, the other with a wicker basket, says: sire i bere over hevi

sire I bear over heavy

6. small hatless male, hair standing up, short cape, walking stick, harp hanging on back, spoon? hanging from waist, says: hi ne bere noth ye werst

they nay bear not the worst

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VII

The Images of Words in English Gothic Psalters

B

OTH the 1996 exhibition, ‘Het Utrechts Psalter. Middeleeuwse meesterwerken rond een beroemd handschrift’, and the accompanying catalogue, The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art. Picturing the Psalms of David, focused attention on a number of interesting questions about the making of manuscripts — among them, of course, the nature of copying, but also the relation between text and image and, above all, the meaning of the term ‘literal illustration’1 Consideration of these questions in relation to the Utrecht Psalter and its derivatives has led me to think that raising them in connection with psalters executed in England later than the last known descendant of the Carolingian model might be productive. The continued viability of the literal mode of psalter illustration into the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is demonstrated in a number of English books with historiated initials for every psalm, and also in some famous English psalters that have marginal images on every text page. These manuscripts include the Paris Psalter, the last derivative of the Utrecht Psalter, produced in Canterbury around 1190,2 the Cuerden Psalter in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, perhaps made in Oxford around 1270,3 the De la Twyere Psalter at the New York Public Library, made for use in York 1 The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art, Picturing the Psalms of David, K. van der Horst, W. Noel, and W. C. M. Wüstefeld (eds.), MS’t Goy 1996, in conjunction with the exhibition titled ‘Het Utrechts Psalter. Middeleeuwse meesterwerken rond een beroemd handschrift, Utrecht, Catharijneconvent, 31 August–17 November 1996. 2 Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 8846; see Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above), no. 30. 3 New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.756; see N. J. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts [II], 1250–1285 (A Survey of Manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles, J. J. G. Alexander [ed.], vol. 4, 2), London 1988, no. 162.

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diocese during the first decade of the fourteenth century,4 and the psalter in Vienna started for Humphrey de Bohun perhaps around 13505 (all with historiated psalm initials), as well as the Gorleston Psalter in the British Library, made for use in East Anglia round 1310–1320,6 and the Luttrell Psalter, made for Geoffrey Luttrell of Lincolnshire around 1325–1335,7 (both of these with marginal illustrations on every page).8 The term ‘literal illustration’ is inadequate as a description of the complexities of relationship between text and image in these manuscripts. Its implied certainty that pictures are exact translations of words seems too simple. Consequently, in the title of this essay I have replaced ‘literal illustration’ with ‘images of words’, in the hope that this phrase will suggest a somewhat broader range of relationships than the kind of subservience of image to text evoked by the pairing of ‘literal’ and ‘illustration’. But whether we use ‘literal illustration’ or ‘word imagery’ we may ask in the first place why either phrase is used consistently and almost solely in connection with a pictorial mode employed in medieval psalters. Should not all manuscript illustrations that correspond closely with a text be termed ‘literal’? Taking the biblical narrative of Cain and Abel as an example, in the Authorized Version of Genesis (4.8–9) we read that ‘Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?’ In the modern American Good News Bible,9 however, the corresponding passage reads: 4 New York, Public Lib. MS Spencer 2; see L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385 (A Survey of Manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles, J. J. G. Alexander [ed.], vol. 5), London 1986, vol. 2, no. 36. 5 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibl. cod. 1826*; see Sandler 1986 (as n. 4 above), vol. 2, no. 133, with further bibliography. Present opinion tends to attribute the original patronage of the manuscript to Humphrey de Bohun, 6th Earl of Hereford, d. 1361, and posits a date as early as 1348 for the beginning of work on the book; see L. Dennison, ‘ “The Fitzwarin Psalter and its Allies”: A Reappraisal’, in England in the Fourteenth Century, W. M. Ormrod (ed.), Woodbridge, Suffolk 1986, pp. 42–66. 6 London, British Lib. MS Add. 49622; see Sandler 1986 (as n. 4 above), vol. 2, no. 50. S. C. Cockerell, The Gorleston Psalter, London 1907, had dated the Gorleston Psalter before 1306; see, most recently, J. Goodall, ‘Heraldry in the Decoration of English Medieval Manuscripts’, Antiquaries Joumal 78, 1997, pp. 185–6. 7 London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130; see The Luttrell Psalter, E. G. Millar, London 1932, dating the Luttrell Psalter c. 1340–45, and Sandler 1986 (as n. 4 above), vol. 2, no. 107. 8 The marginalia of the Luttrell Psalter ends at Psalm 118 (fol. 215). 9 Good News Bible: The Bible in Today’s English Version (published by the American Bible Society), New York 1966–76.

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1. Paris Psalter, Psalm 8. Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 8846, fol. 14v (from Omont 1906, Pl. 17).

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2. Paris Psalter, Psalm 22. Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 8846, fol. 39v (from Omont 1906, Pl. 31).

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154 3. Cuerden Psalter, Psalm 44. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.756, fol. 68v (photo: Pierpont Morgan Lib.).

4. Twyere Psalter, Psalm 8. New York, New York Public Lib. MS Spencer 2, fol. 21v (photo: New York Public Lib.).

5. Twyere Psalter, Psalm 22. New York, New York Public Lib. MS Spencer 2, fol. 43v (photo: New York Public Lib.).

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‘Cain turned on his brother and killed him. The Lord asked Cain, Where is your brother Abel? He answered, I don’t know. Am I supposed to take care of my brother?’ In a sense the verbal difference does not matter, except to our literary sensibilities. Whether one translation or the other, the text is a narrative that can be given a narrative pictorial form despite the different words, and indeed all biblical illustrations of the murder of Abel would be expected to have the same action and actors. But the psalms, despite their vivid, evocative, and dramatic verbal imagery, are not narrative. ‘Direct’ illustration of the text produces not narrative but word images. As Adelheid Heimann observed, and William Noel has recalled,10 recourse to the three differing versions of the psalms in the Utrecht Psalter and its relations is sometimes accountable for different pictorial components in the illustrations. So, for instance, the Gallican text of the Utrecht Psalter Psalm 27.7, ‘The Lord is my helper and my protector’, corresponds with the pictorial motif of the Lord commanding an angel holding an umbrella over the figure of the psalmist,11 and this image is repeated in the Eadwine Psalter, which has the texts of the Roman and Hebrew as well as the Gallican version;12 on the other hand, the Paris Psalter, which also has all three versions, has an illustration for Psalm 27.7 that corresponds with the Hebraica, ‘The Lord is my strength and my shield’, in showing the angel with a shield rather than an umbrella.13 In sum, these illustrations differ because the words themselves ‘count’ in a way that they do not in illustrations of the biblical narrative about Cain and Abel. How words count in English Gothic psalter illustration is the subject of 10 Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above), p. 134, citing A. Heimann, ‘The Last Copy of the Utrecht Psalter’, in The Year 1200. A Symposium, New York 1975, p. 315; see also D. Panofsky, ‘The Textual Basis of the Utrecht Psalter Illustrations’, Art Bulletin 25, 1943, pp. 50–8, citing a number of instances of recourse to the Hebraica version of the Psalms, and Koert van der Horst’s rebuttal in Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above), pp. 72–3. 11 Utrecht, University Lib. MS 32, Hautvilliers (Reims), c. 820–35. See Utrecht Psalter. Vollständige Faksimile-Ausgabe im Originalformat der Handschrift 32 aus dem Besitz der Bibliothek der Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht (Codices selecti, 75), K. van der Horst and J. H. A. Engelbregt (eds.), Graz 1984. 12 Cambridge, Trinity Coll. MS R.17.1, Canterbury, Christ Church c. 1155–60; see The Canterbury Psalter, M. R. James (ed.), London 1935, fol. 46v (facsimile). 13 Canterbury, Christ Church, c. 1180–1200, and Catalonia, c. 1350; see Psautier illustré (XIIIe S.). Reproduction des 107 miniatures du manuscrit latin 8846 de la Bibliothèque nationale, H. Omont (ed.), Paris 1906, Pl. 36.

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the essay that follows. I have four aims: first to define literal illustration in as multifaceted a way as possible, an effort that will gain breadth from the inclusion of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century psalters unrelated in format to those of the Utrecht group; second, to discuss the various physical relationships between text and word images, that is, how the format in which the word images are presented affects the choice and subjects of the illustrations; third, to address the question of literal illustration as a tradition, to judge the degree of continuity and evaluate the means by which continuity was sustained; and finally, to speculate about the impact of literal illustration on looking, reading, and remembering — in short, on the use of the book to its possessor. The simplest literal illustrations of the psalms single out individual concrete nouns, or pronouns, and present their visual equivalents. Words for human beings are pictured in accordance with gender and status, and given some attribute to identify them. Enemies and the wicked are armed men; the just and righteous carry books or palm branches; fools carry baubles; kings are bearded and crowned figures. The ‘I’ of the psalms may also be shown as crowned, playing a harp, clearly David. God, made visible of course, has a cruciform halo, and is usually in the upper part of the image, often associated with common Christian symbols (clouds, mandorla, angels). Other invisibilia are also given visible form, for instance the soul, either as a bird, or as a small, naked figure. In his essay in the Utrecht Psalter exhibition catalogue Koert van der Horst called such frequently repeated word-images ‘formulaic’.14 However, many concrete nouns in the psalms are used figuratively or metaphorically. For example, in Psalm 8.8–9, David praises God, saying ‘Thou has subjected all things under his [i.e., man’s] feet, all sheep and oxen; moreover the beasts also of the fields. The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea’.15 The creatures and the natural elements named are depicted ad verbum in the illustration in the Paris Psalter (Fig. 1). Yet if we read Psalm 22.1–2 however, we find comparable nouns used figuratively: ‘The lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing. He hath set me in a place of pasture. He hath brought me up, on the water of refreshment’. In the Paris Psalter illustration of this passage (Fig. 2), the images are direct equivalents of the verbal metaphors. 14 15

Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above), pp. 64–5. All psalm texts from the Douay-Rheims version.

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Direct pictorial equivalents of nouns used figuratively in the psalms often produce images that are striking and memorable. Psalm 44.2, ‘My tongue is the pen of a scrivener’, in both the Paris Psalter16 and the Cuerden Psalter (Fig. 3) is illustrated with a writer, in the Cuerden Psalter, David himself. In the Twyere Psalter, Psalm 8.3, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise’ (Fig. 4), and Psalm 22.4, ‘Thy rod and thy staff [‘virga’ and ‘baculus’] they have comforted me’ (Fig. 5), are both illustrated with noun-equivalents, the first with a pair of infants in arms, one nursing at the breast of its mother, and the other, with a boy holding a brushy rod. Similarly, Psalm 10, ‘How then do you say then to my soul: Get thee away from hence to the mountain like a sparrow?’ is represented in the Bohun Psalter by a sparrow flying away from a deathly pale reclining male figure and toward a mountain (Fig. 6). The actions of some verbs in the psalms are also transposed into equivalent pictorial actions, usually carrying along their noun subjects or objects. Examples abound among the musical verbs that are so frequent in the psalms: Psalm 32 for example, which begins, ‘Rejoice in the Lord, O ye just: praise becometh the upright. Give praise to the Lord on the harp; sing to him with the psaltery, the instrument of ten strings. Sing to him a new canticle’, is illustrated with figures playing stringed instruments in the Paris Psalter, the Cuerden Psalter and the Bohun Psalter.17 ‘Cantate domino canticum novum’ begins Psalm 97, and singing figures appear in countless historiated initials for this psalm, including those of psalters not otherwise illustrated throughout ad verbum.18 Other verbs represented directly reflect various emotional or prayerful states: ‘Upon the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept’ (Psalm 136.1) is coupled in the Gorleston Psalter with a grieving woman and man in the upper margin, directly above the relevant words ‘sedimus’ and ‘flevimus’19 In the Twyere Psalter, Psalm 142.1, ‘Hear, O Lord my prayer: Give ear to my supplication’, corresponds with the historiation of the initial, showing the naked soul of a man (142.3, ‘For the enemy hath

Paris Psalter, fol. 79v; see Psautier illustré 1906 (as n. 13 above), Pl. 53. Paris Psalter, fol. 54v; Cuerden Psalter, fol. 48; Bohun Psalter, fol. 30v. 18 Historiated initials for Psalm 97, the first of the psalms recited at Matins on Saturday, mark the beginning of one of the eight divisions of the liturgical psalter. The standard historiated initial shows clerics chanting at a lectern. In addition, in both the Gorleston Psalter (fol. 126) and the Luttrell Psalter (fol. 174v, Ps. 97. 3–8), musicians appear in the margins. 19 Gorleston Psalter, fol. 177. 16 17

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persecuted my soul: he hath brought down my life to earth’) in prayer before the Lord, who blesses the supplicant (Fig. 7). But verbs, like nouns, are often used metaphorically in the psalms. When verbal metaphors are turned directly into images, the result may parallel the meaning of the text, elucidate it, amplify it, dramatise it or even negate it. Psalm 25 in the Paris Psalter may serve as an example (Fig. 8): verses 5 and 6, ‘I have hated the assembly of the malignant; and with the wicked I will not sit. I will wash my hands among the innocent’, elicited a pair of white-garbed men, the innocents, washing their hands in a central basin, an image that suits the action to the words. The terse phrasing of verse 6, ‘I will wash my hands among the innocent’ is translated visually in expanded form, since it is not the psalmist who is washing his hands but the innocents; as if the verse were expanded to read ‘I will wash my hands among the innocent who wash their hands’, and the psalmist stands adjacent, a scroll in one hand and the other palm up in a gesture of avowal, representing the words, ‘I will’. Among other examples of this kind of pictorial acting out consonant with text words and phrases are Psalm 78.1 in the Cuerden Psalter, ‘O God, the heathens are come into thy inheritance, they have defiled thy holy temple’, with a pair of men literally painting dirty streaks on the walls of the temple of the Lord (Fig. 9); Psalm 125.5–7 in the Bohun Psalter, ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming, they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves’, with a scene of sowing little white seeds on either side of the initial letter ‘I’ (Fig. 10); and Psalm 93.6 in the Luttrell Psalter, ‘They have slain the widow and the stranger: and they have murdered the fatherless’, with three vignettes of murder (Fig. 11), a motif repeated in the Bohun Psalter.20 Sometimes, however, the action is depicted ‘out of context’ to a lesser or greater degree, consequently altering the parallel between text and image. To return to the Paris Psalter illustration of Psalm 25 (Fig. 8), the psalmist in the foreground stands on a base from which flames are shooting upward. This motif is the pictorial equivalent of verse 2, ‘Prove me, O Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart’. In this case direct pictorial translation of a figure of speech results in a powerful, but somewhat cryptic image that demands recourse to, or recall of, the text for explanation. 20 Bohun Psalter, fol. 82v, showing two men attacking two women, one of about thirty illustrations in the manuscript that are based on passages beyond the opening lines of the psalm.

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Still more stimulating to an active involvement of the reader with the text are those images that act out verbs in a thoroughly decontextualised way. The chief examples occur in marginal illustrations, where it is not uncommon to find that the verbal action is carried out by some outré creature, as, for instance, in the Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 34.13, where below the last line on the page, ‘But as for me, when they were troublesome to me’, is a man threatened by a devilish creature armed with a gold tipped spear (Fig. 12). The ‘they’ who ‘were troublesome to me’ are the psalmist’s enemies, who have ‘repaid me evil for good’ so the aggressor is also a dramatically heightened visualisation of David’s strong feelings of being beleaguered. The verb probare mentioned in connection with the illustration of Psalm 25 in the Paris Psalter is associated in more than one case with proof or trial by fire in psalm imagery. For example, Psalm 16.3, ‘Thou has proved my heart, and visited it by night thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me’ corresponds in the Cuerden Psalter to a praying man engulfed in flames (Fig. 13); this is turned into a pictorial example in the Twyere Psalter by representing the tortured figure as St Lawrence lying on 21 a grill above a roaring fire tended by two men, one with a pair of bellows. The Twyere image follows a common pattern, in which the situation or 22 actions described by the words is explicated by a visual example. Again, the examples may be consonant in spirit with the words of the psalms, or they may diverge in various degrees. Sometimes the artist developed the pictorial example from a word or phrase that is quite non-specific, for instance, the opening of Psalm 11, ‘Save me, O Lord, for there is now no saint’. In the Cuerden Psalter this line corresponds to the image of the Lord rescuing a man from a fiery pit (Fig. 14); in the Bohun Psalter the Lord is saving David from drowning, a motif undoubtedly inspired by the common illustration for Psalm 68, ‘Save me, O God: for the waters are come in even unto my soul’.23 Some pictorial examples are related to common literary exempla of the sort employed in Christian exegesis, or to visual images familiar from other Twyere Psalter, fol. 31. For example, in psalters with historiated initials at the liturgical divisions of the text, Psalm 68.2, ‘Save me, O God: for the waters are come in even unto my soul’ was frequently illustrated with an Old Testament example of Jonah and the Whale. 23 As, for example, in the historiated initial for Psalm 68 in the Luttrell Psalter (fol. 121v). 21 22

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contexts, and thus readily identifiable with the words or phrases of the psalms to which they pertain. In the Bohun Psalter, for instance, Psalm 132.1, ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity’, is illustrated with a pair of men embracing, emblematic of brotherly love,24 and Psalm 36.1, ‘Be not emulous of evildoers’, with a man virtuously turning away from a man and woman kissing, the concept of evildoing exemplified by an act of lust (Fig. 15). The pictorial examples may be familiar religious subjects. Considering the violence and suffering that is such a concern of the psalter text it is not surprising that images that exemplify phrases such as ‘Whilst the wicked draw near against me to eat my flesh’, or ‘My enemies that trouble me’ or ‘If a battle should rise up against me’, all on the Psalm 26 page of the Luttrell Psalter, should elicit a vignette of the martyrdom of St Thomas of Canterbury in the bottom margin (Fig. 16). Some visual examples are clearly typological. In the Paris Psalter Psalm 21, which begins, ‘O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me’, and includes the line, ‘they parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots’, calls forth a cross hung with the instruments of Christ’s passion.25 In the Luttrell Psalter the initial of Psalm 44,26 which in Christian exegesis celebrates the marriage of Christ and the Church, shows the Virgin and Child, and on the same page, below the words of Psalm 44.3, ‘Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips’, is the Annunciation, the blank scroll of the angel readily filled in the viewer’s mind with the words of the angelic salutation, ‘Hail, full of grace’ (Luke 1.28). Pictorial examples of words or phrases in the psalms are not, however, always so readily recognisable. They sometimes demand an active engagement with the text before they yield their relevance, and I believe, as I will elaborate further below, that this kind of dynamic text-image relationship was envisioned in the Middle Ages too. Such examples are characteristic of psalters with marginal illustrations, especially the Luttrell Psalter. For instance, Psalm 88.20–21, ‘Then thou [i.e., the Lord] has spoken in a vision Cf. the English encyclopaedia of 1360–75, Omne bonum (London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 B vi, fol. 85v), in which the entry for Amicicia shows two men embracing; see L. F. Sandler, Omne bonum, A Fourteenth-century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, vol. 2, London 1996, p. 37. 25 Paris Psalter, fol. 36v; see Psautier illustré 1906 (as n. 13 above), Pl. 30. 26 Luttrell Psalter, fol. 86; see Luttrell Psalter 1932 (as n. 7 above), Pl. 27d. 24

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to thy saints, and saidst: I have laid help upon one that is mighty, and have exalted one chosen out of my people. I have found David my servant: with my holy oil I have anointed him’, is illustrated directly in the Anglo-Saxon Bury Psalter in the Vatican Library with a marginal vignette of the anointing of David.27 But in the Luttrell Psalter the words are associated with the unction of an ordinary dying man, not the royal David. Omitting a pictorial reference to David, the marginal image shows Christ, attended by an angel, anointing the forehead of the moribund penitent (Fig. 17). In this way, the promise of the Lord to his saints, that he would exalt an elect of his people, that with his holy oil he would anoint him, is applied visually to all people (including the user of this manuscript) offering believers in Christ a vision of beatitude at the end of life. Some of the numerous genre subjects in the Luttrell Psalter are also pictorial examples based on text passages. One of the nicest cases is the extended cycle of images of food preparation that begins below Psalm 113.4, where the words, ‘the works of the hands of men’ are found (Fig. 18).28 Here, however, ‘based on text passages’ refers to an image developed by taking the words out of context, so that the illustration exemplifies the ‘works of the hands of men’ in a manner quite different from the way this phrase is used in the psalm, where, in fact, we read ‘The idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men’. What lesson was to be drawn from this decontextualisation of the image, and, indeed, from its disregard of the spirit of the text? It may be that here the manuscript user was being offered a ‘better’ visual example of the works of men than the making of idols, and this explanation is perhaps justified by the fact that the culminating marginal vignette of the series shows the consumption of the meal by the members of the Luttrell family, the original commissioners of the manuscript. Undoubtedly, in their eyes, the labour that put food on their table was worthy in the sight of God. The disengagement of word-images from their contexts is linked with the invention of complex images of two kinds found only in Gothic psalters 27 Bury Psalter, early eleventh century (Bibl. Apostolica Vaticana MS Reg. lat. 12), fol. 95; see Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration: Photographs of Sixteen Manuscripts with Descriptions and Index, T. H. Ohlgren, (ed.), Kalamazoo 1992, Pl. 3.38. 28 The series consists of four images (fols 206v–208); cf. M. Camille, ‘Labouring for the Lord: The Ploughman and the Social Order in the Luttrell Psalter’, Art History 10, 1987, pp. 423–54 (esp. pp. 439–41, commenting on another case of word imagery in the same cycle).

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with marginal illustrations. The first is the type of vignette in which the image of a single word is one element in a complex image unrelated as a whole to the text; the second is the type of complex but unitary image that incorporates word equivalents from a variety of places in a particular psalm, again without representing in any way the grammatical structure or meaning of those passages from which the visual motifs were extracted. The Luttrell Psalter provides the best examples.29 The strategy that produced the first type, that is, a non-contextual image with a single verbal tie to the text, often resulted in grotesques, for example, on the page with Psalm 105. 41–42, ‘And he [the Lord] delivered them into the hands of the nations: and they that hated them had dominion over them. And their enemies afflicted them: and they were humbled under their hands’.30 Paralleling these lines is a marginal monster whose hands are where his feet would be. The incongruous components, of course, are what makes the creature monstrous, but among them the hands stand out particularly, not only because of their position in the body but because of their inversion in relation to the profile of the other components of the figure. Such monsters may evoke generally the threatening forces named in the psalms: the unjust, the iniquitous, the enemies that harry, oppress and terrify the psalmist, although by no means is there psalm-by-psalm correlation between marginal monsters and the tenor of the text. The second type of non-contextual marginalia, the kind developed by combining pictorial equivalents of disparate words on a particular page, is found in some astounding images in the Luttrell Psalter. One is a kind of Eleanor cross held aloft by a giant man balancing on one foot; at its base sits a small figure, hand raised to brow in a gesture of wonderment; near the top of the cross are three crowned effigies of Eleanor, and just below the pennant at its summit is the cross proper, that is, a crucified Christ.31 Adjacent to this image are the lines of Psalm 88.7–9, ‘For who in the clouds can be compared to the Lord or who among the sons of God shall be like to God: God who is glorified in the assembly of the saints: great and terrible above them all that are about him. O Lord God of hosts,who is like to

29 See L. F. Sandler, ‘The Word in the Text and the Image in the Margin: The Case of the Luttrell Psalter’, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54, 1996, pp. 87–100. 30 Luttrell Psalter, fol. 193v; Luttrell Psalter 1932 (as n. 7 above), Pl. 139. 31 Luttrell Psalter, fo1. 159v; Luttrell Psalter 1932 (as n. 7 above), Pl. 71.

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thee?’32 Metaphorically, the stone cross base is raised up in the clouds and God, that is, the crucified Christ, is glorified above all them, the female figures, that are about him. God is great and terrible, hence the seated man’s gesture of wonder. The idea of representing such a freestanding polygonal structure may have come from the twice-repeated term ‘in circuitu’, and the strongman holding the structure up is literally ‘potens’. In this image all the words are gathered together in a single noncontextual entity. Word-images may also constitute a mock narrative, as in the Luttrell Psalter illustration for Psalm 88.12–15, which runs down the whole length of the page.33 The pictorial action is plausible, four men straining to row a boat pulled by two more; but what in the text could have elicited the image? Again we find the verbal sources in key words scattered in the adjacent lines of the psalm text: ‘Thine are the heavens and thine is the earth: the world and the fullness thereof thou has founded: the north and the sea thou hast created. Thabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name: thy arm is with might. Let thy hand be strengthened and the right hand exalted: justice and judgment are the preparation of thy throne. Mercy and truth shall go before thy face’.34 The key words, ‘mare’, ‘brachium cum potencia’, ‘firmetur manus tua’, ‘sedis tua’ and ‘precedent faciem tuam’ can be combined into a new sentence that would parallel the features of the marginal image. It would read something like this: ‘With their strong hands they go before the faces of men seated in a boat rowed through the sea by the power of their arms’. The most extreme form of decontextualisation is the pictorial image that corresponds not to a word or phrase but to a single syllable, a mode again prevalent in marginal illustrations of psalters. Michael Camille has called attention to the medieval fascination with scriptural words whose syllables are common vernacular terms for parts of the body associated with sex and

32 Psalm 88. 7–9: ‘Quoniam quis in nubibus equabitur domino: similis erit domino in filiis dei. Deus qui glorificatur in consilio sanctorum: magnus et terribilis super omnes qui in circuitu eius sunt. Domine deus virtutum quis similis tibi: potens es domine and veritas tua in circuitu tuo’ (pictorial word-equivalents italicised). 33 Luttrell Psalter, fol. 160; Luttrell Psalter 1932 (as n. 7 above), Pl. 72. 34 Psalm 88. 12–15: ‘Tui sunt celi and tua est terra: orbem terre et plenitudinem eius tu fundasti: aquilonem et mare tu creasti. Thabor et hermon in nomine tuo exultabunt: tuum brachium cum potencia. Firmetur manus tua et exaltetur dextera tua: iusticia et iudicium preparacio sedis tue. Misericordia et veritas precedent faciem tuam’ (pictorial word-equivalents italicised).

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defaecation: vit from vita, or cul from iuvencularum or conculcavit.35 This fascination is reflected in the Gorleston Psalter, for example, on the page with Psalm 44.10, ‘The queen stood on thy right hand’ on the second line.36 The ‘As’ of ‘Astitit’ at the beginning of the line may have elicited the obscene arse-end view of the man in the upper margin, directly above the first two letters of the word,37 while the crowned female hybrid in the lower margin responds to the next word, ‘regina’. Other syllabic images are less earthy, as for instance, the treatment of Psalm 83.2–3, ‘My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. For the sparrow hath found herself a house’, etc. In the Twyere Psalter illustration of this psalm the word ‘sparrow’ is transposed directly (Fig. 19); but in the Luttrell Psalter the word ‘passer’, in the last line of the page, has been syllabified pictorially (Fig. 20). ‘Pas’ is now translated into a pictorial action of two naked men38 ‘pes’, or ‘foot’, to foot. As astounding as the ‘footsie’ image is, it may well have had recognition value in the Middle Ages, since comparable images, not elicited by textual passages, occur in the margins of the Rutland Psalter and elsewhere.39 Just as in the game of charades, where the player is challenged to identify a word, or a phrase, unless he or she comprehends the action that represents it, the task is hopeless. To sum up, word images are not all alike in the ways they are related to M. Camille, Image on the Edge. The Margins of Medieval Art, London 1992, pp. 39, 43. Psalm 44.10: ‘Astitit regina a dextris tuis in vestitu deaurato circumdita varietate’. 37 This is not the only marginal instance of trans-linguistic pictorial-syllabic play. See Camille 1992 (as n. 35 above), p. 43 and Figs. 21–2 associating the cul (Anglo-French) of iuvencularum (Latin) with the exposed backside of a nude in the bottom margin or a page from the thirteenth-century Rutland Psalter (London, British Lib. MS Add. 62925, fol. 67) with the words of Psalm 67.26 in the last line; see The Rutland Psalter, E. G. Millar (ed.), Oxford 1937 (facsimile). For another instance from the Rutland Psalter, see below. Some of Camille’s finds are not convincing, as, for example, his identification (p. 39, Fig. 17) of a ‘phallic turban’ as the pictorial equivalent of conturbata (Psalm 6.3) on the Penitential Psalms page of the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Mus. MS 242, fol. 55v). Turbata did not occur in English or French with the present meaning before the sixteenth century; with the spelling tuliban, tollipane, etc. the word occurs in French as early as the fifteenth century; see Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd. ed., Oxford 1989 and Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris 1992, s.v. 38 Their nakedness apparently responds to the phrase ‘My heart and my flesh’ (Cor meum et caro mea) of verse 2, at the beginning of the third line from the bottom of the page. In the Rutland Psalter parallel cited in note 39 below the foot wrestlers are clothed. 39 Rutland Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 62925, fol. 43v; Rutland Psalter 1937 (as n. 37 above). 35 36

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the text. Some are direct pictorial equivalents that correspond to the sense of the psalm; some are transpositions of words and phrases that are already metaphorical into direct pictorial equivalents, in the process altering the way the text is looked at; some ‘illustrate’ words and phrases with visual examples; and some are so decontextualised that they appear to disregard the sense of the text completely. The second part of this essay considers how the types of transposition of words into images and the resulting word-images themselves intersect with the physical format of the psalter, whether it is a question of the full-width miniatures of the Paris Psalter, the historiated initials of such books as the Bohun Psalter, or the marginalia of the Luttrell Psalter. Ancient layouts of book illustration, evident in the Utrecht Psalter, clearly persist in the Paris Psalter: first, the pictures are physically in the text; they are exactly the width of the text block, like the illustrations of other works of great antiquity such as the Vatican Vergil.40 Second, the images are collective, that is, they pull together selected passages from various places in the text unit (the psalm) into a single location at its beginning. In this, the Paris Psalter is comparable to the illustrations of early biblical manuscripts such as the Ashburnham Pentateuch41 or the Bible of S. Paolo fuori le mura.42 Finally, the collective images are organised in part at least as unified compositions in a space that echoes that of landscape, heaven above, earth below. As in the early medieval tradition, earth-strips, one on top of the next, form a series of discontinuous ground lines. In the Paris Psalter these demarcations are more strongly articulated than those of the earlier manuscripts in the Utrecht Psalter tradition. Each tends to encapsulate a segment of the picture surface, holding the pictorial equivalent of a portion of the psalm text. As a result clear visual instructions about how to ‘read’ the psalm are provided. Framing each pictorial unit also facilitates meditation on the text evoked by each image. An overlay tracing· the visual units reveals the system used, for example, in Psalm 32 (Figs. 21, 21a): upper left, ‘Rejoice in the Lord, O just: praise becometh the upright. Give praise to the Lord on the harp; sing to him with the psaltery, the instrument of ten strings. Sing to him anew canticle, sing well unto him with a loud noise’; middle left, ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were established; and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth’ (the artist put books in the Vatican, Bibl. Apostolica MS lat. 3225, Italy, fifth century. Paris, Bibl. nationale MS n. a. lat. 2334, provenance uncertain, seventh century. 42 Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, Reims, c. 870. 40 41

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hands of the three men as well as Christ above); centre, ‘Gathering together the waters of the earth as in a vessel; laying up the depths in storehouses’; right side in two sections, ‘The king is not saved by a great army: nor shall the giant be saved by his own great strength’; lower centre, ‘Vain is the horse for safety: neither shall he be saved by the abundance of his strength’; and lower left, ‘Behold the eyes of the Lord are on them that fear him: and on Them that hope in his mercy. To deliver their souls from death; and feed them in famine’. From Psalm 35 onward the irregularly shaped compartments of the Paris Psalter illustrations were replaced with regular vertical and horizontal subdivisions, sometimes given architectural features, like the conventional framing devices of contemporary manuscripts. The result is one or more horizontal registers in which the individual verbal images are lined up, so that the miniatures look as if they should be read from top to bottom and from left to right, but the pictorial order continues to echo that of the earlier manuscripts in the Utrecht tradition. In the illustration of Psalm 36, for example,43 the contrast, reiterated throughout the psalm, between the evildoers who may be exalted for a time but will quickly fall and the just who will inherit the land, is approximated by the division between the left and the right on either side of an image of the Lord and the just man whose mouth shall meditate wisdom and speak judgement (36.30) — the book, the scroll and the scales. The burden of the psalm is that the just shall be filled in the days of famine, that they shall ‘inherit the land’, a phrase repeated four times (36.9, 11, 29, 34). Perhaps the separated vignettes of food production activities, which are represented in a continuous space in the earlier Utrecht group manuscripts, respond to the repetition of this refrain. In many illustrations in the Paris Psalter uninscribed scrolls play a part in restoring to the whole some of the fluidity that characterised the earlier manuscripts of the Utrecht Psalter tradition (Figs. 1, 8, 21). They often cut across the individual pictorial-verbal units, connecting the figure holding the scroll with other figures or pictorial elements, and directing the understanding of the viewer. The scrolls represent speech, and might have been intended to be inscribed, as those in the prefatory narratives at the beginning of the manuscript are; and as William Noel has observed, they translate the vocal practice of chanting or reciting the psalms aloud into imagery that stands for the sounding out of the psalter text.44 43 44

Paris Psalter, fol. 62v; Psautier illustré 1906 (as n. 13 above), Pl. 45. Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above), pp. 159–60.

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The word-images of the Paris Psalter form compositions referring to the whole of the psalms they precede, even if the individual pictorial motifs do not refer to every single verse. In contrast, the word-images of psalters illustrated with historiated initials at the beginning of each psalm rarely refer to more than a single verse. The physical relation between the illustration and the text block is however complex. Unlike the Paris Psalter, where the psalm illustrations physically parallel the width of the text but are otherwise not integrated with it, the letter-shapes of the historiated initials serve both as textual components and as frames for pictorial subjects. The initials are literally and figuratively embedded in the text, much as they maintain the high visibility that characterises all painted images in written settings. The physical integration between historiated initial and text no doubt encouraged the selection of pictorial subjects tied to the opening verses of each psalm. In the Twyere Psalter for example, about 65 historiated initials correspond to the opening verses, which typically voice an appeal to the Lord. Of these, more than 40 show the head of God and one or more praying figures, some King David, others naked penitents, sufferers or souls, and many male supplicants of various ages and status, including children, clerics and a warrior. David is the visualisation of the voice of the author of the psalms, often named in the titulus. The other individuals also embody voiced prayer, acting out the feelings of trust, hope, despair, guilt and complaint expressed in the opening lines of the psalms, but they also imply the living supplicant, that is, the user of the book. Occasionally details of these images correspond with further verses of the psalm. In the Twyere Psalter Psalm 7, for instance (Fig. 22), begins ‘O Lord my God, in thee have I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me’. The man on his deathbed, eyes closed, corresponds to this plea. The next verse is ‘Lest at any time he seize upon my soul like a lion, while there is no one to redeem me, nor to save’. The verbal metaphor of the lion elicits a direct visual translation in the form of the lion menacing the soul of the dying man. A few historiated initials that show figures in prayer are considerably more complex in the combination of components. One of the most interesting examples is in the Bohun Psalter, in which about 95 psalm illustrations refer to the opening verse, most with representations of praying figures. Psalm 79 (Fig. 24) shows a man in prayer seated under a tree. On the right are a man with a club and the head of a wild beast. Above, on the center axis is the head of God, features rendered invisible by rays. The

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prayerful man is the ‘voice’ of the psalm, whose supplication is repeated throughout, from the beginning: ‘Give ear, O thou that rulest Israel’, to ‘O Lord God of Hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy servant?’ (79.5), etc. The man with the club represents verse 7, ‘our enemies’ who ‘have scoffed at us’. The tree is the vine that ‘thou plantedst the roots thereof and it filled the land’ cited in verses 10–13 and the beast is the ‘singular wild beast’ that ‘hath devoured it [the vine)’ of verse 14. The particular form of radiant, veiled face of God corresponds with the words of verse 8, repeated exactly in the last verse (79.20): ‘God of hosts, convert us: and shew thy face and we shall he saved’. Instead of representing the ‘I’ or ‘We’ of the psalm, some initials with subjects related to the opening verses show the ‘you’ or ‘they’. For example, the Cuerden Psalter illustration for Psalm 79 (Fig. 23), ‘Give ear, O Thou that rulest Israel: thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep’ visualises not the supplicant saying ‘Give ear’ but the object of the prayer, ‘Thou that rulest Israel’, who is shown in a Jew’s hat leading two boys (that is, Joseph, or the children of Israel) while holding a sheep, the literal image of a verbal metaphor. The illustration for Psalm 71 in the Cuerden Psalter follows the same pattern.45 It begins, ‘Give to the king thy judgment, O God: and to the king’s son thy justice: To judge thy people with justice, and thy poor with judgment’. The corresponding initial shows an enthroned man embraced by another man at his side (the king and his son) and then a pictorial example of the just treatment of the poor, with the distribution of bread from a basket held by a smaller, servant figure. Finally, in some historiated initials the connection with the opening verse of the psalm is abandoned, and the illustrations correspond to words and phrases from later sections. This kind of response to the text, though unusual, is not completely inexplicable. The images quite often are not totally novel but rather represent the use of familiar pictorial motifs, which appear to be called up by the words of the psalm. For example, the entire theme of Psalm 103 is praise of the blessings of God. In the Twyere Psalter the upper part of illustration for Psalm 103 (Fig. 25) reflects the opening line, ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul: O Lord my God, thou art exceedingly great’. But the communion of the skeletal dying man below is a relatively familiar pictorial theme elicited by decontextualising the words of verses 14 45

Cuerden Psalter, fol. 104.

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and 15: ‘That thou mayest bring bread out of the earth: and that wine may cheer the heart of man’. Similarly, in the Cuerden Psalter, verse 30 of Psalm 21 (Fig. 26), ‘All the fat ones of the earth have eaten and adored: all they that go down to the earth shall fall before him’ seems to have kindled the artist’s visual imagination, eliciting the vivid, and well-known, image of the fall of the high and mighty.46 Turning again to psalters with marginal illustrations, how does the marginality of such images affect the choice and presentation of their themes? Clearly the physical relation with the words differs from that of psalters illustrated either with full-width miniatures at the beginning of each psalm, or with historiated initials, since, of course, the images are not in the text. Indeed, many times they must be viewed not in terms of the layout of the text but rather the design of the border, where they may constitute discrete elements of a richly varied system of disparate visual motifs; foliate, animal, grotesque, genre, all presented at once. In fact, although it has recently been realised that an unexpectedly large number of marginal images are word-images, and thus charged with ‘meaning’, the messages of many of the marginal elements sharing the same area of the manuscript page remain elusive.47 Actually, the physical presentation of the text exercises considerable control over the themes of marginal word-images. Most of them are associated with the first or the last lines on a page. The words at the beginning or end of any page fall there by accident, so the artist is in a position to ‘see’ the visual potential of a different portion of the text with each manuscript that he illuminates. Further, the fact that a particular page may begin with the tail of a verse or break off before the end of a verse is conducive to the decontextualisation of marginal word-images. Of the English psalters with profuse marginal word-illustrations, only the Luttrell Psalter has images in the side margins. Some of these belong to the standard word-image repertory; a fool, the pelican and the sparrow, the 46 E.g., Luttrell Psalter, fol. 53, Psalm 27.1, ‘them that go down [descendentibus] into the pit’; Luttrell Psalter 1932 (as n. 7 above), Pl. 8. Cf. the Tree of Vices in the Vergier de soulas, a French collection of pictorial diagrams of c. 1290 (Paris, Bibl. nationale MS fr. 9220, fo1. 6), in which Pride, the root vice, is pictured as a man falling from a horse at the bottom of the tree; see L. F. Sandler, The Psalter of Robert de Lisle in the British Library, London 1983, pp. 137–8. 47 See L. F. Sandler, ‘The Study of Marginal Imagery: Past, Present, and Future’, Studies in Iconography 18, 1997, pp. 1–49.

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murdered widow and children, and musicians, for example. Even if the source-word is in the middle of a line in the middle of the page, the mental association of word and image was strong enough to elicit the picture. In other cases, however, the vertical spaces of the side margins proved to be areas susceptible to the invention of new images sparked by words, primarily verbs, of direction, going up, going down. ‘Them that go down into the pit’ (Descentibus in lacum) of Psalm 27 elicits a standard image of a man falling from a horse,48 but elsewhere similar terms are linked with new, imaginative fantasies such as the one adjacent to Psalm 29:4 (Fig. 27) where an elongated female hybrid pours a stream of white liquid, perhaps a syllabic pun on ‘lac’ (milk), down the length of the margin in response to ‘Thou hast brought forth, O Lord, my soul from hell: thou hast saved me from them that go down into the pit’.49 Hybrids that correspond to words and phrases in the text are ubiquitous in marginal imagery, confirming Michael Camille’s conclusion that ‘at the edge he [the artist] was free to read the words for himself and make what he wanted of them’.50 Similar pictorial motifs recur in the illustrations of psalters widely distant in date and different in format, raising a question of the transmission of word-images. Traditionally for example, investigation of the four psalters that constitute the Utrecht Psalter group has focused on their pictorial interrelationships, using a philological approach to construct a stemma of manuscripts.51 Although the method was borrowed from philology, the result was to treat pictorial imagery as divorced from the text. In other words, once the pictorial corpus was first created, whether in the fifth or the ninth century, the illustrations of succeeding manuscripts were thought to copy or interpret pictorial models, and seldom, if ever, to refer back to the text of the psalms. However, this schema has been challenged by William Noel,52 and, in fact, study of word illustration in the later books descended from the Utrecht Psalter offers abundant evidence that the responsiveness of artists to the text resulted in images that differ from manuscript to manuscript. See note 46. Psalm 29.4: ‘Domine eduxisti ad inferno animam meam; salvasti me a descendentibus in lacum’. 50 Camille 1992 (as n. 35 above), p. 42. 51 For a recent summary and evaluation of opinions, and extensive bibliography, see Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above). 52 Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above), pp. 125–9. 48 49

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Yet there are also striking instances where visual agreement extends beyond the manuscripts of the Utrecht Psalter group to encompass later psalters that differ completely in format. For example, the ‘hart’ that ‘panteth after water’ illustrates Psalm 41 in the Paris Psalter,53 the Cuerden Psalter (Fig. 28), the Twyere Psalter,54 the Bohun Psalter,55 and also all the extant thirteenth-century French psalters with literal illustrations, even the psalms in the Bible moralisée.56 Such universal agreement was undoubtedly conditioned by the simile embedded in the text; ‘As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God’, the basis of the standard exegesis in terms of human longing for Christ, the Fountain of Life. But some recurrent illustrations do not carry the symbolic weight of the hart and the water. Psalm 40, for example, is illustrated in the French manuscripts and in the Paris Psalter (Fig. 29),57 the Twyere Psalter (Fig. 30), as well as the Bohun Psalter58 with scenes of distribution of bread or clothing, examples drawn from the opening line, ‘Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor’.59 What is the explanation of 53 Paris Psalter, fol. 73v; see Psautier illustré 1906 (as n. 13 above), Pl. 50, painted by the mid-fourteenth-century Catalan artist who completed the illustrations, here working over drawings of the original artist; on the later hand see M. Meiss, ‘Italian Style in Catalonia and a Fourteenth-Century Catalan Workshop’, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 4, 1941, pp. 45–87. 54 Twyere Psalter, fol. 75. 55 Bohun Psalter, fol. 40. 56 Bible moralisée, Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 11560, fol. 12, Paris, c. 1220–30; see A. Laborde, Étude sur La Bible moralisée, Paris 1911–27, Pl. 236. On French psalters with literal illustrations for every psalm see E. Peterson, ‘Iconography of the Historiated Psalm Initials in the Thirteenth.Century French Fully·illustrated Psalter Group’, Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh 1991; idem, ‘Accidents in Transmission among Fully-illustrated Thirteenth-Century French Psalters’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 50, 1987, pp. 375–84, and ‘The Textual Basis for Visual Errors in French Gothic Psalter illustration’, in The Early Medieval Bible, Its Production, Decoration and Use, R. Gameson (ed.), Cambridge 1994, pp. 177–204. 57 In the Paris Psalter Psalm 40 was painted by the mid-fourteenth-century Catalan artist over drawings by the original artist; see note 53 above. 58 Bohun Psalter, fol. 39v.; see M. R. James and E. G. Millar, The Bohun Manuscripts, Oxford 1936, Pl. 43c. 59 See also the historiated initial for Psalm 40 in the Luttrell Psalter (fol. 79v), with two ill-clothed beggars rejected by a richly dressed man; for a reproduction see L. F. Sandler, ‘Pictorial and Verbal Play in the Margins: The case of British Library, Stowe MS 49’, in Illuminating the Book, Makers and Interpreters, Essays in Honour of Janet Backhouse, M. P. Brown and S. McKendrick (eds), London 1998, Fig. 19.

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the parallels among these images? Was the transmission visual, that is, dependent on pictorial models; or textual, that is, dependent on familiarity with verbal interpretations, whether full·scale commentaries or simple instruction lists; or cultural— dependent on remembered (that is, memorial) images, a process by which certain words or phrases habitually elicited the same mental pictures over centuries? Although answers to this question would be conjectural in relation to the surviving examples of English psalters with literal illustrations, there is evidence from across the Channel that one means by which identical word images were produced in French psalters was verbal.60 Lists of subjects and marginal ‘instructions’ in either Latin or French, all similar, support the idea of an established pictorial tradition for literal psalter illustration that was maintained not through pictorial models or mental images but through verbal sources.61 For example, the Latin instructions for the illustration of Psalm 40 are ‘David dat pauperi panem’,62 corresponding closely with the actors and the action in the French psalters.63 Such verbal sources do not survive in England, and indeed the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English psalters with literal illustrations See Peterson 1987, 1991 and 1994 (as n. 56 above). The chief French manuscripts with historiated initials for all the psalms and tituli, ‘instructions’, or separate lists of subjects are: Manchester, John Rylands Lib. MS 22, c. 1225–30; St. Petersburg, Saltykov-Scedrin State Public Lib. MS Q.v.I.67, c. 1225–30; Philadelphia, Free Lib., Lewis Coll. MS 185, c. 1235; Cambridge, University Lib. MS Ee.iv.24, c.1280; Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 10435, c. 1295 (the dates are those suggested by Peterson 1995 [as n. 56 above], pp. 178–9). See also S. Berger, ‘Les manuels pour l’illustration du psautier au xiiie siècle’, Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France 6th ser., 7, 1898, pp. 95–134. 62 Manchester, John Rylands Lib. MS 22. fol. 51v; for the full list see M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Latin Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library at Manchester, Manchester 1921, vol. 1, pp. 68–70. Cf. Cambridge, University Lib. MS Ee.iv.24, fol. 13v, with an illustration of David distributing bread and on fol. 4, in a separate list of tituli, ‘David done le pain au poure’; see M. R. James, ‘On a Ms. Psalter in the University Library’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1892–1893 8, 1894, pp. 146–67. I am grateful to Professor Elizabeth Peterson for providing additional information about these manuscripts. 63 In the English manuscripts considered here the actors are more varied: the Paris Psalter shows the man of understanding blessed by the hand of God seated next to a container from which loaves of bread are distributed by another man to two poor men (Fig. 29); the Cuerden Psalter shows two men distributing bread to two poor men (Fig. 30); the Bohun Psalter shows a secular rider giving bread to a bare-chested man (James and Millar 1936 [as n. 58 above], Pl. 43c). 60 61

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6. Bohun Psalter, Psalm 10. Vienna Osterreichische Nationalbibl. cod. 1826*, fol. 13 (photo: Bildarchiv, ÖNB Wien).

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7. Twyere Psalter, Psalm 142. New York, New York Public Lib. MS Spencer 2, fol. 222 (photo: New York Public Lib.).

9. Cuerden Psalter, Psalm 78. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.756, fol. 120 (photo: Pierpont Morgan Lib.).

8. Paris Psalter, Psalm 25 (detail). Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 8846, fol. 43v (from Omont 1906, Pl. 34).

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10. Bohun Psalter, Psalm 125. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibl. cod. 1826*, fol. 114 (photo: Bildarchiv ÖNB Wien).

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11. Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 93. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 169 (photo: British Lib.).

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12. Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 34.13. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 66 (photo: British Lib.).

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13. Cuerden Psalter, Psalm 16. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.756, fol. 25v (photo: Pierpont Morgan Lib.).

14. Cuerden Psalter, Psalm 11. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.756, fol. 21v (photo: Pierpont Morgan Lib.).

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15. Bohun Psalter, Psalm 36. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibl. cod. 1826*, fol. 35 (photo: Bildarchiv ÖNB Wien).

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16. Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 26. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 51 (from Millar 1932, Pl. 7).

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17. Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 88. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 160v (from Millar 1932, Pl. 73).

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18. Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 113. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 206v (photo: British Lib.).

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19. Twyere Psalter, Psalm 83. New York, New York Public Lib. MS Spencer 2, fol. 141 (photo: New York Public Lib.).

20. Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 83. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 83 (detail) (from Millar 1932, Pl. 57).

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21. Paris Psalter, Psalm 32. Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 8846, fol. 54v (photo from Utrecht Psalter 1996, Fig. 19).

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21a. Paris Psalter, Psalm 32 (with overlay tracing verbal units).

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22. Twyere Psalter, Psalm 7. New York, New York Public Lib. MS Spencer 2, fol. 20 (photo: New York Public Lib.).

23. Cuerden Psalter, Psalm 79. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib.MS M. 756, fol. 121v (photo: Pierpont Morgan Lib.).

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24. Bohun Psalter, Psalm 79. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibl. cod. 1826*, fol. 71 (photo: Bildarchiv ÖNB Wien).

187

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25. Twyere Psalter, Psalm 103. New York, New York Public Lib. MS Spencer 2, fol. 168v (photo: New York Public Lib.).

26. Cuerden Psalter, Psalm 21. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 756, fol. 34 (photo: Pierpont Morgan Lib.).

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27. Luttrell Psalter, Psalm 29. London, British Lib. MS Add. 42130, fol. 55v (photo: British Lib.).

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28. Cuerden Psalter, Psalm 41. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 756, fol. 64v (photo: Pierpont Morgan Lib.).

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29. Paris Psalter, Psalm 40. Paris, Bibl. nationale MS lat. 8846, fol. 72v (from Omont 1906, Pl. 49).

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30. Twyere Psalter, Psalm 40. New York, New York Public Lib. MS Spencer 2, fol. 73v (photo: New York Public Lib.).

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do not form an iconographically cohesive group, since they have many more unique images than the French books. Nevertheless, some words, and even some phrases were nearly universally favoured for illustration, and the resulting images turn out to be identical in theme. What has been somewhat overlooked as a possible explanation is the factor of culturally based concepts retained in the mind in the form of images. Artists did not have to read anything to represent the needy and the poor of Psalm 40 with a scene of distribution of bread, alms or clothing. Such pictures would be recalled instantaneously from the shared fund of mental images that constituted the concept of Christian Charity throughout the Middle Ages.64 As a mode of psalter illustration, imagines verborum evoke a final question: what was the impact of such literal imagery on looking, reading and remembering, in short, on the use of the book to its possessor? Psalters with literal illustrations are by definition luxury books; the material expense of producing at least 150 images was considerable, especially in the case of these Gothic manuscripts, since all the illustrations were on gold backgrounds. The manuscripts were meant for wealthy owners, whether clerical or secular. How were such manuscripts used? This, of course, is a question that relates to all luxury manuscripts. And as in other cases, the answers here are varied: for instance, the Paris Psalter has an elaborate textual apparatus, echoing that of the Eadwine Psalter, but unlike the earlier twelfth-century book it may not have been used for monastic study, and its splendid illustrations suggest that it might have been destined for a royal owner,65 perhaps more to be read and appreciated in some court circle than in private devotions. The Twyere Psalter contains antiphons in the original hand, and the antiphons were added in the fourteenth century in the margins of the Bohun Psalter, suggesting possible use in conjunction with religious services, during which antiphons were sung before and after groups of psalms.66 The Luttrell Psalter, nearly as large in dimensions as the Paris Psalter, with an ungraded calendar, and with innumerable pictorial and heraldic references to the Luttrell family, has the earmarks of a ‘family treasure’, to be pored over like a photograph album rather than to serve as For recent studies see M. Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Age: An Essay in Social History, New Haven and London 1986; and G. B. Guest, ‘A Discourse on the Poor: The Hours of Jeanne d’Evereux’, Viator 26, 1995, pp. 145–80. 65 Utrecht Psalter 1996 (as n. 1 above), p. 240. 66 See A. Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office. A Guide to their Organization and Terminology, Toronto 1982, p. 232. 64

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a devotional aid on a prie-dieu in a private chapel, or on the lectern of a choir stall. In view of this variety of projected uses we may ask again how word illustrations functioned. To the extent that the images glossed the text pictorially they mimicked the role of verbal glosses, transforming the text into an object of study, and deepening the experience of reading and understanding the words. The visualisation of nouns and verbs used metaphorically in the psalms, resulting in striking and memorable images, might ultimately lead to remembering the text, but in the first instance they would encourage an individual to read through the text to find the verbal analogue in its scriptural setting. Even more so would the owner of a psalter with completely decontextualised word images in the margins be challenged to engage in the activity of seeking out the relevant words in the text and discovering the riches of meaning concealed therein. Probably those who owned these manuscripts had heard the psalms chanted, perhaps they themselves sounded the words aloud as they looked at these books, but imagines verborum gave them the opportunity to ‘read’ both text and images reciprocally, using the faculty of sight. If the words gave rise to the images, the images disclosed the depths of meaning in the text. In sum, for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries images of words enhanced the experience of reading the psalms and made it rewarding spiritually.

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II DEVOTIONAL, VISIONARY, AND SELF-IMAGES

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VIII

Face to Face with God: A Pictorial Image of the Beatific Vision

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N a creative reconstruction of an encounter he reported as taking place in the year 1327, Umberto Eco invented a dialogue between Ubertine da Casale, leader of the Spiritual Franciscans, and Michele da Cesena, formerly Minister-General of the Franciscan Order. This conversation took place in the unnamed monastery that forms the setting of Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose.1 Ubertino, lamenting to Michele, exclaims: ‘Ah, Michael, Michael, you have no idea of the shameful things I had to see in Avignon!’ He is talking about the pope, that is, John XXII, and he continues: ‘Well, he has not yet expressed the idea I cannot divulge to you — not publicly, at least — but . . . He is planning some mad if not perverse propositions that would change the very substance of doctrine and would deprive our teaching of all power!’ Another rebel Franciscan, Berengar Talloni, chimes in, ‘It is a murky and almost incredible story . . . It seems that John is planning to declare that the just will not enjoy the beatific vision until after judgment’. ‘Lord Jesus assist us!’ says a listener, ‘We are in the hands of a madman’, Ubertino concludes. In fact, we do not know whether John XXII was conceiving his ‘mad’ ideas about the beatific vision as early as 1327. By 1331, however, he began to propose them publicly in sermons delivered at Avignon.2 His ideas

Trans. W. Weaver (New York, 1983), pp. 296–297. For the sermons of John XXII on the beatific vision, on 1 November 1331, 15 December 1331, 5 January 1332, 2 February 1332, and 25 March 1333, see M. Dykmans, Les sermons de Jean XXII sur la vision béatifique (Miscellanea historiae pontificae, xxxiv, 1973). 1 2

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reopened a controversy which had lain dormant for centuries.3 To review, the term ‘beatific vision’ refers to the experience of the blessed dead of the essence of the Deity, directly, face to face, not, as it were, through a glass darkly. The controversial question was when is the beatific vision experienced. Some of the Church Fathers believed that this would be after the general resurrection and the Last Judgment.4 Others, however — St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory the Great, for example — thought that for the blessed the beatific vision would be immediate, that is, that dead souls would see God without having to wait for the resurrection of the body.5 And belief that the beatific vision would be immediate for the souls of the blessed dead grew to be widespread and unquestioned in the Latin West from the eleventh century on. In 1241, for example, a definitive statement on the subject was made by the bishop of Paris and the theological faculty of the University of Paris: ‘We firmly believe and assert that God in 3 In the extensive literature on the beatific vision controversy, in addition to Dykmans, op. cit., especially useful for this essay were: X. Le Bachelet, ‘Benoit XII’, in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris, 1910), ii, 657–696; N. Valois, ‘Jacques Duèse, Pape sous le nom de Jean XXII’, in Histoire littéraire de la France (Paris, 1914), xxxiv, 551–627; and K. Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard Fitzralph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), pp. 89–107. 4 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 551–552; J. N. D. Kelly, in Early Christian Doctrines (rev. ed., New York, 1978), pp. 486–487, cites passages from Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine that place the experience of the beatific vision after the general resurrection. According to Cyril of Alexandria, for instance (using Kelly’s translation), ‘our redemption will attain its climax after the resurrection, our intelligence will then be filled with a divine, ineffable light, and the partial knowledge we have enjoyed hitherto will give place to a more blinding gnosis’. Freed from all shackles ‘without needing any figure, riddle or parable, we shall contemplate, as it were the face uncovered and unencumbered mind the beauty of the divine nature of our God and Father’ (In Joh. xvi. 25). In the West, Augustine (City of God xxii. 29) concluded that Job’s words ‘and in my flesh I shall see God’ (Job xix. 26) ‘can also be understood as if he had said “I shall be in my flesh when I see God” ’ and further (Enarr. in Ps. xliii. 5), ‘For indeed that face to face vision is reserved for the saved at the resurrection’ (‘Etenim ilia visio facie ad faciem liberatis in resurrectione servatur’). 5 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 551. According to Ambrose for instance (De bono mortis xi. 49), ‘. . . because the just have the reward of seeing the face of God and “the light that enlightens every man” (John i. 9), let us henceforth clothe ourselves in zeal that our soul may draw near to God . . . “We see now through a mirror in an obscure manner, but then face to face” (I Cor. xii. 12)’, and he ends, ‘Then we will be allowed to look upon the glory of God, and His face will be revealed, but now we are enveloped in the thick substance of the body and covered over by the stains and pollutions of the flesh, as it were, and we cannot see with clarity’ (Saint Ambrose Seven Exegetical Works, trans. M. McHugh (Fathers of the Church, lxv, 1972), 106).

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his essence and substance will be seen by the angels and all the saints and is seen by glorified souls’.6 Pope John XXII himself started out by accepting the conventional view. In a bull of 1317 on the canonization of Louis d’Anjou, he said that Louis ‘in his innocence had entered heaven to contemplate his God with joy and with face uncovered’.7 As Katherine Walsh has commented, in spite of considerable recent study of sermons and writings of Pope John — and Umberto Eco notwithstanding — it has not proved possible to specify the date of the papal change of heart, but Walsh suggests that John turned his attention to the subject of the beatific vision out of increased interest in Armenian and Greek theology, in the hope of effecting a reunion with the Eastern churches, which adhered to the view of the postponed beatific vision that John himself announced in his sermons of 1331 and 1332.8 In the first of these sermons he interpreted the words of the Apocalypse (vi. 9) — ‘I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God’ — as referring to the saints, who will be under the altar, that is, under the protection and consolation of the humanity of Christ, until the day of judgment.9 But after the day of judgment they will be above the altar, that is, above the humanity of Christ. ‘Surely’, John said, ‘after the judgment they will see and contemplate not only the humanity of Christ but also the divinity. They will see the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’.10 Although John appealed to the authority of St. Augustine and St.

Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 552; see Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, eds. H. Denifle and A. Chatelain (Paris, 1899), i, 170: ‘Firmiter autem credimus et asserimus quod Deus in sua essentia vel substancia videbitur ab angelis et omnibus sanctis et videtur ab animabus glorificatis’. 7 Le Bachelet, ‘Benoit XII’, 659; ‘ad Deum suam contemplandum in gaudio, facie revelata (Acta Joannis XXII (1317–1334), ed. A. L. Tautù, Pontificia Commissio ad Redigendum Codicem Iuris Canonici Orientalis, Fontes, Series III, vii. ii, 1952). 8 Walsh, Richard Fitzralph, pp. 100–102. 9 ‘Animae ergo sanctae ante diem iudicii sunt sub altare, id est sub consolatione et protectione humanitatis Christi; sed post diem iudicii ipse e1evabit eas, ut videant ipsam divinitatem et secundum hoc dicentur ascendere supra altare’ (Dykmans, Les sermons de Jean XXII, 96). 10 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 556–558; ‘Certe post diem iudicii videbunt sancti et contemplabuntur non humanitatem Christi tantum, sed etiam eius divinitatem ut in se est: Videbunt enim Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum . . . ‘ (Dykmans, Les sermons de Jean XXII, 96). 6

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Bernard11 in this and his subsequent sermons of 1331 and 1332, the reactions ranged from concern to dissatisfaction to rejection to outright accusation of heresy.12 The danger of the pope’s preaching, it was widely thought, was that it veered toward the Nestorian heresy, or toward the doctrines of the Cathars, that the humanity and divinity of Christ was divisible, that one could have the vision of the humanity without that of the deity.13 This was the ‘madness’ denounced by the rebel Franciscans Michele da Cesena and Berengar Talloni. John XXII was an enthusiastic theologian but not a trained one, and he had not advanced his beliefs in dogmatic form.14 Consequently, when he saw that they were causing a furore, he disarmed the opposition by ordering that the subject of the beatific vision be examined in formal disputations in Paris and elsewhere around Europe, probably including Oxford, and he commanded every doctor of theology who came to Avignon for any reason to express his views too.15 At the end of 1333 John convoked a papal consistory to decide the question. The discussions, which continued into January 1334, resulted only in a decision to study the matter further.16 In the meantime, King Philip VI of France called his own conference, in his chateau at Vincennes. Kings, dukes, counts, archbishops, bishops, abbots, mendicant generals, a host of clerics, barons, knights, advisors to the king — and twenty-three leading theologians — attended.17 All finally agreed that ‘blessed souls in heaven see the divine essence face to face before their

11 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 564, quoting from the conclusion of John’s second sermon, ‘I do not know how to speak of this matter other than as Augustine does’ (‘Nescio aliter quam Augustinus dicit in materia ista’, see Dykmans, op. cit., 138–139). 12 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 567 ff., comments that the ideas ‘provoquaient un émoi singulier’; Le Bachelet, ‘Benoit XII’, 665; Walsh, Richard Fitzralph, pp. 88–95; Dykmans, Les Sermons de Jean XXII, 9, quoting the English Dominican, Thomas Waleys, ‘. . . I believe that to say that the souls of the saints do not see God easily is a manifest, dangerous and scandalous error, inasmuch as almost the entire Church of God has been scandalized by its preaching’ (‘. . . opinio, quae dicit animas sanctorum non videre Deum faciliter, est error manifestus, periculosus et scandalosus, utpote de cuius predicatione iam tota quasi Ecclesia Dei scandalizatur’). 13 Walsh, Richard Fitzralph, pp. 90–91. 14 Ibid., pp. 88, 89; Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 564, 570, quoting phrases such as ‘Et qui melius sapit corrigat me’ with which John ended his sermons. 15 Walsh, Richard Fitzralph, pp. 94–96. 16 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 604–608. 17 Ibid., 609–610.

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reunion with the body, before the general judgment’, and that ‘this vision will not cease or change after the judgment but will last forever’.18 Eventually, when John saw that his views were being condemned by an increasing chorus, he announced another papal consistory. It never took place, because the pope was dying.19 In a dramatic deathbed capitulation to the prevailing beliefs, John composed — on 3 December 1334 — an apostolic letter in which he stated: ‘We avow and believe that souls that have been purified and separated from their bodies are in heaven in the realm of the heavens, in paradise, that they are reunited with Christ in the company of angels and that, by virtue of a common law they see God and the divine Essence face to face and clearly’.20 John XXII did not live to see the bulla attached to his pronouncement, and doubts were raised about the competence of a dying man, so his successor, Benedict XII, who had been present at the deathbed, undertook a renewed study of the question.21 This finally produced on 29 January 1336 the ex cathedra constitution, Benedictus Deus, which became the official statement of the Roman Catholic Church, and ended the controversy. It said, in part: ‘We declare: that . . . souls [after purification] even before the resumption of their bodies and the general judgment . . . have been, are, and will be in heaven, in the kingdom of heaven and in celestial paradise with Christ . . . and have seen and see the divine essence by intuitive vision, and even face to face,

18 In answer to the questions raised for discussion at the conference, 1) ‘Utrum anime sancte in celo existentes videant divinam essentiam facie ad faciem ante resumptionem corporum et ante judicium generale’ and 2) ‘Utrum visio quam de essentia divina nunc habent evacuabiter in die extremi judicii alia succedente’, they agreed: ‘. . . quod . . . omnes anime sanctorum . . . ad visionem nudam et claram, beatificam, intuitivam et immediatam divine essentie . . . sunt assumpte, ipsaque deitate beata perfecte fruuntur . . .; quodque dicta visio quam nunc habent, resumptis corporibus minime evacuabiter alia succedente, sed ipsamet in eis, cum sit earum vita eterna, perpetua remanebit’ (Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, ii, 429–431). 19 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 620. 20 Ibid., 622; ‘Fatemur siquidem et credimus quod anime purgate separate a corporibus sunt in celo, celorum regno et paradiso et cum Christo in consortio angelorum congregate, et vident Deum de communi lege ac divinam essentiam facie ad faciem clare’, to which he added however the reservation ‘in quantum status et conditio compatitur anime separate’, ‘to the degree compatible with the status and condition of separated souls’ (Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, ii, 440–441). 21 Valois, ‘Jean XXII’, 623–626.

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with no mediating creature . . . but divine essence immediately revealing itself plainly, clearly and openly’.22 About thirty years after the tumultuous events just recounted, in the 1360s, a copy of Benedict’s constitution was included at the beginning of the general encyclopedia compiled in England by a certain James and known as the Omne bonum. Now Royal 6 E VI and 6 E VII in the British Library, the Omne bonum is an elephantine unicum, today bound in four parts, each 460 x 312 mm., and containing a total of 1092 folios of twocolumned text written on 55 to 70 lines per page. The text consists of hundreds, perhaps even a thousand or more articles, arranged alphabetically, on topics from canon law, theology and natural history. These articles run in length from a couple of lines to twenty or more folios. The entries are crossreferenced and their sources are often identified. The manuscript also contains hundreds of text illustrations in the form of historiated initials, an exceptionally long series of tinted drawings of Old and New Testament subjects, and a few full-page miniatures.23 As a copy of the text of the constitution of Benedict XII on the beatific vision, the example in the Omne bonum is of no special importance, but it has one unique feature — it is illustrated. In fact, there are two illustrations (Fig. 5). The first, a historiated initial at the beginning of the text, shows the pope, Benedict XII, expounding his edict to an audience consisting of cardinals on one side and theologians on the other. This is a typical, formulaic author portrait, with details of costume and audience adjusted to suit the circumstances. But the second illustration, an oblong miniature below the text of the constitution (Fig. 3), is anything but typical. Indeed, I know of nothing in the fourteenth century quite like it. It shows, quite simply, the face of God — plainly, clearly, openly (‘nude, clare, et aperte’) — as Benedict’s constitution states.24 The immensity of God is shown by the large scale of the disembodied head, and by the formal device of axial22 H. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, trans. R. J. Deferrari (St. Louis and London, 1957), pp. 197–198. 23 On the Omne bonum see G. F. Warner and G. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (London, 1921), i, 157–159; L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385 (Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, v 1986), i, Figs. 325–329, ii, no. 124. 24 Omne bonum, Royal MS 6 E VI, f. 16v; see Acta Benedicti XII (1334–1342), ed. A. L. Tautù (Pontificia Commissio ad Redigendum Codicem Iuris Canonici Orientalis, Fontes, Series III, viii, 1958).

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ity, not only in position in relation to the miniature as a whole, but also extreme axiality in the positioning of the facial features. In heaven, the locale indicated by the shorthand of scalloped clouds, angels adore the Deity. Below, in the lower corners of the miniature, are twelve kneeling men and women, men on one side, women on the other. Are they the beatified souls seeing God face to face? No, I think not. Although they kneel in adoration, they are fully clothed — and in contemporary garments of the laity. Souls are usually represented nude, as we will see below. These figures represent living believers, that is, the Christian faithful who declare or affirm their belief in the immediacy of the beatific vision for the souls of the blessed. That is why one of the women, at the near right, raises her palm toward the vision in a gesture indicating the face of God. How informed and accurate a representation of the doctrine of the beatific vision this miniature is, we may judge by comparing it with the picture on the preceding page of the manuscript (Fig. 4). There we find another giant face of the Deity, surrounded this time by flames and rays of gold, silver, orange and white, shimmering against a deep blue background bordered with scalloped clouds. Visible through the rays are four adoring angels, the one on the lower left holding up the naked soul of a mitred bishop. The rays penetrate the second and third zones of the composition, where we see an abbot pointing down and St. Paul, hands raised up; and below this, a man and a woman kneeling on either side of the sphere of the universe, at the centre of which is earth, or the terrestrial paradise, with the fall of man depicted within. The meaning of this miniature is explained in a text on the facing verso (Fig. 2). The text couples the visions of the Deity that were experienced by St. Benedict (the abbot) and St. Paul through contemplation. Quoting the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, the text tells how Benedict, while in prayer, saw a light shining with such splendour that it dissipated the darkness, and in this splendour of shining light he saw the whole world gathered as it were under one ray of the sun, and the soul of Germanus, bishop of Capua, carried to heaven by angels in a fiery ball.25 Benedict’s soul became, in Gregory’s words, ‘above itself ’, was ‘rapt above itself ’ in ‘the light of God’.26 St. Paul, as the explanation says, paraphrasing St. Augustine’s exposition of Gregory, Dial. ii. 35, see E. C. Butler, Western Mysticism (3rd edn., New York, 1967), pp. 86–87, whose translation was used here. 26 Ibid. 25

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II Corinthians xii. 2–4,27 was also rapt, that is lifted up against the laws of nature, up to the third heaven, that is, to knowledge of God, and did not just hear the ineffable words but himself saw God, God in himself, not any semblance, ‘Deum in se non in aliqua figura’.28 At the end of the explanatory text, the visionary and auditory experiences of Benedict and Paul are brought together as meditation models for the Christian faithful, who are shown in the miniature below the saints.29 The vision of God that swept up Benedict and Paul in religious rapture differs from the clear, plain face of the Deity in the beatific vision of the blessed souls. The spectacular radiance that surrounds this second vision of God is connected perhaps with the suddenness of the experience, with its overwhelming brilliance, and with its short duration. The shimmering waves of light contrast with the hard, clear, and eternal vision to be experienced by the blessed souls. Turning back one more page of the Omne bonum, we find a third miniature (Fig. 1), this one directly addressed to the devout Christian and intended to help to hasten the experience of the beatific vision by shortening the time the human soul must spend in purgatory. The text says that whoever recites the prayer, Ave facies preclara, and looks at the image above with devotion will receive an indulgence of three years from Pope Innocent IV (1243–1254).30 The image is of the Arma Christi — the instruments of ‘I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven . . . That he was ‘caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter’. 28 The explanatory text (f. 15v) cites the Gloss on the Pauline Epistles (Patrologia latina, cxcii, 79–82) and Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram xii. 34 (Pat. lat. xxxiv, 482–484) as sources: ‘Superquibus verbis apostoli beatus augustinus in glosa ibidem & similiter super genesim ad literam liber xii versus finem exponendo dicit beatum apostolum raptum id est contra naturam e1evatum usque ad tercium celum id est ad cognicionem deitatis ut non solum audiret archana ut ipsemet testatur sed ut videret ipse deum . . . deum in se non in aliqua figura videret’. See also Butler, Western Mysticism, p. 80. 29 ‘Therefore as the contemplative visions of these two fathers are experienced through the two principal senses, that is, sight and hearing, so the minds of the faithful, by joining with them in these same visions, can be brought to a level of contemplative devotion in order to meditate on celestial matters’. ‘Sic igitur in istorum duorum patrum contemplativis visionibus per duos sensus principales visum, id est, et auditum in visionibus ipsis sibi convenientes ad contemplativum devocionem extendi possunt fidelium mentes ad celestia meditanda’ (f. 15v). I wish to thank Robert Raymo for helping in the translation of this passage. 30 ‘Quicumque arma superius descripta sive isignia domini nostri iesu christi devote inspexerit, a summis pontificibus subscriptam indulgenciam consequetur’ (f. 15). 27

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the Passion, the cock that crowed three times, the dice, the pelican, the wound in Christ’s side, and so forth, and on the central axis, the chalice, the Host, the Crucifixion, the Man of Sorrows, and the Veronica, the print of the face of Christ on Veronica’s handkerchief — the indirect reflection of the Deity that is revealed to the faithful in this life. The prayer, addressed to the Holy Face, expresses the hope of contemplating the countenance of God in the hereafter.31 As Carlo Bertelli wrote of the Omne bonum in his study of the Image of Pity in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, ‘thus, three different degrees of approach to the Vision of God are shown: the first one reserved to the souls of the righteous; the second which can be obtained through piercing contemplation by a few; and in the third place, the more accessible Arma Christi, which occupy the lowest, and initial, order’.32 The Arma Christi is a devotional image associated with fourteenthcentury piety and popular mysticism.33 English examples are found, for instance, in books of hours made for members of the Bohun family in the last quarter of the century (Fig. 7).34 The second image of God — the radiant face seen by Benedict and Paul — is found in fourteenth-century art as rarely as it was experienced in life. One example is from the Franco-Flemish Rothschild Canticles at Yale University, painted in the first third of the century.35 The miniature (Fig. 8) shows four beholders of the vision of the Deity, who stands in their midst, arms outstretched wide, his entire upper body hidden behind a dazzling, swirling, radiant golden disc. The text accompanying this image consists of a number of Biblical passages that speak of the ‘brightness of eternal light’ and of God, ‘the Father of lights, 31 ‘Ut post hanc vitam cum beatis contemplare voluptatis, possum vultum deitatis in perhennium gloria’. 32 ‘The “Image of Pity” in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme’, Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London, 1967), 53. 33 For a recent discussion of such devotional images, see H. Belting, Das Bild und sein Publikum im Mittelalter, Form und Funktion früher Bildtafeln der Passion (Berlin, 1981); see also L. F. Sandler, ‘Jean Pucelle and the Lost Miniatures of the Belleville Breviary’, Art Bulletin, lxvi (1984), 84–87; F. Lewis, ‘The Veronica: Image, Legend and Viewer’ , England in the Thirteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1984 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W. M. Ormrod (Grantham, 1985), 100–106. 34 Pommersfelden, Gräflich Schönbornische Bibliothek, MS 2934, f. 9v and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D. 4. 4, f. 236v; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, ii. nos. 137, 138. 35 Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 404, f. 98; see W. Cahn and J. Marrow, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Yale: A Selection (Yale University Library Gazette, lii, 1978), no. 29, pp. 203–204.

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with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration’.36 Interestingly enough however, a possible model for the entire Omne bonum page of the vision of St. Benedict and St. Paul has survived. It is nearly identical to the Omne bonum miniature, only replacing the pious couple with a pair of ecclesiastical figures (Fig. 6). One of them is undoubtedly the owner of the manuscript. He was Roger of Waltham, keeper of the Wardrobe of Edward II, and canon of St. Paul’s in the 1330s.37 His manuscript, a devotional miscellany now in Glasgow,38 is liberally illustrated with historiated initials and miniatures, many of them putting Roger himself in the picture as a devout witness or petitioner, his name, as in this miniature, inscribed on a banderole. The two other miniatures that complete the Omne bonum cycle — the Arma Christi and the Beatific Vision — are not paralleled in Roger of Waltham’s miscellany. In fact, the Omne bonum cycle as a whole, and in particular the miniature of the beatific vision, is apparently unique. The cycle was put together and the beatific vision miniature was designed expressly for this particular book, and for its compiler, James. In the prologue of the encyclopedia, James refused to declare his surname.39 But I have uncovered a good deal more information about him than was known when Warner and Gilson catalogued the Royal manuscripts, including his surname, his birthplace, his domicile, his occupation, the date of his death, and many other details of his life. James was James le Palmer, born in London before 1327, king’s clerk in the Exchequer from 1359 on, and writer of the Great Roll (ingrossator rotuli magni) — the Pipe Roll — from 1368 until his death ‘Ego qui non mutor (Malachi iii. 6) sed movens omnia. Candor eterne lucis et speculum sine macula (Wisdom vii. 26) apud quem non est transmutatio necque vicissitudinis obumbratio Games i. 17). In visione dei vidi et ecce ventus turbinis veniebat ab aquilone nubesque magna et ignis involvens splendorque in ciruitu eius (Ezekiel i. 4)’ (f. 97v). 37 On Roger of Waltham, d. 1336, see Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Roger ordered an elaborate sculptured and painted chantry in St. Paul’s: see G. H. Cook, Medieval Chantrics and Chantry Chapels (rev. edn., London, 1963), pp. 12, 140. 38 Glasgow, University Library, MS Hunter 231, p. 85; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, ii. no. 99. Richard Rouse is writing a study of Roger’s florilegium, the Compendium moralis philosophiae, with which some of the texts in the Glasgow miscellany are related. 39 ‘I James, whom the special love of God and His nearest renders a debtor to all, and whose surname I wish to be hidden from others for a good reason, have compiled the present work with great labour and constant longing of heart’. ‘Ego Jacobus quem dei & proximi caritas precipua omnibus exhibet debitorem, et cuius cognomen alios volo ex causa latere, presens opus cum magno labore ac iugi mentis desiderio compilavi’ (f. 18v). I am indebted to Robert Ireland for helping to translate this passage. 36

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in 1375. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.40 A comparatively wealthy man, he undertook not only the vast project of compilation and the actual writing of the Omne bonum, but also wrote a luxury copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham for his own use, and had it illustrated as lavishly as the Omne bonum, and mainly by the same artist (Fig. 9).41 Moreover, it seems that James found the time to produce these volumes while he was at work in the Exchequer, that is, in London between 1359 and 1375.42 James tells us in the prologue of the Omne bonum that his encyclopedia was compiled from 115 authorities; he lists them by name or by title, starting with all the canon law texts up to the Clementines and their glosses; and then commentaries and summaries of canon law, Innocent III, Hostiensis, the Rosarium, the Speculum iudiciale, and the Summa summarum. Then he lists the Proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomeus Anglicus, the Opus imperfectum on Matthew of the Pseudo-Johannes Chrysostom, extracts from the Bible and the lives of saints, the Manipulus florum, the Secreta secretorum and the Catholicon; then, the Fathers of the Church, and finally names 93 other authors, from Adamancius to Zerastes.43 The writings of all these authorities were to be found — sometimes contained in florilegia — in the great London libraries of James’s time, those of St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey.44 James is very likely to have had access to these collections, and I would like to think that it was at St. Paul’s that he saw the miscellany of Canon Roger of Waltham with its miniature of St. Benedict and St. Paul that inspired a replica in the Omne bonum.45 In addition to the sources named in the prologue of the Omne bonum, 40 See Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, ii, no. 124. I am writing a longer study of this manuscript, its compiler, its place in the history of encyclopedias, and its illustrations. 41 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 165; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, ii, no. 125. 42 The Omne bonum contains a number of marginal notes in James’s hand, contemporaneous with the writing of the adjacent texts, addressed directly by name to individuals that I have identified as colleagues of James in the Exchequer; see Warner and Gilson, Catalogue, i, 157–158. 43 MS 6 E VI, f. 18v. 44 See N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (2nd edn., London, 1964), pp. 120–121 and 195–198, with bibliography. 45 As a native of London, James, who does not seem to have been a university graduate, was likely to have been educated in St. Paul’s school, and would have continued to have access to the cathedral books; see E. Rickert, ‘Chaucer at School’, Modern Philology, xxix (1932), 257–274.

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James also used a considerable number of others, most, if not all, identified in the text entries themselves. In this category of supplementary sources are some writings that demonstrate how deeply involved James was with the religious issues of his own time. Particularly important are several articles or sections of articles excerpted from the anti-mendicant writing of William of St. Amour, Jean d’Anneux, Thomas Wilton,46 and most important, from James’s own contemporary, Richard Fitzralph.47 James repeatedly quoted Fitzralph’s arguments attacking the Franciscans’ claim that their ideal of poverty was based on the model of Christ, their deceit in claiming to practice poverty while actually living luxuriously, and their undeserved power over the laity, power which by rights should belong to the secular clergy.48 46 See especially MS 6 E VII, f. 154, article on Friars, and f. 527v, article on Christ. On the anti-mendicant components of the Omne bonum, and for the identification of extracts from Jean d’Anneux and Thomas Wilton, see P. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition: Theological and Literary Ideas about the Friars in the Age of Chaucer (Princeton, 1986), ch. ii and app. a and b. I am grateful to Prof. Szittya for allowing me to consult his study in typescript. In addition to Fitzralph’s anti-mendicant writings, James quoted in entirety Fitzralph’s undated Avignon sermon, Veni domine iesu, in his article on Jesus (MS 6 E VIII, f. 234), and included extracts from the same sermon in his article on Mary (6 E VII, f. 480). 47 On Richard Fitzralph and the Omne bonum, see Walsh, Richard Fitzralph, p. 206 (incorrectly following Warner and Gilson, Catalogue, i, 157, in identifying the compiler as a monk and probably a Cistercian); A. Gwynn, ‘The Sermon-Diary of Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, xliv, sect. C (1937), 15–16 (the first to note that part of the encyclopedia could only have been written after 1360); and Szittya, op. cit. 48 E.g., Section ix of the article on the Friars (MS 6 E VII, f. 155), whose author Szittya (op. cit.) could not identify, and which may represent James le Palmer’s own distillation from Fitzralph, has the rubric, ‘Nunc sequitur videre qualiter fratres non vivunt istis diebus secundum altissimam paupertatem, ut probatur racionabiliter, quia dicunt et non faciunt’ and scornfully catalogues the profits of their ‘poverty’: ‘. . . in magnitudine, nobilitate, preciositate et curiositate ecclesiarum, edificiorum, librorum, vasorum, pannorum, paramentorum, pavimentorum, marmoreorum, pictuarum . . . ut dicitur thesaurorum cunctos . . . quasi mortales excedunt’. See the Fitzralph sermon of 12 March 1357, Nemo vos seducat, as extracted by A. Gwynn, ‘Archbishop Fitzralph and the Friars’, Studies, An Irish Quarterly Review of Letters, Philosophy and Science, xxvi (1937), 58–59: ‘They [the Friars] have churches finer than our cathedrals, more splendid ornaments than any prelate in the world, save only perhaps our lord the Pope. They have more books, and finer books, than any prelate or doctor; their belfries are immensely costly; they have double cloisters of great splendour, in which armed knights could do battle with lances erect; they wear finer vestments than any prelates in the world’. Gwynn thought that Chaucer, as a young man, might have heard this sermon, which was preached at St. Paul’s Cross in London. The same, with even more certainty, could be said of James le Palmer.

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2. Omne bonum, London, British Library MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 15v, explanation of the vision of SS. Benedict and Paul.

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1. Omne bonum, London, British Library MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 15, Arma Christi.

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3. Omne bonum, London, British Library MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 16v, detail, the beatific vision.

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5. Omne bonum, London, British Library MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 16v, Constitution of Benedict XII on the beatific vision.

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4. Omne bonum, London, British Library MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 16, vision of SS. Benedict and Paul.

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7. Hours of the Bohun family, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Auct. D. 4. 4, fol. 236v, Arma Christi.

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6. Devotional Miscellany, Glasgow, University Library MS Huntcr 231, p. 85, vision of SS. Benedict and Paul.

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8. Rothschild Canticles, New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library MS 404, fol. 98.

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9. Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud misc. 165, fol. 71, Christ teaching in the Temple.

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Richard Fitzralph, successively chancellor of Oxford, dean of Lichfield, and archbishop of Armagh, who died in Avignon in 1360, was a powerful opponent of the Franciscans; he preached numerous anti-mendicant sermons, among them, four in London in 1356 and 1357, as well as others before the pope in Avignon, where he spent long periods from 1334 to the end of his life.49 James himself could have heard Fitzralph’s London sermons — all of which were preached in English — at St. Paul’s Cross, St. Mary Newchurch, and in the hall of the bishop of London. However, the copious and varied Fitzralph material quoted in the Omne bonum suggests access to the collected writings of the archbishop. These may have been prepared for circulation before 1362 by Richard Kilvington, dean of St. Paul’s until that year.50 The intersection of Richard Fitzralph and James le Palmer, whatever form it took, returns us to the point at which we started, that is to the unique occurrence in the Omne bonum of an illustrated text of Benedict XII’s constitution on the beatific vision. One of the theologians called by Pope John XXII to render an opinion on the beatific vision was none other than Richard Fitzralph.51 He went to Avignon late in 1334 and stayed until 1336.52 In an Avignon sermon on the feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury on 7 July 1335 — after the death of John XXII — Fitzralph referred to the conclusion he had delivered to John while he still lived, that the vision of God is granted immediately after the complete purification of disembodied souls.53 The group of sixteen theologians called by Benedict XII to advise him on the question of the beatific vision also included Fitzralph, and it is Walsh, Richard Fitzralph, esp. pp. 182–220, 349–450; Gwynn, ‘Sermon-Diary’, 45–47, 48–57. Except for the formal ‘proposicio’ known as the Defensio curatorum (inc. ‘Nolite iudicare’), preached in Avignon before the pope on 8 November 1357 (see E. Brown, ed., Fasciculus rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum (London, 1690), ii, pp. 466–486), none of these sermons, which are preserved in manuscripts of the above-mentioned sermon-diary, has been printed. 50 Walsh, Richard Fitzralph, p. 185. Richard Kilvington (see A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1958), ii, p. 1051) was dean of St. Paul’s from 1354 to his death in 1362. He invited Richard Fitzralph to preach at St. Paul’s (Walsh, op. cit., pp. 406–407) and wrote several works in support of Fitzralph’s anti-mendicant stance (ibid., pp. 443–444). 51 Walsh, op. cit., pp. 104–106. 52 Ibid., pp. 95, 109. 53 Ibid., pp. 97–98, quoting Fitzralph, ‘Dico sicut aliter dixi, et de precepto domini Johannis scriptsi, et in manus eiusdem tradidi, quod hec merces redditur immediate post plenam purgacionem anime separate: intelligo post plenam satisfaccionem pro suis peccatis’. 49

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thought that he played an important role in the formulation of the constitution of 1336.54 Fitzralph then wrote at length on the immediacy of the beatific vision in the late 1340s, in his Summa de questionibus Armenorum, a treatise on the differences between Western and Eastern Christian beliefs.55 James le Palmer wholeheartedly admired Richard Fitzralph, and must certainly have been one of the first in England to make extensive extracts from his writings. And so I would like to conclude with the suggestion that the genesis of the remarkable series of miniatures on the vision of God in the Omne bonum and the culmination of the series in the illustrated copy of the constitution of Benedict XII, can be traced to the impact of Richard Fitzralph, a man who was described by James le Palmer in the rubric of a Fitzralph sermon he quoted in entirety as a ‘solempnis doctor in theologie quasi sine pari in diebus suis’.56

Walsh, op. cit., p. 106, suggested that Fitzralph was rewarded by Benedict XII by provision to the deanery of Lichfield Cathedral. 55 Ibid., pp. 129–181, esp. pp. 149–151. 56 In the article on Jesus (6 E VII, f. 234), a sermon preached at an uncertain date (1338, 1339, or 1343) in the chapel of the papal vice-chancellor on the first Sunday in Advent, on the text ‘Veni domine Iesu’ (see Gwynn, ‘Sermon-Diary’, 39, n. 27): ‘Nunc sequitur videre quamdam sollempnem predicationem de domino nostro iesu per magistrum Ricardum fitz Rauf Archiepiscopum Armacam & etiam sollempnem doctorem in theologie quasi sine pari in diebus suis’. 54

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IX

The Image of the Book-owner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-definition

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HE idea of depicting the individual for whom a manuscript was made, or by whom it was to be used, is a startling one. Nowadays, the idea of providing a picture of the owner in a book is unheard of. Such depictions disappeared with the advent of printing. Once books were produced in multiple and identical copies, images of their owners could no longer be included in their programmes of illustration. The phenomenon of the owner-portrait, the image that emphasizes ownership rather than authorship1 or patronage,2 is, however, an important and distinctive feature of medieval books. By ‘owner portrait’ I mean the image of the owner, or intended owner, of a manuscript, self-commissioned, or commissioned by a donor on his or her behalf. The vast majority of such images are in devo-

1 Author-portraits, common throughout the Middle Ages, have Late Antique antecedents, viz. the representations of Virgil in the Roman Virgil (Vatican Lib. MS Vat. lat. 3867, fols 3v, 9, 14) or Dioscorides in the Vienna Dioscorides (Österreichische Nationalbibl. [hereafter ONB] Cod. Vind. med. gr. 1, fols 4v, 5v), and continue in the age of printing, even down to the present, although the author is now likely to be displaced to the back (or even the back flap) of the dust-jacket of the book. 2 Patron-portraits in manuscripts have a long history, viz. Juliana Anicia in the sixthcentury Vienna Dioscorides (ONB Cod. Vind. med. gr. 1, fol. 6v), or Lothair in the Lothair Gospels (Paris, Bibl. Nationale MS lat. 266, fol. 1v). Patrons are donors of manuscripts to individuals or institutions. The recipients may also be portrayed in the manuscripts they are given by donors, often together with the donor, as for example, Charles the Bald and Count Vivian in the Vivian Bible (BN MS lat. 1, fol. 423) or Charles V with Jean de Vaudetar in the Bible historiale miniature painted by Jean Bondol (The Hague, Mus. MeermannoWestreenianum MS 10 B 23, fol. 2).

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tional books (prayer-books, psalters, books of hours and breviaries) of the thirteenth century and later.3 Indeed, images of book owners proliferated as individual ownership of manuscripts increased. My purpose in this essay is to explore this phenomenon a little further by way of some images of owners in English manuscripts of the fourteenth century. Although each of the three books I will consider contains one or more portraits of its owner, none is a standard devotional text. In fact, each book represents an exceptional interjection of the owner into the work, not just pictorially, but textually as well. The simplest case, at least from the point of view of the nature of the text, is a canon law volume in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, MS EL 7 H 8.4 The chief contents are the mid-thirteenth-century Flos decretorum of Johannes Hispanus, usually identified as Johannes de Deo,5 and the Tabula decreti et decretalium, or Martiniana, compiled in the third quarter of the thirteenth century by Martinus Polonus,6 an author more familiar from his chronicle of the popes.7 The Flos decretorum is a précis of Gratian’s Decretum, Distinction by Distinction and causa by causa, with brief references to relevant passages of the Decretals of Gregory IX for every questio of the Decretum that the compiler summarizes. In his prologue Johannes Hispanus explained that his work was intended to be a help to those who, because they lacked time, 3 Some exceptional early examples survive, however, for example, the facing miniatures of Charles the Bald in prayer and the Crucified Christ in Charles’s personal prayer-book in the Treasury of the Munich Residenz (fols 38v–39). 4 C. W. Dutschke, Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, Cal., 1989), I, pp. 7–9. 5 Fols 1–18; on Johannes Hispanus, see J. F. Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart (Stuttgart, 1875–80; repr., Graz, 1956), II, pp. 107–08. 6 Fols 32–277v, with the title Tabula martiniana decreti & decretalium secundum ordinem alphabeti compilata (fol. 33); the Tabula Martiniana was identified by Schulte (II, pp. 137–38, 494) with the Margarita decreti (printed Strassburg, 1483, etc.) as an authentic work of Martinus Polonus and differentiated from the Margarita decretalium (printed Augsburg, 1486, under the heading Margarita decreti et decretales), which he attributed to an unknown author. In fact, although the early printed editions of the Martiniana cited by Schulte index only the Decretum and thus are actually Margarete decreti, most manuscripts titled Tabula Martiniana, or attributed in the prologue (inc. ‘Inter alia que ad fidelium doctrina ecclesia scripta sunt’ to Martinus Polonus, including Huntington EL 7 H 8, contain successive references to the Decretum, the Decretals and the Novelle (Constitutions) of Pope Gregory X (1274). 7 Chronica summorum pontificium imperatorumque ac de septem aetatibus mundi; see Schulte, II, p. 137.

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because they found the text wordy, or because they could not commit it to memory, were unable to learn canon law adequately.8 The Tabula Martiniana is an alphabetical index of Gratian’s Decretum, the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, and the Novelle of Pope Gregory X in which citations of these texts are arranged under a list of topics such as Abbots, Absolution and Abstinence. In addition to the Flos decretorum and the Tabula Martiniana, the Huntington Library volume contains a table of all the tituli (the subdivisions) of the Decretals of Gregory IX, arranged in text order,9 and also an alphabetical table listing all the topics in the Martiniana.10 All these components were widely circulated aids facilitating the use of canon law texts,11 although most examples are not as elaborately produced as the Huntington Library volume (Fig. 1), which has blue, and sometimes red, initials, elaborately flourished in red, blue and violet, and a generous text layout in which the initials at the beginning of even small text divisions are usually aligned, in a manner reminiscent of the most luxurious psalters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Now it happens that a great deal about the origin of this manuscript can be determined easily. The information comes from a colophon repeated three times in the book, at the end of the Flos decretorum, at the end of the table of topics in the Martiniana (Fig. 2), and again at the end of the Martiniana text itself.12 This colophon tells us that in honour of God, the Virgin, St Peter, and All Saints, Simon of Wederore of Tring, a brother of the house of the Augustinian order at Ashridge in the diocese of Lincoln, wrote the book for the perpetual profit and use of the brethren and in memory of his father Philip of Wederore, his mother Petronilla and also his brothers John and Thomas and Thomas’s wife Katherine, and that on the third kalend of July in the year of our Lord 1368 the book was reserved for the use of said Simon for his life, by permission of Simon’s superior.13 At the Fol. 1, cf. Schulte (II, p. 107). Fols 22–23. 10 Fols 23v–31v. 11 See J. Rambaud-Buhot, ‘Les divers types d’abrégés du Décret de Gratien: de la table au commentaire’, in Recueil de travaux offert à M. Clovis Brunel, Ecole des Chartes, Mémoires et Documents, 12 (Paris, 1955), II, 397–411. 12 Fols 18–18v, 31v, 277v–288. 13 ‘Ad honorem dei et gloriose virginis Marie & beati Petri apostolorum principis & omnium sanctorum, Simon de Wederore de Trenge frater domus de Assherugge, ordinis sancti Augustini, Lincolniensis diocesis, hunc librum scripsit, & contulit deo & ecclesie sive domui predicte & omnibus fratribus eiusdem domus ibidem perpetuo permansurum ad pro8 9

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2. Tabula Martiniana, colophon of Simon of Wederore.

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1. Tabula Martiniana, beginning of text.

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4. Tabula Martiniana, Simon of Wederore before the Virgin.

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3. Tabula Martiniana, text initials.

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6. Psalter of Stephen of Derby, Stephen before Christ.

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5. Bodleian Library, MS Laud. Misc. 188, owner before the Virgin.

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end is a severe anathema against alienation of the book or removal of the colophon, followed by the traditional conclusion to pronouncements of anathema, ‘Fiat, fiat. Amen’ and below, the words ‘nisi etc.’, the beginning of the last part of the sentence of excommunication, which lists the circumstances under which the sentence may be lifted.14 A number of questions arising from this repeated colophon may be considered further. First, what was the ‘house’ of Ashridge, and why would the copying of such legal texts take place there? Second, why is this such a de luxe book, and third, who was Simon of Wederore, why would he want such a book and why would he inscribe it with this particular colophon? As for Ashridge, it is known very well to art historians as the so-called college of the order of Bonshommes to which Edmund, earl of Cornwall, gave a beautiful Historia scolastica between 1283 and 1300, the often-cited ‘Ashridge Petrus Comestor’.15 Ashridge, founded in 1283, was the first, and almost the only, house identified as of the Bonshommes, an order described by Knowles as ‘peculiar to England’.16 In fact, since Knowles wrote, Eleanor Searle has shown that the term ‘order’ is hardly appropriate for the Bonshommes: they did not have their own rule or liturgical use, but followed the not very specific customs of the Augustinian canons and the standard secular liturgical use of Sarum, although they did wear a distinctive grey habit, with grey scapular, long grey cloak and grey cowl.17 What is fectum et utilitatem eorumdem absque qualicumque alienacione, ob memoriam Philippi de Wederore patris sui & Petronelle matris sue, fratrumque suorum Johannis & Thome, et Katerine uxoris predicti Thome, ac ipsius eiusdem fratris Simonis & omnium ac singulorum pro quibus ipsi aliqua pietatis opera facere tenebantur. tercio kalendas Julii, littera dominicali .a. Anno domini Millesimo ccc.mo lxviii.uo. reservato tamen supradicto fratri Simoni quoad vixerit de licencia sui superioris usufrucm dicti libri. Quem quidem librum si quis alienaverit, seu titulum hunc deleverit, anathema sit, & a sacratissimo corpore ac sanguine dei & domini redemptoris nostri Iesu Christi in cuius honore eadem domus predicta fundata est, alienus existat atque in extremo examine districte subiaceat ulcioni. Fiat, fiat. A M E N.’ 14 See the formulas of excommunication in Le pontifical romano-germanique du dixième siècle, ed. by C. Vogel and B. Elze (Vatican, 1963), I, pp. 309–14, e.g., ‘. . . nisi forte resipuerint et aecclesiae Dei quam leserunt, per emendationem et condignam penitentiam satisfecerint’ (p. 314). Dutschke (Guide, p. 7) suggested that the word ‘Nisi’ refers to the beginning of Psalm 126, without further explanation. 15 London, BL Royal MS 3. D. vi; see L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1885, A Survey of Manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles, 5 (London, 1986), II, pp. 14–15. 16 D. Knowles and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses in England and Wales (London, 1953), p. 179. 17 E. Searle, ‘The Calendar, Martyrology and Customal of the Boni Homines at Ashridge’, Medieval Studies, 23 (1961), 260–93.

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more, the founder of Ashridge was not a saintly cleric, but Edmund, earl of Cornwall (1250–1300).18 The foundation charter and the fourteenthcentury customary of Ashridge describe the establishment as a college of twenty brethren called ‘boni homines’, including thirteen priests, living under the rule of St Augustine.19 Apparently Edmund of Cornwall himself had laid down the ordinances of Ashridge, he had his own rooms in the house, and the brethren were to say daily prayers for him and his family. Edmund even died at Ashridge, where his heart was buried along with that of the saintly bishop of Hereford, Thomas of Cantilupe, near the relic of the Precious Blood of Christ, in honour of which the church was dedicated.20 Ashridge was built on land given by Edmund of Cornwall within a mile of his chief place of residence, the castle of Berkhampstead, on the borders between Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.21 When Edward the Black Prince became Duke of Cornwall in 1336, he had been granted the castle, and he lived there from time to time in the 1360s.22 Like his ancestor Searle, 262. A copy of the foundation charter and customary survives in San Marino, Cal., Huntington Lib. MS EL 9 H 15; see Dutschke, Guide, pp. 29–30; for an incomplete transcription see H. J. Todd, The History of the College of Bonshommes at Ashridge (London, 1823), pp. 11–22; for another copy of the foundation charter and customary, see the episcopal register of John Buckingham, bishop of Lincoln (1363–98), Lincoln, Records Office Reg. XII, fol. 276v. On Ashridge see also W. Dugdale, Monasticon anglicanum (London, 1817–30), VI, pt. I, p. 514; Victoria County History, Buckinghamshire, I, pp. 386–90; H. C. Schulz, ‘The Monastic Library and Scriptorium at Ashridge’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 1 (1938), 305–11; and H. F. Chettle,’ The Boni Homines of Ashridge and Edington’, Downside Review, n.s. 63 (1944), 40–55. 20 Dugdale, VI, pt. I, p. 517; Todd, pp. 2, 10; Searle, 262. Todd (p. 2) quoted Holinshed’s Chronicles of England. Scotland and Ireland (London, 1807), II, p. 475, on the acquisition of the relic of the Precious Blood: ‘Edmund . . . being with his father [Richard, King of the Romans] in Germany [i.e., in pursuit of Richard’s claims as Holy Roman Emperor] and there beholding the reliques and other precious monuments of the ancient emperors, he espied a box of gold . . . that therein was contained a portion of the blood of our blessed Saviour. He therefore, being desirous to have some part thereof, by fair intreaty and money obtained his desire; and brought the box with him into England . . . and assigned to [Ashridge] two parts of the sacred blood.’ The story does not occur in the Flores historiarum of Matthew of Westminster or the Annales sex regum of Nicholas Trivet, the sources cited by Holinshed, but ownership of such an imponant relic was undoubtedly held to be comparable to the possession of the crown of thorns by Edmund’s uncle Louis IX or to the long-standing possession of the holy lance by the Holy Roman Emperors. 21 Todd, p. 1; Searle, 262. On Berkhampstead Castle see Victoria County History, Hertfordshire, ed. by N. Page, II (London, 1971), p. 166. 22 Victoria County History, Hertfordshire, II, p. 166; Chettle, 47; Searle, 265. 18 19

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Edmund, the Black Prince was a generous patron of Ashridge. He confirmed Edmund’s original charter and the ordinances observed by the brethren in 1353, and in his will of 1376 he left Ashridge fifty large pearls and an altarpiece of gold and silver set with precious stones and full of valuable relics.23 His register calls the brethren of Ashridge ‘the prince’s chaplains’.24 Searle rightly characterized Ashridge as a ‘home of royal chaplains, an Eigenkirche of the duchy of Cornwall, a house whose lay patron determined, from foundation to dissolution, its quality and activity’.25 In sum, the boni homines of Ashridge were the ‘good men’ of earls and princes, and their establishment was comparable to the royal chapels of St Stephen’s, Westminster26 and St George’s, Windsor27 as well as the later fourteenthcentury colleges of the Holy Trinity of the earl of Arundel at Arundel, Sussex28 and Thomas of Woodstock at Pleshey Castle, Essex.29 This is the background against which we have to examine Simon of Wederore’s manuscript. If we consider the surviving thirteenth- and fourteenth-century books from Ashridge,30 we find that three of the total of eight are legal and pastoral works, namely the present volume; a midfourteenth century Summa summarum, William of Pagula’s mammoth

Chettle, 48. For the will of the Black Prince, see A Collection of all the Wills . . . of the Kings and Queens of England, Princes and Princesses of Wales . . ., ed. by J. Nichols, (London, 1780), p. 17. 24 Searle, 265; see Register of the Black Prince preserved in the Public Record Office, IV, pp. 64, 184, 199. 25 Searle, 262. 26 Founded 1348 for a dean and twelve canons. See Knowles, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 344; A. Hamilton Thompson, ‘Notes on Colleges of Secular Canons in England’, Archaeol. Jnl, 74 (1917), 153, 191; G. H. Cook, English Collegiate Churches of the Middle Ages (London, 1959), p. 86. 27 Founded 1348 for a warden and twelve canons. See Knowles, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 345; Hamilton Thompson, ‘Colleges of Secular Canons’, 153, 189. 28 The chaplains of Richard, earl of Arundel (d. 1376), were transferred from Arundel Castle to quarters in the parish church of St Nicholas and their number increased from six to thirteen by Richard, earl of Arundel (d. 1397), in 1380 (statutes of 1387). Knowles, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 325. 29 Founded 1395 for a warden and eight chaplains, in the rebuilt parish church of Pleshey formerly dedicated to the Virgin. See Knowles, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 43–5; W. St. John Hope, ‘The Colour-Rule of Pleshy College, 139–5’, Trans. St Paul’s Ecclesiological Soc., 8 (1917–20), 41–48. 30 N. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd edn (London, 1964), p. 4; no medieval book-list survives. 23

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commentary on canon law and pastoral care;31 and a fourteenth-century miscellany32 including both William of Pagula’s handbook for priests, the Oculus sacerdotis33 and Johannes de Deo’s Flos decretorum — the same text as in Simon of Wederore’s book34 — as well as extracts from Seneca, definitions of Greek and Hebrew words in the Bible and a treatise on grammar intended for young students. In addition, a further volume includes Aegidius Romanus’s De regimine principium, Nicholas Trevet’s commentary on the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius and a treatise on metrics.35 Books of this kind relate to activities undertaken by priests and chaplains of collegiate institutions, even if the main obligation of these clerics was public and private prayer on behalf of their patrons. Handbooks of canon law would provide guidance to Christian doctrine; manuals of pastoral theology would be used for instructing the lay patrons and their households in Christian theology, morality and the sacraments; and schoolbooks would be for teaching children — perhaps choristers in this case — the rudiments of the liberal arts.36 Book inventories from establishments comparable to Ashridge, the college of the Holy Trinity at Arundel for instance, show a similar range of works.37 We can conclude that law texts and treatises, pastoral manuals, and school-books all had a place in the lives San Marino, Cal, Huntington Lib. MS EL 9 H 3; see Dutschke, Guide, pp. 11–12. On the Summa summarum, see L. Boyle, ‘The Summa Summarum and some other English Works of Canon Law’, in Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. by S. Kuttner and J. J. Ryan (Vatican, 1965), 415–56. 32 Oxford, Trinity Coll. MS 18, mostly early fourteenth century in several book-hands, well-used, with many corrections; for contents see H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum MSS. qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur (Oxford, 1852), II, Collegii S. Trinitatis, pp. 8–9. 33 Fols 6–116v. On the Oculus sacerdotis see L. Boyle, ‘The Oculus Sacerdotis and some other Works of William of Pagula’, Trans. R. Historical Soc., 5th ser., 5 (1955), 81–110. 34 Fols. 117–130v. The Huntington Flos decretorum is more elaborately written, with fewer abbreviations and arabic numerals generally spelled out in words. 35 San Marino, Cal., Huntington Lib. MS EL 9 H 9; see Dutschke, Guide, pp. 15–17. 36 See Knowles, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 411. 37 See W. H. St. John Hope, ‘On an Inventory of the Goods of the Collegiate Church of Holy Trinity, Arundel’, Archaeologia, 61, pt. 1 (1908), 82–96, an inventory of 1517, perhaps copied from an earlier document, listing 120 books of which more than forty were pastoral, legal and grammatical volumes including the main canon and civil law texts and commentaries, works on logic and grammar, the Manipulus florum (an alphabetical handbook of quotations from Christian and pagan authors) and the Pupilla oculi (a pastoral manual). For early book lists of St George’s, Windsor and Holy Trinity, Pleshey, see Ker, Medieval Libraries, pp. 202, 152. 31

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of members of institutions like Ashridge, in addition, of course, to the expected choir and mass books. Now as to why Simon of Wederore’s book is such a de-luxe volume, it is first of all no surprise considering the princely patronage of the place at which it was written. This means not that the cost of production came from the college but rather that a volume ultimately designated to be given to the brethren had to meet a standard of quality appropriate to a house of princely chaplains. Indeed, members of Ashridge were not from poor backgrounds. The statutes of the college required novices to be of good repute and provably not servi.38 Significantly, they also had to be literate.39 I would conclude that the material wherewithal for Simon of Wederore’s gift to his college was not lacking, nor was the necessary education. This brings us more directly to Simon himself. All I know about him in addition to whatever may be gleaned from his book is that in 1355 when he was instituted to the subdiaconate by John Gynwell, the bishop of Lincoln (1347–62), in the parish church of High Wycombe, he was already a member of the Ashridge community.40 When or whether Simon ever was elevated to the diaconate or priesthood we simply do not know, since the ordination registers of Gynwell’s successor, John Buckingham (1363–98), are lost. Furthermore, investigation so far has unearthed nothing about the various members of Simon’s family mentioned in the colophon. Even Simon’s surname is perplexing. He called himself Simon de Wederore de Trenge. Tring (Hertfordshire) is near Ashridge, but Wederore is practically unknown, either as a surname or as a place-name.41 EL 9 H 15, fol. 101: ‘moribus honesti, sufficienter literati, et de quibus certa noticia habeatur quod non sint servi, non coniugati, non in alia religione professi, non magnorum raciociniis nec aliquibus debitis obligati, nec infirmitate gravi que sit incurabilis laborantes’ (of honest character, sufficiently literate, and of whom there is sure information that they are not servile, not married, not professed in another religious order, not accountable to a lord nor encumbered by debts to anyone, nor labouring under any serious infirmities which are incurable). For another interpretation of ‘non magnorum raciociniis . . . obligati’, see Searle, 264: ‘they could not be magnates’. 39 Huntington Lib. EL 9 H 15, fol. 101; Searle, 264. 40 Lincoln Diocesan Record Office, Reg. IXd, fol. 76, Register of Bishop John Gynwell (1347–62). Ordained to the subdiaconate along with Simon (identified as frater Simon de Wederore, without the addition ‘de Trenge’ that occurs in the colophon of the Huntington manuscript) were frater Johannes Trenge and frater Thomas Wycombe, all ‘de domo de Assherugge’. 41 The components of ‘Wederore’ are ‘wether’ (ram) and ‘ora’ (hill), according to information kindly supplied by the late Prof. J. McN. Dodgson. Wendover in Buckinghamshire 38

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So, considering the reference in the title of this essay to the self-definition of the owner of the book, what image of Simon of Wederore is projected by the Huntington Library manuscript? First, why does the colophon include so detailed an itemization of Simon’s family members? I think the listing must be connected with the Ashridge brethren’s duties as the prince’s chaplains to say masses and daily prayers for the living and the dead. These duties are spelled out in the ordinances of Ashridge,42 and the Ashridge martyrology, whose original entries date from the second half of the fourteenth century, associates the anniversaries of deceased benefactors, fratres, and confratres with those of the saints.43 Some of the confratres are laymen or couples.44 Perhaps Simon was so careful in specifying names and dates in his colophon because he hoped that his relatives would be inscribed among those on behalf of whom the brethren would say masses in perpetuity. Certainly the anathema at the end of the colophon, which covers not just the removal of the book but even the colophon itself, emphasizes how important it was to Simon to record and assure the remembrance of the names of his family. Regrettably, however, although the surviving Ashridge (a couple of miles from Tring) has been suggested as the equivalent of Wederore, but is etymologically different since its components are Old Welsh ‘winn’ (Welsh, gwyn), or ‘white’, and Old Welsh ‘dubro’ (Welsh, dwfr), or ‘stream’ (see A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire, English Place-Name Society, 2 (Cambridge, 1925), p. 157). A William de Wederhore was prior of Dunstable Priory, Bedfordshire, between 1282 and 1302 (see Annales monastici, Rolls Series, ed. by H. R. Luard (London, 1866), III, p. 284). Dunstable is about five miles from Ashridge and ten from Tring. 42 EL 9 H 15, fol. 99: ‘. . . oretur pro fundatore & pro omnibus benefactoribus vivis et defunctis, pro quibus dicant psalmi Ad te levavi & De profundis cum orationibus Deus qui caritatis dona & Fidelium deus. In qualibet eciam missa votiva dicant fratres unam orationem speciale pro Comite fundatore’; see Todd, p. 11; Chettle, 41. 43 EL 9 H 15, fols 9–98v; see Dutschke, Guide, p. 29. Among the benefactors’ anniversaries to be celebrated are Roger de Martival, bishop of Salisbury (d. 14 March 1330), Beatrice, countess of Richmond, daughter of Henry III, cousin of Edmund of Cornwall (d. 24 March 1275), Richard king of the Romans, brother of Henry III, father of Edmund of Cornwall (d. 2 April 1272), Peter, count of A1ençon, son of Louis IX of France and cousin of Edmund of Cornwall (d. 7 April 1284), Edmund of Cornwall (d. 24 September 1300) and Sanchia, daughter of Raymond, count of Provence, sister-in-law of Louis IX, mother of Edmund of Cornwall (d. 9 November 1261). 44 e.g., Johannes de hale & Ricardus de Wolvestone confratres (EL 9 H 15, fol. 44), Johannes de Byfeld confrater (fol. 54v), frater Johannes & Johannes de Ladham confrater (fol. 55v), Johannes herteslee & Agnes uxor eius (fol. 61v), Johannes aygnel confrater (fol. 74), Willelmus de Wottone confrater (fol. 82), Ricardus Kele confrater (fol. 92), all in the late fourteenth-century hand of the original scribe, who ended each entry in the martyrology with the phrase ‘eodem die obiit’ in anticipation of future entries.

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martyrology includes several Simons in the original hand, surnames of these fratres are not given, and, apart from four general commemorations of the souls of ‘parentum & benefactorum nostrorum’,45 there are no names that could possibly be those of Simon’s relations. We should now return briefly to the script and penwork decoration of the Huntington manuscript. Simon reveals himself as an excellent scribe. Moreover his penwork shows considerable artistic imagination, the imagination and sometimes nasty wit of a literate individual ready, for instance, to fill an initial E, for Hermaphrodite, with a male and a female head, or an H for Heresy with a hook-nosed caricature of a Jew whispering evil counsel into the ear of a woman,46 or the bowl of a P for Planctus with a tearstained face (Fig. 3). But these revelations of an individual persona are unwitting; more purposeful is the depiction of Simon of Wederore in the miniature at the beginning of the Tabula Martiniana (Fig. 4). Even though it was not painted by Simon himself, the miniature may be considered as a self-image, an image projecting the self that Simon wanted posterity to encounter. The miniature shows a tonsured cleric, kneeling in prayer with downcast eyes and palms pressed together before the seated Virgin on whose lap is the standing Christ Child. The cleric must be Simon, in his Ashridge habit: a long dark cape gathered at the neck and with an attached hood over a long unbelted robe of dove-grey. Simon is identified by his habit, not of course by his physiognomy, which is conventional, conforming in ovoid head shape, yellow and brown hair, greyed skin tonality and black dot eyes to a type common in contemporary English manuscripts (Fig. 5). What individualizes Simon more than his physical appearance is his relationship with the Virgin and Child. Simon and the Virgin and Child share the same field, unlike many owner or donor portraits, where the holy figure is separated from the supplicant (Fig. 6). Yet Simon’s eyes are downcast, looking inward, and he does not see that the Virgin has twisted dramatically in her frontal throne to turn towards him, to hear his prayer. In one hand she holds a flowering branch, her common attribute in the fourteenth century. The Virgin’s other hand supports the standing Christ Child who, balancing on her lap and clutching the neck of her robe with his left EL 9 H 15, fol. 26 (5 February), fol. 45 (7 May), fol. 65v (3 August), and fol. 90 (20 November). 46 Fols 103, 127. 45

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hand, with the other reaches out and strews red flowers — roses like those on the Virgin’s branch — down on the kneeling Simon, as if in response to his prayer. This is an extraordinary motif and I know of no other like it.47 Is the image of the Virgin in the Huntington manuscript a mental apparition, or is Simon shown before a devotional image that has miraculously come to life, like those statues that weep real tears? Simon’s downcast eyes and perhaps the large scale of the Virgin suggest that the image has materialized only in his mind’s eye, yet the arch enclosure in the upper part of the miniature suggests the real setting of a chapel, in which an actual statue might be found. Whatever the nature of the source, however, there is no doubt about the intensity of the spiritual experience. Simon of Wederore’s miniature precedes the prologue of the Martiniana. It is certainly not a text illustration, nor is it closely related to the series of holy names invoked at the beginning of the colophon on the facing page (Fig. 2), which lists in order God, the Virgin, St Peter, and All Saints. What the miniature ‘tells’ us is that Simon had a special devotion to the Virgin, and that he expected that this devotion would be rewarded. In sum, through the repeated inscriptions and the miniature Simon of Wederore transformed a standard and practical legal text into a lasting monument to himself and his family. Every time in the future a fellow of Ashridge College consulted this text he would be reminded of Simon’s personal piety, his care for his family, and his generosity to the brethren of his religious house. Simon of Wederore’s pictorial presence in the Huntington Library manuscript is telling, but on a modest scale. Not so the individual in the next case of self-definition. Here we have the portrait of the owner of a book no less than eleven times in a single volume. The book was written in the second quarter of the fourteenth century and is now Hunterian MS 231 in Glasgow University Library.48 It is a unique compendium, part devotional anthology, part instructional manual on morals and the liberal arts, pri47 cf. E. Spencer, ‘L’horloge de Sapience, Bruxelles, Bibliothèque Royale MS. IV.111’, Scriptorium, 17 (1963), 284 n. 24 describing a print of c. 1470 in the Germanisches Museum, Nuremberg, that represents the Christ Child standing in a tree and tossing down roses to a man kneeling in prayer. 48 J. Young and P. H. Aitken, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of the Hunterian Museum in the University of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1908), pp. 176–83; Sandler, Survey, no. 99; N. Thorp, The Glory of the Page, Medieval & Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts from Glasgow University Library (London, 1987), no. 27.

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marily via Seneca, part compilation of Aristotle’s scientific writings, and part excerpts from philosophical treatises. The owner and doubtless the commissioner of the manuscript was named Roger; in 1953 he was identified tentatively by Richard Hunt in a conversation with Otto Pächt as Roger of Waltham, canon of St Paul’s, London, between 1309 and 1337, and keeper of the king’s wardrobe for a year between 1322 and 1323. This identification was supported by Pächt, who remarked in an unpublished note that the style of the illustrations of the book was characteristic of the 1320s and added that the textual contents are related to those of Roger of Waltham’s one known work, the Compendium morale, since both include extracts from Seneca.49 Roger of Waltham’s connection with the Glasgow volume can be confirmed still more securely, since it now appears that one of the surviving copies of his Compendium morale also includes five of the same devotional texts, and indeed once included two more that are now lost from the Glasgow manuscript but listed in its original table of contents.50 As noted, Roger of Waltham’s miscellany contains texts of four different kinds, devotional, moral, scientific, and philosophical, one category following the other. The devotional material includes sermons, meditations, and allegorical poetry and prose works attributed to Augustine, Bernard, Hugh of St Victor, John Peckham, and others.51 This particular group of texts See the note in the annotated copy of Young and Aitken’s catalogue of the Hunterian manuscripts in the University Library, Glasgow. 50 See London, BL Royal MS 8.G.VI, English, fifteenth century: Roger of Waltham, Compendium morale, fols 2–141v; De cantu Philomene, fols 142–144 = Hunterian 231, pp. 89–99; Brevis explanacio oracionis dominice, fol. 144 = Hunterian 231, p. 483; Hic incipit simbolum beati Augustini, fol. 44v = Hunterian 231, p. 485; Hugh of St Victor, De tribus bonis quibus deus placatur, fol. 145, cf. Hunterian 231, flyleaf, scribe’s table of contents, first item; Hugh of St Victor, De concordia misericordie & veritatis, iusticie & pacis, fol. 145v = Hunterian 231, p. 84; St Bernard of Clairvaux, De triplici misericordia dei, fol. 145v. cf. Hunterian 231, table of contents, item 12; Sermo beati Augustini de assumpcione beate marie matris dei, fol. 196 = Hunterian 231, pp. 36–42. The first four items also occur, in the same sequence, in Cambridge, Pembroke Coll. MS 254, English, fifteenth century; see M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 228–29. 51 The manuscript is paginated: Incipiunt meditaciones beati Augustini ad patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum, pp. 1–11 (Pat. lat., XL, cols 901–9, see A. Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen age latin (Paris, 1932), pp. 419–20); Incipiunt meditaciones eiusdem [Augustini] ad spiritum sanctum specialiter, pp. 11–36 (see Wilmart, pp. 417, 419–20); Incipit sermo beati Augustini de assumpcione beate Marie matris dei, pp. 36–42 (pseudo49

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could well have been brought together under the direction of Roger of Waltham but as a type of devotional anthology the collection has numerous parallels.52 What is exceptional, however, is that there is an illustration for almost every item. The devotional material, which covers some fifty folios, is followed by a much longer section devoted principally to extracts from Seneca’s writings. These include his treatises on the liberal arts, on the four virtues, and on morals, his correspondence with St Paul (spurious) and others, and an alphabetical collection of proverbs,53 an item that has a suggestive connec-

Augustine, cf. Royal 8.G.vi, fol. 196); Incipit sermo eiusdem de substancia dilectionis dei, pp. 42–6 (also attributed to Hugh of St Victor, see Royal 5.C.vi, fol. 34, and cf. E. Mikkers, ‘De vita et operibus Gilberti de Hoylandia’, Citeaux, 14 (1963), 274n.); Incipit sermo eiusdem Augustini de laude caritatis, pp. 46–48 (J. B. Schneyer, Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters die Zeit von 1150–1350 (Münster, 1969 ff.), Augustine, Sermon 350); Oracio contemplative dicenda post consecracionem corporis christi in missa, inc. ‘Ave vivens hostia’ (see V. Leroquais, Les livres d’heures manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale (Paris, 1927), I, p. 235), followed by prayer,’Domine tui iesu christe fili dei vivi qui ex voluntate patris’ (Leroquais, I, pp. 235, 269, 312, II, p. 262), p. 49; ‘Salve sancta mater dei/radix vite robur sperei,’ pp. 50–51 (see U. Chevalier, Repertorium hymnologicum (Louvain, 1897), no. 18196); Oracio contemplativa dolorem beate Virginis Marie, inc. ‘Salve mater dolorosa iuxta crucem lacrimosa’, pp. 52–53 = Stabat mater (see Chevalier, II, no. 18018); Tractatus beati Bernardi de compassione beate virginis, pp. 53–61 (Pat. lat., CLXXXII, col. 1133); Descripcio corporis domini Iesu Christi, p. 61 (see the Annales romanorum, ed. by J. P. Gabler, Kleinere theologische Schriften (Ulm, 1831), II, p. 636, cf. Omne bonum, Royal 6.E.vi, fol. 107v, Royal 6.E.vii, fol. 232v); Incipiunt quedam meditaciones devote de gaudiis gloriose Virginis Marie matris dei, pp. 62–75 (Abbot Stephen of Salley (1223–33) and Fountains (1248–52), see Wilmart, pp. 337, 358); De mutuis epistolis domini iesu & abgari regis Edisse beati Johannis Evangeliste beate marie virginis et sancti Ignacii, pp. 76–80 (the supposed correspondence between Christ and Abgar, king of Edessa; see M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924), pp. 476–77); ‘Summe summi tu patris unice’, p. 81 (hymn to Christ and the Virgin, see Chevalier, II, no. 19710); ‘Mater sancta dei fuga nocti & origo diei’ (hymn to the Virgin) and prayer to Christ, inc. ‘Domine mi iesu christe fili dei redempcio mea, salus mea’, p. 82; Hugh of St Victor, De concordia misericordie & veritatis, iusticia & pacis, p. 84; De cantu philomene, pp. 89–98 (attributed to St Bonaventura or Archbishop John Peckham; see Catalogue of Hunterian Manuscripts, p. 179). 52 See Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots, pp. 62–63, 127–37, 476–82; W. A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 190–91. 53 pp. 99–274, altogether sixteen items; see Catalogue of Hunterian Manuscripts, pp. 179–81. On the Senecan correspondence, see L. D. Reynolds, The Medieval Tradition of Seneca’s Letters (Oxford, 1965), pp. 81–89.

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tion with the use of proverbial sayings in Roger’s Compendium morale.54 This Senecan section of the Glasgow manuscript has four illustrations.55 The last section of the manuscript is, in the rubricator’s words, a Compilacio medullitus de libris naturalibus aristotilis et aliorum philosophorum. The work of an unknown writer, the compilation includes summaries of the writings of Aristotle or pseudo-Aristotle on the Soul, on Metaphysics, on Heaven and Earth, on Birth, Meteors, Plants, Animals, and on Sleeping and Waking, and also excerpts from Isaac Israeli’s tenth-century treatise on Philosophy, which quotes Plato, Cicero, Boethius, and other ancients.56 As a coda, there is an unattributed treatise on the physical aspects of man in the form of a dialogue between a student and a philosopher.57 This section of Roger’s miscellany is articulated only by rubrics and penwork initials, but there is one extraordinary full-page miniature showing Plato, Seneca and Aristotle (Fig. 7), aptly called by Pächt a philosophical trinity.58 This image bridges the contents of the second and third sections of the volume. 54 The Compendium morale contains a preface and twelve chapters organizing quotations, exempla, parables, and narraciones under rubrics such as ‘Descripcio rei publice . . .’ (Chap. 2), ‘Quod regentes sint iusti . . .’ (Chap. 3), ‘De perseverancia & fortitudine viri virtuosi . . .’ (Chap. 9), ‘De clemencia principium . . .’ (Chap. 10), ‘De humilitate principium . . .’ (Chap. 11). The various excerpts are used to illustrate behaviour appropriate to political leaders. Seneca, along with Cicero, Varro, Horace, Valerius Maximus, Ovid and Boethius, is named as a source in the preface; among other sources used are the Vitas patrum and the Legenda sanctorum. 55 p. 99, Correspondence between Seneca and St Paul, Nero and Seneca; p. 110, Seneca’s letter to St Paul on composition, Seneca and St Paul, below, Seneca writing; p. 123, Seneca’s treatise on the liberal arts, Seneca and a clerk; p. 235, Seneca to Nero on clemency, Seneca and Nero. 56 pp. 277–460. The compilation has seven books, the first six (pp. 277–432) from Aristotle’s scientific writings, Book VII (pp. 432–47) on philosophy (‘. . . de rebus que comprehenduntur vi racionis’), with excerpts from Isaac Israeli, De definicionibus (see J. T. Muckle, ‘Isaac Israeli, Liber de diffinitionibus’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, 11 (1938), 303), followed by an unnumbered section (pp. 447–60) of medulle from Aristotle’s ethical writings. See M. de Broüard, Une nouvelle encyclopédie médiévale: le Compendium philosophiae (Paris, 1936). 57 pp. 461–82: Tractatus de hominis creacione, formacione, nativitate, actibus, membris & membrorum disposicionibus per morem Dialogi inter discipulum querentem et philosopum respondentem, inc. ‘Homo est animal racionale & mortale ex carne & anima constans . . .’; cf. L. Thorndike and P. Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), p. 635. 58 See Pächt’s note of 5 December 1953 in the annotated copy of the Hunterian catalogue in the University Library, Glasgow; see also B. Smalley, English Friars and Antiquity in the Early Fourteenth Century (Oxford, 1960), frontispiece and p. xv, with a transcription of the texts on the books held by the philosophers.

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We know a bit more about Roger of Waltham than about Simon of Wederore. Roger is first mentioned in 1300 as a clerk of Anthony Bek, bishop of Durham (1284–1311); he was Bek’s familiarius and served as his chancellor; and before Bek’s death in 1311 he had been instituted to various benefices in the diocese of Durham.59 His appointment as a canon of St Paul’s60 might have been due to the influence of Bishop Bek, or perhaps as a reward for some service to the king, since he seems subsequently to have served as keeper of the wardrobe of Edward II.61 Whether Roger’s interest in learning was developed at a university is unknown.62 It is possible that he received his only education in the household of the bishop of Durham. Nevertheless, Roger’s Compendium morale is an ambitious didactic work meant for the instruction of rulers and political leaders, and enlivened by classical quotations, Biblical parables, anecdotes and exempla from the lives of the saints.63 It seems entirely possible that he himself selected all the material for his Glasgow miscellany also. About Roger’s spiritual life, we know that around 1325 he founded a chantry chapel in St Paul’s for two priests. It was dedicated to the Virgin, St Laurence, and All Saints, and was decorated with a large number of painted images in relief and in the round. Not only did Roger provide the rich decoration of this chantry, he also gave a set of jewelled and gold59 Records of Antony Bek, ed. by C. M. Frazer, Surtees Society, 162 (Durham and London, 1953), s.v. Roger of Waltham. 60 See J. Le Neve, Fasti ecclesiae Anglicani, V, St. Paul’s, London, ed. by J. Horn (London, 1963), p. 25, as prebendary of Caddington Minor. Roger is identified in Bek’s documents from 1308–11 as ‘canonicus & clericus noster’ (Records, no. 130), ‘canonico Londoniensi, familiari clerico nostro’ (ibid., no. 146). 61 May 1322–October 1323; see J. Fortescue, The Governance of England, ed. by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1885), pp. 173–75; T. F. T. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England (Manchester, 1920–33), IV, pp. 91–93, was not certain that the canon Roger of Waltham and the keeper of the wardrobe of the same name were actually the same person, because the name was not uncommon. Nevertheless there is no evidence to the contrary and the association seems entirely reasonable. 62 See A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford, 1959), ill, pp. 107–75, commenting on C. L. Kingsford’s unsubstantiated statement that Roger had been an Oxford student. 63 Richard Rouse is working on a study of the Compendium morale. For a list of manuscripts, see R. Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford (Oxford, 1963), p. 281, to which should be added Berlin, Staatsbibl. MS lat. qu. 487, English, fourteenth century, from the Cistercian priory of St Mary of Graces, London (see Ker, Medieval Libraries, p. 121). Leland saw a copy of the Compendium morale in St Paul’s; J. Leland, Commentarii de scriptoribus Britannicis (Oxford, 1709), pp. 264–65.

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embroidered vestments to be used on the anniversary of his death and on important feasts.64 Roger clearly believed in the power of images and precious materials, as well as the power of prayer. This brings us back to the image of Roger of Waltham presented by the owner-portraits in the Glasgow miscellany. The portraits all occur in illustrations for the first portion of the manuscript, the devotional anthology.65 Roger is tonsured, with a wavy fringe of hair over his forehead, curls over his ears, and a distinctive stubble on his cheeks and jaw. His richly furred red or blue garment represents that of a secular canon. In almost every case Roger is kneeling in near profile, head and hands — actually only one hand is ever shown — raised in supplication. His eyes are never averted as Simon of Wederore’s were, but are focused on the objectified translation of the words or the concept of the adjacent text. The objects of Roger’s devotion include standard images of the Virgin and Child,66 but also a number of subjects unusual in entirety or in detail, among them for example the historiated initial of the Crucifixion illustrating St Bernard’s meditation on the suffering of the Virgin (Fig. 8). It faces a hymn on the sorrows of the Virgin that describes her soul as transfixed by a sword,67 and this explains the motif of the Virgin’s breast pierced by a sword in the initial. Equally unusual is the representation of the Virgin as nursing mother. The Virgo lactans occurs twice, once illustrating the thirteenth-century Cistercian Stephen of Salley’s meditation on the Fifteen Joys of the Virgin, of which the first is her motherhood of God (Fig. 9), and again at the beginning of the Franciscan archbishop John Peckham’s Philomena, which treats the stages of the life of the Saviour from birth to

G. H. Cook, Mediaeval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, rev. edn (London, 1963), pp. 12, 140, citing W. Dugdale, The History of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (London, 1716), pp. 32–33, who translated the documents; see also Historical Manuscripts Commission, Ninth Report, Pt. I (London, 1883), pp. 28b, 401, 54b. The chantry priests were to pray in perpetuity for the souls of Roger, his parents, and Anthony Bek; the oratory was in the chapel of St John the Baptist; it was dedicated to the Virgin, St Laurence and All Saints, and the set of ecclesiastical garments was to be worn on the anniversary of Roger and on the feasts of the Exaltation of the Cross, St John Baptist and St Laurence. 65 pp. 1, 11, 36, 50, 53, 62, 81, 82, 83, 85, 89. 66 e.g. p. 82, historiated initial for a hymn to the Virgin. 67 ‘Salve mater dolorosa, iuxta crucem lacrimosa cum pendebat filius/ Cuius animam gementum, consternatum & dolentem pertransivit gladius’ (opening lines on p. 52, facing initial on p. 53). 64

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death, a text whose stanzas are summarized pictorially in an initial with subjects from the infancy, the public life and the passion of Christ (Fig. 10). Finally, Roger appears in an exceptional full-page illustration of the Visions of St Benedict and St Paul (Fig. 11).68 The picture is not a text-illustration but rather is itself explained by a text on the following pages,69 a text coupling the blinding visions of the Deity that were experienced by each saint individually. At the top is the face of God, within radiant streams of light that run through all three registers of the composition; the middle section shows the saints positioned between heaven above and earth below, and in this lowest section adjacent to the spheres of the God-created universe are two clerical figures, the one on the left, from the details of his coiffure, probably intended as Roger. He touches two scrolls, one reading’ All-creating, I beg, as I hope, have mercy on Roger’ and the other, ‘May all things created by God be my medicine.’70 In the human sphere Roger and his companion can hope, as the text explains, to heighten their own meditative experience of things celestial by contemplating the visions of the saints. Roger of Waltham’s hope for heavenly favour is expressed repeatedly in the speech scrolls that characterize the illustrations and transform even standard images into specific and individual, unique representations. Each time Roger appears with a scroll the inscribed text includes his name, voicing his prayer. Thus, addressing the Virgin of the Coronation, he says, ‘Ruling with your Son, let a realm be prepared for Roger’.71 And further examples are found in the Crucifixion (Fig. 8),72 the Assumption,73 and the Virgin and Child (Fig. 9). In this last Roger says, ‘Virgin Mary with your Son, be mer68 A similar miniature, with the explanatory text, recurs in James le Palmer’s Omne bonum (see below, pp. 74–79), perhaps copied from the illustration in Roger’s book; see L. F. Sandler, ‘Face to Face with God: A Pictorial Image of the Beatific Vision’, in England in the Fourteenth Century, Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, 1986), pp. 224–35. 69 The text is composed of excerpts from Gregory the Great’s Dialogi (ii, 35), the Glosa ordinaria on the Pauline Epistles (Pat. lat. CXCII, cols 79–82), Augustine’s De genesi ad litteram (xii, 34). 70 ‘Cuncta creans quero quod spero, parce Rogero’ and ‘Cuncta creata dei sint medicina mei. 71 p. 83: ‘Regnans cum nato, Rogero regna parato.’ 72 p. 53: ‘Vita sit — [illegible] spero — [illegible] mors tua Christe Rogero.’ 73 p. 36: ‘Celica que quero scandens pia posce Rogero’ (Gentle lady ascending to the heavenly realms which I seek, plead for Roger).

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ciful to Roger’.74 Roger is always within the field of the picture, and because of the crowded compositions he almost jostles the other figures. Yet the scrolls separate his body from theirs, so that his inscribed words conduct his prayers to the sacred beings beyond his physical touch, although they are made visible by the translation of mental images into pictorial ones. Unlike his unillustrated Compendium morale, Roger of Waltham’s illustrated miscellany was, I believe, a collection of texts important to him personally and not intended for circulation — at least not by replication. It is the combination of personally-selected texts, and pictorial and verbal identification that gives the Glasgow volume its unique and inimitable stamp. Through this combination Roger maps out his piety, his moral virtue, and his learning, not primarily for an immediate audience, for heirs, or as a legacy, but, I think, in the first instance to define himself to himself. My last example, James le Palmer, is a still more remarkable case of selfdefinition. The illustration in question (Fig. 12) is not, however, very remarkable in itself. It shows a secular cleric (a clerk rather than a priest) kneeling next to the standing figure of the Resurrected Christ. Indeed, compared with the intense atmosphere of spiritual communication of the owner-portraits of Simon of Wederore and Roger of Waltham, this image is distinctly reserved, both because of the frontality of Christ, who is blessing (but not the supplicant) and because of the virtual wall of initial I, which bars one figure from the other. What then has this image to do with self-definition, or even identification of the individual represented? An explanation requires a brief description of the book in which the image — which I believe shows the previously-mentioned James le Palmer — is found. Now bound as Royal MSS 6.E.vi and 6.E.vii in the British Library, the work is an enormous eleven hundred folio multi-volume general encyclopedia, arranged, like modern encyclopedias, in alphabetical order from Absolutio to Zacharias.75 The chief contents fall into the categories of canon law, theology and religious practice, and natural science, including the history of man. It is replete with illustrations, more than six hundred and fifty of them historiated initials, with subjects such as exposure of infants and married clerics p. 62: ‘Sis Rogero pia cum nato, virgo Maria.’ See L. F. Sandler, The Omne bonum of James le Palmer: A Fourteenth Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (London, Harvey Miller, forthcoming); G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (London, 1921) I, 157–59; also Sandler, Survey, no. 124. 74 75

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(Figs. 13, 14), Eucharist and gluttony, and Antichrist and God76 — to choose almost at random. From the script and pictures it is clear that the volumes were written during the fourteenth century, and from the textual contents we know that this was after 1360.77 A prologue tells us the name of the encyclopedia — Omne bonum — and half of the name of the compiler — James — who goes on to say that for a good reason he does not wish to reveal his surname.78 But I have determined that James’s surname was Le Palmer, and that he was an exchequer clerk of Edward III’s, who had risen to the rank of Treasurer’s Scribe responsible for writing the Pipe Roll by the time of his death in 1375. Furthermore, we now know that the Omne bonum is an autograph work, that is, that its owner, James le Palmer, was both its compiler and its scribe, as well as the commissioner of its illustrations.79 Eucharist (Eukaristia), 6.E.vii, fol. 70; Gluttony (Gula), 6.E.vii, fol. 195; Antichrist (Antechristus), 6.E.vi, fols 100v, 102, 103; God (Deus), 6.E.vi, fol. 505. 77 See in the entry on Jesus (IHC), 6.E.vii, fols 23–236v, a sermon of Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh (d. 1360) with the rubric ‘Nunc sequitur videre quamdam sollempnem predicacionem de domino nostro iesu per magistrum Ricardum fitz Raufi Archiepiscopum Armacam & etiam sollempnem doctorem in theologia quasi sine pari in diebus suis’ (Now there follows for consideration a certain important preaching about our Lord Jesus by Master Richard Fitzralph, an eminent doctor of theology almost without peer in his day), suggesting that when the line was written Fitzralph was deceased. This entry was written during James le Palmer’s first campaign of work on the Omne bonum; see L. F. Sandler, ‘Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio in an English Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century’, in Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988, ed. by L. L. Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills, Cal, 1990), pp. 183–200. 78 See 6.E.vi, fol. 18v: ‘Quia . . . omnia bona quasi in eo quodammodo continetur, presens opusculum omne bonum duxi non inmerito nominandum . . .’; ‘Ego Jacobus . . . cuius cognomen alios volo ex causa latere, presens opus cum magno labore ac iugi mentis desiderio compilavi’ (Since almost all good things are in one way or another contained herein, I thought it fitting to name the present small work Omne bonum [All Good]; I James, whose surname I do not wish to reveal to others for a good reason, compiled the present work with great labour and heartfelt striving). 79 Sandler, Survey, no. 124; in addition, on James le Palmer’s career in the Exchequer, see J. C. Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer, List and Index Society, special ser. 18 (London, 1983), p. 63; for James le Palmer’s autograph copy of William of Nottingham’s commentary on the Gospels (Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 165), with the colophon (fol. 585) ‘Iste liber est liber jacobi le palmere quem scripsit manu sua propria deo gratias’ (This book is the book of James le Palmer, who wrote it with his own hand, thanks be to God), see Sandler, Survey, no. 125; more recently, see L. F. Sandler, ‘Face to Face with God’; eadem, ‘Notes for the illuminator: The Case of the Omne bonum’, Art Bulletin, 71 (1989), 551–64; and eadem, ‘Omne 76

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The Omne bonum is a unique text. Although the encyclopedia entries are entirely based on the work of others, no single earlier work served as a model for the particular mix of sources used to compose the individual articles, nor did any earlier encyclopedia merge all its entries into a single alphabetical sequence.80 Nor was the Omne bonum ever copied, in part because the text was never completed,81 and as far as I know it was never quoted either. What then accounts for the extraordinary situation of a monumental work of scholarship, impeccably written and lavishly illustrated, and apparently so completely ignored? Of course, it could be historical accident. What happened to the book between James’s death and the sixteenth century when it turned up in the royal collection is not known.82 But is there something about the encyclopedia itself that discouraged circulation? The prologue sends somewhat ambiguous signals in this regard, for James borrowed the phrasing of handbooks for preachers and said that his work could contribute to the well-being of every man.83 Yet it is clear that such a huge bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio’; see also P. R. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature (Princeton, 1986), pp. 67–81, on James le Palmer’s antagonism to the Franciscan Order as expressed in the Omne bonum. 80 James le Palmer listed his sources at the end of his prologue (6.E.vi, fol. 18v). A number of those on which he depended most heavily are alphabetical, viz., the Martiniana (see above, p. 217), the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland (see above, p. 225 n. 37 and R. H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland (Toronto, 1979)), and several chapters of the standard thirteenthcentury natural history encyclopedia of Bartholomeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum (no modern edition; see M. Seymour et al., Bartholomaeus Anglicus and his Encyclopedia (Aldershot, 1992). The chief non-alphabetical sources of the Omne bonum are the Decretum, the Decretals and the later canon law texts; the legal commentaries of Hostiensis, Guido de Baysio, Gulielmus Durantis, Johannes Andreae, Willelmus de Monte Audoeno, and William of Pagula; the Opus imperfectum attributed to St John Chrysostom; the Liber de veritate theologie, attributed in the Middle Ages to St Thomas Aquinas; and the Secreta secretorum attributed to Aristotle. 81 Only the first entries under the letters N - Z were written; see Sandler, ‘Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio’. 82 See Warner and Gilson, Catalogue, I, p. 159. The post-history of the Omne bonum and James le Palmer’s copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham may be linked since some of the illustrations inserted in each work during the 1380s (after the death of James) were executed by the same artist; by c. 1400 the Gospel Commentary was in the possession of Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury; see Sandler, Survey, no. 125. 83 6.E.vi, fol. 18v: ‘. . . concludavi in compilacione huius omnia que tendunt ad hominis utriusque salutem; quasi sine difficultate poterunt & tedio inveniri’ (I included in this compilation everything that contributes to the well-being of every man; almost without difficulty or trouble will it be found).

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enterprise as the Omne bonum would not serve the practical needs of the clergy in the way that such alphabetical manuals as the Manipulus florum did.84 In fact, the prologue is not a very good guide to the purpose of the Omne bonum at all. Even the list of sources at the end is largely ‘borrowed’ from the one in Bartholomeus Anglicus’s natural history encyclopedia, De proprietatibus rerum.85 It must be concluded that from the start the Omne bonum was — and remained — unique, in good part because the project was self-generated and self-addressed. James spent probably fifteen years86 compiling the work on his own initiative, using his own money, and his own scribal and compilational skill, and although there are clues in the form of marginal notes addressed to some of his exchequer colleagues that he expected that they would someday get to see his magnum opus,87 public dissemination was not James’s first priority. Rather, he devoted himself to the behind-the-scenes work of the compiler — organization and articulation of material extracted from auctoritates — instead of the more public work of the commentator, whose role was to explicate important texts.88 A medieval compiler can be far more individual than admitted in St Bonaventura’s definition: ‘one who puts together the writings of others, See the prologue to the Manipulus florum: ‘Quasdam igitur dictiones notabiliores ac magis communes que sepius in sermonibus vel lectionibus possent occurrere et cum quibus se possit homo in omni materia iuvare, hic secundum alphabeti ordinem more concordanciarum signavi’ (Rouse, Manipulus florum, 237). 85 James le Palmer’s list of sources (6. E. vi, fol. 18v) is divided into several sections: first, legal texts and commentaries (see above, n. 80); then natural history encyclopedias, biblical commentaries, legendaries, sermon handbooks, a dictionary and ‘something’ of the Bible; and last a list of Christian and pagan authorities beginning with Augustine and ending with ‘Zerastes magnus’ (Zoroaster) identical to the one in many copies of De proprietatibus rerum, e.g., London, BL MS Sloane 511, fol. 334, English, early fourteenth century. 86 He must have started writing the entries after 1360 (see n. 77 above) and he died in 1375 (see Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer, p. 63). 87 The names (W. de Alde[bury], W. de Hanleye, and R. de Sekynton) are listed by Warner and Gilson, Catalogue, I, pp. 157–58, but without identification; for their careers in the Exchequer, see Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer, pp. 63, 81, 114. 88 See M. R. Parkes, ‘The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book’, in Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. by J. J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson (Oxford, 1976), pp. 127–28, citing St Bonaventura’s definition of the respective roles (in ascending order of originality) of scribe, compiler, commentator, and author (In primum librum sententiarum, proem, quaest. iv): ‘Aliquis scribit aliena addendo, sed non de suo; et iste compilator dicitur. Aliquis scribit et aliena et sua, sed aliena tamquam principalia, et sua tamquam annexa ad evidentiam; et iste dicitur commentator non auctor’. 84

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with nothing of his own’.89 The Omne bonum provides numerous examples of James le Palmer’s individuality as a compiler, one of which is surely the entry on Jesus (IHC),90 whose illustration shows James before the Resurrected Christ. It is noteworthy that of all the places in the Omne bonum where James could have decided to have an image of himself inserted (most conventionally of course at the beginning of the text or prologue)91 he chose the article on Jesus. The article is a devotional and legal anthology in which the technique of compilation is used to give expression to sincere piety. In about ten thousand words James pulled together approximately ten different textual components centred around a single theme of the meaning of the name Jesus to the Christian believer. The authorities quoted include Augustine, Bernard, and Thomas Aquinas, Jacobus de Voragine, and the fourteenth-century Britons, William of Nottingham and Richard Fitzralph, as well as the canonist Guido de Baysio.92 The sources are legendary, mystical, exegetical, homiletic and See n. 88. 6.E.vii, fols 232v–237v. 91 The beginning of the text, Absolutio (6.E.vi, fol. 19), has a miniature of a pope absolving a bishop and a historiated initial of a priest absolving laymen; the beginning of the prologue (fol. 18v) has space for an initial Q, never filled in. 92 Iesus includes the following components: 1) Annales romanorum, letter of Lentulus on the physical appearance of Christ (fol. 232v), see n. 51 above; 2) Legenda sanctorum, extract from ‘De circumcisione’, on the name IHC (fol. 232v), see Legenda aurea, ed. by T. Graesse, 3rd edn (Breslau, 1890; repr. Osnabruck, 1965), pp. 81–82; 3) unidentified explanation of the meaning of each letter of the name I E S U S (fols 232v–233); 4) Augustine, De Trinitate, xiii. 10, on the meaning of IHC in Hebrew and Greek (fol. 233); 5) Augustine, Meditations, chap. xix, on the meaning of the name I E S U S (fol. 233); 6) William of Nottingham, Gospel Commentary, on Luke ii. 21, ‘Vocatum est nomen eius’ (fol. 233), cf. Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud misc. 165, fol. 60 (James le Palmer’s autograph copy of William of Nottingham’s work), see n. 79 above; 7) William of Nottingham, Gospel Commentary, on Luke xvii. 13, ‘Iesu preceptor miserere nostri’ (fols 233–233v), cf. Laud misc. 165, fols 364–364v; 8) attributed to St Thomas Aquinas, Liber de veritate theologie, bk. iii, ‘De circumcisione’, on the name I H U (fol. 233v); 9) Legenda sanctorum, extract from ‘De circumcisione’, on the three names of Jesus (fols 233v–234), see Legenda aurea, pp. 80–81; 10) Richard Fitzralph, Sermon on ‘Veni domine iesu’, Apoc. xxii. 20 (fols 234–236v), see A. Gwynn, ‘The Sermon-Diary of Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh’, Proc. Royal Irish Academy, 44 C (1937), 56, no. 83, 39, n. 28; 11) St Bernard of Clairvaux, Homily xv on the Song of Songs, ‘et quia est unum originale ideo totum scribo licet aliqua superius specificentur’ (fol. 236v), previously quoted in part in the excerpt from William of Nottingham on fol. 233 and in the sermon of Richard Fitzralph, fol. 236; 12) Guido de Baysio, Apparatus on Liber Sextus (Decretals of Boniface VIII), iii. 23, c. 2 on the derivation of the name Iesus, and its meaning in Hebrew, Greek and Latin (fol. 237); 13) a narratio about how St 89 90

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10. Miscellany of Roger of Waltham, illustration to Philomena.

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11. Miscellany of Roger of Waltham, Vision of SS. Benedict and Paul, with Roger.

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12. Omne bonum, James le Palmer before Christ.

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canonistic. One after the other praises the name Jesus. It is spiritual food, the fountain of life, medicine for sin, and light of the faithful;93 it is sweet, delectable, a comfort to sinners;94 it is wonderful, ineffable, inestimable.95 This name was proclaimed by the angel, revealed by the apostles, praised to the highest by the confessors, and exalted by all the saints.96 Sins enfeeble, blind and debilitate; Jesus cures, illuminates and strengthens.97 The name Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song in the heart.98 It is the name above all others.99 Many of these phrases are emphasized by marginal comments or figural pointers composed and drawn by James, for example, taking the form of the head of a pope or archbishop adjacent to large, widely spaced capitals, I H C, surmounted by a cross.100 Moreover, the entry is structured by rubrics underscoring and summarizing the main points, also composed by James.101 Like James le Palmer, Simon of Wederore was the scribe of the manuscript he owned and in which his portrait appears, but in relation to the textual contents he was a mere copyist. Like James, Roger of Waltham played a role in the compilation of his own book, but he was neither its scribe nor was his achievement as a compiler as grand and encyclopedic as that of James. What comprises James’s individuality is the conjunction of the pictorial, the scribal and the textual. Little matter if his image is not as engaging or as omnipresent as that of Roger of Waltham. He elected to insert it in a context of his own creation. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury had the name Iesus written each night on his forehead, attributed to ‘quadam cronica de gestis anglorum’ (fols 237–237v), probably from a florilegium rather than directly from a chronicle, cf. Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon, s.v. 1241. 93 6.E.vii, fol. 232v, excerpting the Legenda sanctorum, ‘De circumcisione’, which quotes St Bernard of Clairvaux. 94 6.E.vii, fol. 233, St Augustine, Meditations, ch. xix. 95 6.E.vii, fol. 232v, from the Legenda sanctorum, ‘De circumcisione’, quoting St Bernard of Clairvaux. 96 6.E.vii, fol. 233v, Liber de veritate theologie, bk. iii, ‘De circumcisione’. 97 6.E.vii, fol. 235v, Sermon of Richard Fitzralph on ‘Veni domine iesu’, Apoc. xxii. 20. 98 6.E.vii, fols 233, 236, 237, St Bernard, Homily xv on the Song of Songs; see n. 92 above. 99 6.E. vii, fol. 233v, Liber de veritate theologie, bk. iii. 100 6.E.vii, fol. 235v; see Bodleian Lib. MS Laud misc. 165, fol. 60 for identical marginal nomina sacra, I H C, repeated three times. 101 e.g., 6.E.vii, fol. 232v: ‘Nunc sequitur videre de effectu dulcissimi nominis iesu christi sine quo impossibile est salvari quia iesus interpretatur salvator’ (Now there follows consideration of the effect of the sweetest Dame of Jesus Christ, without which it is impossible to be saved, because Jesus means Saviour).

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The images of book-owners discussed in this essay are atypical since they are not in standard books of devotion. Yet, as in psalters or books of hours, these portraits document the owners of the manuscript in acts of prayer; or still more important, they make the object of the owner’s devotion visible, not a mental construct but an apparition, which the book-owner can experience repeatedly through the picture; finally, these owner-portraits serve as reinforcement of prayers actually uttered. The portrait of the owner in prayer may even be the surrogate for actual supplication, a kind of permanent effigy of repeated acts of devotional piety. But the portraits of owners in these manuscripts are also images that turn back towards the owners themselves; they are images of self-definition. They are, first, highly visible indications of possession — possession of something valuable and expensive. Furthermore, they position the owner in a larger world of piety, knowledge, and power, characterizing each individual as deeply devout and learned, and defining his social status. Simon, Roger and James are all devoted Christians. Their faith is emotional, not intellectual: the Christ Child strews roses on Simon; the Virgin’s breast is pierced before the gaze of Roger; and James writes the holy name IHC over and over again in large capitals in the margins of his article on Jesus. All three men have a defined place in society: Simon wears the habit of his college; Roger, the robes of a canon; James, those of a clerk. And finally, because they chose to portray themselves in these particular complex and learned books, they all emerge as distinct individuals, adding specific detail to our still hazy picture of the chaplains, canons and clerks of the fourteenth century.

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The Wilton Diptych and Images of Devotion in Illuminated Manuscripts

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MAGES of a Christian worshipper before the object of his or her devotion — the Deity, the Virgin, a saint — are such commonplaces of medieval art that we have long since forgotten just how great an imaginative leap such conjunctions of the human and the holy represent. Giving visible form to the Deity or a holy being is familiar from the art of Greece and Rome as are representations re-enacting religious sacrifice, but literally putting the worshipped and the worshipper together in the picture is, it seems to me, an innovation of the Middle Ages. The conjunction of a sacred and a human being raises a number of questions of interpretation and purpose. What, for instance, does the worshipper shown in the image ‘see’ — the object of worship miraculously materialized, or a simulacrum, that is, an icon, or the depiction of an image in the mind, visually realized for the benefit of the viewer of the work of art? And what was the purpose of such works of art in any case? Were they records of devotion, surrogates, perpetual memorials, in other words, were they autobiographical, showing something about the worshipper, or did they carry messages to the viewer, either the worshipper represented in the image, or others?1 1 For recent studies of devotional images, see H. Belting, Das Bild und sein Publikum im Mittelalter: Form und Funktion früher Bildtafeln der Passion, Berlin, 1981; on devotional images in fifteenth-century manuscripts, see K. Scott, ‘Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the illustrations of Fifteenth Century English Manuscripts’, English Manuscript Studies, I, 1989, pp. 19–63; L. F. Sandler, ‘The Image of the Book-Owner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-Definition’, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, III, 1993, pp. 58–80.

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While these questions relate to the Wilton Diptych, in Northern Europe up to almost the middle of the fifteenth century the materials for their consideration come primarily, not from panel paintings, but from illuminated manuscripts. Consequently, this contribution is intended to ‘surround’ the Wilton Diptych with images of religious devotion drawn from manuscripts. Consideration of such features as figural relationships, poses, gestures, attributes, and setting in representations of religious devotion from fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century manuscripts of various origins may broaden the context in which we view the Wilton Diptych and enrich our understanding of its meaning. Many representations of religious devotion in manuscripts are on pages with text and historiated initial letters. Such pages offer a wide range of possibilities for positioning the worshipper in relation to the object of devotion. Quite typical is the placement of the person in prayer outside the frame of an initial whose field is filled with the image of the Deity, as in the Psalter of Stephen of Derby, a book of the third quarter of the fourteenth century (Fig. 1).2 Stephen, an Augustinian Canon of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, in near profile, is barred literally from the much larger, fixed and iconic image of the Lord, who issues a universal, impersonal blessing, as if completely unaware of the petitioner. Illustrations of this sort suggest that the depiction of the Deity corresponds to a mental image, an image both aroused by and giving reinforcement to the adjacent words of the text of Psalm 26: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom then shall I fear?’ The line between worshipper and object of worship can be breached however even when the worshipper is outside the initial frame. For example, Matins in the Bohun Hours now in Copenhagen, datable to the 1380s (Fig. 2), begins with an initial of the Annunciation.3 In a cutaway tower to the left of the initial, Mary de Bohun, wife of the future Henry IV, clad in the arms of England and Bohun, kneels at a prayer-stand with hands resting on an open book; across the transparent frame of the initial, with its armorial background, in a similar crenellated setting, is the seated Virgin, herself resting a hand on an open book as she acknowledges the announcement of the Angel. The figures are linked by gesture, by activity, and by setting. 2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. G. 185, f. 20; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, Vol. II, no. 128, p. 142. 3 Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Thott. 547.4o, f. 1; Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, Vol. II, no. 140, pp. 161–2.

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The worshipper may be also enclosed in an initial separate from but in proximity to a framed miniature. The paired initial and miniature from Sext of the Hours of the Holy Spirit in the early fifteenth-century Grandes Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry (Fig. 3),4 shows him twice, once below in the initial where his guardian angel urges him with a gesture to gaze upward, beyond the initial into the miniature, where he can see his own future reception at the Gate of Heaven by St Peter. As in the Copenhagen Hours, the miniature frames an event, but here it is an event in which the worshipper imagines himself to play a major role. When manuscript images of religious devotion are painted on pages without text, as for instance on frontispieces, or within miniature cycles, differentiation of the space of the worshipper and the space of the object of devotion sometimes occurs, just as on pages with illustrations in margins and in the text. The frame of the miniature encloses the sacred figure and the page-margin beyond is the arena of the human worshipper, as for example, in the miniature of the Agony in the Garden in the Taymouth Hours of the second quarter of the fourteenth century (Fig. 4).5 An early fifteenth-century counterpart is a miniature attributed to Hermann Scheerre depicting worshippers and the Annunciation in the Beaufort Hours in the British Library.6 But in contrast to the simple fourteenth-century pattern of separation and parallelism in the Taymouth Hours, the presentation of the Scheerre miniature is subtle and complex. Within an octagonal stone structure evoking the Temple in Jerusalem the angel’s salutation spirals upward on a scroll while the Virgin’s response is legible on the pages of her open prayer-book. The angel has just alighted, so to speak, a bit of his robe overlapping the forward edge of the architectural enclosure. The two worshippers are on either side, clearly in the margin since they kneel amidst decorative foliage. Nevertheless, at the same time the marginal plane is transformed into a space, a kind of antechamber. The human worshippers are posed as privileged spectators at the event within the frame, although they ‘see’ with mental, contemplative vision, their physi4 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 919, f. 96; see M. Thomas, Les Grandes Heures de Jean Duc de Berry, London, 1971. 5 London, British Library, MS Yates Thompson 13, f. 118v; Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, Vol. II, no. 98, pp. 107–9. 6 London, British Library, MS Royal 2 A XVIII, f. 23v; M. Rickert, ‘The So-Called Beaufort Hours and York Psalter’, Burlington Magazine, CIV, 1962, 238–46; K. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390–1490 (A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, VI), 2 vols., London, 1996, Vol. II, no. 37.

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cal eyes focused outward, away from the angel and the Virgin. But the couple is also joined with the Virgin in devotion through the repetition of the book resting open on the prayer-stands of all three figures. Very much like the miniature in the Beaufort Hours is another painting attributed to Scheerre from a Book of Hours in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, showing a couple in devotion before the Transfigured Christ (Fig. 5).7 Within the miniature frame is a green ground area with black tufts and a deep blue ‘sky’ in which an equally blue apparition of Christ surrounded by a golden linear radiance floats above the heads of the worshippers. The worshippers kneel below the miniature, in the space of the margin, and their positions suggest that the image they are venerating is not only above but also behind them, seen — as before — not with physical but with mental eyes. Nevertheless, the barrier between human and Divine has been reduced in a remarkable way since the orange miniature frame has only three sides, like a doorway — an opening into the sacred world. Above, the speech scroll of the Lord says ‘He who sees Jesus sees also the Father; I in the Father and the Father in me and the Holy Spirit proceeding from both’ and the response of the couple below, ‘Blessed be the holy indivisible Trinity and its mercy’,8 form a verbal link echoing the spatial link between the two parts of the picture. Conjunction between worshippers and the objects of their devotion that involves placement of figures in the page-margins is the special province of book illustration. Many fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century manuscript images of religious devotion however are entirely contained within frames, either initial frames or miniature frames. An example of the first is the pair of worshippers in the Matins initial of a Book of Hours of the 1380s in Keble College, Oxford (Fig. 7).9 Although jammed together with the 7 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat.liturg. f. 2 (f. 2v), datable 1405–13; O. Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, III: British School, Oxford, 1973, no. 795, pp. 70–1; Scott (cited in note 6 above), Vol. II, no. 22. 8 Scroll of Christ: ‘Qui vidit ihc vidit et patrem que ego patre et pater in me est et spiritus sanctus ab utroque procedens’. Scroll of male and female worshippers: ‘Benedicta sit sancta undividua trinitas atque’ and ‘misericordiam suam’. The miniature faces a prayer to the Trinity which includes the words ‘Te adoro deum et filium et spiritum sanctum unam divinitatem equalem gloriam, coeterna maiestatem’; see V. Leroquais, Les Livres d’heures manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1927, Vol. II, p. 340. 9 Oxford, Keble College, MS 47, f. 9; Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, Vol. II, no. 146, pp. 169–70; M. B. Parkes, The Medieval Manuscripts of Keble College Oxford, London, 1979, no. 47, pp. 215–24.

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enthroned Virgin and Child, the man and his wife are separated from them physically by their speech scrolls, which carry the words, ‘Mother of God, remember me’.10 Close as the figures are physically, metaphorically these scrolls carry the words of adoration to a being beyond human grasp. As for images of devotion in framed miniatures, if there is a standard format, it comprises a kneeling worshipper, often a prayer-stand with an open book, and the sacred being, which, since most such images are associated with Hours of the Virgin, is a seated, or less often standing figure of Mary with the Christ Child. Yet within the formulaic a wide range of conjunctions and interactions can be detected, and it is the study of these that provides a background to such unique representations as the one in the Wilton Diptych. Four variants of the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century may serve as cases in point. The first example is a Book of Hours in the Bodleian Library in which the woman in prayer wears a chaplet (Fig. 8).11 Her body turns outward toward the viewer, as does the prayerstand with its open book; the Virgin, enthroned axially and frontally, is behind the worshipper, and she and the Child are absorbed in each other, as their poses and gestures show. The Virgin is literally the image ‘at the back of the mind’ of the woman. Despite its frame, because of the pose and placement of the woman, the image is not self-contained; it depends for completion on a viewer, the worshipper herself perhaps, who is identical with the reader of the words of the adjacent text, that is, the owner of the book. The second example is a miniature of c. 1390 in the Carew-Poyntz Hours in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Fig. 6), a manuscript whose illustration was executed over a period of nearly a hundred years, starting

‘Mater dei memento me’ on each figure’s scroll; historiated initial at the beginning of a prayer on the seven last words of Christ on the Cross, with a rubric attributing it to Bede, ‘. . . quam orationem quicumque cotidie dixerit devote flexis genibus diabolus nec malus homo ei nocere poterit nec sine confessione morietur sed per triginta dies ante obitum suum videbit gloriosam virginem mariam sibi auxilium venientem’ (‘which prayer, if anyone says daily on bended knee neither the devil nor evil man will be able to harm him, nor will he die without the sacrament of Confession but for thirty days before his death he will see the glorious Virgin Mary coming to his aid’). The prayer includes the words ‘Domine ihu xpe qui septem verba in ultimo vite tue in cruce pendens dixisti’; see Horae Eboracenses, ed. C. Wordsworth, Surtees Society, CXXXII, Durham and London, 1920, p. 140. 11 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 188, f. 1, Matins of Hours of the Virgin; Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, Vol. II, no. 149, pp. 171–2. 10

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around the middle of the fourteenth century.12 At the opening of Matins a nobly-dressed woman, this time without prayer-stand or book, kneels to the left and in front of the frontal bench-throne of the Virgin. Again, the worshipper is posed at an oblique angle so that her head and body face outward, but here both the Virgin and the Christ Child ‘see’ the woman, and in a remarkable twist, the Child, reclining comfortably against the Virgin’s right arm, turns his head and his arm to bless the supplicant. The third example is the Bohun Psalter and Hours in the Bodleian Library, a manuscript of c. 1380 containing a Matins miniature showing Mary de Bohun, again in the heraldic garments of England and Bohun, presented to the Virgin by her personal saint, Mary Magdalene, identified by her characteristic unguent jar (Fig. 9).13 Both Mary de Bohun and her saint are oblique in pose, but this time Mary’s scroll, with the words ‘Have mercy on me Son of God’, curves upward toward the standing Christ Child, who bends down to catch the coiled end in his hand, and the Virgin herself has turned her entire body toward the worshipper. This miniature typifies precisely the ‘imaginative leap’ that gives a tangible form to the communion between human and sacred beings. The final example is the Nevill Hours of the early fifteenth century, now in Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire, with one of the very rare late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century English depictions in a Book of Hours of a male worshipper before the Virgin (Fig. 10).14 Strictly speaking the miniature falls into the pattern discussed earlier, where the worshipper is outside the frame of the miniature, since it should be noted that the cushion on which he kneels overlaps the border. In other ways the image is quite similar to those in the Carew-Poyntz Hours or the Bohun Hours in the Bodleian, if however more intense in the focus of the sacred beings on the worshipper. Both the Virgin and her draped bench are turned toward the supplicant, and the Christ Child almost crawls out of the Virgin’s lap in Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 48, f. 86; Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, Vol. II, no. 130, pp.143–5. 13 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D. 4. 4, f. 181 v; Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, Vol. II, no. 138, pp. 157–9. Mary Magdalene’s uncharacteristic crown occurs in every representation of this saint in the Bohun manuscripts, see Sandler, Vol. II, nos. 134, 135, 137, 138. 14 Gloucestershire, Berkeley Castle, f. 7v, facing Matins; G. M. Spriggs, ‘The Nevill Hours and the School of Herman Scheerre’, JWCI, XXVII, 1974, pp. 104–30; Scott (cited in note 6 above), Vol. II, no. 23. The Nevill arms are later; the original owner is unidentified. 12

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eagerness to bless the man. He is seen, and the image serves as proof, even though, with his eyes lifted upward, he cannot ‘see’ in a physical sense. These English miniatures of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century represent a kind of private religious devotion far removed from the courtly ceremonial of the Wilton Diptych, in which the worshipper is backed by saintly supporters and the Virgin surrounded by angels. Nevertheless, in one way Richard’s relation to the Virgin, the object of his devotion, is far more private and intense than anything we have discussed up to now, and this is manifested in his pose. Unlike all the English manuscript examples cited, Richard kneels in what would be called a pure profile, every part of his body — head, hands, torso and legs — aligned perfectly parallel to the picture plane. He literally cannot ‘see’ anything but the Virgin and Christ, and the only echo of the conventional pose of the worshipper, in which the glance is outward, if anywhere, toward the viewer of the image, is that Richard’s head is not lifted up toward the large-thanlife holy figure. Thus there remains the implication that the Virgin is a mental apparition. Now what is the pedigree of Richard’s pose? Profile worshippers certainly appear in Italian panel painting in the early fourteenth century, as in Simone Martini’s work of c. 1317 showing St Louis of Toulouse crowning Robert of Anjou.15 In the North, one striking manuscript example occurs as early as the 1360s, the miniature for Psalm 109 in the Breviary of Charles V (Fig. 11).16 There, the profile kneeling monarch is invited by the Lord to sit at his right hand, a literal illustration of the opening words, ‘The Lord said to my lord, sit thou at my right hand’ an image extraordinary in interpreting the text not in relation to the biblical King David but the contemporary King Charles, perfectly recognizable by his physiognomy.17 By the late fourteenth century, profile worshippers are not rare in Northern European manuscript images outside England: the Petites Heures of Jean,

15 Naples, Galleria Nazionale Capodimonte; J. Gardner, ‘Saint Louis of Toulouse, Robert of Anjou and Simone Martini’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, XCIII, 1976, pp. 12–33; A. Martindale, Simone Martini: Complete Edition, Oxford, 1988, p. 18, Pl. 9 and cat. no. 16, pp. 192–4. 16 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1052, f. 261; V. Leroquais, Les Psautiers manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, Paris, 1934, Vol. V, pp. 49–56. 17 See C. R. Sherman, The Portraits of Charles V of France, 1338–1380 (College Art Association Monographs, XX), New York, 1969.

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Duc de Berry, painted over an extended period from about 1375 to 1385, has numerous examples (Fig. 12).18 In the most frequently cited manuscript parallel to the Wilton Diptych — that is, the facing miniatures of Jean de Berry and the enthroned Virgin and Child inserted in the Brussels Hours19 — the donor kneels in a virtually identical profile pose, even to the angle of his head (Figs. 13–14). The ‘meaning’ of this work, however, does not go beyond the conventional: there is a respectful distance between the solemn figure of the Duc de Berry and the Virgin and Child, who are sheltered within the high sides of the throne; the profile Child, much as he faces the donor, concentrates on nursing at the Virgin’s breast and writing on the scroll; it also seems worth noting that the saints, who do present Jean de Berry to the Virgin with caring gestures, kneel before her just as he does. In fact, the very parallels with the Wilton Diptych call attention to the contrasts: the highly personal character of the painted panels; the uniqueness of Richard, the only entirely profile figure, to whom all the intercessors in the foreground plane are pointing, not just the saints on the left but the angels on the right as well; the acknowledgement of Richard by the Virgin and especially the Child; of course, the profusion of personal and national emblems and devices; and finally, the complete differentiation of the settings of the two parts of the Diptych. Where is Richard in the Wilton Diptych and where is the Virgin? For many manuscript images of devotion this question does not really arise; when the image is in the context of a prayer-book, it is no surprise to find that the worshipper is shown in the physical context in which prayer takes place, a room, a private chapel.20 But Richard is, as has been often observed, in an earthly ‘wasteland’ and the Virgin is in Heaven.21 The desert setting carries associations with the Last Days, the end of earthly time, and the 18 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 18014, ff. 97v, 100v, 103v, 106, 115v, 117v, 119, 120, 121v, 122, etc.; M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke, London, 1967, text volume, pp. 155–9, 334–7; F. Avril et al., Les Petites Heures de Jean Duc de Berry, Luzern (Faksimile Verlag), 1989. 19 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 11060–61, pp. 10–11; Meiss (cited in note 18 above), text volume, pp. 10–11, 199–205. On the parallel to the Wilton Diptych see, most recently, Making and Meaning, p. 70. 20 The motif of the worshipper in the private chapel, or at a prie-dieu screened by curtains, occurs frequently in the Petites Heures (see note 18 above), esp. ff. 97v, 105v, 106, 115v, 119, 121v, 122. 21 For example Making and Meaning, p. 21.

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Resurrection of the Dead,22 and, it might be noted, it also suggests the desert in which Richard’s personal saint, John the Baptist, preached.23 The flower garden denotes not only Paradise, but is a setting particular to the Virgin.24 Occasionally, manuscript images show the worshipper together with the Virgin in such a garden setting, as in the Lombard Hours and Missal of the 1380s now at the Bibliothèque Nationale, made for an individual in the circle of Giangaleazzo Visconti (Fig. 14).25 In this case it is fairly certain that the worshipper has not already joined the Virgin in Paradise; the setting instead suggests that his present devotion to the Virgin has elicited her favour — an invitation to enter her special domain. Occasionally too, manuscript images of religious devotion are set in empty desert landscapes, where again the setting pertains to the object of devotion, as in the miniature from the Prayer-Book of Bonne of Luxembourg of the 1340s that shows Bonne and Jean le Bon before the Crucified Christ (Fig. 16).26 But a similar setting may also carry a meaning 22 For a vivid evocation of the desert setting of the Resurrection of the Dead on Judgement Day, see the Très Riches Heures, Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 65, f. 34v, illustrating Psalm 76 in Matins of the Hours of the Virgin; J. Longnon et al., Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, London, 1969, Pl. 30. 23 As depicted for instance by Domenico Veneziano in the small panel in Washington (National Gallery, 1445–7), H. Wohl, The Paintings of Domenico Veneziano, Oxford, 1980, pp. 128–30, Pl. 88. 24 The Virgin in a garden is depicted in French manuscripts in the early fifteenth century, for example in a fine Book of Hours at the Brooklyn Museum (MS 19.78, f. 162) called by Meiss (French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and their Contemporaries, London, 1974, text volume, p. 366), ‘Bedford trend’ and dated by him c. 1418. Verbal floral and garden imagery equating the Virgin with the hortus conclusus of the Song of Songs (Cant. 4:12) is traditional. 25 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 757, f. 109v, facing the opening of the text of the Joys of the Virgin; see K. Sutton, ‘The Original Patron of the Lombard Manuscript Latin 757 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris’, Burlington Magazine, CXXIV, 1982, pp. 88–94 identifying the original owner as Bertrando de’ Rossi, an important member of the Visconti court after 1385; more recently, see E. Kirsch, Five Illuminated Manuscripts of Giangaleazzo Visconti (College Art Association Monographs, XLVI), University Park, Penn., 1991, pp. 13–27, 94–8, attributing ownership to Giangaleazzo Visconti himself, and dating the work to c. 1380 on the occasion of his marriage to his cousin, Caterina Visconti. 26 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, Inv. no. 69.86; F. Deuchler, ‘Looking at Bonne de Luxembourg’s Prayer-Book’, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 1971, pp. 267–78. Christ speaks to Jean le Bon and Bonne of Luxembourg from the Cross: ‘Ha homme e fame/Voy que sueffre pour toy/Voy ma douleur, mon angoisseus conroy’ (‘O man and woman, see me suffer for you, see my sorrow, my tormented state’).

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relevant to prospective death and future salvation of the worshipper. In the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame, made for Jean, Duc de Berry, either between 1380 and 1390 or between 1404 and 1407,27 the prayer to the Virgin and St John the Evangelist, ‘O intemerata’, is illustrated with a basde-page scene of Jean de Berry kneeling on bare ground before a radiant, cloud-circled Vision of Heaven, in which John the Baptist and the Virgin call the attention of the Deity to the supplicant (Fig. 17).28 In the miniature illustrating the prayer to his guardian angel in the Petites Heures, Jean de Berry’s guardian angel leads him through a rough, empty landscape, undoubtedly visualizing his future passage from earth to Heaven.29 Protecting and interceding saints and angels, such a prominent feature of the Wilton Diptych, are found in various forms in fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century manuscripts. Mary Magdalene and Mary de Bohun in the Bodleian Hours have already been noted, for example, but two further examples, each as striking in its own way as the Wilton Diptych, warrant consideration. The first is Michelino da Besozzo’s illustration of the text of the eulogy given at the funeral of Giangaleazzo Visconti in 1402 (Fig. 18).30 It shows Giangaleazzo kneeling in pure profile, head bowed, hands clasped in prayer before the seated Virgin, who holds the Christ Child, blessing and placing a crown on Giangaleazzo’s head. The event takes place in Heaven, a setting indicated by a host of monochrome angels whose wings form a semicircular arc, and an outer ring of larger angels holding standards and a shield all with Visconti armorials. Immediately surrounding Giangaleazzo and the Virgin are twelve female personifications of his virtues, which were eulogized in the funeral oration. As in the Wilton Diptych, the angels — and the virtues — are enlisted as supporters or attendants of a human Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 3093, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins RF 2022–2024, Turin, Museo Civico (formerly Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziano), and formerly, Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale (destroyed); P. Durrieu, Heures de Turin, Paris, 1902, dated 1404–13; G. Hulin de Loo, Heures de Milan, Brussels, 1911, dated 1380–90; Meiss (cited in note 17 above), text volume, pp. 107–33, 337–40, dated 1380–90; E. Koenig, Die Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame des Herzogs von Berry, Luzern (Faksimile Verlag), 1992, commentary volume, pp. 27–8, 62–75, 167–8, 203–17, dated 1404–07. 28 Paris, Musée du Louvre RF 2024 (f. 4). 29 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 18014, f. 199v; for an illustration see Meiss (cited in note 24 above), plate volume, Fig. 163. The prayer to an individual’s guardian angel asks for protection from harm on earth and for a safe passage to Heaven at the end of life. 30 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 5088, f. 1; Kirsch (cited in note 25 above), pp. 74–86, 98–9. 27

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master at the Heavenly Court. Of course, Giangaleazzo has already been received in Paradise; Richard’s way is being prepared so to speak by his angels, but his entrance lies in the future. A second example is from the Hours of Maréchal de Boucicaut in the Musée Jacquemart André in Paris, a work of the first decade of the fifteenth century.31 The miniature (Fig. 19) shows the Adoration of the Virgin and Child by the Maréchal and his wife. Above, is a celestial Vision of the Virgin of the Apocalypse, with solar radiance and silver crescent moon, accompanied by half-length angels holding shields formerly painted with the Boucicaut arms, and below, a rich, worldly setting, with the Maréchal and his wife, and, by another of those imaginative conjunctions of human and holy, the guardian angel of the Maréchal, who serves as his valet d’armes, holding his helmet and his standard, its waving pennant raised up into the heavenly half of the composition. Millard Meiss pointed out that the armorial profusion of this miniature was intended to proclaim the military prowess of the man who was the Marshal of France and the noble connections he had attained through his marriage with Antoinette de Turenne. Meiss went on to say however that ‘Not even kings were wont to invoke angels as personal pages . . . to dress them in their colours’.32 Ironically, no more apt description of the Wilton Diptych angels could have been written. But although the angels in the Wilton Diptych wear the retainer’s badge of the White Hart, the standard carried by one of their company bears not the personal arms of Richard but the red cross that is a national symbol and represents at the same time the symbol of the Resurrection of Christ. As we know, the banner of St George became increasingly popular as a symbol of England during the reign of Richard II,33 and the placement of England under the protection of the Virgin is certainly one of the central themes of the Wilton Diptych. I know of no manuscript analogues to the motif of the national standard under the protection of the Virgin, but the idea of England as the dos Mariae34 is not unknown in manuscripts, although in a different form. In his discussion of a Psalter of 1325–35 in the Bodleian Library, Jonathan Alexander made the important observation that the Paris, Musée Jacquemart André, MS 2, f. 26v; M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Boucicaut Master, London and New York, 1968, pp. 7–22. 32 Ibid., p. 9. 33 See esp. Harvey, ‘Wilton Diptych’, p. 21. 34 On the concept of England as the Virgin’s dowry, see the summary of Gordon, ‘A New Discovery’, pp. 665–7. 31

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1. Initial D with Stephen of Derby in prayer before the Deity. Psalter of Stephen of Derby. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. G. 185, fol. 20.

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2. Initial D with Mary de Bohun in prayer before the Annunciation. Bohun Hours. Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, MS Thott. 547.4o, fol. 1.

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3. Jean de Berry received in Paradise; (below) Jean de Berry and his guardian angel. Grandes Heures of Jean de Berry. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 919, detail of fol. 96.

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4. Worshippers below the Agony in the Garden. Taymouth Hours. London, British Library, MS Yates Thompson 13, fol. 118v.

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6. Worshipper before the Virgin and Child. Carew-Poyntz Hours, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum MS 48, fol. 86.

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5. Worshippers before the Transfigured Christ. Book of Hours. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat. liturg. fol. 2, fol. 2v.

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8. Worshipper before the Virgin and Child. Book of Hours. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 188, fol. 1.

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7. Initial D with Worshippers before the Virgin and Child. Book of Hours. Oxford, Keble College, MS 47, fol. 9.

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10. Worshipper before the Virgin and Child. Nevill Hours. Gloucestershire, Berkeley Castle, fol. 7v.

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9. Mary de Bohum before the Virgin and Child. Bohum Psalter and Hours. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D. 4.4, f. 181v.

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12. Jean de Berry before the Virgin and Child. Petites Heures of Jean de Berry, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS lat. 18014, fol. 97v.

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11. Charles V in prayer before the Deity. Breviary of Charles V. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 1052, fol. 261.

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13. Jean de Berry presented to the Virgin and Child by Saints John the Baptist and Andrew. Très Belles Heures de Jean de Berry. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 11060-61, pp. 10–11.

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14. Jean de Berry presented to the Virgin and Child by Saints John the Baptist and Andrew. Très Belles Heures de Jean de Berry. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 11060-61, pp. 10–11.

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15. Worshipper before the Virgin and Child. Lombard Hours and Missal. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 757, fol. 109v.

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16. Jean le Bon and Bonne of Luxembourg before the Crucified Christ. Prayer-Book of Bonne of Luxembourg. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, Inv. 69.88, fol. 329.

17. Jean de Berry before a Vision of Heaven. Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins, RF 2024 (fol. 4), bas-de-page.

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18. Giangaleazzo Visconti received in Heaven. Eulogy of Giangaleazzo Visconti. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 5088, fol. 1.

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19. Maréchal de Boucicaut and his wife before a Vision of the Virgin of the Apocalypse. Boucicaut Hours. Paris, Musée Jacquemart Andre, MS 2, fol. 26v.

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21. Queen of England before the Trinity and the Virgin and Child. Hours of Jeanne II de Navarre. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS nouv. acqu. lat. 3145, fol. 3v.

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20. Edward III before the Virgin and Child. Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Douce 131, fol. 126.

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initial for Psalm 119, which shows a man clothed in the damaged arms of Montreuil against a background divided quarterly by the arms of England and France (Fig. 20), may represent Edward III, who was Lord of Montreuil in Normandy, and Alexander further noted that the Virgin adored by this figure holds a bird-topped rod, one of the insignia of the rulers of England.35 We can conclude that this image represents the Virgin as the protector of the realm, and even further, we may venture to interpret the man’s open hands as a gesture of offering, like that of Richard II in the Wilton Diptych. An echo, or a reprise of the idea of the Virgin as the protector of England is found in a fifteenth-century addition to the mid fourteenth-century French Hours of Jeanne II of Navarre, the addition possibly made for Catherine, wife of Henry V.36 The miniature (Fig. 21) shows a queen with a kind of crown-cum-halo wearing a garment once decorated with the arms of England, now in a very damaged condition. Behind her is a framed image in two sections, earth below, and above, the Trinity and the Virgin and Child enthroned jointly in Heaven. Prominently silhouetted against the gold background is the white bird-finial of the Virgin’s rod. The miniature thus restates an idea of English kingship cherished by Richard II, and it is a humble though significant token of its survival into the time of Henry V, the ruler who restored the honour of his deposed predecessor. The Wilton Diptych is a self-contained painting, not a manuscript miniature that must be understood in relation to a written text. Consequently, the Diptych could be discussed in the context of the altarpiece. But large altarpieces often belong to institutions, not individuals, and 35 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 131, f. 110. J. J. G. Alexander, ‘Painting and Manuscript Illumination for Royal Patrons in the Later Middle Ages’ in English Court Culture, pp. 142–3. 36 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS n. a. lat. 3145, f. 3v, an added single leaf to the Pucellian manuscript of c. 1335–45; F. Avril and P. Stirnemann, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine Insulaire, VIIe–XXe siècle, Paris, 1987, no. 219, pp. 177–8. The queen holds a scroll with the English text ‘Mercy and grace’. Avril and Stirnemann comment that the manuscript may have come to England with one of three French wives of English monarchs: Isabelle, second wife of Richard II (married 1396), who returned to France in 1401, married Charles of Orleans in 1406 and died in 1409; Jeanne de Navarre, who married Henry IV in 1403 and died in England in 1437; or her younger sister, Catherine de Valois, who married Henry V in 1420 and remained in England after his death. The style of the miniature points to a date between 1415 and 1425, and thus it could have been inserted for either Jeanne or Catherine, but probably not Isabelle.

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the images of individual worshippers they include represent donors, not owners. The Wilton Diptych, as a portable altarpiece, does not fit into this mould. It is closer to manuscript miniatures than to public altarpieces; its scale suggests personal use; and we have seen how its components have analogues in images that are inserted in devotional texts, even Richard’s gesture of offering rather than supplication. So when this Diptych was opened on an altar in a small chamber, whether the Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew in Westminster Abbey, or elsewhere,37 it served to focus Richard’s own meditation, to re-enact his devotion, whether he was present or not, to proclaim to himself the certainty of his prospective welcome in Heaven, and finally, to reinforce his idea of earthly kingship under heavenly protection.

37

Making and Meaning, p. 62.

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The Chantry of Roger of Waltham in Old St Paul’s

Y

EARS before the seventeenth-century rebuilding of St Paul’s, reforming zeal had radically altered the medieval appearance of the cathedral, especially its interior furnishings, and above all the choir with its walled and screened enclosure, the retrochoir with the shrine of St Erkenwald, and the Lady Chapel beyond, with their profusion of altars, tombs and chantry chapels.1 Hollar’s 1640 engravings of the interior of the nave and choir (ill. 1) reflect the resultant absence of ‘clutter’ in the purified cathedral. Yet one aspect of the medieval ‘clutter’ of Old St Paul’s can be reconstituted from a remarkable series of fourteenth-century charters and register entries relating to the chantry of Roger of Waltham, a canon of St Paul’s from around 1304 until his death c. 1341. The preservation of this record was of paramount importance to Canon Roger, who ordered the entire collection to be secured ‘imperpetuum’ in the treasury of the cathedral. Relying on the cathedral registers, William Dugdale published a translation summarizing the most important of these documents,2 which then 1 I am most grateful to Christopher Wilson of University College, London, to T. A. Heslop of the University of East Anglia, to Geoffrey Fisher and Lindy Grant of the Courtauld Institute of Art, to Bernard Nurse of the Society of Antiquaries Library, to Joseph Wisdom and Andrew Riley of the Guildhall Library, and to Jeanette Hitchings of Tonbridge for facilitating various aspects of my research. On the impact of sixteenth-century reforms see E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven, 1992), Pt. II; on St Paul’s see W. Dugdale, The History of Saint Paul’s Cathedral (London, 1658), and ed. H. Ellis (London, 1818), all editions with engravings by Wenceslas Hollar. 2 Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s (1818 ed.), pp. 32–3, citing two registers of St Paul’s, Liber K, fol. 53, and Liber A, known as the Liber Pilosus, fol. 80v. The entry in Liber A is titled ‘Memoriale de ordinacionibus duarum cantariarum Rogeri de Waltham canonici’ and fully sets out the provisions of Roger’s two ordinances.

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were in the possession of the dean and chapter. In the process, however, he conflated the sources into a single somewhat misleading account, and subsequent writers have generally followed his lead.3 In the nineteenth century many of the more than 40 single items were calendared by Alfred Horwood and Maxwell Lyte in the appendices to the eighth and ninth reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission,4 and all of the originals are now deposited in the Guildhall Library, London.5 Together they provide a vivid record of all the elements that constituted the medieval concept of ‘a chaunterie for soules’6 — the economic bases of its foundation, the duties, stipends and housing of its chaplains, the provisions for alms, the cursus of the chaplains’ devotions, and the physical form of the chantry chapel itself. Because medieval descriptions of works of art and architecture are rare, the study that follows is focused on the physical form of Roger of Waltham’s 3 See G. H. Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 2nd ed. (London, 1963), pp. 12, 40 and idem, Old S. Paul’s Cathedral (London, 1955), p. 59; also N. Gear, The Chantries of St Paul’s Cathedral, M.A. Thesis (Univ. of London, 1996), pp. 37, 77. 4 Eighth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (London, 1881), part I, Appendix, pp. 632–5, ed. A. Horwood; Ninth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (London, 1883), part I, Appendix, pp. 28, 40, 54 et passim, ed. M. Lyte. Horwood and Lyte did not describe all documents individually. For a full list of those pertaining to Roger of Waltham’s chantry, see the Appendix to the present essay. These include 28 deeds comprising a history of the ownership of the London properties forming the basis of Roger’s endowment that goes back to the last decades of the thirteenth century. Many of these property transfers were enrolled in the Husting Rolls now in the Corporation of London Record Office; see Corporation of London Record Office, Index of Wills and Deeds in the Husting Rolls (typed copy at CLRO; microfilmed by Chadwyck-Healy, see G. H. Martin, The Husting Rolls of Deeds and Wills, 1252–1484: Guide to the Microfilm Edition [Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, 1990]). For transfers relating to Roger’s property in Sopers Lane in the parish of St Pancras, see D. Keene and V. Harding, Cheapside, Historical Gazeteer of London Before the Great Fire, ed. D. Keene, I (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey Microfiche, 1987), s.v., Soper Lane. In the fifteenth century, Roger’s copies of various documents were kept in a container labeled D.VI in the treasury of St Paul’s, where they were calendared by Thomas Lyseux, dean of the cathedral in 1440; see Guildhall Lib. MS 25511 (W.D. 11). Some 15 of the surviving documents from St Paul’s still bear the shelfmark D.VI. For the cathedral records see G. Yeo, ‘Record-keeping at St Paul’s Cathedral’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 8 (1986), pp. 30–44. 5 They have been renumbered. For a concordance between the Historical Manuscripts Commission numbering and the present system see the Appendix. 6 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, general prologue, the phrase borrowed here from Rosalind Hill, ‘A Chaunterie for Soules: London Chantries in the Reign of Richard II’, in F. R. H. Du Boulay and C. M. Barron (eds), The Reign of Richard II (London, 1971), pp. 242–55.

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chantry, without however overlooking its other aspects, which were described in equal — or even greater — detail in the documents and were undoubtedly considered by Roger as integral to his foundation as a whole. Roger of Waltham first came to my attention as the commissioner and owner of an unusual manuscript miscellany of c. 1325–35, now in Glasgow, whose contents combine devotional texts, moral exempla, and a compilation from the scientific works of Aristotle. The first part is richly illustrated with initials and miniatures that include representations of Roger in prayer before the sacred objects of his devotion, with scrolls inscribed with his supplications, and the two further parts are joined by a well-known image that Otto Pächt called a ‘philosophical Trinity’7 Pächt and Richard Hunt had identified the pious Roger of the Glasgow volume with a certain Roger of Waltham,8 author of a Compendium morale, aptly described in the British Library catalogue of Royal manuscripts as ‘a compilation of theological and philosophical excerpts and historical exempla relating to government and the political virtues’ — in other words a ‘gouvernement des princes’.9 More than 15 copies of this text survive;10 7 Glasgow, University Lib., MS Hunter 231; see L. F. Sandler, ‘The Image of the Bookowner in the Fourteenth Century: Three Cases of Self-definition’, in N. Rogers (ed.), England in the Fourteenth Century, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, III (Stamford, 1993), pp. 67–74; for Pächt’s comment, see the note of 5 December 1953 in the annotated copy of J. Young and P. H. Aitken, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of the Hunterian Museum in the University of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1908), pp. 176–83. 8 In the annotated copy of the Hunterian manuscripts catalogue; see above, note 7. 9 See G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (London, 1921), I, p. 197. The prologue of the Compendium morale quotes the same passages from Seneca and Hugh of St Victor (with a later note identifying them as ad Lucilius, I.1,2 and Didascalicon, 3) that are quoted at the beginning of the document of 27 July 1329 (London, Guildhall Lib. MSS 25121/1650 and 25121/3039) to justify the collection in one place of the provisions contained in all the previous ordinances for Roger’s chantry: ‘Quia tamen docente Seneca philosophorum moralissimo: Distrahit animum librorum multitudo. Faciliusque simul collecta intuentur quam per multa volumina dispersa. Et per Hugonem de sancto victore: Confusio ignorancie & oblivionis mater est. memoria quoque hominis hebes & brevitate gaudet. Idcirco de communi consensu, Decani & Capituli ac domini Rogeri supradictorum, ordinaciones predicte in diversis indenturis & scriptis allis successivis temporibus inde factis diffuse contente, quibusdam eciam additis & in melius mutatis, presenti scripto pro finali certitudine compendiosius annotantur.’ 10 For a list see R. Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford (Oxford, 1963), to which should be added Berlin, Staatsbibl. MS lat. qu. 487, English, fourteenth century, from the Cistercian priory of St Mary of Graces, London (see N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd ed. [London, 1964], p. 121).

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according to Leland, it was ‘in multa tranfusum exemplaria’.11 Some of the copies add to the main text a number of the devotional pieces that are also in the Glasgow miscellany,12 effectively confirming the connection between the Roger of the miscellany and the ‘Rogerus de Waltham, canonicus londinensis,’ whose full name is given in the colophon of the Compendium morale.13 Roger of Waltham was first specifically identified as a canon of St Paul’s in 1306, not in a London episcopal register, but rather in a grant by Antony Bek, bishop of Durham, addressing Roger as canon of London and Darlington, and rector of Long Newton, entitling him to hold additional benefices worth 30 marks up to an annual total of 200 marks.14 In addition to his benefices in London and Darlington, Roger had been instituted to prebends at Bishop Auckland and Chester-le-Street as early as 1291, as we know from the Taxatio ecclesiastica,15 and ultimately he held the rectory of Egglescliffe as well as Long Newton.16 Thus, he was a rich pluralist. In 1300, Roger, as clerk of Antony Bek, was charged with reading a sentence of excommunication on those ‘coniuratores, conspiratores, colligatores et confederatores’ who might hinder the bishop’s intended visitation to the monks of Durham Cathedral Priory, a visitation to which they objected strongly on procedural grounds.17 Roger continued to appear in J. Leland, Comentarii de scriptoribus Britannicis (London, 1709), pp. 264–5. See London, BL Royal MS 8 G. VI, English, 15th century; Cambridge, Pembroke Coll. MS 254, English, fifteenth century; see Sandler, ‘Image of the Book-owner’, p. 68 n. 50. A now-lost copy of Roger’s Compendium morale that was seen by Leland at St Paul’s survived up to the Fire of London in 1666. When it was catalogued at Sion College in 1650 the main text was followed by De cantu philomele, also the first devotional piece in the two manuscripts above; see London, Lambeth Palace Lib. MS Arc. L. 24.1/Si 7M, fol. 2v. 13 See Warner and Gilson, Catalogue of Royal Manuscripts, I, p. 197. 14 See C. M. Fraser (ed.), Records of Antony Bek, Bishop and Patriarch, Surtees Society, CLXII (Durham, 1953), no. 117, p. 122. Roger held the prebendary of Caddington Minor at St Paul’s; his predecessor, Ralph de Ivinghoe, died in 1304, so Roger’s institution might have taken place before he was first mentioned as canon of London in the Durham records. 15 T. Astle, S. Ayscough and J. Caley (eds), Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae auctoritate P. Nicholae IV. circa A.D. 1291 (London, 1802), p. 330. 16 See T. Hardy (ed.), Registrum palatinum Dunelmense, Rolls Series, LXII (London, 1873), I, p. 523, for Bishop Kellawe’s acceptance of Pope Benedict XI’s dispensation allowing Roger to hold plural benefices, identified as the rectories of Egglescliffe and Long Newton, as well as churches in London, Darlington, Auckland and Chester, dated 23 March 1313/4. 17 Records of Antony Bek, no. 67, p. 62; Fraser, History of Antony Bek, pp. 132–3. 11 12

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Durham episcopal documents up to Bek’s death in 1311, described as ‘vir discretus’, ‘cancellarius noster’, and ‘clericus noster, familiarius etiam domesticus, canonicus London et de Darlington’.18 However, he did not remain in the service of Bek’s successor, Richard Kellawe. Although he accrued further benefices in the diocese of Durham, Roger is not identified as Kellawe’s clerk, much less his familiarius.19 And after 1317, when Kellawe himself died, Roger’s name recurs in the surviving episcopal registers only in 1341 when new institutions were made to his prebends of Auckland, Darlington and Chester-le-Street, each of which ‘nuper obtinuit dominus Rogerus de Waltham, per mortem eiusdem vacantem’.20 These institutions fix the date of Roger’s death close to the year 1341.21 Before that, however, the scene had shifted from Durham to London. Although most of the Bek documents in which Roger’s name occurs are dated at various places in the diocese of Durham, the bishop’s itinerary shows that he was often in London,22 where, like many powerful prelates, he had built a house, on the river, to the west of the present Somerset House.23 In his visits to the capital Bishop Bek was probably accompanied by his clerk and chancellor, Roger. In one way or another, then, it is probable that Roger was familiar with and ‘known’ in London before 1319, his first appearance as a witness in documents of the dean and chapter of St 18 See Records of Antony Bek, no. 135, p. 136, no. 139, p. 151, no. 146, p. 156, etc. In some documents, e.g., no. 137, p. 137, especially those connected with the bishop’s visitation of the cathedral priory and the proceedings against individual monks that resulted, e.g., no. 139, p. 151, Roger is coupled with another London canon, Robert de Baldok, as a special witness, or observer (‘. . . presentibus discretis viris magistro Roberto de Baldok et domino Rogero de Waltham, canonicis ecclesie Londinensis, testibus ad premissa vocatio specialiter et rogatis’). 19 Registrum palatinum Dunelmense, I, pp. 523, 526–30, 680. 20 Registrum palatinum Dunelmense, III (London, 1875), Register of Richard de Bury for 1338–43, pp. 410–11. 21 Institutions in the diocese of Durham are recorded for the preceding years 1340 and 1339; Registrum palatinum Dunelmense, III, passim. Consequently those of 1341 probably reflect the recent demise of Roger. Heretofore, Roger’s date of death has been given as 1336 or 1337; see Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Roger. 22 Fraser, History of Antony Bek, pp. 233–49. 23 The site of the house is reflected in the present Durham House St. M. Thompson, Medieval Bishops’ Houses in England and Wales (Aldershot, 1998), p. 174, attributed the building to Bishop Hatfield (1345–81), but a house of the bishops of Durham on this site was mentioned as early as 1238; see J. Schofield, Medieval London Houses (New Haven, 1994), no. 161.

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Paul’s,24 and 1322, when his name began to appear in royal documents. In these, he is mentioned in three capacities: first, as keeper of the king’s wardrobe between May 1322 and October 1325;25 second, between July 1322 and March 1323, as keeper of lands of Thomas of Lancaster and his fellow rebels in the county of Stafford;26 and finally, in 1322, as Edward’s nominee to the archdeaconry of Buckingham in the diocese of Lincoln, a nomination the king had to cancel when it was learned that the previous holder was still alive.27 It would seem that the abortive nomination was intended to be Roger’s reward for his royal service. The history of Roger’s chantry in St Paul’s begins in 1325. The earliest document is Edward II’s license to Roger, dated 16 August 1325,28 allowing him to alienate in mortmain to the dean and chapter of St Paul’s a property in Oldfish Street in the parish of St Mary Magdalen and another consisting of three shops in Sopers Lane in the parish of St Pancras, the total value amounting to £8 6s. 8d. a year. The purpose of Roger’s intended grant to St Paul’s is summarized in the license, but it is spelled out in greater detail in two indentures dated 27 October 1325,29 identical copies of an agreement between Roger and the dean and chapter to establish a perpetual chantry

24 See W. Sparrow Simpson (ed.), Registrum statutorum et consuetudinorum ecclesie cathedralis sancti Pauli Londonensis (London, 1873), p. 107. 25 See T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England (Manchester, 1920–33), II, pp. 267 n. 273, 275–6; IV, pp. 91–3, 109 n.; VI, pp. 26, 86–7, 123. For Roger’s account book covering the period between 1 May 1322 and 19 October 1324, see London, BL Stowe MS 553; he delivered the account at the Exchequer on 22 May 1329 (Stowe MS 553, fol. 6). During at least part of the period covered by the accounts, Robert de Baldok, another canon of St Paul’s, who had been associated with Roger as early as 1310 (see above, note 18), served as Controller of the Wardrobe. For Roger’s roll of Wardrobe expenses covering the period from 8 July to 19 October 1323, see London, BL Add. MS 36763; this roll has a memorandum noting that the account was delivered at the Exchequer on 22 May 1329. 26 Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office. Edward II, III (London, 1895), pp. 572, 576–9, 581. 27 Ibid., p. 602. 28 The license exists in two copies, Guildhall Lib. MSS 25241/13 and 25241/23. See Appendix for list of documents and concordance with earlier shelfmarks. 29 Guildhall Lib. MSS 25121/3036 and 25121/3037. The text of MS 25121/3036 (Roger of Waltham’s copy) is identical to that of the main part of MS 25121/3037 (copy of the dean and chapter) but the two are not halves of the same membrane. Although both indentures were written by the same scribe, MS 25121/3037 is larger and has more widely spaced lines with larger script than MS 25121/3036.

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and to provide alms. The source of funds is to be the property in Oldfish Street and Sopers Lane.30 The chantry chaplain is to receive five and a half marks per annum31 and a sum of 1,000 silver pennies is to be distributed under the supervision of the almoner of St Paul’s at ten feasts per year, each time to 100 poor people.32 The chaplain is to celebrate masses for Roger before and after his death, for the soul of Anthony Bek, former patriarch of Jerusalem and bishop of Durham — ‘of happy memory’ — for all the ancestors, relatives and friends of Roger himself, and for the souls of all the faithful dead. These rites are to be conducted at the altar of the chapel of St John the Evangelist on the south side of the church.33 The chaplain is to have a key to the door of the chapel and a chest for vestments, altar furnishings, a chalice, a missal and other books.34 Evidently the altar is to be

30 Guildhall MS 25121/3037: ‘. . . ad inveniendum de exitibus eorumdem tenementorum sustentacionem unius capellani perpetuo in predicta ecclesia celebraturi & ad alias ceteras puturas & elemosinas pro dicto domino Rogero, parentibus, benefactoribus & amicis suis faciendas imperpetuum . . .’ 31 Guildhall MS 25121/3037: ‘Annuatim percipiant de exitibus reddituum predictorum per manum dicti Elemosinarii ut infradictitus pro salarii suo ad quatuor anni terminos generales, quinque marcas & dimidiam sterlingorum.’ 32 Guildhall MSS 25121/3037: ‘Et quod per manum ipsius Elemosinarii coadiuvantem dicto capellano, fiat de dictis exitibus pro predictis domino Rogero & aliis fidelis distribucio London. vel apud Waltham sancte crucis mille pauperibus quolibet anno imperpetuum, scilicet in quolibet de decem festis infrascriptis vel infra tres dies precedentes illa festa, vel sequentes: centum pauperibus quorum quilibet habeat unum legalem sterlingum pro cibo, potum, veste, & hospicio, videlicet, ad festa sancti michaelis, omnium sanctorum, Natalis domini, purificacionis beate marie virginis, Annunciacionis dominice, Invencionis sancte crucis, sancte trinitatis, Apostolorum petri & pauli, sancti Laurencii & Assumpcionis beate virginis gloriose.’ 33 Guildhall MS 25121/3037: ‘. . . quod capellanus perpetuus & suis successoribus . . . perpetuo celebrent in dicta ecclesia sancti Pauli in altari capelle sancti Johannis Ewangeliste in australi latere ipsius ecclesie . . . pro salubri statu dicti domini Rogeri & pro animabus felicis recordacionis domini Antonii Bek quondam patriarche Ierusalem & Episcopi Dunolmensis & omnium antecessorum, parentum, amicorum & benefactorum eiusdem dominum Rogeri & omnium fidelium defunctorum dum idem dominus Rogerus vixerit, & post mortem ipsius domini Rogeri pro anima eiusdem Rogeri & animabus predictis ac omnium fidelium defunctorum . . .’ 34 Guildhall MS 25121/3037: ‘unam clavem ostii dicte capelle semper habeant [the chaplain and his successors] pro libero introitu & exitu habendo ad celebrandum ibidem temporibus debitis & pro cista sua cum vestimentis, ornamentis altaris, calice, missali & aliis libris suis ecclesiastici inibi reponendis.’

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shared with the chaplain of the chantry of John Braynford, which had been established in 1275.35 The agreement of 27 October 1325 includes unusually detailed liturgical prescriptions. In order, these are as follows: (1) payment to canons, priests and ministers of the choir who participate in the Office of the Dead at Vespers and again, together with a Requiem Mass, on the day of the anniversary of Roger’s death — half a mark distributed among the major canons and half a mark distributed among the others who take part — but only if they stay from beginning to end. (2) While Roger lives, recitation of the Office of the Dead and celebration of Requiem Mass annually at the altar of St John the Evangelist on the first free weekday after the feast of the Annunciation, with special collects for Roger, viz.: ‘Deus qui caritatis dona’, or ‘Rege quos domine famulum tuum Rogerum’, or ‘Maiestati tue deus omnipotens’.36 After Roger’s death these same rites are to be conducted on his anniversary (with distributions to the participants, as above in 1)). (3) Daily, the chaplain is to recite the office of the day and the Hours of the Virgin ‘secundum morem ecclesiasticum’, and the Office of the Dead with nine psalms and nine lessons, except at Easter time, when three psalms and lessons are to be substituted. While Roger lives the second collect of the office is always to be for Roger, i.e., one of those above in 2); after Roger’s death the first collect should be for Roger, viz., ‘Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui numquam sine spe misericordie supplicatur’.37 (4) Daily, the chaplain is to recite the Seven Penitential Psalms with antiphons, the litany with collects ‘secundum formam ordinacionis per ipsum dominum Rogerum in missali dicto capellano & cantario sue deputato inserte’. (5) Daily, either before or after Prime, or the (usual) hour of Mass, or Vespers, or Matins, the chaplain is to celebrate the Mass of the Virgin, ‘sequi chorum’, and on all double feasts at all four of these times.38 Guildhall MS 25121/3037: ‘communem & liberum usum dicte capelle sine aliquo impedimento imperpetuum habeant, cum capellano pro Iohannem de Braynford. ibidem celebrante.’ For the Braynford chantry, see Guildhall MS 25121/1934, ordinance of 1275 to establish a chantry ‘. . . in capella sancti Iohanne Ewangeliste sita in dicta ecclesia sancti Pauli ex parte australi ipsius ecclesie.’ 36 The first two collects are in the Sarum missal but not the third; see J. W. Legg, The Sarum Missal (Oxford, 1916), pp. 392, 396. 37 See Legg, Sarum Missal, p. 440. 38 On the Mass of the Virgin see N. J. Morgan in this volume. 35

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(6) Daily, before the introit of the Mass of the day, the chaplain is to recite the Office of the Holy Spirit; and after the collect of the day the second collect should be as above in 1) while Roger lives. The secret and postcommunion should be as inserted in the chaplain’s missal, and the principal memorial in the Mass, both before and after Roger’s death, should enumerate the good and pious works he performed. (7) Immediately after Mass the chaplain should recite the Salutations of the Virgin, ‘Gaude virgo mater Christi,39 with collects, in the form inserted in the missal, and also the Office of the Virgin and of the Angels,40 except when they are the principal offices of the day; he should then read the Gospel passages from Luke, ‘Missus est’, and John, ‘In principio erat verbum’. (8) On leaving the church or the chapel the chaplain should recite on bended knee before the statue of the Virgin five Lord’s Prayers and five Hail Marys, ‘cum speciali & mentali recommendacione dicti Rogeri tam in vita quam post mortem suam’. (9) After Roger’s death the chaplain should celebrate a Requiem Mass daily except on double feasts, feasts of nine lessons, or feasts of the Virgin, in which cases the second collect (of the Mass for that feast) should be one of those above, as in 2), specially for Roger, and the third collect for the other departed. (10) In total seven collects are to be said in each Mass daily, ‘nisi legitimum impedimentum intervenerit, utpote magnum gelum in hieme vel consimilis necessitas’. The copy of the agreement made for the dean and chapter of St Paul’s has an attached memorandum listing the ‘ornamenta’ given by Roger for use of the chantry chaplain: among the items, contained in a strongbox, are two complete sets of vestments for both priest and altar, the first for daily use, worth 20 shillings, and the second, or principal set, including a silk 39 In fact, this is the usual opening line of the set of verses on the five Joys of the Virgin; in some manuscript texts each strophe is preceded by an Ave Maria and a prayer; see A. Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots (Paris, 1932), p. 335, citing a late thirteenthcentury psalter of Lyre Abbey (London, BL Add. MS 16975, fol. 259). On the Salutations of the Virgin, usually a series of twenty-four short prose passages on events in the life of the Virgin, each beginning ‘Ave et gaude’, see Wilmart, p. 328 n. 1 and K. A. Smith, Canonizing the Apocryphal: London, British Library MS Egerton 2781 and its Visual, Devotional and Social Contexts, Ph.D. diss. (New York University, 1995), p. 395. 40 The votive Office of the Angels does not appear to have been common in the early fourteenth century; the only manuscript texts listed by Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels (p. 558 n. 1) are from the later fifteenth century.

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chasuble woven with gold birds in a fret pattern, lined with red Aylesham cloth, and an amice embroidered with six heads of the Saviour, Apostles and the Virgin, the whole worth 30 shillings.41 There were also two chalices, the first of gilded silver with a sculpted foot and a matching paten, and the second, called the chalice of St Edmund of Pontigny, weighing one pound and valued at 30 shillings, a missal worth 20 shillings, a brazier, two ‘new’ pewter cruets, and a bell,42 This memorandum is attached to the indenture with Roger’s seal, bearing the legend ‘sigillum Rogeri de Waltham’ around an elongated quatrefoil with symmetrical oakleaf foliage and acorns.43 About a year later, on 23 September 1326, Edward II granted Roger a second license to alienate a property to the dean and chapter of St Paul’s, this time a messuage worth 5 marks a year on Distaff Lane in the parish of St Augustine.44 Corresponding to this license is an indenture dated 3 October 1326, again for the provision of a chaplain to celebrate Masses at 41 Guildhall MS 25121/3037, attachment: ‘Ornamenta insuper que dictus dominus Rogerus cum uno coffro beneligato & serato duabus seruris una clausa & alia pendente usui cantarie sue & capellanorum perpetuorum predictorum bona & sufficiencia deputavit . . . sunt ista: videlicet duo paria vestimentorum completorum, unum scilicet cotidianum cum casula de panno inaurato in canabo [embroidered hempen cloth], lineata carda indi coloris [lined in indigo color muslin]; cum panno consimili de venetiis ad pendendum ante altare consuto panno lineo ad cooperiendum altare sub tuallis & ad involvendum vestimenta; & cum alba, amicta, stola, fanone, spatulariis & maniculariis apparatis quodam panno rubeo diasparato de Laret cum radiis inauratis lineatis similiter carda inda; cum zona de filo; cum duabus tuallis altaris longitudinis trium ulnarum quarum una cum frontali de aurifrasio simplici: precium tocius viginti solidi. Et aliud vestimentum principalius cum casula de panno inaurato super serico cum avibus aureis in fretta, lineata panno de Aylesham rubeo; cum amicta brodeata cum sex capitibus salvatoris, apostolorum & virginum & cum paruris in alba, ac stola, fanone, spatulariis & maniculariis de serico futis; cum zona de filo; cum duabus tuallis altaris longitudinis cuiuslibet trium ulnarum, quarum una cum frontali de serico suto. Longitudinis frontalis duarum ulnarum. Precii huius vestimenti cum tuallis, triginta solidorum sterlingorum.’ 42 Guildhall MS 25121/3037, attachment: ‘Item calix argenteus cum patena pro maiore parte deauratus in cuius pede sculpitur. Calix beati Edmundi de pontiny, ponderis viginti solidorum, & precii triginta solidorum. Unum missale precii viginti solidorum. Unum chaufepoyn precii trium solidorum, duo corporalia benedicta in uno casso, duo manutergia [towels] nova, duo fiale nove de peutre & una campanula.’ 43 Possibly an allusion to the great oaks of Waltham Forest. The motif is not common; cf. R. H. Ellis, Catalogue of Seals in the Public Record Office, Personal Seals (London, 1978, 1981), II, no. 2204 and Pl. 32, seal of Roger of Waltham, datable 1324, from a different matrix since the a lion is curled up asleep under the oak tree and the legend is ‘sigillum rogeri de waltham clerici’. Among more than 2,000 personal seals described by Ellis, only a few include tree-motifs, none, except for Roger’s, an identifiable species. 44 Guildhall Lib. MS 25241/22.

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the same altar ‘in capella sancti Johannis Ewangeliste in australi latere dicte ecdesie’, for the same beneficiaries as before, and also for the provision of pittances and alms, which are spelled out in the document.45 That this charter refers to it second chantry with a second chaplain is confirmed by further ordinances of the dean and chapter dated 2 and 15 March 1329, both restating Roger’s provision of two chantries in the chapel of St John the Evangelist.46 The first ordinance then spells out in detail the terms allowing Roger to construct and maintain in perpetuity houses for his two chantry chaplains in the precinct of the cathedral cemetery.47 The second registers Roger’s observation that processions were not then being held at St Paul’s on the feast days of the Invention or the Exaltation of the Cross, or the birth of St John the Baptist. As explained in the ordinance text, because of his special devotion to the Cross and to St John, Roger wishes to raise the rank of these feasts in perpetuity by providing for solemn processions in copes, ‘as in major feasts of our church’.48 For participation in these processions and celebration of the associated Masses, whichever one of the major canons, and whichever two of the minor canons personally take part will receive two pence each, and to the other minor canons, chaplains, or vicars choral who take part, one penny each.49 Guildhall MS 25121/3038. Guildhall Lib. MSS 25121/1938 and 25122/1341. ‘Cum nuper dilictus frater & concanonicus noster dominus Rogerus de Waltham ad augmentum divini cultus & sue salutis ferventur anelans, de certis redditibus & possessionibus suis in civitate London. pro sustentacione duorum capellanorum pro ipso & suis benefactoribus, parentibus & amicis in capella sancti Iohannis Ewangeliste in ecclesia nostra perpetuo celebraturus . . . nos feoffaverit . . .’ (MS 25122/1341). 47 Guildhall MS 25121/1938: ‘Idem que dominus Rogerus subsequenter in area clausi capellanorum ecclesie nostre infra precinctum cimiterii nostri domos competentes pro inhabitacione dictorum capellanorum suorum secundum limitacionem platee sibi pro nos assignate usque ad quadraginta pedes vel circiter ad voluntatem suam longitudine a camera pro capellano perpetuo domini Iohannes de Mondene ultra portam dicti clausi capellanorum fundata, & secundum latitudine camere supradictem facere & edificare proponat.’ 48 Guildhall MS 25122/1341: ‘Idem dominus Rogerus subsequenter attendens, processiones in festis sancte crucis & beati Iohannis Baptiste hactenus in dicta ecclesia non fieri, honorem Dei & sancte crucis ac ipsius sancti Iohannis speciali devocione cupiens ampliare; ut in utroque festo Invencionis & Exaltacionis sancte crucis, & Nativitatis prefati sancti Iohannis Baptiste solempnes processiones in capis sicut in festis maioribus in ecclesia nostra exnunc fiant inperpetuum.’ 49 Guildhall MS 25122/1341: ‘de consensu nostro expresso voluit & ordinavit quod de exitibus omnium tenementorum & reddituum nobis per eum ut premittitur collatorum, cuilibet maiori canonico & duobus minoribus canonicis cardinalibus chori, in processionibus 45 46

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Roger does not seem to have given St Paul’s new property to support these provisions; in fact they were instituted ‘non obstante’ the elymosinary arrangements previously established in the charters of 1325 and 1326, He did, however, give precious new vestments at this time — a choir cope, chasuble, amice, stole and fan embroidered with gold and colored silk images on red samite; and a tunicle and dalmatic of striped silk, the sleeves bordered with jewelled gilded silver bands.50 These vestments were to be worn at the procession and High Mass on the day of Roger’s annual obit, on the feasts of the Invention and the Exaltation of the Cross, of St John the Baptist, and also on the feast of St Lawrence.51 The feasts of St John the Baptist and St Lawrence were already of the first rank at St Paul’s, and so Roger’s contribution to their celebration was simply to insure that the celebrants wore his new vestments.52 Roger’s interest in St Lawrence, St John the & maioribus missis cuiuslibet dictorum trium festorum corporaliter presentibus, duo denarii statuti post ewangelium, ut alterum eorum ad honorem Dei, sancte crucis & beati Iohannis in missa offerant; & cuilibet alteri minori canonico & capellano perpetuo ecclesie chorum sequenti, ac cuilibet vicario chori in habitu in processione & missa corporaliter presente ut prefertur, unus denarius post Agnus dei per alterum de cardinalibus predictos vel Elemosinarium in choro distribuantur.’ 50 Guildhall MS 25122/1341: ‘Prefatus insuper dominus Rogerus ad decorem ministerii dicte ecclesie nostre spirituali devocione fervencius excitatus, vestimenta ecclesiastica preciosa, videlicet, unam capam chori & unam casulam cum Alba, amicta, stola & fanone cum ymaginibus de auro & serico super samito rubeo brodiatis & bene in omnibus apparatis. Et similiter unam tunicam cum Dalmatica de panno serico subtili radiato, ornatas circa oram manicharum cum platis argenteis deauratis & lapidibus insertis.’ 51 Guildhall MS 25122/1341: ‘ad usum dicte ecclesie nostre in forma contulit subsequenti: Ita videlicet quod in commendacione & missa pro ipso [Roger] & suis in quolibet die Anniversario sui obitus annuatim celebrando, et similiter in utroque festo sancte crucis & sanctorum Iohannis Baptiste & Laurencii Levite martirum, celebrantes & officiantes in maioribus missis dictis vestimentis utantur.’ 52 The statement that at St Paul’s the feast of the birth of the Baptist was celebrated without a procession is at odds with the Statuta maiora of Ralph Baldok, written when he was dean, 1294–1303; see Sparrow Simpson, Registrum statutorum et consuetudinorum, pp. 52–3. In these statutes St John the Baptist and St Lawrence are both identified as ‘prime dignitate’, the Invention of the Cross is of second rank, and the Exaltation of the Cross of the third rank. Apparently only feasts of first rank were celebrated with processions. In fourteenthcentury Sarum Use neither the feast of St Lawrence nor that of St John the Baptist was celebrated with a procession; see T. Bailey, The Processions of Sarum and the Western Church, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts, 21 (Toronto, 1971), p. 13. In 1414 Richard Clifford, bishop of London, ordered the performance of the Divine Office at St Paul’s to follow Sarum Use except on sixteen specified days, when the the ‘Old’ use of St Paul’s was to prevail. Among the feasts that were allowed to follow the old tradition was that of St Lawrence; Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/1857, see W. Sparrow Simpson, communication

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Baptist and the Invention and Exaltation of the Cross as a group, however, can be tied to his birth at Waltham, Essex. At the Abbey of the Holy Cross in Waltham, where Roger deposited copies of the documents pertaining to his chantries,53 all these feasts were of the highest rank.54 The appearance of St Lawrence as a focus of Roger’s devotion introduces the next stage in the history of his chantry, A new series of indentures and ordinances beginning in July 132955 shows that by this time Roger’s chantry had been given a physical reality. It was no longer at the altar in the chapel of St John the Evangelist but ‘in altari sancti laurentii a tergo superioris partis australis chori nostri per eum dominum Rogerum noviter constructi,56 (which I translate: ‘at the altar of St Lawrence newly constructed by him at the back of the eastern end of the choir on the south side’, superioris, or upper, meaning closer to the high altar to the east of the choir). The document of 10 October 1329 that concerns candles for the new chantry gives further details: the structure is termed an altar ‘sive capella’; it had been built in honor of God, the Virgin Mary, and St Lawrence; and Roger had placed statues of the Deity, St Lawrence and St John the Baptist around the interior and a statue of St Mary Magdalen outside at the eastern end. He in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd ser. 14 (1891–3), pp. 118–28. On Sarum Use and its relation to the liturgy of St Paul’s, see N. J. Morgan, ‘The Introduction of the Sarum Calendar into the Dioceses of England in the Thirteenth Century’ in M. Prestwich, R. Britell, and R. Frane (eds), Thirteenth Century England, VIII, Proceedings of the Durham Conference 1999 (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 180–206. 53 Guildhall MS 25121/3037, attachment: ‘Et sunt iste indenture convencionales & memoriales dupplicate, quarum una pars dupplicata sigillo dicti domini Rogeri, penes dictos Decanum & capitulum in thesauraria sua, & una pars alteris duple sigillis dictorum Decani & Capituli signate, penes dictum Elemosinarium [of St Paul’s] & pars alia dicte duple in thesauraria monasterii de waltham remanerit ad certitudinem & memoriam futurorum.’ 54 At some date between 1192 and 1202 Simon Rochfort, bishop of Clonard (Ireland), consecrated altars to St Lawrence and St John the Baptist at Waltham Abbey and the pope granted ten days’ indulgence for all gifts to these altars on the anniversary of their consecration; most offerings to the abbey in the thirteenth century were made at the altar of St Lawrence; see R. Ransford (ed.), The Early Charters of the Augustinian Canons of Waltham Abbey, Essex (Woodbridge, 1989), p. 187, n. 278 and p. xxx. Waltham had been consecrated in 1060 on the feast of the Invention of the Cross, and in the eleventh century obtained from Queen Matilda the grant of a fair on the feast of the Exaltation; ibid., p. xxix. 55 See Appendix. 56 Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/1650 and 25121/3039, indentures dated 27 July 1329 with duplicate texts (but not two halves of the same membrane), the first, Roger’s copy of the agreement and the second, the copy belonging to the dean and chapter.

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had placed seven candles, each weighing two pounds, on the beam of the chapel, to be lit every Sunday at High Mass, at every Mass celebrated for Roger in the chapel, and whenever feast day processions approached the chapel. These candles would be replaced on the major feasts of the Virgin from the oblations of the faithful collected in locked boxes both within and without the chapel, whose keys would be held by the chantry chaplain and the custodian of the ‘New Work’57 — that is, the eastern rebuilding and extension of the cathedral begun in the 1250s.58 The most detailed account in this series is in an ordinance of the dean and chapter dated 2 August 1332.59 To the information provided by the others, this document adds the following. First of all the altar cum chapel is now called ‘quoddam oratorium’, founded in honor of All Saints as well as the Deity, the Virgin and St Lawrence.60 From the description of the structure and the decoration it is clear that use of the term oratorium is indeed warranted. It is furnished with statues of the Saviour, angels, Sts 57 Guildhall MS 25121/3040: ‘Unanimiter concedimus per presentes quod quandocumque ad altare sive capellam in honorem dei & gloriose virginis & matris marie ac sancti laurencii per eum [Roger] pro perpetua capellanorum suorum celebracione in novo opere dicte ecclesie constructa, vel ob devocionem seu reverenciam ymaginum dei, sanctorum Laurencii & Iohannis Baptiste martirum circa dictam capellam, vel beate marie magdalene in orientali parte extra dictam capellam per dictum dominum Rogerum positarum, fidelium oblaciones intra capellam ipsam, vel extra provenire contingat; de omnibus oblacionibus illis in quibuscumque consistant, sustententur perpetuo septem cerei quos dictus dominus Rogerus ad honorem dei & beate marie semper virginis, & sanctorum Laurencii, Iohannis & marie magdalene predictorum, ad augmentum devocionis fidelium in trabe dicte capelle sittuavit. Ita videlicet quod capellani pro dicto domino Rogero ibidem celebrantes, omnes oblaciones predictas fideliter colligant & reponant & de illis dictos cereos quos singulis diebus dominicis circa Ewangelium maioris misse & in singulis missis in dicta capella pro dicto domino Rogero celebrandis, similiter circa Ewangelium accendere & statim post communionem extinguere, & quociens processio festivale ante capellam illam incederit, eosdem cereos ante adventum processionis ad locum illum accendere, & post transitam processionem extinguere tenentur. Perpetuo sustentent & quociens oportuerit innoverit, maxime in maioribus festis. Ita quod quilibet cereus in qualibet innovacione sua contineat duas libras . . . Et de trunco seu pixidibus infra dictam capellam, vel extra pro oblacionum recepcione ponendum, habeant dicti capellani clavem unam & custos novi operis nostri aliam.’ 58 On the ‘New Work’ of St Paul’s, see Richard Morris, ‘The New Work at Old St Paul’s Cathedral and its Place in English Thirteenth-Century Architecture’, in L. Grant (ed.), BAACT: Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology in London (Leeds, 1990), esp. pp. 75–6. 59 Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/1939. 60 Guildhall MS 25121/1939: ‘quoddam oratorium a tergo superioris partis australis chori nostri in honorem dei ac gloriosi virginis & matris marie, sancti Laurencii & omnium sanctorum fundasset.’

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John the Baptist, Lawrence and Mary Magdalen, and with paintings of the Celestial Hierarchy and the Joys of the Virgin and other subjects both in the vault above, that is, ‘in superiori volta’, and around the altar.61 Furthermore, on the south wall opposite the oratorium there is a ‘glorious tabernacle’ containing statues of the seated Virgin in childbirth and the Christ Child in a cradle between reclining figures of the ox and the ass and St Joseph seated at the foot of the Virgin — in other words a sculptural tableau of the Nativity.62 And above the arch of this ‘puerperio’ is a statue of the standing Virgin with her son in her arms.63 And on the transverse beam from the ‘head’ of this oratory (that is, the eastern end where the altar would be) to the ‘head’ of the nativity group are placed crowned statues of the Saviour and his mother seated in a tabernacle — a Coronation or Triumph of the Virgin — and likewise standing statues of the virgin martyrs Katherine and Margaret.64 And finally, the dean and chapter give permission for Roger’s burial between the oratorium and the wall tabernacle, and promise to allocate this place to no-one else without Roger’s express consent.65 Surely this is a uniquely detailed contemporary description of an elaborate work of art in which sculpture and painting are integrated in an architectural setting. Had Roger of Waltham’s chantry chapel survived, it would have been a work of magnificence surpassing that of the great Percy tomb 61 Guildhall MS 25121/1939: ‘. . . imaginibus salvatoris, angelorum & beatorum Iohannis Baptiste, Laurencii & marie magdalene ac eciam picturis gloriosis Ierarchie celestis & gaudiorum prefate virginis & aliis tam in superiore volta quam circa altarum, & oratorium predictum intra & extra decenter ornasset . . .’ 62 Guildhall MS 25121/1939: ‘Et ad maiorem dicte Ecclesie nostre decorem, etiam devocionem fidelium ad eam confluencium ulterius accendendam, quoddam tabernaculum gloriosum continens ymagines beate virginis quasi in puerperio sedentis, & pueri sui domini nostri iesu christi in cunis inter ymagines bovis & asini iacentis & sancti Ioseph ad pedes virginis sedentis in australi muro, ex opposito dicti Oratorii sui [Roger’s].’ 63 Guildhall MS 25121/1939: ‘Ac eciam supra archam dicti puerperii, ymaginem gloriose virginis stantem cum ymagine filii in ulnis suis quasi palam ilium quem peperit ostendentem.’ 64 Guildhall MS 25121/1939: ‘Trabem quoque transversalem a capite dicti oratorii usque ad capud dicti puerperii cum ymaginibus coronatis salvatoris & matris sue in tabernaculo sedentibus, & similiter ymagines beatarum katerine & margarete virginum & martirum in eadem trabe dicto tabernaculo hinc inde astantes.’ 65 Guildhall MS 25121/1939: ‘eidem concedimus & confirmamus quod inter predictam oratorium & puerperium ubi sepulturam suam pro studio preparavit, in precinctu illius loci per ipsum tam gloriose parati, sepulturam absque eius expresso consensu & maxime propter volte debilitatem nemini concedemus, nisi forsan aliquis fratrum stagiariorum ibidem elegerit sepelliri.’

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that still stands in Beverley Minster.66 But with the loss of the oratorium itself, the challenge becomes one of interpreting the description, of determining the precise site, the form, and the arrangement of the chapel and its various constituent elements. First, it is necessary to turn back to Roger’s earlier chantry in the chapel of St John the Evangelist. Dugdale erroneously placed it in the chapel of St John the Baptist,67 but it is clear from the documents that the altar of John the Evangelist was the site at which first one and then two chaplains celebrated the Offices and Masses funded by Roger, and that this altar was in a locked chapel to which Roger’s chaplains had a key. The chapel of St John was the southernmost chapel in the south transept of St Paul’s, as is evident from Hugh Holland’s Ecclesia Sancti Pauli illustrata of 1633, where it is said that the tomb of William Harington, of 1523, was ‘in a chapell called St. Johns Chapell neere to the South doore’.68 Thus the phrase ‘in australi latere ipsius ecclesie’ in the documents of 1325 and 1326 refers to the southern transept arm, not the south side or south aisle wall of the church. In a plan of Old St Paul’s predating the building of Inigo Jones’s portico in the 1630s (ill. 2, A), this chapel is the enclosed space at the end of the eastern side of the transept, apparently entered through a door, reminding us of the lockable door mentioned in the documents. As described in the documents of 1329 and 1332, the site of Roger’s newly built oratorium with its altar of St Lawrence was the back of the southern side of the choir, toward the east end of the enclosure. A separate altar of St Lawrence may not have existed earlier at St Paul’s, since various successive thirteenth-century lists of the dedications of altars with chantries refer to a joint altar of Sts Stephen and Lawrence, without, however, specifying its precise location.69 However, St Paul’s did possess a portable shrine of St Lawrence, described in an inventory of 1295 as made of wood, covered with silver with large gilded relief figures, raised on four lions, and containing two ribs of the saint in a crystal feretory decorated with silver plaques, a gilded crest, and cameos, other stones and pearls, the inner See N. Dawton, ‘The Percy Tomb at Beverley Minster: The Style of the Sculpture’, in F. H. Thompson (ed.), Studies in Medieval Sculpture (London, 1983), pp.122–50. 67 Dugdale, Saint Paul’s Cathedral (1818 ed.), p. 21. 68 H. Holland, Ecclesia Sancti Pauli illustrata: The Monuments; Inscriptions, and Epitaphs, of Kings, Nobles, Bishops, and Others Buried in the Cathedrall Church of St. Paul, London (London, 1633), n.p. 69 See the register, ‘Liber L’ (Guildhall Lib. MS 25504), fol. 91/93, mid-thirteenth century; fol. 145v, 1270; also the Statuta minora (Guildhall Lib. MS 25520), fol. 70v, fifteenthcentury transcription of list dated 1295 referring only to altar of St Stephen. 66

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crystal portion bought by Canon Galfridus de Weseham for 50 marks in the 1230s or 1240s.70 When the altar in Roger’s chapel was dedicated to St Lawrence, this portable shrine was probably given a fixed home. Indeed, in his Antient Funeral Monuments of 1631, John Weever coupled the shrine of St Lawrence with the altar erected by Roger of Waltham: ‘Here sometime was a shrine with a portable coffin, in the same place where Sir William Cockaine’s is erected; with an altar built to the honour of God, the blessed virgin, St. Lawrence, and all saints, by one Roger Waltham, precentor of the church . . .’71 Weever transcribed the inscription on the altar, which he described as still visible albeit somewhat rubbed:72 Hoc altare in honore DEI & beate virginis marie matris ejus, ac sancti Laurentii martyris, & omnium sanctorum construxit, & hanc voltam cum adiacentibus picturi martyris & ymaginum in septis ereis hic posuit: & cum duobus coglariis suis per perpetuam . . . dominus Rogerus Waltham, huius ecclesie precent . . . & omnium pro salute anime sue, et pro salute anime Regine . . . & omnium . . . Amen. It is unlikely that the inscription was on the altar itself, since that had probably been destroyed in the sixteenth century, but the text may have been preserved as a memorial tablet, as reported by Payne Fisher in 1684.73 The phrasing echoes that of the surviving fourteenth-century charters for Roger’s oratorium and this suggests corrections for Weever’s reading. His identification of Roger’s position at St Paul’s as precentor (precent . . .) was probably incorrect, since there is no record of such an appointment, which would have been incompatible in any case with Roger’s public activities. It is possible that what Weever read as precentor might have referred to pittances (pitancie), since Roger’s provision of these small allowances recurs repeatedly in the documents.74 It may be also that Weever’s ‘duobus See Dugdale, Saint Paul’s Cathedral (1818 ed.) p. 313. J. Weever, Antient Funeral Monuments of Great-Britain, Ireland, and the Ilands Adjacent (London, 1767 ed.), p. 170. 72 Ibid. 73 Payne Fisher, The Tombs, Monuments, &c., Visible in S. Paul’s Cathedral, ed. G. Blacker Morgan (London, 1885), p. 145: ‘. . . this ensuing Memorial, fixed for that memorable Roger Waltham . . .’ 74 E.g., Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/1939: ‘. . . quam pro obitu sui anniversario post mortem suam per nos & successores nostros in dicto oratorio suo perpetuo celebrando etiam pictanciis & processionibus utriusque festi sancte crucis & Nativitate sancti Iohannis 70 71

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cogliariis suis’ was actually duobus capellanis, as in the phrase from the ordinance of 15 March 1329 , ‘pro duobus capellanis suis’.75 Most curiously, Weever’s transcription seems to suggest that the altar was enclosed in a bronze grille (‘in septis ereis’) although how such an enclosure could have supported a ‘volta’ is difficult to imagine. But ‘in septis ereis’ may have been a misreading of ‘septem cerei’, seven being the number of candles that were placed on the beam of Roger’s oratorium.76 The value of Weever’s work is not the transcription of the text on the altar but the precision with which he locates the altar in the cathedral, in the same place where Sir William Cockaine’s is erected (my emphasis).77 Sir William Cockaine’s monument, which disappeared during Wren’s rebuilding,78 was erected in 1626, and engraved by Hollar (ill. 3), with the label ‘inter chorum et alam australem’. Its position was indicated on Hollar’s plan of St Paul’s (ill. 4) at no. 17, projecting from the choir enclosure in the easternmost bay, just before the steps that rise toward the high altar.79 Having confirmed that the medieval phrase ‘a tergo superioris partis australis chori’ refers to the back side of the·choir enclosure, we can explore the form of Roger’s oratorium further. The solid backs of the choir stalls would have formed one side of a structure that had an interior and exterior Baptiste ad eius instanciam noviter ordinatis.’ In Guildhall MSS 25121/3036, 3037, and 3038 pittances are termed ‘puturas’; in 25122/1341, ‘pitancias’; Roger compiled a list of pittances in the cathedral, which survives in the fifteenth-century copy of the Statuta minora, Guildhall MS 25520, fols. 59v–4v: ‘Hic incipit pitancie ecclesie sancti pauli london. de omnibus libris & memoralibis ecclesie prefate per dominum Rogerum de Waltham ipsius ecclesie canonicum compilate.’ 75 Guildhall Lib. MS 25122/1341. 76 Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/3040: ‘. . . sustententum perpetuo septem cerei quos dictus dominus Rogerus ad honorem dei & beate marie semper virginis & sanctorum Laurencii, Iohannis & marie magdalene predictorum ad augmentum devocionis fidelium in trabe dicte capelle sittuavit’. 77 Weever, Funeral Monuments, p. 170. 78 Cf. Cook, Old S. Paul’s, p. 59, noting that the only surviving monument erected between the time of Edward VI and the Wren reconstruction is that of John Donne. The Cockaine effigy, however, is actually preserved in the present crypt; see N. Pevsner, London I, rev. edn. ed. B. Cherry (London, 1973), p. 140. 79 Cook (Old S. Paul’s, pp. 48, 59) located Roger’s chantry in a chapel between the buttresses on the south side of the retrochoir, and ‘fixed’ it there in both his plan (Fig. VI, no. 17) and exterior reconstruction (Pl. 9), although he gave no documentation for this placement. In Cook’s elevation (Pl. 10), the choir enclosure is one bay shorter than the length indicated in Dugdale’s plan. Had this been the case, Sir William Cockaine’s monument would have had to be freestanding rather than erected against the wall of the choir enclosure.

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adorned with statues and paintings, like later ‘closet’ chantries (ill. 5).80 The interior was vaulted, since the documents refer to paintings, probably of the Celestial Hierarchy, in the ‘volta’. On the altar would have been the shrine of St Lawrence and on the wall behind or above it further paintings, most likely of the five subjects that constituted the Joys of the Virgin — the Annunciation, Nativity or Adoration of the Magi, the Resurrection and the Ascension of Christ and the Assumption of the Virgin.81 Without further details about their arrangement, the sculptured figures of the Deity, St Lawrence and St John the Baptist are described as ‘circa dictam capellam’ in the ordinance of 10 October 1329.82 Because of the position of the paintings of the Joys of the Virgin, it does not seem that the east wall above the altar could have had niches for sculpture, the kind of arrangement found in later chantry chapels.83 The ordinance of 1332 characterizes the statue of the Deity as the Saviour; the next figures on the list are angels.84 We can imagine that these constituted a group, the angels perhaps flanking a seated figure of the Risen Christ, as for example in the Percy tomb (ill. 6), although there of course the statues are on the exterior gable. The statue of Mary Magdalen is described as outside the oratorium, at the eastern end or on the eastern part,85 perhaps oriented in some way toward an altar of the saint, which is known to have existed from at least 1270.86 Whatever the interior arrangements of Roger’s oratorium, the more publicly visible elements are those to· which the term ‘glorious’ is applied in the documents — the ‘glorious tabernacle’ on the south wall opposite the chapel. Dugdale says that Roger’s chantry was opposite the entrance to the sacristy;87 he may have been referring to the structure shown on the pre1630 plan to the east of the south transept (ill. 2, B), although no such A term used by P. Binski, Medieval Death, Ritual and Representation (Ithaca, 1996), p. 118. 81 See Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels, pp. 317–36 and N. J. Morgan, ‘Texts and Images of Marian Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England’, in N. Rogers (ed.), England in the Fourteenth Century, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, III (1993), pp. 39–40, 51–2. 82 Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/3040. 83 E.g., the Waynflete chantry of 1486 in Winchester cathedral, with three niches on the east wall above the altar, all now empty. 84 See above, note 61. 85 Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/3040: ‘in orientali parte extra dictam capellam’. 86 Guildhall Lib. MS 25504, ‘Liber L’, fol. 145v, list of altars dated 1270. 87 Dugdale, History of Saint Paul’s Cathedral (1818 ed.), p. 33. 80

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orientation toward a sacristy appears in Roger’s documents. The tabernacle itself was arched;88 the elaborate framing of manuscript images comes to mind as a reflection of the format. The figures that comprised the Nativity may have been in the round: after all, the ordinance says that the tabernacle contains ‘ymagines’ (plural). However, the way that the term ymagines is repeated seems to distinguish a number of compositional units, one consisting of the Virgin seated in bed and the Christ Child lying in a cradle, two more comprising the reclining ox and ass on either side of the Virgin and Child, and possibly yet another consisting of St Joseph, seated at the feet of the Virgin, suggesting that he was in the foreground.89 It is difficult to conceive of such a complex except in the form of a relief, although perhaps a high relief in which foreshortened units were projected at some distance from the background wall, as in the mid-fourteenth-century tomb of Peter de Grandisson in Hereford Cathedral (ill. 7). It is probable, however, that the Virgin and Child that surmounted the arched tabernacle was freestanding, at the apex of an ogee arch, or a gable,90 in a position parallel to that of the figures of Christ in the Percy tomb (ill. 6). What she looked like can be imagined from the late thirteenth-century Virgin in York (ill. 8), the fourteenth century Flawford alabaster Virgin,91 and of course, numerous French devotional images. The most astounding component of Roger of Waltham’s oratorium complex was surely the sculpture on the beam that crossed the choir aisle between the east end of the chapel and the east end of the tabernacle on the aisle wall. The width of the aisle of St Paul’s, or between the piers that framed the aisle, was at least sixteen feet.92 Consequently, a ‘beam’ that could have supported four sculptured figures under an arch or canopy would itself have had to be reinforced from below. Certainly the position of Roger’s oratorium — at the juncture between the older and the newer part of the so-called New Work — would have offered a ‘natural’ point of articulation.93 Some comparison is provided by the later transverse aisle arch at the choir entrance of York (ill. 9). Indeed Hollar’s plan of St Paul’s (ill. 4) Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/1939: ‘super archam dicti puerperio’. Guildhall MS 25121/1939, see above, n. 62. 90 Guildhall MS 25121/1939, see above, n. 63. 91 See J. J. G. Alexander and P. Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400 (London, 1987), no. 699. 92 See the scale in Hollar’s plan, ill. 4. 93 For the chronology of the New Work see Morris, ‘New Work’, pp. 75–6. 88 89

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shows both the walled part of the choir ending at this point and a series of steps leading up to the presbytery. The ‘ymagines’ on the transverse beam were crowned statues of the Saviour and his mother seated in a tabernacle (in other words, a Coronation or Triumph of the Virgin) and they were flanked by standing figures of Sts Katherine and Margaret. The arrangement of sculpture on a beam parallels that on the slightly later pulpitum of St Paul’s, which was surmounted by a Crucifixion with Mary and John.94 Because of their position, these figures can hardly have been other than freestanding, and consequently the ‘tabernaculum’ in which they were placed could not have been a projecting canopy, or an arch in relief (like the frame of an altarpiece) but a kind of see-through, three-dimensional structure, like the upper part of the late fourteenth century Despencer tomb at Tewkesbury (ill. 10). Because tomb chests and altars were made of stone, it is natural to suppose that Roger of Waltham’s chantry chapel was also a stone structure; and indeed most of the surviving chantry chapels are built of stone. But what of the figural sculpture? It is probable that some component of Roger’s chapel was wood, since the part of the ordinance of 1332 concerning the future maintenance in good repair of the oratory and its precincts specifies ‘omnes ymagines, cerei, picture et alia opera lapidea et lignea’.95 So it seems reasonable to conclude that the sculpture, and perhaps the tabernacles too, might have been carved of wood. When did Roger of Waltham get the idea of transferring his chantry to a ‘purpose-built’ structure on the back side of the choir, and when exactly was the oratorium completed? It is important to recall that the canons first entered their ‘new’ choir in 1327 when the high altar of the cathedral was consecrated.96 This great ceremonial event may have provided the impetus for Roger’s project, For fixing its date of completion, the wording of the various documents may be significant, even though the St Paul’s chancellery can hardly be expected to have been making a day-to-day progress report, Nevertheless, the earliest documents mentioning the oratory — as opposed Cook, Old S. Paul’s, p. 39. Guildhall Lib. MS 25121/1939. 96 Morris, ‘New Work’, pp. 75–6. Morris suggests that the last step before completion of the New Work in 1327 was the updating of the four western bays of the choir, which had been constructed in the 1250s, followed, he believes, by the construction of the pulpitum c. 1330. Roger’s chantry, on the south side of the choir enclosure, was aligned with the easternmost of these updated bays. 94 95

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1. Wenceslas Hollar, St Paul’s Cathedral, interior of choir, 1640. From William Dugdale, The History of St Paul’s Cathedral (London. 1658), p. 169 (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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2. Plan of St Paul’s Cathedral before 1630. Oxford, All Souls College, Wren vol. 2, no. 1 (photo: Conway Library. Courtauld Institute).

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3. Wenceslas Hollar, St Paul’s Cathedral, monument of William Cockaine (1626), 1640, From William Dugdale, The History of Paul’s Cathedral (London, 1658), p. 68 (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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4. Wenceslas Hollar, plan of St Paul’s Cathedral, 1640. From WilliamDugdale, The History of St Paul’s Cathedral (London, 1658), p. 161 (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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5. Winchester Cathedral, Waynflete Chantry, 1486 (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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6. Beverley Minster, Percy Tomb, c. 1340 (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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7. Hereford Cathedral, tomb of Peter de Grandisson, mid-fourteenth century (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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8. York Minster, north aisle, Virgin and Child, late thirteenth century (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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9. York Minster. arch, entrance to north choir aisle, fifteenth century (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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10. Tewkesbury Abbey, Despencer monument, late fourteenth century (photo: Conway Library, Courtauld Institute).

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to Roger’s earlier chantry at the altar of St John the Evangelist — cite only the newly constructed altar of St Lawrence; this in the two indentures of 27 July 1329, Then the ordinance of 10 October of the same year refers to an altar sive chapel. Finally, it is only in the last ordinance, of 2 August 1332, that the term oratorium is used for the first time, and it is also in this document that the wall tabernacle of the Nativity and the transverse beam with the Coronation of the Virgin first appear. It may be that the successive terms reflect the sequence of construction, which perhaps began around March 1329, when the ordinance reciting Roger’s ‘former’ establishment of a chantry at the altar of St John then proceeds to ‘ex novo’ provisions for ceremonial processions on various feasts, including that of St Lawrence, as if in anticipation of the building of a new altar. The term oratorium perhaps had an aura of strangeness or unfamiliarity for the writer of the last ordinance for the chantry chapel of Roger of Waltham. The scribe called it quoddam oratorium, Perhaps either the term or the structure itself was a novelty. Certainly Roger’s chapel would have been one of the earliest physical expressions of the idea that perpetual Masses were efficacious in shortening the time of the present and future dead in Purgatory.97 Doubtless the closet-like form of many chantry chapels, Roger’s included, symbolically cloistered the priest and intensified the focus of his Masses on behalf of the patron and his nearest and dearest. Alas, poor Roger! In 1391 Bishop Braybrook consolidated 57 chantries, including Roger’s, into 31, on the grounds that their endowments were insufficient to compensate the chaplains adequately.98 Roger no longer had a priest of his own, much less two. But the memory of his oratorium was preserved in two ways, First, Roger’s instructions to keep the entire documentation of his foundation in the cathedral treasury were obeyed, as we know from the inventory compiled by Dean Thomas Lyseux in 1440.99 Second, c. 1540 John Leland, in his Comentarii de scriptoribus Britannicis (first published in 1709), identified Roger as the author of the Compendium morale, a copy of which he said he had seen at St Paul’s. Leland then added, ‘Vidi praeterea libellum de Imaginibus & Picturis

Most thirteenth- and fourteenth-century chantries were established at pre-existing altars; see H. Colvin, ‘The Origin of Chantries’, Journal of Medieval History, 26 (2000), pp. 163–73. 98 K. Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries in Britain (Cambridge, 1965), p. 194. 99 See note 4 and Appendix. 97

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Oratorii, quod in ecclesia Divini Pauli Londini celeberrimum erat’.100 Unfortunately, we will never know the exact form of this libellus. A century later, in 1650, when the 150 surviving books of St Paul’s reached Sion College and were catalogued101 the copy of the Compendium morale was still extant, but the descriptive ‘booklet of the sculptures and pictures of the oratory’, along with the ‘famous’ oratorium of which it was a record, had completely disappeared.

Leland, pp. 264–5. Catalogus universalis librorum omnium in bibliotheca Collegii Sionii apud Londinenses . . . Una cum elencho interpretum SS. Scripturae, casuistarum theologorum scholasticorum . . . Omnia per J. S. [J. Spencer] Bibliothecarum . . . ordine 1650 (London, 1650), pp. 8, 77. The Sion manuscripts were burned in the Fire of London in 1666; see N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, I (London) (London, 1969), pp. 240, 263. 100

101

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Appendix (H) = Horwood, Eighth Report; (L) = Lyte, Ninth Report; (D) = Dugdale (*) = St Paul’s Treasury pressmark D.VI; (**) = itemized in MS 25121/3037, attachment; (+) = enrolled in Husting Rolls I. Licences of Alienation in Mortmain for Roger to Establish Chantries 1. MS 25241/13 (A. Box 59/13) 16 August 1325 (L) 2. MS 25241/23 (A. Box 59/23) 16 August 1325 (L) 3. MS 25241/22 (A. Box 59/22) 23 September 1326 (L) II. Agreements between Roger of Waltham and the Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s regarding Roger’s Chantries 4. MS 25121/3036 (A. Box 80/51) 27 October 1325 (H) (*) 5. MS 25121/3037 (A. Box 80/59) 27 October 1325 (H) 6. MS 25121/3038 (A. Box 80/32) 3 October 1326 (H) (*) 7. MS 25121/1938 (A. Box 74) 2 March 1329 (L) 8. MS 25122/1341 (A. Box 39) 15 March 1329 (L) 9. MS 25121/1650 (A. Box 25) 27 July 1329 (L) (*) 10. MS 25121/3039 (A. Box 80/9) 27 July 1329 (H) 11. MS 25121/3040 (A. Box 80/23) 10 October 1329 (H) 12. MS 25121/3041 (A. Box 80/14) 12 November 1329 (H) 13. MS 25121/1939 (A. Box 74) 12 August 1332 (L) III. Entries in Register of the Dean and Chapter and Enrollments Relating to Roger’s Chantries 14. MS 25501 (W.D.1), ‘Liber A sive Pilosus’, fol. 53 (summarizing 25121/3036–3038) (D) 15. MS 25501 (W.D.1), ‘Liber A sive Pilosus’, fo1. 80 (transcript of MS 25122/1341 with incorrect date of 15 May 1328) (D) 16. MS 25501 (W.D.1), ‘Liber A sive Pilosus’, fol. 81 (transcript of MS 25121/3041) (D) 17. MS 25162, roll copy of MS 25121/3039, late fourteenth century (*)

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IV. Chaplains’ Accounts for Roger’s Chantries 18. MS 25161/1-10 (A. Box 51), ten account rolls, 1363–1418 19. MS 25121/3045 (A. Box 80/70), account of Adam of Eyston for 1369 (H) V. Deeds (leases and grants) relating to Property given by Roger to Establish Chantries A.. Oldfish St. (A. Box 17) 20. MS 25121/1316, John of Dorking to Lawrence Faber, 1298/9 (**) (+) 21. MS 25121/1313, 1323, Lawrence Faber to John and Margery of Waltham, 1302/3 (*) (**) 22. MS 25121/1331, Adam of Dorking to John and Margery of Waltham, 1308 (*) (**) (+) 23. MS 25121/179, 180, Adam of Dorking to John and Margery of Waltham, 1309 (*) (**) 24. MS 25121/208,]ohn of Waltham to Ralph of Wandlesworth, 1308 (*) (**) 25. MS 25121/1329, 1330, 1332, Ralph of Wandlesworth to Roger of Waltham, 1318/9 (*) (**) (+) B. Soperslane (A. Box 22) 26. MS 25121/19, Walter son of Reginald of St Edmunds to Gonnilde Ferebras, n.d. (**) 27. MS 25121/1643, Gonnilde Ferebras to Hugh of Chelmsford, 1279/80 (**) (+) 28. MS 25121/1641, Hugh and Alice of Chelmsford to William of Garton, 1291/2 (**) 29. MS 25121/1634, Mariota le Bokelere to William of Aldenham, 1292/3 (**) 30. MS 25121/1640, Hugh and Alice of Chelmsford to William of Garton, 1293/4 (**) (+) 31. MS 25121/1636, William of Garton to Robert le Callere, 1295/6 (**) 32. MS 25121/1632, Hugh and Alice of Chelmsford to Robert le Callere, 1302/3 (**) 33. MS 25121/1633, Walter and Margery Squysh to Richerus of Refham, 1303/4 (**) (+ ) 34. MS 25121/9, John of Preston to William of Aldenham, 1311 (**) 35. MS 25121/1648, Robert le Callere to Richard Elsing, 1319 (**) 36. MS 25121/1630, John of Preston to Roger of Waltham, 1323/4 (**) (+) 37. MS 25121/1631, John of Preston to Roger of Waltham, 1323/4 (**) (+) 38. MS 25121/1635, copy of MS 25121/1630 39. MS 25121/1637, Robert le Callere to Roger of Waltham, 1323 (+) 40. MS 25121/1638, duplicate of MS 25121/1637 (+) 41. MS 25121/1639, Robert le Callere to Roger of Waltham, 1323 (**) 42. MS 25121/1644, William of Aldenham to Roger of Waltham, 1323/4 (**) (+) 43. MS 25121/14, Richerus of Refham to Roger of Waltham, 1324 (*”’) (+) 44. MS 25121/1647, Richerus of Refham to Roger of Waltham, 1324 C. Distaff Lane (A. Box 2) 45. MS 25121/582, John Matefrey to Roger of Waltham, 1326 (**) (+)

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312 VI. Records of Roger’s Chantry in Thomas Lyseux, Dean of St Paul’s, Calendar of Deeds, etc. Preserved in the Treasury of St Paul’s, A.D. 1440 46. MS 25511 (W.D.11), fols. 21v, 24, 25, 30, 33, 39v, 47v, 71v, 73v, 74v, 77, 93v

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III ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND SCHOLARLY TEXTS

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Notes for the Illuminator: The Case of the Omne Bonum* The Omne bonum, a unique illustrated encyclopedia composed in London between 1360 and 1375 by James le Palmer, Treasurer’s Scribe in the Exchequer, was left unfinished at the compiler’s death in 1375, both as to its text and its extensive program of illustrations. Subsequently, c. 1380, twentythree historiated intitials — for which there are written marginal instructions — were inserted in spaces that had been left empty. Examination of the respective parts played by the author, original scribe, later instruction-writer, and artist suggest a more independent role for the illuminator than is usual in cases where marginal notes are supplied for manuscript images.

M

ARGINAL notes that occur occasionally in conjunction with the illustrations of medieval manuscripts were first discussed at the end of the nineteenth century. Realizing that most medieval artists would remain anonymous, such scholars as H. Martin, P. Durrieu, and S. Berger hoped to flesh out their shadowy personae, if not with biographical details, at least with a more accurate account of their working methods.1 They * For much help in transcribing the notes for the illuminator discussed below, I am grateful to Dr. Patrick McGurk. I also wish to thank Professor Jonathan Alexander for his careful reading of this article; his interest in collecting examples of instructions for illuminators led me to notice those in the Omne bonum and to think of them as worthy of further study. ln addition, I thank Professor Walter Cahn for a number of valuable bibliographical suggestions. 1 S. Berger and P. Durrieu, ‘Les Notes pour l’enlumineur dans les manuscrits du moyen âge,’ Mémoires de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France, 6th ser., III, 1893, 1–30; S. Berger, ‘Les Manuels pour l’illustration du psautier au XIIIe siècle,’ Mémoires de la Société

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found in marginal notes, or instructions, the tangible evidence of the means by which manuscript images were produced, evidence offering an alternative to the established hypothesis that manuscript illustrations derive from pictorial models by a process of visual copying. Recently the phenomenon of notes for illuminators has been considered anew by J. J. G. Alexander.2 Alexander’s timely survey can be seen against the background of current investigations of orality and literacy, the organization of manuscript production, and decision-making by artists and scribes.3 Interest in these subjects has arisen, or perhaps revived after a lapse of nearly a century, during which the study of manuscript illumination has been carried out primarily under the headings ‘History of Style’ and ‘History of Ideas.’4 Nationale des Antiquaires de France, 6th ser., VII, 1898, 95–134; H. Martin, ‘Les Esquisses des miniatures,’ Revue archéologique, 4th ser., IV, 1904, 17–46. 2 ‘Medieval Manuscript Illuminators and Their Methods of Work,’ J. P. R. Lyell Lectures given in Oxford, June 1983 (publication forthcoming). 3 In addition to Alexander (as in n. 2), see C. E. Pickford, ‘An Arthurian Manuscript in the John Rylands Library,’ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, XXXI, 1948, 3–29, an addition to the examples studied by Berger and Durrieu (as in n. 1); see, further, R. Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of St. Louis, Berkeley, 1977, passim, for citations of instructions; P. D. Stirnemann, ‘Nouvelles Pratiques en matière d’enluminure au temps de Philippe Auguste,’ in La France de Philippe Auguste. Le Temps des mutations (Actes du Colloque International organisé par le C.N.R.S., no. 602) Paris, 1980, 959–980, for citations of instructions regarding use of color in illustrations; S. Hindman, ‘The Role of Author and Artist in the Procedure of Illustrating Late Medieval Texts,’ Text and Image (Acta), X, Binghamton, 1983, 27–62; D. Byrne, ‘An Early French Humanist and Sallust: Jean Lebègue and the Iconographical Programme for the Catiline and Jugurtha,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XLIX, 1986, 41–65, discussing an early fifteenth-century set of detailed instructions for the creation of a new program of illustrations; F. Avril and P. D. Stirnemann, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine insulaire de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1987, the first catalogue systematically to record instances of instructions to artists; and M. A. Stones, ‘Indications écrites et modèles picturaux, guides au peintres de manuscrits enluminés aux environs de 1300,’ in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen-Age, III, ed. X. Barral i Altet (forthcoming); for recent interpretative studies, see M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, Cambridge, MA, 1979; M. Camille, ‘Seeing and Reading: Some Visual Implications of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,’ Art History, VIII, 1985, 26–49; idem, ‘The Book of Signs: Writing and Visual Difference in Gothic Manuscript Illumination,’ Word and Image, I, 1985, 133–48; idem, ‘Visualising the Vernacular: A New Cycle of Early FourteenthCentury Bible Illustrations,’ Burlington Magazine, CXXX, 1988, 97–106; and idem, ‘The Language of Images in Medieval England,’ in The Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400, ed. J. J .G. Alexander and P. Binski, London, 1987, 33–40. 4 For a brief survey, see L. F. Sandler, reviews of J. Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript, C. de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, and O. Pächt, Book Illumination in the Middle Ages, in the Art Bulletin, LXX, 1988, 521–523.

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Written notes next to, or in the margins above or below medieval manuscript illustrations are usually understood as instructions for the illuminator.5 The use of the term ‘instructions’ assumes that someone other than the artist interpreted the text, or decided how a standard text was to be illustrated. Such decisions might have been made by the scribe, by a clerical or scholarly advisor, or by a stationer or entrepreneur under whose auspices a book was being produced. These are the individuals most likely to have been present in the course of production, although it has been shown that in some cases entire ready-made sets of instructions were available for use by illuminators of widely copied texts, such as romances or psalters.6 Verbal notes for illustrations differ from marginal sketches, which could be aidesmémoire, trials, or cues drafted by the artist himself, for his own use, although these too might have been provided by a master-designer for the instruction of the artist.7 The collection and analysis of instances of marginal notes, either verbal or figural, can provide insights into the creative processes of medieval illuminators. Sometimes the results are surprising and even perplexing, raising questions about the precise relationship between marginal instruction and illustration and text. One such instance is a series of marginal notes for twenty-three historiated initials illustrating the text of the Omne bonum, an alphabetical general encyclopedia composed in London between 1360 and 1375 by the Treasurer’s Scribe in the Exchequer, James le Palmer.8 The Omne bonum, a unicum, was left unfinished on the death of its compiler in 1375, both as to its text, which includes only one article under each letter from N to Z, and its illustrations, which were completed only to the 5 Occasionally there is a question as to whether such notes are instructions for the artist or for the text rubricator. See Alexander (as in n. 2) and Berger and Durrieu (as in n. 1), 24 f. 6 See Alexander, Lyell Lecture III (as in n. 2), citing the Lancelot manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 805; see also M. R. James, ‘On a MS. Psalter in the University Library,’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, VIII, 2, 1894, 146–167. 7 See Martin (as in n. 1). 19; also J. J. G. Alexander, ‘Preliminary Marginal Drawings in Medieval Manuscripts,’ in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen-Age (as in n. 3). citing M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry, I: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke, London, 1967, on London, British Lib. MS Roy. 19 D III, whose marginal sketches Meiss believed to have been executed by a master and the miniatures by an assistant. 8 For a list see Appendix. London, British Library MS Roy. 6 E VI and 6 E VII. See L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385 (A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, V), London and New York, 1986, II, no. 124, pp. 136–138. I am completing a monograph on the Omne bonum.

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middle of the articles under the letter I.9 Around 1380, a later owner10 had illustrations inserted into the remaining blank spaces. He employed two artists.11 The work of the second is accompanied by marginal instructions in Latin, the only place in the Omne bonum where such notes occur. Sixteen of the original twenty-three are legible.12 Because the Omne bonum is an autograph text, that is, because its author and scribe were one and the same, one question about the marginal instructions can be answered from the outset: by whom were the instructions written? The answer is, ‘not by James le Palmer,’ since the notes are not in his hand. Consequently a second question is answered, again negatively. Since James le Palmer did not actually write the notes, it is unlikely that he composed them either. Whoever was responsible, it was someone who approached the text as a reader, at some distance from its original author-scribe. The Omne bonum contains hundreds of unprecedented illustrations, for which no immediate pictorial models existed. James le Palmer extracted the texts to be illustrated primarily from unillustrated canon-law compilations, natural history encyclopedias, and theological handbooks, and only secondarily from sources such as the Bible and legendaries that might have had

See L. F. Sandler, ‘Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio in an English Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century,’ in Proceedings of the 1988 Oxford Conference on the History of the Book, in press. 10 This owner may have inherited the Omne bonum from James le Palmer. He also probably owned a copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham (Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 165), which had been written by James le Palmer for his own use, illustrated incompletely by the chief artist of the Omne bonum, and later finished by two more artists, one of whom also helped to finish the illustrations of the Omne bonum; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts (as in n. 8), I, Figs. 330–332; II, no. 125, pp. 138–140. The immediate ‘post-history’ of the two manuscripts seems to have been intertwined. The date of c. 1380 for the execution of the later illustrations is based on general similarities with work in such manuscripts as the Litlyngton Missal (London, Westminster Abbey MS 37) of 1383–84 and related books; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts (as in n. 8), I, Figs. 381–418, II, nos. 144–157. 1 have not found the hand of either later artist outside the Omne bonum and the William of Nottingham. 11 Artist B, thirty-six illustrations in MS 6 E VII between fols. 241 and 450v. except for fols. 434v and 438; Artist C, illustrations in MS 6 E VII on fols. 434v, 438, and between fols. 451 and 532v, except for fols. 503 and 518. 12 For transcription, see Appendix. 9

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illustrations.13 ln any case, although the original sources were available to James,14 once he had extracted them and rearranged the extracts under the alphabetical entries of his encyclopedia, any original pictorial material might have been difficult for an artist to retrieve, both physically and mentally.15 The artist needed help from some quarter. This, it can be concluded, is what the marginal notes of the Omne bonum were intended to provide. That these notes are in Latin rather than Anglo-French or English is exceptional, since most surviving instances of instructions for the illuminator are written in the vernacular, even in the case of texts in Latin.16 13 In the preface to the Omne bonum (MS 6 E VI, fol. 18v), 115 sources are listed, most extracted indirectly, through intermediaries. James’s main sources are listed preceding the rest. They include Gratian’s Decretum and the Decretals of Gregory IX, the Liber sextus of Boniface VIII and the Clementines (of Clement V), as well as their glosses and apparatuses, all of which are occasionally illustrated, but also the Summa super titulis decretalium by Hostiensis (Henricus de Bartholomaeus de Segusia, Cardinal of Ostia), Guido de Baysio’s Rosarium decreti, Guillelmus Durandus’s Speculum iudiciale, and William of Pagula’s Summa summarum, all legal commentaries or handbooks that are illustrated — if ever — only with author portraits at the beginning of the text. In addition, James’s list of primary sources includes Bartholomeus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum, a natural history encyclopedia, and the so-called Opus imperfectum, a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew attributed to Johannes Chrysostom, Thomas of Ireland’s Manipulus florum, a dictionary of biblical terms, the pseudo-Aristotle’s Secreta secretorum, and Giovanni de Balbi’s Catholicon, none ever illustrated, except for Bartholomeus Anglicus (rarely). On this same list, not in a separate category, James also listed ‘quedam de biblia et quedam de legenda sanctorum,’ texts that certainly could have been available to him in illustrated copies. 14 James, born and probably educated in London, would have had ready access to the libraries of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, whose known medieval holdings included all the major works he cited. See N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, London, 1964, s.v., for surviving books and references to medieval book lists. ln some cases, James must have copied directly from his sources, since his manner of presentation reflects that in the model. For example, the treatise on episcopal election by Guillelmus de Mandagoto (MS 6 E VII, fols. 27–50v). incorporated in entirety into the Omne bonum under the heading Electio, is written in two sizes of script, undoubtedly following the format of the exemplar. Much of the Omne bonum, however, must have been written from notes or notebooks out of which James constructed anthologies of extracts, the characteristic form taken by the entries in his text. 15 James employed two artists while he was working on the Omne bonum. The first worked almost concurrently with him as he wrote the first entries under each of the letters between A and E; the second did not begin until after he had completed all of the entries from the rest of A through E to the middle of the letter I. See Sandler (as in n. 9). 16 See Berger and Durrieu (as in n. 1), 8; Alexander (as in n. 2). The writer of the Omne bonum instructions reverted to French in one case, in which he appears to have been telling the artist to use one illustration as a guide for another (see Appendix, fols. 481 and 484v).

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The job of composing the notes, that is, of deciding what to instruct the artist to do, would surely have been a challenge because of the nature of many of the subjects for which James le Palmer had originally planned illustrations. Three verbal components of the Omne bonum could play a part in this process: the title of the article, the rubric, and the text itself. In addition, the instruction-writer himself could act as an interpreter, especially when abstract concepts were translated into directions for concrete images, possibly based on actual representations with which he was familiar. An example of a written instruction based on an article title is ‘Papa’ for the entry, Maioritas pape (Fig. 1),17 The article has no rubric, although an addendum to the preceding entry, Maioritas, refers to the question of papal primacy discussed ‘ex alia parte istius folii.’18 The article on Maioritas pape begins by quoting the opinion of the canonist Hostiensis that in certain cases the pope does not have the right to intervene.19 ln contrast, the title stresses papal power, not the limits on it. This view was reinforced by the writer of the instruction for the illuminator, who simply called for an image of the pope, not the pope and any of the competing claimants for power that are mentioned in the text, such as the emperor or the bishops. In turn, the illuminator painted a solemn frontal enthroned figure wearing a papal tiara, blessing and holding a cross-topped staff. Several notes for the illuminator are based primarily on the introductory rubrics of articles. One of the subsections of the long entry on Lex, for example, has the rubric, ‘Nunc sequitur videre de legibus per Hostiensem in summa,’ providing the cue for the marginal note for the artist, ‘Sit hic est H . . . [illegible, Hostiensis?] scribens’ (Fig. 2).20 Doubtless the venerable tradition of illustrating texts with pictures of their authors was so familiar to the instruction-writer that the rubric naming the author and his book automatically called forth this instruction to the artist. The instructionwriter need not have dealt with the text proper in deciding on the subject of the illustration. MS 6 E VII, fol. 452v. Fol. 452: ‘An papa sit maior imperatore in temporalibus, et quanta sit differentia inter papam & imperatorem quo ad maioritatem & quod papa habet utrumque gladium, notatur bene ex alia parte istius folii.’ (‘Whether the pope is greater than the emperor in the temporal sphere. and what is the difference between pope and emperor as concerns primacy and that the pope has both swords, note well on the other part of this folio.’) 19 Hostiensis, Summa, Bk. IV, tit. 17, v. qualiter & a quo. 20 MS 6 E VII, fol. 438: ‘Now following we will see about the law, by Hostiensis in his Summa’; and ‘Let there be here H . . . writing.’ 17 18

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A similar case is one of several illustrations for the long article, Maria, in which the rubric, ‘De modo assumpcionis beate marie & de presencia apostolorum & qualiter fuit assumpta in corpore ut probant diversis doctores & in anima & similiter ecclesia pie hoc credit licet non determinavit,’ gave rise to the brief instruction, ‘Assumpcio’ (Fig. 3).21 This was entirely sufficient for the artist. Sometimes, however, the text provided a useful amplification of the rubric. Another of the illustrations for Maria is preceded by the rubric, ‘De concepcione & nativitate beate marie virginis & de eius moribus conversacione & de eius infancia ut infra in diversibus titulis & primo sequitur qualiter beata maria fuit concepta’ (Fig. 4).22 The text that follows is a long account of the life of the Virgin drawn from the Golden Legend and the apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew,23 from which many different episodes might have been selected for purposes of illustration, in addition to those cited in the rubric. But the first lines of the text are ‘Anna & Emeria fuerunt sorores. De Emeria nata est Elizabeth mater Johannis Baptiste. Anna vero tres habuit maritos viz. Joachim, Cleopham & Salome. De Joachim habuit Anna mariam matrem domini nostri ihu xpi.’24 These lines point to the specific aspect of the rubric that the instruction-writer would emphasize when he wrote the note, ‘Anna cum Maria & emeria.’ ln fact, the text itself was the primary source of a number of the marginal instructions, where the rubric was too brief, too uninformative, or, conversely, so long-winded that it presented too many choices for the writer. Usually the first lines of the text were chosen. The instruction ‘Salutacio,’ for example, was the response to the text of yet another section of the article on the Virgin Mary.25 The rubric identifies the author of the extract and the general subject: ‘Nunc sequitur videre de beata maria matre 21 MS 6 E VII, fol. 484v: ‘Of the manner of the Assumption of the blessed Mary and of the presence of the Apostles and how she was assumed in the body and in soul as various doctors confirm, and also the Holy Church has not determined the legitimacy of this belief.’ 22 MS 6 E VII, fol. 481: ‘Of the conception and birth of the blessed Virgin Mary and of her way of life and of her youth, as below in various sections, and first follows how the blessed Mary was conceived.’ 23 See J. da Voragine, Legenda aurea, ed. T. Graesse, Osnabrück, 1965, 585; Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (Liber de infantia), ed. C. Tischendorf, Evangelia apocrypha, 2nd ed., 1876. 24 Fol. 481: ‘Anna and Emeria were sisters. Emeria bore Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. Anna had three husbands, that is, Joachim, Cleophas and Salome. By Joachim Anna had Mary, mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ.’ 25 MS 6 E VII, fol. 487v.

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domini nostri iesu christi extracta de distinctionibus cestrie.’26 The opening lines of the text provided the particulars for the instruction-writer: ‘Maria beata mater iesu, ex fide commendatur. Quod enim omnes clerici mundi non probarent, una puella credidit. Si enim dixisset angelus quod virum cognoscendo conciperet, lene foret. Sed quod virgo conciperet difficilius erat.’27 This circuitous, allusive language was translated into the single-word title of a familiar image. Given that form, the illuminator would know what to do with just a glance. Similarly, the first subsection of the article on Maria is introduced by a rubric beginning, ‘De beata virgine maria & de eius vestimentis & eius ornatu . . .’ (Fig. 5).28 The rubric summarizes the opening lines of the text, ‘Maria virgo investitu deaurato circumdata varietate id est omnibus singulis variata.’29 Using the text, which explains ‘vestment,’ rather than just the title or rubric, the instruction-writer again provided a marginal direction, ‘Maria in/cum sole & luna sub pedibus,’ that describes the common image of the Apocalyptic Virgin, and this was what the artist painted. ln some cases, the instruction-writer had recourse to the text rather than the rubric alone in order to supply additional details to the artist. The directions (partly illegible) for the article on Nebuchadnezzar read: ‘Sit hic rex et arbor . . .’ (Fig. 6).30 These are surely based on the text lines, ‘Vidit Nabegodenosor in sompnio arborem in media terre pertingentem usque ad celum & sub ea habitabant animalia et bestie & in ramis volucres & ex ea

26 ‘Now following, we will see about the blessed Mary, mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ, extracted from the Distinctions of Chester.’ The term ‘Distinctions of Chester’ refers to an alphabetical series of interpretations of biblical nouns based on the work of the Fathers of the Church and medieval theologians, a series compiled by Ralph Higden of Chester (d. 1364). better known as the author of the Polychronicon. Unpublished; for manuscripts, see London, Lambeth Palace Lib. MS 23 and Worcester Cathedral Lib. MS F. 128. 27 ‘Mary, blessed mother of Jesus, is to be commended for her faith. What even all the clerics of the world could not prove, a maiden believed. If the angel had said that knowing a man, she would conceive, it would have been believed easily, but that a virgin should conceive, that would be most difficult.’ 28 MS 6 E VI, fol. 479: ‘Of the blessed Virgin Mary and of her vestments and her adornments . . .’ 29 ‘Mary Virgin, clothed in gold, wrapped in multicolored raiment, that is, of every color.’ 30 MS 6 E VII, fol. 489: ‘Let there be here a king and a tree . . .’

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vescebatur omnis caro.’31 This passage is not at the very beginning of the text but in the second paragraph. It was probably noticed by the instruction-writer because James le Palmer had provided it with a marginal title, ‘De sompnio Nabegodonosor,’ this in addition to the general title of the article. For the entry, Papa, the rubric begins ‘De papa & eius potestate’ (Fig. 7).32 The text spells out papal power in the first lines, ‘Papa sive prima sedes non potest ab aliquo iudicari neque enim ab augusto neque ab omni clero, ne que a regibus . . .’33 Rather than simply specifying ‘Papa’ as he had for the article Maioritas pape, the instruction-writer turned to this passage of the text, in particular the mention of reges and augustus, and wrote ‘rexpapa-imperator’ in the margin, elevating the word papa over the other two, and consequently giving a graphic as well as a verbal direction to the artist.34 Finally, a few of the marginal notes are verbal equivalents of pictorial formulas called up in the mind of the instruction-writer without specific help from title, rubric, or text. For example, for the article Mandata dei, which begins with the text of the Ten Commandments, the marginal direction is ‘Moyses super montem’ (Fig. 8);35 and for the article Mandata Xpi,36 whose text is from Johannes Chrysostom’s commentary on Christ’s teachings in Matthew, and whose rubric identifies Chrysostom as the author, the instruction is ‘Ihc predicans’ (Fig. 9). Moses receiving the tablets of the Law is a common subject for illustration of the Ten Commandments, and Christ preaching is its New Testament counterpart.37 As these cases reveal, the instruction-writer and the artist shared the same visual culture so that when ‘ln a dream Nebuchadnezzar saw a tree growing in the middle of the earth reaching up to Heaven and under it lived cattle and beasts and in its branches, birds, and all flesh did eat of it’ (quoted from the gloss on the Decretum, de penitencia, di. 1, c. quam obram, paraphrasing Daniel 4:10–17). 32 MS 6 E VII, fol. 493: ‘Of the pope and his power.’ 33 ‘The pope, that is, the prima sedes (first chair), cannot be judged by anyone, neither by an emperor, nor by any cleric, nor by kings’ (quoted from Decretum, c. ix, q. iii, c. xiii and xiv). 34 The artist, however, reversed the king and emperor by putting the emperor with his triple crown on the left and a king on the right, following the word order of the text. 35 MS 6 E VII, fol. 462v. 36 MS 6 E VII, fol. 464v. 37 As, for example, in the miniature of the Ten Commandments in the Somme le roi; see E. G. Millar, An Illuminated Manuscript of La Somme le Roy, Oxford, 1953, Pl. 1. For illustrations of Christ preaching (Matt. 5: 3, etc.), see the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham (as in n. 10), fols. 152v–176v et passim. 31

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the writer drafted his directions he was thinking in mental images that were very likely to have been shaped by the work of artists. But what of the artist? Once the role played by the instruction-writer of the Omne bonum in the process of creating the illustrations is determined, then the part played by the artist can be isolated more clearly. The extent of the artist’s contribution can be examined, for instance, in the illustration for the article on Ymagines (Fig. 10).38 ‘Fiant ymagines super altare’ is the marginal direction. The rubric and the text both refer to the use of images in the church: ‘De ymaginibus quare fuerunt institute & qualiter eciam sunt venerande & de materia ymaginum & que sit ymago dei sequitur videre infra’; ‘Ymaginum causa in ecclesia dei est perpetua ut in eis habeatur memoria dei & sanctorum, & ideo faciende & observande.’39 The words of the directions are not precise; influenced by the text, which discusses sacred images in general, the writer did not specify what the images should represent in particular. Since pictures of images above altars are far less common than pictures of such subjects as the Annunciation or the Assumption, or Moses and the Ten Commandments, it may be that the instruction-writer himself did not have a fully formed idea of what the illustrator should depict. His direction left much of the decision-making to the artist. The decisions made by the artist affected the components of the pictorial image as well as their arrangement. The letter shape of the initial Y serves as a frame beyond which an altar is shown. The ‘images above the altar’ that the artist decided to paint are the Virgin and Saint John flanking the crucified Christ. Their meaning is ambiguous. Do they represent a painted sculptural Crucifixion group, or are they meant to show the historical Virgin and Saint John adoring the real Christ, that is, the event, of which images serve as memorials, ‘in eis [ymagines] habeatur memoria dei’? What contributed to the artist’s interpretation of Ymagines? It could be that he considered the plural ‘ymagines’ of his instructions to refer to a multifigured image; or it could be that he read the text, which includes not only the passage quoted above but its reiteration, ‘Nam venerabiles ymagines

MS 6 E VII, fol. 531. ‘Of images, why they were instituted and how they are to be venerated, and on the subject of images and what is the image of God, see below’; ‘Images have an everlasting reason for being in the Church of God for in them we have the memorials (commemorations) of God and the saints, and so they are to be made and looked at’ (gloss on the Decretum, di. lxiii, c. xxviii). 38 39

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cristiani non deos appellant . . . sed ad memoriam & ad recordationem primitivorum venerantur eas & adorant.’40 The idea that artists stopped to read texts and designed images in accordance with them can seldom be tested. Even without evidence of written instructions directed at artists, the design of illustrations can usually be attributed to pictorial tradition, to figural or written notes now erased, cut off, or masked by completed pictures, or to directions given orally. Yet in the Omne bonum, several of the illustrations reveal that the written instructions were augmented from the artist’s own resources, which included the ability to read the text. The chief resource of the artist was of course his pictorial memory. This accounted for his ability to produce standard images on cue, without needing a pictorial model before him, as, for instance, in his representation of the Assumption (Fig. 3). Compressed to fit the initial frame, it shows two angels lifting the mandorla containing the standing Virgin directly from her sarcophagus,41 In a number of cases, however, the artist supplied additional details from his reservoir of mental images. Where the instruction-writer called for ‘Anna cum Maria & emeria,’ for example, the artist showed Anna teaching Mary to read, a motif familiar from scenes of the Education of the Virgin (Fig. 4).42 Where the instructions were for ‘Maria in/cum sole & luna sub pedibus,’43 the artist added a palm and a book in Mary’s hands, motifs reminiscent of the Assumption and the Annunciation (Fig. 5). His resulting conflated image contains elements of the Apocalyptic Woman, the Virgin Immaculate, the Assunta, and the Virgin Annunciate44 — in fact, an ideal illustration for the beginning of a comprehensive encyclopedia article on the subject of the Virgin. 40 ‘For Christians do not call holy images “God,” . . . but venerate and adore them in remembrance and recollection of their first causes’ (Decretum, De consec. di. iii, c. xxviii and xxviii). 41 MS 6 E VII, fol. 484v. Cf. the Litlyngton Missal. London, Westminster Abbey MS 37, fol. 263. 42 For a list, see C. Norton, D. Park, and P. Binski, Dominican Painting in East Anglia, The Thornham Parva Retable and the Musée de Cluny Frontal, Woodbridge, Suff., 1987, 51, n. 99. 43 MS 6 E VII, fol. 479: ‘Mary in/with the sun and the moon beneath her feet.’ 44 The mandorla of golden rays, the starry halo and the silver crescent moon are common attributes of the Woman (i.e., Virgin) of the Apocalypse and the Virgin Immaculate; the palm belongs to the iconography of the Death and Assumption of the Virgin; and the book to the Annunciation; for collected bibliography, see E. Guldan, Eva und Maria, Graz and Cologne, 1966, 333–340.

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Beyond the contribution of remembered images, it is likely that the Omne bonum artist also consulted the text itself, independent of the instruction-writer. It is possible that he did so in the case of the illustration for Ymagines; it is more certain in three further cases. First is the illustration at the beginning of Lex.45 The opening lines of the text were apparently the basis for the marginal instructions: ‘in lege antiqua habuit locum vindicta & pena tallionis .scilicet. oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente. Item in lege veteris testamenti, corporalis pena statuta est. Item in lege autem evangelii .scilicet. lege nova omnium peccanti per penitenciam venia promittitur. Unde lex antiqua a terrore incepit dicens Ego sum dominus deus zelotes visitans peccata patrum in filios usque in terciam & quartam generacionem.’46 The instruction-writer supplied the marginal direction, ‘Iudex cum famulis,’ ‘judge with servants’ (Fig. 11). The intended meaning of this note is not altogether clear. It might refer to the Old Testament dictum that the sins of the father will be visited upon the sons until the third or fourth generation (Exod. 20: 5). Apparently the instructions caused some difficulty for the artist too, because he did not follow them; instead of a judge in judicial robe — of which there are numerous examples in the Omne bonum — he painted a nobleman with a long peaked hat worn over an earcovering hood and dressed in a rich vair mantle over a short tunic with tight, buttoned sleeves. The man’s cross-legged pose is a symbol of power,47 but he seems rather to be commanding than judging the two boys before him, one of them armed with a silver sword. Although the meaning is still not certain, the motifs in the illustration appear to be related to each other logically, as if together they were intended to exemplify the Old Testament law of dynastic revenge. A second instance in which the artist disregarded the written instruc-

MS 6 E VII, fol. 434v. ‘In the Old Law retribution and punishment in kind, that is, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, had a place (held sway). Item, in the law of the Old Testament, corporal punishment was the rule. Item. in the law of the Gospels, that is, the New Law, sinners are assured forgiveness of everything through penitence. Consequently, the Old Law begins with terror, saying I am the Lord, a zealous God, visiting the sins of the father on the sons down to the third and fourth generations’ (quoted from Decretum, c. xxiii, q. iv, c. xv). 47 The cross-legged pose is common in late thirteenth-century representations of such figures as Alexander, David, and Solomon. See, for example, the Judgment of Solomon in the Windmill Psalter, New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. M.102, fol. 2; see M. Rickert, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages, Baltimore, 1954, Fig. 119. 45 46

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tions occurs in the illustration for Mandata pape (Fig. 12).48 Here the marginal direction ‘papa & servus,’ ‘pope and servant,’ is based on the title Mandata pape and the rubric, ‘Nunc sequitur videre de mandatis pape sive principis ut patet infra,’ as well as the text opening ‘Mandatis pape sive principis quando sit obediendum, distingue.’49 The short text that follows is concerned with circumstances under which rulings of either pope or prince are to be obeyed — or disobeyed. The term ‘obedience’ in the text seems to have been interpreted literally, as ‘servus,’ and the instruction-writer opted for obedience to papal orders, rather than those of a prince. The artist apparently thought otherwise. Without rejecting the writer’s ‘servus,’ he represented a young man kneeling, but before a prince crowned with a pearled chaplet and wearing a broad ermine collar — not before a pope. The third case of disagreement between instruction-writer and artist was not a difference in interpretation but a pictorial correction of a verbal error. The article in question is on Zacharias,50 the last entry in the Omne bonum (Figs. 13, 14). Each of the three sections has a historiated initial. The first rubric serves as a general introduction: ‘De zacharia quondam papa & eciam de zacharia quondam patre sancti Johannis Baptiste sequitur nunc videre infra’; the text begins ‘Zacharias quondam papa deposuit quendam Regem ffrancie, quia ille Rex inutilis erat & vilis vite, & pipino patri magni Karoli regnum ffrancie dedit.’51 The instruction-writer erroneously directed the artist to show a pope and a prophet, ‘Sit hic papa et propheta,’ but instead the artist showed a pope and a kneeling king — perhaps Pope Zacharias and King Pepin, or the hapless deposed ruler Childeric. Both the title and rubric of Section II of the article on Zacharias refer to ‘Zacharias pater Johannis baptiste.’ Quoting Luke 1, the text begins, ‘Zacharias sacerdos fuit in diebus herodis.’ Again the marginal instructions are manifestly incorrect: ‘Sit hic idem propheta,’ that is, the prophet MS 6 E VII, fol. 468. ‘Now following we will see about the rulings of a pope or a prince. as will be shown below.’ ‘The rulings of a pope or prince, when they are to be obeyed, explain.’ 50 MS 6 E VII, fol. 532: ‘Of Zacharias one-time pope and also of Zacharias one-time father of John the Baptist, now following we will see.’ 51 ‘Zacharias, one-time pope, deposed a certain king of France, because that king was incompetent and lived a worthless life, and gave the rule of France to Pepin, father of Charlemagne’ (Decretum, c. xv, q.vi, c.iii). On the concept of rex inutilis, see E. M. Peters, ‘Rex inutilis: Sancho II of Portugal and Thirteenth Century Deposition Theory,’ Studia Gratiana, XIV, 1967, 255–305, esp. 280–297; and the same author’s more comprehensive The Shadow King. Rex inutilis in Medieval Law and Literature, 751–1327, New Haven, 1970. 48 49

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referred to in the instruction for the illustration of the first section. The actual illustration shows, however, the white-bearded and black skullcapped father of John the Baptist praying at an altar, behind which an angel raises his hand in salutation. The pictorial image corresponds with the text: ‘Apparavit autem illi angelus domini stans a dextris altari incensi.’ The pictorial organization, in whieh the initial is superimposed on the figural grouping, and the components, in particular the prominent altar, are similar to those of the illustration for Ymagines, which may have provided the artist with a convenient model.52 The third section of the article on Zacharias is concerned with the Old Testament prophet of that name (rendered Zechariah in English translations of Scripture). It has both a rubric and a marginal title, the latter, ‘Zacharias propheta & de visione eius,’ pointing to the visionary text extracted from the Biblical source (Zach. 3). The instructions for the artist, ‘Sic hic etiam propheta,’ while not in conflict with the title or text, are wrong in calling for ‘yet another’ prophet, since this should be the first such figure among the illustrations of the article. Nor do the written directions completely account for the iconography of the illustration, which shows Zacharias seated, his head tilted up, as if experiencing the vision described in the text. The pose sometimes characterizes images of the prophet Ezekiel,53 just as the conventional format for pictures of Daniel includes a den of lions.54 Again the artist’s pictorial memory seems to have been switched on by the term ‘Zacharias propheta,’ that is, the phrase found in the title, the rubric, and the text, if not in the instructions themselves. lndeed, the instruction-writer depended on the artist to ‘read’ some aspect of the text in addition to his own directions, since he never specified which prophet was to be depicted. His instructions produced a representa-

52 Zacharias and the angel was illustrated in Petrus Comestor’s Historia scolastica and in the Bible historiale: see, for example, London, British Lib. MS Royal 3 D VI, the Ashridge Petrus Comestor of 1283–1300, fol. 234 (see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts [as in n. 8]. I, Fig. 6, II no. 2, pp. 14 f.). The subject is also included in James le Palmer’s copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham (as in n. 10), fol. 26v. 53 See, for example, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Auct. D. 3. 2, fol. 278, a late thirteenth-century Bible, in which Ezekiel looks up toward a vision of the four beasts above his head; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts (as in n. 8). II, no. 13. pp. 23 f. 54 For example, a fragmentary English Bible of c. 1360, Bloomington, Indiana Univ., Lilly Lib. MS. Ricketts 15 (formerly fol. 339); see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts (as in n. 8), I, Fig. 347, II, no. 132, pp. 146 f.

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tion of the prophet rather than his vision — an important distinction.55 But the writer did not need to name the prophet, he did not need to tell the artist what he could already read. It is clear that the artist of the Omne bonum, who was literate enough to read Latin instructions, was also literate enough to read the text adjacent to the initials he was to historiate, not as a matter of course, but when the marginal directions were inadequate in some way. However, this picture of the relationship between text, instruction-writer, and artist has some murky spots. The most perplexing question is raised by the Zacharias-Pepin illustration, where the artist rejected the directions calling for a pope and a prophet and followed the text instead. However, the image includes one surprising detail, not mentioned in the adjacent extract from the Decretum and its gloss: Pope Zacharias is represented as a saint, with a halo as well as a papal tiara. Zacharias is indeed a saint;56 he was called saintly in the Liber pontificalis;57 and as early as 767 was described as ‘sanctae recordationis,’ ‘of blessed memory.’58 But though the episode of his deposition of Childeric and elevation of Pepin was widely disseminated in the later Middle Ages, as, for example, in the Grandes Chroniques de France,59 Zacharias was seldom identified as a saint in these accounts,60 and he was venerated only at Saint Peter’s, where he is buried, and at the abbey of St.-Germain-des-Prés in Paris,61 Consequently, the verbal source for the Omne bonum halo motif — if there was one — remains obscure. How this obscurity is to be penetrated depends on the attitude of the contemporary viewer toward medieval artistic creative processes. One approach to the problem might be the hypothesis of intervention by 55 The fragmentary Chertsey Breviary (Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Latin liturg. d. 42, fol. 19) of c. 1320 illustrates the passages from Ezekiel that are read during the month of November with a miniature of Christ in Majesty surrounded by the Four Beasts (Ezekiel’s vision). rather than with an image of the prophet himself; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts (as in n. 8), II, n. 62, pp. 70 f. 56 For his life, see Acta SS, March, II, 400–405. 57 Liber pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, 2nd ed., Paris, 1955, I, 426–435. 58 In the Clausula de unctione Pippini (M.G.H., Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, I, 465). 59 Les Grandes Chroniques de France, ed. P. Paris, II, Paris, 1837, 41–42. This account is based on Einhard’s Annales (see Pat. lat., CIV, s.v. Eginhardus, col. 373, year 750). 60 While the Grandes Chroniques and Einhard’s Annales do not name Zacharias as a saint, he is called ‘beatus’ in the Annales Mettenses of the year 750 (MGH Script., I, 331). 61 According to the Acta SS. (as in n. 56), March, II, 400–405. He is, however, not in the calendar of St.-Germain (I am grateful to Dr. Patricia D. Stirnemann for checking this for me).

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another ‘expert,’ who gave a new set of oral rather than written instructions to the artist, instructions that included the prescription for a papal saint. These instructions would have been followed, but, being oral, would have left no visible trace, except, of course, for the picture itself. Or, alternatively, the artist himself might have sought the help of a knowledgeable individual when he realized that the written instructions made no sense. On balance, this hypothesis does not seem to correspond to the known circumstances of production of the later illustrations of the Omne bonum. They were, after all, only a stop-gap, intended to fill in a relatively small number of blanks at the end of a very extensive series of illustrations. Under these circumstances, once the initial instructions were written down as a guide to the artist, it seems unlikely that it was thought necessary to supervise him so closely that he would be told verbally precisely what details to include in a particular image. If the artist realized that his instructions were wrong, it was up to him to make painted corrections. An alternative hypothesis to explain the haloed Zacharias would attribute the critical decision-making to the artist. It is not likely that the artist had superior biographical knowledge about Pope Zacharias, but it seems possible that his pictorial memory bank included a variety of images pairing kings with papal saints. ln fact, manuscripts of the Grandes Chroniques and the Chroniques de St.-Denis sometimes contain comparable illustrations, not of Zacharias and Pepin, but of other haloed ecclesiastics and other rulers, Pope John I and the Byzantine emperor Justin I, for example (Fig. 15).62 So far, however, no such images of English origin have come to light. Another possibility is that the artist’s reading of the text went beyond the first line mentioning Zacharias and the deposed king of France. Quoting the gloss on the Decretum, the extract continues, ‘et secundum glosa ibidem papa imperatorem potest deponere ex rationabili causa, quia maior est eo.’63 It may be that the artist illustrated this general conception of ‘maioritas See the Chroniques de Saint-Denis, London, British Lib. MS Royal 16 G VI, fol. 22, Paris, c. 1335–40, showing ‘li apostoile Jehan sainz homs’ as a haloed bishop and the crowned emperor Justin; see G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, London, British Museum, 1921, II, 209–212. I am grateful to Professor Anne D. Hedeman for answering my queries about manuscripts of the Grandes Chroniques. 63 MS 6 E VII, fol. 532, ‘and according to this gloss, the pope can depose an emperor with reasonable cause, because he is greater’ (quoted from the gloss on Decretum, c. xv, q. vi, c. iii). 62

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2. Lex. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 438, detail (photo: British Library).

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1. Maioritas pape. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 452v, detail (photo: British Library).

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3. Maria. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 484v, detail (photo: British Library).

4. Maria. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 481, detail (photo: British Library).

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6. Nabegodonosor. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 489, detail (photo: British Library).

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5. Maria. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 479, detail (photo: British Library).

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8. Mandata dei. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 462v, detail (photo: British Library).

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7. Papa. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 493, detail (photo: British Library).

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10. Ymagines. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 531, detail (photo: British Library).

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9. Mandata christi. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 464, detail (photo: British Library).

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11. Lex. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 434v, detail (photo: British Library).

12. Mandata pape. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 468, detail (photo: British Library).

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14. Zacharias propheta. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 532, detail (photo: British Library).

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13. Zacharias papa and Zacharias pater Johannis Baptiste. London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 532, detail (photo: British Library).

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15. Pope John I and Emperor Justin I, Chroniques de St.-Denis, London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 16 G VI, fol. 22 (photo: British Library).

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16. Christ, Pope, and Emperor, Wymonduswold Decretum, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 3893, fol. 1 (photo: Bibliotheque Nationale).

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pape’ rather than its specific expression through Zacharias and Pepin or Childeric. Examination of the question of the just balance between Church and State or pope and emperor is fundamental to the first section of the Decretum, the Distinctiones.64 Illustrations for this part of the text, serving as a frontispiece for the whole book, sometimes show the balance between the two powers graphically, in the persons of Saint Peter — a haloed pope — and a secular ruler. ln some cases the pope holds a scroll inscribed ‘Rex ego sum regum. Lex est mea maxima legum. Te facio regem, tu rectam dilige legem,’ while the king holds a sword.65 ln others, Christ hands the haloed pope a key and the emperor a sword (Fig. 16).66 Sufficient pictorial examples exist to suggest that such an illustration might have come readily to the mind of the Omne bonum artist, more readily perhaps than an appropriate image to borrow for the representation of Pope Zacharias and the king of France. This explanation stresses even more than the previous one the interpretative role that medieval artists could play in illustration of texts, since it shows the artist reading beyond the title, rubric, or initial lines of the text, and selecting himself the passage to be illustrated. The instructions for the artist in the Omne bonum are unusual in several ways. First, the text itself is an autograph unicum, for which no traditional pictorial program existed, nor for that matter was there a pre-existing set of written instructions for the illustrations. Second, the various components of the text were drawn from unillustrated sources for the most part. Third, although the scribe, James le Palmer, himself was the compiler of the text, he did not compose the instructions for these particular illustrations, which were inserted posthumously into the encyclopedia. These circumstances offer an opportunity to investigate the interplay between written instruction, illustration, and text, stripped of the factors of tradition, either pictorial, instructional, or authorial. It emerges that writ64 See A. Melnikas, The Corpus of the Miniatures in the Manuscripts of Decretum Gratiani, Rome, 1975, I, 23–62. For a recent discussion of the subject, with extensive analytical bibliographies, see Piotr Skubiszewski, ‘Ecclesia, Christianitas, Regnum et Sacerdotium dans l’art des Xe–XIe siècles. Idées et structures des images,’ Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, XXVIII, 1985, 133–79. 65 ‘I am king of kings; my law is the greatest law. I make you king; you observe the just law.’ See Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz MS lat. fol. 1 and fol. 8; see Melnikas (as in n. 64). I, Pl. V and pp. 32 f. 66 E.g., the Wymonduswold Decretum (Paris, BibI. Nat. MS lat. 3893), Paris, 1314, fol. 1; see Melnikas (as in n. 64), I, Fig. 55, p. 55, and Avril and Stirnemann (as in n. 3). 138 f.

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ten instructions were not sacrosanct, that an artist permitted himself to evaluate them, follow them, modify them, and also reject them. At a remove from the original writing of the text, and from direct instruction by its scribe-author, and without a set of pictorial models to follow, the artist himself might become an interpretative reader. Certainly the written instructions — themselves responses to a unique text — were there to facilitate the production of illustrations. Where they were useful or usable, they were followed; where inadequate or wrong, the artist did what was needed to finish his job in creditable fashion. The case of the Omne bonum suggests that sweeping conclusions about the primacy of written instructions, and by inference about the directing role played by the authors of such instructions in the genesis of text illustrations, need to be modified to allow for a more active role on the part of manuscript illuminators.

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Appendix Notes for the Illuminator in the Omne bonum Fol. 434v Lex Rubric: Nunc sequitur videre de legibus per diversos doctores & primo per decreta & postea per alios. Text: Lex. ln lege antiqua habuit locum vindicta & pena tallionis, scilicet, oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente. Item in lege veteris testamenti, corporalis pena statuta est. Item in lege autem evangelii, scilicet lege nova, omni peccanti per penitenciam venia promittitur. Unde lex antiqua a terrore incepit dicens Ego sum dominus deus zelotes visitans peccata patrum in filios usque in terciam & quartam generacionem. Source: Decretum, c. xxiii, q. iv, c. xv. Marginal Note: Iudex cum famulis (bottom margin) Illustration: Nobleman (fur cape), wearing hat with long peaked brim over hood, commanding (cross-legged pose) two boys, one with sword. Fol. 438 Lex Rubric: Nunc sequitur videre de legibus per Hostiensem in summa. Text: Lex. In precepto Justiniani nichil debet inveniri spinosum ut in prohemio v. i b. Source: Hostiensis, Summa, Prohemion. Marginal Note: Sic hic est H . . . scribens (next to initial) Illustration: Seated scholar (black skullcap) at writing-desk, hands resting on open roll. Fol. 452v Maioritas pape Rubric: None. Cf. fol. 452, bottom: An papa sit maior imperatore in

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temporalibus, et quanta sit differentia inter ppapam & imperatorem quo ad maioritatem & quod papa habet utrumque gladium, notatur bene ex alia parte istius folii. Text: Maioritas. Dicit hostiensis in titulo qui filii sunt legitimi v. qualiter & a quo in summa sua sic. Marginal note: Papa (bottom margin) Illustration: Enthroned pope, gray-haired, with tiara and crosstopped staff, blessing. Fol. 462v Mandata dei Rubric: Nunc sequitur videre de mandatis dei quam bona sunt ad diligendum & observandum & eciam quam delectabilia sine quibus non est salus. Nec sunt aliqui qui pereunt nisi qui contempnunt mandata. De istis mandatis dicetur plene infra per diversos doctores, et magna erit merces eorum qui ea observabunt. deo gracias. Text: Mandata dei locutus est dominus cunctos sermones hos: Ego sum dominus deus tuus qui eduxi te de terra egipti de domo servitutis. Source: Exod. 20. Marginal Note: Moyses super montem (above initial) Illustration: Moses kneeling in prayer in rocky landscape, above, the Lord, holding tablets, emerges from clouds. Fol. 464v Mandata Christi Rubric: Nunc sequitur videre mandata christi minima per Johannem Crisostom in opere suo imperfecto omeliis undecima & duodecima & xiiia. Text: Mandata minima dei. Dictum est antiquis non occides. Marginal Note: Ihc predicans (bottom margin) Illustration: Christ stands in a pulpit preaching to a seated crowd. Fol. 468 Mandata pape Rubric: Nunc sequitur videre de mandatis pape sive principe ut patet infra. Text: Mandatis pape sive principis quando sit obediendum, distingue. Aut papa sive principes mandant contrarium iuri naturali, aut iuri positivo. Source: Guido de Baysio, Rosarium decreti, c. xxv, q. i (sic, ii), c. rescripta. Marginal Note: papa & servus (bottom margin)

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Illustration: A seated prince (crowned with pearled chaplet, wearing ermine-collared garment, holding silver staff ) gestures at a kneeling youth. Fol. 479 Maria Rubric: De beata virgine maria & de eius vestimentis & eius ornatu & de eius vote virginitatis & eius moribus & humilitate & de diversis materie ipsam contingens sequitur videre hic & infra in diversis titulis de diversis libris collectis in iure canonico & alibi. Text: Maria virgo investitu deaurato circumdata varietate id est omnibus singulis variata . . . Source: Guido de Baysio, Rosarium decreti, c. xxxii, q. v, c. si paulus, super verbo circumdata varietate. Marginal Note: Maria in/cum sole & luna sub pedibus (upper margin) Illustration: Virgin in starry halo, with palm in right hand and book in left, ‘clothed’ in mandorla of gold rays, stands on silver crescent moon. Fol. 481 Maria Rubric: De concepcione & nativitate beate marie virginis & de eius moribus conversacione, & de eius infancia ut infra in diversis titulis & primo sequitur qualiter beata maria fuit concepta. Text: Anna & Emeria fuerunt sorores. De Emeria nata est Elizabeth mater Johannis Baptiste. Anna vero tres habuit maritos videlicet Joachim, Cleopham & Salome. De Joachim habuit Anna, Mariam matrem domini nostri iesu christi . . . Source: J. da Voragine, Legenda aurea (8 December); Gospel of PseudoMatthew (Liber de infantia), chap. I. Marginal Note: Anna cum Maria & emeria (upper margin, above left column); Un autre a lautre part (upper margin, above right column). The reference to ‘another on the other part’ may be to the cognate leaf, fol. 484v, which contains the illustration of the Assumption (if the bifolium were opened up, the two illustrations would be seen together). Illustration: Emeria, wimpled, standing on left; on right, Saint Anne holding a book open for the young Virgin to read. Fol. 484v Maria Rubric: De modo assumpcionis beate marie & de presencia apostolorum & qualiter fuit assumpta in corpore, ut probant diversi doctores & in

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anima & similiter ecclesia pie hoc credit licet non determinavit. Text: Cum autem beata maria post recepcionem palme ab angelo vidisset omnes apostolos congregatos ut prius ab angelo desideravit, dominum benedixit & in medio eorum ardentibus lampadibus & lucernis consedit & cum multa cum apostolis loqueretur . . . Source: J. da Voragine, Legenda aurea (15 August). Marginal Note: assumpcio (bottom margin); reverte folium (bottom margin). The reference ‘go back a folio’ may be to fol. 479, which has a related illustration of the Virgin, or it may be to the cognate, fol. 481, which has the note, ‘un autre a lautre part.’ Illustration: Standing Virgin, hands clasped in prayer, in mandorla held by angels, lifted up to Heaven from sarcophagus (horizontal bands). Fol. 487v Maria Rubric: Nunc sequitur videre de beata maria matre domini nostri iesu christi extracta de distinctionibus cestrie. Text: Maria beata mater iesu, ex fide commendatur. Quod enim omnes clerici mundi non probarent, una puella credidit. Si enim dixisset angelus quod virum cognoscendo conciperet, lene foret. Sed quod virgo conciperet, difficilius erat. Source: Ralph Higden of Chester, Distinctiones, s.v. Maria. Marginal Note: Salutacio (bottom margin) Illustration: Annunciation. Fol. 489 Nabegodonosor Rubric: De nabegodenosor & de eius potestate & de eius superbia & de eius humiliacione & qualiter penituit & postea per penitenciam ad pristinum statum reductus. Text: Vidit Nabegodenosor in sompnio arborem in medio terre pertingentem usque ad celum & sub ea habitabant animalia et bestie & in ramis volucres & ex ea vescebatur omnis caro (at marginal title, ‘de sompnio Nabegodonosor’). Source: Decretum, gloss on De penitencia, di. 1, c. lxviii, ‘et hec historia similiter annotatur daniel iiiito. co.’ Marginal Note: Sit hic rex et arbor . . . (next to initial). Illustration: Sleeping king in bed, haloed figure flying down from clouds to calI attention to tree with birds in branches and a goat (?) and a cow on either side of the trunk.

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Fol. 490 Obediencia Rubric: De obediencia & cui sit obediendum & quando obediencia sit vera et in quibus obediencia consistit et quantum prodest. Text: Obediencia consistit in tribus, videlicet, In reverencia exhibenda, In mandato suscipiendo, et in iudicio subeeundo. Source: Decretum, gloss on di. xciii, c. i. Marginal Note: none visible. Illustration: Two Dominicans kneeling before a superior seated on an elevated stepped bench. Fol. 493 Papa Rubric: De papa & eius potestate. nec potest ab aliquo iudicari & de materia ista & que reservata sunt sedi apostolice & quam periculosum est loqui aliquod sinistrum de papa & de plenitudine eius potestate sequitur videre infra in diversis titulis & rubricis collectis de diversis libris. Text: Papa sive prima sedes non potest ab aliquo iudicari neque enim ab augusto, neque ab omni clero neque a regibus neque a populo. Source: Decretum, c. ix, q. iii, c. xiii & xiv. Marginal Note: rex-papa-imperator (upper margin) Illustration: Pope, haloed, seated on an elevated throne; on either side, groups of people kneeling: first on left, an emperor (elaborate crown), on right, a king. Fol. 500 Quadragesima Rubric: De quadragesima & de eius effectu et que prohibentur fieri in quadragesima & eciam de eius observacione & quid sit faciendum in ea. Text: Quadragesima summa observancie est observanda ut ieiunium preter dies dominicos, qui de abstinencia subtracti sunt. Source: Decretum, De consecratio, di. v, c. quadragesima. Marginal Note: illegible (next to initial) Illustration: Seated priest, holding a silver disc in right hand, places left hand on head of a youth kneeling before him. Possibly a reference to almsgiving, confession, and penitence that take place during Lent. Fol. 502 Ratio Rubric: De racione & quando Racio reddenda est de aliqua re interrogata & quando non.

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Text: Racionem in omnibus & ad omnia interrogata reddere & respondere, non semper oportet, Quia in divinis non oportet racionem reddende quia occulta sunt, et hoc verum est de racione in speciali. Source: Guido de Baysio, Rosarium decreti, on c. xxiii, q. iii, c. nabegodonosor, super verbo racionem. Marginal Note: illegible next to initial Illustration: God the Father seated, holding the crucified Son (related to the Gnadenstuhl Trinity). The reason for the subject is unclear, especially in the absence of the marginal note. Cf. the early fourteenth-century Psalter of Robert de Lisle, London, British Lib. MS Arun. 83II, fol. 126, a diagrammatic wheel of the twelve attributes of human existence whose spokes contain alternating questions and answers (‘raciones’) about the stages of life. At the center is a bust of the Deity inscribed ‘Sancta Trinitas: Omnia dispono; crea singula cunctaque dono,’ and heading the list of questions is the title, ‘Hic racio loquitur homini sic ut videatur quid sit, quid fuerit, quid que futurus erit.’ See L. E Sandler, The Psalter of Robert de Lisle in the British Library, London and New York, 1983, 38, 124, Pl. 3. Fol. 514 Tabelliones Rubric: De tabellionibus & eorum potestate et quis posset tabelliones facere etc. Text: Tabelliones quis posset facere. Source: Innocent IV, apparatus on Decretals, 2.22, c. 15. Marginal Note: Sit hic . . . (illegible next to initial) Illustration: Scribe seated at desk, writing a document. Fol. 516 Vana gloria Rubric: De vana gloria & quam periculosa sit, quia omnia alia mala proveniunt ex malo, sola vana gloria provenit ex bono ut hic. Text: Vana gloria scilicet vicium vane glorie primum omnibus viciis carnalibus periculosius est in hominibus. Source: Johannes Chrysostom, Opus imperfectum, Homily XIII on Matt. 6: 1–4. Marginal Note: Sit hic . . . (illegible next to initial) Illustration: An open treasure chest, with a fashionably dressed woman and man holding lid and showing off the gold and silver.

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Fol. 526v Xpus non mendicavit Rubric: Christus non mendicavit sed habuit proprium & bona temporalia & semper in hac vita tamquam homo vixit sine mendicitate, quia Rex fuit & tanquam homo habuit ius & dominium in rebus temporalibus; et qui dicit assertive ipsum mendicasse hereticus est. Text: Christus Rex fuit quia natus fuit de virgine maria rex iudeorum. Mat. iii, ubi qui natus est Rex iudeorum. Source: Unidentified, precedes extracts from an anti-Mendicant treatise by Jean d’Anneux. See P. R. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature, Princeton, 1986, 87–93, and App. B. Marginal Note: Sedeat christus . . . (illegible next to initial) Illustration: Enthroned Christ, seated against letter X, wearing regal mantle with ermine capelet, crowned, with cruciform halo, holds scepter in right hand and left against chest. Fol. 528v Xpc non mendicavit Rubric: Nunc sequitur videre obiecciones fratrum contra magistrum Ricardum fitzraufum de mendicitate christi & responsiones ad eosdem ut infra. Text: Contra primum articulum quod Christus numquam spontanee mendicavit . . . Source: Richard Fitzralph, Obiecciones et responsiones circa mendicitatem Christi. See Szittya (as above, fol. 526v), 131 and App. B. Marginal Note: . . . disputans cum fratribus (partly iIlegible in bottom margin) Illustration: Scholar in black skullcap (i.e., Fitzralph), wearing fur-lined capelet on sleeved garment, leaning against tall lectem, gestures (responds) to a group of Dominican and Carmelite friars (not Franciscans, historically the principal opponents of Fitzralph). Cf. the frontispiece of the fourteenth-century copy of Fitzralph’s treatise, De Pauperie Salvatoris, from Norwich Cathedral Priory (Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll. MS 180, fol. 1); see K. Walsh, A FourteenthCentury Scholar and Primate: Richard Fitzralph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh, Oxford, 1981, frontispiece.

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Fol. 531 Ymagines Rubric: De ymaginibus quare fuerunt institute & qualiter eciam sunt venerande & de materia ymaginum & que sit ymago dei sequitur videre infra. Text: Ymaginum causa in ecclesia dei est perpetua, ut in eis habeatur memoria dei & sanctorum, & ideo faciende & observande. Source: Decretum, gloss on di. lxiii, c. xxviii. Marginal Note: Fiant ymagines super altare (next to initial) Illustration: Behind an altar, the Virgin and Saint John flanking the crucified Christ. Fol. 532 Zacharias (1) Rubric: De zacharia quondam papa & eciam de zacharia quondam patre sancti Johannis Baptiste sequitur nunc videre infra. Text: Zacharias quondam ppapa deposuit quendam Regem ffrancie, quia iIle Rex inutilis erat & vilis vite, et pipino patri magni karoli regnum ffrancie dedit. Source: Decretum, c. xv, q. vi, c. iii. Marginal Note: Sit hic papa et propheta (next to initial) Illustration: Haloed pope (triple tiara and cross-topped staff ) gestures toward kneeling king. (2) Rubric: De zacharia patre sancti Johannis Baptiste Text: Zacharias sacerdos fuit in diebus herodis. Source: Luke 1. Marginal Note: Sit hic idem propheta (next to initial) Illustration: White-bearded, black skullcapped Zacharias praying at altar, addressed by an angel with a censer. (3) Rubric: De zacharia propheta, vide. Text: Zacharias propheta dixit, ostendit mihi dominus exercituum sacerdotem magnum iesum stantem coram angelo domini, & sathan dextris eius, ut adversaretur ei. Source: Zach. 3: 1 Marginal Title: Zacharias propheta & de visione eius Marginal Note: Sit hic etiam propheta. Illustration: Yellow-bearded man in black skullcap, seated, head tilted upward.

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Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio in an English Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century

T

HE Omne bonum, the subject of this study,1 is the autograph manuscript of an important general encyclopedia compiled in London between 1360 and 1375 by James le Palmer, Treasurer’s Scribe in the Exchequer of Edward III.2 The name of the work was given to it by its compiler, James, who wrote in his preface: ‘Since virtually all good things are in one way or another contained herein, I thought it fitting to name this little work Omne bonum — all good things.’3 The manuscript is now Royal 6.E. VI and 6.E.VII in the British Library. A unicum, the Omne bonum was never copied, and indeed, it was never finished. Over the last few years, I have succeeded in identifying the compiler as James le Palmer, and in determining the place of origin, circumstances of production, and precise date of the work.4

1 This essay was written with the generous support of a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The title is derived from M. B. Parkes’s article, ‘The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book,’ in J. J. G. Alexander and M. T Gibson, eds., Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt (Oxford 1976), pp. 115–41, whose importance for my thinking about the Omne bonum I acknowledge with gratitude. 2 Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285–1385 (London 1986), no. 124, esp. p. 138. Hereafter Vol. 2 (text) will be cited as Sandler, with catalogue number. See also Penn R. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature (Princeton 1986), passim, esp. 67–81 on James’s antagonism to the Franciscan Order as expressed in the Omne bonum. 3 BL Royal 6.E.VI, f. 18v: ‘Quia . . . omnia bona quasi in eo quodammodo continentur, presens opusculum omne bonum duxi non inmerito nominandum . . .’ 4 See note 2; in addition, see Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent,’ Art Bulletin 66 (1984) 488–91; idem, ‘Face to Face with God: A Pictorial Image of the Beatific Vision’ in W. M. Ormrod, ed., England in the

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The Omne bonum is an elephantine work of nearly 1,100 folios, now divided into two volumes measuring 450 x 312 mm., each in turn bound in two parts. The dimensions are so large that each bifolium must have been cut from a single parchment skin. The text, written in two columns varying from 50 to 75 lines, contains, by my rough count, about 1,700,000 words. Many hundreds of articles are included, ranging in length from a line or two to twenty or more folios; of these, hundreds again are accompanied by text illustrations in the form of historiated initials in full color on burnished gold grounds; additionally, at the beginning of the first volume there is an exceptionally long series of 109 tinted drawings of Old and New Testament subjects — an entire Bible in pictures. According to the preface, the text of the Omne bonum was drawn from 115 sources, listed either by name of author or by title. Some of the sources were incorporated in entirety, many were quoted in long sections, and many others were extracted line by line, the short passages being dispersed throughout the work under appropriate subject headings. The sources are also identified in the text, either in rubrics at the beginning of an extract, or in citations at the end, and cross-references direct the reader from one article to another. The Omne bonum was originally called an encyclopedia by G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson in their 1921 catalogue of the Royal manuscripts in the British Museum.5 However, as elephantine as it is, it is comprehensive only in the field of canon law, and much more selective in other areas of medieval knowledge. It is an asymmetrical work in spite of James le Palmer’s claims of including ‘omne bonum.’ Perhaps sixty percent of the text is drawn from canon law sources such as the Decretum and the Decretals, together with their glosses and various legal handbooks and commentaries — the Martiniana, the Rosarium, the Summa of Hostiensis, and the Summa summarum.6 The next largest category is natural history, chiefly from Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium (Woodbridge, Suffolk 1986), pp. 22–35; idem, ‘Notes for the Illuminator: The Case of the Omne Bonum,’ Art Bulletin 71 (1989) 551–64. I am completing a monograph on the Omne bonum, to be published in 1991. 5 G. E Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections (4 vols. London 1921) I, 157–59. 6 For (1) the Decretum and the Decretals, see E. Freideberg, ed., Corpus iuris canonici (2 vols. reprint Graz 1959); no modern edition of the standard glosses exists (I used a threevolume Lyon 1606 edition of the Corpus iuris canonici, which contains text and gloss). (2) Martiniana: Tabula Martiniana or Margarita decreti et decretales of Martinus Polonus

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Bartholomeus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum,7 then theological and moral exposition, primarily from the Manipulus florum,8 with Biblical narrative and hagiography coming in last. Like encyclopedias before and since, James’s was a work of compilation. He functioned as an editor, cutting and pasting together extracts from the writing of the chief authorities in a large range of topics and organizing the material in an orderly fashion. Along with his renowned predecessor, Vincent of Beauvais, James too could have said, ‘of my own words, few, for, indeed, I have added almost nothing; theirs [that is, others] is the “auctoritate,” [the quoteworthy text] ours is only the “ordinatione” [the ordering of the pans].’9 However, James le Palmer’s idea of ‘ordinatio’ differed fundamentally from that of Vincent of Beauvais. Although the primary contents are legal, to my knowledge the Omne bonum is the first general encyclopedia in which learning from multiple and diverse fields is organized not topically and hierarchically as in Vincent’s Speculum maius, but in a single alphabet(d. 1279), an alphabetical index of legal topics, not printed but existing in numerous manuscript copies, among which BL Royal 10.C.XI; cf. J. E Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart (2 vols. reprint Graz 1956) II, 137–38. (3) Rosarium decreti: a commentary on the Decretum by Guido de Baysio (c. 1300), printed Strasbourg 1472, etc. (I used BL Royal 9.F.VII); see Schulte II, 187–88. (4) Hostiensis: Henricus de Bartholomaeis de Segusia, Cardinal of Ostia, Summa super titulis decretalium (1250–61), a commentary on the Decretals, printed Rome 1473 etc. (I used BL Royal 10.D.IV); see Schulte II, 125–27. (5) Summa summarum: a commentary on the Corpus iuris canonici by William of Pagula (c. 1314), not printed (I used BL Royal 10.D.X); see L. Boyle, ‘The “Summa summarum” and Some Other English Works of Canon Law,’ in Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, series C: Subsidia 1 (Vatican City 1965), pp. 415–56. 7 Bartholomeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum: a natural hisrory encyclopedia composed in Paris, Oxford, or Magdeburg c. 1240 by Bartholomeus de Glanvilla, an English Franciscan, printed Strasbourg 1470, etc. and widely circulated in manuscript (I used BL Sloane 471); see P. T. Pressman, ‘Bartholomaeus Anglicus,’ Archivum Franciscanum historicum 12 (1919) 68–109. 8 Manipulus florum: an alphabetical compendium of quotations from the Fathers of the Church and others, compiled in 1306 by Thomas of Ireland, a secular cleric at the Sorbonne, printed Piacenza 1483, etc. (I used BL Add. 24129); see R. H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland (Toronto 1979). 9 ‘Nam ex meo pauca, vel quasi nulla addidi. Ipsorum igitur est auctoritate, nostrum autem sola partium ordinatione.’ Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum maius, prologue, chap. iv, quoted from Parkes, ‘Ordinatio and Compilatio’ (note 1 above), p. 128.

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1. BL Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 518 (reduced).

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2. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 209 (detail), kalendarium.

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3. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 211 (detail), (Guides to the reader are shown here reversed as white on black).

355

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ical sequence. In the use of alphabetical order as an organizing principle, the Omne bonum is a landmark in the history of the general encyclopedia. James was certainly not the first to use alphabetical order per se; indeed, some of his most important sources were themselves alphabetically arranged,10 and James’s own use of the alphabetical technique was quite rudimentary, usually not proceeding beyond the first two letters of a given word. Nevertheless, his seems to be the first surviving example of the application of the alphabetical principle to the heterogeneous contents of an entire encyclopedia (Fig. 1). The Omne bonum is of interest to art historians because of its lavish use of illustrations; it is of interest to students of the history of tools of learning because of its alphabetical organization and use of cross-references; it has considerable codicological interest because of its elaborate physical layout; and it is of broad historical interest because it maps out ‘omne bonum’ in the world of the fourteenth century, from the point of view of a particular individual. Unlike many late medieval manuscripts designed from the outset for easy reproduction, or themselves results of the application of a rigorous codicological system, the Omne bonum demonstrates a flexible and reciprocal relation between the text and the physical format, a relation controlled and adjusted by the scribe-compiler himself, and affected by his own purposes and training. In this paper, I am going to consider the triangle of relationships formed first, by the text of the Omne bonum as an alphabetical compilation; second, the physical features of page format and text articulation; and third, the autograph nature of the project. My emphasis will be on the physical side, and in the end, I hope by reconstructing the convoluted history of the compilation of the Omne bonum to have gained access to the creative and intellectual processes of a particular individual living in the later fourteenth century. Because of its projected length, the Omne bonum was intended to be divided into three volumes. James speaks in his preface of ‘this volume and the two following.’11 Yet the division points between one volume and the next are not easy to determine, nor is the present division of the whole in

10 For example, the Martiniana, the De proprietatibus rerum (in part), and the Manipulus florum (notes 6–8 above). 11 Royal 6.E.VI, f. 18v: ‘Hic incipit prohemium huius voluminis cum duobus sequentibus.’

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two volumes and four parts — which dates from the sixteenth century12 — of any help. However, at least the original limits of Volume I can be established with the aid of the cross-references, which frequently specify a particular volume. For example, under Futura we find, ‘This material is touched on further above, in the first volume, under ars, under constellacio, and under divinaccio, and likewise hereafter in the third volume, under sortilegus.’13 From such cross-references we can tell that words beginning with A to D were in the first volume and that the second volume was to begin with the letter E and go at least as far as M. But the first letter referred to specifically as in Volume III is R: ‘The generosity of the king and the manner of giving largesse is discussed below under rex, that is, in the third volume.’14 So the third volume would have begun with a letter between N and R. Whichever letter it was, the distribution of the alphabet among the three volumes would have been unequal: Volume I would have contained four letters, Volume II at least eight, and Volume III could have had as many as eleven. Was this unequal distribution a sign of the compiler’s acceptance of the inevitable — since he had amassed much more material for the earlier letters of the alphabet than for the later, the bulk had to be ordered by ‘weight’ rather than by simple numerical division?15 Probably; and in any case it is clear from the multitude of cross-references to entries that do not exist and from the decreasing number of entries from the letter E onwards — between N and Z, there is only one entry for each letter — that James le Palmer’s great alphabetical project was never carried to completion. The preface to the Omne bonum, which gives the first indication of the three-volume plan, in all likelihood was not written prior to the rest of 12 Both Royal 6.E.VI and Royal 6.E.VII have the sixteenth-century monogram ‘TC’ on their first folios; the two volumes were divided into four when the manuscript was rebound in 1963. Hereafter they will be referred to in the notes as R1 (Royal 6.E.VI) and R2 (Royal 6.E.VII). 13 R2, f. 175: ‘De ista materia tangitur plus supra in prima volumine ubi ponitur artes, et ubi ponitur constellacio & ubi ponitur divinacio & dicetur similiter infra in tercio volumine ubi agitur de sortilegis.’ 14 R2, f. 410, Largus: ‘De largitate Regis & de modo dandi dicetur infra ubi agitur de Rege videlicet in tercio volumine.’ 15 The unequal division of multi-volume alphabetical works was not unique. In the late fourteenth century, William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, owned a three-volume dictionary in which A–E were in vol. i, F–O in vol. ii, and P–Z in vol. iii; see M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge 1903), pp. 159, 498.

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the encyclopedia, but afterwards. Like a modern preface, it summarizes and explains what has been done, and acknowledges the authorities already consulted. However, since James’s project was never actually finished, the preface could only have been written at an intermediate point in the work, not at the conclusion. This point was probably the end of the first volume. The phrase ‘this volume and the two following’ seems to suggest a qualitative difference between the first, as a unit, and the next two, as a pair. And in fact, some of the authorities extracted in entries from E through Z were not listed in the preface, suggesting that they might not have come to the attention of the compiler until after the preface and the text of Volume I had been written.16 In addition to alphabetical order and division into volumes, the text of the Omne bonum is articulated by a number of other devices, chief among them cross-references; kalendaria for each liber, that is, for each letter of the alphabet; index letters and marginal titles; and in-text titles or rubrics. First, about three hundred entries are supplied with cross-references. Crossreferences are the concomitant of alphabetical order. They reconstitute a topical or thematic arrangement of the wide-ranging contents of an alphabetical encyclopedia, just as an index makes accessible in a neutral, impartial way the contents of a topically arranged compendium. In the Omne bonum cross-references serve several purposes. One type points to another entry where similar or even identical material can be found, simply under a different heading. For example, Constellacio concludes with a reference to Sortilegus, Divinaccio, Ars, and Magistri,17 and Divinaccio ends with a reference to Constellacio, Ars, and Sortilegus.18 Other cross-references serve as critical notes. James commented on the type, For example, the Distinctiones Cestrie, extracted for Laus, R2, f. 408v, etc. and the Septuplum, extracted for Malicia, R2, f. 458v, etc. The Distinctiones Cestrie, an alphabetical collection of Biblical distinctions, takes its name from Ralph Higden of Chester (d. 1364), better known as the author of the Polychronicon; not printed, surviving in few manuscript copies, e.g., London, Lambeth Pal. Libr. 23 and Worcester Cathedral F.128; cf. T. Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica: sive de Scriptoribus qui in Anglia, Scotia, et Hibernia ad saeculi xvii initium floruerunt . . . (London 1748), p. 403. The Septuplum (1346) is a treatise on the seven deadly sins by John of Acton; not printed; for manuscripts see Morton W. Bloomfield, et al., Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100–1500 A.D. (Cambridge, Mass. 1979), no. 5892; also Boyle, ‘The “Summa summarum” ’ (note 6 above), p. 418. 17 Rl, f. 397v. 18 Rl, f. 536. 16

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amount, or quality of material to be found under the cross-reference. In the margin adjacent to Compaternitas, for instance, is the note ‘On this material see more and fuller above, under spiritual kinship.’19 A third category of cross-reference serves a bibliographical function, pointing to written sources beyond the contents of the Omne bonum. For example, Absolutio ends with a reference to the gloss on the Decretum,20 the entry on Epiphania refers the reader to the Legenda sanctorum,21 and the article on Emphiteosesis (a form of land tenure) refers to the Speculum iudiciale ‘under the titulus on the law of emphiteosesis where 174 questions on this material are discussed.’22 Other searching tools in the Omne bonum help the reader to find out whether a particular subject is treated in the first place, and orient the reader, either within the entries under a single letter or within a single entry. Among these signposts is the kalendarium at the head of the letters A to D (Fig. 2). Each kalendarium lists in numbered alphabetical order (using roman numerals) the entries under the particular letter so that the user can see at a glance whether a topic is included. The kalendaria were intended to be part of the final shaping of each volume, a process that was to be undertaken after the limits of each volume had been determined.23 In view of the incomplete state of the encyclopedia, the absence of kalendaria for the letters after D is no surprise. Within each alphabetical book James planned to place an index letter — the medieval ancestor of the thumb index — on the upper right corner of every recto. The practice was not carried out beyond the first gathering or so of each letter, and was employed with particular care only in the first 19 Rl, f. 340: ‘De hac materia habes melius supra ubi agitur de affinitate & ubi agitur de cognacione spirituali & infra ubi agitur de consanguinitate.’ 20 Rl, f. 19: ‘Quando quis potest absolvi plene a peccaro & ab omni pena alterius vite vide plene de pe di. 1. co mensuram in glosa & infra in litera P super verbo penitencie arbitrare & ibi vide plene.’ 21 R2, f. 63: ‘De ista materia tangitur in legenda sancrorum ubi agitur de fesro epiphanie.’ 22 Speculum iudiciale: a reference book on legal procedures written between 1287 and 1296 by Gulielmus Durandus (or Durantis), Bishop of Mende, called ‘Speculator,’ printed Strasbourg 1473, etc. (I used Cambridge, Gonville and Caius Coll. 242); see Schulte II (note 6 above), pp. 144–52. R2, f. 54: ‘De ista materia emphyteosesis si vis plenius videre, vide plenissime per speculatorem in titulo suo de iure emphiteotico & ibidem annotantur clxxiiii questiones de ista materia.’ 23 The kalendarium for A (ff. 17–17v) precedes the preface (f. 18v) in the same gathering, suggesting that the two were written at the same time.

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parts of letters A to D. In addition, however, throughout the Omne bonum at the top of each page is an index word or words, referring to the topics discussed in the text below, the counterpart of running heads in continuous texts. Linked to these index words are marginal titles and in-text titles or rubrics. The fullest, most complete use of the system is found in the first gatherings of entries under each letter from A to D. The letter C, for example, begins with an entry for Caritas (Fig. 3).24 The title, ‘Caritas,’ is centered in the upper margin. A marginal roman numeral and a marginal subtitle or summary as well as a rubric are provided for each subdivision of the entry, viz., ‘I’ (marginal numeral), ‘Descripcio caritatis’ (marginal subtitle), ‘Charity, what it is and how it is described . . .’ (rubric). The same pattern is followed in all nine subdivisions of the topic. The rubrics themselves vary in the quantity and kind of information they provide, as well as in their physical format. The most elaborate and detailed tend to be written across the full measure of the text column. They name the topic, give some hint of the range of contents, the method or conclusions, and refer to the main and subsidiary sources. Femine, for example, has the following rubrics: (1) ‘Now following we will see about women and their conditions, and which are good and which are bad according to various sources and first the Decretum and Decretals and after according to other doctors, as below’; (2) ‘Now following we will see about women according to Bartholomeus, De proprietatibus rerum, book 18, chap. 47’; (3) ‘Item, on the characteristics of the female sex Aristotle speaks in the Secreta secretorum, chap. 67, in this manner’; and (4) ‘Now following we will see about women in general according to the Decretum.’25 The rubrics were all composed by James. They may be said to demonstrate a characteristic style, not found in comparable books either alphabetical or topical, whose rubrics are simply titles in the accusative case. The idiosyncratic aspect of the Omne bonum rubrics is the wordy locution, ‘Nunc sequitur videre,’ ‘Now following we will see.’ Similar rubric forms occur consistently in James’s autograph copy of the set text of William of RI, f. 211. R2, ff. 114–17v: (1) ‘Nunc sequitur videre de feminis & earum condicionibus & que sunt bone & que sunt male per diversos & primo per decreta & decretalia & postea per alios doctores ut infra’; (2) ‘Nunc sequitur videre de feminis per Bartholomeus de proprietatibus rerum libro xviiio co xlviio’; (3) ‘Item de proprietatibus femini sexus, loquitur aristoteles in libro de secretis capitulo lxvii sic’; (4) ‘Nunc sequitur videre de feminis in genere per decreta.’ 24 25

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Nottingham’s early-fourteenth-century Gospel Commentary, now in the Bodleian Library.26 Preceding the commentary on Matthew 27, for example, we find, ‘Now following we will see the exposition of the preceding Gospel by various commentators as will be shown fully below, et cetera,’ a rubric that also includes the phrase, ‘ut patebit plene inferius,’ ‘as will be shown fully below,’27 another of James’s favorites, which he used frequently in his cross-references. Other surviving copies of William of Nottingham’s Commentary have no rubrics, and the Gospels passages, which precede the commentaries, are simply underlined in red, and identified at the end.28 A still stronger expression of James le Palmer’s individuality is found in the prolific marginal annotations of the Omne bonum. In these, James rose to the level of commentator, the third in Sr. Bonaventura’s hierarchy of scribe, compiler, commentator, and author: ‘One who writes both the words of others and his own [aliena et sua], but principally those of others, his own being added as “proofs,” and this is called a commentator.’29 The marginal notes in fact are very much ‘sua.’ They evaluate the text in words addressed to the reader, and sometimes to specific classes of readers, or even to particular individuals. Many of the notes were written at the same time as the rubrics, the paragraph markers, and the marginal titles, subtitles, and summaries. Some evaluate the text qualitatively: ‘Note here a good question;’30 some comment approvingly or disapprovingly on the subject of the entry, for example, ‘Note how serious it is to play dice for it is a mortal sin and results in nine evils’ (Alea),31 or despairingly, ‘Note here hard and truly difficult words to understand about seraphin’ (in the article on Angeli).32 Finally, there are marginal notes that address the reader directly. A numLaud Misc. 165. See Sandler, no. 125. Laud Misc. 165, f. 532: ‘Nunc sequitur videre exposicionem evangelii predicti per diversos expositores ut patebit plene inferius et cetera.’ 28 See Beryl Smalley, ‘Which William of Nottingham?’ Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1954) 200–239. 29 ‘Aliquis scribit et aliena et sua, sed aliena tamquam principalia, et sua tamquam annexa ad evidentiam; et iste dicitur commentator non auctor’: Bonaventura, In primum librum sententiarum, proem, quaest. iv, quoted from Parkes, ‘Ordinatio and Compilatio’ (note 1 above), p. 128. 30 Rl, f. 43v: Actiones: ‘Nota hic bonam questionem.’ 31 R1, f. 73: ‘Nota quam grave sit ludere sic ad aleas quia est peccatum mortale, & eciam novem mala inde proveniunt.’ 32 R1, f. 92: ‘Nota hic verba dura & valde difficilia ad intelligendum de seraphin.’ 26 27

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ber provide evidence for the date and origin of the Omne bonum, since they address by name fellow officers in the Exchequer (Fig. 4): ‘Note here that hunting is forbidden to clerks and this goes against W de Hanley’ (Clericus venator).33 Often they are marked by a moralizing tone, for example, ‘Note you mendicant friar-sycophants, daily consorting with women, how gravely you sin by such scandalous behavior’ (Adulacio).34 This is the true voice of James, which emerges also in his annotations of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham. There we find such comments as, ‘Note against curates who delight in fine and showy garments’ (adjacent to the commentary on the Baptism of Christ in John 1).35 Still more personal than the verbal annotations are James’s marginal notes in figural form. Many are pointing fingers drawn in red or brown ink, either with or without linear prolongations serving as brackets for the text singled out. Devices of this kind — manicules — are commonplaces of medieval academic texts. But in the Omne bonum animated markers are much more elaborate than usual, taking the form of complex and sometimes hybrid creatures with profile heads, bulging chests, legs, and feet. They often point to verbal notes, and their details, especially their heads and headgear, are occasionally varied as appropriate to the written marginal text (Fig. 5). For example, in Expositus36 the descenders of letters at the bottom of the page are transformed into cradles or shelters for the heads of exposed, that is, abandoned infants (Fig. 6). In many cases, the text of an entire page is emphasized by a continuous series of marginal heads or entire figures, for instance, in Cupiditas in conjunction with the words, ‘Note the many evils that come from cupidity’ (Fig. 7).37 Here, again James’s copy of William of Nottingham provides numerous examples of equally imaginaR1, f. 303v: ‘Nota hic que venacio est clericis interdicta & hoc facit contra W de hanleye.’ William de Hanley (or Hauley) held the office of King’s Remembrancer in the Exchequer from 1362 to his death c. 1383; see Dorothy M. Broome, ‘The Exchequer in the Reign of Edward III, 1327–1377: A Preliminary Investigation,’ unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Manchester 1922), Appendix, p. xxxv, and London, Lambeth Pal. Libr., Register of Archbishop Courtenay, cf. Index of Wills Recorded in the Archiepiscopal Registers at Lambeth Palace (London 1919), p. 31. 34 R1, f. 50v: ‘Notate vos fratres mendicantes adulatores cotidie conversantes cum mulieribus quam graviter peccatis scandalizando.’ 35 Bodl., Laud Misc. 165, f. 80v: ‘Nota contra curiales qui delectantur in vestimentis delicatis sive speciosis.’ 36 R2, f. 104v. 37 R1, f. 450: ‘Nota mala plurima que proveniunt ex cupiditate.’ 33

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tive figural notes, among them, a highly spotted leper pointing a spotty finger at the marginal commentary on the text of Luke 17 (Fig. 8).38 Within each text unit of the Omne bonum several conventional forms of articulation are found: punctuation and capitalization are less prominent and certainly less consistent than red paragraph markers, which serve as the chief organizers of text units. In those text units which are composed as anthologies of extracts from diverse places in one or more sources, as in many canon law entries, paragraph markers separate one extract from the next. The sources of extracts are given in the highly contracted forms that had been developed during the thirteenth century for citation purposes; the source is named at the end of the passage, the citation introduced by a phrase such as ‘this preceding is noted by . . .’39 Source references also occur at the beginning of text passages, in the form ‘Hostiensis says . . .’ followed by a specific citation. In some cases, Biblical texts, or other texts quoted for subsequent discussion, are underscored in red,40 and a considerable number of quotations from the Opus imperfectum, the commentary on Matthew attributed to Johannes Chrysostom, show the Gospel passages in larger script than usual, while the commentary is written in script of normal size.41 These patterns of script size seem to echo the format of the models used by James.42 The vast size of the Omne bonum led the cataloguers of the Royal collection to conclude that the writing of the text must have extended over many years,43 and this conclusion is reinforced by the recognition that the Treasurer’s Scribe in the Exchequer could only have devoted part of his time Bodl., Laud Misc. 165, f. 364. ‘Iste predicta notantur . . .’ 40 For example, R1, f. 162, Fratres. 41 For example, Rl, ff. 251–252v, Cena domini. Opus imperfectum: 57 homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, following Gospel order up to chap. 24, hence imperfectum; see PG 56. 611–948. 42 The treatise on episcopal election by Gulielmus de Mandagoto (R2, ff. 27–50v), incorporated in its entirety, is written in two sizes of script, undoubtedly following the format of the exemplar (cf. BL Royal 11.C.V). 43 They observed that Volume I quoted material written after 1330 and Volume II material datable after 1347 (Catalogue I, 157), but did not recognize that the text they used to establish the reference point of 1347, a sermon of Richard Fitzralph, has a rubric suggesting that Fitzralph was dead at the time of its writing — ‘sollempnem doctorem in theologia quasi sine pari in diebus suis’ — hence after 1360. 38 39

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to scholarly pursuits, no matter how prodigious his energy.44 The manuscript itself is marked by variations in format so extreme that a long, discontinuous period of composition is immediately suggested. What then was the sequence of production? The reconstruction presented here takes into account both codicological and textual continuity and discontinuity. James’s initial campaign, starting with the letter A, produced easily identifiable sections of the encyclopedia. This ‘original’ format (Fig. 9) is characterized by gatherings ruled consistently in two-columned text-blocks measuring 340/45 mm. x 190 mm. with 55 lines of text to the page. We also find full-width rubrics, marginal index letters, marginal titles, subtitles, and numbered sections for long articles. In addition, there is a regular threestep hierarchy of decoration: two-line penwork initials, small four-line historiated initials either for major subdivisions of long articles or for the beginning of shorter articles, and large seven- to eleven-line historiated initials. Precisely this format is found in at least one entry of every letter of the alphabet from A to Z (Fig. 1), as if James first wanted to lay out a sample of entries throughout the entire encyclopedia.45 In other words, he did not complete all the entries in A before going on to B, and so forth, but instead went back to the beginning only after a preliminary run-through of the entire alphabet. When James went back to A, he changed the format (Fig. 10), without altering the fundamental dimensions of the text area and number of lines to the page (he probably had a large supply of previously ruled bifolia). The numbering of subdivisions was dropped along with the two-line penwork initials marking them. Rubrics now often start immediately following the last word of the previous text rather than at the beginning of a new line. In the original format, each numbered subdivision with its rubric referred to a Exchequer clerks were paid 5d a day for working about 150 days a year. See the Issue Rolls of the Exchequer (PRO E. 403). A single complete roll has been printed; see F. Devon, Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham, Bishop of Exeter, Lord High Treasurer of England . . . in the 44th Year of King Edward III, A. D. 1370 (London 1835). 45 Rl: A, Absolutio to Abstinencia (ff. 19–28); B, Baptismus to Babilon (ff. 171–177v); C, Caritas to Cantus (ff. 211–214); D, David (ff. 457–458). R2: E, Ebrietas to Ecclesia (ff. 1–10v); F, Fratres (ff. 154–161v); G, Gaudium (ff. 179–181v); H, Habitus (f. 197–197v); I, Iacob to Iactancia (ff. 225–226); K, Kalende (f. 394–394v); L, Laici (ff. 402–403v); M, Maria (ff. 479–487v); N, Nabegodonosor (f. 489–489v); O, Obediencia (ff. 490–492v); P, Papa (ff. 493–499v); Q, Quadragesima (ff. 500–501v); R, Ratio (f. 502); S, Sacerdotes (ff. 503–513); T, Tabelliones (ff. 514–515v); V, Vana gloria (ff. 516–517v); X, Christus (ff. 518–530); Y, Ymagines (ff. 530v–531v); Z, Zacharias (f. 532–532v). 44

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different extract, even when different passages were extracted from the same source. Now, however, rubrics are general headings and paragraph markers are used both for subdivisions within single extracts and as separations between extracts drawn from different sources. Initials now vary more in size, and James seems to have decided on a case-by-case basis whether they would be historiated or penwork (Fig. 11).46 Taken together, all these changes constitute a second format, and their first appearance after the original format in the letter A marks the beginning of a second campaign, during which James completed everything to the middle of C in the same fashion.47 In the middle of the letter C, after finishing seventeen gatherings in the same second format, James abandoned it. The regular ruled gatherings of the second format were replaced with a new ‘design,’ a term that has to be read in quotes since it refers to a series of gatherings remarkable for variations in text-area dimensions and highly irregular in number of ruled lines — not only from gathering to gathering but from one page to the next and one side of a leaf to its verso. It appears that from the middle of C on to the end of the letter, James prepared gatherings, bifolia, and even individual pages only as he needed them. Yet the variable formats found in the letter C, and then D and E,48 offer no evidence that they were introduced in a new stage of work, a third campaign as it were, because there are no textual breaks, no signs that the writing of adjacent folios in irregular as opposed to regular formats was not done in immediate succession. The use of such irregular formats raises questions. It ignores the usual economies available to a designer (ruling one or another side of an entire bifolium uniformly, ruling a series of folios uniformly, allowing the rulings on one surface of a folio to be ‘read’ as a guide for text on the other). But James’s method responded to the immediacy of the demands of a text as it was being copied. For example, in the middle of the article on Emphiteosesis, the hereditary lease mentioned previously, copied from the Speculum iudiciale of William Durandus, the number of lines to the page changes from 59 on the recto to 74 on the verso, within the same overall text-area dimenOccasionally he seems to have changed his mind. A series of small historiated initials in the letter C (Fig. 11) is painted over penwork initials and sketches for the historiation are visible in the margins (R1, ff. 236–242v). For initials historiated from the outset, no marginal sketches can be seen; presumably rough sketches lie under the present painted images. 47 R1: A, ff. 28–169; B, ff. 178–208v; C. ff. 214–346v. 48 Rl: C, ff. 347–456; D, ff. 458–562. R2: E, ff. 7–105. 46

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sions.49 The reason for the sharp increase in the number of lines could have been a dawning realization on the part of James of the great length of the Durandus text on the subject. Even by the end of the portion that he copied using 74 lines, James had only presented 28 of the total of 174 questiones, and he finally gave up by adding a cross-reference, which I have quoted before, citing the original source for the rest of the material. Having completed C, D, and E, James carried on from letter to letter, reaching as far as I.50 There, the second campaign ended. Along the way, however, there were a number of deviations from a straightforward alphabetical sequence of working. For example, the entry he had prepared for the letter F during the first campaign — Fratres51 — had already broken the pattern because it began Fr not Fa. The Friars were a subject on which James held passionate anti-mendicant views, as we know from the marginal note in the article on Adulacio, so it would seem reasonable that in the first campaign he would want to get something off his chest, even if the topic did not begin at the beginning of an alphabetical sequence. Now, during the second campaign James sandwiched the original article on Fratres between entries beginning Fa, Fabula, to Fo, Forus,52 and added some material to Fratres itself, followed by Fraus to Frumentum.53 But the seam between the original Fratres and the Fratres addition was imperfect, since the additions repeat in entirety nine of the numbered subdivisions of the original, although using paragraph markers rather than rubrics as dividers, and possibly a different exemplar as the model (Fig. 12).54 Perhaps by the time James arrived at F in the second campaign, he did not stop to re-read everything he had written quite some time before, or perhaps he was so interested in his new anti-mendicant source that he copied it out whether or not it repeated what he had previously written. Although, as I have noted, the second campaign reached as far as I, a varying amount of work was done on each letter. E, F, G, and H, even though scantier than the first four letters of the alphabet, at least include a full range of entries, that is, for example, Habitus to Humanus in 28 folios,55 R2: f. 53, 59 lines; f. 53v, 74 lines. R2, f. 240 v marks the end of the second campaign. 51 R2, ff. 154–161v. 52 R2, ff. 106–153v. 53 R2, ff. 162–175v. 54 R2, ff. 161v and 162. 55 R2, ff. 198–224v. 49 50

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as compared to David to Dux in 106 folios.56 But in the letter I, the second campaign ended with Ignorancia.57 What happened? It seems to me that by the time James reached only part way through the letter I, he could project that Volume II would have to end with M. Even in its present incomplete state, E to M takes up 478 folios compared to 562 folios for Volume I. I think that James left the rest of I for later and jumped ahead to fill in the beginning of M, that is, the entries before Maria (Fig. 13), the single existing article from the original campaign.58 James may even have had some idea that M might have to be the beginning of the third volume rather than the end of the second, because he designed a first page with space for a small framed miniature preceding the text opening (Fig. 14), as he had at the beginning of A (Fig. 9).59 Having done this much work on M, then James went back to make a few additions in A, D, F, G, and H,60 and then returned to the place in I where he had stopped in the second campaign. He started anew — a third campaign.61 From this point on, the work is qualitatively different from what had been done before. The parchment is often poorer in quality, thinner, or blemished; the ink is uneven in tone, or generally paler, or has not adhered so well to the parchment. Many rubrics seem to have been written at a different time from the text, with a different size of script, or angle of writing, and some are written in a very sloppy, hurried, or wavering fashion. Unlike the work of the first two campaigns, marginal rubricnotes, like rubric-instructions, are often visible.62 I was able to find only a few signs of their existence earlier.63 It may be that in his haste, James used the margins for rubric notes written in ordinary brown ink because he did not feel that he had time to change to the rubricating color. He hoped to come back later, and sometimes he did, but in some cases, particularly at the end of L, the rubrics were never actually filled in.64 In the third campaign the script itself is more varied than before. R1, ff. 458–562. R2, f. 240v. 58 R2: Maceracio carnis — Marchus evangelista (ff. 443–478v); Maria mater dei virgo (ff. 479–487v). 59 R2, f. 443, Maceracio carnis. 60 R1: A, f. 169–169v; D, f. 562. R2: F, ff. 162–175v; G, ff. 187–196v; H, f. 224v. 61 R2: I, ff. 241–393v; K, ff. 394–397; L, ff. 398–401v, 440–442; M, f. 488–488v. 62 R2, starting with Iudicium, f. 363. 63 For example, R2, f. 172v, Furtum. 64 R2, ff. 431v–441. 56 57

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Frequent changes in height of the interlinear spaces are accompanied by changes in the size and degree of compression of the writing. Fewer illustrations were provided for; I, for instance, has spaces allocated for only 21 illustrations on the 150 or so folios written during the third campaign. In comparison, D has 75 for about the same number of folios. All signs point to a loss of energy, including the changes in the style of text compilation. Anthologies of quotations from diverse sources of the sort James compiled himself are less frequent, longer extracts from individual authorities, simply quoted serially, are the rule. Typical is the article on Interdictum65 consisting of a sequence of passages, each rubricated, identifying the sources as the Rosarium, the Catholicon (a dictionary),66 the Summa summarum, and the Martiniana. I would conclude that the parts of the Omne bonum actually written the latest are the entries under I, K, and L, and that the date of this work approached 1375, the year in which James le Palmer died. Now I would like to comment briefly on the extra-textual parts of the Omne bonum that are not in the hand of James le Palmer, and where they fit in the sequence of production. As we have seen, the text with its rubrics, titles, and marginal notes both written and figural is embellished with initials pen-flourished and historiated. These initials were not done by James; in fact, they represent a number of different hands. In brief, the pen flourishers and the figural painters correspond with each other. Each artist of the Omne bonum had his own flourisher, except that the chief artist (Figs. 1, 6, 10, and 11), who did several hundred historiated initials and all the large miniatures, was associated with two different flourishers. Between them, they executed the penwork initials of over 750 folios. The first of these craftsmen did the initials of one gathering of Volume I and everything in Volume II from E to the middle of I (Fig. 15).67 The second did all the rest of Volume I and a couple of sections of what would have been Volume III, namely the flourished initials of S and X (Fig. 17 and Fig. 1).68 The extremely expensive yet strikingly retardataire style of the chief artist makes one think of an amateur, an autodidact, perhaps an associate of

R2, ff. 311–315. Catholicon: a dictionary written in 1286 by Johannes Balbus of Genoa, printed Mainz 1460, etc. and widely circulated in manuscript (I used BL Add. 25722). 67 R1, ff. 27–34v; R2, ff. 1–240v. 68 R1, ff. 35–562v; R2, ff. 503–508v, 518–525v. 65 66

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James le Palmer in the Exchequer.69 Before the chief artist began, however, James had apparently started out with another artist-flourisher team, whom he employed to decorate text from A to E that had been written out during his first campaign (Figs. 3, 9, 16).70 It is as if he wanted to obtain an idea of the final appearance of the opening pages of a series of letters. I believe that the figural painter of this pair was a professional, as I have found his hand in an otherwise completely unrelated manuscript of Latin devotional poetry with a series of illustrations of the life of Christ, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum (Figs. 18 and 19).71 This first flourisher-painter pair probably began to work even as James was still in the course of his first campaign on the text. A considerable amount of time may then have passed before the next two flourishers and the chief artist entered the picture, because their work was done sequentially, folio by folio, from where they began in A to where they stopped in I, regardless of whether the text had been written during the first, the second, or even the third campaign. This is quite clear in the letter G, where the pattern of flourishing and illustration is entirely consistent while the gathering structure, page layouts, and character of the script are extremely discontinuous.72 I conclude that this decorative work on the Omne bonum began only after the entire present text had been written, except for the portions completed during James’s third campaign, that is, the last parts of James also employed this individual as the chief illustrator of his copy of William of Nottingham’s Gospel Commentary now in Oxford (Bodl. Laud Misc. 165), in which he painted all the historiated initials and small miniatures from the beginning of the text (f. 13) to the middle of the volume (f. 238v). The illustrations of the manuscript were completed by two further artists, one of whom also helped to complete the illustrations of the Omne bonum (cf. Laud Misc. 165, ff. 279–456v, 474–488v, 497–564v, 581–585, and R2, ff. 241–433v, 442–450v. Ed. note, for a discussion of the artists of Laud. Misc. 165 and the date of their work, see the article by Lynda Dennison, pp. 41–59 of this volume. 70 See note 45 above. 71 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Mus. 259; see Sandler, nos. 135, 136; also F. Wormald and P. Giles, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Additional Illuminated Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum (2 vols. Cambridge 1982) I, 188–92. 72 R2, ff. 176–96v. The text was written in the following order: ff. 179–181v, 176–178v, 181v–186v, 187–189v, 190–196. Essentially this consists of a gathering (ff. 179–186v) of which ff. 179–181v alone were written during the first campaign. This gathering was subsequently enclosed in three more bifolia (ff. 176–178v, 187–189v). During the second campaign, ff. 176–178v and 181–186v were written; during the third campaign, ff. 187–189v were written, and followed by a new gathering, ff. 190–196, plus one now unnumbered and blank folio. 69

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I, together with K and L. Indeed, from the middle of I to the end of Z, with only the exceptions of S and X, all the flourishing and historiation was carried out — in folio sequence — by two new pairs of craftsmen, whose styles are distinctly late fourteenth century in character (Figs. 20–22), reminiscent of the Litlyngton Missal,73 and consequently post-dating the lifespan of James le Palmer. I think that these teams must have been sent into action by a new, and as as-yet-unidentified owner of the manuscript.74 In the last part of this paper, I would like to focus on the third leg of my original triangle of text, layout, and scribe-compiler. The codicological irregularities I have been treating result from the autograph nature of the Omne bonum. The Omne bonum is a textual compilation that falls somewhere between an open file and a fair copy. The fact that James was a trained scribe encouraged him, I think, to give a polished physical form to an ongoing project — before it had reached its conclusion. At the same time, because he was compiler as well as scribe, James could continue to slot in additional material so long as he liked or was able, as one might do in an alphabetical file-cabinet. Because the Omne bonum was compiled from many diverse sources, and because in some cases I think that James was copying directly from a source, without having made an intermediary extract, some of the variations in format simply result from a kind of photo-sensitivity to the physical presentation of the model.75 Other codicological characteristics however have more to do with James’s scribal habits and training. First of all, his text is written in court hand, like that used for the Exchequer rolls whose preparation he supervised (Figs. 23, 24). James had entered Exchequer service in 1359 as clerk to the Treasurer’s Scribe, and was elevated to the senior position of Litlyngton Missal: London, Westminster Abbey 37; see Sandler, no. 150. Nothing is known of the history of the Omne bonum between the time of James le Palmer’s death in 1375 to the sixteenth century, when its owner ‘TC’ inscribed his initials at the beginning of each volume. The monogram ‘TC’ occurs in a couple of manuscripts known to have been bound for Henry VIII (see Bodleian Library, Summary Catalogue, nos. 2127, 2414) as well as others documented as being in the Royal collection from as early as 1542 (see Warner and Gilson, Catalogue, I, xvi). On ‘TC,’ see James P. Carley, ‘John Leland and the Foundations of the Royal Library: The Westminster Inventory of 1542,’ Bull. of the Soc. for Renaissance Studies 7 (1989) 13–22, esp. p. 19. 75 As for instance in many quotations from the Manipulus florum that were copied in their entirety, following the format of marginal citation of authorities characteristic of the source. See note 42 above. 73 74

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4. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 303V (detail).

5. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 257 (detail), marginal figural pointer of Pope, with note, ‘nota hic qualia papa potest facere’.

6. Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 104v (detail), abandoned infants in descenders of letters.

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8. Bodl. Laud. Misc. 165, fol. 364 (detail).

7. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 450 (detail).

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9. Royal. 6.E.VI, fol. 19, original format.

373

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10. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 45, second campaign.

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11. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 237, historiated initials in C, painted over penwork initials.

375

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12. Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 162, second campaign.

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14. Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 443 (detail), second campaign, Maceracio carnis.

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13. Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 479 (detail), Maria, original format.

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15. Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 10v (detail), penwork initials in E by Hand A, associated with the chief artist.

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17. Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 518 (detail from Fig. 1), initial X by Hand B, associated with the chief artist.

16. Royal E.VI, fol. 19 (detail), penwork initials associated with the original artist.

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19. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum 259, fol. 10v (detail).

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18. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 171 (detail), the original artist.

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20 and 21. Royal 6.E.VII, fol. 341 (details), the first later artist and associated penwork initials.

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23. Royal 6.E.VI, fol. 166v, the hand of James le Palmer.

24. London, Public Record Office, Pipe Roll of 1359.

383

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Treasurer’s Scribe, or Engrosser of the Great Roll, in 1368.76 While he was certainly familiar with scholarly books written in university-trained hands, and certainly had access to the large libraries of St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey,77 his own training was not at the university but at the court of the Exchequer in London.78 There he learned a script and a codicological style of presentation quite different from that used by writers of university texts, not to speak of luxury service books. Exchequer documents were kept as ongoing records, with entries made, often by a succession of individuals, in blocks ruled and measured as the need arose. It is obvious that the practices of the Exchequer are reflected in the way the Omne bonum was written. Even when James copied a set text, as he did in the Bodleian Library’s William of Nottingham, he ruled the pages individually and varied the textarea dimensions.79 In the Exchequer, there was a rule against erasures,80 but there could not be a rule requiring codicological uniformity. There is much more to explore about the personal or autobiographical aspects of the text of the Omne bonum, and about the personal role played by James le Palmer in the supervision of the pictorial iconography, all of which would serve to enlarge our image of the man. What has been presented here serves to focus our attention on a book as a manuscript — not Broome (note 33 above), p. xxxv. James came from a London family. His father was a mercer who died before 1349 (for his will of 1327 see R. R. Sharpe, ed., Calendar of Wills Proved and Enrolled in the Court of Husting London [2 vols. London 1889–90] I, 329). In all likelihood James was educated at St Paul’s Cathedral school, and he paid for the renovation of the Chapel of St Andrew in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried; see B. Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford 1977), p. 379 n. 4; Corporation of London Record Office, Husting Roll (Pleas of Land) 98.87 and 98.98; and Westminster Abbey Muniments, nos. 13848–850. By birth, education, and profession then, James would have had close ties both to St Paul’s and to Westminster Abbey. The medieval libraries of these institutions are known to have contained copies of works by every author listed by James in the preface to the Omne bonum; for book lists and catalogues see N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain (London 1964) s.v. 78 James le Palmer’s name does not occur in the records of Oxford or Cambridge; see A. B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1600 (Cambridge 1963) and A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (3 vols. Oxford 1957–59). 79 For example, f. 239, 56 lines; f. 239v, 61 lines; f. 13 (beginning of text), 323 mm. x 195 mm.; f. 246, 305 mm. x 184 mm. 80 See Dialogus de scaccario, Charles Johnson, trans. (London 1950), pp. 29–31 (English text). 76 77

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a mechanism. It is a truism that every manuscript is unique, but more than many other books produced in the proto-printing age, the Omne bonum is a direct and immediate expression of the individuality of its author and maker, adding the detail of the particular to our generalized conception of England and its intellectual life in the later fourteenth century.

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Encyclopedia Introduction

‘E

NCYCLOPEDIA’ is a modern term for a written work in which universal knowledge (or all knowledge in a limited field) is collected and summarized, ‘without bias’ (Saxl, 1957, p. 232). The term ‘encyclopedia’ will be used here only for medieval works intended to encompass all received knowledge; encyclopedic works of limited scope, such as bestiaries, even though illustrated, will not be considered, nor will comprehensive collections of original contributions to knowledge, such as the writings of Aristotle, that were gathered together in the Middle Ages and occasionally illustrated. Works with inclusive titles —particularly Summa or Speculum — will not be discussed unless they aim to include all aspects of knowledge. Similarly, works will be discussed only when their contents are organized in a comprehensive manner; collectanea without a predetermined sequence of topics are excluded. Modern comprehensive encyclopedias usually include the contributions of multiple authorities, specialists and sub-specialists in the various topics covered, writing under the direction of a compiler, editor, or editorial group. They are invariably organized alphabetically by topic and are cross-referenced and indexed. They are also nearly inconceivable without illustrations. Medieval works that have been called ‘encyclopedias’ rarely meet all these specifications. The term itself was unknown in the Middle Ages; in Italian it was used for the first time by Galileo. Medieval encyclopedic works were known by a variety of names, each with a particular emphasis: Etymologiae, De naturis rerum, Liber floridus, Hortus deliciarum, Imago

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mundi, Speculum maius, and Omne bonum. Moreover, the compilers of medieval encyclopedias did not employ living experts but relied on past authorities. They valued not the most up-to-date information and views but rather those that were the most venerable. As for the modern concept of an encyclopedia as unbiased, medieval encyclopedists allegorized the ‘connaissances du monde’ (Langlois, 1927) from a consciously Christian point of view or presented them as a means to the knowledge of God. Their purpose was to further the understanding of God-created nature and of Holy Scripture, or ethical, to teach right conduct, or moral, to provide spiritual nourishment. Furthermore, unlike modern encyclopedias, the organization of the medieval encyclopedia was generally topical and hardly ever alphabetical. The foundation of knowledge, God, the Creator, preceded all other topics, which themselves frequently followed a hierarchical order of presentation. A medieval reader, familiar with such a hierarchical concept of order as the Six Days of Creation, would know where to find the desired information, aided by tables of contents or chapter lists provided as searchingtools. Finally, only some medieval encyclopedias were illustrated. Among important works without a pictorial tradition are Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, Bartholomeus Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum, and Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum maius. Among illustrated encyclopedias some pictorial programs were developed and transmitted along with the respective texts, as is the case with Rabanus Maurus’ De naturis rerum, Lambert of St. Omer’s Liber floridus, Gossuin de Metz’s Image du monde, Brunetto Latini’s Livre dou trésor, and the vernacular translations of Bartholomeus Anglicus, the Propriétés des choses in particular. Other illustrated encyclopedias are unique, neither text nor pictures ever having been copied, two notable examples being Herrad of Hohenbourg’s Hortus deliciarum and James le Palmer’s Omne bonum. The illustrations in medieval encyclopedias serve a number of purposes. First, they may provide useful information, as for instance, images of birds, fish, animals, or diagrams of the cosmos, even though the pictures— like the texts they illustrate — are not based on direct observation of nature. Second, they may add to the text, comment on the text, or emphasize a particular reading of the text, often an interpretation which is allegorical or symbolic. Third, encyclopedia illustrations serve both as place-markers, highly visible aids to finding text material, and as aides-mémoire, visualizing material that should be remembered, and remembered in a particular way.

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Finally, illustrations are material signs of a high estimate of the value of the knowledge contained within an encyclopedia, and in turn enhance the value of the book to its possessor. Rabanus Maurus The earliest surviving illustrated encyclopedia is De originibus rerum, or De rerum naturis, by Rabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda (784?–856). The work is often called De universo, this title dating from the first printed edition (Strasbourg, before 1467). Two fully illustrated and four fragmentary or incompletely illustrated manuscript copies survive. The earliest is Monte Cassino cod. 132, written at the monastery c. 1023, and illustrated with more than 330 individual pictorial subjects. The only other fully illustrated copy is in the Biblioteca Vaticana, cod. Pal. lat. 291, written and painted for Count Ludwig von der Pfalz in southern Germany in the year 1425. These two copies are closely related, although not in a direct line of descent. In addition to illustrated copies, several unillustrated copies of the text survive, two from the ninth century. The unillustrated copies represent an earlier edition of the text, sufficiently distinctive to suggest that the encyclopedia underwent a second redaction, the chief effect of which was not the text revisions however, but the inclusion of illustrations. Marianne Reuter (1984) has proposed that the illustrations of De rerum naturis were introduced into the text during the Carolingian period, although not on the direct instigation of Rabanus Maurus. De universo, or De rerum naturis, has 22 numbered books, each divided into titled chapters. Bk. I concerns the Deity and the angels; Bk. II and Bk. III, Old Testament personages from Adam to the Prophets; Bk. IV, New Testament figures, Christian martyrs, and the Christian faith, the clergy and clerical life, the laity, heretics and heresy, the heresies of the Jews, and Christian doctrine; Bk. V, the Holy Scriptures, Christian writings and rituals; Bk. VI and Bk. VII concern the form and nature of human beings; Bk. VIII, the animaIs; Bk. IX, the structure and elements of the universe; Bk. X, time; Bk. XI, water; Bk. XII, earth; Bk. XIII, mountains; Bk. XIV, structures; Bk. XV, philosophy, poetry and the pagan gods; Bk. XVI, language; Bk. XVII, stones, gems and metals; Bk. XVIII, weight, measure, number, music and medicine; Bk. XIX, agriculture; Bk. XX, war; Bk. XXI, occupations; Bk. XXII, drinking and eating. The text has been called ‘in essence only a gloss on Isidorus’ (Saxl, 1957,

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p. 233), the gloss, or commentary being an allegorical or mystical explanation of the material covered in each chapter of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae. Rabanus based the commentary chiefly on the Clavis of Pseudo-Melito, a ninth-century allegorical compilation from the Church Fathers. He omitted most of Isidore’s first five books, which treat the liberal arts, starting with Grammar; instead, he began De rerum naturis with the Deity and the angels (Bk. VII in Isidore’s Etymologiae), a re-ordering that became standard in medieval encyclopedias. Rabanus also increased Isidore’s 20 books to 22 books, so that their number accorded with the number of books of the Old Testament and the number of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. ln other words, he transformed Isidore’s still-classical encyclopedia into a medieval one. Both the Isidorean origin and the new allegorical focus are evident in the illustrations of De rerum naturis. About 125 documentary illustrations are provided for the chapters on animals, serpents, insects, fish and birds. The creatures are shown in profile, occasionally gathered together in a group at the beginning of the chapter, but generally set into the text column or placed between sections of text. The format suggests a relation to Physiologus and bestiary manuscripts, indicating that the illustrations belong to a pictorial tradition grounded in the late antique, even though its earliest surviving manifestations are from the Carolingian era. Other illustrations that belong to the classical tradition show the strange races of the world (De portentis, Bk. VII. 7), comparable to illustrations of Solinus and the Marvels of the East; the sun, moon and the constellations (Bk. IX. 9–15), related to astronomical illustrations, for instance, those of Arataea; the pagan gods (Bk. XV. 6, one of the important differences between the first and second redactions of the text being that Hercules is not included in the first but was inserted, along with an illustration, in the second, the text based on Fulgentius and Festus Pompeius). Although no other surviving manuscripts offer a comparable series of illustrations of the pagan divinities, they too appear to reflect an earlier archetype. Some subjects have illustrations based on Rabanus’ allegorical interpretations rather than Isidore’s etymological and descriptive text, for example, De regnis & militiae vocabulis (Bk. XVI. 3). The Isidore-derived part of the text concerns the sequence of earthly reigns culminating in the Roman emperors, but Rabanus commented on the primacy of the eternal reign of Christ, and the illustration (apparently based on a Carolingian model) depicts two rulers kneeling before the Enthroned Christ. The format is

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typical of a number of illustrations of Christian concepts in giving visual shape to ideas and beliefs by construction of symmetrical compositions employing symbols such as the dove, the cross, the chalice and the book, or the church structure. Other illustrations translate concepts into actions, for example, De ceteris fidelibus christianis (Bk. IV. 7), three laymen carrying crosses moving in procession toward the entrance to a church; in some cases the actions are metaphorical; as in De haeresibus Judaeorum (Bk. IV. 9), which shows two groups of false worshippers kneeling, one with hands to ears and the other with clothing muffling their mouths. Such innovative illustrations dramatize and augment the textual contents of the encyclopedia in a way that is characteristically medieval. The Cassino manuscript of De rerum naturis has been the subject of considerable scholarly discussion, focused in the first instance on the question of sources and models of its illustrations. Because of the style reflected in the illustrations it has been concluded that the eleventh-century Cassino copy replicated a Carolingian model (Goldschmidt, 1924); because the text is based on Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, it has been suggested that the Carolingian model was itself modeled on an illustrated Isidore (Saxl, 1957; Panofsky, 1967), although none of the hundreds of extant copies of Isidore’s encyclopedia is illustrated, except for a few diagrams; in opposition, it has been argued that other classical or late classical works securely known to have been illustrated could well have provided the models for an illustrated Carolingian Rabanus Maurus, obviating the necessity for the hypothesis of an illustrated Isidore (Le Berrurier, 1981); finally, it has been argued that since some of the Rabanus Maurus illustrations depend on parts of the text not derived from Isidore, the hypothesis on an illustrated Isidore as the only model must be abandoned (Reuter, 1984). It is Reuter’s contention that Rabanus Maurus’ De rerum naturis is important for its departures from the classical tradition, for its introduction—for the first time—of illustrations into an encyclopedia, and for its pre-eminence in the evolution of the medieval conception of the encylopedia. Lambert of St. Omer The Liber floridus was compiled by Lambert, secular canon of St. Omer in the Artois, between 1112 and 1121; the original autograph survives (Ghent, Universiteitsbibliotheek MS 92), along with one direct late twelfthcentury copy (Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek cod. Gud. lat. 1.2°,

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north French?), and seven further, more indirect copies ranging in date from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, of which the most important is Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS lat. 8865 (late thirteenth century, from Cambrai). Lambert titled the encyclopedia in his prologue, saying that he had ‘woven together’ ‘flowers’ from diverse authors. The autograph is a large, richly illustrated volume of 287 folios. The chief components are natural science, history, both pagan and Christian, world and local, and moral instruction. The material is not divided into books but is presented in 190 numbered and titled chapters. Some chapter-sequences are related in theme, for example, Chapters XXIX–LV, short extracts from Isidore of Seville and others on geography, monstrous races, measurement, animals and stones, and Chapters CXXXII–CLV, historical extracts including material on Alexander the Great, world history, the Roman emperors, and the Frankish kings. Many parts of the encyclopedia however present sequential texts — computistic, cosmological, historical, genealogical, allegorical, theological, moral — so diverse that Leopold Delisle, author of the first comprehensive study of the Liber floridus, described the work as ‘une compilation tout à fait désordonnée’ (1906, p. 578). Recent studies, especially those of Albert Derolez (1968, 1973), have shown that the primary cause of the apparent disorder (aside from binding errors) is that the Ghent archetype is a ‘working’ copy, whose present state is the end result of revisions, insertions and additions made over years by Lambert of St. Omer himself. Other recent writers (Mayo, 1973; Bober, Liber floridus Colloquium, 1973) have stressed the consistent allegorical and moralizing character of the work, assigning an important role to the symbolic, allegorical, and schematic images — far more numerous than in Rabanus Maurus — in drawing together into one comprehensive entity the disparate textual components of the manuscript. The Liber floridus includes some descriptive and technical illustrations comparable to, although not derived from, those of Rabanus Maurus’ encyclopedia. Lambert’s illustrations accompany extracts from Isidore of Seville, Macrobius, Bede and others. There are planet and constellation pictures (Chap. LXXVIII); cosmological and computistic tables and spheres (Chaps. III–VI, XIV–XVI, LXXIX, CXXI, and CLVIII); pictures of fantastic animaIs and serpents (Chaps. XLV–LI). Some of the descriptive texts, however, also have larger, specially devised images that emphasize the allegorical meaning of creatures such as the Behemoth (Chap. XLIX) and

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the Leviathan (Chap. XL), both of which are associated with the Devil and Antichrist, whose images are placed between Isidorean texts on serpents and fish and aquatic animals. Elsewhere, extracts from Isidore’s chapters on stones, not illustrated in Lambert’s text itself, are provided with a full-page, framed frontispiece showing the Celestial Jerusalem (Chap. LIV) with inscriptions equating the names of the twelve precious stones of its structure with the twelve apostles and an anonymous poem on the verso of the page correlating these stones with twelve virtues. Likewise, the chapters on islands and rivers (XXXIII–XXXIV) are accompanied by a full-page miniature of Paradise, a tree growing in the midst of the circular walls of a towered structure. While portions of the Liber floridus cover the same territory previously staked out in the encyclopedias of Isidore of Seville and Rabanus Maurus, what is new in the textual contents is historical material relevant to twelfthcentury Europe — the investiture controversy (Chap. LXVIII), genealogies of the Norman and Flemish nobility (Chaps. LX, CXVII), and a chronicle of the First Crusade (Chap. CXX). ln the context of the Liber floridus, this material has a significance beyond mere historical documentation. Its purpose is moral instruction. The lessons are underscored by the inclusion of further historical texts: events of the past in the form of extracts from the Historia troiana (Chap. CXC), the Gesta romanorum imperatorum (Chap. CXXXVII), the Gesta romanorum pontificum (Chap. CXXXVI); accounts of the Six Ages of the World (Chap. XXI); predictions of the future and the end of the world (Chap. CLVI); and texts about Antichrist (Chaps. CXVIX, CLXVIII), as weIl as anti-Jewish extracts (fols. 5–10v, Chaps. LXII, CXL, CLXX) that were to be understood to refer to contemporary rulers and events — the defiance of the pope by the Holy Roman Emperors, the reconquest of Jerusalem from the Infidel. Images were supplied to structure the reader’s understanding of the moral significance of historical texts: schemas of the Ages of Man and the Ages of the World (Chaps. IV, VI); a cycle of Apocalypse miniatures (Chap. XIII, now lost but extant in the Wolfenbüttel Liber floridus); the Arbor palmarum (Chap. LX), the palm-tree (i.e., the Church) on Mount Zion (i.e., the Holy Land), whose branches — the virtues — fan out between text columns naming the Norman and Flemish leaders who took part in the First Crusade and the succession of rulers of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem; the Ordo beatitudinum VIII (Chap. CXXV), a symbol of the Church Triumphant in which the eight beatitudes of the Sermon on the

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Mount are coupled with names of eight virtues, with the spiritual rewards of the virtuous, and with the names of the eight trees of the Holy Land listed in Ecclesiasticus 24:17–19, 22–23; St. Peter seated within a schematic structure representing the city of Rome (the frontispiece to the history of the Popes). Bober’s claim that the Liber floridus ‘must be reckoned the most important, comprehensive and characteristically mediaeval illustrated encyclopaedia of the Middle Ages’ (Liber floridus Colloquium, 1973) must be revised since the work’s circulation was limited to the dioceses of Thérouanne, Cambrai and Tournai in northern France and the southern Netherlands (Lieftinck, 1973). But it is fair to emphasize that Lambert of St. Omer altered the balance of Isidore of Seville and Rabanus Maurus’ classically based encyclopedias. He expanded the range of historical subjects to the present and the future and subjected all topics covered in the work to a process of Christian exegesis. Herrad of Hohenbourg ln the years between 1175 and 1185 Herrad of Landsberg, abbess (1176–1195) of the Augustinian convent of St. Odilia at Hohenbourg in Alsace, completed an encyclopedia which she titled Hortus deliciarum. The work’s purpose was to provide spiritual nourishment to the young nuns of her convent. Like earlier medieval encyclopedias, Herrad’s work collected the ‘nectar’ from various theological and scholarly writings into a single ‘mellifluum favum.’ The Hortus deliciarum, a unicum, probably remained at Hohenbourg until the mid-sixteenth century, when the convent was destroyed. Subsequently the volume came into the possession of the bishop of Strasbourg and, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Bibliothèque municipale of Strasbourg. In 1870, during the FrancoPrussian War, the manuscript was completely destroyed. Before its destruction however, much of the text and many of the illustrations had been copied or traced, chiefly under the auspices of Comte A. de Bastard. Recently a definitive reconstruction was published by Rosalie Green et al. (1979). The Hortus deliciarum was a large volume of at least 342 folios. There were about 150 full-page miniatures and perhaps a dozen more on text pages, an enormous increase beyond the approximate total of sixty illustrations in the Liber floridus. The recent reconstruction lists 1,161 individually

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titled text passages. No general headings were supplied for the text, but the sequence of topics follows a coherent plan: 1) Angels, the Trinity and the creation of the world; 2) the components of heaven and earth; 3) Old Testament history from the creation of man to the Flood; 4) philosophy and the liberal arts; 5) Old Testament history from Abraham to the Prophets; 6) relation of the New to the Old Testament; 7) ancestry of Christ, Gospel history, Acts of the Apostles; 8) virtues and vices; 9) the Church and Christian society; 10) Antichrist, the end of the world, Heaven and Hell; 11) theological exposition by Peter Lombard and others; 12) clerical life; 13) names of the popes to Lucius III (1181–1185), continued in another hand to Clemens III (1187–1191); 14) computistic tables and calendar; 15) the convent and nuns of Hohenbourg. The chief source of the material on the creation of the world, its composition and the liberal arts was the Aurea Gemma, or Summarium Heinrici, an early eleventh-century précis of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae. Some of the passages from the Summa Heinrici and other material of classical derivation had in-text illustrations: the celestial sphere, rotae of the four elements and the four qualities, the climate zones of the earth, and the winds; figural images of the zodiacal signs and the muses. But as in the Liber floridus some material of classical origin was projected into visual prominence, presented in the form of full-page illustrations, as for example the rota of philosophy and the liberal arts, which followed a series of short, separate passages on philosophy, the liberal arts, music, the muses, and poetry. The ten full-page illustrations of the combat of the Vices and the Virtues, in strip and rota format, depended ultimately on the concepts of Prudentius’ Psychomachia. These illustrations had captions and inscriptions, but there were no further texts; the pictures ‘said it all.’ A comparable focus on pictorial imagery characterized the core sections of the Hortus deliciarum, the narratives of the life of Christ and the Acts of the Apostles. The narratives were pictorial, not verbal. The series consisted of more than 150 pictorial subjects in 60 full-page miniatures subdivided into two or three horizontal bands. Descriptive and exegetical passages were written on the pictures. Interspersed between them were text pages containing allegorical, symbolical and mystical expositions of the meanings of the events depicted, these drawn from the biblical commentaries of Bede and St. Bernard, biblical and world histories of Freculph, Eusebius (‘Jerome’) and Petrus Comestor, theological writings of Anselm of Canterbury, Honorius of Autun, Peter Lombard, Pseudo-Clemens

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Romanus, Rupert of Deutz, the panormia, a canon law collection of Ivo of Chartres, treatises on liturgy, and sermons of Gregory, Johannes Chrysostom, etc. A similar pattern was followed in the sections with material from the Old Testament and the end of the world, pages of pictorial narrative again being interspersed with pages of verbal exposition. If the new reconstruction of the Hortus deliciarum has called attention to the focus on Christian pictorial narrative that characterized the encyclopedia, the importance of the allegorical illustrations, which frame the narrative sections, had already been recognized. Among them are complex full-page schemata: rotae (Old Testament sacrifice and New Testament sacrifice); a tree of the Ancestry of Christ; the Wheel of Fortune; the Ladder of Virtues; and the Church as a compartmented structure. The final illustrations of the Hortus deliciarum, on facing pages, comprised a pictorial history of Hohenbourg showing the monastery on its hill, the original eighth-century founders, Adalric, duke of Alsace, and his daughter St. Odilia, the twelfth-century abbesses Relinda and Herrad, and the nuns of their time. The illustrations graphically recall the purpose of the encyclopedia as stated in Herrad’s prologue. It was a book tailor-made for the spiritual delight and education of the nuns, intended to bring encyclopedic knowledge to the cloistered female community of Hohenbourg. Indeed, it may be no coincidence that female authorship and audience went hand in hand with an exceptional focus on pictorial imagery. Encyclopedias of the Thirteenth Century Unlike the Liber floridus, the most important Latin encyclopedia of the thirteenth century, the Speculum maius of the Dominican friar Vincent of Beauvais (d. 1264), was intended for a wide clerical audience and was dedicated to a king, Louis IX of France. Vincent’s aims, according to his general preface, were not only to inform and to provide spiritual benefits but to aid in preaching, lecturing and disputation. Thus he stressed the usefulness of his encyclopedia as a reference tool. Composed in the mid-thirteenth century, the Speculum maius is a massive work amounting in printed editions to five or more folio volumes. Indeed, no manuscript copies of the whole survive. It consists of three related but distinct components, the Speculum naturale, Speculum historiale, and Speculum doctrinale. To these, printed editions of the Speculum maius add a fourth part, the Speculum morale, but this is actually an early

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fourteenth-century work on ethics and theology drawing heavily on the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum naturale treats the Deity and the works of creation in their entirety, following the pattern of the Six Days of Creation; the Speculum historiale, using the conception of the Six Ages of the World as its basis, reviews the history of man from Adam and Eve to the midthirteenth century, following the year-by-year arrangement of chronicles; the Speculum doctrinale treats human learning under headings of language, philosophy and the logical arts; the practical arts — economics, politics and law; the mechanical arts, including technology, agriculture, applied medicine; and the theoretical sciences — physics, mathematics, metaphysics and theology. Vincent’s method was to group appropriate extracts from a large range of authorities under the various topical headings. Many of his sources were traditional: ancient writers that had been used by Isidore of Seville and Rabanus Maurus and their successors; Church Fathers; biblical texts and glosses; medieval theologians and chroniclers. But among his fundamental sources were Latin translations of the writings of Aristotle. The introduction of Aristotelian texts, both scientific and philosophical, was a new feature, not only in the Speculum maius but in all the lesser encyclopedias of the thirteenth century: Alexander Neckham’s De naturis rerum, c. 1200; Thomas de Cantimpré’s De naturis rerum, c. 1240; and Bartholomeus Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum, also c. 1240. Neither the Speculum maius nor any of these other thirteenth-century Latin encyclopedias customarily included illustrations, except for an occasional author or patron portrait. Among the few exceptions however is a four-volume late thirteenth-century copy of the Speculum historiale in Merton College, Oxford (MSS 123–126), Parisian in origin, with a number of historiated initiaIs. More closely linked with earlier illustrated encyclopedias is an early fourteenth-century Bartholomeus Anglicus in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (MS CFM 15), north French in origin. A historiated initial is provided for each of the nineteen books: I–II, God and the angels; III, the soul; IV, the elements; V, the human body; VI, the Ages of Man; VII, human infirmities; VIII, the world and the heavenly bodies; IX, time and the seasons; X, form and matter; XI, air; XII, birds; XIII, water; XIV, earth; XV, provinces of the earth; XVI, stones and metals; XVII, plants; XVIII, animals; XIX, colors, tastes, measurements, weights and sound. Some illustrations reflect visual traditions established by Rabanus

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Maurus, for example, the building for Bk. XV. Since the illustrations are placed at the beginning of each book, not the individual chapters, they tend to be collective in character, for example, Bk. XVIII, with a stag, a dog, a hare and a squirrel (cf. the Rabanus Maurus illustration for Bk. VII. 8, De pecoribus et iuventis); some interpret the general subject with a pictorial example, for instance, Bk. X, a potter shaping a jar on a wheel; others show the author expounding the subject, as in Bk. XVI, showing a Franciscan pointing to a mound in which varicolored gems are embedded, or Bk. V, with the author pointing to a naked man. The illustrations do not provide documentary information about all the individual topics, nor do they privilege an overall Christian allegorical reading of the text. Rather, their primary function is to articulate the structure of the encyclopedia, to make it easier to locate the various books, and to make the general outlines of its contents memorable. ln general, Bartholomeus Anglicus’ encyclopedia is notable for the rigor of its ordinatio, the use of chapter lists, chapter numbering as weIl as chapter titles, and some early copies are even supplied with indexes (London, British Library MS Sloane 471, c. 1300). Moreover, four of the scientific books are entirely in alphabetical order, those on provinces, stones and metals, plants, and animals. In the Speculum naturale, much of this material had been presented in separate alphabetical series; these were amalgamated in De proprietatibus rerum, a development that would eventually overtake the characteristic topical organization of the medieval encyclopedia. Vernacular Encyclopedias ln 1245/6 a learned cleric of Metz, named Gossuin (or, according to some texts, Gautier) completed a ‘livre de clergie’ (a book of knowledge) in French, which he titled L’image du monde. The title suggests the encyclopedic character of the work, which exists in several poetic redactions ranging from 6,000 to 10,000 octosyllabic verses and in one somewhat later prose version, probably of the second half of the thirteenth century. Altogether at least seventy manuscript copies survive. Gossuin explained in his prologue that the work was translated from Latin; indeed, one of the chief sources was the concise twelfth-century natural science encyclopedia often attributed to Honorius of Autun (or Honorius the Solitary), De imagine mundi. Equally important however was the more recent De naturis rerum of Alexander Neckham. Gossuin also made use of Ptolemy, Solinus,

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Isidore of Seville, Gervase of Tilbury’s Otia imperialia, Geraldus Cambrensis’ Topographia Hibernica, and Jacques de Vitry’s Hierosolomitana, all of these especially for the lengthy sections on geography; and he also used Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics. L’image du monde is divided into three parts, as was De imagine mundi (although the Latin work had different subjects under each division): Pt. I, God and man, the earth and heaven; Pt. II, physical phenomena; Pt. III, astronomy. ln Pt. I are chapters on God the Creator and the creation of man, on the liberal arts, the elements, and the heavens; in Pt. II, chapters on the divisions of the earth and geographical regions and countries, together with the human creatures, animals and plants that pertain to them, water and its multiple forms, and air and the stars and planets; Pt. III concerns astronomy and astronomers and philosophers. Unlike other thirteenth-century encyclopedias, L’image du monde was planned from the outset to have twenty-eight illustrations, ‘figures sanz quoi li livres ne pourvoit estre legierement entenduz’ (figures without which the book cannot be easily understood). Illustrations are not provided for each chapter but accompany only certain text passages. Some illustrations are circular schemes, designed to explicate cosmological material. Among these diagrams is one showing how the earth is round like an apple and how two men, circumambulating the earth in opposite directions, would meet at the point from which they started. Other illustrations are entirely figural; these are not necessary for the understanding of the text, and in fact were not included in all copies of the work. The figural illustrations serve as visual parallels or enrichments to the text, as for example, representations of each of the seven liberal arts as scholars demonstrating the practice of the art, sometimes before an audience. An exceptionally luxurious example is a copy of the prose version of L’image du monde made in Paris during the 1320s, owned by Guillaume Flote, chancellor of France 1339–1347, and later by Jean, duke of Berry (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS franç. 574). The prose version of L’image du monde was translated from French into Hebrew, probably before the end of the thirteenth century. Two manuscript copies survived to the twentieth century (Paris, Collection Gunzburg MS 287, date and whereabouts unknown, and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Oppenheim 579, sixteenth century). ln 1480, or shortly thereafter, the printer William Caxton published an English translation, the first illustrated book printed in England. Caxton’s manuscript model may have been a copy of Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS franç. 574, possibly the Bruges

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work of the 1460s now in the British Library (MS Royal 19 A XIX). The most important vernacular encyclopedia of the the thirteenth century is the Livre dou trésor of Brunetto Latini, a Florentine notary exiled in France between 1260 and 1267, during the period of Ghibelline control of his native city. Brunetto wrote his encyclopedia in French, because, as he said in the preface, he was in France, and because French was more widely understood than any other language. The work was completed in Italy by 1268 and dedicated to an unnamed ‘biaus dous amis’ (a good, dear friend) who may have held a high government position, since Brunetto stressed throughout the Trésor that all the knowledge it contained was for the instruction of those who were responsible for governing others. Indeed, his encyclopedia differs from most, whether Latin or vernacular, in its focus on practica, the sciences of economics and politics, and art of rhetoric. The Livre dou trésor is divided into three sections. Pt. I, the nature of all things, celestial and earthly, includes 200 chapters on God, the angels, the soul, the creation of man, human history down to Emperor Frederic II (d. 1250) and the death of Manfred, ruler of Sicily, in 1266; the elements, qualities, heavenly bodies, the parts of the earth and how men live in them, and fish, serpents, birds and beasts. Pt. II, the nature of the vices and the virtues ‘selonc etique’ (according to Aristotle’s Ethics), includes 132 chapters on virtuous conduct both personal and civic, and on particular vices and virtues and their consequences in human conduct. Pt. III, ‘de bone parleure’ (on good speech), includes 105 chapters not only on the art and virtue of rhetoric but also on government and governing. Brunetto Latini’s Latin sources for the natural science chapters in Pt. I were comparable to those used by Gossuin de Metz, but passages that have parallels in the writings of Roger Bacon (d. 1248) and Robert Grosseteste (d. 1253) suggest familiarity with up-to-date scholarship, perhaps, in the view of Francis Carmody (1948), obtained from notes on university lectures. Brunetto’s universal history was compiled from Isidore of Seville, Orosius, Godfrey of Viterbo, Gilbertus, and Petrus Comestor, and, for the more recent portions, from a chronicle like that used by the Florentine historian Giovanni Villani. Although Brunetto almost never specified his sources, he named Aristotle’s Ethics as the origin of the first half of Pt. II; the second half was based to a large extent on Guillelmus Peraldus’ earlier thirteenth-century Summa de vitiis et virtutibus. Pt. III was compiled from translations of Cicero and other treatises on rhetoric, and several thirteenth-century works on politics, including Giovanni di Viterbo’s De regimine civitatum.

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More than 70 copies of the Livre dou trésor survive and they are often illustrated. No study of the illustrations has been published however. From manuscripts that have been described at length it is apparent that there was no universal program of illustration. ln some cases illustrations were based on well-established cycles, for example, the series of 60 small, framed miniatures of fish, serpents, birds and beasts in a French Trésor of the 1320s in the British Library (MS Yates Thompson 19), comparable to those in contemporary bestiaries. Other than these, the London manuscript has twelve further illustrations of biblical and historical subjects, as well as a few circular schemata for Pt. I, and several miniatures showing masters and students for Pts. II and III. Most illustrated copies of the Trésor are of French origin, and a few are Italian; one copy, made in northern France, has unique illustrations by an English artist, painted in the late 1320s, probably as a gift in connection with the betrothal of Edward, heir apparent to the English throne, to Philippa of Hainault (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS franç. 571). The pictorial program differs considerably from that of the British Library manuscript. There are no animal images, but the illustrations of other sections of the encyclopedia seem to have been composed especially for this purpose, the beginning of Pt. II, for example, having a miniature accompanying the account of the kinds of work and workers in a harmonious and peaceful human society which shows a blacksmith, a plowman, a man with a barrel in a cart, a sallor in a ship and a carpenter building a house. Some of the illustrations in this manuscript were placed in the margins, suggesting that they were additions to the more limited number allowed for in the text model. As part of the first wave of translations of Latin works sponsored by rulers of France in the fourteenth century, Jean de Vignay translated the Speculum historiale of Vincent of Beauvais for Jeanne de Bourgogne, wife of King Philip VI, in 1333. ln keeping with royal taste, the dedication copy, of which Bk. I–Bk. VIII survive (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS franç. 316), was richly illustrated, as were subsequent copies of the text, such as the one made for King Charles V, and later owned by Jean, duke of Berry (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS nouv. acq. franç. 15939–15944), which has more than 700 miniatures for the first twenty-four of the total of thirtytwo books of Vincent’s text. The miniatures correspond to those being developed at the same time for French translations such as Guiart de Moulins’ Bible historiale (Petrus Comestor’s Historia scholastica), the Histoire

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ancienne jusqu’à César, the Faits des Romains, Miracles de la Vièrge, and the Légende d’or. Yet without translations of the two other parts of Vincent de Beauvais’ encyclopedia, the Speculum naturale and the Speculum doctrinale, the Miroir historiale, as richly illustrated as it is, falls more into the category of universal history than universal encyclopedia. During the fourteenth century four vernacular translations of Bartholomeus Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum were made: Vivaldo Belcalzer, notary, for the podestà of Mantua, Guido Bonacolsi, in the Mantuan dialect (1309); an anonymous version in Provençal, for Gaston Phébus, count of Foix (c. 1350–1355); Jean Corbechon, chaplain, for King Charles V, in French (1372); and John of Trevisa, vicar of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, in English (1398/9). The provençal translation, called the Elucidari de las proprietaz de totas res naturals, which exists only in the dedication copy (Paris, Bibliothèque Ste.-Geneviève MS 1029), is richly illustrated. Unique miniatures of the Palace of Wisdom, Queen Wisdom, and Gaston Phébus seeking admission and enlightenment from Wisdom accompany the translator’s preface; the text has a full complement of historiated initials for each book, sometimes interpreting the contents with an allegorical figure, as for example, a personification of the earth (Bk. 14) as a crowned woman in a chariot, or with pictorial examples, as for instance, a person wearing a garment striped with bands of various colors (Bk. 19). ln addition, the margins of Bk. 12 and Bk. 18 contain an extensive cycle of birds and beasts, comprising a series of nearly 120 images. Like the Provençal translation, the French Livre des propriétés des choses is illustrated. Although the dedication copy is lost, about fifteen luxury copies from the years before 1420 survive. All have similar pictorial programs consisting of a half-page frontispiece and column-width miniatures at the beginning of each book. Many of these copies were made for noble patrons, including Jean, duke of Berry (Reims, Bibliothèque Municipale MS 993), and the most important Parisian artists of the day, among them the Boucicaut Master, were employed in their production (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum MS 251 and Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS franç. 9141). The noble patronage was linked with a new conception of the purpose of the encyclopedia, as defined in the preface Jean Corbechon inserted before that of Bartholomeus Anglicus. According to Bartholomeus, his encyclopedia was intended to enable the young and uneducated to learn everything necessary to ‘unveil’ the meaning of the Holy Scriptures.

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Corbechon’s preface (like that of the Mantuan Vivaldo Balcazer) sets forth a broader purpose. Echoing the preface of Brunetto Latini’s Trésor, Corbechon stressed the value of his translation to princes, for, as he said, the wise ruler cannot govern his subjects honorably and justly without the knowledge of all things, knowledge contained within this ‘somme générale.’ The Livre des propriétés des choses was thus conceived as a universal encyclopedia for the education of princes. The illustrations often reflect this new understanding of Bartholomeus’ text in showing scholars lecturing before a small audience of noblemen, sometimes with the subject of the lecture in the foreground — cripples, for example, in Bk. 7 of the manuscript made for Count Amadeus of Savoy (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum MS 251) — and sometimes the lecturer even acts as a personal tour-guide, walking side by side with his noble student and pointing out the features of a distant panorama — as in the illustrations of the books on the elements, water, and the provinces of the earth in the manuscript owned by Béraud, count of Clermont (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS franç. 9141). Omne bonum What is possibly the last illustrated encyclopedia of the Middle Ages is the elephantine compilation of the English Exchequer scribe James le Palmer, which he called Omne bonum. It is an autograph of nearly 2,000,000 words, bound in four folio volumes, with about 750 illustrations, mostly historiated initiaIs, written between 1360 and 1375, and left unfinished at the compiler’s death. Most important for the history of the medieval encyclopedia, the organization of Omne bonum is alphabetical, the first known instance of this mode of structuring ‘all’ knowledge. The chief subject areas of Omne bonum are secular and clerical conduct, theology, biblical history and hagiography, moral instruction, natural history and human learning. Among the sources quoted or paraphrased, the most important was the Corpus iuris canonici, to which were added a large number of legal commentaries and handbooks, some themselves arranged in alphabetical order with topics similar to those in Omne bonum. Such a degree of reliance on legal sources is a new feature of medieval encyclopedias. Other sources used by James le Palmer (in the order in which he listed them in his preface) included Bartholomeus Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum, Johannes Chrysostom’s Opus imperfectum (a series of homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, attributed to Chrysostom in the Middle Ages), the

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Bible and the Legenda sanctorum, the Manipulus florum (an alphabetical florilegium of quotations from the Church Fathers and other theologians compiled by Thomas Hibernicus in 1306), the Secreta secretorum (a handbook for the instruction of princes attributed throughout the Middle Ages to Aristotle), and the Catholicon (a dictionary compiled in 1286 by Johannes Januensis de Balbis). James le Palmer may have intended to incorporate Bartholomeus Anglicus’s entire De proprietatibus rerum into Omne bonum by rearranging its complete contents in alphabetical order; most of the remaining sources, except for the Bible and the Legenda sanctorum, had not been used in earlier encyclopedias. Indeed, such works as the Manipulus florum and the Catholicon were used precisely because they were already alphabetical and furthermore, the thirteenth-century Margarita decreti et decretalium or Tabula Martiniana of Martinus Polonus, one of James le Palmer’s chief legal sources, was also alphabetical. In Omne bonum these various alphabetical series were merged together with material drawn from non-alphabetical sources into a single alphabetical cycle. The illustrations of Omne bonum are placed at the beginning of about half of the individual entries of the encyclopedia. Some illustrations were adopted from other works such as Gratian’s Decretum; illustrations of biblical subjects parallel those in Bibles, psalters, and other religious texts; and the hundreds of illustrations of birds, fish, and animals correspond in format to those in bestiaries, although bestiaries treat far fewer creatures than either Omne bonum or De proprietatibus rerum, from which the Omne bonum extracts were drawn. Moreover, the alphabetical organization of Omne bonum yielded topics for which there was no avallable pictorial tradition at all; consequently, the artist, perhaps under the direct supervision of James le Palmer, had to devise hundreds of new illustrations. Most dealt pictorially with the topic in a direct manner. Others supplied innovative pictorial interpretations of the topic, as for instance the illustration of Clandestine Marriage, which refers to the illicit nature of such a marriage by showing the bride and groom clasping left and right hands rather than the traditional iunctio dextrarum. Occasionally illustrations were related to selected passages in the text, without a more general reference to the topic of the entire entry. Although he wrote in Latin, James le Palmer was not a cleric, and although he was extremely learned, he had not been educated at a university. Nor did he have a patron for his work; it was conceived on his own initiative. Moreover, his intended audience was defined only vaguely as

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‘everyone of moderate learning,’ and his purpose, to collect ‘all those things that lead to the well-being of every man’ in alphabetical order so that they ‘can be found without difficulty or tedium.’ For the kind of user James le Palmer had in mind ‘this book can truly suffice by itself without other books.’ This sweeping claim was without parallel, forecasting the beginning of a new, post-medieval period in the history of the development of the encyclopedia.

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Bibliography General Works Adolph Goldschmidt, ‘Frühmittelalterliche illustrierte Enzyklopädien,’ Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, 1924–1925, pp. 215–226; Charles Victor Langlois, La vie en France au moyen âge de la fin du XIIe siècle au milieu du XIVe siècle, III, La connaissance de la nature et du monde, Paris, 1926–1928, pp. 135–197 (L’image du monde), 335–390 (Le trésor); Michel de Boüard, ‘Encyclopédies médiévales sur la connaissance de la nature et du monde au moyen âge,’ Revue des questions historiques, CXII (1930), pp. 258–304; Fritz Saxl, ‘Illustrated Mediaeval Encyclopedias’ in Lectures, London, 1957, I, pp. 228–254; Robert Collison, Encyclopaedias: Their History throughout the Middle Ages, New York and London, 1964; La pensée encyclopédique au Moyen Age (Cahiers d’histoire mondiale, IX, 3), Neuchâtel, 1966; Christel Meier, ‘Grundzüge der mittelalterlichen Enzyklopädik. Zu Inhalten Formen und Funktionen einer problematischen Gattung’ in Literatur und Laienbildung im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit (Symposium Wolfenbüttel, 1981), ed. Ludger Grenzmann and Karl Stackmann, Stuttgart, 1984, pp. 467–500; Maria Teresa Beonio-Brocchieri Fumigalli, Le enciclopedie dell’occidente medioevale, Turin, 1988; L’encyclopédisme (Actes du Colloque de Caen, 12–16 janvier 1987), ed. Annie Becq, Paris, 1991. Other Works Comte A. de Bastard, Peintures et ornements des manuscrits dans un ordre chronologique (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale Facs. Fol. 8 [xi], with handpainted plates), Paris, 1832–1869; Ad. Neubauer, ‘Les traductions

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hebraïques de l’Image du Monde,’ Romania, V (1876), pp. 129–139; A. Straub and G. Keller, Herrade de Landsberg, Hortus deliciarum, Strasbourg, 1877–1899; ed. and transl. Aristide D. Caratzas, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1977; Carl Fant, L’image du monde, poème indedit du milieu du XIIIe siècle, étudié dans ses diverses rédactions françaises d’après les manuscrits des bibliothèques de Paris et de Stockholm, Uppsala, 1886; E.-D. Grand, ‘L’image du monde, poème didactique du XIIIe siècle,’ Revue des langues romanes, ser. 4, VII (1893), pp. 5–58; Ambrogio Maria Amelli, Miniature sacre et profane dell’anno 1023 illustranti l’enciclopedia medioevale di Rabano Mauro, Montecassino, 1896; V. Cian, Vivaldo Belcalzer e l’enciclopedismo italiano delle origini (Giornale storico delle lettere italiane, suppl. V), Turin, 1902; Léopold Delisle, ‘Notice sur les manuscrits du “Liber floridus” composé en 1120 par Lambert, chanoine de Saint-Omer,’ Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques, XXXVIII (1906), pp. 571–791; Caxton’s ‘Mirrour of the World’, ed. Oliver H. Prior, Oxford, 1913; L’image du monde de Maître Gossouin. Rédaction en prose, ed. Oliver H. Prior, Lausanne and Paris, 1913; Aristide Marigo, ‘Cultura letteraria e preumanistica nella maggiori enciclopedie del Dugento. Lo “Speculum” ed il “Tresors”,’ Giornale storio della letteratura italiana, LXVIII (1916), pp. 1–42, 289–326; P. T. Plassmann, ‘Bartholomaeus Anglicus,’ Archivum Franciscanum historicum, XII (1919), pp. 68–109; Paul Lehmann, ‘Illustrierte Hrabanus codices: Fuldaer Studien II,’ Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologischen und der historischen Klasse der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München, 1927, pp. 13–47; O. Gillen, Ikonographische Studien zum Hortus deliciarum der Herrad von Landsberg, Berlin, 1931; Fritz Saxl, ‘A Spiritual Encyclopedia of the Later Middle Ages,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, V (1942), pp. 82–142; Francis J. Carmody, Li livres dou tresor de Brunetto Latini, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1948; Jacques Fontaine, ‘Isidore de Seville et la mutation de l’encyclopédisme antique,’ Cahiers d’histoire mondiale, IX, 3 (1966), pp. 519–538; Michel Lemoine, ‘L’oeuvre encyclopédique de Vincent de Beauvais,’ Cahiers d’histoire mondiale, IX, 3 (1966), pp. 571–579; Pierre Michaud-Quantin, ‘Les petites encyclopédies du XIIIe siècle,’ Cahiers d’histoire mondiale, IX, 3 (1966), pp. 581–595; Erwin Panofsky, ‘Hercules Agricola: A Further Complication in the Problem of the Illustrated Hrabanus Manuscripts’ in Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, New York, 1967, pp. 20–28; Lamberti S. Audomari canonici, Liber floridus. Codex autographus Bibliothecae Universitatis Gandavensis, ed.

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Albert Derolez, Ghent, 1968; Elisabeth Heyse, Hrabanus Maurus’ Enzyklopädie ‘de rerum naturis’. Untersuchungen zu den Quellen und zur Methode der Kompilation (Münchener Beiträge zur Mediavistik und Renaissance-Forschung, IV), Munich, 1969; G. Cames, Allégories et symboles dans l’Hortus deliciarum, Leiden, 1971; J. P. Gumbert, ‘Recherches sur le stemma des copies du Liber floridus’ in Liber floridus Colloquium, 1973, pp. 37–50; Liber floridus Colloquium. Papers Read at the International Meeting Held in the University Library, Ghent on 3–5 September 1967, ed. Albert Derolez, Ghent, 1973; G. Lieftinck, ‘Observations codicologiques sur le Groupe W des manuscrits du Liber floridus’ in Liber floridus Colloquium, 1973, pp. 31–36; Penelope C. Mayo, ‘The Crusaders under the Palm. Allegorical Plants and Cosmic Kingship in the Liber floridus,’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XXVII (1973), pp. 31–67; Hanns Swarzenski, ‘Comments on the Figural Illustrations’ in Liber floridus Colloquium, 1973, pp. 21–30; M. C. Seymour, ‘Some Medieval Readers of De proprietatibus rerum,’ Scriptorium, XXVIII (1974), pp. 100–103; ‘On the Properties of Things’: John Trevisa’s Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum, ed. M. C. Seymour, 2 vols., Oxford, 1975–1988; Donal Byrne, ‘Two Hitherto-unidentified Copies of the Livre des propriétés des choses from the Royal Library of the Louvre and the Library of Jean de Berry,’ Scriptorium, XXXI (1977), pp. 90–98; Donal Byrne, ‘The Boucicaut Master and the Iconographical Tradition of the “Livre des propriétés des choses”,’ Gazette des beaux-arts, XCI (1978), pp. 149–164; Albert Derolez, Lambertus qui librum fecit, Een codicologische studie van de Liber floridus Autograaf (Gent, Universiteitsbibliotheek, handschrift 92), Brussels, 1978; Diane Le Berrurier, The Pictorial Sources of Mythological and Scientific Illustrations in Hrabanus Maurus’ ‘de rerum naturis’, New York, 1978; Monique Paulmier-Foucart, ‘Etude sur l’état des connaissances au milieu du XIIIe siècle: Nouvelles recherches sur la genèse du “Speculum maius” de Vincent de Beauvais,’ Spicae (Cahiers de l’Atelier Vincent de Beauvais), I (1978), pp. 91–122; Rosalie Green, Michael Evans, Christine Bischoff and Michael Curschmann et al., Herrad of Hohenbourg, Hortus deliciarum (Studies of the Warburg Institute, XXXVI), London and Leiden, 1979, 2 vols.; Donal Byrne, ‘Rex imago Dei: Charles V of France and the Livre des propriétés des choses,’ Journal of Medieval History, XVII (1981), pp. 97–113; Michael Curschmann, ‘Texte-Bilder-Strukturen. Der “Hortus deliciarum” und die frühmittelhochdeutsche Geistlichendichtung,’ Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, LV (1981),

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pp. 379–418; Jean Schneider, ‘Une encyclopédie du XIIIe siècle: le Speculum maius de Vincent de Beauvais’ in Culture et travail intellectuel dans l’occident médiéval, ed. Geneviève Hasenohr and Jean Longère, Paris, 1981, pp. 187–196; Marianne Reuter, Text und Bild im Codex 132 der Bibliothek von Montecassino ‘Liber Rabani de originibus rerum’, Untersuchungen zur mittelalterlichen Illustrationspraxis (Münchener Beitrage zur Mediavistik und Renaissance-Forschung, XXXIV), Munich, 1984; Armand Llinares, ‘Esprit encyclopédique et volonté de système chez Raymond Lulle’ in L’encyclopédisme, 1991, pp. 449–453; Michel Salvat, ‘Science et pouvoir à Mantoue et à Paris au XIVe siècle’ in L’encyclopédisme, 1991, pp. 389–393; Lucy Freeman Sandler, ‘Omne Bonum’: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, London, 1994.

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Illustrations of Canon Law in the ‘Omne Bonum’, an English Encyclopedia of the Fourteenth Century* In memory of Michael M Sheehan

B

ETWEEN 1360 and 1375 the London Exchequer clerk, James le Palmer, devoted himself to the compilation of a vast general encyclopedia, which he named Omne bonum (Fig. 1). The unique copy is now MS Royal 6 E VI and 6 E VII in the British Library.1 Not only was James le Palmer the compiler of the Omne bonum, he was also its scribe. As the offi-

* This essay is based on research conducted with the generous support of a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. I would like to thank Prof. A. C. De la Mare and Prof. Robert Raymo for advice about Latin transcriptions and translations. 1 See G. F. Warner and J. Gilson, Catalogue of Western manuscripts in the old royal and king’s collections, 2 vols. London 1921, 1.157–59. For the surname of James — le Palmer — and his identification as scribe and compiler of the Omne bonum, see L. F. Sandler, Gothic manuscripts 1285–1385, London 1986, no. 124, 2.136–38 (A survey of manuscripts illuminated in the British Isles, V); also idem, Face to face with God: a pictorial image of the Beatific Vision, in: W. M. Ormrod (Ed.), England in the fourteenth century: proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, Woodbridge, Suff. 1986, 22–35; idem, Notes for the illuminator: the case of the Omne bonum, Art bulletin 71 (1989), 551–64; idem, Omne bonum: Compilatio and Ordinatio in an English illustrated encyclopedia of the fourteenth century, in: L. L. Brownrigg (Ed.), Medieval book production: assessing the evidence (Proceedings of the second conference of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988), Los Altos Hills, Calif. 1990, 183–99; idem, The image of the book-owner in the fourteenth century: three cases of self-definition, in: N. Rogers (Ed.), England in the Fourteenth Century, Stamford, Lincs. 1993, 58–80 (Harlaxton medieval studies 3). I am completing a monograph on the Omne bonum, to be published in 1994.

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cer in charge of writing the Great Roll of the Exchequer, James was well positioned to act as his own scribe, and in fact in his encyclopedia he used the same anglicana script that was used for the Exchequer documents whose writing he supervised.2 Although James le Palmer’s text runs to almost 1100 folios, and about 1,700,000 words, at his death in 1375 the project was only about two-thirds completed. Perhaps that is why the encyclopedia remains a unicum. Nevertheless the Omne bonum is profoundly important in the history of the universal encyclopedia because it is the first known work in which all knowledge is organized in alphabetical order, an innovative, even revolutionary departure from the hierarchical organization typical of such earlier medieval encyclopedias as Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum maius.3 Much about the origin and purpose of the Omne bonum is obscure. Although James le Palmer was certainly erudite, he was apparently not a university graduate.4 Yet his compilation is based on an extensive range of written sources, of which the chief categories are canon law, natural history, theology and religious practice. Indeed, in the prologue to the Omne bonum James listed 115 sources,5 giving special emphasis to legal texts from the Decretum to the Clementines, their glosses, the apparatuses and commen2 The first identification of James le Palmer as an Exchequer clerk was made by Beryl Smalley in an essay on manuscripts of William of Nottingham’s Gospel Commentary, one copy of which was written by James le Palmer for himself; see B. Smalley, Which William of Nottingham?, Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1954), 200–39. Smalley did not know of the connection of James le Palmer with the Omne bonum. On the Exchequer, its operations and duties of its officers, see C. Johnson, intro. and transl., De necessariis observantiis scaccarii dialogus, qui vulgo dicitur dialogus de scaccario, London 1950; T. Madox, History and antiquities of the exchequer, London 1769; D. M. Broome, The exchequer in the reign of Edward III, 1327–1377: a preliminary investigation, Ph.D. thesis; Manchester 1922; and J. C. Sainty, Officers of the exchequer, London 1983 (List and Index Society, special ser. 18). 3 See M. B. Parkes, The influence of the concepts of ordinatio and compilatio on the development of the book, in: J. J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson (Eds.), Medieval learning and literature: Essays presented to Richard William Hunt, Oxford 1976, 115–41; M. Lemoine, L’oeuvre encyclopédique de Vincent de Beauvais, in: La pensée encyclopédique au Moyen-Age, Neuchâtel 1966, 571–79 (Cahiers d’histoire mondiale, IX, 3). 4 His name is not found in A. B. Emden, A biographical register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols., Oxford 1957–59, or idem, A biographical register of the University of Cambridge to 1500, Cambridge 1963. While an exchequer clerk however he received an annual retainer of 3s. 4d. from Queen’s College, Oxford, for unspecified services; see Queen’s College Account Rolls, transcribed by C. L. Stainer, 54, 164, payments for 1357–59 and 1369, information kindly supplied by Dr. Nigel Ramsay. 5 MS Royal 6 E VI , fol. 18v.

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taries of Innocent IV, Hostiensis and Guido de Baysio, the Speculum iudiciale of Guillelmus Duranti, and the Summa summarum of William of Pagula. He also listed specifically De proprietatibus rerum, the natural history encyclopedia of Bartholomeus Anglicus, the Opus imperfectum on Matthew attributed to Johannes Chrysostom, narratives from the Bible and the Legenda sanctorum, the Manipulus florum, the theological handbook of Thomas of Ireland, the Secreta secretorum, a guide to kingly conduct attributed to Aristotle, and finally, the Catholicon, a dictionary compiled by Johannes Balbus.6 James probably consulted these texts in the libraries of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey,7 and he may have owned some of them, as we know that other Exchequer officers of the time, few educated ‘Primo iste liber extrahitur de decretis & decretalibus & eorum glosis; De libro sexto & eius glosis; De clementinis & eius glosis; De Innocencio; Hostiensis; Archidiaconus in rosario; De speculatore; De summa summarum; De proprietatibus rerum; De Johanne crisostomo in suo opere imperfecto; Quedam de biblia & quedam de legenda sanctorum eciam extrahuntur; De libro de manipulo florum; De secretis aristotilis; & de libro catholicon’. For the legal texts see E. Friedberg (Ed.), Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols., reprint Graz 1959; Corpus iuris canonici . . . una cum glossis, 3 vols., Rome 1582; for the apparatus and commentaries, see Innocentius IV, In quinque libros decretalium commentaria, Venice 1570; Hostiensis (Henricus de Bartholomaeis de Segusia, Cardinal of Ostia), Summa super titulis Decretalium (Summa aurea), Venice 1574; Guido de Baysio, Rosarium decreti, Strasbourg 1473; for William de Pagula, Summa summarum (c. 1314), see L. Boyle, The ‘Summa summarum’ and some other English works of canon law, in: Proceedings 2CongMCL Boston 1963, città del Vaticano 1965, 415–56 (MIC, C, 1), for Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, c. 1240 (printed Strasbourg, 1470), see T. Pressman, Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Archivum Franciscanum historicum 12 (1919), 68–109; for the Opus imperfectum, see PG 56, 611–948 (in Latin); for the Legenda sanctorum (mid-thirteenth century), see Jacobus a Voragine, Legenda aurea, ed. T. Graesse, rpt. Osnabrück 1965; for Thomas of lreland, Manipulus Florum (1306), see R. H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, Preachers, florilegia and sermons: Studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland, Toronto 1979; for PseudoAristotle, De secretis secretorum (edited by Roger Bacon, mid-thirteenth century), see R. Steele, Secreta secretorum. Oxford 1920 (Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi, fasc. V). For Johannes Balbus, Catholicon, 1286 (printed Mainz, 1460), see T. Kaeppelli, O.P., Scriptores ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi, Rome 1975, II 379–83. 7 James le Palmer was born in the city of London and was probably educated at St. Paul’s School. His father, a mercer, made a will in 1327 and died before 1349; see R. R. Sharpe (Ed.)., Calendar of wills proved and enrolled in the Court of Husting London, London 1889–90, 1.329. James, who died in 1375, was buried in Westminster Abbey; see B. Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its estates in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1977, 379 n. 4. By birth, education and profession he would have had close ties to both St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. The medieval libraries of these institutions had copies of works by all the authors James listed in the preface of the Omne bonum; for book lists and catalogues, see N. R. Ker, Medieval libraries of Great Britain, London 1964, s.v. 6

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at university, had private collections of such titles.8 James also must have had a well-trained memory,9 which stood him in good stead when it came to extracting passages from texts that were not themselves arranged alphabetically and did not have indexes either, above all the chief canon law texts10 and commentaries. But how it was that he came to compile the Omne bonum is not certain. James was neither a university graduate, nor an ordained cleric, and he names no sponsor or patron of his work. We can only suppose that his great enterprise was self-generated and self-sustained. Some evidence in support of this conclusion is provided by the colophon of a copy of the Gospel Commentary of the fourteenth century Franciscan William of Nottingham, now in the Bodleian Library: ‘Iste liber est liber jacobi le palmere quem scripsit manu sua propria deo gratias’.11 In effect, James wrote out the extremely careful and elaborate and richly illustrated E.g., William de Askeby, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1352–63, Henry de Snayth, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1371–77, Thomas de Brantingham, Treasurer 1369–71, John of Norwich, king’s clerk c. 1375; for these, see S. H. Cavanaugh, A study of books privately owned in England 1300–1450, unpubl. Ph.D Diss., Univ. of Pennsylvania 1980, based on published wills and inventories. 9 Memorization of lengthy scholarly texts was a desideratum for students, witness the comment in William of Ockham’s Dialogus de imperio et pontificia potestate that he had memorized the ‘books of sacred theology and of both kinds of law, that is, canon and civil, of moral philosophy, and the histories of the Romans and especially of the emperors, and of the greatest pontiffs, and of other people’, and that while in exile in Munich in the 1330s, he had access to no books except those he had committed to memory, ‘by which means alone I have hope of obtaining the Bible and the Decretum together with the four books of decretals’; see M. J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: a study of memory in medieval culture, Cambridge 1990, 156–57; I wish to thank Prof. Carruthers for the translation used here. 10 The thirteenth-century Martiniana, or Margarita decreti et decretalium of Martinus Polonus was a widely used alphabetical index to the Decretum and Decretals of Gregory IX. James le Palmer quoted from it extensively, and used its subject headings as the titles of many Omne bonum entries. However, he did not use the Martiniana as a finding tool for his direct quotations from the legal texts; in any individual entry there is little correlation in fact between James’s extracts from the Decretum and the references to the Decretum quoted from the Martiniana. The Martiniana seems to have been considered as a textual enrichment, an addition to James’s legal entries rather than a means of constructing them. Indeed, in complex extries consisting of extracts from such sources as the Decretum, the gloss, the Rosarium decreti, Hostiensis and the Summa summarum, the extract from the Martiniana almost always comes at the end. 11 Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 165. On William of Nottingham and copies of his Gospel Commentary, see B. Smalley, Which William of Nottingham?, Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1954), 200–39. The only illustrated copy of the work is Laud Misc. 165, and its chief artist was also the chief illuminator of the Omne bonum (see Fig. 2). 8

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Bodleian volume for his own personal use (Fig. 2). He seems to have needed no outside patronage or command for the initiation of ambitious writing projects. If then the Omne bonum was a startling exercise of individual intellectual enterprise, for whom was the work intended? In his prologue James said that he wrote for the edification of all unlearned and willing individuals desirous of searching out precious pearls of knowledge.12 Borrowing the formulations of compilers of pastoral handbooks, he added that his work included all things that contribute to the well-being of humankind,13 although use of James’s encyclopedia for practical purposes would hardly have been possible given its sheer bulk and vast range of contents. James also certainly expected or hoped that his more learned Exchequer colleagues would see his work since he addressed pointed marginal comments to some of them, naming them individually.14 But beyond that we would have to say that for James the work must have seemed like its own reward, and that he was so obsessed with his own compilational and scribal activity that he formed little conception of the audience that would be its beneficiary. Among the features that make the Omne bonum unique is its profusion of illustrations — over 650 historiated initials at the beginning or the subdivisions of the individual entries, and over a hundred Bible pictures in a cycle at the beginning of the first volume. Many of the historiated initials 6 E VI, fol. 18v: ‘Ac ad informacionem simplicium quorumcunque volencium preciosas exquirere sciencie margaritas . . . Ego Jacobus quem dei & proximi caritas precipua omnibus exhibet debitorem, & cuius cognomen alios volo ex causa latere, presens opus cum magno labore ac iugi mentis desiderio compilavi’. 13 6 E VI, fol. 18v: ‘Et ut sermonem brevi fine concludam, in compilacione huius omnia que tendunt ad hominis utriusque salutem, quasi sine difficultate poterunt & tedio inveniri’. cf. the prologues of the Manipulus florum (Rouse, Manipulus florum App. 2) and the Summa summarum (Boyle, Summa summarum, 440–43). 14 E.g., 6 E VI, fol. 300r, calling the attention of Walter de Aldebury, Clerk of the Great Roll of the Exchequer (James le Palmer’s predecessor in that office), to a passage quoted from the Summa summarum (3. 5, 18) saying that it is a grave sin to participate in the Divine Office solely for the purpose of receiving payment; 6 E VI, fol. 303v, telling William de Hanley, King’s Remembrancer in the Exchequer, that the rule against hunting by clerics discussed by Hostiensis (5.24) is intended to apply to him; 6 EVIl, fol. 219v, reminding Robert de Sekynton, Apposer of the Exchequer, that one should not disturb the Divine Office by coming in late, or by beginning over again just because one has left some passage out (the text is attributed to Thomas Aquinas ‘in quedam questione de quolibet de horis canonicis’; cf. Questiones quolibetales ed. Mandonnet 3.13, 29). On these officers of the Exchequer, see Sainty, Officers of the exchequer s.v. 12

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are for canon law entries, and these are the subject of the present essay. The illustrations play an important role in shaping the reading of the text. In other words they represent an extension of the activity of the compiler, whose job, as St. Bonaventura said, was to write the words of others, ‘adding to them but nothing of his own’.15 A compiler — and James described the Omne bonum as a compilatio — shaped his work by ordinatio, that is, by arranging the words or quoted texts in order, and by using structuring devices such as titles, rubrics, and marginal notes.16 The ordinatio of a text was also the product of the scribe — in this case again James le Palmer — who determined the size of initials, and introduced such devices of physical articulation as running heads, item numbering, and even paragraphs. In some ways however the line between compiler-scribe and commentator, who was allowed to add ‘de sua’ to the work of others,17 was transgressed by James le Palmer. For instance James gave a section of his article on Fratres quoted from William of Pagula’s Summa summarum a long rubric, which says in part: ‘The mendicant friars, who preach for gain or for ostentation and who commend themselves in their preaching or detract from prelates, are not true but pseudo and false preachers’.18 Such anti-fraternalism — to use the term of P. R. Szittya — making specific the veiled criticism of the actual words of the text, certainly transforms compilation into commentary. James also commented on the texts he had compiled in his prolific marginal notes — for example, ‘Note you sycophantic friars in daily contact with women, how you sin gravely by scandalous behavior’19 — and in wonderfully drawn marginal figural pointers, such as the cleric with hunting dog for Clericus venator (Fig. 3), that go far beyond the usual manicules added 15 ‘Aliquis scribit aliena addendo, sed non de suo; et iste compilator dicitur’, Bonaventura, In primum librum sententiarum, proem, quaest. iv, differentiating between the roles of scribe, compiler, commentator, and author, as cited by Parkes, Influence of the concepts of ordinatio and compilatio, 127–28. 16 See Parkes, 115–41. 17 ‘Aliquis scribit et aliena et sua, sed aliena tamquam principalia, et sua tamquam annexa ad evidentiam; et iste dicitur commentator non auctor’, Bonaventura, In primum librum sententiarum, proem, quaest. iv, as quoted by Parkes, 128. 18 6 E VII, fol. 157v: ‘Fratres mendicantes predicantes propter lucrum seu ad ostentacionem et se commendantes in suis predicacionibus vel detrahentes prelatis . . . non sunt vere predicatores set pseudo et falsi et per que signa tales falsi predicatores mendicantes possunt cognosci vide infra’, quoted and translated in P. R. Szittya, The antifraternal tradition in medieval Literature, Princeton 1986, 77 and App. A. 19 6 E VI, fol. 50v, in the article on Adulacio: ‘Notate vos fratres mendicantes adulatores cotidie conversantes cum mulieribus quam graviter peccatis scandalizando’.

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by the readers responding to scholarly texts. James’s figural pointers were, in fact, penned at the same time as the text and the rubrics, not afterwards. The painted illustrations of the Omne bonum work in relation to the legal entries in varied ways. First, of course, the long and rich tradition of canon and civil law illustration certainly provided. both general and specific models for a good number of the historiated initials of such entries.20 The illustration for Causa 11 of the Decretum is typical (Fig. 4). Its composition, with seated clerical and civil judges and standing defendants, sets the general pattern for the pictures at the beginning of many Omne bonum entries, such as Arbiter, with a bound prisoner standing before two seated judges (Fig. 5), or Apocrifum, in which a kneeling clerk receives a sealed document from a seated pope,21 or Absolucio, in which a seated pope absolves a group of kneeling bishops.22 These Omne bonum subjects have no specific parallels in standard cycles of canon law illustration because of the differences in the organization of the texts, that is, the alphabetical system of James’s encyclopedia and the topical system of the Decretum and Decretals. Direct parallels do occur however. For example, Coniugium (Fig. 6) in the Omne bonum has many counterparts in the Decretum illustrations for Causae 27–33 (Fig. 7), and both Constellacio (Fig. 8) and its pictorial duplicate Divinacio23 are comparable to the illustration of Causa 26 of the Decretum (Fig. 9) in showing astrologers gazing upward. Still, the alphabetical system of organization of the Omne bonum offered a challenge to the artist, who had to invent illustrations for the many entries compiled from legal texts where no pictorial model was available. He used several approaches. First, he composed illustrations corresponding to the overall theme of an entry. Some focus on actions, as in Appellacio,24 Excommunicatio,25 Expositus,26 and Citacio, which shows a bailiff ordering an See A. Melnikas, The corpus of the miniatures in the manuscripts of the Decretum Gratiani, 3 vols. Rome 1975. 21 6 E VI, fol. 114v. 22 6 E VI, fol. 19r. 23 6 E VI, fol. 535v. 24 6 E VI, fol. 108r. Appellacio shows two men, one holding a written appeal, standing before a seated judge (Fig. 22). 25 6 E VII, fol. 75v. Excommunicatio shows a priest in a pulpit, attended by an acolyte. Raising a candle, he preaches to a seated lay congregation, one man holding a rosary (Fig. 24). 26 6 E VII, fol. 104v. Expositus shows a cleric addressing a man and woman, as another woman puts a swaddled child down outside a city-gate (Fig. 23). See J. Boswell, The kindness of strangers: the abandonment of children in Western Europe, New York 1988, Figs. 13–14. 20

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appearance at court, an action echoed in the marginal drawing (Fig. 10); others represent persons, as in Abatissa,27 Advocatus,28 Bedellus,29 and Decanus, which shows the Dean of the Court of Arches of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Fig. 11).30 Some illustrations of the overall theme of an entry supply pictorial examples rather than direct representations; this seems particularly true of the visualization of abstractions. Ecclesia, for instance, is exemplified by the pope enthroned;31 Exemplum, beginning with Hostiensis on examples of virtue, is illustrated with an example of humility not listed in the text, that of Christ washing the feet of his disciples;32 Auxilium (Fig. 12), beginning with an anthology of quotes from the Decretum, its gloss and Guido de Baysio’s Rosarium decreti, is illustrated by a man appealing to a cleric for sanctuary in a vaulted church. In this last case the artist may have been thinking of a specific line from the Decretum, ‘One can ask for the help of the Church against enemies’, that is quoted in the text next to the ilIustration.33 In fact, many illustrations in the Omne bonum correspond to single lines of the text, and some of these bypass the general theme of an entry altogether. Certainly in these cases the artist was cast in the role of a pictorial commentator, either acting on his own or under the direction of James le Palmer. Usually illustrations whose details depend on a single text line are related to the first line or two of the entry. Facies (Fig. 13) is a striking case in point. The article includes material from Hostiensis on the Decretals, the Catholicon, Peter of Blois on Job, the Opus imperfectum, the Secreta secretorum and the Annals of the Romans, without rubricated subdivisions.34 Because the text is not rubricated and the citations are separated 6 E VI, fol. 27r. Abatissa shows an abbess with nuns. 6 E VI, fols. 50v, 52r. The illustrations for Advocatus show lawyers before judges (Fig. 26). 29 6 E VI, fol. 194r. Bedellus shows a beadle, or court usher, tapping the shoulder of a layman with a baculus, or rod of office. The garments of both figures reflect contemporary dress to a degree unusual in the Omne bonum (Fig. 25). 30 6 E VI, fol. 475r. In the illustration for Decanus, one man in a full-sleeved white robe wears a grey fur head-covering, the second, a hooded all-enveloping buttoned cloak and the two others, short tunics. The Dean of the Court of Arches appears to be the man in white. 31 6 E VII, fol. 2v. 32 6 E VII, fol. 100r. 33 6 E VI, fol. 164r, ‘Auxilium ecclesia contra hostes non propter ulcionem sed propter defencionem petere potest a principe’, citing Decretum 23.3.2. 34 6 E VII, fols. 107v–108r, quoting passages using the word facies or discussing the subject of the human face: 1) Hostiensis, Summa, 5.37, 5.39; 2) Eccles. 19:26; 3) Peter of Blois on Job, ‘Tange inquid cuncta que possidet nisi in facie benedixerit tibi dixit dyabolus ad 27 28

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only by paragraphs marks, which are also used for internal articulation, and because there are no marginal annotations, the illustration is especially important in shaping the reading of the text. The extract illustrated is close to the beginning of a string of disconnected quotes from Hostiensis: ‘And likewise he who spits maliciously in the face of a cleric is excommunicated’.35 The artist showed two men in profile, one spitting in a fan of diagonal white lines in the face of the other. Sometimes, however, the source of an illustration is ‘buried’ within an article. Balneum, for instance, has two nearly identical pictures showing a woman bathing a man in a deep wooden tub (Fig. 15). Why a woman? The text has two sections, the first consisting of an anthology of quotations from the Decretum and its gloss considering questions of who can bathe — or is prohibited from bathing — and with whom.36 One of these, not at the beginning, cites the Decretum D. 81, c. 28, saying that it is not proper for Christians to have washing facilities in common with women, and the gloss, which adds that it is truly disgraceful to appoint clothed women as custodians of bathhouses.37 In this case the illustration, literal as it is, doubtlessly refers also to bathing practices common in fourteenth-century England. In a parallel case, Corpus humanum (Fig. 14) shows a layman pointing toward a cleric with a bandaged knee supporting himself on crutches. Why? The title of the Omne bonum entry suggests a general discussion of the human body and this indeed is found in the first section, which, quoting the Rosarium decreti, explains that the human body is formed from male semen and the ‘semen’ of menstrual blood;38 but the second section of the article is drawn from commentaries of Hostiensis and William of Pagula on the question in Decretals 1.20 about the ordination of deformed or crippled individuals, and in the text-column directly opposite the illustration is the deum de Job’; 4) Opus imperfectum on Matthew 6:16; 5) Secreta secretorum, chap. 82, on character and personality in human physiognomy; 6) Annals of the Romans (Letter of Lentulus), a description of the face of Jesus, see M. R. James, Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford 1924, 477–78. 35 6 E VII, fol. 107v, ‘Et ideo spuens in faciem clerici maliciose est excommunicatus’, citing Hostiensis, Summa, 5.39. 36 6 E VI, fol. 179r: 20.1.24 and gloss; 81.28 and gloss; 3.12 cons.; 28.1.13. The second section, fols. 179r–179v, is from the Secreta secretorum discussion of baths constructed in the Roman manner, and their benefits. The components mentioned bear no relationship to the Omne bonum ilIustrations. 37 6 E VI, fol. 179r. 38 6 E VI, fol. 43lv, citing the Rosarium on 56.5.

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crucial line, ‘If one has a useless or infected limb, that is, leg, or a withered or powerless hand, or a blind eye, this can be called debility’.39 Here perhaps it was the accidental proximity of those text lines to the empty space for the historiated initial that led to the particular choice of illustration. Omne bonum entries such as Facies, Balneum and Corpus humanum and their illustrations show how deeply involved the law of the Church was in all aspects of human conduct, even ordinary behavior. But some Omne bonum illustrations based on single text lines are found in articles on matters of Church doctrine, for example, Hereticus (Fig. 16). The picture shows a group of scholars arguing with a group of heretics, who are characterized as Jews by their hooked noses. The article begins with a canon-law anthology40 which includes a list of seven varieties of heretics from the gloss on Decretum 24.3.25, among them ‘all those who do not accept the Articles of Faith . . . and on this basis Jews and infidels are heretics’.41 Here of course common medieval attitudes toward Jews42 informed the artist’s choice of a Jewish caricature as the emblem of the heretic. Last, I would like to consider those Omne bonum illustrations that add a layer of pictorial interpretation to the subject of the entry as a whole, beginning with two representations of the subject to which many causae of the Decretum and an entire book of the Decretals are devoted — that is, marriage. In the Omne bonum there are illustrations for the articles on Bigamist,43 Consanguinity,44 Married Cleric,45 Divorce,46 Betrothal of the

6 E VI, fol. 432r: ‘Si quis habet membrum sed inefficacem puta crus vel manum arridam vel impotentem vel oculum cecum, hec potest dici debilitas’. 40 Hereticus (6 E VII, fols. 200r–205r) has five rubricated sections: 1) Decretum 24.3.25 and gloss, Rosarium decreti on 24.3.27, 28, 2.73 cons.; 2) Hostiensis, Summa, 5.7; 3) Summa summarum 5.10; Speculum iudiciale on heretics; 5) Catholicon. 41 6 E VII, fol. 200r: ‘Omnis qui non tenet articulos fidei, hereticus est, & secundum hoc iudeus & gentilis heretici sunt’. 42 See R. Mellinkoff, Outcasts: Signs of otherness in Northern European art of the late Middle Ages, 2 vols., Berkeley and Los Angeles 1993, 1.127–29. 43 6 E VI, fol. 195r, a historiated initial showing a seated bishop addressing a man flanked by two wives, and fol. 196r, a large table of sacramental and bigamous marriage. 44 6 E VI, fol. 382v. Consanguinitas illustrated with a full-page Tree of Consanguinity. 45 6 E VI, fol. 296v, a section of the article on Clerici. Clericus coniugatus is illustrated with a group of clerics and a group of women pointing to an infant in a cradle. 46 6 E VI, fol. 536v. Divorcium shows a secular judge, a procurator, a woman, and her estranged husband. 39

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Under-aged,47 and Frigidity,48 in addition to the two discussed here — Coniugium and Clandestinum matrimonium. Coniugium (Fig. 6), as already mentioned, is a standard image patterned after illustrations of marriage both in the Decretum and the Decretals. The artist took advantage of this standard format when he composed the illustration for Clandestinum matrimonium (Fig. 17), for which there is certainly no pictorial tradition. The priest of Coniugium was replaced by a friar, and next to the half-hidden bride a finger-pointing cleric was added. These components are related to the text of the article, which, quoting Hostiensis on the Decretals titulus on Clandestine Betrothal, says that one factor that makes a marriage clandestine is that it is contracted in the presence of a chaplain rather than a parish priest49 — and friars often served as chaplains in the fourteenth century. The official Church position is represented in this image by the cleric with his gesture warning that the marriage is illicit. But if Coniugium and Clandestinum matrimonium are compared, one further visual contrast emerges. In Coniugium the symbolic handclasp sealing the agreement of marriage is the iunctio dextrarum — the right hands of the bride and groom are joined. In Clandestinum matrimonium on the other hand, the right hand of the groom and the left hand of the bride are joined together in a visual symbol of illicit clandestinity, not specifically mentioned in the text.50 Nevertheless, this symbol — the opposite of the iunctio dextrarum — must have been familiar imagery both verbal and pictorial in the fourteenth century, since we know it from the famous Parisian illuminated manuscript of the Roman de Fauvel,51 where Fauvel marries Vainegloire clandestinely ‘with the left hand, without bans, without clergy and without priest’,52 and where 47 6 E VI, fol. 502v. Desponsacio impuberum shows a man clasping the left hand of a woman with his right hand. See below, at n. 53. 48 6 E VII, fol. 163r. Frigiditas shows a seated canonist addressing a man and a woman. 49 6 E VI, fol. 286v, ‘Matrimonium clandestinum dicitur sex modis . . . Quinto quia contrahit contra interdictum ecclesie specialiter factum puta per capellanum vel iudicem, vel generaliter factum puta in quadragesima vel aliis temporibus prohibitis’, citing Hostiensis, Summa, 4.2, 1. 50 See L. F. Sandler, The handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: a manuscript precedent, Art Bulletin 66 (1984), 488–91. The discussion of clandestine marriage in this study profited greatly from M. M. Sheehan, The formation and stability of marriage in fourteenth-century England: Evidence of an Ely register, Mediaeval Studies 32 (1971). 228–63. 51 See Le Roman de Fauvel, intro. E. H. Roesner, F. Avril and N. F. Regalado. New York 1990. 52 Fr. 146, fol. 30v: ‘Droit a vaine gloire se lance/Le plus biau quil pour la fiance./Mes ce fu a la main senestre/Sans bans et sans clerc et sanz prestre/A fauvel sa fame espousee/Que fortune li a donnee’.

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1. Omne bonum, Christus (XPC). London, British Library MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 518 (photo: British Library Board).

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2. William of Nottingham, Gospel Commentary, prologue. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 165, fol. 13 (photo: Bodleian Library).

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3. Omne bonum, Clericus venator. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 303v (photo: British Library Board).

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4. Decretum, Causa 11, clerics before judges. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Vat. lat. 1370, fol. 136 (after Melnikas).

423

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5. Omne bonum, Arbiter. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 128v (photo: British Library Board).

6. Omne bonum, Coniugium. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 375 (photo: British Library Board).

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7. Decretum, Causa 32, marriage. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana MS Vat. lat. 2491, fol. 478 (after Melnikas).

8. Omne bonum, Constellacio. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 396v (photo: British Library Board).

425

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9. Decretum, Causa 26, astrologer. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery MS 10.133, fol. 247 (after Melnikas).

10. Omne bonum, Citacio. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 275 (photo: British Library Board.

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11. Omne bonum, Decanus. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 475 (photo: British Library Board).

12. Omne bonum, Auxilium. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 164 (photo: British Library Board).

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13. Omne bonum, Facies. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 107v (photo: British Library Board).

14. Omne bonum, Corpus humanum. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 431v (photo: British Library Board).

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15. Omne bonum, Balneum. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 179 (photo: British Library Board).

429

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16. Omne bonum, Hereticus. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 200 (photo: British Library Board).

17. Omne bonum, Clandestinum matrimonium. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 286v (photo: British Library Board).

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18. Roman de Fauvel, marriage of Fauvel and Vainegloire. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS fr. 146, fol. 30v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

431

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19. Omne bonum, Femine. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 114 (photo: British Library Board).

20. Omne bonum, Gracia. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 186v (photo: British Library Board).

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21. Omne bonum, Femine, marginal drawing. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 114 (photo: British Library Board).

433

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22. Omne bonum, Apellacio. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 108 (photo: British Library Board).

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23. Omne bonum, Expositus. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 104v (photo: British Library Board).

435

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24. Omne bonum, Excommunicatio. Royal 6 E VII, fol. 75v (photo: British Library Board).

25. Omne bonum, Bedellus. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 194v (photo: British Library Board).

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26. Omne bonum, Advocatus. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 50v (photo: British Library Board).

437

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27. Omne bonum, Desponsacio impuberum. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 502v (photo: British Library Board).

28. Omne bonum, Convencio. Royal 6 E VI, fol. 420v (photo: British Library Board).

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an illustration shows just such a left-handed marriage (Fig. 18). The artist of the Omne bonum himself used left and right handclasps in illustrations of other illicit marital arrangements as in Desponsacio impuberum,53 or underhanded business deals, as in Convencia.54 Finally, I would like to discuss two examples of pictorial commentary that demonstrate striking contrasts in attitudes toward women, Femine (Figs. 19, 21) and Gracia (Fig. 20). Femine is a complex compilation that includes a canon-law anthology, and extracts from Peter of Blois on Job, the Opus imperfectum, De proprietatibus rerum, the Secreta secretorum, and the Manipulus florum, among other sources.55 The details of the illustration are culled from different places in the text and combined in a single image. According to a Decretum extract cited by James le Palmer, ‘It is the order of the natural law of mankind that women serve men because woman comes from the body of man’ and so ‘the woman must veil her head because she is not in the image of God, but is to be shown to be subjected to the man’.56 This last is literally illustrated by the five women wearing head-coverings. But the Decretum also notes that women have the power to cause man’s downfall, 53 See above, at n. 47. The Omne bonum includes articles on Clandestina desponsacio (6 E VI, fols. 286v–289r) and Desponsacio impuberum (6 E VI, fols. 502v–503r), both — as well as Clandestinum matrimonium (6 E VI, fol. 286v) — quoting Hostiensis, Summa, 4.2 (Fig. 27). 54 6 E VI, fol. 420v, showing two men clasping right and left hands. The text is an anthology of extracts from the Decretum and the Decretals and their glosses on the subject of fraudulent agreements (Fig. 28). 55 6 E VII, fols. 114r–117v: 1) Decretum 33.5.12, 13, 17, 18; 23.29; 32.17; 15.3.1 and gloss, gloss on 12.2.8; Rosarium on Decretum 33.5.13; 2) Peter of Blois on Job 2:9; Opus imperfectum on Matt. 9:21–22; Willelmus de Monte Lauduno on Clementines, ‘Femina cor hominis aufert proximum scandalizat & animam dampnat . . .’ (unidentified); Opus imperfectum on Matt. 1: 19–20; 3) Thomas of Wilton, Questio on mendicant begging, with rubric ‘Item nota quam periculosum est alicui se exponere temptacioni ut faciunt quidam mendicantes per primam qui cum mulieribus nobilibus & aliis regularibus & secularibus libenter communicant & secrecius fabulantur ut faciunt fratres mendicantes coiter istis diebus & sunt valde secreti cum eis’ (see Szittya, 93–99); 4) Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, 18.47, 6.6 on the physical and psychological characteristics of women and girls; 5) Secreta secretorum, chap. 67, Manipulus florum, Femina, biblical quotations (Prov. 5:2–5, 6:24–29, 7:5–27, 23:27–29, 25:24, 27:15, Eccles. 25:22–36, 26:1–24, 41:27, and I Peter 3), all on women; 6) Martiniana, Femina, Decretum, gloss and Rosarium decreti, 27.1.23, Decretum 8.1.26 and gloss, 30.3 and Rosarium, Hostiensis, Summa 1.29. 56 6 E VI, fols. 114r–114v: ‘Est ordo iuris naturalis inter homines ut servant femine viris nam femina de corpore viri est’ (33.5.12); ‘Item mulier debet velare caput suum quia non est ymago dei sed viro ostenditur esse subiecta’ (33.5.19).

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‘Adam was deceived by Eve, not Eve by Adam’57 and James expanded on this theme by quoting Peter of Blois’s list of a long series of Biblical men brought low by women, among them Samson, David, and John the Baptist.58 He emphasized this point further in a marginal annotation, ‘Note which misfortunes came from women’, accompanied by a drawing of a female figure pointing to herself (Fig. 21). In the painted initial, the evil of women is graphically illustrated by the man in the lower right-hand corner, who kneels submissively before one of the veiled women, who wields a large club. The ideas that women are lesser than men, and subject to them, but are nevertheless armed with evil power to cause man’s downfall have to be expressed sequentially in the text of the article, but they can be communicated simultaneously in the image, and through this simultaneity of presentation the artist-commentator says ‘This is what women really are’. But the illustration for Gracia (Fig. 20) tells a different story. Gracia is composed of seven rubricated sections, most drawn from canon law texts, glosses and commentaries.59 The illustration is a common Christian subject, the Pentecost, that is, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and it was inspired by a passage from the Rosarium decreti, quoted in the opening section: ‘Certain gifts are created and others non-created. A gift that is non-created is the Holy Spirit, which is called grace because it is given gratis’ — ‘non-created’ meaning it always was.60 The Pentecost, of course, is the chief example of the gift of the Holy Spirit, so the illustration is a visual exemplum of gracia. Medieval illustrations of the Pentecost frequently include the Virgin Mary in the midst of the apostles, but here her presence adds a poignant layer of meaning to those embodied in the words of the text and the primary level of the image, since a viewer or reader should immediately think of Mary herself as a vessel of Grace, ‘Ave Maria gratia plena’. 6 E VI, fol. 114v: ‘Adam per Evam deceptus est, non Eva per Adam’ (33.5.18). 6 E VI, fols. 114v–115r: ‘Nam per feminam, Ioseph incarceratus est, Nabot occisus, Sampson invinculatus, Yboseth interfectus, Salomon factus est apostata, David homicida & proditor, Sisara c1avo confossus, precussor Baptista domini decollatus’ (Peter of Blois on Job 2:9). 59 6 E VII, fols. 186v–189v: 1) Rosarium decreti on 1.1.1; 2.15 pen.; 2) Catholicon on Gratia; 3) Decretum 4.8 pen. and gloss; 4) Decretum 1.1.1, Rosarium decreti (anthology); 5) Opus imperfectum (anthology); 6) Manipulus florum on Gratia; 7) Hostiensis, Summa, 5.38, 3 and 3.39; and marginal addition, Johannes Andreae, gloss on Clementines 5.13. 60 6 E VII, fol. 186v: ‘Donum autem quoddam est creatum & quoddam increatum. Donum autem increatum est spiritus sanctus qui dicitur gracia eo modo quod est gratis datum’ (Rosarium decreti on 1.1.1). 57 58

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To conclude, James le Palmer’s Omne bonum is of interest to art historians because of its lavish use of illustrations; it has considerable codicological interest because of its elaborate physical layout; it is of interest to students of the history of tools of learning because of its alphabetical organization; it is of broad historical interest because it maps out ‘omne bonum’ — from the point of view of a particular individual; and finally, both illustrations and text should interest legal historians because as visual and textual compilation and commentary they offer unique — and perhaps unexpected — testimony to the use of and response to canon law in fourteenth century England.

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Index-Making in the Fourteenth Century: Archbishop Arundel’s Copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham

B

ETWEEN 1350 and 1375, James le Palmer, a devout and erudite senior clerk of the Exchequer, whose official duty was to write the Pipe Roll or Great Roll of the Exchequer, copied for his own use the lengthy Gospel Commentary composed in the first half of the century by the Franciscan, William of Nottingham, and had it richly illustrated with hundreds of historiated initials representing events from the Gospel accounts of the life of Christ.1 William of Nottingham had been the lector to the Franciscans at Oxford c. 1312 and Provincial of the English order from 1316 to c. 1330.2 It was at Oxford that he delivered the lectures on the Gospels that were subsequently given written form in his commentary.3 William of Nottingham’s phrase by phrase exposition of the Gospels closely follows the pattern of Clement of Llanthony’s twelfth-century Gospel Harmony, a rearrangement of the four individual Gospel accounts into a single sequence subdivided into twelve parts.4 Clement himself had

Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 165. See L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, V, ed. J. J. G. Alexander (London, 1986), I, ills. 330–2; II, no. 125, pp. 139–40; eadem, ‘Omne Bonum’: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (London, 1996), I, pp. 17–19. 2 On William of Nottingham see B. Smalley, ‘Which William of Nottingham?’, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 3 (1954), pp. 200–39. 3 Smalley, p. 206. 4 F. Stegmüller, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi, II (Madrid, 1949) no. 1981, pp. 249–50; VIII (Madrid, 1976), p. 382. 1

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written a massive commentary on the Gospels,5 a work acknowledged with appreciation by William of Nottingham, although not without the claim of having advanced beyond his predecessor.6 Drawing on a long tradition of Biblical exegesis, William of Nottingham’s Gospel Commentary was, as Beryl Smalley observed, ‘one of the ponderous aids to study that weighted the shelves of the theological section in an English library of the late middle ages’.7 Yet, the scribe and owner of this copy, James le Palmer, clearly read and was moved by every word, leaving a unique record of the depth of his response in the way he designed the volume, articulated the text, provided for illustrations, and added profuse figural and verbal notes in the page margins. Of the ten surviving copies of William’s Gospel Commentary, James le Palmer’s is the most elaborate. It alone has illustrations.8 They are graded hierarchically: column-width miniatures generally of William of Nottingham — or perhaps Clement of Llanthony — lecturing at the begin5 Stegmüller, VIII, no. 1982, pp. 382–3. See Dictionary of National Biography, XXII (Supplement), s.v. Clement of Lanthony; for an updated and corrected list of manuscripts, see N. R. Ker and A. J. Piper, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, IV (1992), p. 614 (Winchester College MS 17), observing that of Clement’s twelve-part commentary, in four sections, sec. I (pts. 1–3), survives in one copy only (Winchester Coll. MS 17, datable 1432), Sec. II (pts. 4–6) is lost, Sec. III (pts. 7–9) also exists in one copy (Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Bodl. 334, 13th century), and Sec. IV (pts. 10–12) exists in an incomplete copy in Trinity Coll., Cambridge (MS B. 5. 13, 13th century) attributed in a fifteenth-century hand to ‘Haimo’ (of Halberstadt?); see M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1900–4), I, no. 159, pp. 208–9. 6 E.g., the explicit of Part IV of William’s commentary (fol. 210v): ‘Explicit quarta pars huius operis secundum processum clementis quem auctor huius libri prosequitur & in multis cum eo concordat tamen eum in multis exedit & plenius & planius exponit & eciam tractat ut patere potest intuenti si bene inspiciatur’ [Here ends the fourth part of this work according to the order of Clement, which the author of this book follows, and it accords with him in many ways although it goes beyond him in many ways, and explains and treats more fully and intelligibly, as may be seen by the attentive individual if it is examined well]. 7 Smalley, p. 200. According to Smalley (pp. 233–4), the latest works consulted by William of Nottingham were Bonaventura’s commentary on the Gospel of John (1253–7), the Catena aurea associated with Thomas Aquinas (1263–8), and a commentary on the Gospel of Luke by Thomas Docking, Franciscan of Oxford (c. 1265). 8 The illustrations were painted by several individuals, in the first instance by an artist who worked with — or for — James le Palmer in his great encyclopedia, Omne bonum (see above, n. 1). This artist completed the illustrations on fols 13–238v, about half of the book; after a lapse of time, the remaining illustrations were executed during the 1380s by two other artists, working in blank spaces left for the purpose by James le Palmer.

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ning of each of the twelve parts of the commentary;9 large (about 3" x 3") historiated initials of Gospel subjects at the beginnings of the individual Gospel passages; smaller (about 1" x 1") initials filled with heads of evangelists, scholars, or decorative foliage at the beginning of the exposition following the individual or grouped Gospel passages; and small gold initials on coloured grounds at the beginning of subdivisions of the exposition. Not only is James le Palmer’s copy of William’s Gospel Commentary the only one with illustrations, it is the only surviving example of the text with rubrics introducing each of the twelve parts and each Gospel passage, as well as each unit of the exposition, all composed by James le Palmer using characteristically wordy locutions such as ‘Nunc sequitur videre exposicionem supradicti evangelii ut patebit inferius’.10 In addition, as part of the articulation of the book James provided a kalendarium or table of subject headings of each part, with location references, giving this feature a new name, a more prominent place, and more elaborate form than in other copies of William’s Gospel Commentary;11 and he wrote careful running heads throughout, identifying the part of the commentary and the Gospel book and chapter number. Finally, he filled the margins with profuse annotations, elaborately written, like all the other textual articulations, in both red and brown ink and frequently accompanied by his own figural pointers with details of gender, status, costume, and gesture appropriate to the contents of the adjacent text.

9 James le Palmer, who commissioned the illustrations, and himself wrote out the text, was not altogether certain of the respective roles of Clement of Llanthony and William of Nottingham, as is evident from the rubric he composed for the beginning of Part 3: ‘Hic incipit tercia pars clementis super illo libro sive volumine qui vocatur unum ex quatuor sive unus ex quatuor super quatuor evangelia compilata a quodam fratre minore qui dicitur Notingham secundum aliquos. Alii tamen dicunt quod vocatur clemens super quatuor evangelia et sive unum sive aliud, preciosissima & nobilissima exposicio sive lectura invenietur si bene intelligatur’ [Here begins the third part of Clement on that book or volume that is called Unum ex quatuor, or rather, Unus ex quatuor on the four Gospels compiled by a certain Franciscan called Nottingham according to certain individuals. Others however say that it is called Clement on the four Gospels, and whether one or the other, a most precious and noble exposition, or reading, is found in it if one understands it well]. 10 Fol. 35 (exposition of Luke 1.39–56): ‘Now it follows to. consider the exposition of the aforementioned Gospel as will be shown below’. 11 Cf. London, B.L. MS Royal 4 E II, end 14th century, fols 4–6, where the chapter list (without the heading calling it a kalendarium) follows the prohemion, rather than being treated as a discrete element of the textual apparatus.

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1. William of Nottingham, Gospel Commentary, Prohemion. Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 165, fol. 13 (photo: Bodleian Library).

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2. Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 165, fol. 5 (photo: Bodleian Library).

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Of all these features, the most personal are the verbal and figural notes in the margins. The verbal marginalia summarize or call attention to the important passages of the commentary, for example, the first in the entire volume: ‘sacra scriptura transcendit omnem aliam scientiam multis modis’. This line is adjacent to William of Nottingham’s prohemion, or preface: ‘Transcendit autem sacra scriptura omnem aliam scienciam & doctrinam precipue in sublimitate & in profunditate & in utilitate’ (Fig. 1).12 Although it is possible that some of the marginal summaries were copied from James’s now-lost exemplar,13 there are so many more than in other surviving copies of the text that it seems likely that they represent James’s own immediate response to what he had just written — and it is sure that they were in fact written together with the text, not later. Some notes serve to articulate the text: ‘questio’ and ‘solutio’, for example, indicating the starting points of questions raised by William of Nottingham and the places where their resolutions are to be found14 Some are analytical: ‘Nota qui doctores sunt prohibendi & qui non ut hic’ adjacent to part of the commentary on Luke 1.4, ‘. . . quidam male vivunt & bene docent ut doctores mercenarii, & de hiis loquitur paulus nec sunt a sua doctrina prohibendi nec cohibendi. Alii vero & male vivunt & male docent ut heretici, & de hiis loquitur lucas, & hic sunt cohercendi.’15 Some

Fol. 13. Marginal note: ‘Holy Scripture surpasses all other knowledge in many ways’. Text of commentary: ‘Thus Holy Scripture surpasses all other knowledge and learning, particularly in sublimity, profundity and utility’. 13 Cf. Oxford, Merton Coll. MS 157, late 14th century, but more sparse, less personal in tone, and written by more than one hand. 14 Marginal references to questiones and solutiones occur in other copies of William’s Gospel Commentary, e.g., Oxford, Merton Coll. MS 157 and Magdalen Coll. MS 160. These indications may have been used as the basis for alphabetical extracts of ‘Questiones quas movet Notyngham in scripto suo super evangelia’, e.g., Oxford, Merton Coll. MS 68, 15th century; for discussion of these extracts see Smalley, pp. 223–7. 15 Fol. 26v. Marginal note: ‘Note which teachers are to be prohibited and which not, as here’. Exposition of Luke 1.4 (‘That thou mayest know the verity of those words in which thou hast been instructed’): ‘certain persons live badly and teach well, such as mercenary doctors, and of these Paul speaks [Philipp. 1.15–17]; they should be neither prohibited nor restrained from their teaching. Others in truth both live and teach badly, such as heretics, and of these Luke speaks; and these are to be restrained.’ 12

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evaluate the quality of the text: ‘Nota hic subtilem materiam’; ‘Nota bonam comparacionem inter hereticos & spinas & tribulos’.16 A considerable number of marginal notes apply the text to specific classes of individuals: ‘Nota hic quid sacerdotes debent facere & que non debent promoneri per pecuniam seu per terrenam potestatem’ next to the commentary on Luke 3.1, which explains that the Gospel text is read ‘illo die ad gradum dyaconatus & sacerdotii promonentur, evangelizandi auctoritatem recipiunt, non a se sed a superiori, et quod non debent evangeliare nisi missi ab episcopo, sicut nec Iohannes nisi missus a deo’;17 or ‘Nota contra curiales que delectantur in vestimentis delicatis sive speciosis’ next to the commentary on Matthew 3.4: ‘Omne vestimentum ad tres pertinet causas: aut ad speciem visionis, aut ad delectamentum corporis, aut ad tegumentum nuditatis.18 Finally, once or twice the marginal notes even apply the words of the text to specific, named individuals: ‘Nota hanle’ next to the exposition of Matthew 20.1, ‘Non enim conduxit operarios ut irent in silvam ad venandum ut irent in villam ad mercandizandum ut irent in aulam ad canendum, sed ut irent in vineam suam, id est, in militantem ecclesiam ad excolendum, ad plantandum & fructificandum.’19 ‘Hanle’ was William de Hanley, an associate of James le Palmer in the Exchequer, whom James had criticized for excessive enthusiasm for hunting on other occasions.20 16 Fol. 18: ‘Note here subtle material’ next to the exposition of the words ‘was the word’ (John 1.1). Fol. 177: ‘Note a good comparison between heretics and thorns and thistles’ next to the exposition of Matthew 7.16 on false prophets (‘By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?’). 17 Fol. 74. Marginal note: ‘Note here what priests should do and that they should not be promoted on account of money or earthly power’. Text of commentary: ‘on the day on which they are promoted to the diaconate and priesthood they receive the authorization to evangelize, not from themselves but from their superior, and that they should not evangelize unless sent by a bishop, as John did not without being sent by God’. 18 Fol 80v. Marginal note: ‘Note against courtiers who take pleasure in luxurious or showy garments’. The commentary on Matthew 3.4 (‘John had his garment’) quotes the Opus imperfectum attributed to Johannes Chrysostom: ‘All garments exist for three purposes: either for the sake of admiration, or for the pleasure of the body, or for the covering of nudity.’ 19 Fol. 380v. Marginal note: ‘Note, Hanley’. Text of commentary: ‘He [the master] did not order his workers to go into the woods to hunt, or to go into the city to engage in commerce, or to go into the hall to play music, but to go into his vineyard, that is, the Church Militant, to tend the vines, to plant, and to propagate fruit.’ 20 Cf. the articles on clerics and bishops in James le Palmer’s encyclopedia, Omne bonum (London, B.L. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 303v and 6 E VII, fol. 61) with marginal notes, respectively, ‘Nota hic que venacio est clericis interdicta et hoc facit contra W. de hanleye’ (note

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James le Palmer died in 1375, having finished copying the text of the Gospel Commentary, to which he had added a colophon, ‘Iste liber est liber jacobi le palmere quem scripsit manu sua propria deo gracias’,21 but without seeing the completion of the illustrations. Those missing were inserted, probably during the 1380s, by an unknown subsequent owner of the volume.22 What is known is that by the end of the century the book belonged to Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury (1396–1414), and that at that time — probably just before 1400 — Arundel gave it to the Benedictine monks of Christ Church Cathedral in Canterbury, where it remained until the Dissolution.23 The evidence of Arundel’s gift was inserted in the volume itself, in the form of an illustration24 at the beginning of an alphabetical index of contents, composed, as its preface states, by the archbishop’s clerk and chaplain, who — modestly — did not name himself.25 The index fills fols 5–12v of the volume, inserted between James le Palmer’s original kalendarium and the opening of the text. The illustration (Fig. 2) is in a large (6" high) initial ‘R’ elaborately framed in stylized foliage of red, blue, and gold in the fashion of the end of the fourteenth century. It shows the archbishop enthroned, his coat of arms on a shield above the throne. He is flanked by two standing Benedictines, one holding his archiepiscopal cross. Kneeling before him is a cleric clothed here that hunting is forbidden to clerics and this goes against W. de Hanley) and ‘Nota Hanley’. Both notes are adjacent to texts setting forth the church’s opposition to hunting by clerics, and the first note is accompanied by a marginal drawing of a cleric with a hunting dog. See Sandler, ‘Omne Bonum’, I, p. 24, ill. 7. 21 Fol. 585: ‘This book is the book of James le Palmer, who wrote it with his own hand, thanks be to God’. 22 The later illustrations are in spaces provided by James le Palmer. They are the work of two artists, one of whom also supplied illustrations in blank spaces left in James le Palmer’s encyclopedia, Omne bonum (see Sandler, ‘Omne Bonum’, I, pp. 80–2). The other artist worked in a style similar to that of the Litlyngton Missal (London, Westminster Abbey MS 37); see L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, I, Figs 330–2, 393, 402–5; II, no. 125, pp. 138–40, no. 150, pp. 172–4. 23 See M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), p. 154. 24 Cf. the added inscription at the beginning of Nottingham’s text (fol. 13): ‘Doctor qui dicitur Notyngham super evangelia de dono domini Thome Arundell, Archiepiscopi Cantuarie in Claustro Cantuariensis’; also an erased ex libris on fol. 5, ‘Liber ecclesie christi cantuarie’. 25 For Smalley’s transcription of the preface see ‘Which William of Nottingham?’, pp. 212–23.

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in the robes of a scholar and, standing next to Arundel, in the foreground, another cleric-scholar. The gestures of the three main figures tell the story. Starting on the right, the standing cleric points to the archbishop. With his right hand, the archbishop points to a book open on a lectern, its pages inscribed with the words ‘quod factum est: in ipso’ and ‘vita erat’. With his left hand Arundel points to the kneeling cleric, and he in turn holds up a small gold-bound book toward the archbishop. From the gestures and from the prefatory text below the illustration, it is clear that the foreground clerics are the archbishop’s clerks, one of whom was the author of the ‘opusculum per modum tabule’ [work in the form of a table], and that this clerk is offering his work to the archbishop, who then points to the larger volume, William of Nottingham’s Gospel Commentary, in which it will be inserted. Medieval manuscript images showing donation of books are not uncommon, and they sometimes represent the book in question open, with the text incipit visible.26 The inscription in Archbishop Arundel’s book, however, is not the incipit, ‘Da michi intellectum’ (Give me understanding) — found on fol. 13 — but the eighth lemma of the Gospel of John (1.3–4) expounded at length in William of Nottingham’s commentary — on fol. 19v: ‘Quod factum est in ipso, vita erat’. In the printed Vulgate this passage is divided: ‘Omnia per ipsum facta sunt; et sine ipso factum est nihil quod factum est’; (John 1.3) and ‘In ipso vita erat et vita erat lux hominum’ (John 1.4), but during the Middle Ages the standard punctuation was ‘Omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil. Quod factum est in ipso vita erat.’ — ‘That which was made in him was life’ rather than ‘without him was made nothing that was made’ and ‘In him was life’.27 In his commentary William considered both readings and their implications, citing Augustine, Hilary, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, and Origen.28 Attention is drawn to this discussion by James le Palmer’s marginal note framed in red 26 A well-known example is the frontispiece of the Bible historiale presented by Jean de Vaudetar to Charles V in 1371 (The Hague, Mus. Mermanno-Westreenianum MS 10 B 23, fol. 2). 27 See the discussion in The Gospel according to John (Anchor Bible), intro R. E. Brown, S.S. (New York, 1966), pp. 6–7, primarily focused on the Greek text rather than the Vulgate. 28 Fols 19v–20. William cites Augustine’s Homily 1 on John (J. P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series latina (Paris, 1844–64), XXXV, 1387) and De Trinitate, I. 9 (Pat. lat., XLII, 853); Hilary, De Trinitate, II.d. (2.20) (Pat. lat., X, 63); Chrysostom, Homilies 4 and 5 on John (St John Chrysostom, Commentary on Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, Homilies 1–47 (Fathers of the Church), trans. S. T. A. Goggin, S.C.H. (New York, 1957), pp. 43–70);

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and written on two lines, ‘Quod factum est | in ipso vita erat’, aligned with Augustine’s discussion of the first reading. Although it is not clear why Archbishop Arundel’s open book should be inscribed with this particular passage rather than the incipit of Nottingham’s work,29 the archbishop’s clerk’s (and in turn the artist’s) attention might have been drawn to the words through James le Palmer’s marginal note. As for the index itself, in a short preface the archbishop’s clerk explained, with some hyperbole, that he had compiled his table of contents ‘out of pity for students whose overwork leads to sickness and death or to diseases even worse than death’.30 He described his system as follows: ‘. . . cum idem liber sit divisus in partes duodecim, est notandum quod primus numerus partibus deservit, secundus numerus foliis, et hee quatuor litere, videlicet a, b, c, d, foliorum columnis, ita quod per a notatur prima columpna folii, per b secunda, per c tertia, et per litteram d quarta’.31 Since the thirteenth century, alphabetical lists of Biblical terms and subjects had been the basis of works useful to students, scholars, preachers, and chaplains — Biblical concordances, collections of distinctiones, and reference works based on them, such as Thomas of Ireland’s Manipulus florum.32 These texts were common in episcopal libraries, and would certainly have been familiar to Archbishop Arundel’s clerk, who was simply following established practice to index William of Nottingham’s commentary on the Ambrose, De Fide, III.b. (3.6) (Pat. lat., XVI, 598); and Origen (source unspecified, cf. Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 1–10 (Fathers of the Church) trans. R. E. Heine (Washington, DC, 1989), Homily 2, 124–9). The order and the passages selected are similar to those in the Catena aurea attributed to Thomas Aquinas, except that Ambrose is not cited in the latter (D. Thomae Aquinatis Doctoris Angelici in Matthaeum, Marcum, Lucam et Ioannem, Catenam auream (Opera omnia, XV) (Rome, 1570), p. 213). 29 Could it be that ‘quod factum est’ is a double-entendre alluding both to the Scriptures and to the making — or even donation — of the book, in other words, a kind of colophon? 30 Quoting Smalley’s translation, pp. 212–13. 31 ‘. . . since that book is divided into twelve parts, it should be noted that the first number refers to the part, the second, the folio, and these four letters, that is, a, b, c, d, the columns of the folios, so that “a” indicates the first column of the folio, “b” the second, “c” the third and the letter “d” the fourth’. 32 On these alphabetical tools see R. H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus Florum of Thomas of Ireland (Toronto, 1979), esp. pp. 3–35, with further bibliography cited there; see also M. B. Parkes, ‘The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book’, Medieval Learning and Literature, Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. J. J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson (1976), pp. 115–39.

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Gospels. But every index is unique, the result of an encounter between the indexer and the text. How did Archbishop Arundel’s clerk go about making his index? Did he read William of Nottingham’s commentary word by word, making a list of terms and topics to be indexed? Perhaps. Did he then formulate the phrasing of the location references, using the commentary as his guide? Again, perhaps, but here it is clear that William’s text was not the only resource for the indexer. James le Palmer’s text layout, articulation, and especially his marginal notes played an important role in facilitating the composition of the index, influencing the selection of entries, and providing phrasing for the location references. A number of index entries under the letter ‘A’ may serve as examples (Fig. 2). The first entry in the entire index is ‘Abraham et eius multiplex commendacio. Parte septima folio xvii° .a.b.’33 Pt. VII is identifiable in the text by an introductory rubric on fol. 298 and by running heads throughout the section. Fol. xvii a.b. of pt. VII corresponds in the modern foliation to fol. 314 recto cols. a and b. (The folio numbers given in the index location references differ from the modern numbering because each of the twelve partes of the text was foliated separately, not by James, but by Archbishop Arundel’s clerk.) A reader turning to the Gospel Commentary text is directed to the relevant passage on Abraham by James’s marginal notes and figural pointers on fol. 314ra, ‘Nota bene hic de bonitate habrahe & quale exemplum nobis dedit’ and fol. 314rb, ‘Habraham’.34 The second index entry, ‘Abraham. vidit diem meum vii a .xvi.d.’, uses phrasing from James’s marginal note on fol. 313vb: ‘Questio: Quam diem Christi vidit habraham & quomodo’.35 Another entry under ‘A’, ‘Amor habet racionem doni & est primum donum iia xxxii°.c.d. (fol. 105va–b)’, corresponds to James’s marginal notes: ‘Spiritus sanctus amor est & primum donum’ in col. a and ‘amor habet proprie racionem doni & vide quomodo est primum donum’ in col. b.36 Again from ‘A’ is ‘Alpha & omega. quid in ‘Abraham and his multiple commendations. Pt. VII, fol. 17 a & b’. ‘Note well here about the goodness of Abraham and what an example he set for us’. 35 Index entry: ‘Abraham saw my day. Pt. VII, fol. 16 d’. Marginal note: ‘Question: In what way and how did Abraham see the day of Christ’ (commentary on John 8.56, ‘Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day’). 36 Index entry: ‘Love is the reason for a gift and is the first gift. Pt. II, fol. 32 c, d’. Marginal notes: ‘The Holy Spirit is love’ and ‘love properly is the reason for a gift and see how it is the first gift’. Text commentary on John 3.21, citing Gregory the Great’s homily on Pentecost (Pat. lat., LXXVI, 1220). 33 34

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prologo jeronimi folio ii°.a. (fol. 17ra)’, corresponding to the marginal note, ‘Alpha & omega’ adjacent to the exposition of the lemma ‘Ego sum alpha and omega’ from Jerome’s prologue to the Gospel of St John.37 A last example from ‘A’ is ‘Alabastrum quid iiiia lviii°.c. (fol. 206va)’, which corresponds to James’s marginal note ‘Alabastrum quid sit’ adjacent to an exposition of the word (Luke 7.37) attributed to Bede (In Lucae Evangelium expositio): ‘Alabastrum est genus marmoris candidi variis coloribus intincti quod ad vasa unguentaria sanare deputari solent.’38 Many of James’s more specific marginal notes on subjects of topical concern, those about courtiers, teachers, lepers and heretics for instance, became the basis of index entries, the exact words of a note sometimes being incorporated into the index, to serve as a location reference. In this way, James’s note against courtiers’ ostentatious dress, ‘Nota contra curiales que delectantur in vestimentis delicatis sive speciosis’, together with another of his marginal criticisms, ‘Nota contra eos qui delectantur in vestibus preciosis’, was used as the basis of the index entry, ‘Vestimentorum iia vii° d & iiiia liiii° d (fols 80vb and 202vb)’. The latter reference is to the exposition of the word vestis in Luke 7.25, quoting from Anselm’s Similitudines, chap. 39: ‘Nemo enim preciosas vestes nisi ad inanem gloriam querit ut honorabilior ceteris videatur.’39 The index entry for teachers is ‘Doctores qui sunt prohibendi & qui non ia .x°.c. (fol. 26va)’,40 almost identical in wording to the marginal note.41 Similarly, ‘Lepre tres famose significant tria peccata ex quibus oritur universitas peccatorum viii. xxvi.a.b. (fol. 364ra–b)’ corresponds to the note ‘Tres lepre famose signant tria peccata ex quibus universitas peccatorum pro37 Index entry: ‘Alpha & omega, what is, in the prologue of Jerome, fol. 2a’. Jerome’s Prologue to the Gospel of John incorporates the phrase ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ from the Apocalypse (21.6). 38 Index entry: ‘Alabaster, what is, pt. IV, fol. 58c.’ Exposition: ‘Alabaster is a kind of translucent marble veined in various colours which is customarily to be used for jars containing ointment for healing’, cf. Bede, In Lucae Evangelium expositio (Corpus Christianorum, ser. latina CXX, pt. II, 3, ed. D. Hurst (1960), p. 166). 39 Index entry: ‘Garments. Pt. II, 7d & Pt. IV, 4d’. Fol. 80v, marginal note: ‘Note against courtiers who take pleasure in luxurious or showy garments’ (see above, n. 18). Fol. 202v, marginal note: ‘Note against those who take pleasure in expensive garments’. Text of exposition: ‘No one desires expensive garments except for vainglory so that he may seem more honourable to others.’ 40 ‘Teachers, which ones are to be prohibited and which not. Pt. I, 10c’. 41 See above, p. 448.

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cedit’,42 words associated with a vivid marginal drawing of a spotty head with a spotty pointing finger (Fig. 3). The exposition, of Luke 17.12, citing the Gloss and ‘Constancius and others’ identifies the three sins as ‘voluptas concupiscencie’, ‘cupiditas avaricie’, and ‘tumiditas superbie’; these are associated with three Old Testament lepers, Naaman and Giezi (IV Kings 5), and Ozias (II Par. 26).43 The two part index entry for heretics is: ‘Heretici sunt spine & tribuli iiia xxix b (fol. 177rb). Nota contra tres hereticos iiiia xxix c (recte xxxix c, fol. 187va)’. The corresponding marginal note for the first part is one of those in which le Palmer had evaluated the adjacent exposition, ‘Nota bonam comparacionem inter hereticos & spinas & tribulos’.44 The indexer simply eliminated the evaluation. The second reference is based on James’s entire marginal note, ‘Nota hic contra tres hereticos. ffotinum, Arrium & manicheum’ adjacent to the exposition of the word ‘volo in Luke 5.12–16, citing St Ambrose: Item super hunc locum luce & eciam secundum Ambrosium, volo: dicit, propter ffotinum hereticum; Imperat mundare, propter Arrium alium hereticum; Tangit, propter manicheum tercium hereticum. Fotinus enim dixit iesum christum inefficacem habere voluntatem. Arrius dixit christum puram creaturam & nichil posse imperando sed orando. Manicheus dicit christum habere corpus fantasticum. In hoc quod dixit volo, exprimit affectum sue pietatis. In hoc quod dicit volo mundare innuit effectum sue potestatis.45 42 Index entry: ‘The three notorious lepers signify the three sins from which the entirety of sins arises. Pt. VIII, 26a, b’. Marginal note: ‘The three notorious lepers stand for the three sins from which the entirety of sins proceeds.’ 43 ‘Sensuousness of concupiscence’, ‘grasping of avarice’, ‘swelling of pride’. 44 Index entry: ‘Heretics are thorns and thistles. Pt. III, fol. 29b. Note against three heretics. Pt. IV, fol. 39c.’ Marginal note: ‘Note a good comparison between heretics and thorns and thistles’. Exposition: ‘Et bene per spinas & tribulos intelliguntur heretici, tum quia arridi & sine humore compassionis; tum quia steriles & sine dulcore vel valore fructificacionis; tum quia aculeati ad pungerendum; tum quia apti ad comburendum.’ (And rightly, by thorns and thistles, heretics are understood, first since they are dry and without compassionate humour [i.e., quality]; next, since they are sterile and without sweetness or the power to bear fruit; then, because they are provided with spikes to pierce; and then, because they are suited for burning.) 45 Marginal note: ‘Note here against three heretics, Photinus, Arrius and Manicheus’. Exposition: ‘About this term “I will” of Luke and also Ambrose: [it means] “he says” according to the heretic Photinus; “he commands the cleansing [of the leper],” according to another heretic, Arrius; “he touches,” according to a third heretic, Manicheus. Thus

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Three marginal heads with caricatured ‘Jewish’ profiles — heretics — attached to pointing fingers look toward this text passage. As in other cases, exceptionally striking figural pointers seem to have drawn the eye of the indexer to the verbal text of the marginal annotation. The recurrence of Jamesian phasing in the index composed for William of Nottingham’s Gospel Commentary by Archbishop Arundel’s clerk is clear evidence of the clerk’s dependence on James le Palmer’s marginal notes. One of the other surviving copies of William’s Gospel Commentary, now MS 160 in Magdalen College, Oxford and written early in the fifteenth century, ends with the same index.46 The marginal notes are far sparser than those of James le Palmer and the location references in the index partially repeat those in Archbishop Arundel’s copy, even though they are not relevant to the foliation of this particular volume.47 The index of the Magdalen manuscript is neither usable nor does it provide any evidence of how it could have been devised. This is precisely the information that makes Archbishop Arundel’s copy of William of Nottingham’s Gospel Commentary so important and interesting. In the long history of the medieval development of reference tools the ‘collaboration’ of James le Palmer and the anonymous clerk of Archbishop Arundel offers a step-bystep demonstration of the process by which texts were annotated and then indexed and thus made ready for consultation and study.48 Photinus said that Jesus Christ was incapable of having will. Arrius said that Christ was merely a created being and that his commanding could be nothing but pleading. Manicheus says that Christ has an unreal substance. In that he said “I will,” he expresses the good-will of his mercy. In that he says “I will cleanse,” he signals the result of his power.’ 46 Smalley, p. 217. 47 E.g., location reference to the first entry (fol. 302v): ‘Abraham et eius multiplex commendacio. parte 1.a.b’. The folio number is omitted, and there is no marginal note adjacent to relevant text passages. It appears that the scribe of Magdalen MS 160 misunderstood his exemplar, which referred to the four columns on the recto and verso of a single folio as a, b, c, and d. Instead, probably familiar with a typical practice for locating references in academic texts, he seems to have thought the letters referred to places within a text from its beginning to its end and consequently retained the letters while eliminating the numerals. 48 I first showed Robert Raymo a photograph of the opening page of the index of Archbishop Arundel’s copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham several years ago, asking, as I have on so many other occasions, for assistance in Latin reading and translation. I am grateful for his ever-ready help, as I am awestruck at his ability to translate unhesitatingly and fluently from medieval Latin into elegant English — even over the telephone. I am also grateful to A. C. De la Mare for reading a draft of this article and to Martin Kauffmann of the Bodleian Library as well as the librarians of Magdalen College and Merton College for facilitating my access to manuscripts in their care.

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The Role of Illustrations in James le Palmer’s ‘Omne Bonum’

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ODERN encyclopedias are inconceivable without photographs, drawings, and diagrams, but among medieval works that have been called encyclopedias some of the most important were rarely, if ever, illustrated, for example, Isidore of Seville’s ‘Etymologiae’,1 Bartholomeus Anglicus’s ‘De proprietatibus rerum’2 and Vincent of Beauvais’s ‘Speculum

1 No extant copies of Isidore of Seville’s ‘Etymologiae’ are extensively illustrated although some have astronomical and geographical schemata; Fritz Saxl, Illustrated Mediaeval Encyclopedias, 1, in: Lectures, London 1957, pp. 228–254, proposed that a more fully illustrated example once existed. Reading backward from Rabanus Maurus’s ‘De rerum naturis’, whose text he called ‘only a gloss on Isidorus’ (p. 233), he maintained that the apparent dependence of many of the illustrations on models that could be as early as the sixth century suggests that Rabanus did indeed have access to an illustrated ‘Edition de luxe’ of Isidore’s encyclopedia (p. 239). Saxl’s conclusion has been rejected by Diane le Berrurier, The Pictorial Sources of Mythological and Scientific Illustrations in Hrabanus Maurus’ ‘de rerum naturis’, New York 1978, pp. 116 ff., and by Marianne Reuter, Text und Bild im Codex 132 der Bibliothek von Montecassino ‘Liber Rabani de originibus rerum’. Untersuchungen zur mittelalterlichen Illustrationspraxis (Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und RenaissanceForschung 34) Munich 1984, p. 49. 2 Although Heinz Meyer, Die illustrierten lateinischen Handschriften im Rahmen der Gesamtüberlieferung der Enzyklopädie des Bartholomäus Anglicus, in: Frühmittelalterliche Studien 20, 1996, pp. 368–395, called the Latin ‘De proprietatibus rerum’ a medieval ‘bestseller’ (p. 368), of the more than two hundred extant copies only two have a full complement of illustrations — one for each of the 19 books. When the Latin text was translated into French by Jean Corbechon in 1372 for King Charles V, a program of 19 or 20 illustrations became standard (p. 370).

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maius’.3 Some medieval encyclopedias however were designed from the outset to be illustrated. Among these is James le Palmer’s autograph ‘Omne bonum’, compiled in London beginning c. 1360, but only half completed by James’s death in 1375.4 Even in its incomplete state it has about 1,100 large-size folios, 1,700,000 words, and over 800 illustrations, and since James le Palmer was the compiler as well as the scribe and graphic designer of the work,5 it is certain that all 800 pictures were planned from the beginning. James may have expected his vast and ambitious encyclopedia to be circulated,6 but with the book only half finished, it remained unique, its fate unknown until it entered the royal library of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century.7 ‘Omne bonum’ was possibly the last illustrated encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Differing from all earlier comprehensive encyclopedias, it is 3 Margaret A. Stones, Prolegomena to a Corpus of Vincent of Beauvais Illustrations, in: Vincent de Beauvais: Intentions et réceptions d’une œuvre encyclopédique au moyen-âge (Actes du XIVe Colloque de l’Institut d’études médiévales) Saint-Laurent–Paris 1991, pp. 301–344, notes (p. 304) only one extant copy of the ‘Speculum naturale’ and one of the ‘Speculum doctrinale’; Claudine A. Chavannes-Mazel, The Miroir Histiorial of Jean le Bon, the Leiden Manuscript and its Related Copies, Ph.D. diss., Leiden 1988, 1, pp. 183–188, lists six copies of the ‘Speculum historiale’ with historiated initials or miniatures for each book; when the Latin text was translated by Jean de Vignay into French for Jeanne de Bourgogne c. 1333, illustrations became the rule (1, pp. 189–193). 4 An unicum, the single copy is now London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI–6 E VII; see Lucy Freeman Sandler, Omne Bonum: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, 2 vols., London 1996. James le Palmer was born in London before 1327. He was a trained scribe and wrote and compiled ‘Omne bonum’ while employed as a clerk and then as a senior officer of the Exchequer, the ingrossator rotuli magni (Sandler, 1, pp. 13–26). 5 In identifying himself as the compiler of ‘Omne bonum’, James gave only his first name; his full name appears in the colophon of a contemporary copy of the Gospel Commentary of William of Nottingham (Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 165); see Sandler (as n. 4) pp. 16–19. 6 James commented in the preface that he had compiled his work ad informacionem simplicium quorumcumque volencium preciosas exquirere sciencie margaritas, the language echoing that used by other compilers, such as William of Pagula (‘Summa summarum’) and Thomas of Ireland (‘Manipulus florum’); Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 131–132 and App. 1. Furthermore, he annotated the text while he was writing it; a number of the notae address criticisms to his colleagues in the Exchequer, as if expecting that they would one day read his words; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 23–26. 7 See George F. Warner–Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 1, London 1921, pp. 157–159; also James Carley, John Leland and the Foundation of the Royal Library: The Westminster Inventory of 1542, in: Bulletin of the Society for Renaissance Studies 7, 1989, pp. 13–22.

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entirely organized alphabetically, from A to Z.8 Within this alphabetical structure, James le Palmer worked as a compiler, sometimes composing an entry by quoting from a single source — especially in entries on natural history topics — but often piecing together an article from multiple sources, some already in the form of alphabetical compendia. Among James’s chief sources are the following:9 first, Bartholomeus Anglicus’s ‘De proprietatibus rerum’;10 second, moral and theological treatises — the ‘Opus imperfectum’ on the Gospel of Matthew attributed in the Middle Ages to John Chrysostom,11 the ‘Compendium in Job’ of Peter of Blois,12 the ‘Liber de veritate theologie’ attributed to Thomas Aquinas,13 and the ‘Secreta secretorum’ attributed to Aristotle;14 third, canon law texts, that is, the ‘Decretum’, ‘Decretals’ of Gregory IX, and the collections of Boniface VIII, Clement V, 8 Some parts of ‘De proprietatibus rerum’ — Book 15, on political geography, Book 16, on stones and metals, Book 17, on trees and plants, and Book 18, on animals — are alphabetical; the comparable sections of the ‘Speculum naturale’ are also alphabetical, but in some cases the alphabetical series are further subdivided, as for example in the separation of domestic from wild animals; see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 39. 9 I have arranged this list in an order that begins with a work ordinarily considered as most characteristically encyclopedic, that is, ‘De proprietatibus rerum’. In fact, James le Palmer supplied his own list of sources at the end of his preface; see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, App. 1 and pp. 29–34. It begins with canon law texts and commentaries and ends with a long list of authorities — alii vero auctores and philosophos — copied from the list of sources in the colophon of ‘De proprietatibus rerum’. 10 c. 1240; printed Strasbourg 1470, etc.; see Meyer (as. n. 2) and Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 31–32 and 2, pp. 260-263. 11 Printed Migne, PG 56, cols. 611–948 (in Latin), but with the text order after Homily 22 different from that of the manuscript source used by James; for a manuscript copy like that used by James, see London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 C V, English, fifteenth century; see further Hermann Josef Sieben, Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum, in: Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascétique et mystique 8, 1, Paris 1972, cols. 362-369, and Sandler (as n. 4) 2, pp. 258–259. 12 A short didactic treatise addressed to Henry II of England, omitted from James’s list of sources; printed Migne, PL 207, cols. 795–826; see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 33–34 and 2, pp. 259–260. 13 Omitted by James from his list of sources. Written by Hugh of Strasbourg, c. 1265–1270; see Leonard E. Boyle, The Summa confessorum of John of Freiburg and the Popularization of the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas and some of his Contemporaries, in: St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274–1974, Commemorative Studies, Toronto 1974, pp. 245–268; printed, Cologne 1480; see also Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 33 and 2, p. 267. 14 A guide to princely conduct, revised by Roger Bacon, d. 1292; printed, Secreta secretorum, ed. Robert Steele (Opus hactenus inedita Rogerii Baconi 5) Oxford 1920; see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 32 and 2, pp. 263–264.

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and John XXIII,15 and canon law commentaries by Guido de Baysio,16 Hostiensis17 and William of Pagula;18 and fourth, alphabetical handbooks, on canon law — the ‘Margarita decreti et decretales’ of Martinus Polonus;19 on theology — the ‘Manipulus florum’ of Thomas of Ireland;20 and in addition, Johannes Januensis de Balbis’s dictionary, the ‘Catholicon’.21 Finally, James quoted often from the Vulgate and from the ‘Legenda sanctorum’.22 ‘Omne bonum’ was originally intended to have an illustration for every Printed, ‘Corpus iuris canonici’, ed. Emil Friedeberg, Leipzig 1879 (reprint Graz 1959), 2 vols.; Friedeberg’s edition did not include the glosses, which were certainly available in the copies of canon law texts known to James; no complete modern edition exists. See Stephan Kuttner, Repertorium der Kanonistik (1140–1234), Vatican City 1937, pp. 40–75; Dictionnaire de droit canonique, Paris 1935–1965, s. v.; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 29–31 and 2, pp. 248–252, 255, 265–266. 16 ‘Rosarium decreti’, c. 1300; printed, Strasbourg 1472; see Johann Freidrich von Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts von Gratian bis auf die Gegenwart, 2, Stuttgart 1875–1880 (reprint Graz 1956), pp. 188 f.; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 30 and 2, pp. 248–249, 264–265. 17 Henricus de Bartholomaeis de Segusia, Cardinal of Ostia, ‘Summa super titulis decretalium’ (1250–1261), a commentary on the ‘Decretals’ of Gregory IX; printed, Rome 1473; see Schulte (as n. 15) 2, pp. 125–127; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 30; 2, pp. 252–255. 18 William of Pagula, of Winkfield, Berkshire, ‘Summa summarum’ (1319–1322), an encyclopedia of canon law and pastoral theology; not printed, see Leonard E. Boyle, The Summa summarum and some other English Works of Canon Law, in: Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, eds. Stephan Kuttner–John Joseph Ryan (Monumenta iuris canonici series C: Subsidia 1) Vatican City 1965, pp. 415–456; also Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 31; 2, pp. 266–267. 19 Often called the ‘Martiniana’ after the compiler (d. 1279), printed, Augsburg 1486, and widely circulated in England in manuscript. Although James quoted extensively from the work, and seems to have intended to incorporate the entire text in ‘Omne bonum’, he did not list it among his sources; see Schulte (as n. 15) 2, pp. 137–138, 494, considering the work as spurious; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 33; 2, pp. 256–258. 20 The ‘Manipulus florum’ (1306) is a ‘dictionary of quotations’ from the Church Fathers and other Christian and pre-Christian authorities; see Richard H. Rouse–Mary A. Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia and Sermons: Studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland, Toronto 1979, with list of printed editions and manuscripts; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 33; 2, pp. 255–256. 21 Compiled in 1286, printed, Mainz 1460; see Lloyd W. Daly–B. A. Daly, Some Techniques in Mediaeval Latin Lexicography, in: Speculum 39, 1964, pp. 229–239; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 32 and 2, pp. 247–248. 22 For James’s use of the Vulgate, see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 44–45 and 2, p. 268. On Jacobus de Voragine’s ‘Legenda sanctorum’ (1255–1265), see ‘Legenda aurea’, ed. Theodor Graesse, Breslau 1890 (reprint Osnabrück 1965); Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 45 and 2, p. 255. All the works cited in notes 10–22 above would have been accessible to James le Palmer in 15

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entry, but as James carried out his work, his plan became increasingly modest.23 Consequently, in its present state, the encyclopedia has illustrations for about half of the individual entries, most of them concentrated in the letters A–E. Although some images were adopted from illustrated works of canon law and natural science, and from Bibles and other religious texts used as sources by James, the alphabetical organization of ‘Omne bonum’ yielded lengthy discussions of topics for which there was no available pictorial tradition at all. As a result, hundreds of ‘new’ illustrations had to be devised. The purpose of this study is to survey briefly the entire range of illustrations and then to treat the varied ways in which they are related to the text.24 At the end I will speculate about their purpose, attempting to address the question, Why does ‘Omne bonum’ have illustrations at all? First, illustrations for which a pictorial tradition existed: Given that a great many entries in ‘Omne bonum’ were compiled from canon law sources, it is no surprise that their illustrations parallel those in legal texts. Illustrations of such ‘Omne bonum’ topics as coniugium (Fig. 1) may be compared with counterparts from the various causae on marital relationships in Gratian’s ‘Decretum’ (Fig. 2), or with the illustrations of Book 4 of the ‘Decretals’ of Gregory IX, or Book 5 of Justinian’s ‘Codex’.25 But apart from the ‘Decretum’ and the ‘Decretals’, most of the apparatuses, comthe libraries of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, to which he probably had access, and as a senior Exchequer clerk it is possible that he himself owned some of them, as other civil servants of his time were known to do; see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 26–29. 23 James undertook the layout and writing of ‘Omne bonum’ in three campaigns: In the first, he laid out and wrote the text of at least one entry in each letter of the alphabet, always allowing space for an illustration. In the second campaign he designed and wrote most of the entries in the letters A to E and some of the entries in F to M; for these he planned increasingly fewer illustrations, so that A has an illustration for every entry longer than a single line but I has illustrations for only about one-third of the entries. In a third campaign, James designed and wrote substantial parts of F, G, I, K, L, and M. Only about 20 per cent of the entries written during this campaign were illustrated. For the letters N to Z, James completed no entries beyond of the first campaign. See Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 65–71, 83–84. 24 My discussion of the function of the illustrations of ‘Omne bonum’ has benefited from the study by Christel Meier, Grundzüge der mittelalterlichen Enzyklopädik: Zu Inhalten, Formen und Funktionen einer problematischen Gattung, in: Literatur und Laienbildung im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit, ed. Ludger Grenzmann–Karl Stackmann, Stuttgart 1984, pp. 467-500. 25 Only the illustrations of the ‘Decretum’, which contains six causae treating marital questions, have been discussed extensively; see Anthony Melnikas, The Corpus of the Miniatures in the Manuscripts of Decretum Gratiani, 3 vols., Rome 1975, with many

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mentaries, and handbooks drawn on by James le Palmer to compile his entires on legal topics were devoid of illustrations. Consequently, where James indicated to the artist he commissioned to illustrate his encyclopedia that an illustration was expected for a legal topic — by leaving an empty space at the beginning of an entry and perhaps by issuing some kind of verbal instructions — the artist had to create the image ex novo, even if not ex nichilo. What the artist did in many cases was to adapt the compositional patterns that characterize legal illustrations, in particular, those that show court proceedings in which a figure of authority is at one side, generally the left, and subordinates, plaintiffs, defendants, advocates or witnesses, are ranged on the other (Fig. 3); such models enabled the ‘Omne bonum’ artist to produce numerous images such as absolucio (Fig. 4), arma clericorum (Fig. 5), and fratres (Fig. 6), with details varied according to the requisites of the text. In other cases, the legal scholars cited by James le Palmer, often with the phrase secundum diversis doctores iuris canonici in the rubrics of the entries, were ingeniously translated pictorially by the artist into authority figures pointing to groups that act out or demonstrate legal concepts or proceedings. For example, in clandestinum matrimonium (Fig. 7) — a marriage in disobedience of the rulings of the church — a canonist warns a couple whose hands are joined illicitly in the presence of a Franciscan rather than a parish priest by pointing his finger accusingly; in the comparable illustration of canonical marriage (Fig. 1), no canonist is necessary.26 Religious subjects comprise a second category in ‘Omne bonum’ for which a comprehensive tradition of pictorial imagery was at hand in the form of illustrated Bibles, and liturgical and devotional books. The artist’s familiarity with this tradition is evident from his illustrations for Old Testament subjects such as Adam, Abel, and Abraham, and New Testament subjects such as the Christ healing the Blind and the Last Supper, or the hundred illustrations; see also Sandler (as n. 4) 1, Fig. 74 (Justinian, ‘Codex’, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius Coll. MS 11, p. 293, England, c. 1310–1320). Neither the ‘Codex’ nor the other civil law texts were quoted directly in ‘Omne bonum’. 26 ‘Omne bonum’ includes a number of other illustrations that constitute similar pairs, for example, citacio (Royal 6 E VI, fol. 275) — an order to appear in court delivered by a bailiff — and contumacia (Royal 6 E VI, fol. 417) — refusal to appear in court even after three citations. In the first, a bailiff taps a man on the shoulder with his rod; in the second, as if lecturing on the subject, a canonist points his finger at a bailiff who taps the head of a man half-hidden in the door of a house; see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, Figs. 70–71.

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Ascension and Pentecost.27 He may also have been familiar with much rarer illustrations of apocryphal and legendary religious subjects, since he provided pictorial images to accompany James’s extensive extracts from such texts.28 However, most of the ‘Omne bonum’ illustrations of religious themes precede entries that consist of passages not from the Scriptures or other religious texts but from from canon law texts and commentaries, or from the ‘Opus imperfectum’, or the ‘Manipulus florum’, and even the ‘Catholicon’. In these cases the illustration may accord with the general theme of the entry, as for example, the representation of the Annunciation for adventus domini;29 but often the illustration inserts a layer of interpretation of the text. For instance, the Pentecost, in which the dove of the Holy Spirit descends over the heads of the Virgin Mary and the apostles, illustrates gracia (Fig. 8). The choice of pictorial subject is tied to the opening lines of the text: Donum autem increatum est spiritus sanctus qui dicitur gracia eo modo quod est gratis datum.30 A third category of illustration in ‘Omne bonum’ for which the artist could have drawn on extant pictorial traditions is natural history. James le Palmer’s chief textual source for his entries on natural history was Bartholomeus Anglicus’s ‘De proprietatibus rerum’. This encyclopedia was rarely Adam, Royal 6 E VI, fo1. 45 (Sandler [as. n. 4] 2, p. 22); Abel, Royal 6 E VI, fo1. 31 (Sandler [as n. 4] 2, p. 17); Abraham, Royal 6 E VI, fo1. 29 (Sandler [as n. 4] 2, p. 16); Christ healing the blind (cecus), Royal 6 E VI, fol. 245 (Sandler [as n. 4] 2, p. 100); Last Supper (cena Domini), Royal 6 E VI, fol. 251 (Sandler [as n. 4] 2, p. 100); assensio Domini, Royal 6 E VI, fol. 151v (Sandler [as n. 4] 2, p. 59); Pentecost (gracia), Royal 6 EVIl, fol. 186v (Sandler [as n. 4] 2, p. 204). 28 Possibly a now-lost illustrated examplar of such a work as the Legend of Adam, which was extracted by James le Palmer, was also used by the artist as the model for the unprecedented illustration of the tree that would become the True Cross growing from the mouth of the dead Adam; Royal 6 E VI, fol. 47, see Sandler (as n. 4) 2, p. 22. For the legendary texts ‘De penitencia Adami et Eve’ and ‘De oleo misericordie’, see ‘Vite Ade & Eve’, ed. W. Meyer, in: Abhandlung der Münchner Akademie der Wissenschaften (philos.-philol. Kl. 14) Munich 1878. 29 Royal 6 E VI, fol. 55; Sandler (as n. 4) 2, p. 24. 30 The source is Guido de Baysio’s ‘Rosarium decreti’, on the ‘Decretum’, 1 q. 1, c. 1. While the Virgin Mary is often included in medieval representations of the Pentecost, her presence in the illustration for gracia is especially pertinent since she was addressed by the angel of the Annunciation as ‘Hail Mary full of Grace’. Indeed, numerous medieval representations of the Annunciation show the dove of the Holy Spirit descending toward the Virgin Mary. 27

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illustrated, and when it was, the illustrations were limited to the beginning of the nineteen books of the text.31 The omnibus animal, plant and bird illustrations of the extant copies of ‘De proprietatibus rerum’32 have parallels among some of the general illustrations of ‘Omne bonum’, for instance, animalia, arbores, and aves,33 although these few cannot have been the source of the multiplicitous natural history images in ‘Omne bonum’. Other ‘Omne bonum’ images are also clearly related to those at the beginning of books of ‘De proprietatibus rerum’. For instance, Book 15, De provinciis, was introduced with an image of a building (Fig. 9),34 and the ‘Omne bonum’ artist adopted this pictorial symbol, using it for the numerous ‘De proprietatibus rerum’ extracts on geographic entities (Fig. 10).35 Furthermore, Bartholomeus illustrations that show the Franciscan author pointing to the subject of his text, as for example, Book 16, De lapidibus,36 seem to have been familiar to the ‘Omne bonum’ artist, who applied the same compositional format to ‘create’ pictures for many natural history subjects, in which half-length figures point at or hold plants and various physical entities, substances, or symbols (Fig. 11). Although extant copies of ‘De proprietatibus rerum’ cannot have been the source of all the animal images in ‘Omne bonum’, the characteristically profile format of presentation of the ‘Omne bonum’ animals (Fig. 12) parallels that in other illustrated works, such as the bestiary,37 which was not extracted by James le Palmer, and ‘De medicina ex animalibus’, which was.38 Neither, however, has as many animal illustrations as ‘Omne bonum’. Yet See n. 2 above. Meyer (as n. 2) pp. 383–384. 33 Royal 6 E VI, fols. 104v, 143, and 167v; Sandler (as n. 4) 2, pp. 45, 55, 64; see also aquila, Royal 6 E VI, fol. 128, drawn from ‘De proprietatibus rerum’ 12.2, with an illustration of an eagle and six other kinds of birds (Sandler [as n. 3] 2, p. 51). 34 Meyer (as n. 2) p. 384. 35 The same pictorial topos was already employed by the illustrator of Rabanus Maurus’s ‘De rerum naturis’ (Monte Cassino, Biblioteca cod. 132, Monte Cassino, 1023); see Bk. 12, De terra, fols. 215–236, with 17 vignettes of structures representing cities and regions. 36 Meyer (as n. 4) Fig. 25; also Figs. 33–34, for Bk. 5, De partibus humani corporis. 37 The bestiary was not used as a textual source by James le Palmer although it could conceivably have been known to his artist. On illustrated bestiaries see Montague R. James, The Bestiary (Cambridge Univ. Lib. MS Ii.4.26), Oxford 1928 and Florence McCulloch, Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries, Chapel Hill 1968. 38 Sextus Placitus Papirius, ‘Liber de medicina ex animalibus’, was quoted about six times in ‘Omne bonum’, generally in additions to extracts from Bartholomeus Anglicus; see Sandler (as n. 4) 1, pp. 34, 91, 120, 162 n. 49 and 2, p. 268 (Medical manual). 31 32

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unlike the ‘Omne bonum’ plant pictures, which seem to show the visual imagination of the artist developing an entire genus from a single ‘seed’, the animal illustrations were apparently based on multiple pictorial models, which are even reflected in a few marginal sketches.39 In sum, there seems enough evidence to warrant the suggestion that the illuminator was familiar with some as-yet-unidentified source that was illustrated more extensively than any that survive, and it is possible that that source was a deluxe copy of ‘De proprietatibus rerum’. The text illustrations of ‘Omne bonum’ are historiated initials, that is, they are contained in the enlarged first letter of the name or title of the entry. In a physical sense, they are truly part of the text. But the pictorial subjects demonstrate a wide variety of relationships to the texts they introduce. Many of course illustrate the topic of the entry in a direct, ‘documentary’ manner, especially when the article deals with persons, living beings, places, or things. When the topic of an article is an abstract concept however, the illustration is often given an active form, as for example in absolucio (Fig. 4), where the Pope is absolving bishops, or demencia (Fig. 13), with a madman tearing his hair out. The tendency to visualize concepts in terms of dramatic action is also evident in many illustrations of concrete subjects, as in abissus (Fig. 14), where a man is plumbing the depths of the water, and with the subject itself enlarged but represented in a dramatic or active context, as in dentes (Fig. 15), where a dentist, bedecked with a necklace of enormous dental trophies, extracts a tooth. ‘Omne bonum’ illustrations that visualize the general topic of an entry with pictorial examples may call attention to an aspect of the topic not treated at length or in detail in the text. For example, the vice of accidia (Fig. 16) is discussed textually primarily in terms of neglect of spiritual duties,40 but the illustration shows an example of Sloth as the neglect of the duties proper to one’s station in life, with the slumbering, unkempt man allowing 39 Royal 6 E VI, fol. 205 (bos), fol. 205v (botrax), fol. 205v (bombex) and fol. 206 (bubo), all illustrating extracts from ‘De proprietatibus rerum’; Sandler (as n. 4) 1, p. 92 and 2, pp. 74–75. 40 At the beginning of the entry, citing the ‘Decretum’ de pe. d. 5, c. 1, James defined accidia as quoddam tedium boni. In the second section of the entry he repeated this definition in an expanded form, quoting without attribution from the ‘Oculus sacerdotis’ of William of Pagula (1319–1322): Accidia est tedium boni spiritualis ex quo nec in deo nec in divinis laudibus delectatur (Royal 6 E VI, fol. 37v); on the ‘Oculus sacerdotis’ see Leonard E. Boyle, The ‘Oculus Sacerdotis’ and some other Works of William of Pagula, in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, 1955, pp. 81–110; see also n. 18 above.

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a pot to burn in the blazing fire. The illustration for adolescencia (Fig. 17) makes explicit a theme scarcely alluded to in the text, which includes first, extracts on the legal status of adolescents and the duration of adolescence,41 then, the parable of the adolescent who asked Jesus how he could obtain eternal life (Matthew 19: 16–22), and only at the end a passage from a canon law commentary with the lines: Melius est restrenare iuveniles calores ne cupiditati dediti tristem faciant exitum, and Item propter fomitem impellentem ad malum.42 The artist did not need in this case to read through the entire article to ‘find’ this source for his illustration because James had emphasized the passage with a marginal note: Nota hic bene quare adolescens & omnis homo pronior est ad malum quam ad bonam & vide rationes quare.43 Taking his cue from this comment, the artist gave adolescent passion a sexual emphasis by using the visual motifs of the girl’s mirror and lifted skirt and the boy’s pointed sword with its phallic pommel and pouch. Some illustrations of the ‘Omne bonum’ are based on single text passages without any evident reference to the general theme of a particular article. Arena (Fig. 18) is a case in point.44 Although the article includes Bartholomeus Anglicus’s practical information about sand,45 the picture does not illustrate the substance, or even an example of its use, but rather corresponds to the metaphorical interpretation in another text extract, from Pseudo-Chrysostom’s ‘Opus imperfectum’ on Matthew 7: 24, about the Church built on the rock of constancy of Faith and the house of the Devil on the shifting sand of inconstancy of the faithless.46 This verbal image the artist then privileged in a striking and memorable literal fashion by showing a man trying to shore up a tottering house built on a bed of sand. Sometimes the details of an ‘Omne bonum’ illustration were drawn from different places in a particular entry, collecting the visual equivalents of James’s quotes from disparate sources into a single image. Femine (Fig. 19) is a good example.47 It shows five women with covered heads. Why? Royal 6 E VI, fol. 58v, a series of short extracts from the ‘Rosarium decreti’ and Hostiensis’s ‘Summa’, all including the term adolescens, followed by ‘De proprietatibus rerum’ 6,1. 42 Royal 6 E VI, fols. 58v–59; the passage quoted above is on fol. 59, from the ‘Rosarium decreti’ on 12 q. 1, c. 1. 43 Royal 6 E VI, fol. 59. 44 Royal 6 E VI, fol. 148v–149. 45 ‘De proprietatibus rerum’, 15,1. 46 Royal 6 E VI, fol. 148v; Homily 20 (Migne, PG 56, col. 744). 47 Royal 6 E VII, fols. 114–117v. 41

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Because according to the quotation from canon law, Item mulier debet velare caput suum quia non est ymago dei, sed viro ostenditur esse subiecta.48 At the same time, a quotation from Peter of Blois’s ‘Compendium in Job’ asserts that women have the power to cause man’s downfall, citing a long series of biblical men brought low by women — among them, Joseph, Samson, Solomon, David, and John the Baptist.49 To this textual passage corresponds the motif of the club-wielding woman in the lower right-hand corner of the illustration, with the man kneeling submissively before her. The duality of the concept of woman as lesser and subject to man, but armed with evil power and capable of causing man’s downfall, expressed sequentially in the text, is communicated simultaneously in the image. Why did James le Palmer’s ‘Omne bonum’ include illustrations? James himself did not give a direct answer, at least not in words, but his obsession with pictorial imagery in evident in the quantity and expensive facture of the illustrations. If this is a question about purpose, that, is an acknowledged, or even unacknowledged ‘reason’ for pictures in the ‘Omne bonum’, we might remember the characteristic medieval justification for images — necessity on technical or documentary grounds — as when Rabanus Maurus said of pictures — although perhaps not with book illustration in mind: Pictura est imago exprimens speciem rei alicujus, quae dum visa fuerit, ad recordationem mentem reduxit.50 But we should distinguish between purpose and role. The role of the ‘Omne bonum’ illustrations is the part the images actually played in the physical book itself. Certainly they provided useful information dependent on the text, although we have to acknowledge that this modern notion of the purpose of encyclopedia illustrations appears to have been served in the case of ‘Omne bonum’ — and other medieval encyclopedias too — by images that were not accurate records of the ‘connaissances du monde’. Recognition that many of the ‘factual’ illustrations are in fact interchangeable, as for example the plant pictures, underscores the tradition- rather than observation-based nature of much of the knowledge contained in ‘Omne bonum’, visually as well as textually. If the ‘Omne bonum’ illustrations are less than informative in a scientific sense, nevertheless they played a significant role in adding to or enriching the textual components of the encyclopedia, particularly when they Royal 6 E VII, fol. 114v, citing ‘Decretum’ 33 q. 5, c. 19. 6 E VII, fols. 114v–115; see Migne, PL 207, cols. 818–819. 50 De rerum naturis 21,9; see Migne, PL 111, col. 563. 48 49

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1. Omne bonum, coniugium. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 375 (Photo: British Library).

2. Decretum, C. 32, Marriage. Bibl. Apostolica Vaticana MS Vat. lat. 2491, France, c. 1300, fol. 478 (after Melnikas, Corpus of Miniatures in the Manuscripts of Decretum).

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3. Decretals of Gregory IX, Bk. V, Clerics before Pope. San Marino, Calif., Huntington Library MS HM 19999, Paris, early fourteenth century, fol. 191 (Photo: Courtauld Institute of Art).

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4. Omne Bonum, absolucio. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 19 (Photo: British Library).

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5. Omne bonum, arma clericorum. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 137 (Photo: British Library).

471

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6. Omne bonum, fratres. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 154 (Photo: British Library).

7. Omne bonum, clandestinum matrimonium. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 286v (Photo: British Library).

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9. De proprietatibus rerum, Bk. 15, De provinciis. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Mus. MS CFM 15, France, c. 1300, fol. 184v (Photo: Fitzwilliam Museum).

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8. Omne bonum, gracia. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 186v (Photo: British Library).

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10. Omne bonum, altitudo terre — Alania. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 81 (Photo: British Library).

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12. Omne bonum, elephas. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 51v (Photo: British Library).

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11. Omne bonum, crocus. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 438v (Photo: British Library).

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14. Omne bonum, abissus. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 29 (Photo: British Library).

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13. Omne bonum, demencia. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 489v (Photo: British Library).

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16. Omne bonum, accidia. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 37v (Photo: British Library).

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15. Omne bonum, dentes. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 503v (Photo: British Library).

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17. Omne bonum, adolescencia. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 58v (Photo: British Library).

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18. Omne bonum, arena. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 148v (Photo: British Library).

479

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19. Omne bonum, femine. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 114 (Photo: British Library).

20. Omne bonum, hereticus. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VII, fol. 200 (Photo: British Library).

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21. Omne bonum, arre. London, British Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, fol. 104v (Photo: British Library).

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translated verbal nouns into pictorial verbs, that is, by depicting actions, or examples. Arre (Fig. 21), for instance, is discussed in the text primarily in terms of bridal payments, as the rubric says,51 but interpreted pictorially in terms of buying and selling a cow, not mentioned specifically in the text. Furthermore the ‘Omne bonum’ illustrations introduced a layer of interpretation and commentary by giving special emphasis to a particular portion of the text, or even by redirecting the focus of an article. One further example: For the entry on Hereticus (Fig. 20), the artist provided an illustration of a debate between a group of scholars and a group of caricatured Jews, even though most of the very long article concerns other kinds of people considered to be heretics.52 In using the image of the Jew as the symbol of all social outcasts, the artist gave a pictorial ‘voice’ to the shared attitudes of the contemporary medieval Christian community.53 Not only did the illustrations of ‘Omne bonum’ serve to articulate the text by pointing to material of importance, they also performed a major role of physical articulation, that is, they were highly visible finding-tools, or place-markers (Figs. 1, 10). Furthermore, as tangible images they might be expected to be translatable into memory images to aid in the recollection of the location of text passages, although for that certainly the most important aid was the alphabetical organization of the entire encyclopedia. And finally, for the user, and particularly for James le Palmer himself, the ‘Omne bonum’ illustrations served as signs equating the expense of images in color and gold with the riches of knowledge contained within the encyclopedia. Because ‘Omne bonum’ is an unfinished unicum, the autograph of its compiler James le Palmer, and the product of James as scribe and designer and an anonymous artist who painted in close contact with him, it is a work that brings into special focus characteristics of illustrated medieval books that are all too often overlooked in our separate investigations of texts by historians, literary scholars and philologists, and pictures by art historians. Royal 6 E VI, fols. 140–141: Nunc sequitur videre de arris & quando arre inducent sponsalia & quando arre faciunt contractum stabilem in empcione & vendicione (fol. 140). 52 Royal 6 E VII, fols. 200–205. Citing the gloss on ‘Decretum’ 24 q. 3, c. 25, the text identifies as heretics doubters, simoniacs, those cut off from the Church, misinterpreters of the Scriptures, proponents of new beliefs, antagonists of the privileges of the Church of Rome, transgressors of the precepts of the Church, and finally, omnis qui non tenet articulos fidei . . . & secundum hoc iudeus & gentilis [non-Christian] heretici sunt (fol. 200). 53 See Ruth Mellinkoff, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages, 2 vols., Berkeley 1993. 51

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It seems important to observe that medieval manuscripts are ‘defined’ not just by authors, exegetes or theorists but by makers — that is artists and scribes — and eventually by users, that is owners, donors and recipients. In studying ‘Omne bonum’ it has proved impossible to disengage the illustrations from their context, or to divorce the text from the images. In short, the illustrations of ‘Omne bonum’ should not be the concern of art historians alone, for in this case I believe we can say that the image was as essential to the concept as the word.

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John of Metz, The Tower of Wisdom Building the Tower of Wisdom

‘T

OWER of Wisdom. Behold the Mirror of Theology made by Master John of Metz’ is the caption of a medieval pictorial diagram in the shape of a building whose components are labeled with moral injunctions and the names of the Virtues. The Tower of Wisdom is one in a collection of diagrams that was put together in the last quarter of the thirteenth century by John of Metz, a Franciscan disciple of St. Bonaventura who was active as a preacher in Paris. Sometimes also called an ‘Orchard of Solace’ or an ‘Orchard of the Faithful Soul,’ the collection survives in more than thirty manuscripts, from the end of the thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century, and the Tower of Wisdom is in most of them. Indeed, there is evidence that the compiler intended to employ the title Mirror of Theology, which usually appears on the Tower of Wisdom, as the name of the whole group. Apart from the Tower of Wisdom, the diagrams of the Mirror of Theology take the form of trees (including the one described in St. Bonaventura’s treatise called the Arbor vitae or Tree of Life), wheels, columnar tables, and the human figure, all structures that can be visually compartmentalized, following natural divisions such as branches and leaves, or spokes and rings, so as to provide enclosed areas for the placement of verbal (or sometimes pictorial) material to be learned and remembered. Such diagrams also set out visually in a single field the conceptual relationships between the various components, and the relationship of the parts to the whole, echoing the pattern of the widely circulated early medieval schema known as the Microcosmic-Macrocosmic Harmony, in which a circle

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labeled Man, Year, and World is set at the center of a larger outer ring inscribed with the names of the four elements (earth, air, water, and fire) and the four qualities (hot, cold, dry, wet), the whole divided into quadrants labeled with the names of the four seasons and the four humors (choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and sanguine). The Structure of the Tower of Wisdom Metaphorical buildings and building metaphors were common in medieval writings, particularly because there were biblical precedents. ‘Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars’ (Prov. 9: 1); ‘For thou hast been my hope; a tower of strength against the face of the enemy’ (Ps. 60: 4); ‘Thy neck is as the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks’ (Sg. 4: 4). Structures described non-metaphorically in the Old Testament, such as the Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 6) were treated metaphorically in the New Testament, as for instance in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (Eph. 2: 19–22), ‘Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God, Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone: In whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord. In whom you also are built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit.’ Metaphorical structures in the Holy Scriptures were explicated extensively by medieval theologians, who often added descriptive detail, in the process constructing complex allegories. Hugh of St. Victor interpreted the structural components of the Temple of Solomon as virtues: ‘Its length is perseverance in good works . . .its breadth is Love . . .its height is Hope of deserving the reward of eternal life . . .the series of stones is like the advance of the virtues, which is directed upward . . .[the walls] rise on the foundation of Humility.’ In the Speculum ecclesiae (Mirror of the Church) of Honorius of Autun (c. 1080–c. 1137), the Old Testament ‘House of Wisdom’ is interpreted as Christ who has built his Church, the seven pillars are the seven biblical books that support Christian doctrine (John, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecciesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus), and the columns were put in place by the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Such allegorical edifices were occasionally realized in pictorial or diagrammatic images, as for example the seven-columned towered structure illustrating the anonymous treatise of c. 1140, Speculum virginum (Mirror

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of Virgins). In the Mirror of Virgins image the building encloses a Tree of Jesse (a genealogical tree tracing the descent of the Virgin Mary from Jesse, the father of King David) whose leaves are inscribed with the names of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and six further sets of sevens, including the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, the Virtues, and the Beatitudes. Though related to Honorius’s literary allegory, the pictorial image has additional features, which in total constitute a complex set of equivalencies between Wisdom, Christ and the Virgin, and the ‘Septenaries.’ John of Metz’s thirteenth-century Tower of Wisdom is an autonomous image neither associated with a specific text nor the visual embodiment in every detail of a metaphor in a scriptural exegesis, much as the name of the structure (Turris sapientiae) and the attribution of moral meanings to its physical components — steps, columns, doors, ramparts, etc. — use metaphors familiar from the examples already cited. Rather than elucidating or augmenting a written work, the Tower of Wisdom is itself sometimes accompanied by a verbal explanation of its purpose, its construction, and its access and ascent (see below). The purpose is moral instruction for salvation of the faithful, the construction is ‘in the manner of a material tower,’ and the access and ascent are upward through the Virtues, in the order of the letters of the alphabet. Although some metaphorical buildings are relatively simple structures, for instance, the mid-thirteenth-century Templum Dei (Temple of God) of Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253), which consists of only foundation, walls, and roof, the design of the Tower of Wisdom is complex. Specific meanings are assigned to its breadth and height and to its foundation, stairs, columns with their bases and capitals, door, windows, and walls with their building blocks, as well as to the defenders and guardians in its upper parts. In fact, the design of the structure, which consists of twenty-three elements, was based on the number of letters in the Latin alphabet, so that twentythree components of the building are labeled, and in the case of the twelve courses of the stone wall (K–X), each individual stone has a meaning as well. All in all, the Tower of Wisdom has 131 named units. These are presented on a single plane, that is, from a completely flat and frontal point of view, with no illusion of the third dimension — in short, diagrammatically. The design of the structural features is Gothic, familiar from the kind of formidable tower structures that survive as the city halls of Florence and Venice, with arcaded ground floors leading to courtyards with flights of

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stairs, heavy stone walls, crenelated ramparts, and arched doors and windows. In addition to these fundamental components, a number of examples of the Tower of Wisdom are ‘inhabited’ by human figures, personifications ofthe Virtues for the columns, doors, and windows, or defenders of the ramparts. The Moral Contents of the Tower of Wisdom Moral teaching was the subject of a vast body of medieval writing: scriptural exegesis, scholarly treatises, popular handbooks both in Latin and in the vernacular, handbooks for priests and preachers, sermons, and allegorized romances. Definition and clarification of the countless ways in which humankind could fall into sin and the equal number of remedies via virtuous conduct and penitence were a medieval preoccupation, hence the many texts that order the virtues and vices numerically and categorize them hierarchically. Various numbered sets of virtues and vices were developed during the Middle Ages, of which the most common are the Four Cardinal Virtues (Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude) and Three Theological Virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity), with Humility as their root, and the Seven Deadly Sins (Gluttony, Anger, Avarice, Sloth, Vainglory, Envy, and Lust), rooted in Pride. Often each of these was conceived as having subsidiaries or dependents, sometimes seven or more for each of the seven virtues and the seven vices, amounting to nearly one hundred in all. Such a large number of vices and virtues could be organized in ‘ordinary’ textual form, which provided the opportunity for exposition, introduction of appropriate biblical and scholarly citations, and narrative examples, but was especially conducive to presentation in diagrammatic form, using lists, tree structures, and circles divided radially and concentrically. In the most vivid diagrams the overall form is figural, as in the Tree of Virtues and the Tree of Vices, both with labeled fruit-bearing leafy branches and roots; the Cherub, with wings and feathers; and the Tower of Wisdom. All these are found in John of Metz’s Mirror of Theology. The Tower of Wisdom is a comprehensive moral structure. As in the Tree of Virtues, whose root is Humility, so also in the Tower of Wisdom, whose foundation, Humility (A), is ‘the mother of the virtues.’ The breadth of the tower (F) is Love (caritas), ‘which is common to all its components.’ Love (the Charity of the Holy Scriptures) is the greatest of all the virtues

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(1 Cor. 13: 13). Indeed, in the Tree of Virtues Love, at the apex of the tree, has ten rather than the usual seven subsidiaries. In the Tower of Wisdom Faith and Hope, the two other Theological Virtues, are placed at the very top of the wall (X and V), while the Cardinal Virtues, each with two subsidiaries, are the columns (C), bases (B) and capitals (D) immediately above the foundation. The Theological Virtues of Faith and Hope are literally higher than the Cardinal Virtues, as they are in the Tree of Virtues. The virtues assigned to the doors (H), Obedience and Patience, and to the windows (I), Discernment, Religious observance, Devotion, and Contemplation, are associated with the clerical state, especially Obedience, a major monastic obligation. Indeed, in one early fourteenth-century Tower of Wisdom, these virtues are exemplified pictorially by figures of an archbishop, two clerical scholars, a Benedictine monk, a Dominican friar, and a Franciscan friar. The virtues that defend the tower, ‘six pure virtues leading the others,’ are attributes particularly characteristic of chaste women, whether in religion or in secular society. In another early fourteenth-century Tower of Wisdom they are personified as crowned women in contemporary dress. The ten virtues of the wall (K-T) below Hope and Faith (V-X) compose a list that differs in number and order from standard series. Although the instructions are to ascend upward in alphabetical order, a hierarchical sequence is neither implicit nor explicit, except at the top with Hope and Faith. As a set of twelve these are the virtues ‘from which the other stones [of each course] follow in order.’ They are in fact positioned on the far left of the wall, in the places they would occupy if they were at the beginning of a sentence. Now, however, as in sentences, these nominatives are followed by verbs, since each stone to the right of the name of the virtue is inscribed with an injunction for action, in the imperative. Following Mercy (P), for example, are ‘Console the disconsolate,’ ‘Be generous to beggars,’ ‘Clothe the naked,’ ‘Feed the hungry,’ ‘Give drink to the thirsty,’ ‘Visit the sick,’ ‘Comfort prisoners,’ ‘Be hospitable to pilgrims,’ and ‘Bury the dead,’ an extended list of a standard series of virtuous deeds known as the Seven Works of Mercy. Among the moral injunctions are a fair number that constitute common series. Purity (S), for instance, is followed by a series of ‘Do nots’ relating to restraining the Five Senses, hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch, prefaced by ‘Act soberly,’ ‘Do not be dramatic,’ ‘Do not be gluttonous,’ and ‘Do not be drunk.’ Similarly, Hope (V) is followed by strictures against the Seven

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Deadly Sins of Pride, Avarice, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, and Lust, with the additions ‘Be patient,’ and ‘Avoid vice’ to make up the full complement of nine stones in this course of the wall. Faith (X) includes the four of the Seven Sacraments that concern the laity, the Eucharist, Baptism, Marriage, and Extreme Unction, augmented by injunctions to ‘Believe in God,’ ‘Love Holy Church,’ ‘Respect the Gospels,’ ‘Venerate the Gospels,’ and ‘Observe the Commandments.’ Although in many cases the verbs enjoining deeds, acts, and beliefs are either ‘Be’ or ‘Do not be,’ a wide range of other verbs of command reinforces the sense that moral dangers are infinite. Constantly recurring in one guise after another, evil requires a multitude of acts to be suppressed, hence such sequences as ‘Despise,’ ‘Avoid,’ ‘Give up,’ ‘Forsake,’ ‘Flee,’ ‘Turn away from,’ ‘Refuse,’ and ‘Reject’ (V, Hope). Positive commands are equally varied and employed in equally attention-getting sequences. Following Love (K) for example is a series of four successive commands with respect to God, ‘Fear God,’ ‘Adore God,’ ‘Please God,’ and ‘Give thanks to God.’ There are thus as many ways of doing good as of avoiding evil. On the other hand, repetition is also used frequently, as when a varied series of verbs is combined with the same noun, as above, or, negatively, as in the sequence following Compassion (O), ‘Mock no man,’ ‘Harm no one,’ ‘Accuse no one,’ ‘Judge no one,’ and ‘Condemn no one.’ On the whole, however, positive and negative commands are intermixed, and their objects may also alternate within anyone stone course from repetitive to varied. The material to be learned is thus more heterogeneous in form than the regular scheme of compartmentalization at first suggests. As John of Metz emphasized in his explanation (see below), the Tower of Wisdom is to be ascended. It is to be read from bottom to top, its height (G) is perseverance in the good, an ongoing process of striving upward, and its seven steps are the seven successive steps a Christian must take to receive absolution, namely, Prayer, Awareness of sin, Confession, Penitence, Reparation, Almsgiving, and Fasting. At the top of the tower are its custodians, who have the power to reprove, then discipline, then judge, and finally, to punish sinners, and equally, to protect the good, who are the faithful of the Church Militant. These are the ‘experts’ who, having climbed to the top of the Tower of Wisdom ‘by increase of virtues,’ will ‘rejoice forever to reach the joy of the reward.’

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The Use and Users of the Tower of Wisdom Who are the faithful of the Church for whom John of Metz built the Tower of Wisdom? The audience for the diagram, and the other diagrams that constitute the Mirror of Theology, can be determined in part from the manuscript contexts in which the collection is found. Almost never is the Mirror of Theology a freestanding volume; the usual nine to twelve diagrams together with their explanatory texts would hardly fill a single medieval parchment or paper gathering (fascicule). Consequently the collection is usually bound with other material, sometimes itself miscellaneous or composite, and often ‘workmanlike’ in form, devoid of decoration and showing evidence of heavy use. A couple of copies of the Mirror of Theology are found on the front or back of rolls rather than on the pages of codices. These rolls contain the genealogy of Christ compiled by Peter of Poitiers in the twelfth century. The same text is also paired with the Mirror of Theology in one codex, a Bible written in England in the thirteenth century, into which these components were inserted in the fifteenth century. The context of such manuscripts is academic. The Bible, for instance, is of the kind used by university students; rolls of the genealogy of Christ seem to have been hung up in university classrooms, where they served as teaching charts; and John of Metz, the compiler of the Mirror of Theology, was himself probably a Master of Theology. However, most books containing the Mirror of Theology are miscellanies whose lengthier components are pastoral handbooks for the clergy. Such books proliferated rapidly after the Church ordered parish priests to instruct the laity four times a year in the elements of Christian faith, especially the Creed or Twelve Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Seven Virtues and Vices, the Seven Works of Mercy, and the Seven Sacraments. The Mirror of Theology would have served as a diagrammatic counterpart of the expositions of theology that priests needed to prepare themselves for the teaching of the untutored. Finally, quite a few copies of the Mirror of Theology are in volumes used for personal reading, devotion, and meditation. These are in general more luxurious books, some employing expensive gold and colors for the diagrams, some with contents illustrated profusely throughout. The various texts range from the Psalter to the Apocalypse, the Biblia pauperum (Bible of the Poor), and the Speculum humanae salvationis (Mirror of Human

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Salvation); among them are thick anthologies of spiritual readings and slim picture books that include some texts in the vernacular. For its readers, the Tower of Wisdom could be a mnemonic tool in that its ‘wisdom’ is set out in a way that facilitates absorption into memory. Indeed, the tower form with its boxlike stones is the very image of the mental structures of medieval mnemotechnique, with their rooms, or ‘places’ (loci) containing ‘matter’ (res) to be learned. John of Metz himself used the word loci for the stones of his tower. Employing the mnemotechnic of arranging material to be learned in hierarchical order, he also emphasized that the normal orderly procedures for constructing a material tower parallel the process of reading the image of the tower; and this bottom-to-top progression is reinforced by the alphabetical order of the letters of the alphabet that identify the various components. In the words of Mary Carruthers (Book of Memory, 253), the alphabetically arranged building blocks thus ‘serve as “fixes” for memory storage,’ and the building is an ‘informational schematic’ that functions as a teaching tool, setting out what is worth learning and the sequence in which it should be studied. The users of this tool could have been students themselves needing a basic diagram of moral theology, and equally those who would in turn need to teach this material to others. The Tower of Wisdom does not fulfill its entire purpose when the reader has reached the top of the ramparts by reading, even by repeated reading. The moral injunctions of the building blocks demand action, and for this the reader must first absorb the 108 commands inscribed on the stones into the memory in order first to learn how to behave and then to behave accordingly. Since the possibilities of virtuous behavior are multifold and the dangers of sinful behavior are without limit, successful incorporation of the res of the Tower of Wisdom into memory (by those who have become ‘experts’) should stimulate the mind to identify and strengthen the will to perform virtuous acts (and avoid sinful acts) beyond those spelled out in the diagram. Surely, however, not all the users of the Tower of Wisdom were up to the task of incorporating its complex and heterogeneous injunctions into the memory. Some volumes containing elaborate images of the Tower of Wisdom and the other diagrams of the Mirror of Theology were clearly valuable personal possessions, available for reading and rereading. They would have been valued, as Fritz Saxl recognized, precisely because of their ‘wealth of wisdom . . . which slowly reveals itself to the patient reader . . .’ Each pic-

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1. ‘The Tower of Wisdom.’ Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek CLM 16104a, fol. 113r. (Photo: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich).

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2. Translation of the Latin inscriptions in ‘The Tower of Wisdom’. Prepared by Lucy Sandler.

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ture . . .must be pondered again and again.’ The goal was not memorization ad verbum but rather the kind of meditative reading ad rem, according to subject matter, that would lead to mental incorporation or recollection, and in turn to the virtuous conduct through which ‘those who have entered [the Tower of Wisdom] may succeed in overcoming the fiery scheme of the devil and that unburned they may rise to God in the highest.’ About the Drawing The illustration used here reproduces the Tower of Wisdom from a little-known copy of the Mirror of Theology executed c. 1300, perhaps in France, and inserted at the end of a volume containing an unrelated early thirteenth-century Ordinal and Consuetudinary (regulations for the conduct of religious life and rituals) of the Canons of the Church of St. Nicholas, Passau, Germany (Munich, Bavarian State Library cod. lat. 16104A). Simply but clearly drawn and inscribed, the diagram is one of the earliest extant examples of the Tower of Wisdom. In addition to the Tower of Wisdom (fol. 113r), the Munich manuscript includes eleven further moral and spiritual diagrams (fols. 113v–118v). Source: John of Metz, Explanation of the Tower of Wisdom (Turris sapientiae), translated from the Howard Psalter (London, British Library MS Arundel 83–I), fol. 4v. Further Reading: See Carruthers, Book of Memory, Evans, ‘Illustrated Fragments,’ and Sandler, Psalter of Robert de Lisle in the General Bibliography. In addition, the following works dealing with specific types of images and their uses are particularly helpful. Bober, Harry. ‘An Illustrated School-Book of Bede’s “De Natura Rerum”.’ Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 19–20 (1956–57): 65–97. ——. ‘In Principio, Creation Before Time.’ In Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed. Millard Meiss. New York University Press, 1961. 1: 13–28. Cornelius, Roberta D. ‘The Figurative Castle. A Study in the Mediaeval Allegory of the Edifice with Especial Reference to Religious Writings,’ PhD dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1930. Evans, Michael. ‘The Geometry of the Mind.’ Architectural Association Quarterly 12 (1980): 32–55.

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Friedman, John B. ‘Les images mnémotechniques dans les manuscrits de l’époque gothique.’ In Roy and Zumthor, eds., Jeux de mémoire, 169–85. Greenhill, Eleanor. Die geistigen Voraussetzungen der Bilderreihe des Speculum virginum. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 39. Munich: Aschendorff, 1962. Katzenellenbogen, Adolf. Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Mediaeval Art. London: Warburg Institute, 1939. Owst, G. W. Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933. Saxl, Fritz. ‘A Spiritual Encyclopedia of the Late Middle Ages.’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 82–134. Tuve, Rosemond. Allegorical Imagery: Some Medieval Books and Their Posterity. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1966. Wirth, Karl-August. ‘Von mittelalterlichen Bildern und Lehrfiguren im Dienste der Schule und des Unterrichts.’ In Studien zum städtischen Bildungswesen des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Bernd Moeller, Hans Patze, and Karl Stackmann. Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologische-Historische Klasse ser. 3, no. 137. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1983. 256–370. Texts and translations of some of the works mentioned in this essay are Bonaventura. Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey into God; The Tree of Life; The Life of St. Francis. Ed. and trans. Ewert Cousins. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. Grosseteste, Robert. Templum dei. Ed. Joseph Goering and F. A. C. Mantello. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. John of Metz, Explanation of the Tower of Wisdom There are three kinds of faithful in the Church Militant, who hope by increase of virtues to attain triumph joyfully: the beginners, the intermediates, and the experts. And so that beginners approaching the door of the Virtues may be encouraged to bear the newly accepted yoke of the Lord manfully, that intermediates, within the doorway of the Virtues, may be strengthened to overcome the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil sagaciously, and that experts, in passing through the door of the Virtues, may rejoice forever to reach the joy of the reward, Master John of Metz is

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building a Tower of Wisdom, in which those who have entered may succeed in overcoming the fiery scheme of the devil and that unburned they may rise to God in the highest. The Tower of Wisdom is built in the manner of a material tower, resting on four strong columns with capitals and bases, having stairs, breadth, height, doors, windows, a wall constructed of square-cut stones, defenders and guardians. And as a material tower is begun from the foundation, so is reading this moral tower begun by ascending from the bottom in alphabetical order through a series of letters with their corresponding places, in this way: The foundation of the Tower of Wisdom is humility, of which Gregory says, ‘He who collects all the virtues, except humility, is like him who carries dust in the wind.’ He also says ‘Humility implants the virtues and guards those implanted.’ On this foundation rest four column-bearing bases. The columns are the four Cardinal Virtues, of which the Psalmist says, ‘Await the Lord with prudence, act manfully with fortitude, comfort your heart with justice, and support the Lord with temperance.’ Next come the steps, which are prayer, etc., as when a sinner in returning to the Lord first prays and through prayer is given heartfelt remorse; through remorse the voice for confession; through confession the performance of penitence; through penitence the work of reparation, which is done through almsgiving and fasting. Next is the breadth, which is love, of which in the Gospels it says, ‘God is love,’ etc. Next is the height, which is perseverance, of which the Evangelist says, ‘He who perseveres to the end will be saved.’ Next are the doors, of which Bernard says, ‘So great are the virtues of obedience and patience that without these two the Son of God was not able to regain his kingdom.’ Next are the windows, which are discernment, the charioteer of the virtues; religious observance, the master; devotion, the attendant; contemplation, the nurse of the virtues. Next is the wall, which has twelve rectangular stones from which the other stones follow in order. Above the wall are the defenders, that is, six pure virtues leading the others. Next are five custodians: first, reproof of the lax, for if someone becomes lax in observance of the virtues, he should be reproved verbally; second, discipline of rebels, for if the lax person becomes rebellious he should be disciplined; third, judgment of the reprobates, for if an undisciplined person becomes a reprobate he should be judged, that is, excommunicated; fourth, punishment of the evil, for if a reprobate, disregarding fear of God, becomes evil, he should receive punishment for evil, as the wise counsel of Paul, who says, ‘I believe that the evil man surrenders to Satan for the

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destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord’; last, protection for the good, for punishment having been given to the evil the good are at peace. Truly the judges are appointed for the punishment of the evil and the protection of the good.

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IV STUDIES OF INDIVIDUAL MANUSCRIPTS, ARTISTS AND THEMES

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The Historical Miniatures of the Fourteenth-Century Ramsey Psalter*

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N the fourteenth century the Abbey of St Benedict, the Virgin and All Virgins at Ramsey in the English fen country owned about 100 psalter manuscripts, according to its library cataloguer.1 Only three are known to survive.2 One of these, a book of the first years of the fourteenth century now divided between the Pierpont Morgan Library and the Abbey of St

* The subject of this article forms part of a study of a group of early fourteenth-century illuminated manuscripts made for the Benedictine Fenland abbeys of Peterborough, Ramsey and Crowland which I am preparing with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For assistance in obtaining photographs and answering queries, I am grateful to Professor Otto Pächt of the University of Vienna, Dr Jonathan Alexander of the Bodleian Library, and Mr D. H. Turner of the British Museum, and I wish to thank Dr John Plummer of the Pierpont Morgan Library and Father B. Knapp of the Abbey of St Paul in Lavantthal for facilitating my study of the manuscripts in their libraries. 1 The catalogue, London, Brit. Mus. Cotton Roll II. 16, dates from the late fourteenth century (see w. D. Macray, ed.: Chronicon abbatiae Rameseiensis (Rolls Series, No. 83), London [1886], pp. 356 ff.). At the end, the compiler listed the totals of service books, which included not only centum per minus centum psalters but also seventy breviaries, thirtytwo graduals, thirty-three tropers and twenty-nine processionals, etc. 2 (1) New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.302 and St Paul in Lavantthal (Austria), Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19, early fourteenth century, the manuscript discussed here; (2) Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll. MS 468, a Latin-Greek psalter of c. 1250 with decorated initials (see M. R. James: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Cambridge [1912], pp. 399–403); and (3) Holkham Hall, Earl of Leicester MS 26, second half of the fourteenth century, with historiated initials. If Brit. Mus. MS Harley 2904 is the Psalter of St Oswald cited in the Ramsey catalogue, as Charles Niver suggested (‘The Psalter in the British Museum, Harley 2904’, Medieval Studies

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Paul in Lavantthal, Carinthia,3 contains a unique group of miniatures that refer pictorially to the history of Ramsey Abbey. These miniatures are of interest not only as historical representations of a particular abbey but also as examples of a type of theme which itself is infrequent in English art of the time. Pictorial references to monastic history are occasionally found as narrative illustrations in texts of the lives of saints or other founders of abbeys, or in written chronicles.4 Unlike such illustrations, however, the Ramsey miniatures are not narrative but formal and ceremonial in character, and they occur, not in the narrative context of a hagiography or chronicle, but in the liturgical context of a psalter. They are, in fact, the only extant pictures of this type in an English Gothic service book. The Ramsey Psalter was executed during the term of office of Abbot John of Sawtry (1286–1316)5 by an artist who was a member of a workshop in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter, Cambridge, Mass. [1939], pp. 667–87), then the number of surviving psalters would be raised to four. For a list of all the surviving manuscripts of Ramsey Abbey, see N. R. Ker: Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd ed., London [1964], pp. 153 f. 3 New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 302 (five leaves of prefatory miniatures) and St Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19 (calendar, one prefatory leaf of miniatures and psalter text with historiated initials and borders). No detailed published description of the New York fragment exists; there is a typed notice of the manuscript, compiled in 1936, at the Morgan Library; see also E. G. Millar: English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIV and XV Centuries, Paris [1928], pp. 9 f. On the part in St Paul in Lavantthal, see R. Eisler: Die illuminierten Handschriften in Kärnten (Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der illuminierten Handschriften in Österreich), Leipzig [1907], pp. 83–89. 4 For example, Matthew Paris’s illustrated life of St Alban (Dublin, Trinity Coll. MS E.i.40) is followed by sixteen scenes of the foundation of St Alban’s Abbey by King Offa of Mercia. 5 Aside from the historical miniatures, the chief evidence of provenance is the calendar, which is clearly for Ramsey, giving the dedication of the church on 22nd September, the translation of the relics on 8th November, the invention of St Ivo on 24th April, his translation on 10th June, the anniversary of the benefactors of the abbey on 15th May, the death of Duke Ailwyn, the founder, on 23rd April, and finally the death of William of Godmanchester abbas huius loci on 2nd May. The best source for the early history of Ramsey is the long chronicle of the abbey written c. 1170 (Public Record Office, Exch. K. R., Misc. Books, i. 28, fols.103–32v and Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Rawl. B. 333, both fourteenth century) and printed by Macray (above, note 1) together with the catalogue of the abbey library and some shorter lists of abbots. The Public Record Office manuscript also contains a Ramsey chartulary, edited by W. H. Hart and P. A. Lyons: Cartularium monastcrii de Rameseia (Rolls Series, No. 79), London [1884–93], 3 vols. For a discussion of the date of the psalter, see below, p. 511.

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that produced illuminated manuscripts for two other of the main Benedictine monasteries in the Fenlands — Peterborough and Crowland — in addition to Ramsey. In style the psalter falls into the category loosely called ‘East Anglian’, a term that brings to mind the boldness of execution and exuberance of invention, especially in marginal illustration, of manuscripts such as the Ormesby Psalter in the Bodleian Library. The Ramsey Psalter is distinguished from East Anglian psalters, however, in containing a series of full-page miniatures, a type of illustration characteristic of Fenland psalters such as those made for Peterborough and now in Brussels and Oxford. The series begins with Old Testament scenes. Then follows a New Testament cycle, which ends with the Death, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. The last miniatures before the beginning of the psalter text comprise the group whose subjects pertain to Ramsey Abbey. This sequence opens with a page containing, in the upper half, the martyrdom of St Thomas of Canterbury, which is bracketed by the figure of a crowned and mitred archbishop holding a church model and by St Paul (Fig. 1).6 The reference of this scene to the one below, and the significance of the archbishop with the church model, is not immediately clear. The lower scene, however, is certainly related to Ramsey Abbey. The central compartment shows a mitred figure, blessing and holding a crozier or pastoral staff, now partially effaced, seated side by side with an abbot, tonsured, holding a pastoral staff and an open book. Below their feet are a ram and a bull. Flanking the central pair are Sts Catherine of Alexandria and Margaret. The ram and the bull are pictorial metaphors for Ramsey Abbey. The ram (= ram in Anglo-Saxon)7 is a rebus for the first syllable of the name of the abbey.8 The bull alludes to the legend of the foundation of the monastery, which was recorded in King Edgar’s charter of 974: ‘let him [Ailwyn, the lay founder] notice carefully in the aforementioned place [Ramsey], how the wearied cattle [animalia] lie down at night, and where he shall see a bull rising, strike the earth with his right foot, there he may

Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 302, fol. 4v. According to the Ramsey chronicle (Macray: Chronicon, p. 9): Igitur Ramesia congrue satis dici potest a duobus nominibus anglicis, ram, quod est aries, et eie quod insulam sonat . . . 8 Cf. the monument of William Ramsey, an abbot of Peterborough, d. 1491, with a rebus consisting of a ram carrying a ‘W’ (S. Gunton: The History of the Church of Peterburgh, London [1686], p. 55). 6 7

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know he is to build an altar . . .9 It will be noted that a prominent feature of the bull in the miniature is a sharply bent right hoof. As ingenious as this iconography appears to be it is not a completely unique invention. Given an unusual importance by its inclusion in the charter of the abbey, the legend was alluded to pictorially more than once. The preface of the Ramsey chronicle in a manuscript written between 1293 and 1305 begins, for example, with a historiated initial ‘U’ containing a bull and a ram facing each other, and each lifting a forefoot (Fig. 5),10 Doubtless, the ram and the bull were a standard symbol of Ramsey Abbey.11 Nevertheless, the chronicle and the psalter representations are independent compositionally, the former being an abbreviated symbol while the latter is an expanded ceremonial image. In the psalter, the enthroned ecclesiastics use the animals as footstools, referring to their dominion. The setting suggests a church — physically, in the triple arched format of the composition and the juxtaposition with a similar setting in the martyrdom of St Thomas above, and symbolically, by the inclusion of Sts Catherine and Margaret, two of the virgins to whom the abbey was dedicated. Attempts have been made to identify the ecclesiastics with various individuals associated with the early history of Ramsey Abbey, such as Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ednoth, the first elected abbot, and even Duke Ailwyn, the lay founder and Saxulf, the first abbot of Peterborough.12 Such specific identifications are difficult to prove or disprove because the miniaTranslated by J. Wise and W. M. Noble (Ramsey Abbey, Huntingdon [1881], p. 45). Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Rawl. B.333, fol. 1; see W. Macray: Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae pars quintae (Rawlinson MSS), Oxford [1862], I, cols. 601–03. 11 The pair also seems to be shown on the fourteenth-century seal of Ramsey below the feet of a bishop or archbishop and an abbot, a composition similar to that in the psalter; see W. De G. Birch: Catalogue of Seals . . . in the British Museum, I, London [1867], p. 710, no. 3867, where the author identifies the figures as St Ivo or St Oswald and St Benedict, and the animals as two rams. 12 The figures are, I believe, incorrectly identified in the notes on the manuscript at the Morgan Library as Dunstan on the left and Ailwyn on the right. Dunstan’s connection with Ramsey was limited to participation in the ceremonies of dedication in 974 (see Macray: Chronicon, p. 185) ; Ailwyn, a layman, would not be represented as a tonsured monk. E. G. Millar (English Illuminated Manuscripts, p. 50) cited an opinion of M. R. James that the left figure is Ednoth, the first abbot of Ramsey and the right Saxulf, the first abbot of Peterborough. Ramsey was a mitred abbey in the Gothic period and its abbot could conceivably be shown wearing a mitre, but Saxulf had no connection at all with Ramsey since he was made abbot of Peterborough in 654, 300 years before the foundation of Ramsey. 9

10

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ture is formal and static rather than narrative. Lacking action, it offers only the costumes, attributes and gestures of the figures as guides to identification. These make it clear that the two ecclesiastics are a bishop and an abbot. The historical personages that most closely correspond to the pair are Oswald, Archbishop of York and Ednoth ‘Junior’, the first abbot of Ramsey. In 969 Oswald, while still Bishop of Worcester, convinced Duke Ailwyn, ‘Alderman of all England’, to give some of his land for the abbey.13 Oswald sent Ednoth ‘Senior’, a monk of Westbury (a cell of Worcester) to Ramsey to supervise construction and prepare for the coming of the monks, who were transferred from Westbury in 973.14 Oswald, along with Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, dedicated the abbey on 8th November 974.15 During the first twenty-four years of its existence (969–993), Oswald himself acted as abbot of Ramsey, with Ednoth ‘Senior’ as prior.16 After Oswald’s death in 993, a second Ednoth, Ednoth ‘Junior’ in the chronicles, was elected as the first official abbot.17 He and Oswald are, I believe, the figures in the miniature. Together they symbolize the establishment of Ramsey Abbey as an ecclesiastical institution. In the compartment above this miniature the martyrdom of St Thomas is flanked by St Paul on the right and on the left by an archbishop holding a church model, blessing and wearing a stole, all attributes of the dedicator of a church. Ordinarily, St Paul would be paired with St Peter. The revision of a standard scheme suggests that the central scene of the martyrdom of St Thomas has a special Ramsey significance. The parish church of Ramsey, located next to the abbey, is dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury. Of late twelfth-century construction, it was in use years before it was officially dedicated, probably in 1238.18 In that year, as Matthew Paris recorded, dedicatae sunt nobiles ecclesiae conventuales in diocesi Lincolniensi, in Marisco, videlicet Macray: Chronicon, pp. 35–41. Ibid., pp. 39–42, 339. 15 The date of dedication, 8th November 974 is substantiated by the abbey chronicle and the charter of King Edgar of 28th December 974 (ibid., pp. 44, 185, 339 and Hart and Lyons: Cartularium, p. 170). 8th November was not a liturgical feast of dedication, however, being celebrated instead in Ramsey calendars as the feast of translation of the relics of Sts Aethelred and Aethelbert from Wakering, a property belonging to Duke Ailwyn. The saints were reinterred at Ramsey during Ailwyn’s lifetime (Chronicon, p. 55). 16 Macray: Chronicon, pp. 42, 109. 17 Ibid., pp. 110, 347. 18 R. Black: ‘Ramsey Abbey and the Parish Church’, Transactions of the Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Archaeological Society, I [1901], pp. 319–26. 13 14

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Rameseie, Burgi [Peterborough] et Sautereie [Sawtry], a venerabili episcopo Lincolniensi Roberto [Grosseteste]. Ecclesia Rameseie, decimo kalendas Octobris, die scilicet sancti Mauncii sociorumque ejus [22nd September] . . . et multae aliae ecclesiae per totam Angliam, secundum constitutionem Londoniis per legatum Ottonem celebratam.19 This day of dedication was subsequently incorporated in Ramsey calendars.20 The upper miniature on this page, then, refers to the establishment of the parish church of Ramsey Abbey and its dedication to St Thomas. Another miniature of this group also alludes to the dedication of a church (Fig. 2).21 It occupies the upper portion of a page divided into two interdependent compartments. The lower contains a scene that illustrates the founding of Ramsey Abbey on an island in the fens. The miniature conforms generally to the account given in Edgar’s charter, the participants being identifiable as Duke Ailwyn, his attendant, and Archbishop Oswald. Ailwyn is sealing his promise and Oswald is driving wild beasts away with his cross staff. The tales of the foundation of Ramsey do not include an episode of the driving out of wild animals, although such accounts are typical of monastic foundation legends.22 It seems likely that the artist altered a standard pictorial model for the founding of churches to suit the particular circumstances of the founding of Ramsey by Ailwyn and Oswald. Above this scene is a composition whose unusual combination of iconographic motifs suggests, like the St Thomas miniature, a special Ramsey purpose. The crowned and resurrected Christ, showing his wounds and blessing, is enthroned alongside the crowned Virgin, who holds a book and acknowledges the blessing of Christ. Behind this pair are two censing angels and a cloth of honour held aloft in lions’ mouths. Flanking the throne are St John Chronica majora, H. Luard, ed. (Rolls Series, no. 57), III, p. 517. Papal Legate Otto, at the Council of London in 1237, had ordered all cathedrals, monastic churches and parish churches to be consecrated within two years, dum multas invenimus ecclesias et aliquas etiam cathedrales que licet sint ab antiquo constructe nondum tamen sunt oleo sanctificationis consecrate (Councils and Synods, P. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney, eds., Oxford [1964), I, p. 244). 20 In a Ramsey calendar of the early thirteenth century the dedication date and its octave were inserted in a later hand (London, Brit. Mus. MS Cotton Galba B.X, a miscellany including some material about Ramsey possessions as well as the calendar, fols. 2–7v). 21 St Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 7. 22 See, for example, the account of the life of St Guthlac, founder of neighbouring Crowland Abbey, on ‘an island amid the marshes so remote and so infested with demons and other horrors that it was regarded as uninhabitable’ (G. Warner: The Guthlac Roll, Oxford, Roxburghe Club [1928], p. 5). 19

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the Evangelist and St John the Baptist. At the sides, running more than halfway down the page — overlapping the upper part of the lower scene — is a throng of figures, princely and clerical, two of them holding oil flasks. The miniature contains elements of the oldest type of Coronation of the Virgin, in which Mary, in Glory at the right of Christ, is already crowned. This iconography celebrates the Triumph of the Virgin rather than the act of coronation itself.23 In Coronations of the Virgin, of whatever type, attendant figures — angels, prophets and kings, and sometimes saints — are frequently present, especially in Gothic sculptured tympana. The appearance of historical personages — as the throng of kings, archbishops, bishops and noblemen in the Ramsey miniature — is an exception. When they occur, as in the earliest Triumph of the Virgin, the apse mosaic in Santa Maria in Trastevere (1140–1148), it is in the context of church-dedication imagery.24 The Triumph of the Virgin in the Ramsey Psalter is such a dedication image. The oil flasks held aloft in the hands of the witnesses underline this meaning. The miniature, then, is the pendant of the Martyrdom of St Thomas. Both serve as memorials of the consecrations that took place at Ramsey in 1238. On the verso of the same page, below the prayer Suscipere dignare, is still another scene pertaining to Ramsey Abbey (Fig. 3). At the portals of a church stands an abbot behind an altar. He raises his hand in acknowledgment of the sealed donations of Duke Ailwyn, two kings, a bishop and other noblemen. Ailwyn, as the chief benefactor of Ramsey, stands alone to the right of the abbot, his hand at his throat in a gesture of pride and his feet resting on the bull and the ram. Other animals — a stag and a rabbit — lie about, possibly an allusion to the resting animals from among whom the bull would arise to show Ailwyn the site where he was to build the altar. This miniature of course represents the benefactors of Ramsey, and is their memorial, as the inscription below, Benefactorum anime nostrorum requiescant in pace, says. Completing the group of miniatures relating to Ramsey Abbey are eight 23 Early examples of the Triumph of the Virgin are discussed by G. Zarnecki: ‘The Coronation of the Virgin on a Capital from Reading Abbey’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XIII [1950], pp. 1–12. 24 The Virgin and Christ at Santa Maria in Trastevere are flanked by St Peter, Popes Cornelius and Julius and the Priest Calepodius on one side and on the other by Pope Calixtus, St Lawrence and Pope Innocent II holding a model of the church (see R. van Marle; The Italian Schools of Painting, I, pp. 108 f.).

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scenes from the lives of saints on the recto and verso of one leaf.25 The upper two compartments on each side have the clearest relevance to Ramsey. On the recto these contain episodes from the life of St Benedict and on the verso miracles of the Virgin. The first Benedict scene (Fig. 4) shows the founder of the order addressing a group of monks seated before the walls of a monastery. From clouds above emerges the hand of God, blessing. Without further narrative details, it is difficult to say whether this scene is intended to illustrate a specific episode from the life of the saint. The adjacent scene, however, is easily identifiable as one of the most frequently depicted of the miracles of St Benedict, as recounted in Gregory the Great’s Dialogi.26 In this episode St Benedict brings the son of a peasant back to life. The Ramsey artist coupled this miracle of resuscitation with another, the vision of the saint of the death of Germanus, Bishop of Capua, in which ‘in the dead of night he suddenly beheld a flood of light shining down from above, more brilliant than the sun’, and then ‘the whole world was gathered up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light’, and ‘he saw the soul of Germanus, the Bishop of Capua, being carried by angels up to heaven in a ball of fire’.27 This striking passage was interpreted pictorially in a number of ways, and did not, perhaps because of its visionary character, inspire one standard pictorial iconography.28 The Ramsey version, with its gold sun gathering up the world — a white T -map circle — in a streak of translucent white light, focuses on the phenomenal rather than the prophetic aspect of the vision and excludes direct reference to Bishop Germanus. No other closely related examples are extant. The Virgin, the other patron of Ramsey, is represented on the verso of the page with two scenes, also of miracles (Fig. 6).29 In the left compartment Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 302, fol. 5. Gregorii Magni Dialogi libri IV, a cura di Umberto Moricca (Istituto Storico ltaliano/fonti per la Storia d’Italia), Rome [1924], Bk. II, ch. 32, pp. 71 ff. For a discussion of the illustrations see E. Dubler: Das Bild des heiligen Benedikt bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters (Dissertation Abstract), Zurich [n.d.]. 27 St Gregory the Great, Dialogues, J. Zimmerman, O.S.B., trans., New York [1959], p. 105. 28 See Dubler: Das Bild des heiligen Benedikt, pp. 127–29. 29 These scenes are incorrectly identified as miracles connected with St Florentinus in the Morgan Library’s typed notes. Florentinus was important for Peterborough since his arm was one of the abbey’s most valued relics, but his name does not even appear in the Ramsey calendar. Moreover, the protagonist of these scenes is clearly the crowned and haloed female rather than the male figure. 25

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she is shown protecting a praying Benedictine menaced by a bull, a dog and a lion. The miracle is recounted in numerous written collections ‘How the Devil frightened a drunken monk three times, in the form of a bull, a dog, and a lion; and how each time the monk was rescued by the Virgin.’30 An abbreviated pictorial version, showing just the lion, appears in a marginal scene in Queen Mary’s Psalter, perhaps a few years later than the Ramsey manuscript.31 In the second Ramsey picture, the Virgin stands at the bedside of a Benedictine, gesturing solicitously and blessing him — ‘How a clerk, who used frequently to sing an anthem to the Virgin containing five Gaudes was visited by her on his deathbed, and promised a share of the joy he had so often wished her’,32 or another of several legends of deathbed visits by the Virgin.33 Two variants of this miracle are illustrated in Queen Mary’s Psalter,34 and one or another version frequently appears in the same collections that contain the tale about the devil in the form of the three beasts. The Ramsey artist undoubtedly had access to such a collection of legends of the Virgin.35 The Ramsey Psalter, and the Queen Mary Psalter, are among the earliest manuscripts with illustrations of the miracles of the Virgin other than the Theophilus legend.36 H. L. D. Ward: Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum, II [1893], p. 612 and pp. 586–740 passim. 31 London, Brit. Mus. MS Roy. 2 B VII, fol. 207; see G. Warner: Queen Mary’s Psalter, London [1912], p. 44 and Pl. 220d. 32 Ward: Catalogue of Romances, II, p. 605, a legend that appeared first in the work of Peter Damian, d. 1072. 33 ‘How a poor man for love of the Virgin gave away part of the alms bestowed on him and how she appeared to him on his deathbed and called him to Paradise’ (Ward, ibid.); or how a devout man was visited by the Virgin on his deathbed and led to heaven by her (ibid., p. 701); or how the Virgin revealed herself at a deathbed and claimed the title Mater Misericordiae (ibid., pp. 610 f.); or the same but with the detail that the dying man was a thief admitted as a monk by St Odo, Abbot of Cluny (ibid., p. 603). 34 Fol. 210v (Five Gaudes) and fol. 212 (poor man who gave away alms); see Warner: Queen Mary’s Psalter, p. 44 and Pls. 223f. and 220a. 35 In the fourteenth century Ramsey owned numerous collections of legends of saints, including two volumes of the Miracula Sanctae Mariae (see Macray: Chronicon, pp. 356 ff.). Peterborough, the neighbouring abbey, owned approximately eight volumes of the life or miracles of the Virgin, according to the partial catalogue of the late fourteenth century (see M. R. James: Lists of Manuscripts Formerly in the Peterborough Abbey Library, Oxford [1926], passim). 36 The De Brailes Hours (London, Brit. Mus. MS add. 49999) of c. 1240 contains a series of initials of the Theophilus legend, as well as one other miracle of the Virgin — the story of the priest who was suspended from officiating by St Thomas of Canterbury (see 30

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Below the scenes of St Benedict and the Virgin, the patrons of Ramsey Abbey, are others from the lives of saints. There are two of St John the Evangelist, the first, how he changed sticks and stones into gold and gems, and the second, the raising of Drusiana (Fig. 4). These are standard episodes, although in reverse order, in the post-Gospels life of St John and are depicted in a number of Gothic Apocalypse manuscripts in longer series of compositions.37 The representation of the miracle of the transformation of the sticks and stones is very compressed in the Ramsey Psalter; the brothers who play important roles are shown three times in one miniature. In the background they give to the saint the sticks and then the stones that have been gathered from the seashore (shown beneath John’s feet). Then John transforms the base materials, according to the legend, into gold and precious gems (not shown in the Ramsey miniature), warning the brothers that their desire for earthly wealth has cost them the riches of heaven. In the end the brothers repent of their worldliness and John takes their gold and gems and turns it back again into sticks and stones. In the foreground of the Ramsey scene the brothers kneel with their sticks and stones and thank John for the miracle. On the other side of this page there are two of the most familiar miracles of St Nicholas, the boys in the tub and the girls and the gold, combined in one compartment (Fig. 6). The adjacent miniature combines references to St Denis, St Dunstan and St Edith of Wilton. Archbishop Dunstan, officiating at the translation of Edith’s relics to a shrine in the church she had built at Wilton in honour of St Denis (3rd November 985), found that her body was in dust except for her incorruptible right thumb.38 Represented in S. C. Cockerell: The Work of W. De Brailes, Cambridge [1930]). On illustrations of the miracles of the Virgin, see E. Male: L’art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France, Paris [1923], pp. 259–67. Marginal illustrations of miracles of the Virgin began to occur more frequently in England in the second and third quarters of the fourteenth century, in manuscripts such as the Taymouth Hours (London, Brit. Mus. MS Yates Thompson 13); see L. Randall: Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts, Berkeley and Los Angeles [1966], s.v. ‘Virgin, miracles of ’. The Pucelle school manuscript of Gautier de Coincy’s Miracles de la Vierge (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS nouv. acq. franç. 24541), c. 1335, is the first illustrated text of a collection of miracles. 37 E.g., the Trinity College Apocalypse, and Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Auct. D. 4, 17, New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.524, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS franç. 403, and London, Lambeth Palace Lib. MS 209. 38 The chief authority for this story is William of Malmesbury: The History of the Kings of England, J. Sharpe, trans., London [1815], pp. 281 f.; see also F. Arnold-Poster: Studies in Church Dedications, London [1899], II, pp. 417 f. (St Edith). The typed notice at the

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the miniature are St Denis, holding his head, and standing frontally under an arch, a setting reminiscent of that provided for Sts Catherine and Margaret as patrons of Ramsey Abbey, and Archbishop Dunstan, giving Communion at an altar on which the incorruptible — bleeding — finger of St Edith is lying. The scenes of Sts John, Nicholas and Edith (or Denis and Dunstan) have no obvious connection with Ramsey Abbey. Following the line of reasoning that has led to the linking of the scene of St Thomas with the dedication of the parish church, it might be proposed that the inclusion of these particular saints is related to the dedication of altars or chapels in the abbey. The number of altars or chapels at Ramsey and their dedications is not known in entirety. From scattered references it appears that there was an altar of St Nicholas and at one time a jewelled and gilded statue of St John the Evangelist, perhaps from a chapel or altar, but the other saints depicted in these miniatures are not mentioned.39 Another suggestion as to the significance of this choice of saints may be offered. John, Nicholas and Edith may have been the personal patrons of an individual who had a particular connection with this manuscript, either as donor, owner, or official of importance at Ramsey at the time the psalter was made. Who this may have been is uncertain. There is however more precise evidence bearing on the date of the manuscript. It is contained in the calendar, which records, in the original hand, the death of William of Godmanchester abbas huius loci on 2nd May [1288].40 The manuscript therefore was executed after that date. The next abbot was John of Sawtry (1286–1316). His obit does not appear in the calendar. This alone cannot, of course, be interpreted to prove that the psalter was executed during John’s term of office but the likelihood that this was so is increased by other documentation in the calendar. A portrait medallion inscribed Grafham honoretur was added at the bottom of the December page, not by the original artist but by a hand of around 1320.41 This Grafham was William of Morgan Library is helpful in identifying St Denis and St Edith, but the reference there to Athelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, c. 1038, rather than Dunstan, is not correct. Ramsey owned a copy of William of Malmesbury in the fourteenth century (see Macray: Chronicon, p. 359). 39 See Hart and Lyons: Cartularium, II, p. 243, and Macray: Chronicon, passim. 40 He resigned his office in 1286 on account of illness (Hart and Lyons: Cartularium, III, pp. 184 f.). 41 For a reproduction, see Eisler: Die illuminierten Handschriften in Kärnten. Pl. VII.

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1. Ramsey Psalter, early fourteenth century. (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M. 302, fol. 4v.)

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2. Ramsey Psalter, early fourteenth century. (Abbey of St Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 17.)

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3. Ramsey Psalter, early fourteenth century. (Abbey of St Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 17v.)

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4. Ramsey Psalter, early fourteenth century. (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M. 302, fol. 5.)

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6. Ramsey Psalter, early fourteenth century. (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M. 302, fol. 5v.)

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Grafham, the cellarer of Ramsey during the abbacy of John of Sawtry.42 The date of the psalter would then correspond approximately with the tenure of office of John of Sawtry and William of Grafham. The phrase ‘may Grafham be honoured’, or ‘in honour of Grafham’, suggests that he was the person who commissioned the manuscript — not for himself, but as a gift, of which his portrait is the memorial. If William of Grafham was the donor of the manuscript it may be that the miniatures of Sts John, Nicholas and Edith represent his personal patrons. More likely however is that they pertain to the abbot himself, John of Sawtry. The otherwise unexplained prominence of pictorial references to the two Sts John in the psalter suggests the connection of the manuscript with a person who bore this Christian name. St John the Evangelist figures not only among the hagiographical illustrations but also, along with John the Baptist,43 in the picture symbolizing the dedication of Ramsey Abbey and in the Coronation of the Virgin at the end of the New Testament cycle. The two Johns are not standard components of Coronation iconography nor, as noted previously, do they have any intimate association with Ramsey Abbey history. It seems fitting however that a manuscript containing such an unprecedented series of miniatures focusing on the abbey as an institution should also honour its chief officer at the time it was produced by picturing his name-saint.44 If John of Sawtry himself was the recipient of William of Grafham’s gift, he had only temporary custody of it. The real owner of the manuscript was 42 His exact dates are unknown but he is mentioned in a letter written by John of Sawtry in 1303 (Macray: Chronicon, p. 385). 43 In 1316 John of Sawtry provided an endowment for the celebration of the anniversary of his death and the feast of St John the Baptist (Hart and Lyons: Cartularium, II, pp. 241 f.). 44 Sawtry’s coat of arms may possibly be represented in one of the two shields on the Beatus page of the psalter (St Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 18, see Eisler: Die illuminierten Handschriften in Kärnten, Fig. 40), which shows an azure saltire cross on a white (standing for argent) field. In 1392 a member of a family from Sawtry surnamed Beaumeys was granted arms described as ‘d’argent oue une crois d’asure, oue cinque garbes d’or en le crois’ (The Beauties of England and Wales, London [1808], VII, Huntingdonshire, pp. 547 f.). The shield in the psalter may be a simplified version of these arms. The second coat of arms on the Beatus page, two azure bars on a white field, also seems to be a simplification, this time of the barry of six azure and argent of the Grey family, prominent landholders in Huntingdon County, in which Ramsey is located (Victoria History of the County of Huntingdon, London [1932–38], II, pp. 309–14 and passim). In a similar form these arms appear in another Ramsey manuscript, of the late thirteenth century (London, Brit. Mus. MS Roy. 5 D X, St Augustine, miscellaneous works, fol. 1).

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Ramsey Abbey, not a particular person. On John’s death it would have entered the abbey library, whose late-fourteenth-century catalogue lists, under his name, Item Psalterium bonum,45 probably describing the fine manuscript today in New York and St Paul in Lavantthal.

45

Macray: Chronicon, pp. 356 f.

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Peterborough Abbey and the Peterborough Psalter in Brussels*

I

N 1895 M. R. James, in a brief communication to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, advanced a proposal that the hundred or so typological miniatures in the early fourteenth-century Peterborough Psalter in Brussels (Bibl. Roy. MS. 9961–2) were copied from a now-lost cycle of panel paintings formerly round the choir enclosure of Peterborough Abbey, paintings which he believed were datable to the twelfth century.1 His explanation of the relationship between the panel paintings and the miniatures has been accepted in all the subsequent literature mentioning the Peterborough Psalter.2 Ironically, however, more precise information regarding the form of the choir enclosure in the abbey came to light only a few * The subject discussed in this article forms part of a longer study of illuminated manuscripts executed in the early fourteenth century for Peterborough and neighbouring Fenland abbeys. I am most grateful to Canon J. L. Cartwright and Canon A. S. Gribble of Peterborough Cathedral for their technical assistance, and to Walter J. Verco, Chester Herald, for kindly permitting me to examine Arundel MS. 30 in the College of Arms. 1 M. R. James, ‘On the Paintings formerly in the Choir at Peterborough’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, IX, 2 (1897), pp. 178–94. 2 James repeated his views in A Peterborough Psalter and Bestiary (Oxford, 1921), p. 34. His proposal was incorporated in J. Van den Gheyn, Le Psautier de Peterborough (Haarlem, c. 1910), p. 4; C. Gaspar and F. Lyna, Les Principaux manuscrits à peintures de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, p. 199; E. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts from the Xth to the XIIIth Century (Paris and Brussels, 1926), p. 66; M. Rickert, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages (Baltimore, 1954), p. 140; and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, La Librairie de Charles V (Paris, 1968), p. 63 (exhibition catalogue). The error first introduced into the literature by Gaspar and Lyna of identifying the medium of the abbey paintings as fresco also appears in the Bibliothèque Nationale catalogue.

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years after the publication of the James article,3 altering the picture of the arrangement that James proposed and opening the way for a reconsideration of the question of medieval model-copy relationships as exemplified by these two series. Any new investigation of the problem first demands a more detailed examination of the components and sequence of the psalter miniature cycle than James offered in his article. The Brussels manuscript contains eightyfive Old Testament types pertaining to thirty-eight New Testament antitypes (see Appendix).4 The New Testament subjects range from the Annunciation to the Pentecost. While each of these is depicted in a separate miniature, the eighty-five Old Testament subjects are compressed into seventy-one miniatures, which contain one, two, or four types, the number varying in a random pattern. In general, four miniatures are grouped on a page (Fig. 1), but the alternation of types and anti-types is so irregular that previous interpretations of their correlations have differed widely.5 Although the pages of miniatures have an appearance of regularity, as if the types and antitypes were paired, in fact the entire series is based on groupings of triplets of subjects, two types to one antitype, quadruplets, three types to one antitype, and quintuplets, four types to one antitype. The distribution of subjects with three or four as opposed to two types does in fact follow a regular pattern but this is hidden by the irregularity in the number of types per miniature and the apparently random sequence in which the miniatures containing the types and antitypes follow each other. For example, the types for the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, and Annunciation to the Shepherds are presented in single miniatures immediately next to, that is, preceding their respective antitypes; the types for the Journey of the Magi are separated by one miniature from the antitype; the types for the Magi See below and p. 530, n. 28. One pictorial type seems to be missing from the series, that is, Saul’s Massacre of the Priests, a type of the Massacre of the Innocents. It may have been squeezed out for lack of space at the end of the first group of miniatures. The verses pertaining to this type were inscribed on the page where the miniature itself might be expected (see Appendix). The full complement of types was thus likely to have been eighty-six rather than eighty-five. 5 e.g. M. R. James (‘Paintings formerly at Peterborough’, p. 193) lists four types of the Crucifixion (my nos. 74, 75, 76a, 76b in the Appendix), two for the Deposition and two for the Descent into Limbo. Van den Gheyn, on the other hand, lists (Le Psautier de Peterborough, p. 14) five types for the Crucifixion (my nos. 75, 76a, 76b, 78, 79), two for the Deposition, one for the Entombment, and none for the Descent into Limbo. For the correlation proposed in the present article, see the Appendix. 3 4

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leaving Herod are separated by one miniature from each other and by two miniatures from the antitype itself. In groups comprising three miniatures alone the following sequences are found (the third term standing for the location of the antitype relative to the types): 1, 2, 3 (most frequent, nine times); 1, 2, 4 (four times); 1, 2, 5 (twice); 1, 3, 6 (twice); 1, 3, 2 (three times); 2, 3, 1 (twice); and 3, 5, 1; 3, 4, 1, and 1, 4, 2 (each once). To these variations may be added those of sequences consisting of two or four miniatures, viz.: 1, 2 (six times);6 2, 1; 1, 4; 1, 5 (each once); and also 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 3, 4, 5; and 2, 4, 5, 1 (all once). The disparity between the iconographic conception and the format used for its execution creates a situation in which the New Testament scene and its types are not always on the same page and may even be separated by an entire section of psalter text.7 The effectiveness of the typological correlations is weakened still further by the placement of the explanatory distichs in various positions in relation to the scenes — above, below, between, alongside — and their reading order in a sequence that varies from page to page.8 The distichs were clearly written in after the pictures, since the size of the script varies depending on how much space was left between or around the miniatures. These distichs pertain to the types, and there is an over-all correspondence between the number of distichs and the number of types, but the individual pages sometimes have more distichs than types and sometimes fewer.9 If the subjects represented in the miniatures and referred to in the distichs are considered separately from the actual manuscript context a much clearer typological pattern emerges. At the beginning and at the end of the series is an antitype with four types (Annunciation and Pentecost). In the The first 1, 2 sequence (my nos. 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 2) — the first two miniatures in the whole series — contains four individual subject types compressed into one pictorial type. The next 1, 2 sequence (my nos. 3a, 3b, 4) has two subject types in one picture, the standard arrangement for this sequence. 7 e.g. one of the three types of the Third Temptation of Christ (f. 32V) is on f. 25, one on f. 25V, and the other on f. 32V. All three types of the Washing of the Feet, which is on f. 33, are on f. 40, preceding the next section of the psalter text. 8 See, for instance, ff. 11V–12, where the added letters A–F offer a guide to the reading order. Elsewhere, no such aids are given. Ff. 12V–13, for example, each contain six lines of verse, those on f. 12V read in vertical columns, those on f. 13 read horizontally. 9 See, for instance, f. 11V, which has three miniatures containing Old Testament types, but four distichs. Sometimes the two lines of a distich are split on different folios, e.g. ff. 11V–12, 24–24V, 25–32V, 32V–33· 6

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1. Peterborough Psalter in Brussels. Bibl. Roy. Ms. 9961–2, f. 11v. (c. 1300). Typological miniatures. (By Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Royale.)

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2. Reconstruction of thirteenth-century arrangement of panel paintings in the choir enclosure of Peterborough Abbey. A: anti-type; T: type. The author.

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3. Canterbury Cathedral, north choir aisle window (c. 1200). Joseph and his Brothers. (By courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.)

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middle of the sequence of the thirty-eight Christological subjects, the seventeenth, eighteenth, and twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second antitypes (Third Temptation, Entry into Jerusalem, Last Supper, Washing of the Feet, and Agony in the Garden) each have three types. Of this group in the middle of the cycle only the nineteenth subject, the Expulsion of the Money-Changers, has less than three types. It, like all the others in the cycle, amounting to thirty antitypes, is correlated with two types. In the main, therefore, the series has a symmetrical pattern, departures from the standard triplet groupings occurring at the beginning, the end and around the mid-point of the sequence. The Brussels series is a long one, induding as many, or more, Christological subjects as other major typological series such as the Klosterneuberg Altar, the Biblia pauperum, or the Speculum humanae salvationis,10 although it cannot match the still longer cycle of stained glass formerly in Canterbury Cathedral.11 All these series, by comparison with the Peterborough Psalter, are models of consonance between the typological content and the form of presentation. In the Klosterneuberg Altar there are two types to each antitype, each trio of scenes arranged in a vertical column with the antitype in the middle. Reading from left to right, the Crucifixion with its two types falls on the central axis, giving the whole sequence a perfect symmetry. The typologies of the Biblia pauperum are also conceived as triplets, with the antitype flanked by the types (and also by prophets) in some manuscripts, or placed above or below the types in others. Unlike the other series, in the Speculum humanae salvationis three types are juxtaposed with each antitype. The format also differs from the Klosterneuberg Altar and the Biblia pauperum since the illustrations are placed in pairs on facing pages, akin to the format of the Peterborough Psalter. Placed on the left, the antitypes, unlike those in the psalter, however, are always in the same position in relation to the types. The series of antitypes in these three works, comparable though they may be in length to the Peterborough Psalter cycle, differ in the choice of subjects, and the textual components — verses, inscriptions, etc. — also differ even when the New Testament subjects are identical. Much closer to 10 On these typological series see G. Heider, Beiträge zur christlichen Typologie aus Bilderhandschriften des Mittelalters (Vienna, 1861), pp. 9–19. 11 See M. R. James, The Verses formerly Inscribed on Twelve Windows in the Choir of Canterbury Cathedral (Publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Octavo Ser., No. 38) (Cambridge, 1901).

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the psalter in choice of Christological subjects as well as types and verses is the series of early thirteenth-century stained glass windows originally located in the aisles of the choir of Canterbury cathedral, as M. R. James observed.12 The subjects at Canterbury are known from two sources, an early fourteenth-century roll in the chapter archives, which names those in each of the twelve windows and gives the verses by which they were accompanied — and the fragmentary remains of the glass itself.13 The Canterbury windows contained a great many more subjects than the Peterborough Psalter; they included numerous types of the events of Christ’s ministry — the miracles and the parables — none of which appear in the manuscript. The number of New Testament subjects that corresponded to those in the psalter was twenty-seven out of thirty-eight. Of these, thirteen had the same types as well as verses and eight more had the same types but not the same verses; the remaining six had types (and as a result, verses) differing from those in the psalter. The Canterbury typologies were triplets arranged with the two types flanking the antitype — an arrangement that would suit the Brussels subjects in most instances and which M. R. James suggested for the panel paintings once in the choir of Peterborough Abbey.14 In spite of the obviously incomplete correlation between the subjects of the windows and the manuscript, the coincidence is interesting because some of the Canterbury scenes have survived and can be compared with their counterparts in the Peterborough Psalter cycle. The Canterbury glass that still exists is from the Infancy cycle, the part of the series in which the correspondence in subjects and verses to the Peterborough Psalter is closest.15 The compositions, in fact, show many differences, not surprising considering the difference in dates. Among the types, however, and many are iconographic rarities, there are some striking similarities, not only in compositional arrangements but occasionally in gestures of individual figures as well. Balaam and Isaiah, the two types of the Journey of the Magi, Ibid., pp. 6–10. For the roll, numbered C 246, see the James publication cited above; on the surviving glass, see B. Rackham, The Ancient Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1949), pp. 54–65. 14 James, ‘Paintings formerly at Peterborough’, p. 184. 15 Of the thirteen Infancy subjects in the psalter twelve were included in the Canterbury series (the Death of Herod is absent). The choice of types is identical and the verses correspond in eighteen cases out of twenty-four. 12 13

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for instance, are represented in compositions similar in placement of figures; so also are the types of the Adoration of the Magi, Solomon and Sheba, and Joseph and his Brothers (Figs. 1, 3). In the scene of Joseph and his Brothers, even the gesture of Joseph is similar in the two works. Other scenes, such as Pharaoh and Moses, a type of the Magi before Herod, are similar in composition, but reversed. The most frequently depicted Old Testament scene that occurs in both works is Noah and the Ark; the respective compositions there are very different. Clearly the relationship between the early thirteenth-century glass and the fourteenth-century psalter could not have been more than indirect. The relationship between the Brussels miniatures and the panel paintings formerly in the choir of Peterborough Abbey was undoubtedly much closer. M. R. James’s discovery of the connection was based on the observation that the distichs recorded as round the choir of the church both by the seventeenth-century antiquary Simon Gunton and in a fourteenth-century manuscript miscellany, as far as they go, corresponded with the verses around the typological miniatures in the Brussels Psalter.16 Both sources give incomplete listings of these verses: the fourteenth-century manuscript has a transcription of those for the first nineteen New Testament subjects — half the series; by the time of Gunton, only three from the beginning and three from the end survived. Nevertheless, it is apparent, as James concluded, that the series of distichs was identical with that in the psalter. Gunton, who briefly described the surviving paintings as well as listing the distichs, did not draw a clear picture of their actual arrangement.17 James, however, proposed that the pictorial irregularities of the Brussels Psalter indicate that on the choir stalls the typologies were arranged in two rows of compartments, each compartment containing a type flanked by antitypes. He reconstructed the layout of the paintings in this manner because he believed that only a two-row arrangement could have engendered the kind of confusion found in the manuscript cycle, noting in his explanation that the miniatur16 S. Gunton, History of the Church at Peterburgh, ed. S. Patrick (London, 1686), pp. 95–6. For the manuscript list see College of Arms MS. Arundel 30, ff. 6V–7. M. R. James (‘Paintings formerly at Peterborough’, p. 185) mentioned that he did not have a complete list of the Brussels verses to compare with those in the College of Arms manuscript. There are in fact only minor differences between the two in orthography, and occasional variations in single words. 17 Gunton, Church at Peterburgh, p. 95; James, ‘Paintings formerly at Peterborough’, pp. 180, 181–2.

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ist would hardly have had any difficulty had he been following a single continuous row of panel pictures.18 James must have visualized a sequence like that of the back of Duccio’s Maestà, which is read alternately from bottom to top and top to bottom. However, it is difficult to see how even a complicated arrangement of this kind could have produced the particular irregularities of the pictorial sequence in the Brussels manuscript. The explanation offered by James is not completely satisfactory. It raises, in fact, two kinds of questions regarding the relationship between the manuscript and the panel paintings, one about the characteristics of the model itself and the other about the mode of operation of the miniaturist. As to the first, more information than James realized has survived, and in the light of this documentation his dating of the choir enclosure containing the panel paintings must be revised. James accepted Gunton’s opinion that the panels had been executed during the time of Abbot William of Waterville (1155–74).19 Gunton had undoubtedly based his attribution on the Peterborough Chronicle of Hugo Candidus, which ascribed the crossing and the transepts of the abbey to William of Waterville and also recounted that in this abbot’s time the choir was ordinatus (arranged, laid out).20 (Hugo’s reference was to the ritual choir rather than to the architectural choir, or presbytery, which had been built by Walter’s predecessors John of Séez and Martin of Bec between 1118 and 1155.)21 Whatever choir arrangements existed during William’s time were, however, temporary. Hugo’s successor as the chronicler of Peterborough, Robert Swapham, recorded that the nave of the abbey church was built by the next abbot, Benedict (1177–94) and also that he erected a pulpitum or choir screen.22 This pulpitum was located at the third pier west of the crossing (Fig. 4).23 In its final medieval form24 the ritual choir was thus extended into the nave; from the cloister it was entered through a door opposite the second bay west

James, ‘Paintings formerly at Peterborough’, pp. 183–4. Gunton, Church at Peterburgh, p. 95. 20 The Chronicle of Hugh Candidus, ed. W. T. Mellows (London, 1949), p. 130. 21 Ibid., p. 105. 22 Chronicle of Swapham in J. Sparke, Historiae anglicanae scriptores varii (London, 1723), II, p. 99. 23 C. R. Peers, in Victoria History of the Counties of England, Northamptonshire (London, 1902 f.), II, p. 445. 24 The choir has been restored three times since the mid seventeenth century; see Peers, V.C.H., Northamptonshire, II, p. 445. 18 19

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of the crossing.25 To the east it probably extended under the entire crossing, since the abbot’s seat was described in the fourteenth century as being near a door in the westernmost bay of the presbytery.26 Therefore it is certain that the wooden choir enclosure seen by Gunton could not have been completed before the early work on the nave (1177), if not later. That the choir stalls were, in fact, considerably later than Gunton thought is proven by their documentation in the Peterborough Chronicle under the works of Walter of Bury St. Edmund’s, abbot from 1233 to 1245: Dedit etiam decem marcas ad opus stallorum, & majorem partem grossi meremii.27 Unknown to James, two of these stalls have survived in fragmentary form and are now located in the north transept of the cathedral (Fig. 5).28 The medieval remains, incorporated into a Jacobean framework, consist of three pairs of columns, 7 ft. 6 in. tall,29 with stiff-leaf capitals comparable in style to those on the western façade of the church (Fig. 6), which was completed around 1238.30 The surviving colonettes would have supported canopies over the seats, in an arrangement anticipating that in Winchester cathedral at the beginning of the fourteenth century (Fig. 7).31 The design of the Peterborough capitals alternates in an ABA pattern, suggesting that the seats between them were paired, as at Winchester, and implying, again as at Winchester, that the pairing was expressed at the backs of the seats by a system of inscribed arches. Such a reconstruction of the choir stalls would provide a suitable framework for a series of types and antitypes in which the antitype was depicted in the spandrel between the inner and outer arches and the types were placed in the paired inner arches (Fig. 2). The existence

Ibid., p. 440. Ibid., p. 445. Certainty as to the eastward extent of the choir is impossible since the crossing was rebuilt at the end of the nineteenth century (ibid., p. 439). Had the choir reached as far as the eastern crossing piers it would have been similar to that of Norwich cathedral, which in other respects is laid out along similar lines (see plan in J. Britton, The History and Antiquities of the See and Cathedral Church of Norwich (London, 1816). Pl. 1). Norwich was begun in 1116. 27 Sparke, Historiae, II, p. 119. 28 Mentioned by Peers in V.C.H., Northamptonshire, II, p. 443, and reproduced by F. Bond, Wood Carvings in English Churches (London, 1910), II, Fig. 33. 29 Thanks are due to Canon A. S. Gribble for taking these measurements. 30 V.C.H., Northamptonshire, II, p. 433. The church was dedicated on 6 October 1238. 31 For a dating c. 1308, see A. W. Goodman, ‘The Choir Stalls, Winchester Cathedral’, Archaeological Journal (1927), pp. 125–6; also Bond, Wood Carvings, II, pp. 32–6. 25 26

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of an arrangement of this kind is suggested by an eyewitness description of the destruction of the choir stalls by Cromwell’s troops in 1643: ‘Next they break down all the Seats, Stalls and Wainscot that was behind them, being adorned with several Historical passages out of the Old and New Testament, a Latin Distich being in each Seat to declare the Story.’32 Since the lines of verse in each seat pertained to the types, it can be concluded that there was a stall for each type — eighty-six in all33 — and that the antitypes were not placed on the same level with the types. The most likely location for the antitypes would be the spandrels above the paired stalls. It seems then that the typologies were not arranged in two rows of compartments, as M. R. James suggested, but in a single row with the antitypes above the types. It is unlikely, therefore, that the complexities of a two-row arrangement can be the reason for the irregularity of the pictorial sequence in the Brussels Psalter. The passage cited above also makes it probable that the paintings were inside the choir enclosure, rather than outside, as James suggested,34 since the verses are described as being in each seat. The cycle can be reconstructed as starting on the south side of the church, as Gunton noted, the scenes running from east to west along the south stalls and from west to east along the north stalls, beginning and ending at the end of the enclosure nearest the high altar.35 The inner side of the pulpitum erected by Abbot Benedict probably also contained wood return stalls36 with panel Francis Standish, quoted in Gunton, Church at Peterburgh, p. 334. The number of stalls was regulated by the number of monks (see F. Bond, An Introduction to English Church Architecture (London, 1913), I, p. 25). There were 80 monks at Peterborough during the abbacy of Robert of Lindesey, 1214–22 (see Gunton, Church at Peterburgh, p. 28). Walter of Bury St. Edmunds is recorded as having added 30 more (ibid., p. 31), making 110 in all, but these were probably only a temporary increase during his own abbacy (ibid., p. 304). 34 James, ‘Paintings formerly at Peterborough’, pp. 181–2. 35 See Gunton, Church at Peterburgh, pp. 95–6. It was traditional for cycles governed by chronological order to begin and end near the altar, whether on the inner side of an enclosure — as Giotto’s frescoes at Padua — or on the outside — as with the sculptured reliefs around the choir at Notre-Dame in Paris. This being the case, it stands to reason that Gunton was describing panels on the inner side of the enclosure, since those on the south side were at the beginning of the series. Had the scenes on the south side been on the outside of the enclosure they would have been read from right to left, a sequence that would be most unlikely. It will be noted, for example, that the exterior choir enclosure reliefs at NotreDame begin on the north rather than the south side of the church. 36 Bond, Introduction to English Church Architecture, I, p. 36, cites this as a frequent practice in large churches. 32 33

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paintings. The number of types in the series would not have fitted comfortably along the sides of the choir enclosure alone, since these would have provided approximately 150 ft. for a total of eighty-six paintings, or less than 171/2 in. per stall. This measurement does not correspond with the present width of 2 ft. 1 in. of the surviving stalls, nor with that of 22–4 in. of the three medieval seats which are now incorporated in the furnishings of the chapel of St. Sprite.37 A choir enclosure with return stalls would have provided ample room for eighty-six seats each about 2 ft. in width. The supposition that return stalls existed explains one of the kinds of irregularities in the sequence of types and antitypes in the Brussels Psalter, that in which certain of the antitypes have three or four rather than two types, each type accompanied by a distich. These irregularities apparently existed in the panel paintings also.38 The symmetrical distribution of the subjects with three types around the mid-point of the series suggests that they were singled out in some way in the choir itself, being set, it may be proposed, in the return stalls. Whether all six of these antitypes (from the Third Temptation through the Agony in the Garden) with their seventeen or eighteen types could have been located in the return stalls proper is doubtful, however, because eighteen types would cover about 36 running Cf. V.C.H., Northamptonshire, II, p. 445. Gunton’s transcription gives verses for three of the four types of the Annunciation and for only two of the four types of the Pentecost. It is certainly possible that by his time the additional types that are in the Brussels Psalter had disappeared. The College of Arms MS. Arundel 30 gives verses for all three types of the Third Temptation of Christ, but only two for the Entry into Jerusalem and one for the Expulsion of the Money Changers, subjects which in the Brussels Psalter have respectively three and two types. It should be noted, however, that the Arundel MS. 30 transcription ends with the Expulsion of the MoneyChangers, the nineteenth Christological subject, and that for these nineteen antitypes it only records thirty-four distichs, that is, less than two types per antitype. For this part of the Brussels Psalter cycle there are forty distichs. James pointed out that the inscriptions below the single figures of prophets that served as types in the psalter were not recorded in the Arundel manuscript: those missing are Jeremiah and lsaiah, extra types of the Annunciation; Habakkuk and David, types of the Annunciation to the Shepherds; Balaam and Isaiah, types of the Journey of the Magi; Zachariah, one of the three types of the Entry into Jerusalem; and Jeremiah, type of the Expulsion of the Money-Changers. Nevertheless, according to Gunton’s description at least one of these prophets actually existed in the panel paintings, namely Isaiah, the type of the Annunciation. It is impossible to say with certainty how many there were in addition to the one that remained in Gunton’s time. However, since at least some of the extra types in the Brussels Psalter were also recorded in the other documentation of the panel paintings, there seems no reason to doubt that on this point the psalter accurately reflects the panel paintings. 37 38

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feet and the available width of the choir enclosure, including the space of a door, is only about 30 ft.39 If, however, the first and last of the six typologies had been placed on the long sides of the choir enclosure, rather than along the choir screen, not only would the width of the choir have been sufficient for the four remaining antitypes with their twelve types (equal to approximately 24 ft.) and a doorway,40 but the long sides of the choir would also each be framed by subjects with extra types, the Annunciation with two extra types at the beginning of the south side and the Third Temptation with one extra type at the end, and on the north side, the Agony in the Garden with an extra type and the Pentecost with two extra types. The extra types for the Annunciation and the Pentecost — four figures of prophets — perhaps corresponded to the stalls of the abbot and the prior at the ends of the enclosure nearest the altar. in this reconstruction there would be thirtyseven types along each long side of the choir, running approximately 77 ft. (a figure based on the present width of the surviving stalls) and corresponding to the estimate of 75 ft. for the over-all length of the choir enclosure (measuring the clear space between the eastern crossing piers and the third pier west of the crossing). At least some of the irregularities of the Brussels manuscript cycle of typologies — namely the variation in the number of types for each antitype — therefore may reflect similar irregularities in the choir stall panel painting arrangement. However, while in the choir stall panels these irregularities assumed a pattern that can be explained by the incorporation of the pictures in the framework of the choir enclosure, the rationale of the pattern does not emerge clearly in the psalter because the framework of the fourcompartmented page is so different. It is doubtful whether the psalter miniatures were directly copied from the panel paintings at all. The difference between the three-unit format of the panels and the four-unit format of the miniatures, the disorder of the sequence of pictures and inscriptions in the manuscript, both suggest that the artist was not following a model with a continuous sequence of images and inscriptions but rather a series of separate pictures, and even that the scribe copied neither the inscriptions on the panel paintings themselves nor those on the individual pictorial models but rather a separate list of distichs. If anything, the irregularities of the The width of the choir between centres of piers is approximately 34 ft. Winchester, for example, has ten return stalls in a choir with approximately 30 ft. of clear width (see C. R. Peers, in V.C.B., Hampshire, V (1912), p. 57). 39 40

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4. Plan of Peterborough Abbey after C. R. Peers. Victoria Counry History, Northamptonshire, Vol. II. (By courtesy of the editor)

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6. Peterborough Cathedral, façade completed c. 1238. Detail, north gable. (By courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art)

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5. Choir stall fragments (1233–45) in early seventeenth-century framework. Peterborough Cathedral, now north transept. (By courtesy of the National Monuments Record, Royal Commission on Historical Monuments)

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7. Winchester Cathedral, choir stalls, c. 1308. (By courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art)

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THE PETERBOROUGH PSALTER IN BRUSSELS

10. Gough Psalter. Oxford, Bodl. Lib. ms. Gough Liturgy 8, f. 6r. (c. 1300). Crucifixion. (By courtesy of the Bodleian Library)

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9. Ramsey Psalter. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library ms. M. 302, f. 3. (c. 1300). Crucifixion. (By courtesy of the Pierpont Morgan Library)

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8. Peterborough Psalter in Brussels, Bibl. Roy. ms. 9961–2, f. 56v. (c. 1300). Crucifixion. (By courtesy of the Bibliothèque Royale)

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manuscript cycle speak in favour of an artist who was not familiar with the panel paintings — and there is evidence to suggest that he was a professional designer probably not working at the abbey itself but a member of a shop occupied around the same time with commissions for other Fenland monasteries.41 The designer of the Brussels Psalter may have been supplied with special pictorial models for the types, but the antitypes are all standard subjects for which the workshop probably used stock models, as is suggested by the compositional similarities between these scenes and those in other manuscripts from the same atelier (Figs. 8–10).42 If the antitypes and types did indeed derive from two different sets of models it is little wonder that their order in the manuscript is so confused. The Brussels cycle then was not copied from the older panel paintings — but it is informative nevertheless about their sequence, arrangement, and choice of subjects. There is no reason to doubt that the iconographical choices were identical, although a serious question on this point would have arisen had the panel paintings been dated in the twelfth rather than the thirteenth century. Such subjects as the Agony in the Garden, Christ Bearing the Cross, and the Resurrection (in the form of Christ rising from the tomb) — especially all three in one cycle — would have been well nigh unique in paintings of the twelfth century.43 In a cycle whose choice of subjects goes back to the second third of the thirteenth century they offer no surprises. 41 The group of artists that executed the miniatures of the Brussels Psalter also produced a psalter for use at Ramsey Abbey (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 302 and Carinthia, Austria, St. Paul in Lavanttal, Cod. XXV/2, 19). This group of miniaturists will be discussed in the study cited in the prefatory note. 42 Cf. the Crucifixion and Doubting Thomas in the Brussels (ff. 56V, 92) and Ramsey (ff. 3. 3V) Psalters and also in the psalter with inserted miniatures from the same workshop, Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS. Gough liturg. 8 (ff. 61, 50V). There is more divergence in composition among such Old Testament subjects as Noah’s Ark in the Brussels Psalter (f. 24V) and the Ramsey Psalter (f. 1), but even here some miniatures parallel each other very closely, e.g. those of the Fall and the Expulsion (Brussels, ff. 25, 25V; Ramsey, f. 1). 43 In a sampling of thirty-four English Christological cycles in psalters of the twelfth to early fourteenth centuries, the following statistics were obtained:

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Century

No. of MSS.

Agony in Garden

Christ bearing Cross

Resurrection

—————————————————————————————————————————————

12th 13th 14th

9 16 9

1 4 3

1 6 7

— 7 6

—————————————————————————————————————————————

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It has been assumed by writers on the subject that the Peterborough choir paintings were executed earlier than the Canterbury windows with which they have been compared and therefore that any influence of the one cycle on the other went from Peterborough to Canterbury.44 This no longer seems tenable since the stained glass dates from c. 1200 and the choir stalls from 1233 to 1245. The question is now reversed: could the glass have influenced the panels? It seems that here too the answer must be no. The two pictorial programmes were formulated in response to different requirements. Each drew independently from the repertory of typologies that was widely available in the thirteenth century. The same compendium of types and antitypes with verses might, it is possible, have served as the reference book for both iconographic programmes, although this hypothetical text has not survived.45 The designers of the Canterbury and Peterborough programmes apparently treated their literary sources in the manner recommended by the author of another typological treatise, the Pictor in carmine: ‘. . . my pen has drawn up certain applications of events from the Old and New Testaments, with the addition in every case of a couple of verses which shortly explain the Old Testament subject and apply it to that of the New . . . These distichs are to be inscribed about the Old Testament incident . . . For the rest, it was not my business to arrange for those who supervise such matters, all that should be painted; let them look to it themselves as the fancy takes each, or as he abounds in his own sense, provided only that they seek Christ’s glory, not their own . . .’46

e.g. M. R. James, Verses on the Windows of Canterbury, p. 10. The source would have been like the treatise called Pictor in carmine, but it could not have been this text itself since as James has pointed out, there is no parallel between the Pictor verses and those at Canterbury or in the Brussels Psalter (see M. R. James, ‘Pictor in Carmine’, Archaeologia, XCIV (1951), p. 148). Pictor in carmine was sometimes identified as liber de concordia veteris et novi testamenti (ibid., p. 144). M. R. James, Lists of Manuscripts formerly in Peterborough Abbey Library (Bibliographical Society Transactions, Suppl. no. 5) (Oxford, 1926), p. 22, lists Alexander of Holderness, abbot from 1222 to 1226, as having bequeathed a Concordantie utriusque test. to the library at Peterborough. A number of other references to similar treatises occur in the Peterborough library matricularium, e.g., Versus excerpcionum V. & N. T. in quibus breviter continetur Summa tocius operiis (ibid., p. 46, no. 113), and Concordancie eiusdem [W. de Montibus] V. & N. T. (ibid., p. 60, no. 206). 46 James, ‘Pictor in Carmine’, p. 142. 44 45

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Appendix Typological Miniatures and Verses of the Peterborough Psalter in Brussels —————————————————————————————————————————————

Min. no.

Fol. no.

Subject

Verse

Fol. no.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

1a

10

Jeremiah

Femina sancta virum. circundat ait Ieremias. Circundat dominum. virgo maria suum

10

1b

10

Isaiah

En pariet. et concipiet. sic fert ysayas. Virgo deum. semper. inviolata manens.

10

1c

10

Moses

Non ardens ardere rubus. non tacta videtur. Virginitas tangi. dum parit absque pari.

10

1d

10

Gideon

Virginitas. vellus. verbum. ros. arida tellus. Est caro virginea. conca quid ecclesia.

10

2

10

Annunciation

—————————————————————————————————————————————

3a

10

Mercy and Truth

Plaude puerperio. virgo vetule quia vero. Obviat hic pietas. veteri dat lex nova metas.

10

3b

10

Justice and Peace

Oscula justicie. dat pax. cognata marie. Applaudet regi. precursor gratia legi.

10

4

10

Visitation

—————————————————————————————————————————————

5a

10V

Aaron's Rod

Ut contra morem. dat amigdalus arida florem. Sic virgo puero. verso parit ordine rerum.

10V

5b

10V

Dream of Nebuchadnezzar

Ut regi visus. lapis est de monte recisus. Sic gravis absque viro. virgo parit ordine viro.

10V

6

10V

Nativity

—————————————————————————————————————————————

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541

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Min. no.

Fol. no.

Subject

Verse

Fol. no.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

7a

10V

Habakkuk

Gloria celestis. operit. celos quoque terram. Angelus et natum. nunciat esse deum.

10V

7b

10V

David

Campi gaudebunt. domino de virgine nato. Cum semibus pueri. cuncta creata simul.

10V

8

10V

Annunciation to the Shepherds

—————————————————————————————————————————————

9

11

Balaam

Exoritur stella. jacob nam pura puella. Sic genuit natum. sancta maria suum.

11

10

11

Isaiah

En regi celi. tres reges munera prebent. Aurum. thus. mirram. mystica dona deo.

11

12

11

Journey of the Magi

—————————————————————————————————————————————

11

11

Exit of the Jews

Exit ab erumpna populis. ducente columpna. Stella magos duxit. lux christi utrisque reluxit.

11

13

11V

Crowd turning to Christ

Stella magis luxit. et eos ab herode reduxit. Sic satanam gentes. fugiunt te christe sequentes.

11

16

11V

Magi leaving Herod

—————————————————————————————————————————————

14

11V

Joseph and his Brothers

Ad te longinquos. Ioseph attrahis atque propinquos. 11V Sic deus in cunis. Iudeos gentibus unis.

15

11V

Solomon and Sheba

His donat donis. regina domum Salomonis. Sic reges domino dant munera. tres tria trino.

17

12

Adoration of the Magi

11V 12

—————————————————————————————————————————————

18

12

Lot Warned

Ut loth salvetur. ne respiciat prohibetur. Sic vitant revehi per herodis regna sabei.

12

19

12

Prophet Warned

Ut via mutetur redendo. propheta monetur. Sic tres egerunt. qui christo dona tulerunt.

12

20

12

Warning of the Magi

—————————————————————————————————————————————

21

12V

Samuel in the Temple

Significat dominum samuel puer. amphora vinum. Statura geminum. triplex oblatio trinum.

12V

23

12V

Sacrifice of Melchizedek

Sacrum quod cernis. sacris fuit umbra modernis. Umbra fugit. quare. quia christus sistitur are.

12V

22

12V

Presentation

—————————————————————————————————————————————

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542 —————————————————————————————————————————————

Min. no.

Fol. no.

Subject

Verse

Fol. no.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

24

12V

David and Doeg

Hunc saul infestat. Saul. herodis typus extat. Isti typus christi. cuius fuga consonat isti.

12V

25

13

Elias Warned to Flee

Ut trucis insidias Iezabel declinat helyas. Sic deus heroden. terrore remotus eodem.

13

26

13

Flight into Egypt

—————————————————————————————————————————————

—

—

Massacre of ] [Saul's the Priests

Non cecidit david pro quo Saul hos iugulavit Sic non est cesus cum cesis. transfuga ihesus.

13

27

13

Murder of Rachel's Children

Ecce Rachel nati fratrum. gladiis iugulati. His sunt signati. pueri sub erore necati

13

28

13

Massacre of the Innocents

—————————————————————————————————————————————

29a

24

Death of Saul

Se Saul occidit. proprio dum corde relidit. Matronem. dica sic herodem necat ira.

24

29b

24

Death of Doeg

Dicit ut heresis. se sponte Doech idumeus. Ferro transfodit metuens quod eum david odit.

24

30

24

Death of Herod

—————————————————————————————————————————————

31

24

Moses listening to Jethro Hinc homines audit deus. hinc vir sanctus obaudit. 24 Gentilis verbis. humiles sunt. forma superbis.

32

24

Daniel and the Elders

33

24V

Christ among the Doctors

Mirantur puer seniores voce doceri. Sic responsa dei. sensumque stupent pharisei.

24 24V

—————————————————————————————————————————————

34

24V

Noah and the Ark

Fluxu cuncta vago submergens prima vorago. Mundum purgavit. baptismaque significavit.

24V

35

24V

Crossing of the Red Sea

Unda maris rubri spacio divisa salubri. Que mentem mundam facit a vicio. notat undam.

24V

36

24V

Baptism of Christ

—————————————————————————————————————————————

38

25

Temptation of Eve

Qui temptat ihesum. monet evam mortis ad esum. 25 Eva gule cedit sed non ita ihesus obedit.

39

25

Death of Absalom

Dum patrem bellis gravat absalon. ipse necatur Sic Sathanas dominum dum temptat suppediatur.

37

25

Temptation of Christ I

25

—————————————————————————————————————————————

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543

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Min. no.

Fol. no.

Subject

Verse

Fol. no.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

40

25

Fall of Man

Eva viro pomum dat. edunt pariter duo donum. Nascitur inde malum totum. per flebille malum.

25

41

25V

Temptation of Esau

Esau tenptavit quem magna fames superavit. Hostis tenptavit christum sed non superavit.

25V

42

25V

Temptation of Christ II

—————————————————————————————————————————————

43

25V

Expulsion

Hic prius agnoscunt se nudos esse reatum. Percipiunt. foliis membra pudenda tegunt.

25V

44

25V

David and Goliath

Dux omnium magnum vicit david ipse Goliam. Proiecit. crepuit ille peremptus obit.

25V 32V

45a

32V

Daniel and the Dragon

Hic Daniel massas confecit in ore Draconis. Sic Sathanam stravit. praepete voce ihesus.

32V

46

32V

Temptation of Christ III

—————————————————————————————————————————————

45b

32V

Zachariah

Ecce tuus veniet. rex christus ait Zacharias. Quem salvatorem. credimus esse deum.

32V

47

32V

Abraham and Melchizedek

Melchisedech abrahe velut a bellis redeunti. Plaudit sic urbem domino plebs introenti.

32V

48

32V

David with the Head of Goliath

Femineus sexus david applaudit venienti. Christo sic turba per nubila clamat osanna.

32V 33

49

33

Entry into Jerusalem

—————————————————————————————————————————————

50

33

Elisha and Gehazi

Lepra candentem fugat iste propheta clientem. Christus vendentes a templo sic et ementes.

33

51

33

Jeremiah

Hoc templum domini quod sanctificatur honore. Patris. latronum. non docet esse domum.

33

52

33

Expulsion of the Money-Changers

—————————————————————————————————————————————

53

33V

David Harping

In quo sperabam fore pacificumque putabam. Hic supplantator traditor atque fuit.

33V

55a

33V

Jeremiah

Pacem qui fatur et amicis insidiatur. Sic Iudas fuerat qui maledictus erat.

33V

55b

33V

David

In mensa sonus. nec habetur fidus amicus. Est Iudas talis. consuluitque malis.

33V

54

33V

Last Supper

—————————————————————————————————————————————

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544 —————————————————————————————————————————————

Min. no.

Fol. no.

Subject

Verse

Fol. no.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

57

40

Abraham washing the Angels' Feet

Spiritus tribus hiis. pedibus prostravit patriarcha. Sic christus dominus. discipulosque rigat.

40

59

40

Laban washing the Camels' Feet

Ecce camelorum. limpham laban pedibus dat. Discipulorum sic. lavit in ampne deus.

40

60

40

St. Benedict washing Feet of the Poor

Prebuit exemplum. monachis sanctus benedictus. Ut fiant humiles pauperibusque pares.

40

56

33V

Washing of the Feet

—————————————————————————————————————————————

61

40V

Blinding of Tobit

Tobias sanctus. cum cessaret sepelire. Illius in lumen stercora lapsa ruent.

40V

63a

40V

Daniel Praying

Oravit Daniel. genibus flexis gemebundus. Sic christus patrem. suppliciter rogat.

40V

63b

40V

Isaiah

Ecce propheta rogat. pro transgressoribus eius. Sic christus dominus. orat. et ipse patrem.

40V

58

40

Agony in the Garden

—————————————————————————————————————————————

64

40V

Joab killing Amasa

Hic cum fraude Ioab. amasam gladio iugulavit. Sic Iudas dominum. tradidit ipse suum.

40V

65

47V

Joseph Sold

Venditus est Ioseph. a fratribus invidiosis. Ter denis nummis venditur me Dominus.

47V

62

40V

Betrayal

—————————————————————————————————————————————

67a

47V

Isaiah

Corpus donavit vellenti fert ysaias. Verberibus christus. subditur ipse ihesus.

47V

67b

47V

Micah

Percutient virga. maxillam iudicis ut fert. Micheas. mala gens. verberat esse Ihesum.

47V

66

47V

Blindfolding of Christ

—————————————————————————————————————————————

68

47V

Elisha Mocked

In puri pueri. derident hunc elyseum. Sic gens iudaica. reprobat ipse deum.

47V

69

48

Job

In sterquillino. Iob consolantur amici. Sic gens sancta deum dum cruce vidit cum.

48

70

48

Flagellation

—————————————————————————————————————————————

71

48

Isaac bearing Wood

A patre sacrandus ysaac portat sibi lignum. Sic propriam dominus. baiulat ipse crucem.

48

72

48

Widow of Zarephath

En mulier ligna. collegit eamque propheta. Alloquitur. christus. fert humerisque crucem.

48

73

56

Christ bearing the Cross

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—————————————————————————————————————————————

Min. no.

Fol. no.

Subject

Verse

Fol. no.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

74

56

Sacrifice of the Red Heifer

Sic pro peccatis vitulus sacratur et hyrcus. Sic sullimatur in cruce christus homo.

56

75

56

Brazen Serpent

Signum serptentis moyses erexerat eris. Pro nobis dominus sic crucifixus erat.

56

77

56V

Crucifixion

—————————————————————————————————————————————

76a

56V

Cain and Abel

Fratrem fraude Caym iugulat sic invidus ipse. Iudaycus populus sauciat ecce deum.

56V

76b

56V

Paschal Lamb

Pinguntur postes agni. de sanguine portae. Sic cruce sacrata sumitur ipse ihesus.

56V

80

64

Deposition

—————————————————————————————————————————————

78

56V

Elisha and the Sunamite

En sunamitis. natum super est elyseus. Incurvans parvum. sic sepelitur homo.

56V

79

56V

Writing Tau on Foreheads

Vestibus indutus. ex lino vir sacer unus. Frontibus in sanctis. scripserat ipse Tau.

56V

84

64V

Entombment

—————————————————————————————————————————————

81

64

David saves the Sheep

Hic ab ore trucis. agnum vehit en david ursi. Orti sic animas. christus ab ore trahit.

64

82

64

Samson and the Gates of Gaza

Hic portas Sampson. ville portaverat olim. Inferni claustra. fregit et ipse ihesus.

64

87

64V

Descent into Limbo

—————————————————————————————————————————————

83

64

David let down from the Window

Hic david michol. et abire sidit latitantes. Sic christum dominum. suscitat ipse pater.

64

85

64V

Jonah saved from the Whale

Ecce propheta Ionas. per ceti viscera surgit. De tumulo christus. surgit et ipse Ihesus.

64V

88

72V

Resurrection

—————————————————————————————————————————————

86a

64V

Daniel Saved

Ecce lacu Daniel. ascendans iste leonum. Surgentem christum. significat dominum.

64V

86b

64V

Lion reviving Cubs

Post biduum catulus. spiranteque patre leones. Surgit sic dominus. patre iubente levat.

64V

91

73

Three Marys at the Tomb

—————————————————————————————————————————————

89

72V

Moses and the Lord

A domino moyses. ne tangat celsa iubetur. Sic magdalena. sancta maria ihesum.

72V

90

73

Death of Oza

Mortuus est oza. tetigitque federis archam. Sic qui non digne. suscipit hunc christum.

73

94

73V

Noli me tangere

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Min. no.

Fol. no.

Subject

Verse

Fol. no.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

92

73

Lot and the Angels

Optulit hospicium. pius loth concito celsus. Sic christum dominum. discipulique rogant.

73

93

73

Jew and the Levite

Hospicio trahitur cum coniuge virque levita. Sic cogunt dominum. discipulique suum.

73

95

73V

Christ and the Pilgrims

—————————————————————————————————————————————

96

73V

Jacob and the Angel

Jacob pugnavit. luctando sed superavit. Angelis. atque rogat. ut benedicat ei.

73V

97

73V

Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manassah

Translatis manibus. Iacob pueris benedixit. Fragmine sic panis. noscitur ipse deus.

73V

98

92

Supper at Emmaus

—————————————————————————————————————————————

100

92

Boaz and Ruth

Tingere consulit bucellam Booz in aceto. Ruth. Thomas Christi palpat et ipse latus.

92

101

92

Elephants and the Blood of Grapes

Bello sanguineus. acuit color hos elephantes. Sic sanguis christi discipulosque movet.

92

99

92

Doubting Thomas

—————————————————————————————————————————————

102

92V

Jacob's Ladder

Angelicos Iacob. cetus ascendere vidit. Sic celos dominus. scandit et astra tenet.

92V

104

92V

Habakkuk and Solomon

Abacuch solem cernit sullime levatum. Celos asccndit. christus eosque regit.

92V

103

92V

Ascension

—————————————————————————————————————————————

105

92V

Fire Descending

Ignis de celo. descendes en holocausta. Devorat. et sanctus spiritus ecce venit.

92V

106

93

Jeremiah

Ossibus sanctis ignis cadit hic Ieremie. Discipulus christi gratia fulsit eis.

93

108

93

David

Iste propheta david. dominum reverenter adorat. Ut confirmentur. optima dona Dei.

93

109

93

Zachariah

Iste prophetavit. habitantibus en zacharias Jerusalem quod eis. gratia magna venit.

93

107

93

Pentecost

—————————————————————————————————————————————

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XXI

A Follower of Jean Pucelle in England*

T

HE name of Jean Pucelle has come to symbolize the introduction of the arte nuovo of Giotto and Duccio into northern European painting. In the words of Erwin Panofsky, ‘if any major event in the history of art can be credited to one individual, the initiation of this process must be ascribed to an artist to whom I shall continue to refer by the traditional appellation of Jean Pucelle, active at Paris from c. 1320.’1 Whether ‘Jean Pucelle’ in fact identifies a single or a composite artistic personality remains uncertain. Nevertheless, a general conception of the Pucelle style has been developed on the basis of the three manuscripts of the 1320s that are connected with this name: the Belleville Breviary, the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux and the Billyng Bible.2 Whatever part Jean Pucelle himself had in these three works, as a group they present a number of features that may be called proto-

* This article is based on a portion of my doctoral dissertation, ‘The Psalter of Robert de Lisle,’ Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1964. It is a pleasure to record here my gratitude for the financial aid of the Institute of Fine Arts and the American Association of University Women, and my appreciation of the generous scholarly advice of Professors Harry Bober, Otto Pächt and John Plummer in the preparation of the dissertation. 1 Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, I, 27. 2 Belleville Breviary, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 10483–84; Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, New York, Met. Mus. of Art, The Cloisters MS 54. 1, 2; Billyng Bible, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 11935. On Jean Pucelle, see K. Morand, ‘Jean Pucelle and His Workshop,’ Ph.D. diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1958; idem, ‘Jean Pucelle: A Re-examination of the Evidence,’ Burlington Magazine, 103, 1961, 206–11; idem, Jean Pucelle, Oxford, 1962 (with references to earlier literature); and, more recently, M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century, London and New York, 1967, text vol., 160–69.

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Renaissance: sculpturally modeled figures; three-dimensional treatment of 3 space; and a new form of psychological expression. More specifically, there is a typical Pucelle figure (Figs. 1–3), swathed in rich drapery, graceful in stance, strongly hip-shot, with head responding to the curve of the body. The arms are slender and the hands have long, thin fluttering fingers. Heads are supported by thick, bulging necks that slide smoothly into narrow, sloping shoulders. The face of the figures are all broad-browed with deep-set eyes, prominent lips with a downward cast, and a small but square and jutting chin. The headtypes are distinguished from each other by different coiffures; for example, the Virgin is characterized by centrally parted waved hair falling in coils along the neck (Fig. 1). The Pucelle figures are modeled in subtle gradations of tone. Instead of separate outlines, the edges of forms are sharpened by juxtapositions of contrasting colors, or values. This kind of modeling occurs not only on the bodies and clothing but on the skin surfaces as well, giving the figures a total and unified appearance. Other solid forms within the miniatures are treated in the same way, particularly those in closest proximity to the figures, such as furniture and architectural enclosures. Not only is the technique of painterly or illusionistic modeling itself Italianate, but many of the particular details of the miniatures — the facial types, the drapery patterns and, above all, the architecture and furnishings — are drawn from contemporary Italian sources. Moreover, a number of entire compositions, such as the Annunciation, Crucifixion and Lamentation in the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, are borrowed from works by Duccio. Among the most moving and expressive of Pucelle compositions, these scenes are characterized by an explicitness of spatial setting — whether it be tiers of landscape or foreshortened interiors — commensurate with the three-dimensionality of the figures. Indeed, so thoroughly had Pucelle assimilated the Italian developments that he and his associates were able to devise illusionistic settings, especially in the Belleville Breviary and the Billyng Bible, without resorting to specific Ducciesque models.4 Despite these revolutionary, Italianate aspects of the style, however, the standard approach to composition in the works of Pucelle is neither revolutionary nor Italianate. Indeed, it remains within the tradition of Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, 12–24. E.g., Belleville Breviary, MS lat. 10483, fol. 385 and Billyng Bible, fol. 445 (see Morand, Jean Pucelle, Pls. VII a, XXIX d). 3 4

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northern Gothic manuscript illumination. The figures in most Pucelle compositions are placed close together with feet resting on the lower frame, and silhouetted against a neutrally patterned background.5 Because the figures are strongly and consistently modeled they differ from those in the work of earlier northern artists such as Master Honoré, but because the plane on which the figures stand is seldom detailed as a stage or shelf the compositions differ even more from those of Duccio and Giotto. The traditional character of the Pucelle style may account for its wide dispersion, for its acceptability not only in the courts of France but also further afield. This possibility has generally been overlooked. To Panofsky, Pucelle was primarily an agent for the transmission of ‘a kind of predigested Italianism wherever the Trecento style could not take root by direct assimilation.’6 Panofsky discussed the impact of Pucelle in various areas of Europe. Among the countries affected, he somewhat hesitantly included England, noting that the only generally recognized evidence of Pucelle’s influence in Great Britain was a single miniature of the Annunciation in the Taymouth Hours of c. 1330 (Fig. 4), which he termed a ‘terribly garbled imitation’7 of Pucelle’s famous Ducciesque compositions (Figs. 3, 5). But a conception of Pucelle’s influence that is restricted to the imitations of his Italianate compositions understates the full extent of his impact on European art. Indeed, it may be that such a narrow interpretation has previously hindered the recognition of an instance of Pucelle influence on English manuscripts of the fourteenth century far more significant that the Taymouth Hours Annunciation, namely the influence on the work of one artist of the contemporary Psalter of Robert de Lisle, among the finest illuminated manuscripts of the period. The Psalter of Robert de Lisle is a fragment consisting of a calendar and a series of twenty-four full-page miniatures. Unfortunately, these are no longer attached to a text, but in all probability they once formed an elab-

5 In the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, for example, seventeen of the miniatures have flat, patterned grounds; two are unframed with natural vellum grounds; three have prominent architectural motifs; and two have a complete architectural setting without an additional outer frame. 6 Early Netherlandish Painting, I, 26. 7 Ibid., 34. Taymouth Hours, London, Brit. Mus. MS Yates Thompson 13 (see Illustrations from One Hundred Manuscripts in the Library of Henry Yates Thompson, London, 1914, IV, 31).

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orate cycle of prefatory pictures before a psalter.8 An inscription in the calendar documents the terminus ante quem and the name of the original owner: ‘Joe Robert de Lyle donay cest lyvere sus cest jour [November 25] en lan nostre signour mil CCCXXIX a ma fille Audere ove ma beneyssoun. Et apres soen deses a Alborou sa soer et issy de soer en soer taunk come ascune de eles vyvont. Et apres remeyne a tous jours a les dames de Cheqesaundes [Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire]. Escrit de ma meyn.’9 The Robert de Lisle of the inscription was an English baron with large holdings of land in Bedfordshire and Yorkshire.10 After the death of his wife in the summer of 1339 he divested himself of his property by deeding it to his married daughters Alice and Elizabeth;11 by 1341 he had entered the Franciscan convent of Greyfriars in London, was ordained, died there on January 4, 1343/4 and was buried in the choir of the church.12 De Lisle’s gift of his psalter to his two other daughters, Audere and Alborou, who seem to have been nuns at the Gilbertine priory of Chicksands,13 is probably connected with his bequests of his worldly property in preparation for entry into the Franciscan order. The folios of the De Lisle Psalter have been cut apart and the individual leaves are no longer in their original order.14 The original sequence is not easily reconstructed because the cycle was a complex one consisting not only of narrative themes typical of Gothic psalter illustration but also of an unusual series of theological diagrams or schemata, the two kinds of illus-

London, Brit. Mus. MS Arundel 83II (fols. 117–35 of a volume containing another early fourteenth-century English psalter). See L. F. Sandler, ‘The Psalter of Robert de Lisle,’ Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1964, and D. H. Turner, Illuminated Manuscripts Exhibited in the Grenville Library, London, British Museum, 1967, No. 21, 30. 9 Fol. 122: ‘I Robert de Lisle on this day [November 25] of the year of our Lord 1339 give this book to my daughter Audere [Audrey] with my blessing. And after her death to Alborou [Albreda] her sister and thus from sister to sister as long as each of them lives. And afterward [may it] remain forever with the ladies of Checquesands. Written in my hand.’ 10 [G. E. Cokayne], The Complete Peerage, London, 1932, VIII, 71 f. 11 Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward III, November 3, 1340. 12 C. L. Kingsford, The Grey Friars of London, Aberdeen, 1915, passim. 13 As suggested by the use of the word ‘remeyne’ in the inscription in the psalter. 14 See Sandler, ‘Psalter,’ 237–45, 258–65, and London, British Museum, Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1834, New Series, I, Pt. 1, The Arundel Manuscripts, 22 f. (with earlier foliation). 8

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trations apparently interspersed.15 However, even a provisional reconstruction of the original order of the pages would indicate that the full-page miniatures of the Ascension, Pentecost, Coronation of the Virgin and Christ in Majesty (Figs. 6–9) once followed each other in that order, not as they are bound at present.16 When this sequence is restored it becomes clear that the De Lisle Psalter was executed by two artists, one who began the narrative cycle and the theological diagrams, leaving the latter unfinished, and a second who added the final scenes from the Ascension through the Christ in Majesty and also supplied or perhaps replaced one other schema.17 The first De Lisle artist may be called the ‘Madonna Master’ after his miniature of the Enthroned Virgin and Child. The main features of his style, a subtle combination of monumentality and refinement, of formal ceremony and touching sentiment, are most perfectly embodied in the Enthroned Virgin (Fig. 10): the Virgin set like a large statue in a golden chasse, the idealized architectural setting, the brilliant contrast of the deep, modeled blue of the Virgin’s mantle against the intricately patterned gold ground; the graceful curves of the figures, the delicacy of all the ornament, the fineness of linear detail; and finally, the tenderness and humanity expressed by the poses and gestures of the figures. Although the De Lisle Psalter has frequently been identified as an East Anglian manuscript,18 the style of the Madonna Master, in the absence of any documentation to the contrary, points to an origin in the court at Westminster.19 The miniatures of this artist are most closely related to the panel paintings of the sedilia of Westminster Abbey, datable shortly after 1308.20 In illuminated manuFor example, the Annunciation appears on the same page as a Rota of Sevens, and originally the Tree of Life and the Table of the Seven Acts of the Passion were placed between a miniature of Christ Bearing the Cross and the iconic images of the Virgin and Child and Crucifixion followed by the narrative scenes concluding the life of Christ. 16 Their present sequence is fol. 130, Christ in Majesty; fol. 133v, Ascension; fol. 134, Pentecost; fol. 134v, Coronation of the Virgin. 17 The schema or the Cherubim (fol. 130v) on the verso of the Christ in Majesty appears to be a slightly smaller replica of a now-lost Cherubim which has left a faint imprint on fol. 131. 18 G. Warner, Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1903, n.p.; J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts, London, 1911, 224; O. E. Saunders, English Illumination, Florence and Paris, 1928, I, 103; E. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, Paris and Brussels, 1928, 40, 46 f.; M. Rickert, Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages, Baltimore, 1954, 147 f. 19 Cf., J. G. Noppen, ‘The Westminster School and Its Influence,’ Burlington Magazine, 57, 1930, 72. 20 See Rickert, Painting in Britain, 154 and Pl. 142. 15

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scripts this style is unusual, the only similar work being found in a scientific miscellany also from Westminster Abbey and probably executed after 1296.21 In ‘spirit’ the work of the Madonna Master may be said to be French, if by French is meant the elegance and delicacy of courtly Parisian art around 1300.22 But this style was native to the English court as well.23 No specific features of the Madonna Master’s style show a direct dependence on Parisian art, and in turn Parisian art of the time is not characterized by the monumentality and clear and orderly compositions found in the work of the English master. The second artist of the De Lisle Psalter, the ‘Majesty Master,’ and author as well of the Ascension, Pentecost and Coronation of the Virgin (Figs. 6–9), offers a dramatic contrast with the Madonna Master. The Majesty Master’s painting is thoroughly forceful and solemn, unadorned by any graceful and intimate details. Completely un-French in spirit, the work of this artist nevertheless shows an almost complete dependence on the compositional formats, figure poses and gestures, and techniques of modeling and color found in that most uniquely French of masters of the early fourteenth century — Jean Pucelle. The style of the Majesty Master is truly monumental. Against backgrounds diapered with small-scale patterns the figures project forward, impinging on the picture plane but not flattened by it. The focus on the figures is complete; there are no details of setting or representation of spatial depth. The figures themselves are strongly three-dimensional, completely modeled without separate outlines. Their forms are defined by color or value changes alone. The amplitude of the bodies is enhanced by the complex drapery. Looped around the body on the diagonal, it falls in cascades at the feet, and hangs free in abundant spiralling folds from the arms. Although the mass of the body is primarily conveyed through the voluminous drapery, the substance of the human form also makes itself 21 Oxford, St. John’s Coll. MS 178, dated on the basis of a computistic table for the years 1296–1772 (see F. Saxl and H. Meier, Catalogue of Astrological and Mythological Illuminated Manuscripts of the Latin Middle Ages, ed. Harry Bober, 1953, III, 1, 413 and 2, Pl. XCII). 22 As characterized by the work of Master Honoré (see E. G. Millar, An Illuminated Manuscript of La Somme le Roy Attributed to the Parisian Miniaturist Honoré, Oxford, Roxburghe Club, 1953). 23 In manuscripts such as the Tenison Psalter, London, Brit. Mus. MS Add. 24686 and the Queen Mary Psalter, London, Brit. Mus. MS Roy. 2 B VII. Commenting on the French qualities of the Queen Mary Psalter, Saunders (English Illumination, I, 95) pointed to the ‘Gothic bend,’ mincing gestures and the architectural frames.

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known through the thrust of a hip, the curve of a breast, the roundness of an abdomen. None of the figures is represented in active movement but the poses are dynamic nevertheless. While the massive torsos are held rigidly upright, the heads, arms, legs and drapery twist and turn around the body axis. The figures are grand in scale. Tall in relation to the size of the miniature, they are also rather heavy. Heads are large with broad frontal planes, prominent jaws, and thickly curled or waved masses of hair which add bulk. Necks are unusually thick but flow into narrow, sloping shoulders without articulation. The torsos are long and the legs short. Feet are large with detailed joints and toenails. Hands are also prominent. Often bent sharply at the wrist, they have broad palms with slender fingers spread apart, the thumb curving backward. The muscle of the thumb is emphasized but the thin strips of the other fingers hardly seem to have even bones. The facial type of the Majesty Master is distinctive. The eyes are deep-set with wellmarked lids, and the nose is prominent and bony. The brow is often knit and there is a diagonal fold on either side of the nose. These features give the faces a solemnity of expression, in the frontal views a stern glare. The aspects of the style of the Majesty Master that concern the form of the human figure — its structure, its stance, its internal proportions, its physiognomic details, its clothing — all have their counterparts in the fundamental works of Jean Pucelle, especially in the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux. Some of the striking points of similarity may be enumerated by using the chief figures of the De Lisle Psalter Ascension (Fig. 6) as examples. The stance and proportions of the Virgin parallel those of the Christ in Pucelle’s Betrayal (Fig. 2), and the fall of the drapery over the out-thrust hip is also nearly identical. The twisted stance of St. John in the Ascension, with its three-quarter view of the head and torso and shift to profile arrangement of the legs, is related to the pose of St. Elizabeth in Pucelle’s Visitation (Fig. 1), and as a whole the figure is a mirror image of the astounded witness in the Discovery of St. Gregory from the Belleville Breviary (Fig. 11). The facial types of the Virgin and St. John are recognizable in the Visitation (Fig. 1) and the Descent from the Cross24 in the Pucelle Hours. Subject and composition apart then, the Majesty Master of the De Lisle Psalter conceived the representation of the human figure in the same way as 24 Fol. 75v (see New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, 1957, Pl. 16).

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Jean Pucelle. His indebtedness to the French artist also extended to the grouping of figures and to their placement in the picture field, in short, to the composition as a whole. As a group, the Ascension, Pentecost, Coronation of the Virgin and Christ in Majesty do not appear together in any surviving Pucelle manuscript. This sequence is typical of psalters illustrated with prefatory cycles of miniatures of the life of Christ, a format which had gone out of fashion in France around the beginning of the fourteenth century. Separately, the Ascension and Pentecost occur in Pucelle breviaries, the Coronation of the Virgin and the Enthroned Christ in books of hours. In the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, the Pucelle manuscript most closely related to the De Lisle Psalter in the handling of the individual figures, the only shared subject is the Christ in Majesty.25 However, the Pucelle miniature differs considerably in composition from the Majesty Master’s version. The same subject also occurs in the Belleville Breviary in a miniature by another Pucellian artist.26 There, the traditional compositional format, with its enclosure of Christ in a quatrefoil ‘mandorla’ and the evangelist symbols in the spandrels, parallels that of the Majesty Master, but the figure lacks the sculptural handling of Pucelle himself and the face with its small, outlined features is reminiscent of Master Honore’s work. Nevertheless there are close compositional parallels to the Christ in Majesty in other manuscripts in the Pucelle orbit. First is the frontispiece of the Bible Historiale in Geneva (Fig. 12).27 Ascribed to Pucelle himself and dated around 1330,28 this miniature, despite its Italianate choir of angels and elaborate architectural frame, shows a striking similarity to the De Lisle Majesty in the representation of Christ. In both, the upper part of the torso is strongly frontal and axial while the legs are shifted to the side. The asymmetry of the pose is emphasized by the curving sweep of the mantle across the upper part of the body, from the figure’s right shoulder to his outstretched left hand, around which it is looped, the end falling down in spiralling folds. The motif of the sharply bent wrist and the diagonal of the blessing hand also links the miniatures. Moreover, in both cases the evangelists, as well as their symbols, are represented —a relatively rare iconography for the Gothic period. The same iconographic formula reappeared in Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux fol. 182v (ibid., Pl. 45). MS lat. 10483, fol. 213. 27 Bibl. Publ. et Univ. MS fr. 2 (see B. Gagnebin, ‘Une Bible historiale de l’atelier de Jean Pucelle,’ Genava, n.s., IV, 1956, 23–65). 28 Morand, Jean Pucelle, 40. 25 26

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the Christ in Majesty of the Petites Heures of the Duke of Berry (Fig. 13), executed in the 1380s by the Pucelle-trained artist Millard Meiss has named the Passion Master.29 The compositional format in the Petites Heures is even closer to that of the De Lisle Majesty. In both, Christ is inscribed in an eight-lobed inner frame in turn tied to the outer frame of the miniature. In both the evangelists along with their symbols inhabit the corner spandrels. Finally, in the Petites Heures, as in the Bible Historiale, the pose and the pattern of the drapery of the main figure are almost identical to the De Lisle Psalter representation. In a number of ways the De Lisle Psalter Majesty differs markedly from the French miniatures of the same subject. The most dramatic aspect of the De Lisle Christ is his nakedness under the rich wrapping of the mantle, a feature perhaps unique in traditional Majesty iconography, alluding instead to the Passion, the Resurrection and the Last Judgment. The bared and vulnerable throat and chest of Christ in the De Lisle miniature have their expressive counterparts, for instance, in the Resurrection of the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux .30 However, in the Majesty Master’s miniature Christ sits on a throne unlike those represented in any Pucelle depictions of Christ in Majesty, or, for that matter, unlike his depictions of other enthroned figures. The chief difference is in the character of the throne itself, which is painted in gray and white, colors not found elsewhere either in the work of the Majesty Master or of Jean Pucelle. Moreover, the throne is outlined rather than modeled and so contrasts with the treatment of the figure. The linear handling is certainly less assured than the technique of the rest of the composition, and warrants the conclusion that the throne is the work of another artist, perhaps the one who added rather inept linear touches outlining haloes or edges of garments to the other compositions of the Majesty Master. Thus, this particular departure from the Pucelle style does not in fact decrease the degree of relationship between the Majesty Master and the French artist. Like Christ in Majesty, the Ascension and Pentecost in the De Lisle Psalter have compositional parallels in a number of manuscripts produced by Jean Pucelle and his workshop. Although neither of these subjects occurs in the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, both are found in the Belleville Breviary (Fig.

29 30

French Painting, text vol., 160. Fol. 94v (see Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, Pl. 20).

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14),31 the Breviary of Jeanne d’Évreux,32 and in the St. Chapelle Epistolary, a shop work of the 1330s (Figs. 15, 16). Pucelle Ascensions (Fig. 15) consist of two closely packed groups of figures with the space of a person or more between them. The ground area between the groups is treated as rocky terrain with Ducciesque fissures. The figures are placed in two or three ascending rows with the heads of one row raised above those of the next. The participants include the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, who are the most prominent figures to the left and right of center. The ascending Christ is represented as disappearing through an opening or slit in the clouds; only the bottom part of his robe and his asymmetrically placed feet are visible. Requiring the grouping of a large number of figures, the composition of the Ascension is never exactly the same among the various Pucelle versions, poses and gestures being interchangeable among the several participants. Moreover, the Pucelle Pentecost with its equally symmetrical composition and identical participants also provided a repertory of poses and gestures which could be freely exchanged with those in the Ascension. Therefore, it is not surprising that the De Lisle Ascension (Fig. 6) is not a verbatim quotation of any single Pucelle composition. Like the Pucelle miniatures in general, the chief participants are Mary and John and the figures are closely packed in ascending rows but, perhaps because of the vertical format, there is no space between the two main groups. One striking departure from the Pucelle formula is the representation of the feet of the ascending Christ in extremely large scale and rigid symmetry. The source for this bold motif lies outside the Parisian sphere and almost certainly must be of English origin (Fig. 17). Pucelle’s compositions of the Pentecost (Figs. 14, 16) are similar to those of the Ascension in the arrangement of the figures in two diverging groups with ascending rows of heads, except that the figures are seated. As in the Ascension, Mary and John are the major figures in the front row on either side of the center — unusual Pentecost iconography in the early fourteenth century. Corresponding to the asymmetrical ascending Christ, a dove with profile head flies down on a slight diagonal toward the apostles. The arrangement of Mary and John recurs in the Pentecost of the De Lisle Psalter (Fig. 7). St. Peter, however, is the focal point of the De Lisle Pentecost. Clothed in a brilliant orange-red garment, he is a commanding frontal and 31 32

MS lat. 10483, Ascension, fol. 411v; Pentecost, fol. 422v. Chantilly, Musée Condé MS 51 ex 1887, fols. 132v, 142v.

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rigid figure on the central axis of the composition although he is placed in the second row. The emphasis on St. Peter (underlined by the complete axiality of the dove above his head) is most unusual in Pentecost iconography, but his placement in the De Lisle miniature accords with that found in other representations of groups of saints and apostles in Pucellian works. A Franciscan breviary in the Bibliothèque Nationale,33 for example, contains a miniature for the Common of Saints (Fig. 18) showing Christ and St. John seated side by side on a bench, turning in slightly toward each other, and gesturing almost as the Virgin and St. John do in the De Lisle Pentecost. Between them, but in the second row behind the bench, is St. Peter, in the same position as in the De Lisle manuscript. The Majesty Master’s Pentecost, then, is not a copy of a particular composition but an invention using a Pucellian repertory. Of the four miniatures by the Majesty Master in the De Lisle Psalter, the Coronation of the Virgin (Fig. 8) bears the least resemblance to its counterparts in the works of Pucelle. In fact few Pucelle Coronations are extant. The Coronation from the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux does not survive, and of the four miniatures of this subject in the Hours of Jeanne II of Navarre (whereabouts unknown at this writing) only one was reproduced before the disappearance of the manuscript — and it contains a different type of iconography in which the Virgin, body bent toward Christ, crosses her hands humbly on her breast as she is crowned by an angel.34 However, the Hours of Yolande of Flanders, c. 1353,35 the work of the Passion Master, ‘Pucelle reincarnate,’ as Millard Meiss called him,36 offer one opportunity for comparison with the Majesty Master’s conception of the Coronation. The setting (Fig. 19) is considerably more elaborate than in the De Lisle Psalter: a high-backed throne behind the Virgin and Christ, and behind that six appealing Ducciesque angels, the whole enclosed in a richly detailed gabled frame. The grouping of Christ and the Virgin, however, resembles that in the De Lisle Psalter. In both, Christ is seated frontally, the head only turned toward the Virgin and the right hand outstretched to place the crown on her head, the sleeve falling back to bare the wrist. The Virgin MS lat. 1288 (see Morand, Jean Pucelle, 39, 43, there dated shortly after 1334). H. Y. Thompson, Thirty-Two Miniatures from the Book of Hours of Joan II, Queen of Navarre, London, Roxburghe Club, 1899, II, fol. 65v, Pl. XIX. 35 London, Brit. Mus. MS Yates Thompson 27 (see S. C. Cockerell, The Book of Hours of Yolande of Flanders, London, 1905, 1 f.). 36 French Painting, text vol., 160. 33 34

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turns inward toward Christ in an attitude of prayerful devotion; however, her pose is more in profile in the French manuscript than in the De Lisle Psalter. A most dramatic aspect of the Majesty Master’s Coronation is the spiral sweep of the drapery, swathing the upper parts of the body in particular with curving folds cutting across the area from shoulder to waist. These patterns do not recur in the Coronation of the Hours of Yolande of Flanders, although such motifs are thoroughly Pucellian: comparable drapery is found, in fact, in the marginal figures on the same page. A similar drapery treatment in a seated figure of Christ occurs in the Hours of Jeanne II of Navarre,37 and parallels for the swathed mantle of the Virgin are provided by several Pucelle Annunciations (Figs. 3, 5). More suggestive of the De Lisle composition as a whole, however, is a painting whose connection with Jean Pucelle is not generally acknowledged — the Coronation from the series of panels on the back of the Klosterneuburg Altar (Fig. 20). Dated 1331,38 these Austrian panel paintings are usually cited as early examples of Giottesque influence beyond the Alps.39 The Italianism of the Klosterneuburg Coronation, however, seems more likely to have been filtered through the work of Jean Pucelle. In general the slender proportions of the figures, the delicate, nervous gestures, the cascades of drapery, are reminiscent of the Pucelle style. The relationship between Christ and the Virgin parallels that in the Hours of Yolande of Flanders miniature of the Coronation (Fig. 19), but, most interestingly, the drapery — of the Christ figure at least — is identical almost fold for fold to that of the Christ in the De Lisle Coronation (Fig. 8). It seems therefore that there once was a Pucelle Coronation to which the De Lisle Psalter miniature was more closely related than to any of those that has survived, one reflected to an equal degree although in differing ways by both the English and the Austrian works. As with figure style and composition, the Majesty Master of the De Lisle Psalter depends on Pucelle sources in his handling of modeling and color. Pucelle and his atelier made two great contributions to the development of color in northern medieval painting. One was the introduction of grisaille — or, more properly, semi-grisaille — monochrome chiefly confined to the garments of figures; skin surfaces, hair, and non-figural forms in subdued Fol. 36 (see Cockerell, Hours of Yolande of Flanders, Fig. 4). F. Röhrig, Der Verduner Altar, Klosterneuburg, 1955, 21–23. 39 E.g., Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, 25, but cf. C. Nordenfalk, ‘Mâitre Honoré and Mâitre Pucelle’, Apollo, 79, 1964, 356. 37 38

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color; and backgrounds patterned in stronger hues, mainly blue and dark red.40 The thrust of this development was evolutionary rather than revolutionary, since it involved, not a wholesale rejection of the standard Gothic system of arbitrary patterns of color, but its partial replacement by the more unified and consistent system of semi-grisaille. Still more innovative are such Pucelle manuscripts as the Miracles of the Virgin (c. 1330),41 which is painted in full color rather than semi-grisaille. In the Miracles of the Virgin the earlier northern Gothic idea of color as a controlled pattern of a restricted number of hues is almost abandoned a number of times. New individual colors are introduced — blue-green, orange-red, dark green, lavender — and the number of fully saturated hues is increased beyond the typical blue and vermilion of earlier manuscripts by these additions to the palette. Moreover, the colors are sometmes treated so that they form tonal progressions, in one miniature for example, from rose pink to blue-green to blue to pink to lavender to orange-red to blue to blue-green to blue.42 Enhancing the tonal effect is the modeling of color with color, as pink with tan shadows, lavender with brown, blue with green. Occasionally even the background diapers, checkers or scrolls are painted in the same range of colors as the figures themselves,43 a rejection of the standard High Gothic practice where blue and rose diapers — or gold — act as neutrals and play little part in the color harmony of the figures. The color of the Majesty Master of the De Lisle Psalter shows a startling transformation of these subtle innovations of the Pucelle style. It is unique in its strength and acidity but the new additions to the palette — especially the brilliant orange-red and the dark green — are similar, and as in Pucellian miniatures one color is modeled with another rather than a deeper shade of the same hue. Orange-red is yellow in the lighter areas; gray is tan in the shadows, for example. The variety of the color is also increased, again as in Pucelle, by the use of one hue on the outside of garments and another on the inside, an effect dazzling because of the intricate twisted and spiralling folds of the drapery. St. John in the De Lisle Ascension and In addition to the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, the Breviary of Jeanne d’Évreux and the Psalter of Bonne of Luxembourg, New York, Met. Mus. of Art, The Cloisters MS 69. 86, are executed in semi-grisaille. 41 Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS nouv. acq. fr. 24541 (see H. Focillon, Le peintre des Miracles Notre-Dame, Paris, 1950, and Morand, Jean Pucelle, 42 f.). 42 E.g., fol. 21. 43 E.g., fol. 232. 40

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Pentecost, for instance, wears a deep blue mantle lined with dark green over an orange-red robe; in a comparable arrangement in the Miracles of the Virgin a figure may wear an orange-red mantle with a lining shaded from blue to green and a blue robe underneath.44 Other sequences in the De Lisle Psalter use a more neutral color along with two strong hues, for example, Mary in the Ascension and Pentecost wears a red shaded to brown mantle, lined with dark green, over a blue robe, and the Christ in the Coronation wears a mantle shaded from gray to brown, lined in blue, over a red robe. In the Miracles of the Virgin there are again similar sequences, for example, the Virgin with a red to brown mantle lined in orange-red over a blue robe.45 But the larger range of colors in the Miracles of the Virgin can also provide such softer sequences as a rose-pink mantle with blue-green lining over a blue robe placed next to a blue mantle with a vair lining over a pink robe shaded to tan. The mantle of one figure is related to the robe of the next, but not arbitrarily, as the hues are not exactly the same. This flexibility and subtlety in the handling of color does not exist in the De Lisle Psalter. The Majesty Master continues to use a careful system of alternation or rhythmic patterning of color. The same blues, reds, greens, and neutrals are spotted about the picture; the basis of juxtaposition of colors is contrast, clarity, and isolation — not tonal harmony. The color relations between foreground figures and background also differ from the most advanced treatment in the works of Pucelle. The grounds of the De Lisle miniatures are conventional rose and blue diapers, small-scale patterns which are completely flat and unmodeled. The background hues do not reappear at all in the brilliantly colored, strongly modeled and monumentally scaled figures. The two sets of color, one for the background and one for the figures, are in accordance with the usual Gothic practice, even though the foreground hues are new. The effect is conventional and shocking at the same time. The kind of color that characterizes the work of the Majesty Master has its closest counterpart in the Miracles of the Virgin, a work that has been ascribed to the 1330s on the basis of style. The two Pucelle manuscripts of the preceding decade that are painted in full color — the Billyng Bible and the Belleville Breviary — on the whole are more conventional in their treatE.g., a bishop on fol. 21. Fol. 119 (reproduced in color, J. Porcher, Medieval French Miniatures, New York, 1959, Pl. LIII). 44 45

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ment of color than the Miracles of the Virgin. The implication is that the color innovations in the Pucelle shop did not really occur until the 1330s, suggesting in turn a date for the work of the Majesty Master. The dating of 1330–39 for the work in the De Lisle Psalter is lent further support by another aspect of the stylistic development within the Pucelle shop, namely, the decline of Italianism in the course of the 1330s.46 The most Italianate of Pucelle manuscripts, in a specific as well as a general sense, are the three works of the 1320s and the Miracles of the Virgin. Manuscripts of the thirties and forties, even the finest, such as the Breviary of Jeanne d’Évreux, the Hours of Jeanne II of Navarre and the Psalter of Bonne of Luxembourg, show a conservatism, a preference for compositions in which figures in compacted groupings are piled up close to the picture plane (Breviary of Jeanne d’Évreux ),47 or where a shelf-like foreground area is retained, cramping the space by the illusionistic modeling in strong color of the diapered background (Psalter of Bonne of Luxembourg).48 The limitation of spatial recession in the manuscripts of the 1330s and 1340s is paralleled in the De Lisle Psalter. The thin, flat frames restrain the richly modeled figures, while the verticality of the ground area suggests that there is little space between the. picture plane and the flat, diapered background. Spatial organization provides, however, not only a suggestion about the dating of the Majesty Master’s work but also focuses attention on the problem of the origins of his style. Much of the Majesty Master’s work has no parallel among the manuscripts produced for courtly French patrons in the shop of Jean Pucelle. On every point his work is an exaggeration of the Pucelle style. It is not only flatter than Pucelle’s, but more monumental, harsher in color, and sharper in linear effects. In a general way this kind of revisionism is characteristic of the work of Pucelle-influenced artists whose origins lay outside the Parisian tradition — whether Austrian, as the master of the back of the Klosterneuburg Altar (Fig. 20), or Rhenish, as the miniaturist of the Wettinger Gradual49 or the painters of the choirscreens of

Discussed by Morand, ‘Jean Pucelle and his Workshop,’ 239. See Morand, Jean Pucelle, Pls. XV, XVI, and Meiss, French Painting, plate vol., Figs. 343, 541, 600. 48 Esp. fols. 45, 65. 49 Aarau (Switz.), Canton Lib., Bibl. Wett. fol. max. 1, 2, 3 (see M Mollwo, Das Wettinger Graduale, Bern, 1944). 46 47

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Cologne Cathedral.50 In the case of the Majesty Master, the non-Pucellian aspects of his style have their source in the English Gothic tradition of the planar, the linear and the monumental, and in a specific way in some of the manuscripts illuminated in the Queen Mary Psalter workshop. Often described as the most ‘French’ of early fourteenth century English miniaturists,51 the Queen Mary Master was the main figure in an atelier that produced about fifteen surviving manuscripts in the first twenty-five years of the century.52 More works may be attributed to this flourishing shop than to any other single identifiable contemporary English atelier. The style of the Queen Mary Master himself is small in scale, and is based on a homogeneous concept of design in which differences in shape, size and feeling are expressed in delicate nuances. Compositions are legible, with outlined and modeled figures isolated from each other and silhouetted clearly against the ground. The figures move gently, with restraint, their proportions delicate, their poses graceful and hip-shot. The ‘typical’ English features of caricature and the grotesque are absent. Some of the manuscripts produced in the Queen Mary atelier exhibit, however, a greatly hardened and monumentalized version of the master’s style, while adhering closely to the compositional and iconographic formulas he had developed. In the Psalter of Hugh of Stukeley in Cambridge,53 for example, the scale of the figures was increased, their outlines more firmly drawn, so that they dominate the ground with great forcefulness. The modeling was flattened to unify and solidify the surfaces of the figures, and their poses and movement restricted as if in avoidance of ambiguous encounters with the surrounding space. The color, with its vermilion-blue polarity relieved by paler washes — the same palette as the Queen Mary Psalter itself — acquired a sharpness from the enlargement of the scale of the figures. Where the Majesty Master of the De Lisle Psalter departed from the style of Jean Pucelle — in general or in particular — his work recalls that of the later artists of the Queen Mary group as found in the Psalter of Hugh Completed under Archbishop Walram von Jülich, 1332–1349 (see H. Rode, ‘Die Chorschrankenmalereien des Kölner Domes als Abbild des Sacrum Imperium,’ Kölner Domblatt, VI–Vll, 1952, 20–38). Also, P. Clemen, Die Gotischen Monumentalmalereien der Rheinlande, text vol., 179 ff., Pls. 38–49. 51 See above, note 23. 52 G. Warner, Queen Mary’s Psalter, London, 1912, Millar, XIVth and XVth Centuries, 10–17 and Pls. 22–44, and Rickert, Painting in Britain, 40–43, discuss the main works. 53 Corpus Christi Coll. MS 53, executed before 1321 (see M. R. James, A Peterborough Psalter and Bestiary, Oxford, Roxburghe Club, 1921). 50

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of Stukeley. In general, the monumentality, severity, sharp silhouetting and strength of color correspond to the Stukeley Psalter. In particular, the compositional motifs that have no counterparts among surviving Pucelle manuscripts seem for the most part to have parallels in the Queen Mary workshop. The clearest case is the Coronation of the Virgin (Figs. 8, 21). In the Pucelle version of the subject, the upper part of the Virgin’s body is twisted toward Christ. Seen in profile, the hands pressed together in prayer extend beyond the body, emphasizing in a touching way the interaction between the two main figures. In the De Lisle Psalter, on the other hand, the gesture of the Virgin is contained within the silhouette of the body, and if anything the figure seems to shrink slightly back from the more dynamic movement of Christ. Exactly the same relationship between the two figures occurs in the Stukeley Psalter. Another indication of interrelationship between the two English manuscripts is found in the treatment of certain details of the Christ in Majesty. The De Lisle Psalter figure of Christ (Fig. 9) differs from those in Pucelle manuscripts in the balance of the body. In the Majesty miniature in the Geneva Bible Historiale (Fig. 12), for example, the legs of Christ are swung to his right, counteracting the wide swing of the draped arm to his left. The even balance is disturbed in the De Lisle Psalter because the legs as well as the arm swing to the figure’s left. As a consequence Christ is unstable, a quality enhanced by the placement of the feet just tangent to the cusps of the frame, causing the figure to seem still more precariously poised. A parallel to the De Lisle Christ’s unbalanced pose appears again in the Stukeley Psalter (Fig. 22), although there the feet are related to the base of the throne which in turn is supported by an arch tied to the frame. In addition to the Coronation of the Virgin and the Christ in Majesty, the De Lisle Psalter Ascension (Fig. 6) also shows some specific features more reminiscent of English compositions than those of Jean Pucelle. The heads of all the figures in the front row are raised up toward the disappearing feet of Christ. This detail, not generally found in Pucelle Ascensions, appears in the Stukeley Psalter and other early fourteenth-century English manuscripts (Fig. 17). Moreover, the resemblance is particularly striking since characteristically in the ‘English examples the head of the Virgin is partly covered by a mantle or veil, as it is in the De Lisle Psalter. The English roots of the Majesty Master’s style are thus revealed by the relationship to the manuscripts of the Queen Mary group. Although he was clearly acquainted with a wide range of Pucelle models, it seems reasonable

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to suppose that he completed the Psalter of Robert de Lisle in England, where the manuscript had been started. Possibly, since the Majesty Master seems to have duplicated a now-lost diagram of a Cherubim that was originally part of the program of schemata in the manuscript, he actually worked in the same Westminster atelier where the book had been begun some twenty years earlier. In England the years between 1330 and 1339, during which the Majesty Master probably worked on the De Lisle Psalter, are not rich in major illuminated manuscripts. The decade of the thirties was already marked by a falling off in production, and this was long before the Black Death, which frequently is held responsible for a marked decrease in the number and quality of English manuscripts.54 Accountable in part may have been the disbanding of the most active atelier of the earlier part of the century, the Queen Mary workshop, for around 1325 or so the artists trained in this style seem to have dispersed. Perhaps some joined other groups since the Queen Mary style recurs as a minor component of a number of manuscripts of the late twenties or early thirties, for example, of the books of Walter of Milemete of 1326–2755 and the Crowland Apocalypse in Magdalene College, Cambridge, of c. 1330.56 The two most prominent English manuscripts generally assigned to the 1330s are the Holkham Bible Picture Book57 and the Luttrell Psalter.58 A unique work, the Bible Picture Book is characterized by a vigorous though provincial style, a bold technique in which color is used in a manner reminiscent of English embroideries of the period, and an intense interest in narrative completeness. Except for the large scale of the figures, the Holkham manuscript is unrelated to the work of the Majesty Master of the De Lisle Psalter. Nor are any of the hands in the Luttrell Psalter similar in style to the Majesty Master. In fact, although the Luttrell Psalter must have

E.g., Rickert, Painting in Britain, 138. Oxford, Christ Church Lib. MS E 11 and London, Brit. Mus. MS Add. 47680 (see M. R. James, The Treatise of Walter de Milemete, Oxford, 1913, Pls. 36, 42, 171, 172, 174). 56 MS 5, fols. 29–39v (see M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the College Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, Cambridge, 1909). 57 London, Brit. Mus. MS Add. 47682 (see W. O. Hassall, The Holkham Bible Picture Book, London, 1954). 58 London, Brit. Mus. MS Add. 42130 (see E. Millar, The Luttrell Psalter, London, 1932). 54 55

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3. Annunciation, Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, New York, Met. Mus., Cloisters MS 54. 1. 2, fol. 16 (photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection).

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2. Betrayal, Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, New York, Met. Mus., Cloisters MS 54. 1. 2, fol. 15v (photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection).

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1. Visitation, Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, New York, Met. Mus., Cloisters MS 54. 1. 2, fol. 35 (photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection).

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5. Annunciation, Hours of Jeanne II of Navarre, whereabouts unknown, fol. 39.

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4. Annunciation, Taymouth Hours, London, Brit. Mus. MS Yates Thompson 13, fol. 60 (photo: British Museum).

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7. Pentecost, Psalter of Robert de Lisle, London, Brit. Mus. MS Arundel 83, fol. 134 (photo: British Museum).

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6. Ascension, Psalter of Robert de Lisle, London, Brit. Mus. MS Arundel 83, fol. 133v (photo: British Museum).

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9. Christ in Majesty, Psalter of Robert de Lisle, London, Brit. Mus. MS Arundel 83, fol. 130 (photo: British Museum).

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8. Coronation of the Virgin, Psalter of Robert de Lisle, London, Brit. Mus. MS Arundel 83, fol. 134v (photo: British Museum).

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11. Discovery of St. Gregory, BelleviIle Breviary, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 10483, fol. 160v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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10. Madonna and Child, Psalter of Robert de Lisle, London, Brit. Mus. MS Arundel 83, fol. 131v (photo: British Museum).

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12. Christ in Majesty, Bible Historiale, Geneva, Bibl. Publ. et Univ. MS fr. 2, fol. 1 (photo: Jean Arlaud, Geneva).

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14. Pentecost, Belleville Breviary, Paris, Bibl. Nat. Ms lat. 10483, fol. 422v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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13. Christ in Majesty, Petites Heures of the Duke of Berry, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 18014, fol. 53 (photo: courtesy of Millard Meiss).

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16. Pentecost, St. Chapelle Epistolary, London, Brit. Mus. Ms Yates Thompson 34, fol. 108v.

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15. Ascension, St. Chapelle Epistolary, London, Brit. Mus. MS Yates Thompson 34, fol. 99v (photo: British Museum).

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17. Ascension, Psalter of Walter of Rouceby, Oxford, Bodl. Lib. Ms Barlow 22, fol. 14 (photo: Bodleian Library).

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19. Coronation of the Virgin, Hours of Yolande of Flanders, London, Brit. Mus. MS Yates Thompson 27, fol. 96v (photo: British Museum).

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18. Saints, Franciscan Breviary, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 1288, fol. 539v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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20. Coronation of the Virgin, Klosterneuburg Altar (photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

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22. Christ in Majesty, Psalter of Hugh of Stukeley, Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll. MS 53, fol. 17v (photo: Courtauld Institute, London).

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21. Coronation of the Virgin, Psalter of Hugh of Stukeley, Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll. Ms 53, fol. 11v (photo: Courtauld Institute, London).

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23. Annunciation, Book of Hours, Baltimore, Walters Art Gall. MS 105, fol. 7v (photo: Walters Art Gallery).

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24. SS. Helena and Mary Magdalene, Book of Hours, Baltimore, Walters Art Gall. MS 105, fol. 12 (photo: Walters Art GaIlery).

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25. St. Peter, east window. Gloucester Cathedral, (photo: National Monuments Record).

579

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been executed by 1340,59 it seems to fall outside the period of activity of the Majesty Master on the basis of its stylistic similarity with manuscripts of the 1320s.60 There are, however, some extant manuscripts of lesser quality which can be compared to the Majesty Master’s work in the De Lisle Psalter. One is the Taymouth Hours, or at least the single miniature previously noted by Erwin Panofsky as a weak copy of an Annunciation by Jean Pucelle. The Annunciation of the Taymouth Hours (Fig. 4) parallels the painting of the Majesty Master in its dependence on French work (Fig. 5), but it is a passive copy rather than a creative variant of the Pucelle style. Closer to the Majesty Master’s style is a series of miniatures from a large book of hours in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, executed c. 1340.61 Like the Taymouth Hours, this manuscript contains an Annunciation (Fig. 23) that is derived from a Pucelle model, but the figures are large in scale and dominate the architectural enclosure in contrast to the Pucelle format. In their monumentality they resemble the scale of the Majesty Master’s work, although their forms are awkward and angular. The work of a second artist in the Walters Hours resembles that of the Majesty Master more directly. In figure proportions, facial types, gestures, and drapery patterns, his two miniatures of saints (Fig. 24) might have been copied from the figures in the De Lisle Psalter. Nevertheless, they lack the refinement of modeling that typifies the work of the Majesty Master. As Panofsky concluded then, there is little evidence that the style of Jean Pucelle — or his follower, the Majesty Master — had any pervasive effect on English manuscript illumination of the 1330s. Yet the Pucelle style did have its impact in England — not on miniatures, but on the monumental forms of painting and, above all, on stained glass. The 1330s and 1340s saw several vast stained glass campaigns — at Wells, York, Tewkesbury and Gloucester62 — in which very large openings were subdivided by mullions Millar, Luttrell Psalter, 2 f. Most of the manuscript, including the portrait of Geoffrey Luttrell and his family (fol. 202v), appears to be related to the group of East Anglian manuscripts of the 1320s comprised by the Douai and St. Omer Psalters, a psalter in Oxford, Bodl. Lib. MS Douce 131, and the additions to the Gorleston and Ormesby Psalters. For further discussion see Sandler, ‘Psalter,’ 26–29. 61 MS 105 (see Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Baltimore, 1949, 55 f.). 62 Wells, east window of choir, c. 1330 (see C. Woodforde, Stained Glass in Somerset, London, 1946, 10 ff.); York, west window, 1338 (see F. Harrison, The Painted Glass of York, London, 1927); Tewkesbury, choir clerestory, 1340–44 (see G. Rushforth, ‘The Glass in the 59 60

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into tall, narrow lights filled with superimposed single figures, big in scale, narrow-shouldered, hip-shot in pose, wrapped in rich drapery, with faces marked by pronounced brows, detailed eyes, downcast mouths — all features in which the influence of Jean Pucelle, direct or indirect, can be recognized. Like the Majesty Master of the De Lisle Psalter, the designers of these stained glass paintings were affected not by the proto-Renaissance Pucelle but by Pucelle the draftsman, the creator of figure types, poses and gestures and particularly the inventor of a system of ornamental, sinuous, and potentially linear drapery. Of the glass the most strongly reminiscent of Pucelle is the east window of Gloucester (before 1349) (Fig. 25),63 in which — reversing contemporary practice — the figures were executed in white glass against backgrounds of patterned blue or red,64 a translation of the characteristic semi-grisaille technique of the French master into monumental glass painting. His miniature style had in fact been translated into monumental terms in other areas of Europe during the late twenties and early thirties, as witness the panels of the Klosterneuburg Altar and the Cologne choir screens. It is clear from the international style he inspired that what Jean Pucelle’s contemporaries and successors valued in his work was not only its microscopic refinement and revolutionary Italianism but its potential for transformation into the kind of formal and monumental art represented by English glass of the thirties and forties and by the paintings of the Majesty Master of the Psalter of Robert de Lisle.

Quire Clerestory of Tewkesbury Abbey,’ Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, XVII, 1924, 289–324); Gloucester, east window, before 1349 (see idem, ‘The Great East Window of Gloucester Cathedral:’ Transactions, XLIV, 1922, 293— 304). Also see Rickert, Painting in Britain, 157–60 and J. Baker, English Stained Glass, intro. H. Read, London, 1960, Pls. XII, XIV, XVII, 25, 37–39, 43–46, 51. 63 Rushforth, ‘Great East Window of Gloucester’ and Rickert, Painting in Britain, 159 f. and Pls. 145a, 147. 64 A reversal of extreme rarity (see M. Parsons Lillich, ‘The Band Window: A Theory of Origin and Development,’ Gesta, IX, 1970, 28 and n. 14).

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Christian Hebraism and the Ramsey Abbey Psalter*

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HE psalter was the most characteristic type of richly illuminated book produced in England during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. From the Windmill to the Luttrell Psalter, these manuscripts are known for their elaborate initial pages containing the exuberant foliate and figural decoration which is the hallmark of the so-called East Anglian style. The artistic invention of the artists of these manuscripts is, in fact, generally directed towards the marginal decoration, while the representations within the initials themselves are standardized. An exception to this rule is the Ramsey Psalter, an early fourteenth-century book now divided between the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (MS M. 302) and the library of the Abbey of St. Paul in Lavantthal in Carinthia, Austria (Cod. XXV/2, 19),1 for it offers unique and perplexing departures from contemporary formulas of psalm illustration.

* For many kindnesses, scholarly and technical, I wish to thank Mr. Raphael J. Loewe of the University of London, Prof. Otto Pächt of the University of Vienna, Dr. John Plummer of the Pierpont Morgan Library, Father B. Knapp, O.S.B. of the Abbey of St. Paul in Lavantthal, Mr. A. R. B. Fuller of the Library of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Father Richard Doyle, S.J. and Father Edmund Clyne, S.J. of Fordham University, Prof. Miriam Drabkin of the City University of New York, Prof. Larissa Warren of New York University, and Miss Adelaide Bennett of the Index of Christian Art. 1 New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 302 comprises five leaves of prefatory miniatures which were formerly fols. 6–10 of St. Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19. The volume now in Austria contains the calendar, one prefatory leaf of miniatures, and the psalter text with historiated initials and borders. See L. F. Sandler, ‘The Historical Miniatures of the Fourteenth-Century Ramsey Psalter’, Burlington Magazine, cxi, 1969, pp. 605–11; idem, The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and other Fenland Manuscripts, London in the press; and R. Eisler, Die illuminierten Handschriften in Kärnten (Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der illuminierten Handschriften in Österreich), Leipzig 1907, pp. 83–89.

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The psalter was made before 1310 for use at the Abbey of the Virgin, St. Benedict and All Virgins at Ramsey, Huntingdonshire. Commissioned by the cellarer, Walter of Grafham, it was probably intended as a gift to the abbot of the time, John of Sawtry.2 The manuscript contains the standard types of illustration for English Gothic psalters: originally ten historiated initials — of which nine survive — and a series of full-page miniatures of Old and New Testament subjects at the beginning of the volume. At the end of this prefatory narrative cycle there is also a unique sequence of miniatures referring specifically to the history of Ramsey Abbey: scenes of its foundation, dedication, its benefactors, and episodes from the lives of its patron saints.3 Equally unusual are the subjects of a number of the historiated initials illustrating the psalms at the liturgical divisions of the manuscript. The standard themes for English psalters of the period are: Psalm i, David playing the harp (or sometimes the Tree of Jesse); Psalm xxvi, a king pointing to his eyes; Psalm xxxviii, a king pointing to his tongue; Psalm li, David and Goliath (or sometimes Doeg and the priests) ; Psalm lii, a king and a fool; Psalm lxviii, Jonah saved from the whale; Psalm lxxx, a king playing bells; Psalm xcvii, clerics singing; Psalm ci, a king, or the patron, praying; Psalm cix, the Trinity.4 This choice of subjects represents various traditional attitudes towards the illustration of the text. First, scenes including David or a king — as in Psalm i (Fig. 5) — refer to David historically as the author of the psalms and as an ancestor or prefiguration of Christ. Second, scenes containing actions such as pointing to the eyes or the tongue are literal illustrations of the opening line of a particular psalm, for example, that of Psalm xxvi,5 ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation’ (Fig. 9), or Psalm xxxviii, ‘I said, I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue’ (Fig. 1), or Psalm xcvii, ‘Sing to the Lord a new canticle’ (Fig. 3). Third, scenes containing Old Testament subjects may allude to the text by example, for instance, Psalm lxviii, ‘Save me O God, for the waters are come in even unto my soul’ (Fig. 2), illustrated with Jonah. Fourth, the subject of the initial may embody the Christian exegesis of the psalm, for example, Psalm Sandler, ‘Historical Miniatures of the Ramsey Psalter’, passim. Ibid. 4 Compiled from a tabulation of twenty-four English psalters from 1300–50, see Sandler, Peterborough Psalter, ch. ii. For English cycles of historiated initials c. 1300, see G. Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert, Kiel 1938, esp. table 16. 5 Unless otherwise noted, all Biblical citations in English are from the Douay Bible. 2 3

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cix, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at my right hand’ (Fig. 13), illustrated with the Trinity on the basis of the standard interpretation of the two Lords of the first line as God the Father and God the Son.6 From the initial for the first psalm (Fig. 4) the Ramsey Psalter shows its independence from tradition. The standard subject, David playing the harp, is displaced to the upper right margin. Within the initial itself is a crowded scene which may be described as follows: a king holding a fleurde-lis topped staff sits uneasily on a throne — either about to sit down or about to get up. On the far right a young attendant, armed with a shield with frog insignia, presents the king with a spear. Behind these two figures is a crowd of onlookers. On the left side of the scene the figures in another group raise their hands in salutation of the Lord, who appears above on the central axis, blessing and holding the globe. Finally, in the finials of the initial frame are personifications of the Church and Synagogue. This composition is a literal illustration of the first and second verses of Psalm i: ‘Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence. But his will is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he shall meditate day and night.’ The king on the right turns to listen to the counsels of the ungodly, whose sinfulness is symbolized by the frog on the shield, while he hesitatingly sits in the chair of pestilence. At the left, the figures accept the law of the Lord, and there is a further allusion to this law, or rather the Old Law and the New Law, in the personifications of Church and Synagogue. Such detailed, literal illustrations of the first psalm are of the greatest rarity in Gothic psalters. One example, which occurs in a mid-thirteenth century English Bible in the British Museum (MS Add. 15253),7 shows a prophet pointing to the chair of pestilence (Fig. 6), as if warning away three onlookers. But this iconography, although literal, is not closely related to that of the Ramsey Psalter. Where else are literal illustrations of Psalm i to be found? There are indeed a number of Gothic psalters in which almost all the psalms are illustrated according to the letter, although in an abbreviated way and with small-scale initials, but in this group of manuscripts, the E.g., Peter Lombard, Magna Glosatura (Pat. Lat., cxci, cols. 997 f.): ‘Psalmus iste septimus est eorum, qui agunt de duabus naturis in Christo [human and divine] . . . refert propheta verba Patris de Filio, ubi natura deitatis et humanitatis Christi exponitur.’ 7 Described as French in Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1850, pp. 119 f., but stylistically related to the Bible of Robert de Bello, Abbot of St. Augustine’s Canterbury, 1224–53 (London, B.M., MS Burney 3). 6

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2. Psalm lxviii, Jonah saved. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 7, fol. 61.

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1. Psalm xxxviii, King pointing to his tongue. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 7, fol. 38v.

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4. Psalm i, literal illustration of v. 1, Ramsey Psalter. St. Paul iIn Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl., cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 18.

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3. Psalm xcvii, Clerics chanting. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 7, fol. 89.

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5. Psalm i, David playing the harp. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 7, fol. 7.

6. Psalm i, literal illustration of v. 1, Bible. London, B.M., Add. 15253, fol. 149.

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7. Psalm i, literal illustration of v. 1, Eadwine Psalter. Cambridge, Trinity College, R. 17. 1, fol. 5v.

8. Psalm xxvi, literal illustration of v. 3 and King pointing to his eyes, Ramsey Psalter. St. Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl., cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 38.

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9. Psalm xxvi, King pointing to his eyes. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 7, fol. 26.

10. Psalm xxvi, literal illustration of vv. 1–3, Eadwine Psalter. Cambridge, Trinity College, R.17.1, fol. 44v.

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11. Psalm cix, The Lord calling David, Ramsey Psalter. St. Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl., cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 121.

12. Psalm cix, God the Father calling God the Son. London, B.M., Lansdowne 346, fol. 54.

13. Psalm cix, Trinity. Oxford, All Souls College, MS 7, fol. 103.

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14. Psalm cix, The Deity in two aspects, Eadwine Psalter. Cambridge, Trinity College, R.17.1, fol. 199v.

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16. St. Albans Psalter, Canticle of Habakkuk, Hildesheim, St. Godehard.

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15. Psalm xcvii, Monks chanting and Habakkuk, Ramsey Psalter. St. Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2, 19, fol. 105v.

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17. Psalm xcvii, Habakkuk and the lions, Ramsey Psalter. St. Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibl. cod. XXV/2,19, fol. 105v.

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large initials for the psalms at the major liturgical divisions — Psalms i, xxvi, etc. — have historiations standard in theme, as in a French psalter in the University Library, Cambridge (MS Ee. 4. 24).8 Only in Latin manuscripts following the venerable tradition of the Utrecht Psalter are the psalms at the main divisions, as well as the ordinary psalms, consistently treated in a literal manner. The Utrecht Psalter and its descendants are essentially Biblical rather than liturgical psalters.9 Their illustrations of the text are in miniatures, framed or unframed, rather than in initials, and, except for the first psalm, these miniatures are all approximately the same size, thus giving equal importance to every psalm. Nevertheless, if the Ramsey illustration of Psalm i (Fig. 4) is compared with its counterpart in one of the Utrecht group, the Eadwine Psalter, for example (Fig. 7), surprising correspondences are to be found. The Eadwine composition is symmetrical with similar architectural structures to the left and right. Within the right-hand enclosure is a crowned and enthroned king armed with a sword and a fleur-de-lis topped staff, as in the Ramsey initial. The Eadwine figure is labelled ‘Superbia’ — an allusion to the phrase ‘throne of the scornful’ in the Hebraica version of the psalms. He is flanked by attendants with spears and also by a devil whose legs crawl with serpents — the equivalent of the attendant holding the frog-emblazoned shield10 in the Ramsey Psalter. On the left in the Eadwine Psalter is a structure labelled ‘Sancta Ecclesia’, Ecclesia recurring in the finial of the Ramsey initial in juxtaposition with Synagoga. The Eadwine building houses a cruciform-haloed writing figure attended by angels and labelled ‘Beatus Vir’, Beatus Vir being interpreted as Christ in standard psalter com8 M. R. James, ‘On a MS Psalter in the University Library’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, xxxv, 1892-93, pp. 146–67. On Gothic psalters with cycles of literal illustrations, see Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration, pp. 33–40. 9 The Utrecht group includes: Utrecht, Univ. Lib. MS 484, Rheims, c. 830; London, B.M. MS Harley 603, England, c. 1000; Cambridge, Trinity Coll. MS R. 17. 1, Canterbury, c. 1150 (the Eadwine Psalter); and Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 8846, Canterbury, c. 1200. In all these manuscripts, except the Utrecht Psalter, the liturgical divisions are marked in some degree by enlarged or decorated initial letters. In the Utrecht Psalter itself, there are slightly larger capitals at the beginning of Psalms i, li and ci, pointing to a three-part division of the psalter, like that found in the related Carolingian psalters in Troyes (Cathedral Treasury) and Oxford (Bodl. Lib. MS Douce 59). 10 Cf. the Douce Apocalypse (Oxford, Bodl. Lib. MS Douce 180), p. 68 (Apoc. xvi, 13): ‘And I saw, from the mouth of the dragon, and from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs.’ On pp. 87 and 88 of the Douce Apocalypse the armies of Satan bear shields with frog insignia.

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mentaries.11 Christ himself is also included in the Ramsey Psalter initial as the figure blessing above those whose will is in the will of the Lord. The affiliation of the Ramsey Psalter initial for Psalm i with the Utrecht Psalter tradition is certainly partial and only indirect. Nevertheless, the Ramsey initial for Psalm xxvi (Fig. 8) also shows some connexion with the Utrecht tradition, in that it contains in part a literal illustration of verses 2 and 3: ‘My enemies that trouble me, have themselves been weakened and have fallen. If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear.’ In the foreground of the initial is a group of armoured horsemen galloping out of a fortress-gate and appearing to stumble, as in the Eadwine Psalter at the bottom of the miniature (Fig. 10).12 But in the Ramsey Psalter this literal rendering is superimposed on the standard Gothic theme for the initial — a king addressing a cloud-encircled head of the Lord and pointing to his eyes. That, of course, is also a literal illustration, but it is not a motif found in the Utrecht group. However, regardless of the precise connexion with the Utrecht tradition, the iconography of the first two initials of the Ramsey Psalter points to a literal interpretation of the psalms which departs from standard Gothic practice. The illustration for Psalm xxxviii in the Ramsey Psalter has not survived. Those for Psalms li, lii, lxviii, lxxx and ci offer no departures from standard Gothic iconography.13 The historiation of Psalm xcvii (Figs. 15, 17), however, differs radically from all other known illustrations of this psalm, including those in the Utrecht Psalter and its descendants. At first sight, however, the Ramsey illustration appears to be conventional. There is the usual component of singing clerics directly illustrating the words of the first line, ‘Sing to the Lord a new canticle’. But, as in Psalm xxvi, this standard motif is juxtaposed with a much more unusual theme. The unusual — perhaps unique — motif is the figure between the two singing monks. It is Habakkuk, the Judaean prophet whose visit to Daniel in the lions’ den in E.g., Glossa ordinaria (Pat. Lat., cxiii, col. 845, as Walafrid Strabo): ‘Plena definitio beati viri: Haec omnia non omni beato viro, sed soli Christo, conveniunt.’ 12 Motifs similar to the Ramsey fortress-gate and armoured men occur for Psalm xxvi in the Ormesby Psalter, Oxford, Bodl. Lib. MS Douce 366, fol. 38 (combined with the Anointing of David) and in the Breviary of Philip the Fair, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 1023, fol. 16. 13 Psalm li (fol. 63), David slaying Goliath; Psalm lii (fol. 64), Suicide of Saul and a fool; Psalm lxviii (fol. 76), Jonah saved from the whale; Psalm lxxx (fol. 91), King playing bells; Psalm ci (fol. 107V), Abbot and monks praying. 11

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Babylon is recounted in the Book of Daniel (xiv, 32–42): ‘Now there was in Judea a prophet called Habacuc, and he had boiled pottage and had broken bread in a bowl and was going into the field to carry it to the reapers. And the angel of the Lord said to Habacuc: Carry the dinner which thou hast into Babylon to Daniel who is in the lions’ den. And Habacuc said: Lord I never saw Babylon, nor do I know the den. And the angel of the Lord took him by the top of his head and carried him by the hair of his head and set him in Babylon over the den in the force of his spirit. And Habacuc cried, saying: O Daniel, thou servant of God, take the dinner that God hath sent thee . . .’ and thereafter Daniel was saved and the Babylonian king, seeing that Daniel was still alive ‘cried out with a loud voice, saying: Great art thou O Lord, the God of Daniel.’ In the Ramsey picture Habakkuk, above, is being taken up by an angel, and below, in the margin, he has landed in the lions’ den carrying the jar of food for Daniel. The Habakkuk legend is not a rare pictorial subject; it is found in Latin Bibles as an illustration to the Book of Daniel,14 in liturgical psalters as an illustration to the Canticle of Habakkuk (Fig. 16),15 and in Greek psalters, in abbreviated form focusing on Daniel, as an illustration for Psalms cxxiii or cxl.16 How then did it happen that the Ramsey artist chose Habakkuk as an illustration for Psalm xcvii? The subject does not illustrate the words literally, but rather interprets them with a historical example. Verse I: ‘Sing to the Lord a new canticle because he hath done wonderful things’ (‘quia mirabilia fecit’); and verse 2: ‘The Lord hath made known his salvation; he hath revealed his justice in the sight of the Gentiles.’ The wonderful thing — in the Ramsey Psalter — is the saving of Daniel, with the result that the Gentile king — the worshipper of Bel — says, to quote the Book of Daniel (xiv, 42): ‘Let all the inhabitants of the whole earth 14 Book of Daniel: New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS G. 42, Canterbury, c. 1260, fol. 263; Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 16260, Paris, second half thirteenth century, fol. 421; also as the initial to the Book of Habakkuk, e.g. London, B.M. MS Burney 3 (Bible of Robert de Bello), Canterbury, mid-thirteenth century, fol. 369V. The standard iconography shows both the angel carrying Habakkuk and Daniel in the lions’ den. 15 Although the canticles were infrequently illustrated in liturgical psalters. Literal illustrations of the canticles are found in the Utrecht Psalter and its Paris copy. 16 E.g., Mount Athos, Mon. Pantokrator MS 61, second half ninth century, fol. 182; London, B.M. MS Add. 19352 (Theodore Psalter), 1066, fol. 169; Rome, Bibl. Vat. MS Barb. gr. 372, eleventh century, fol. 212V. In the Barberini manuscript the position of the lions — there flanking Daniel rather than Habakkuk — is remarkably similar to that in the Ramsey Psalter illustration.

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fear the God of Daniel, for he is the Saviour, working signs and wonders in the earth’ (‘faciens signa et mirabilia in terra’). The response of the Babylonian king is phrased in words very similar to those of Psalm xcvii itself, so that of all the wonders performed by the Lord in the Old Testament this one may have been chosen for its similar phrasing. But underlying the choice of the Habakkuk story is a historical view of the psalm. It is expounded pictorially in terms of the history of the Jews during their days of Babylonian captivity. Yet this pictorial interpretation contrasts with most written exegesis of the psalm. The standard commentaries — for example, that of St. Jerome — on the first lines of Psalm xcvii stress that the wonderful things — miracles of the prophets or even of Christ himself — are not sufficient to merit the singing of a new canticle. The miracle that warrants the new song is that Christ died that we might be raised to heaven,17 Other writers, for example, Cassiodorus, repeat that the psalm concerns Christ the Saviour — his glorious incarnation and second coming.18 In the face of this body of Christian exegesis it may be asked again what prompted the Ramsey artist or his adviser to a historical rather than a Christological interpretation. There is, in fact, one ancient Christian tradition of interpreting the psalms literally and historically rather than 17 St. Jerome, Tractatus in Librum Psalmorum (Anecdota Maredsolana, iii, 2, 1907, p. 144): ‘Canticum novum est Dei Filius crucifixus, Quod numquam auditum fuerat . . . Quoniam mirabilia fecit. Signa fecit in Judaeis: paralyticos sanavit, leprosos purgavit, mortuos suscitavit. Hoc et alii fecerunt prophetae. Vertit panes paucos in plures, et pavit infinitum populum. Hoc fecit et Helisaeus. Quid ergo fecit novum, ut mereatur novum canticum. Vultis scire quid novum fecerit? Deus quasi homo mortuus est, ut homines viverent: Filius Dei crucifixus est, ut nos levaret ad caelum.’ St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos (Pat. Lat., xxxvii, cols. 1253 ff.): ‘Cantate domino . . . novum. Novus homo novit, vetus non novit. Vetus homo est vetus vita, et novus homo nova vita: vetus vita ex Adam trahitur, nova vita in Christo formatur.’ 18 Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalterium (Pat. Lat., lxx, cols. 687 f.): ‘Referuntur enim ad Dominum Salvatorem, de cujus incarnationis gloria et secundo adventu psalmus iste dicturus est.’ Cf. Anselm of Laon, Commentarius in Psalmos (Pat. Lat., cxvi, cols. 525 f., as Haymo of Halberstadt): ‘Materiam [of Psalm xcvii] habet primum et secundum Christi adventum’; Peter Lombard, Magna Glosatura (Pat. Lat., cxci, cols. 889 ff.): ‘Psalmus iste tertius est eorum qui de utroque adventu agunt, in quibus omnibus est causa timoris et spei: spei per misericordiam primi adventus; timoris per judicium secundi adventus.’ The reference to the first advent of Christ in these commentaries explains the choice of the Annunciation to the Shepherds as an illustration for Psalm xcvii in some English psalters of the first half of the thirteenth century (see Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration, table 16) and also in the Gorleston Psalter, London, B.M. MS Add. 49622, early fourteenth century, fol. 126.

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Messianically or Christologically. Among all early Western commentators, the author called Pseudo-Bede, in explaining the general tenor of Psalm xcvii, said that it celebrated the freeing of the Jews from Babylonian captivity,19 thus providing a chronological framework for the pictorial exposition in the Ramsey Psalter. Pseudo-Bede’s interpretation was based indirectly on the fifth-century Greek commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia.20 Theodore had placed an emphasis on the primary and direct relationship of the psalms to events of Old Testament Jewish history, although at times these historical events might be taken as prefigurations of the Messianic age, and the psalmist’s words might ultimately receive a second fulfilment in the life of Christ.21 Seventy-one psalms, including Psalm xcvii, he interpreted as pertaining to the Babylonian exile of the Jews.22 Theodore of Mopsuestia’s commentary was generally discredited in the

19 Pseudo-Bede, In Psalmorum Librum exegesis (Pat. Lat., xciii, col. 990): ‘Argumentum. Soluta captivitate jungitur exhortatio devotae in Domino observantiae, solito sane schemate paratae de Babyloniis victoriae pompa describitur. Aliter, vox Ecclesiae ad Dominum et apostolos.’ The commentary on each psalm, as printed in the Patrologia Latina, consists of three parts: 1. the Argument (as cited above); 2. the Explanation, derived from Cassiodorus; and 3. the Commentary, perhaps by Manegold von Lautenbach, early twelfth century. (For Psalms xciv–c there is no Commentary.) The Explanation and Commentary sections interpret the psalms Christologically, in contrast to the Argument section, which gives first the historical and only then the Christological explanation. Bede himself may have been responsible for combining the first two sections — Argument and Explanation — but the third was not joined to the others until a printed edition of the sixteenth century (see H. Weisweiler, ‘Die handschriftlichen Vorlagen zum Erstdruck von Pseudo-Beda In Psalmorum librum exegesis’, Biblica, xviii, 1937, pp. 197–204, and G. Morin, ‘Le Pseudo-Bède sur les Psaumes, et l’opus super psalterium de Maître Manegold de Lautenbach’, Revue Benedictine, xxviii, 1911, pp. 331–340). 20 The Greek psalter commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia survives only in incomplete and fragmentary copies (R. L. Ramsay, ‘Theodorus of Mopsuestia and St. Columban on the Psalms’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, vii, 1912, pp. 462 f.). An abbreviated and revised Latin translation of Theodore survives, however, for all the psalms (G. I. Ascoli, ‘Il codice Irlandese dell’Ambrosiana’, Archivio glottologico italiano, v–vi, 1878). The Ambrosian codex is an eighth-century Insular manuscript from Bobbio. For Psalm xcvii, the prefatory argument is almost identical to that in Pseudo-Bede’s commentary (see above, note 19): ‘Argumentum psalmi soluta captivitate est . . . iungitur exortatio devotae et utilis in domino observantiae . . . solito sane scemate perpetratae de babiloniis victoriae pompa discribitur.’ 21 Ramsay, ‘Theodorus of Mopsuestia’, pp. 431–3· 22 Theodore thought that David had composed most of his psalms prophetically ‘in the persons’ of men of various later ages — of Hezekiah, Jeremiah, the Jews in exile, or the Maccabees (ibid., p. 437).

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earlier Middle Ages.23 Even in the Latin form in which it reached PseudoBede, his argument, already abbreviated, was juxtaposed with more orthodox Christological interpretations of the psalms, and by the eleventh century acquaintance with Theodore’s writings had died out.24 Nevertheless, from the twelfth century onward, his literal and historical attitude towards psalter exegesis, if not his specific interpretations, began to reassert itself. The revival, which started among the Victorines in Paris, was characterized by an interest in the Hebrew Bible, in Hebrew grammar and vocabulary, and in the Jewish commentators, all with the aim of better understanding the true meaning of the Holy Scriptures.25 For the psalms, the earliest Victorine commentary (c. 1190) is that of Herbert of Bosham, a student of Andrew of St. Victor, and secretary to St. Thomas of Canterbury.26 Herbert wrote: ‘I am not striving after an understanding of the difficult spiritual senses, but with the animals that walk on the earth, I cleave to the earth, attending only to the lowest sense of the letter of the psalter.’27 He acknowledged his debt to Jewish scholarship frequently by citing the commentaries of ‘Hebreorum litteratores’, his principal authority being Rashi.28 Like Herbert, Rashi used a method of exposition that was literal and rational rather than allegorical.29 He was interested in identifying the author of the psalm, and the Old Testament events to which it referred. However, on Psalm xcvii Rashi was not specific, saying only ‘All this concerns the 23 B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn., Notre Dame (Indiana) 1970, pp. 15 f., 357 f. 24 Ramsay, ‘Theodorus of Mopsuestia’, p. 444· 25 Smalley, Study of the Bible, pp. 83–196. 26 London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, case B. 13, c. 1200. On Herbert of Bosham, see Smalley, Study of the Bible, pp. 186–96; idem, ‘A Commentary on the Hebraica by Herbert of Bosham’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, xviii, 1951, pp. 29–65; R. J. Loewe, ‘The mediaeval Christian Hebraists of England: Herbert of Bosham and earlier Scholars’, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Sociery of England, xvii, 1953, pp. 225 ff.; idem, ‘Herbert of Bosham’s Commentary on Jerome’s Hebrew Psalter’, Biblica, xxxiv, 1953, pp. 44–77, 159–92, 275–98. 27 ‘. . . non ad arduam spiritualem sensuum intelligentiam nitor, sed velud cum animalibus gressibilibus super terram, terre hereo, solum littere psalmorum sensum infimum prosequens’ (fo1. 1). Translated by Smalley, Study of the Bible, p. 188. 28 Loewe, ‘Herbert of Bosham’s Commcntary’, pp. 59–70; Smalley, Study of the Bible, pp. 190 f.; idem, ‘A Commentary on the Hebraica’, pp. 47–55. 29 Smalley, Study of the Bible, pp. 150 f.; H. Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars, Pittsburgh 1963, pp. 31 ff.

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future.’30 In his commentary on Psalm xcv, which has opening and closing phrases similar to those of Psalm xcvii, he explained further: ‘This Psalm is speaking of the future, as its ending makes clear in the words: “because he cometh to judge the earth”. And where it speaks of “a new canticle”, there the reference is to the future.’31 Herbert of Bosham too saw in the words themselves a prophecy of the future, and thus found himself able to agree with the Fathers: ‘I now examine that psalm clearly expounded by the Doctors in another edition [i.e., the gloss on the Gallican version of the Psalms] as referring to both advents of our King, the Messiah. Indeed, that it concerns both advents is also clear according to the literal appearance. Looking forward in the spirit to that truly wonderful salvation of the world, the psalmist begins thus: “Sing to the Lord . . .” ’32 By 1326 Nicholas of Lyra, the best-known medieval exponent of literal exegesis,33 went still further in amalgamating the Jewish and Christian interpretations of the psalm: ‘Of the subject of this psalm Rabbi Salomon Hebraeus [Rashi] says that it speaks of the future, by which is understood the time of the Messiah which the Jews expect as in the future when, they say, many wonders will be performed by the King Messiah, that is, Christ. And consequently, it is said at the beginning of this psalm, “Sing to the Lord a new canticle for he has performed wonders” — that is, will perform, according to him [i.e. Rashi] because Scripture here speaks of the future in the past tense on account of the certainty of prophecy. For at the time this psalm was composed, Christ was yet to come into the world. But the wonders which he says will be performed have been performed already in the advent of Christ, for the Son of God appeared in human form, a Virgin conceived and gave birth; and the other wonders that Christ per‘Omnia ista de tempore futuro.’ R. Salomon Jarchi (Rashi), Commentarius hebraicus in Prophetas maiores et minores ut et Hiobum et Psalmos latine versus, J. F. Breithaupt, ed., iii, Gotha 1713, p. 224 (s. v. Psalm xcviii). 31 ‘Psalmus iste de futuro (loquitur) id, quod finis eius arguit (ubi dicitur:) nam venit ad judicandum terram, ubicunque dicitur: canticum novum, (ibi sermo est) de tempore futuro.’ Ibid., p. 222 (s.v. Psalm xcvi). 32 ‘Psalmum istum a doctoribus de utroque regis nostri Messie adventu evidenter expositum secundum edicionem aliam, nunc percenseo. Siquidem de utroque etiam secundum littere superficiem patet. Psalmigraphus itaque admirabilem illam mundi salutem in spiritu providens, inchoat sic: “Cantate domino . . .” ’ London, St. Paul’s Cath., case B. 13, fol. 118 (s.v. Psalm xcviii). 33 Smalley, Study of the Bible, p. xvi; Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars, pp. 137–246. 30

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formed were not merely wonderful but most wonderful. And therefore our Doctors expound this psalm of the two advents of Christ: in the world and at the general and final judgement which is called the Last Judgement.’34 Both Herbert of Bosham and Nicholas of Lyra were guided in their commentaries on Psalm xcvii by the Messianic interpretation of Rashi. Yet Rashi had also ascribed Psalms lxxxix–xcix, as a group, to Moses, explaining in his exposition of Psalm lxxxix that these eleven psalms corresponded to the eleven blessings pronounced by Moses over the tribes of Israel in the Book of Deuteronomy (xxxiii, 1–29).35 The possibility of such a historical framework for these psalms was known to both Herbert and Nicholas of Lyra, but Nicholas, being concerned with Rashi’s Messianic interpretation, did not discuss the question of Mosaic authorship further.36 The Mosaic associations of the psalm were, however, taken into account by one fourteenth-century scholar at least — Nicholas Trivet, an Oxford Dominican.37 In his commentary on the Hebraica of 1317 he wrote that Psalm xcvii contains an exhortation to praise God for the favours granted to the people of Israel in freeing them from bondage in Egypt, and he referred to the lines from the canticle of Moses, ‘Let us sing to the Lord’, and ‘Who is like to thee among the strong, O Lord . . . who is like to thee, glorious in holiness, ‘De materia vero huius psalmi dicit Rabbi Salomon Hebreus quod psalmus iste loquitur de tempore futuro, per quod intelligitur tempus Messie quod Iudei expectant futurum, in quo dicunt multa mirabilia fienda per regem Messiam, id est Christum. Et secundum hoc dicitur in principio huius psalmi “Cantate domino canticum novum quia mirabilia fecit”, id est faciet, secundum ipsum, quia Scriptura hic loquitur de futuro per modum preteriti propter certitudinem prophetie. Tempore enim quo factus est iste psalmus, Christus erat venturus in mundum. Sed mirabilia que dicit ista fienda iam sunt facta in adventu Christi quia quod Dei Filius in humana natura apparuit, Virgo concepit et peperit et cetera mirabilia que Christus fecit non solum sunt mirabilia sed etiam mirabilissima. Et secundum hoc, doctores nostri exponunt psalmum istum de duplici adventu Christi, scilicet in mundum et ad iudicium generale et ultimum quod vocatur iudicium discussionis.’ Nicholas of Lyra, Postillae . . . super . . . Librum Psalmorum, s.v. Psalm xcvii. 35 ‘Undecim (sunt) Psalmi, ab isto (Psalmo) usque ad (Psalmum qui incipit) Davidis Psalmus [Psalm 100] hos omnes dixit Moses, illorum intuitu ipse protulit undecim benedictiones pro undecim tribubus (Israeliticis) in (Parascha quae incipit:) haec ist benedictio.’ R. Salomon, p. 211 (s.v. Psalm xc). 36 For Herbert of Bosham, see Loewe, ‘Mediaeval Christian Hebraists of England’, p. 242. Nicholas of Lyra: ‘Secundum Hebreos Moyses fecit psalmum istud, ut dictum est scilicet psalmo xc. Secundum Augustinum vero David fecit hunc psalmum et omnes alios, sed de hac varietate non est magna vis, ut dictum est psalmo xcv.’ Postillae (s.v. Psalm xcvii). 37 See A. Kleinhans, ‘Nicolaus Trivet O.P. Psalmorum interpres’, Angelicum, xx, 1943, pp. 219–36. 34

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terrible and praiseworthy, doing wonders’ (Exodus xv, 1–19).38 The similar language in Exodus xv and Psalm xcvii gave support to Nicholas Trivet’s historical interpretation just as the similar phrasing of the Book of Daniel and the psalm buttressed the pictorial exegesis in the Ramsey Psalter. The last historiated initial in the Ramsey Psalter — for Psalm cix (Fig. 11) — shows the application of the principles of literal and historical interpretation in a strikingly specific way. The standard — well-nigh obligatory — illustration for Psalm cix is the depiction of God the Father and God the Son, or of the Trinity. The dominance of this subject is explained by the quotation of the psalm by Christ himself and the fact that in the Acts of the Apostles the first line is already quoted as referring to God the Father and Jesus Christ: ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand until I make thy enemies thy footstool.’39 Even the most literal tradition of psalter illustration, that of the Utrecht Psalter, represents these words with two divine figures within a single mandorla, only introducing under the feet of one the trampled enemies (Fig. 14).40 In the Ramsey Psalter there is no trace of the traditional Christological interpretation. On the left-hand side of the initial a king stands on his throne, responding with a gesture to the bust of the Lord above, while he tramples two supine figures beneath his left foot. The Lord — above — said to my lord — the king below — sit thou, etc. The artist understood the second lord, not as Christ, but as King David, Christ’s ancestor and prefiguration — an earthly ruler. ‘Rule thou in the midst of thy enemies’, says the psalm. Interestingly enough, a related composition occurs for this psalm in another fourteenth-century English psalter, in the British Museum, MS Lansdowne 346 (Fig. 12). But although literal in the sense of showing the action suggested by the words, the Lansdowne psalter is also clearly Christological in picturing the second Lord, in accordance with standard exegesis, as Christ, not an earthly ruler.41 The Ramsey initial, like that for Psalm xcvii, is historical and literal to a degree greater than the boldest exegesis. Even Theodore of Mopsuestia 38 ‘Psalmus . . . in quo hortatur ad laudem Dei pro beneficiis populo Israel exhibitis in liberacionem populi de Egypto . . .’ Bibl. Vat. MS Ottobon. 599, fol. 103 (cf. Kleinhans, loc. cit., pp. 222 f.). 39 Matthew xxii, 41–46; Acts ii, 34–35; also Hebrews i, 13 and x, 13. 40 Utrecht, Univ. Lib. MS 484, fo1. 64V. On the identification of the two divine figures, see E. H. Kantorowicz, ‘The Quinity of Winchester’, Art Bulletin, xxix, 1947, pp. 75 f. 41 As in the St. Albans Psalter also, p. 299.

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interpreted Psalm cix Christologically, refuting ‘the erroneous opinions of the Jews, who either think that the person of a servant of Abraham is here introduced and is speaking of his lord or want it to be understood that David himself is describing what the God of Abraham said to him on the battlefield’.42 Along with the idea of the ‘litteratores Hebreorum’ that the Lord in the first line was speaking to Abraham43 also went an alternative explanation, that the Lord was speaking to David about David’s own future: ‘The Lord said to my lord; these words “my lord” here concern the doings of my lord, Saul, when I (David) suffered persecution at his hands . . .’44 Herbert of Bosham was acquainted with the Abraham explanation, although he did not accept it and quoted it as ‘secundum malefidum’;45 an anonymous Latin glossator of a mid-thirteenth-century Hebrew psalter in Lambeth Palace (MS 435) recorded the David interpretation: ‘Thus the Lord said to David that he should suffer Saul until, etc.’46 Nicholas Trivet commented: ‘For “Lord” in Hebrew is the name of the Lord, the Tetragrammaton, which can only mean God. For “Lord” [the second term] in Hebrew is “adon” which can mean both God and man, as “kyrios” in Greek and “dominus” in Latin.’47 He analyzed both Jewish interpretations of the first line, saying however that they were ‘Jewish nonsense’.48 Nicholas 42 ‘ . . . falsae opiniones Iudeorum qui aut Abrachae servi personam de domino suo loquentem introduci putant . . . aut ipsum David quid deus Abrachae in procinctu belli dixerit describentem intellegi volunt.’ Ascoli, ‘II codice irlandese dell’Ambrosiana’, s.v. Psalm cx. 43 R. Salomon, pp. 243 ff. (s.v. Psalm cx). See also W. G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms, ii, New Haven 1959, pp. 206 f. (s.v. Psalm cx). 44 ‘Dixit Dominus Domino meo] (Verba ista: “domino meo” hic significant [i.e. domino not Domino]) circa negotia domini mei, Saulis, cum ego (David) persecutionem ab ipso paterer . . .’ R. Salomon, pp. 247 f. (s.v. Psalm cx). 45 London, St. Paul’s Cath., case B. 13, fol. 131. Cf. Loewe, ‘Herbert of Bosham’s Commentary’, pp. 59 f., where it is noted that ‘Herbert seems reluctant to dogmatize in favour of patristic exegesis, unless . . . to do otherwise would virtually be an act of heresy’, and that ‘in general, Herbert’s references to Jews are creditably untainted with acrimony’. 46 Fol. 101: ‘David vocat hic Saulem dominum suum vel David prophetavit super Salomonem filium suum. Adsede vel attende, quasi diceret: patere. Ita dixit Dominus ad David quod pateretur Saulem donec etc.’ Quoted by Smalley, Study of the Bible, p. 350. 47 ‘Pro “Dominus” est in hebraeo nomen Domini Tetragrammaton, quod soli Deo convenit. Pro “Domino” est in hebraeo quod Deo et homini potest convenire, sicut κύριος in graeco et dominus in latino.’ Quoted by Kleinhans, ‘Nicolaus Trivet’, p. 225. 48 ‘Ut autem amplius hanc veritatem amplectamur deliramenta iudaica subiungamus qui dicunt sic dixit dominus scilicet deus domino meo Abraham aliqui vero dicunt quod David dicit hic Saul dominum suum . . .’ Bibl. Vat. MS Ottobon. 599, fol. 120V (cf. Kleinhans, loc. cit., p. 228).

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of Lyra also expounded each carefully and then refuted them with grammatical and historical arguments.49 It is clear that the artist of the Ramsey Psalter or the designer of the pictorial programme was acquainted with the Hebrew interpretation of Psalm cix. It may be suggested, from the pure way in which the Hebrew interpretation is ‘quoted’ in the illustration that the contact was fresh and direct. The artist was not held back by reservations about the propriety of representing David rather than Christ, as he had not shrunk from depicting a purely historical subject as an illustration for Psalm xcvii. Taken as a group, all his unorthodox psalm illustrations are characterized by a spirit of enthusiasm for new pictorial interpretations. This enthusiasm was moderated in the initials of Psalms i, xxvi and xcvii by the juxtaposition of the orthodox with the unorthodox subject, but in Psalm cix the normal theme was completely abandoned in favour of one which was daringly Hebraic. There are circumstances surrounding the production of the Ramsey Psalter which suggest how this unparalleled situation could have come about. The manuscript, it will be recalled, was produced specifically for Ramsey Abbey and contains a series of historical miniatures uniquely appropriate to Ramsey Abbey. It may be supposed that the historiated initials were just as specially prescribed by the abbey and that they reflect a particular interest and concern at Ramsey in a literal and historical interpretation of the psalms. This could have been encountered in the writings of Christian Hebraists — or through contact with Hebrew authorities themselves. And for this proposal there is documentary backing. In the mid-fourteenth-century catalogue of the library of Ramsey are listed sixteen or seventeen Hebrew books, including two Bibles, a psalter, glosses on the Bible and a Hebrew grammar.50 These volumes were mainly the gifts of two monks of the last quarter of the thirteenth century. One of them was the prior, Gregory of Huntingdon. He was certainly a scholar, for in addition to his Hebrew books he also owned a Greek grammar, a Greek psalter, and a Latin-Greek psalter — which has survived.51 But the most suggestive evidence of Gregory’s familiarity with Hebrew scholarship is the statement by Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars, pp. 181–4· London, B.M. Cotton Roll II. 16. See W. D. Macray, ed., Chronicon abbatiae Ramesiensis (Rolls Series, lxxxiii), London 1886, pp. 356 ff. 51 Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll. MS 468 (M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ii, Cambridge 1912, pp. 399–403). 49 50

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the sixteenth-century antiquary, John Leland, that at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 an auction of the books of the synagogues of Huntingdon and Stamford (both near Ramsey) was held and that Gregory ‘being provided with money, quickly repaired thither and, the price being paid, he easily obtained gold for brass and very joyful home he returned’52 — in other words that he brought back to his abbey Hebrew books which he valued greatly.53 It is a matter for speculation as to whether Leland’s citation of Gregory’s enthusiasm in the pursuit of Hebrew books is accurate. Yet his characterization of Gregory’s attitude corresponds perfectly with the spirit in which the historiated initials of the Ramsey Psalter were executed. Their departures from standard psalter iconography show a uniform approach, which although literal and historical in nature, does not correspond with any single known commentary on the psalms. Yet this series of initials might well reflect the thinking of a single individual — learned but isolated and, as a result, eccentric. It seems therefore that the name Gregory of Huntingdon may be suggested as that of the Christian Hebraist who was the originator of the unique programme of illustrations in the Ramsey Psalter.

‘. . . dato pretio, aurea pro aere facile comparavit, et laetissimus domum rediit.’ J. Leland, Commentarii de scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. Oxford 1709, pp. 321 f. (cf. H. P. Stokes, ‘Records of MSS and Documents Possessed by the Jews in England before the Expulsion’, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, viii, 1915–17, pp. 78-94, from which the translation above is quoted). 53 The expulsion of the Jews from England by no means marked the end of ChristianHebraist scholarship, which went on even without benefit of direct contact with Jews, witness the commentaries of Nicholas Trivet, c. 1317 (above note 37) and the Cambridge Franciscan, Henry Cossey, c. 1330 (Smalley, Study of the Bible, p. 344). In 1312 the Council of Vienne decreed that Hebrew should be taught at Oxford, as well as Paris, Bologna and Salamanca, and c. 1320 money was raised in the diocese of Lincoln ‘pro stipendiis conversi docentis Oxon. linguam Hebraicam’ (R. Weiss, ‘England and the Decree of the Council of Vienne on the Teaching of Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, xiv, 1952, p. 9). 52

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An Early Fourteenth-Century English Breviary at Longleat*

E

IGHT illuminated manuscripts of the last third of the fourteenth century survive as evidence of the patronage by Humphrey de Bohun, seventh Earl of Hereford and Essex (1342–73), and his family of the finest English miniaturists of the time. Five of them were published forty years ago.1 Until now, however, it has almost escaped notice that the grandfather of the seventh earl — Humphrey de Bohun, fourth earl (1298–1322) — was also a patron of manuscript illumination, though on a more modest scale. The fourth earl’s interest in manuscripts is known from a set of service books for use in the chapel of Denney, Cambridgeshire, which were included in a post-mortem inventory of his possessions. The books included two missals, a lectionary, two antiphonals, a breviary, a twovolume glossed psalter, three graduals, a manual, an epistolary, two tropers, a psalter-hymnal, and a volume containing the canon of the mass.2 They

* A shorter version of this article was read at the symposium on East Anglian art at the University of East Anglia in November 1973. 1 Oxford, Exeter Coll., MS 47, psalter; Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS Auct. D. 4. 4, hours; Vienna, National bibl., MS 1826*, psalter; Copenhagen, Royal Lib., MS Thotts. 547, hours; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Mus., MS 38–1950 (formerly T. H. Riches), psalter (see M. R. James, The Bohun Manuscripts, Oxford, Roxburghe Club, 1936). In addition the following are noted by M. Rickert (Painting in Britain: The Middle Ages, Harmondsworth etc. 1954, pp. 169 f., 190): London, British Lib., MS Roy. 20 D IV, Lancelot; London, British Lib., MS Egerton 3277, psalter; and Edinburgh, National Lib., MS Adv. 18. 6. 5, psalter. 2 T. H. Turner, ‘The Will of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, with Extracts from the Inventory of his Effects, A.D. 1319–1322’, Archaeological Journal, ii, 1846, p. 349.

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may not have been commissioned by Humphrey in the first place, for an almost identical list of books had belonged to the Knights Templars’ hospital at Denney until the order’s property was confiscated by the crown in 1308.3 It seems probable that the books, along with ecclesiastical vestments and furnishings, made their way — officially or unofficially — from the disbanded order’s church into Humphrey’s possession. Although none of the Denney service books can be identified among extant manuscripts, at least one liturgical volume commissioned by Humphrey de Bohun survives. It is an illuminated Sarum breviary now owned by the Marquess of Bath at Longleat House (MS 10). Certainly of interest because of its association with the Bohun family, the manuscript is of still greater importance because as a datable document of identifiable provenance it offers valuable information about the development of English illumination in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. The Longleat Breviary is a manuscript of 185 x 122 mm., containing 364 folios (of which thirteen have been lost), bound in gatherings of eight with catchwords.4 The text is written for the most part in two columns of forty lines each. The contents — very complete — include the temporale, beginning with the first Sunday in Advent, a calendar with the computistic tables of Peter of Dacia, the psalter with antiphons, canticles and hymns, a litany with collects, ferial litanies, the canon of the mass, masses for important feasts and saints’ days and for special occasions, and the sanctorale, with both the proper and common of saints. At the end of the book a number of offices of saints have been inserted in a fifteenth-century hand. Originally the manuscript was copiously illustrated with small historiated initials, framed miniatures in the lower margins, as well as calendar medallions and prolific border decorations. A great many of the figural initials and miniatures have been excised. Several entries in the calendar indicate date and provenance. (1) 5 May, Obitus Elizabeta Comitisse herefordie (Fig. 1), in red. Elizabeth, Countess of Hereford, a daughter of Edward I, was the wife of Humphrey de Bohun from 1302 until her death on 5 May 1316.5 Since this entry is in the original hand, the manuscript must have been executed after 1316. (2) 16 3 Victoria History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, ii, London 1948, pp. 259–62. 4 For full description, see Appendix on p. 634. 5 G. E. C., The Complete Peerage, vii, London 1926, p. 469.

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March, Dedicationis ecclesie de Kynbauton, in red. Kynbauton, or Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, a manor with castle, belonged to Humphrey de Bohun, who also had the advowson of the parish church there.6 (3) 9 May, Translatio sancti andree apostoli, in blue. The feast of St. Andrew is universally celebrated on 30 November but his translation to St. Andrew’s on 9 May does not occur regularly, even in English calendars. The reason for its inclusion in the calendar of the Longleat Breviary may well be that the parish church of Kimbolton is dedicated to St. Andrew.7 The nineteenth-century cataloguer of the Marquess of Bath’s manuscripts suggested that the Longleat Breviary had belonged to a Lincolnshire owner, since the calendar also contains the dedications of the parish churches of Spalding and Pinchbeck,8 both appropriated to Spalding Priory. These dedications, however, along with entries for St. David (1 March), St. John of Beverley (7 May), the Visitation (3 July), and the Translation of St. Hugh of Lincoln (6 October), are additions made in the early fifteenth century. To them correspond the offices of saints added at the same time at the end of the sanctorale. Although the Longleat Breviary was undoubtedly adapted for Lincolnshire use, it was originally intended for use in Huntingdonshire by the rector or parish priest of St. Andrew’s, Kimbolton. The evidence of the calendar is supported by the heraldry in the manuscript, for on folio 1 (Fig. 4) are the coats of arms of England (gules three leopards or) — standing for Elizabeth, Humphrey’s wife as well as the crown — and Bohun (azure a bend argent between two cottises and six lions rampant or). A third shield on the same page cannot be identified with certainty because of its poor condition. It seems to be argent a chevron gules, but the chevron might be sable or azure. A duplicate of this shield held by the twins of the zodiacal sign Gemini on the May calendar page (Fig. 1) is no clearer in tincture. This 6 See Calendar of Charter Rolls, 31 Edward I (26 November 1302). Kimbolton had belonged to the earls of Hereford since the beginning of the thirteenth century (Complete Peerage, vii, p. 459). See also Victoria History of the County of Huntingdon, iii, London 1936, pp. 77, 85. 7 On St. Andrew’s, Kimbolton, see Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Huntingdonshire, London 1926, pp. 167–70. Parts of the present church date from the mid-thirteenth to the early fourteenth century. 8 The catalogue is an anonymous handwritten list of 1864. N. R. Ker (Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd edn., London 1964, p. 222) repeated the attribution but with a question mark. On Spalding Priory, see Victoria History of the County of Lincoln, ii, London 1906, pp. 118–24.

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unidentified shield does not, as far as can be established, show the arms of any member of the Bohun family. Humphrey de Bohun had ten sons and daughters, none of whose wives or husbands bore similar arms.9 Nor are the arms those of any of Humphrey’s close ancestors.10 Thus, it may be that the shield shows the arms of someone connected more directly with the church at Kimbolton — a rector appointed by Humphrey, for example. From 1312 until after Humphrey’s death the rector of Kimbolton was Geoffrey of Clare,11 who seems not to have been a member of the important Clare family,12 and thus need not have borne their arms (or three chevrons gules). Perhaps a better candidate is the bishop of Lincoln from 1310 to 1320, John Dalderby, who instituted the rector of Kimbolton, which was in his diocese.13 Dalderby’s arms are said by the sixteenth-century herald Robert Glover to have been argent a chevron between in chief two escallops and in base a cross crosslet fitchy gules14 — a blazon according to a certain extent with the shield in the manuscript. If the shield indeed bears the arms of the J. R. Planché, ‘The Genealogy and Armorial Bearings of the Earls of Hereford’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, xxvii, pp. 187 f. 10 Ibid., and Complete Peerage, vii, pp. 457–466. 11 Information from the Register of Bishop John Dalderby of Lincoln (Reg. 2, fol. 244V, unpublished), kindly supplied by C. M. Lloyd, County Archivist, Lincoln. 12 For the Clare family, see M. Altschul, A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217–1314, Baltimore 1965. The name Geoffrey does not appear in their genealogy. In 1333 Geoffrey of Clare was provided with a canonry at Salisbury with reservation of a prebend ‘notwithstanding that he is rector of Kynobauton’ (Calendar of Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters, ii, p. 400). There is no record that the reserved prebend was ever actually provided, for the register of the Salisbury chapter acts for 1329–49 does not mention Geoffrey (H. M. Chew, ed., Hemingby’s Register, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, xviii, Devizes 1963). The Kimbolton Geoffrey may be the same person as Master Geoffrey de Clare, a graduate of Cambridge, who was rector of a series of East Anglian churches from c. 1320–50 (A. B. Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500, Cambridge 1913, s.v. Clare, Geoffrey de). The name may refer to two different individuals. In 1333 a single Geoffrey would have needed an exception not only for his benefice of Kimbolton but also for that of Bodney, Norfolk, in order to be provided with a canonry at Salisbury. Yet Bodney is not mentioned in the papal register. It may also be noted that the Norfolk Geoffrey is consistently styled ‘Master’ while the Kimbolton Geoffrey is not. 13 On Dalderby, see John de Schalby, Lives of the Bishops of Lincoln, in Giraldus Cambrensis, Opera (Rolls Series, vol. xxi), vii, London 1877, pp. 212–14. 14 Glover’s Ordinary (see J. Edmondson, A Complete Body of Heraldry, i, London 1780, Glover’s Ordinary of Arms, Augmented and Improved, p. 69). N. K. Riland Bedford, The Blazon of Episcopacy, 2nd edn., Oxford 1897, p. 70, gives an entirely different coat of arms, but his information is confused and contradictory. 9

3. St. John the Evangelist, fol. 15v. Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

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1. May calendar page, fol. 117v. Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

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2. Creation scenes (Septuagesima), fol. 36, (detail). Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

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4. First Sunday in Advent, fol. 1. Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

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7. Canon of the Mass, fol. 182v. Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

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6. Psalm 68, fol. 140v. Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

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bishop of Lincoln, the manuscript would have a terminus ad quem as well as a quo, for John Dalderby died in 1320. The book is in any case likely to have been executed before 1322, when Humphrey was killed in the Battle of Boroughbridge.15 Few English breviaries of the early fourteenth-century — illustrated or not — are extant. Apart from the Longleat manuscript, the chief illuminated examples are the Hyde Abbey Breviary and the fragmentary Chertsey Breviary (both Benedictine), the Guisborough Priory Breviary (Augustinian, Diocese of York), and the Stowe Breviary, the only other Sarum book.16 The textual contents of the Longleat Breviary are more varied and complete than those of the Stowe Breviary since there is a long section of masses for important feast and individual saint’s days as well as for groups of saints and special occasions. None of this kind of material is in the Stowe manuscript.17 Other textual differences within particular parts of the two manuscripts suggest the range of variations possible in the Sarum-based office in contemporaneous books. The Longleat Breviary, for example, has an illustrated office of nine lessons for Corpus Christi (as well as a mass which is accompanied by the only miniature in the missal), while the feast is not included at all in the Stowe manuscript. The pictorial emphasis on Corpus Christi in the Longleat Breviary is unusual, suggesting that between 1316 and 1322, when the manuscript was executed, the feast was a novelty. Although the date of its introduction into the Sarum rite is uncertain, the period between 1312 and 1319 is most likely.18 Complete Peerage, vii, p. 470. Hyde Abbey Breviary (Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS Gough liturg. 8 and Rawl. liturg. e. 1*). See J. B. L. Tolhurst, The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Henry Bradshaw Society, vols. lxix, lxxi, lxxvi, lxxviii, lxxx, London 1930 ff. Chertsey Breviary (Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS Lat. liturg. e. 6, e. 37, e. 39, d. 42). See J. Alexander, ‘English Early Fourteenth-Century Illumination: Recent Acquisitions’, Bodleian Library Record, ix, 1974, pp. 72–80; O. Pächt and J. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, iii, Oxford 1973, no. 543, p. 50. Guisborough Priory Breviary (Woolhampton, Douai Abbey, MS 4). See D. D. Egbert, The Tickhill Psalter and Related Manuscripts, New York 1940, pp. 109–11, 205–8. Stowe Breviary (London, British Lib., MS Stowe 12). See Catalogue of the Stowe Manuscripts in the British Museum, i, London 1895, pp. 8 f., and S. C. Cockerell, The Gorleston Psalter, London 1907, pp. 3, 11–16. 17 Of the breviaries listed above, the Guisborough manuscript contains eighteen masses (fols. 143V–186V) and the Hyde Breviary twenty-three (fols. 179–188V of Rawl. liturg. e. 1*). There is no evidence for the inclusion of masses in the Chertsey Breviary. 18 W. H. Frere, The Use of Sarum, ii, Cambridge 1898, p. xviii. 15 16

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The omission of Corpus Christi from the Stowe Breviary is as unusual as is its inclusion in the Longleat book. By 1322 to 1325, when the Stowe manuscript was written, the feast would have been established at Salisbury. Moreover, in other respects, particularly the inclusion of feasts of St. Thomas of Cantilupe and St. Anne, the Stowe Breviary is up-to-date and even avant-garde in relation to the Sarum rite.19 It may be that in omitting Corpus Christi the Stowe Breviary reflected the current customs of Norwich diocese, in which the manuscript was destined to be used.20 It was not until 1332 that observation of Corpus Christi was ordered throughout the Province of Canterbury.21 The Longleat Breviary includes two non-Sarum offices: three lessons for the Crown of Thorns (4 May) and nine lessons for Justus of Canterbury (10 November). These have no parallel in the Stowe Breviary and in fact are among the most unusual features of the Longleat manuscript. For its part, the Stowe book contains offices of St. Anne (26 July), St. Dominic (5 August), St. Thomas of Cantilupe (2 October) and St. Francis (4 October) and calendar entries, probably corresponding to offices now lost from the sanctorale, for Sts. Winwaloe (3 March), Felix (8 March) and Botulph (17 June)22 — none of them in the Longleat volume. These Stowe offices may be synodal variants of Norwich diocese, as some of them certainly were in the early fourteenth century.23 Finally, the Stowe calendar contains both the Sarum feast of relics and the octave of the birth of the Virgin on 15 September, with offices in the sanctorale for both, preceded by a rubric explaining that the octave may

19 Thomas of Cantilupe, d. 1282, was not canonized until 1320. Observance of the feast of St. Anne was ordered throughout England only in 1383 (H. Bradshaw and C. Wordsworth, Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, iii, Cambridge 1892–97, p. 841). 20 The connexion of the Stowe Breviary with the diocese of Norwich and its dating between 1322 and 1325 is established by a list of dates important in Norwich history which occurs on fols. I 55–6V. See Catalogue of Stowe Manuscripts, p. 8. 21 J. Wickham Legg, The Sarum Missal, Oxford 1916, pp. vi–vii. 22 At least five gatherings are lost from the Stowe Breviary, including three months of the sanctorale between 5 February (fol. 245V) and 5 May (fol. 246). 23 Felix, Botulph, Dominic and Francis occur in the early fourteenth-century calendar of the Sarum Hours of Norwich diocese in the Castle Museum, Norwich (MS 158.926 4f ) and in the original portion of the calendar of the early fourteenth-century psalter of Hugh of Stukeley (Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll., MS 53), which was also of Sarum use adapted for Norwich diocese.

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replace the feast of relics.24 The Longleat Breviary, on the other hand, lists in the calendar only the octave of the birth of the Virgin. And even though in the sanctorale it contains for 15 September the same rubric as the Stowe Breviary, only the text for the octave of the Virgin is given. Thus, the Sarum feast of relics was not originally included in the Longleat Breviary. It was, however, added at the end of the manuscript in the fifteenth century after the date had been changed from 15 September to the first Sunday after the translation of St. Thomas.25 The calendar and sanctorale of the Stowe Breviary corresponded closely, at least originally, the only saint without an office being Birinus (3 December).26 There is more disparity in the Longleat Breviary. Cedda (2 March), Mary of Egypt (2 April), the translation of St. Andrew (9 May) and the deposition of St. Hugh (17 November) — all in the calendar — lack corresponding offices. Conversely, there is an office for Justus of Canterbury (10 November) but his name is not found in the calendar. None of these were Sarum saints at the time the book was written, with the possible exception of Hugh, whose feast was introduced at Salisbury in 1319.27 Hugh, however, occurred in pre-1319 calendars of Lincoln diocese,28 in which Kimbolton is located, and the translation of Andrew, as noted above, seems also to be related to Kimbolton parish church. Fol. 229V: ‘Ubi festivitas reliquiarium hac die [15 September] non celebratur totum servicium fiat de s. marie . . .’ 25 The change in date was ordered in 1319 (Frere, Use of Sarum, ii, p. xx). Instructions referring to the insertion of the feast at the end of the book were written in the margin of fol. 279V, 7 July, the translation of St. Thomas, since that was the day closest to the new date. 26 In the Stowe calendar Birinus is marked ‘ix lec. secundum Sarum’. No other Sarum saint is so marked, suggesting that the omission of Birinus from the sanctorale was intentional. 27 Frere, Use of Sarum, ii, p. xx. 28 Frere (Use of Sarum, i, pp. xxiii–xxviii) notes that the use of Lincoln was closely patterned on that of Sarum, with a few local variations. Chief of these was the honour accorded to St. Hugh, his deposition on 17 November with an octave, and his translation on 6 October. For an early fourteenth-century Lincoln diocese calendar, see London, British Lib., MS Add. 11414, a Sarum missal (with the feast of relics on 15 September) and with the above-mentioned feasts of St. Hugh. Cedda, whose name is ordinarily connected with the diocese of Lichfield, was not introduced generally into Sarum use until the end of the fourteenth century. His name occurs, however, in earlier Lincoln monastic calendars, such as those of Peterborough and Crowland. Mary of Egypt is rare in Sarum-based calendars of the early fourteenth century, although she appears in the inter-related calendars of the Gorleston and Douai Psalters. 24

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Two feasts in the Longleat Breviary — Justus of Canterbury and the Crown of Thorns — remain very problematic. Justus, not in the calendar, was given an office of nine lessons in the sanctorale in an incorrect position between St. Martin (11 November) and St. Britius (13 November), although his official feast day was 10 November. His name is unusual except in Benedictine calendars of Canterbury.29 The inclusion of the Crown of Thorns on 4 May is more curious still, especially as the office is accompanied by a historiated initial and written in gold in the calendar although it is graded as a simple, not a major, feast. The feast of the Crown of Thorns was widely celebrated in France — not England — and on 11 August,30 not 4 May. On the former date in 1239 St. Louis arrived in Sens to receive the Crown of Thorns from two Dominican emissaries.31 In Dominican calendars and in some secular continental calendars, the date of the feast was changed to 4 May, avoiding a conflict with the octave of the feast of St. Dominic himself, which fell on 11 August.32 This would not have been necessary in the Longleat Breviary, which included neither Dominic’s feast, nor its octave, nor any other Dominican feast. Why the Crown of Thorns should have found its way into this Sarum breviary is difficult to imagine. Perhaps, along with the office of Justus, it had a personal meaning to Humphrey of Bohun. Another unexpected element in the Longleat Breviary is the computistic material of Peter of Dacia in the calendar. The Kalendarium magistri Petri, compiled in Paris around 1292, was primarily concerned with an accurate calculation of the lunar cycle for the years 1292 to 1367, like the

29 See F. Wormald, English Benedictine Kalendars after 1100 A.D. (Henry Bradshaw Society, lxxvii), London 1939, pp. 48, 61. 30 See V. Leroquais, Les bréviaires manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, v, Paris 1904, Table générale, s.v. Corona domini. 31 For the account of the transportation of the Crown of Thorns, see P. Riant, Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitane, i, Geneva 1877, pp. 45 f., and iii (by F. de Mély), Geneva 1904, pp. 269–78. Also P. Riant, Les dépouilles religieuses enlevées à Constantinople, Paris 1875, pp. 143 f. 32 Cf. the Belleville Breviary (Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS lat. 10483, fol. 179V) in the text for the third lesson of the office of the Crown of Thorns on 4 May: ‘Sed quia dies huius translationis in Francia celebratur infra octavas beati Dominici patris nostri, scilicet in crastino beati Laurentii [11 August], qua die primo recepta fuit Senonis, visum est fratribus ut festum istud in crastino Inventionis sancte crucis [4 May] celebrarent . . .’ (Leroquais, Bréviaires, iii, p. 201).

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earlier calendar of Robert Grosseteste for the years 1208 to 1283.33 A number of the surviving copies of Peter of Dacia’s work, including the Longleat Breviary, also contain entries for the length of day in hours and minutes and the altitude of the sun in degrees and minutes throughout the year (Fig. 1).34 These figures are based on observations made at the latitude of Paris (48° 50´).35 Other latitudes would of course produce differing figures. At the summer solstice, for example, London (51° 30´) has almost three-quarters of an hour more daylight than Paris and the altitude of the sun is 62° 04´ as opposed to 64° 43´. The figures in the Longleat Breviary apply to Paris, not London or elsewhere in the British Isles. Therefore they can have offered no practical information for an English user of the manuscript. Indeed, the Longleat Breviary appears to be a rare instance of a liturgical manuscript with these particular calculations.36 Other known copies of

33 E. Zinner, ‘Petrus de Dacia, ein mittelalterlicher dänischer Astronom’, Archeion, xviii, 1936, pp. 318–29, esp. pp. 322 ff. The explanatory text begins: ‘In hoc primationum ciclo quatuor linee . . .’ The figures in the Longleat calendar (first four columns on each page) are a palimpsest, replacing an earlier set. 34 Zinner (loc. cit.) cited about forty copies of Peter’s basic text, mostly in German libraries, of which six have entries for the length of day and altitude of the sun. Further copies are noted by L. Thorndike and P. Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Scientific Writings in Latin, rev. edn., London 1963, col. 680. Of these, at least one — Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll., MS 347, from Norwich Cathedral Priory, early fourteenth century — has such entries. 35 I thank Mr. William Wallace of New York University for deriving the latitude from the figures given in the Longleat calendar. The same sets of figures — altitude of sun and length of day — were included in the Kalendarium Regine of Guillaume de St. Cloud, compiled in 1296 for Marie, Queen of France. In his preface Guillaume explained that after taking the greatest and smallest noon altitude of the sun he deduced the angle of the ecliptic to be 23° 34´ and the latitude of Paris to be 48° 50´ (Zinner, loc. cit., pp. 322 f., also P. Duhem, Le système du monde, iv, Paris 1916, pp. 10–19). 36 A fine illuminated psalter of Sarum use in the British Library (MS Roy. 2 B VIII, c. 1400) contains a later astronomical calendar, that of John Somour, composed for the meridian of Oxford in 1380 and dedicated to Joan, Princess of Wales and mother of Richard II (on the example of the Kalendarium Regine of Guillaume de St. Cloud?), see Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, i, London 1921, pp. 41 f. Of the many examples of Somour’s calendar in the British Library alone, this is the only one in a liturgical manuscript. It may be noted that the figures for the greatest altitude of the sun and the greatest length of day, 61° 43´ and 16 hours 30 minutes respectively, from which the correct Oxford latitude of 51° 47´ may be derived, correspond perfectly with the Sarum saints in the calendar — in contrast to the Longleat Breviary.

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Peter of Dacia’s calendar either comprise independent volumes or are included in scientific manuscripts.37 Although small in size and often summary in composition the historiated initials and marginal miniatures of the Longleat Breviary form a complete programme of illustration. All parts of the manuscript have some pictorial decoration. In the temporale the major movable feasts — first Sunday in Advent, Septuagesima Sunday, Sexagesima, Palm Sunday, Easter, Ascension, Trinity (Pentecost is lost), Corpus Christi (Fig. 5) and the dedication of a church — have or had four- to six-line foliate initials and marginal illustrations. Septuagesima, for instance, has a framed miniature in the lower margin, showing the creation of Eve and an unframed vignette of the preceding days of Creation in the upper margin of the facing page (Fig. 2). The most important fixed feasts from Christmas to Epiphany, that is, the Nativity, St. Stephen, St. John the Evangelist, the Massacre of the Innocents, Martyrdom of St. Thomas, Circumcision, and the Epiphany — which in Sarum use are included in the temporale rather than the sanctorale — were illustrated with historiated initials and marginal vignettes, except for the Circumcision, which had no miniature, and the Epiphany, which had a foliate, not a historiated, initial. The best preserved of these pages, that for St.John the Evangelist (27 December), shows a delicate standing figure accompanied by an eagle in the initial; and a lively martyrdom in an ogee frame in the lower margin (Fig. 3). A second level of temporale illustration is found in the historiated initial — six or seven lines high — for the Sunday offices in August, September, October and November. Their subjects are drawn primarily from the Old Testament, passages of which are read in sequence during this period. For example, the initial for the first Sunday in September shows Job on the dung-hill. No miniatures accompany these historiated initials. A similar system of historiated initials is used for the Sundays following the octave of the E.g., in English libraries, Oxford, Bodleian Lib., MS Ashmole 1522, early fourteenth century, astronomical and mathematical miscellany, from Merton Priory, Surrey (Catalogue of the Manuscripts bequeathed by E. Ashmole, Oxford 1845–66, cols. 1425–30) and, with almost identical contents and exactly the same calendar, London, British Lib., MS Roy. 12 C XVII, also early fourteenth century (Catalogue of Royal Manuscripts, ii, pp. 31 f.); the liturgical elements of both calendars are ‘not inconsistent with a French Dominican origin’ (ibid.). Also, Cambridge, Corpus Christi Coll., MS 347, early fourteenth-century astronomical miscellany from Norwich Cathedral Priory with Norwich liturgical calendar and Peter of Dacia’s astronomical calculations (M. R. James, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ii, Cambridge 1912, pp. 181 f.). 37

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Epiphany, but they are only four lines high and the subjects are limited to busts of St. Paul (the Epistles form the lessons of this part of the year). The next section of the Longleat Breviary is the calendar, which contains, in addition to partial decorative borders, a series of zodiacal signs and occupations of the months in medallions at the bottom of each page, a type of illustration familiar from psalter manuscripts (Fig. 1). The calendar is followed by the psalter itself, which had eight historiated initials (Fig. 6), most again six lines high, partial decorated borders, and, in the Beatus (the initial is now cut out), also a bas-de-page scene showing David holding the book of psalms. The next illustrated section is the canon of the mass and the individual masses which follow. The canon, written in a larger script than the rest (Fig. 7), on pages ruled with twenty lines, has one historiated initial, at Te igitur, showing the celebration of the Eucharist. Only one mass, that for Corpus Christi, has a miniature. It shows a ritual similar to the one in the temporale. Most of the other masses are or were originally illustrated with historiated initials varying in size with the importance of the feast, from three to six lines high. The largest are for the Birth and the Assumption of the Virgin. A number of other masses, especially those for classes of saints (as opposed to individuals) have foliate initials or inconspicuous one-line initials. In these cases the illustrations take the form of figures emerging from the upper ends of the vertical borders — visible in half-length like puppets on a stage — clothed and bearing attributes appropriate to the subject of the mass. Among them are a swordsman brandishing his weapon at the imprisoned St. John the Baptist, St. Michael and the dragon, and a betrothed couple (for the nuptial mass). The format of illustrations for the sanctorale, the last section, combines elements from the temporale and the missal. St. Andrew, the Annunciation, St. Peter and Paul, Lawrence, the Assumption and All Saints all had foliate or historiated initials and marginal miniatures. The Purification of the Virgin, St. Mark, John at the Latin Gate and the common office of martyrs had marginal miniatures without large initials. Conversely, historiated initials without marginal miniatures occur for the Crown of Thorns, Birth of the Baptist, Birth of the Virgin and St. Matthew. And finally, a number of feasts, for example those of St. Cuthbert and St. Benedict — both nine lessons — were illustrated only with half-length figures in the upper margins. The illustrations of the Longleat Breviary are treated on several levels of elaboration, ranging from figural border motifs to historiated initials to

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marginal miniatures. Although all the offices illustrated in any way are of major importance (except for the Crown of Thorns), other offices equally important from a liturgical point of view are unillustrated,38 and even among those which are accompanied by an illustration the degree of elaboration is not always consistent with the importance of the feast.39 The pattern of decoration seems to reflect a still-experimental stage in the creation of a format for English breviary illustration. The Stowe Breviary, for example, though almost contemporary with the Longleat manuscript, shows a much more codified programme. All the surviving decoration consists of initials attached to partial foliate borders.40 The initials for feasts of three lessons are three or four lines high and are foliate or are filled with portraitlike busts of the saintly subjects of the particular office. (There are no decorated initials for comparable feasts in the Longleat Breviary.) For the most important feasts in the Stowe Breviary the initials are six lines high and contain representations of full-length as opposed to bust-length figures, and often entire scenes (Fig. 10).41 Because even feasts of three lessons have fourline initials there is some decoration on almost every page of the Stowe Breviary, and because all the initials are attached to equally elaborate foliate 38 E.g., written in gold in the calendar, office of nine lessons, but no decoration: Conversion of St. Paul; St. Gregory; St. Ambrose; St. Margaret; St. Mary Magdalene; St. James; St. Augustine; Exaltation of the Cross; St. Michael; St. Jerome; Sts. Simon and Jude; St. Catherine. 39 For instance, in the masses, the Birth of the Virgin has the largest initial; in the sanctorale the office for the same feast has a five-line historiated initial without a marginal miniature. The office of the Purification of the Virgin has a miniature without a historiated initial in the temporale and a small historiated initial in the section of masses. These discrepancies can also be found in the minor decoration of the manuscript, for example, Sunday in Sexagesima has a four-line foliate initial and a marginal scene, Sunday in Quinquagesima has a plain gold two-line initial and a marginal scene (cut out), Sundays one to four in Quadragesima have four- to five-line foliate initials but no marginal scenes, the fifth Sunday in Quadragesima has a rubric but only a one-line initial and no further decoration. Could there be a planned hierarchical scheme of decoration in this sequence? 40 The only part of the Stowe Breviary without painted decoration is the calendar, which appears, nevertheless, to be an integral part of the book, written by the same scribe as the rest. 41 The feasts illustrated in this way include all those graded duplex or maius duplex and also others of nine lessons in honour of the Virgin, the apostles, the fathers of the Church and Sts. Michael, Lawrence, Thomas of Canterbury, Nicholas, Martin, Edmund Rich, Mary Magdalene, Margaret and Catherine. The remaining feasts of nine lessons are illustrated with initials of four or five lines containing busts or foliate decoration, like the feasts of three lessons.

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borders, a sense of consistency and regularity characterizes the design of the book.42 A fairly consistent hierarchy also governed the decoration of the Guisborough Priory Breviary. (All the largest initials — eight lines high — and many of the smaller ones have been removed.) Offices of nine lessons had five- to eight-line initials, the most important feasts and saints having the largest (which can be assumed to have been historiated for the very reason that they were removed) and full borders; the somewhat less important offices of nine lessons had four- to seven-line initials and partial borders; offices of three lessons, most of which survive, had four-line initials filled with foliate decoration or busts of saints and partial borders. The Chertsey Breviary showed a still greater consistency of decorative programme. All the historiated initials were nine lines high; all corresponded to offices of twelve lessons, whether celebrated with lesser or greater ceremony in albis, in capis, or as double feasts; and unlike the other contemporary English breviaries, all the historiated initials were inserted at the same place in each office, at the beginning of the first lesson. The elegance and visual sophistication of the Chertsey Breviary, which was executed in the atelier of the master of Queen Mary’s Psalter, stand in striking contrast to the exuberance and casual design of the Longleat manuscript. Of the small group of early fourteenth-century English breviaries, the Chertsey manuscript is the most closely related in format and in style to contemporary French books of the same type.43 Relatively few English illuminated manuscripts of the early fourteenth century have as precise documentation of date and provenance as the Longleat Breviary. In style, it can thus serve as a measure for other contemporary manuscripts. Miniatures and decoration are ‘characteristically A curious irregularity occurs in the position of the historiated initial within the office. Sometimes the initial letter of the response to lesson one is historiated (Stephen, fol. 20V), sometimes the initial comes at the antiphon before lesson one (Massacre of the Innocents, fol. 25V), sometimes at lesson one itself (Thomas of Canterbury, fol. 27V), sometimes at the hymn (Epiphany, fol. 40), and sometimes at the rubric preceding the text of the office (First Sunday after Trinity, fol. 109). The Longleat and Guisborough Breviaries show an equally varied placement of the historiated initials. 43 The uniform placement of the historiated initials in the Chertsey Breviary corresponds to the pattern in contemporary Parisian manuscripts, for example, the Breviary of Philip the Fair (Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS lat. 1023), or the Belleville Breviary (Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS lat. 10483–4), where, however, the initials were transformed into framed miniatures inserted within the text columns. 42

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English’ in those features so accurately described long ago: ‘a naive taste for narrative . . . figures tightly pressed together, ambiguously placed behind each other without sufficient space for their bodies, with neither naturalistic nor idealized proportional relationships . . . large areas of the surface unfilled . . . figures arbitrarily overlapping the frame, or cut off by it’.44 Though these characteristics have been associated with ‘Klosterkunst’,45 it is clear that they do not apply only to manuscripts for monasteries. The Longleat Breviary and its closest relatives were produced in lay workshops for use by the secular clergy, if not by laymen. The characterization applies almost equally well to such early fourteenth-century manuscripts as the Gorleston, Ormesby, and Brussels Peterborough Psalters46 — that is, to many of the manuscripts otherwise known as ‘East Anglian’. Yet it is clear that in particulars of style the Longleat Breviary cannot be equally related to all these books, for they are the work of different artists and different workshops. Among East Anglian manuscripts the breviary is closest to the Howard Psalter (British Library, MS Arun. 83 I). Despite differences in type of book, in format, and in pictorial subjects, the smallest details of draughtsmanship and colour are so similar that it must be concluded that the same artist worked on both books (Figs. 8, 9). The figures are drawn with lightness and speed of touch, the line varied in pressure but never hesitant. The poses are never static. Strongly curved, even when at rest, the bodies swing this way or that on underpinnings of small, pointed toes. The gestures are explosive, sometimes to an amusing degree because the figures are actually confined to such a small framed area (Figs. 11, 12). Finally, the faces, which are large, are eager and lively, with bright eyes (the effect given by drawing a black dot for the pupil and only the upper eyelid) and raised eyebrows (Figs. 15, 16). The artist used a limited and conventional palette in which blue, rose and vermillion, together with gold leaf, are dominant, in addition to large amounts of white and pale tints. Compared to some of the more elaborate colour effects of the Gorleston or Ormesby Psalters, both the Howard Psalter and the Longleat Breviary seem more like water-colours — even though at times the hues are applied opaquely. This handling of colour — light, bright, or transparent, relieved against a darker or heavier ground — G. Vitzthum, Die Pariser Miniaturmalerei, Leipzig 1907, p. 73. Ibid., p. 72. 46 London, British Lib., MS Add. 49622; Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Douce 366; Brussels, Bibl. Roy., MS 9961–2. 44 45

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is reminiscent of Queen Mary’s Psalter and its relatives,47 though in the Queen Mary group the conception of figure drawing and composition is much more restrained and orderly. Where the Longleat Breviary and the Howard Psalter have subjects in common — as for example in most of the historiated psalm initials — the miniatures are nearly identical except in size, which is invariably smaller in the breviary. Comparison may be made of Jonah in Psalm 68 (Figs. 8, 9), praying to the Lord, his back to the towers of Nineveh (although in a rather unusual motif in the breviary, he is seated astride the whale’s back); or David in Psalm 80, playing bells, his legs crossed in the same insouciant way in both initials; or finally the three singing clerics of Psalm 97, especially the one who cups his hand to his ear. Differences in type and format between the two books would tend to reduce similarities in the decorative treatment of the page. A small breviary, with a great deal of text to compress into a single portiforium, did not lend itself to elaborate decoration or mise-en-page. Historiated initials were kept small, the largest using about fifteen per cent of the height of the text column, while a standard eight-line initial in the psalter takes up nearly thirty per cent of the comparable space. Nor are there any line-endings to decrease the width of the text columns of the breviary. Miniatures too are mostly restricted to the margins of the page so as not to impinge on the text area. Nevertheless, on a reduced scale the decoration of the breviary echoes that of the psalter. The most striking similarities are visible in a comparison of the opening page of the temporale (Fig. 4) with a historiated psalm initial page of the psalter, such as that containing Psalm 68 (Fig. 13). The intersecting foliated branch-ends, the placement of the shields, the ‘Islamic’ interlace knots — all are alike. Moreover, the lively hunting scene in the bas-de-page of the breviary is reminiscent of that on the Beatus page of the psalter (Fig. 14) in its characteristic mélange of accurately observed animal and plant forms with stylized trees bearing clustered leaves. The typical decoration of the breviary is a vertical bar running behind the initials of ordinary text pages. These bars end below in leafy finials and above in disembodied heads, often attached to the bar by a neckerchief, and thrust forward with engaging humour (Fig. 17). In the Howard Psalter similar motifs occur in the Hours of the Passion following the main text. London, British Lib., MS Roy. 2 B VII. For a listing of some manuscripts belonging to this group, see Rickert, Painting in Britain, pp. 142 f., 162. 47

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Although the Howard Psalter is a well-known manuscript48 its provenance and date have not been investigated exhaustively, and it is possible that its documentation will always be uncertain. The name of the manuscript derives from the sixteenth-century owner, William Howard,49 whose family arms (gules a bend between six crosslets fitchy argent) occur on the page containing Psalm 68. The arms of Howard are juxtaposed with those of Fitton, azure three cinquefoils argent (Fig. 13). Sir William Howard, a justice of common pleas who held manors in East Winch and Wiggenhall (both near King’s Lynn, Norfolk) and his wife, Alice Fitton, also of Wiggenhall, are most probably the individuals referred to by these coats.50 Sir William died shortly before 1309; his wife was still alive in 1310 but is not recorded thereafter.51 The Fitton arms recur on the page containing Psalm 80, this time in conjunction with those of Freville, gules three crescents argent, and in the form of banners rather than shields. The Frevilles were a Cambridgeshire family whose chief representative in the early fourteenth century was Sir John Freville, d. 1312.52 There is no known connexion between the Fittons and the Frevilles, but if the juxtaposition of their arms refers to a marriage, it might be that of John Fitton, d. 1326, the brother and co-heir of Alice Fitton Howard, to Margaret (still alive in 1317) or Amicia (dead by 1326).53 Unfortunately, neither wife’s surname is known. 48 Cited and described briefly by Rickert, op. cit., pp. 147, 162, and E. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, Paris and Brussels 1928, pp. 4, 45. 49 William Howard, Lord of Naworth (1563–1640), the third son of Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk (D.N.B.), was the owner of a number of manuscripts given to the British Museum in the early nineteenth century by his descendant, Henry Howard. See Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, n.s., i, London 1834, pt. 1, The Arundel Manuscripts, p. 11. The Howard Psalter contains the inscription ‘William Howarde 1591’ on fol. 3 and several sixteenth-century obits of members of the Howard family in the margins of the calendar, fols. 6–11V. 50 On William Howard and Alice Fitton, see Knights of Edward I (Harleian Society, vol. lxxx, 1929), s.v. Haward, Fitton; F. Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the Counry of Norfolk, C. Parkin, ed., ix, 1808, pp. 186 ff.; and W. Rye, ‘Doubtful Norfolk Pedigrees, No. 1. Howard’, The Genealogist, ii, 1878, pp. 337–43. 51 William Howard died between March 1308 and March 1309, Calendar of the Close Rolls, London 1892, Edward II (1307–13), pp. 24, 145. According to Blomefield, loc. cit., p. 191, his widow was still alive in 1310. 52 On the Frevilles, see Knights of Edward I, S.v. Frivill, and A. W. Franks, ‘The Genealogical History of the Freville Family’, Publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Sociery, ii, no. xiv, pt. 1, 1847, pp. 21–29. 53 Blomefield, loc. cit., pp. 77, 187, 191.

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In addition to the coats of families, the Beatus page of the Howard Psalter contains the arms of England, France, Bury St. Edmund’s and Ely (Fig. 14). The pairing of the arms of England and France is common in contemporary English manuscripts, but what is the connexion of Bury St. Edmund’s and Ely with the families mentioned above? The manuscript, since it is of Sarum use, could not have been intended for either the Abbey of Bury St. Edmund’s or for Ely Cathedral Priory, both of which followed the Benedictine rule. These arms might simply indicate in a general sense the ecclesiastical or geographical locus of the manuscript. Bury St. Edmund’s is in the diocese of Norwich and the county of Suffolk; Ely Cathedral, the seat of a diocese, is in the county of Cambridge. The Howards, the Fittons and the Frevilles were all associated with parish churches within the two dioceses — William Howard was buried in All Saints, East Winch;54 John Fitton had masses said for him at St. German’s, Wiggenhall after his death;55 and the Frevilles were benefactors of All Saints church, Little Shelford, Cambs.56 But can the manuscript be connected more closely with the Howards and the Fittons in Norfolk or the Frevilles in Cambridgeshire? The calendar of the Howard Psalter points more clearly to the diocese of Ely than the diocese of Norwich. Like the litany it is of Sarum use, but while the litany accords exactly with that of Sarum the calendar has a number of variants which suggest a connexion with Ely, namely Withburga, Wilfred of York, Etheldreda (two feasts) and Sexburga.57 On the other hand, the names associated particularly with Norwich diocesan calendars — Felix (8 March), translation of Edmund (29 April), Dominic (5 August) and Francis (4 October) — are lacking, except for that of Francis.58 Together with the Ely coat of arms the Ely saints seem to strengthen the connexion of the manuscript to the Frevilles in Cambridgeshire. If the bearer of the Freville arms depicted in this book was married to John Fitton, she lived not in Cambridgeshire but in Norfolk, at Wiggenhall, Ibid., p. 191. Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 19 Edward II, London 1904, p. 240, and 1 Edward III, London 1891, pp. 93 f. 56 Franks, ‘Freville Family’, p. 24. An inscription and monument to John Freville, d. 1312, still exists in Little Shelford church (N. Pevsner, Cambridgeshire, Buildings of England, 2nd edn., Harmondsworth 1970, p. 430). 57 Cf. F. Wormald, English Benedictine Kalendars after 1100 A.D., pp. 1–7. 58 See above, n. 23, and in addition the fifteenth-century Norwich missal, London, British Lib., MS Add. 25558, in which the synodal variants are identified as such. 54 55

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St. German’s, where she died and was buried along with her husband.59 John Fitton was lord of the manor of Wiggenhall60 and of Clenchwarton, a nearby hamlet.61 The principal landholders in the immediate area, however, were the abbot of Bury St. Edmund’s and the bishop of Ely.62 Perhaps it was in honour of these great lords that their arms were juxtaposed on the Beatus page of the psalter.63 All the heraldry of the manuscript can therefore be ‘explained’ by the hypothesis of a destination, not in Cambridgeshire, but in Norfolk. In spite of the liturgical characteristics of the calendar, such a hypothesis appears to have more validity than any other. It has generally been assumed that the name ‘Howard Psalter’ is relevant not only to the sixteenth-century owner but to the fourteenth-century William Howard, as the original commissioner or owner of the manuscript.64 But considering that the Fitton arms occur twice and the Howard arms only once, and further, that the Fitton arms occur frequently as line endings in the text and also as decorative motifs in the backgrounds of some of the theological diagrams at the beginning of the book, while in these parts of the manuscript the Howard arms are absent,65 it seems at least

See n. 55, referring to licences of 1326 and 1327 for the alienation by Thomas of Tilney of the yearly rent of 8 l. from land in Wiggenhall, Tilney and Northclenchwarton for the services of two chaplains to celebrate divine service daily in the church of St. German’s, Wiggenhall, and the chapel of St. James in the Fitton manor for the souls of John Fitton, his sometime wives and other members of the Fitton family. 60 Although the vicar of the church was appointed by the cellarer of Norwich Cathedral Priory (Blomefield, loc. cit., p. 194). From 1304–7 the vicar was Hugh Howard, identified by Blomefield as a brother of William Howard (v, p. 237). 61 Blomefield, viii, p. 378. 62 Ibid., and p. 537. 63 The arms of Bury St. Edmund’s and Ely are also juxtaposed as decorative background patterns on fol. 4, a diagrammatic Wheel of Opposites. The same arms occur together in another monument associated with the Howard family — a font in All Saints, East Winch — possibly given by William Howard’s descendant Robert Howard, d. 1388. The font cover had arms of Bury, Ely, Howard and Scales (Robert Howard’s wife), but has totally disappeared (see J. Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, London 1631, p. 818). 64 E.g., Rickert, Painting in Britain, p. 162; G. Warner, Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1903, n.p. 65 A number of diagrams at the beginning of the manuscript have backgrounds powdered with heraldic charges, viz., fol. 2V, Table of the Ten Commandments, eagles (Holy Roman Empire) and martlets (Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke) ; fol. 3, Table of the Eight Beatitudes, lions (England); fol. 3V, Wheel of Sevens, fleurs-de-lis (France) and cinquefoils (Fitton?); fol. 5V, Cherubin, crescents (Freville) and stars; fol. 12, Twelve Articles of Faith, 59

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8. Psalm 68, fol. 140v (detail of Fig. 6). Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

9. Howard Psalter, Psalm 68. London, British Library, MS Arundel 831, fol. 47 (detail of Fig. 13).

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10. Stowe Breviary, Dedication of a church. London, British Library. MS Stowe 12, fol. 150v.

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11. Dedication of a church, fol. 105v. Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

12. Howard Psalter, Arrest and blindfolding of Christ (Hours of the Passion). London, British Library, MS Arundel 831, fol. 113v (detail).

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14. Howard Psalter, Psalm 1. London, British Library, MS Arundel 831, fol. 47.

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13. Howard Psalter, Psalm 68. London, British Library, MS Arundel 831, fol. 47.

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15. Conversion of St. Paul, fol. 246v (detail). Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

16. Howard Psalter, Initial in Hours of the Passion. London, British Library, MS Arundel 831, fol. 115v (detail).

17. St. Thomas of Canterbury and Henry II (Office of St. Thomas, fol. 19 (detail). Longleat Breviary, Marquess of Bath, MS 10.

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reasonable to link the manuscript with William Howard’s brother-in-law, John Fitton, rather than with William himself.66 John Fitton had a private chapel dedicated to St. James in his manor at Wiggenhall.67 Perhaps the psalter — which contains noted antiphons — was intended for use there, if not in the parish church of St. German’s itself. John Fitton did not die until 1326. If the book was made for him rather, than William Howard, the possible terminus of execution is advanced from 1309 to 1326. This is interesting in view of the artistic connexions of the book with the Longleat Breviary, which can be dated between 1316 and 1322. Were it certain that the Howard Psalter had been made before 1309 the style of the artist would seem to have been long-lived, remaining quite unchanged for as much as twenty-five years. Would this be a possibility for an artist in the fourteenth century? Perhaps yes, but the Howard Psalter and the Longleat Breviary cannot provide a certain answer. On the other hand, if the Howard Psalter could have been executed as late as 1326, a different problem arises. The style of the miniatures in both these manuscripts is associated with the earliest fourteenth-century East Anglian books, those of the first rather than the second or third decade. In such formal characteristics as figure proportions, facial types and spatial relationships, these works are closer, for example, to the Gorleston Psalter (before 1306?) than to the Stowe Breviary (1322–25), or to the Ramsey Psalter (before 1310) than to the Barlow Psalter (1321–38).68 Outside the East Anglian group, parallels again are found with work datable to the first decade or so of the fourteenth century, such as the Tickhill Psalter (1303–14) and the Psalter of Queen

lions (England); fol. 13, Tree of Life, cinquefoils (Fitton?). The cinquefoils are white (argent) on rose (gules) grounds while the field in the authentic Fitton arms is blue (azure). There are also in the psalter text a great many heraldic motifs used as line endings. Most are so stylized as to be unidentifiable, but the most frequent are gules, cinquefoils argent, and azure, fleursde-lis argent. 66 William Howard had a son, John, d. 1331, who married in 1308, before the death of his father (1309), Joan, daughter of Richard de Cornwall (Blomefield, ix, p. 191). Had the psalter been executed for John Howard, the Cornwall arms (argent, a lion rampant gules in a border engrailed sable bezante), might be expected in the book. 67 Cf. n. 59. 68 For the Gorleston Psalter and Stowe Breviary, see Cockerell, Gorleston Psalter, p. 2; for the Ramsey Psalter (New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib., MS M. 302, and Carinthia, St. Paul in Lavantthal, cod. XXV/2, 19) and the Barlow Psalter (Oxford, Bodl. Lib., MS Barlow 22) see L. F. Sandler, The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and other Fen/and Manuscripts, London 1974, pp. 116–19, 121 f.

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Isabella in Munich (1303–8?).69 The stylistic similarities of the Longleat Breviary and the Howard Psalter to such manuscripts of 1300–15 disrupt our usual view of the artistic development of East Anglian illumination during the early fourteenth century as a single line — ascending towards ‘naturalism’ and, after a culminating Italianate episode in the 1320s, descending abruptly in quality, as if in anticipation of the Black Death. It seems that the problems are more diverse and complex than our present theories allow.

For the Tickhill Psalter (New York, Publ. Lib., MS Spencer 26) and the Psalter of Queen Isabella (Munich, Bayer. Nationalbibl., cod. gall. 16), see D. D. Egbert, The Tickhill Psalter and Related Manuscripts, New York 1940, chps. i–ii. 69

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Appendix Description of the Longleat Breviary Marquess of Bath, Longleat House, Wilts., MS 10. England, 1316–22. 185 x 122 mm.; 364 fols.; 2 cols.; 40 lines; gatherings of 8 with catchwords. 1. Temporale, fols. 1–114. fol. 1

fol. 9 fol. 11V fol. 14V fol. 15V

fol. 17 fol. 18V fol. 20V fol. 21 fol. 22V fol. 24

First Sunday in Advent. Historiated initial, cut out; full border with arms of England, Bohun and Dalderby (?); bas-de-page hunt with dogs chasing rabbits. Fourth Sunday in Advent. Foliate initial, 4 ll. Nativity. Initial of Annunciation to a Shepherd, 6 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. St. Stephen. Initial with standing figure of saint holding stones, 5 ll.; marginal miniature, Stoning of Stephen. St.John the Evangelist. Initial with standing figure of saint holding book, flanked by eagle, 6 ll.; marginal miniature, Martyrdom of John. Massacre of the Innocents. Initial with busts of seven bloodstreaked children, 5 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. St. Thomas of Canterbury. Initial, archbishop blessing, 6 ll.; marginal miniature, Martyrdom of Thomas. St. Silvester. Silvester in upper margin. Circumcision. Initial of Lord Enthroned, 5 ll. Octaves of Sts. Stephen, John and Innocents. Fol. 23, St. Edward the Confessor, Vigil of the Epiphany, octave of St. Thomas. Epiphany. Foliate initial, 5 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out.

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fol. 26V Octave of the Epiphany; commemoration of St. Hilarius. Fol. 27V, commemoration of St. Felix. Fol. 28V, St. Maur, St. Marcellus. fol. 29 St. Sulpice; First Sunday after octave of Epiphany. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. fol. 32V Second Sunday after octave of Epiphany. Initial with head of St. Paul. 4 ll. fol. 33 Third Sunday after octave of Epiphany. Initial with head of St. Paul, 4 ll. fol. 34 Fourth Sunday after octave of Epiphany. Initial with head of St. Paul, 4 ll. fol. 34V Fifth Sunday after octave of Epiphany. Initial with head of St. Paul, 4 ll. V fol. 35 Septuagesima Sunday. Foliate initial, 4 ll.; marginal miniature, Creation of Eve. fol. 36 Unframed scenes of creation of heaven and earth, animals and fish in upper margin. fol. 38 Sexagesima. Foliate initial, 4 ll.; marginal miniature, Noah building Ark. fol. 39V Quinquagesima. Marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 42 First Sunday in Quadragesima. Foliate initial, 5 ll. fol. 45V Second Sunday in Quadragesima. Foliate initial, 5 ll. fol. 47 Cut out after foliation. fol. 48 Third Sunday in Quadragesima. Foliate initial, 4 ll. Fol. 51, Fourth Sunday in Quadragesima. fol. 53V Passion Sunday. Initial with bust of cleric, 5 ll. fol. 56V Palm Sunday. Foliate initial, 5 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 63V Easter Sunday. Foliate initial, 5 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 64 Angel and three Marys in upper margin. fol. 67 First Sunday after Easter. Foliate initial, 4 ll. fol. 69 Second Sunday after Easter. Fol. 70, Third Sunday after Easter. Fol. 71, Fourth Sunday after Easter. Fol. 72, Fifth Sunday after Easter. fol. 73 Ascension. Foliate initial, 5 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 75 Sunday in octave of Ascension. fol. 76 Cut out after foliation, contained beginning of Pentecost. fol. 79V Trinity. Foliate initial, 6 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 81V Corpus Christi. Foliate initial, 5 ll.; marginal miniature,

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Consecration of the Host (cf. fol. 193V). fol. 84 Sunday in octave of the Trinity. Fol. 85, octave of the Trinity. fol. 87 First Sunday after octave of Pentecost. Foliate initial, 5 ll. fol. 92 First Sunday in August. Initial of Lord Enthroned, 6 ll. fol. 94 First Sunday in September. Initial of Job on the dunghill, 7 ll. fol. 95 Third Sunday in September. Initial of Tobit in bed, 7 ll. fol. 96 Last Sunday in September. Initial of Judith and Holofernes, 7 ll. fol. 96V First Sunday in October. Initial of Ezekiel, 6 ll. fol. 98 First Sunday in November. Initial of Lord Enthroned, 6 ll. fol. 99V Gospel lessons for 25 Sundays after octave of Pentecost. fol. 105V Dedication of a Church. Foliate initial, 6 ll.; marginal miniature of church dedication. fol. 107V Lessons at vespers in Advent. Fol. 110V, lessons at vespers in Easter, ends fol. 111V. Fol. 111V, in various later hands, prayers to the Virgin, lessons from office of dedication of church, ends fol. 114. 2. Calendrical Tables and Calendar. fol. 114 Calendrical table. fol. 114V Sarum calendar with cycles of the moon (Quatuor cicli primationum lune), the original figures erased and replaced; and the length of day and altitude of the sun for each day of the year. Marginal medallions with occupations of the months and signs of the zodiac. Ends fol. 120. fol. 120V Table to find movable feasts by using the golden number and Sunday letter. Fol. 121, Canones super Kalendarium magistri petri de dacia dicti Philomena cum tabula signorum. Fo1. 121V, table to determine which planet rules in a particular hour of the day, ends fol. 122. Fol 122V, in a later hand, lessons for Sunday in octave of dedication of a church, ends fol. 122V. 3. Psalter, with antiphons. fol. 123 Psalm 1. Historiated initial, cut out; full border; bas-de-page, David with book of Psalms. fol. 129 Psalm 26. Initial, cut out; partial border. fol. 133 Psalm 38. Initial, man pointing to tongue, 6 ll.; partial border.

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fol. 137 Psalm 52. Initial, cut out; partial border. fol. 140V Psalm 68. Initial, Jonah saved, 6 ll.; partial border. fol. 145V Psalm 80. Initial, king playing three bells, 6 ll.; partial border with tambourine player. fol. 150 Psalm 97. Initial, clerics singing, 6 ll.; partial border. fo1. 150V Psalm 101. Initial, head of Lord, 3 ll. fol. 155 Psalm 109. Initial, God-the-Father and God-the-Son, 6 ll.; partial border; bas-de-page, grotesque. fo1. 166 Te Deum, Benedicite omnia, Benedictus dominus, Magnificat, Nunc dimittis. Fol. 166V, Sarum litany, ends fol. 167. Fol. 168, Collects following litany: Deus cui proprium; Omnipotens sempiterne; Deus qui caritatis; Deus a quo; Ineffabilem; Fidelium deus; Pietate tua. Ferial litanies, with Osmund added in a later hand. Fol. 169V, exorcism of salt and water. 4. Masses, ordinary and canon written in 2 cols., 20 ll., in larger semiquadrata script, by the same scribe as parts 1–3. fol. 171 fol. 179 fol. 187 fol. 188 fol. 188V fol. 189V fol. 190 fol. 191 fol. 192 fol. 193V fol. 194 fol. 195 fol. 196 fol. 196V fol.197 fol.198 fol. 198V fol. 199V

Ordinary of the mass. Canon of the mass. Initial with priest celebrating mass, 5 ll. Nativity. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. Circumcision. Initial, Lord blessing, 4 ll. Epiphany. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. Easter. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. Ascension. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. Pentecost. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. Trinity. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. Corpus Christi. Initial with heraldic lion, 4 ll.; marginal miniature, Consecration of the Host (cf. fol. 81V). Dedication of a church. Initial with schematic church, 4 ll. St. Andrew. Initial, standing saint, 5 ll Conception of the Virgin. Initial, 5 ll., cut out. St. Thomas, apostle. Initial, bust of saint, 3 ll. Purification of the Virgin. Initial, Presentation of Christ in the Temple, 5 ll. St. Matthew. Initial, bust of saint, 4 ll. Annunciation. Initial, 6 ll., cut out. St. Mark. Initial, lion with scroll, 4 ll.

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fol. 200 fol. 200V fol. 201V fol.202 fol. 202V fol. 203 fol. 204V fol. 205 fol. 206 fol. 206V fol. 207 fol. 208 fol.208V fol. 20gV fol. 210 fol. 210V fol. 211 fol. 213V fol. 214V fol. 215v fol. 216 fol. 216V fol. 217 fol. 217V fol. 218V fol. 220V fol. 221V fol. 222V fol. 223 fol. 223V

Sts. Philip and James. Initial, figures of saints, 4 ll. Finding of the Cross. Initial, man digging and St. Helena, 5 ll. Crown of Thorns. Initial, 5 ll., cut out. St. John at the Latin Gate. John in upper margin. St. Barnabas. Initial, figure of saint, 4 ll. Cut out after foliation. St. Margaret. Margaret and dragon in upper margin. St. Mary Magdalene. Initial, figure of saint, 3 ll. St. Wandregesilus. Abbot in upper margin. St. James. Foliate initial, 3 ll.; James in upper margin. St. Lawrence. Initial, Lawrence and grill, 4 ll. Assumption of the Virgin. Initial, Assumption, 6 ll. St. John Baptist. Foliate initial, 3 ll.; man with sword and John captive in upper margin. Birth of the Virgin. Initial, birth of the Virgin, 6 ll. Exaltation of the Cross. Foliate initial, 3 ll.; king with processional cross and praying figure in upper margin. St. Matthew. Initial, figure of saint, 4 ll. St. Michael. Foliate initial, 3 ll.; St. Michael and dragon in upper margin. Fols. 211–212, cut out after foliation, would have contained masses for Jerome, Simon and Jude, and All Saints. St. Catherine; St. Bartholomew. Figures of saints in upper margin. Common of Saints: one apostle. Initial, figure of an apostle, 4 ll.; upper margin, saint with book. An evangelist. Initial with evangelist, 3 ll. A martyr. Initial with martyr, 3 ll. A martyr-bishop. Upper margin, bishop martyred by sword. Several martyrs. Upper margin, bishop and other saints. A confessor. Upper margin, figure of confessor. A confessor-doctor of the church. Fol. 219, a confessor-abbot. Fol. 220, several confessors. A virgin martyr. Initial, head of queen, 3 ll. A virgin non-martyr. Several virgins. Initial, two female heads, 3 ll. Exaltation of the Cross. Initial, 3 ll., cut out. Antiphons from the birth to the purification of the Virgin. Initial,

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head of queen. Mass for brothers and sisters. Foliate initial, 3 ll. Mass pro semetquo. Initial, bust of man praying, 3 ll. Mass for parents. Cut out after foliation. Mass for the dead. Initial, bier and candles, 4 ll. Nuptial mass. Upper margin, wedding couple. Trinity. Initial, bust of Lord, 3 ll.

5. Sanctorale. fol. 234 Cut out after foliation, contained beginning of proper of saints. fol.235 St. Andrew. Full border, bas-de-page, cut out. fol. 237 St. Nicholas. Fol. 238, octave of Andrew. Fol. 238V, Conception of the Virgin. Fol. 240V, St. Lucy. V fol. 241 St. Thomas. Marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 242 St. Wulfstan. Fol. 242V, Sts. Fabian and Sebastian. Fol. 244, St. Agnes. Fol. 245, St. Vincent. Fol. 246V, St. Paul, commemoration of St. Priectus. Fol. 248V, St. Julian, St. Agnes. fol. 249 St. Bathildis; St. Bridget; Purification of the Virgin with foliate initial, 6 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 251 St. Blasius. Fol. 251V, St. Agatha. Fol. 252V, Sts. Vedast and Amand. Fol. 253, St. Scolastica, St. Valentine, St. Juliana. V fol. 253 Throne of St. Peter. Upper margin, St. Peter with key. fol. 254V St. Matthew. Initial, bust of saint, 4 ll. fol. 255 Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas; St. Gregory. fol. 255V St. Edward, king and martyr. Upper margin, king and archbishop. fol. 256 St. Cuthbert. Upper margin, bishop. fol. 257 Annunciation. Foliate initial, 6 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 259 St. Richard. Upper margin, figure of saint. St. Ambrose. fol. 260 St. Alphege; St. George; St. Mark. Upper margin, St. George as knight; St. Mark. V fol. 260 St. Vitalis. fol. 261V Sts. Philip and James. Marginal miniature, cut out. Finding of the Cross. Foliate initial; upper margin, king holding processional cross and praying figure (cf. fol. 209V). V fol. 262 Crown of Thorns. Initial, Christ with Crown of Thorns.

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fol. 263V St. John at the Latin Gate. Marginal miniature, martyrdom of St. John. fol. 264 Sts. Gordian and Epimachus. Fol. 264V, St. Dunstan, commemoration of St. Potentiana. Fol. 265, St. Aldelm, commemoration of St. Urbanus. Fol. 265V, St. Augustine. Fol. 266, St. Germanus, St. Petronilla, St. Nichomedis. Fol. 266V, Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, St. Boniface, Sts. Medard and Gildard, Translation of St. Edmund, archbishop, commemoration of Sts. Primus and Felician. fol. 267 Fols. 267–268, cut out after foliation, probably contained the office of St. Barnabas. fol. 269 Translation of St. Edward, king and martyr, St. Alban. Fol. 269V, St. Etheldreda. fol. 270 St. John the Baptist. Initial, bust of St. John, 4 ll. fol. 272 Sts. John and Paul. Fol. 273, St. Leo. fol. 273V Sts. Peter and Paul. Initial, figures of saints; marginal miniature cut out. fol. 275 Commemoration of St. Paul. Foliate initial, 3 ll. fol. 277 Sts. Processus and Martinianus; commemoration of St. Swithun. Fol. 277V, Translation of St. Martin. Fol. 278, octave of Peter and Paul. Fol. 279, Translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, note in lower margin in later hand: festum reliquiarum. legitur in fine libri. Fol. 279V, Seven martyred brothers. Fol. 280, St. Benedict. Fol. 280V, St. Swithun, St. Kenelm. Fol. 281, St. Margaret, commemoration of St. Arnulph. Fol. 281V, St. Praxedis, St. Mary Magdalene. Fol. 282, St. Wandregisilus. Fol. 283, St. Apollinaris. Fol. 283V, St. Christine. Fol. 284, St. James, commemoration of Sts. Christopher and Cucufatus. Fol. 284V, Seven Sleepers, St. Samson. Fol. 285, St. Pantaleon, St. Felix, Sts. Abdon and Sennes. Fol. 295V, St. Germanus; St. Peter in Chains, commemoration of the Maccabees. Fo1. 287, Finding of St. Stephen, commemoration of St. Stephen, pope and martyr. Fol. 288V, St. Oswald, St. Sixtus, St. Donatus, St. Cyriacus. V fol. 289 St. Romanus; St. Lawrence. Initial, bust of Lawrence, 4 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 291 St. Tiburtius. Fol. 291V, St. Hippolyte. fol. 292v Assumption of the Virgin. Initial, Triumph of the Virgin; marginal miniature, cut out.

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fol. 295 Commemorations of St. Agapitus, St. Magnus, octave of the Assumption. Fol. 295V, St. Bartholomew. Fol. 296, St. Rufus, St. Augustine. fol. 297 St. John the Baptist. Foliate initial, 3 ll.; commemoration of St. Sabina. fol. 299 Commemoration of Sts. Felix and Adauctus; St. Cuthburga; St. Egidius; commemoration of St. Priscus. Fol. 299V, Translation of St. Cuthbert, commemoration of St. Bertin. fol. 300 Birth of the Virgin. Initial, Birth of the Virgin, 5 ll. fol. 302V Commemoration of St. Gorgonius; Sts. Protus and Hyacinth. Fol. 303V, Exaltation of the Cross, octave of the Birth of the Virgin. Fol. 305V St. Edith, commemoration of St. Eufemia. Fol. 306, St. Lambert. V fol. 306 St. Matthew; commemoration of St. Laudus. Initial, head of Matthew, 4 ll. fol. 307V St. Maurice. Fol. 308, St. Tecla, St. Firmin. Fol. 308V, Sts. Cyprian and Justine; Sts. Cosmas and Damian. Fol. 309, St. Michael. Fol. 310V, St. Jerome. Fol. 3 ll, commemorations of Sts. Remigius and Melorus; St. Leodegarius; St. Faith. Fol. 311V, note in later hand regarding the addition of St. Hugh of Lincoln at the end of the book; Sts. Mark and Marcellianus; St. Denis. Fol. 313, St. Nicaise, commemoration of St. Gereon. Fol. 313V, translation of St. Edward the Confessor. Fol. 314, St. Calixtus. Fols. 315–316, cut out after foliation, would have contained offices of St. Michael on the Mount and St. Luke. Fol. 317, Sts. Simon and Jude. V fol. 317 St. Quentin; Vigil of All Saints. Initial, heads of eight figures, 6 ll.; marginal miniature, cut out. fol. 319V Office of the Dead, with Sarum responses. Fol. 322, St. Leonard; Four Crowned Saints. Fol. 322V, St. Theodore; St. Martin; commemoration of St. Mennas. Fol. 324, St. Just. Fol. 324V, St. Britius. Fol. 325, St. Machutus. Fol. 325V, St. Edmund, archbishop. Fol. 326V, St. Anianus; instructions in later hand to look at end of book for office of St. Hugh; octave of St. Martin. Fol. 327, St. Edmund, king and martyr. Fol. 327V, St. Cecilia. Fol. 329, St. Clement. Fol. 329V, St. Grisogonus. Fol. 330, St. Catherine. Fol. 331, St. Linus; St. Saturninus. fol. 331V Common of Saints: an Apostle-Evangelist.

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fol. 332 An apostle-martyr. Marginal miniature of standing martyr. fol. 334 Fols. 334–335, cut out after foliation, would have contained part of the Common of Saints. Fol. 336, Common of Saints, ends fol. 343V. 6. Additional Offices, in early fifteenth-century hand, on pages with original fourteenth-century rulings. fol. 344 St. David. Fol. 345, St. Cedda, ends fol. 346. Fol. 346V, blank. 7. Additional Offices, in another fifteenth-century hand, with contemporary rulings. fol. 347 Sarum Feast of Relics. Fol. 349, St. Anne. Fol. 353, St. Hugh. Fol. 354, Regula de historia. Fol. 361, Prayer to St. David, prayer to St. Cedda, translation of St. Hugh. Fol. 361V, translation of St. John of Beverley. Fol. 362V, St. John of Beverley. Fol. 363, St. Winifrid. Fol. 364V, octave of the dedication of a church.

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An Early Fourteenth-Century English Psalter in the Escorial*

I

n his book on the Austin Friars, Francis Roth was able to identify only one surviving liturgical manuscript of the English branch of the Hermits of St. Augustine —a fifteenth-century psalter from the London house.1 He commented with regret that ‘all other liturgical books, no matter how well written and illustrated, seem to have been destroyed, unless they had found their way to the continent’.2 One manuscript of the Austin Friars has indeed come to light on the continent: the fine early fourteenth-century English psalter, MS Q II 6, which has been in the Escorial since it was given by the Conde-Duque de Olivares in the 1600s.3 The book is almost unknown4 but

* For invaluable assistance in obtaining descriptions and photographs I am grateful to my former students Mrs. Kerstin Moreno and Dr. Edward Sullivan. 1 F. Roth, O.S.A., The English Austin Friars 1249–1538, New York, i 1966; ii 1961; see i, pp. 378 f. For the fifteenth-century psalter (Vatican Lib. MS Vat. lat. 11438) see Codices Vaticani latini, Codices 11414–11709, ed. J. Ruysschaert, Vatican 1959, pp. 31–34. Roth (loc. cit.) mentions in addition a fragmentary breviary ‘recently purchased by the Royal Irish Academy of Dublin’ as possibly English, but according to Michael B. Hackett, O.S.A., the calendar of the Dublin manuscript — which is fifteenth century — indicates an Italian destination; and the style of the illustrations is also Italian. 2 Roth, loc. cit. 3 P. Guillermo Antolín, Catálogo de los codices latinos de la Real Biblioteca del Escorial, iii, Madrid 1913, pp. 377 f., with brief description of textual contents; iv, Madrid 1916, pp. 580 f., with list of subjects of illustrations. 4 Briefly mentioned, with a small reproduction in J. Dominguez Bordona, Manuscritos con pinturas, Madrid 1933, ii, p. 51. Recently, Nigel Morgan (Medieval Art in East Anglia, exhibition catalogue, P. Lasko and N. Morgan (eds.), Norwich 1973, p. 23) suggested that the Escorial Psalter belongs to a group comprising the Gorleston Psalter, the Stowe Breviary,

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is important, not only as an Austin Friars’ liturgical text but as an addition to the corpus of English Gothic illumination. The Escorial Psalter is a large volume, 305 x 185 mm., of 178 folios, two columns to the page.5 It contains — in addition to the psalter with its calendar, canticles, litany and office of the dead — two further texts: first the fifteen Joys of the Virgin in Latin together with a fifteen-part poem on the name of the Virgin in Anglo-French; and second the short Office of the Cross, which is ascribed in the manuscript to Pope John XXII (1316–1334), thus dating the book after 1316. The various parts of the manuscript are illustrated, the Joys of the Virgin and Office of the Cross with small rectangular miniatures within the text columns (Figs. 24, 27), the calendar with medallions of the signs of the zodiac and occupations of the months (Fig. 26) and the psalms with historiated initials and decorative borders at the main divisions (Fig. 25). Two scribes worked on the manuscript, one writing the Joys of the Virgin (fols. 3–6V) and the second all the rest: the calendar, the Office of the Cross and the text of the psalms. The scribes are distinct not only in their scripts but in their page rulings, even though they used basically the same system (Figs. 24, 27). The rulings of the second scribe are particularly noticeable because the horizontal lines extend on either side of the verticals in a casual and irregular way (Figs. 26, 27). The lesser decoration — the one- and two-line initials and their flourishing, the line endings, the vertical decorative bars sprouting leafy branches — falls into the same two divisions. The differences are especially clear in a comparison of the line initials of the Fifteen Joys, with their graceful penwork, and the coarser decoration associated with the small initials in the rest of the book. There are also two artists in the Escorial Psalter, but the pattern of their work differs from that of the scribes. The first painter executed not only the miniatures of the Joys of the Virgin but also the medallions in the calendar and the miniatures of the Office of the Cross (the last two written by the second scribe). A second artist did the historiated initials of the psalms and the whole decorative ensemble of the pages on which they occur. It seems clear from the overlapping pattern of artists and scribes that all parts of the manuscript ‘belong’ together and were executed as a unit. the Castle Acre Psalter and the Douai Psalter; and that all these are products of one workshop whose activities spanned the first quarter of the fourteenth century. In my opinion only the Escorial Psalter and the Stowe Breviary are closely related. See below, p. 658. 5 For a complete description see Appendix p.·678.

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Of the artists, the second is the more accomplished. His figures are tall, with rather stiffly held, long torsos. Their white faces with smoothly curving black outlines have distinctive plump chins and characteristic mouths with lower lips formed by a single black dot (Fig. 1). This artist used careful modelling in smoothly graduated tones for the hues of medium value, and often further embellished these areas with small-scale texture patterns — dot clusters, for instance (Figs 1, 2) — while white and the darkest colours he ‘modelled’ with a more linear dry-brush technique (Figs. 15, 18). The other artist, the first hand in the book, used a scratchy, linear surface treatment throughout and no graduated modelling. His figures are more varied in scale and proportion. Perhaps he was more experimental, or perhaps less the master of his own style. Generally his figures are tall, but some have tiny heads with rather pinched features (Fig. 3), while some have bulbous heads with exaggeratedly large eyes (Fig. 4); others have smooth ovoid heads with features gracefully composed in the courtly Gothic fashion (Fig. 5). Although individual differences are clear, the two artists share the same general style. The relation of figure to frame and to background, the overall scale and proportion of the figures, the drapery patterns — all are similar and the range of colour and treatment of the gold grounds is identical. The two must have been members of the same workshop at the same time and place, and must have worked on the manuscript jointly. * * * Prior to its departure for Spain the Escorial Psalter had belonged to the Premonstratensian priory of West Dereham in Norfolk. The manuscript itself contains considerable evidence for this, including a copy of a letter of 1522 from the abbot of Welbeck, the chief Premonstratensian house in England, to the prior of West Dereham,6 as well as many fifteenth-century additions and grading changes in the calendar, including the dedication of West Dereham church on 16 October (Fig. 26).7 However, West Dereham For partial transcription see Códices del Escorial, iii, p. 378. On the Premonstratensians in England, see H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England, Oxford 1951, esp. pp. 129–35. 7 Among the characteristic East Anglian additions are Wynwaloe (3 March) and Withburga (8 July); additions such as David (1 March), Osmund (3 September) and Winifred (3 November) suggest a date after the middle of the fifteenth century when Osmund was canonized. In all about 45 names were added. 6

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could not have been the original destination of the manuscript. It was not intended for Premonstratensian use, and indeed bears a legend — in the original hand — referring to the Augustinian order: ‘Explicit psalterium (erased) ordinis sancti Augustini.’ The part now erased could have contained the name of a person or a convent of Augustinian canons regular. However, this is no ordinary Augustinian book — in spite of the fact that in the calendar three feasts of St. Augustine are included, all in red, and that there is a double invocation of his name in the litany. 8 In striking departure from normal practice, the Escorial Psalter lists at least thirty-five Roman saints and feasts which do not ordinarily figure in regular Augustinian, or in any English calendars, secular or monastic.9 These names are typical of calendars of the papal curia and of local churches in Rome in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.10 Some of the ‘Roman’ names in the Escorial calendar receive higher grading than usual in Roman calendars, however, for example St. Paul the First Hermit (10 January), minus duplex, St. Anthony Abbot (17 January), semiduplex, and St. William of Malavalle (9 February), semi-duplex.11 All three

8 Deposition, 28 August, red, graded maius duplex in original hand, with octave on 4 September, red, not graded; translation, 26 February, red, graded minus duplex in original hand. Numerous calendars associated with the English Augustinian Canons survive, and most have three feasts of St. Augustine, but in general a translation on 11 October occurs instead of the one on 26 February (properly 28 February). In the litany of the Escorial Psalter Augustine’s name is fourth (with a double invocation). There seems to be no fixed position for Augustine’s name among confessors in regular Augustinian litanies, although his name is often invoked twice. 9 E.g., in November alone: 9 November, Dedication of the Basilica of the Saviour (St. John Lateran); 10 November, Sts. Tryphonis, Crisphonis, Respicius and Nimpha, martyrs; 12 November, St. Martin, pope and martyr; 18 November, Dedication of the Basilicas of Apostles Peter and Paul; 19 November, St. Pontianus, pope and martyr; 26 November, St. Peter of Alexandria, bishop and martyr. The two feasts of church dedication are written in red. 10 Cf. the thirteenth-century calendars of the papal curia and the city of Rome printed in S. J. P. Van Dijk and J. Hazelden Walker, Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy, London 1960, pp. 423–47, esp. pp. 405–11. 11 Ibid., pp. 424 f., 427, where all three are ordinary feasts, written in black. In these Roman calendars, and in the printed Augustinian Hermits calendar as well (see below n. 14), William’s feast day is 10 February. It was put back to 9 February, probably to avoid conflict with St. Scolastica, not only in the Escorial Psalter, but also in the London Austin Friars Psalter (see above, n. 1).

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were founders of heremitical communities.12 Corresponding to their elevated status in the calendar, the names of Paul, Anthony and William also occur in the Escorial litany in a separate section of monks and hermits. The separation of monks and hermits from confessors and bishops is characteristic of Roman litanies, but not the inclusion of the names of Paul and William in addition to the more usual Benedict, Francis, Anthony and Dominic.13 On 8 July in the Escorial calendar occurs the entry ‘Commemoratio fratrum et benefactorum’. This commemoration of brothers and benefactors occurs in the calendars of only one monastic order — the Hermits of St. Augustine — the mendicant order formed in the thirteenth century by uniting various heremitical communities under the Rule of St. Augustine.14 The order was established in England around the middle of the thirteenth century and spread throughout the British Isles, mainly in the larger towns, 12 William, d. 1157, was the founder of the Williamite congregation of Hermits. They followed the Rule of St. Benedict. In 1256 there was a short-lived attempt to integrate them into the newly constituted Order of Hermits of St. Augustine (see Roth, English Austin Friars, i, pp. 15–17). 13 For the thirteenth-century Roman litany, see Van Dijk and Hazelden Walker, Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy, pp. 520–23. The Escorial litany parallels the Roman in choice and order of names, as well as organization into five basic categories — apostles, martyrs, confessors, monks and hermits, and virgins. Apart from the addition of Paul and William to the hermits, the only other variants from the Roman litany are also additions: Edmund and Thomas to the martyrs; Edmund Rich to the confessors; Etheldreda and Osyth to the virgins. All these, of course, ‘Anglicize’ the litany. 14 Roth, English Austin Friars, i, pp. 13–17. The process of uniting individual heremitical communities into centralized orders was begun at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 and completed under Pope Alexander IV in 1256. For the calendar of the Hermits of St. Augustine (based on the missal of 1491 printed in Nuremberg) see H. Grotefend, Zeitrechnung des deutschen Miltelalters und der Neuzeit, new edn., Darmstadt 1970, ii, ‘Ordenskalendar’, pp. 1–4. Taking into consideration the difference in date between the Nuremberg version and the Escorial, which accounts for such additions in the later calendar as Dorothy (6 February), Joseph (19 March), Monica (4 May), etc., the two are basically very similar. The printed calendar, however, is more ‘universal’ and less regional than the Escorial calendar as it contains few local saints. The date of commemoration of the members and benefactors of the order is 7 July in the printed calendar, and this seems to have been the official date in the fourteenth century as well, as indicated in an ordinal from Como (New York, Mrs. J. Gordan, MS 23) and a breviary from Prague (London, British Lib. MS Harl. 2988). The date of the celebration was undoubtedly advanced to 8 July in the Escorial Psalter to avoid conflict with the feast of the translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, which falls on 7 July. In the fifteenth-century Austin Friars psalter from London, the commemoration is also on 8 July.

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following the pattern of development of the Franciscans and Dominicans.15 In England the Hermits of St. Augustine came to be known as the Austin Friars. Like the Franciscans, the Augustinian Hermits, in England and elsewhere, followed the liturgical use of the Roman curia, which practice accounts for the Roman features of the Escorial calendar and litany.16 Manuscripts of the Augustinian Hermits often bear inscriptions referring to the order, such as the ‘Incipiunt ordinationes fratrum heremitarum ordinis sancti Augustini’ of a fourteenth-century ordinal from Como.17 Such phrasing suggests that the erasure in the explicit of the Escorial Psalter could have been filled with the words ‘fratrum heremitarum’. In any case, the characteristics of the calendar and litany supply all that is needed to connect the manuscript with the Austin Friars. It is apparently the earliest surviving English manuscript of the order, and the only one from the fourteenth century. It would therefore be rewarding to determine where the manuscript was first used. A study of the calendar and litany from this point of view is unfortunately inconclusive. The many English saints are widely distributed by locality. For example, John of Beverley, William of York, Guthlac of Crowland, Hugh of Lincoln, Erkenwald of London, Frideswide of Oxford and Edmund of Bury St. Edmund’s are all included in the calendar. Of D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, i, Cambridge 1950, pp. 194–201. For the interrelations between Franciscan and Roman Use, see Van Dijk and Hazelden Walker, pp. 179–411; and for the sources of the Augustinian Hermits Use, see pp. 398–400. In comparison to the Roman calendar (ibid., pp. 423–47) the Augustinian Hermits calendar is distinguished by the following: Paul the First Hermit, graded minus duplex, Anthony Abbot, graded semi-duplex and William of Malavalle, graded semi-duplex — all ordinary feasts in the Roman calendar; translation of St. Augustine, graded minus duplex — not in the Roman calendar; deposition of St. Augustine, graded maius duplex — ordinary feast in the Roman calendar; octave of St. Augustine, graded minus duplex — not in the Roman calendar; commemoration of members and benefactors of the order — not in Roman calendar. 17 New York, Mrs. John Gordan, MS 23, fol. 106V. Fols. 1–100V contain a twelfthcentury Roman martyrology with fourteenth-century additions to make it conform to the use of the Augustinian Hermits, and with a note referring to the church of St. Augustine, Como. Fols. 106–42 contain a fourteenth-century ordinal of the Augustinian Hermits. I am most grateful to Mrs. Gordan for allowing me to examine this manuscript. The connection with the Roman curia is often mentioned in the inscriptions in Augustinian Hermits manuscripts, e.g., ‘Incipit ordo missalis ordinis Fratrum Heremitarum sancti Augustini secundum conseutudinem romane Curie’ (Besançon, Bibl. mun. MS 60, Missal, fourteenth century, fol. 10, see V. Leroquais, Les sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, Paris 1924, ii, p. 360). 15 16

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these, Erkenwald and Edmund Martyr are written in red, and Edmund recurs in the litany together with the East Anglian virgin Etheldreda. The emphasis on East Anglian saints is too slight, however, to ascribe the manuscript to any particular establishment in south-east England.18 Indeed, the general rather than specific nature of the calendar and litany is not surprising, in view of the uncloistered character of the order itself and the peripatetic life of its members.19 It is worth noting that the calendar of the fifteenth-century Austin Friars psalter from London is also marked by geographical diversity in the choice of English saints, containing in fact most of the same names as the Escorial manuscript but with greater emphasis on the London figures Edward the Confessor, Erkenwald and Ethelburga.20 It seems, at least on this slim evidence, that there was a standard, all-purpose English Augustinian Hermits calendar to which — when required — specific additions could be made to tailor a book to a particular friary. These additions were not made in the Escorial calendar. Indeed, it is questionable whether the Escorial manuscript was used in a particular Austin friary at all. This question is raised by the calendar and litany, as we have seen, but even more strongly by the character of the heraldic material in the book. Five coats-of-arms fill the side and bottom margins of the 18 The only English saints in the litany are Edmund Martyr, Thomas of Canterbury, Edmund Rich, Etheldreda and Osyth. All are common except for Osyth, whose name occurs in Norwich Cathedral Priory litanies and sporadically elsewhere, for example in the following: Munich, Staatsbibl., MS Clm. 835 (Gloucester? c. 1200); Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 770 (Canterbury, first half thirteenth century); London, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 38116, Huth Psalter (Lincoln, c. 1280); and Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 366, Ormesby Psalter (added Norwich litany, c. 1325). The preceding list was culled from the collection of English litanies compiled by Dr. John Plummer of the Pierpont Morgan Library, who generously made the material available. 19 The monks, according to the chronicler Jordan of Saxony, were to go from ‘the quietude of their hermitages into the busy life of the city, there to preach and hear confessions and edify the people by the holiness of their lives’ (quoted by Roth, English Austin Friars, i, p. 16); see also A. Gwynn, S.J., The English Austin Friars in the Time of Wyclif, Oxford and London 1940, P·24· 20 The manuscript from London has the following names not in the Escorial Psalter: Edward the Confessor (5 January); Oswald, Archbishop of York (1 March, because 28 February is the translation of St. Augustine); David (3 March); Oswald, bishop and confessor (20 April), possibly an error; Thomas of Hereford (2 October); Ethelburga (12 October); translation of Erkenwald (14 November). On the other hand, Patrick (17 March), Guthlac (19 April), Dunstan (19 May) and the translation of Edmund Rich (9 June) — all in Escorial — are missing.

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Beatus page of the psalter (Fig. 25). Incorporated into the border, they are part of the original design and appear to have been painted by the original artist in colours which have not been retouched although they have oxidized so badly that they are difficult to blazon. Across the bottom of the page are azure three cinquefoils or — Bardolf; and barry of ten argent and sable — most probably Bussey. Along the right-hand margin are three more shields, from top to bottom, azure semy fleurs de lis a lion rampant guardant argent — Holland; or a lion crowned rampant with double tail sable — Wells; as well as argent floretty a lion crowned rampant sable — probably Buckminster.21 The Bardolf and Bussey arms are repeated on all the bordered pages marking the liturgical divisions of the psalter, but by a later hand; the Bardolf arms alone recur on the garment of a kneeling woman in the Crucifixion at the end of the Office of the Cross (Fig. 27). The families identified with these coats-of-arms all held lands in Lincolnshire during the fourteenth century.22 The Bardolfs and the Busseys had adjoining manors in Kesteven close to the Nottinghamshire border. Other Bussey holdings in Kesteven were near those of the Buckminster family. In Holland — the eastern part of the county — the Holland and the

21 The identification of these coats-of-arms is based on Papworth’s Ordinary of British Armorials, G. D. Squibb and A. R. Wagner, eds., London 1961 and the sources there cited, and Knights of Edward I, (Harleian Society, vols. 80–83) 1929, s.v. Coats-of-arms of the Bardolf family occur not only in contemporary rolls of arms but are also frequent in early fourteenth-century illuminated manuscripts: they occur in the Gorleston Psalter (London, British Lib. MS Add. 49622), the Bardolf-Vaux Psalter (London, Lambeth Palace Lib. MS 233) and the Ormesby Psalter (Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 366) in addition to the Escorial Psalter. Those of Bussey, Holland, Wells and Buckminster appear, to my knowledge, only in the rolls, where Bussey is given as argent three bars sable rather than barry of ten argent and sable. 22 Calendar of Inquisitions post Mortem, London, Public Record Office, 1913; Bardolf vii (Edward III), no. 243; Bussey iv (Edward I), no. 380; Wells viii (Edward III), no. 597. For Buckminster see Calendar of Inquisitions and Assessments relating to Feudal Aids 1284–1431, London (Public Record Office) 1904, iii (Kent-Norfolk), pp. 135, 197. For Holland see Knights of Edward I, s.v. Sir John Holand, Sir Robert Holand. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century John Holland held lands at Stenning and the manor of Wyberton, both near Boston, Lines. The manor of Wyberton he sold to Adam Wells before 1304. Robert Holland (d. bef. 1328) was from a wealthy Lancashire family with only minor holdings in Lincolnshire. His arms were azure semy fleurs de lis a lion rampant guardant argent. It is not certain that John Holland bore the same arms, as they are nowhere listed, but it seems a strong possibility that the shield in the Escorial Psalter does refer to him rather than to a member of the Lancashire family.

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Wells holdings were adjacent, and indeed passed in part from one family to the other.23 Moreover, the Bardolfs and the Wells were related by marriage.24 Indeed, the repeated juxtaposition of the arms of the Bardolfs and the Busseys may itself refer to a marriage and this occasion may have inspired the production of the Escorial Psalter. If so, the left-hand or Bardolf shield would refer to the male partner; and the right-hand Bussey shield to the female.25 The lady, now presumably wearing her Bardolf husband’s arms, is shown in the miniature at the end of the Office of the Cross (Fig. 27). She kneels in prayer to the left of the crucified Christ. On the right is a kneeling cleric, an Austin Friar, wearing the black habit and white tunic of the order.26 The Bardolfs are not recorded as patrons of any Austin Friars house, nor are the other families represented by the coats-of-arms in the book, at least not up to the middle of the fourteenth century.27 It seems likely therefore that the Bardolf woman shown in the picture was the owner of the Escorial Psalter; that the Austin Friar shown with her was her confessor or chaplain; and that

23 In Kesteven the Bardolfs held Westborough Manor, less than a mile from Hougham, the seat of the Busseys; the Buckminster holdings at Billingborough, also in Kesteven, were near estates of the Busseys at Osbournby, Dembleby and Haceby (see Bartholomew Survey Atlas of England and Wales, map no. 55). In Holland, the manor of the Wells family at Wyberton, which had been purchased from the Holland family (see n. 22), was a few miles from the remaining Holland estates at Stenning near Swineshead, Wigtoft and Bicker (see Bartholomew Survey Atlas, maps 55–6, and Feudal Aids, iii, p. 239. 24 A marriage is recorded between Margaret (d. bef. 1345), daughter of John Bardolf (1311–1363) and Adam Wells (1304–1345), see Complete Peerage, 1898 ed., i, p. 241; viii, p· 75. 25 Cf. the Alphonso Psalter (London, British Lib. MS Add. 24686), fol. 11, where the arms of Alphonso, son of Edward I, are on the left and those of his intended bride, the daughter of the Count of Holland, are on the right; also the Grey-Fitzpayn Hours (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Mus. MS 242), fol. 2V, where Richard Grey, bearing his arms, kneels on the left facing Joan Fitzpayn, bearing hers, on the right. 26 Roth, i, pp. 571, 597. 27 In 1361 John Bussey, together with four others, was given permission to alienate in mortmain three acres to the Austin Friars of Boston, Lines. for the enlargement of their establishment (Roth, ii, doc. 458). This land, however, was probably not part of John Bussey’s inheritance (see J. Roskell, ‘Two Medieval Lincolnshire Speakers: Pt. 1 — Sir John Bussey of Hougham’, Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, Reports and Papers, vii, 1957, p. 30).

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as her spiritual adviser he was responsible for the introduction into her prayer book of the liturgical features of the Austin Friars.28 * * * The date of the Escorial Psalter is after 1316 when John XXII was elevated to the papacy, as the short Office of the Cross in the manuscript is ascribed to him: ‘Incipit officium crucifixi editum per dominum johannem papam XXII & indulget omnibus vere penitentibus & confessis semel in die dicentibus pro qualibet vice dicentium annum de iniuncta sibi penitencia.’ Abbé Leroquais has remarked that although the office was occasionally ascribed to Pope John XXII in fourteenth-century manuscripts, its origins went back as early as the tenth century.29 Pope John’s connection may be that he authorized an indulgence for its reading, as some manuscripts say specifically: ‘Explicit offitium crucis ordinatum a sanctissimo papa Iohanne

28 Such positions were frequently held by Austin Friars. Cf. the will of Humphrey of Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex (d. 1361), one of whose executors was his confessor, an Austin Friar, William of Monklane (Gwynn, English Austin Friars, pp. 108–11; Roth, i, pp. 180–83). On Austin Friars as chaplains see Roth, i, pp. 48, 115, 262, etc. Curiously, one of the other early fourteenth-century manuscripts connected with the Bardolfs — the so-called Bardolf-Vaux Psalter (London, Lambeth Palace Lib. MS 233) — also shows some Austin Friars’ peculiarities. It too has a calendar (written in French) with an unusual number of Roman saints, including the hermits Paul, Anthony and William; also the octave of St. Augustine; and a geographically diverse group of English saints. However, it lacks the commemoration of the members and benefactors of the Austin Friars, and the litany is not in their Roman tradition. The Bardolf-Vaux Psalter has been’attributed to a house of Augustinian Canons in the diocese of York — perhaps Shelford Priory, Notts. (D. D. Egbert, The Tickhill Psalter, New York 1940, pp. 190–93) — but it is insufficiently Augustinian since the calendar lacks the translation of St. Augustine, and imperfectly Yorkian, as the translation of William of York is missing, although John of Beverley and two feasts of Wilfred of York are included. It may also be noted in passing that the calendar contains the translation of Hugh of Lincoln on 6 October, as well as his deposition on 17 November, the former a feature usually held to indicate a connection with Lincoln diocese. Moreover, it is not certain that the name ‘Bardolf-Vaux’ as suggested by Egbert (p. 101) is appropriate to the heraldic elements in the manuscript. Where the arms of these two families are juxtaposed (e.g., fol. 101) those of Vaux are in the ‘male’ position and those of Bardolf in the ‘female’; therefore, if anything, it is more likely to be the Vaux-Bardolf Psalter. 29 V. Leroquais, Les livres d’heures manuscrits de La Bibliothèque Nationale, i, Paris 1927, pp. xxvii–xxviii. It may be that John did in fact ‘edit’ the short office (inc. ‘Patris sapientiae’), as no pre-fourteenth-century examples of this particular text appear to exist.

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XXII, qui dedit indulgentiam unius anni pro qualibet die qua dictum fuerit.’30 Unfortunately the exact date of the indulgence is not known. The short Office of the Cross is included in several other contemporary English manuscripts in addition to the Escorial Psalter — the Taymouth Hours in the British Library, the De Bois Hours in the Morgan Library, the Vernon Psalter in the Huntington Library — but no earlier illustrated versions are known.31 The pictorial subjects in the first three manuscripts are nearly identical,32 as the choice for the canonical hours is determined by the text. Matins — Betrayal; Prime (Lauds is omitted) — Christ before Pilate; Tierce — Christ bearing the Cross; Sext — Crucifixion between thieves; None — Crucifixion with Longinus; Vespers — Descent from the Cross; Compline — Entombment (Fig. 27). In addition these three manuscripts include a Resurrection at the end of the cycle although there is no text for this subject. Similar pictorial cycles of the passion of Christ had been developed by the end of the thirteenth century for the illustration of the Hours of the Passion,33 the long form of this office; and such cycles are found even as illustrations for the Hours of the Virgin34 where the text itself is no guide to Paris, Bibl. Nationale MS lat. 1342, Hours, Use of Rome, Italian, second half fourteenth century, fol. 35V (Leroquais, loc. cit., p. 152). 31 Taymouth Hours, MS Yates Thompson 13, fols. 119–25V; De Bois Hours, MS M. 700, fols. 11–48Vv; Vernon Psalter, MS E. 9. H. 17, fols. 14–18V. In addition the office occurs in the early fourteenth-century English De Lisle Hours, New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS G. 50, fols. 2V–4, but without illustrations. The earliest continental illustrated examples of the Office of the Cross appear to be from the fourteenth century also, e.g., Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 88, Hours, Use of Metz, c. 1340, fols. 175V–78V. 32 The Latin text of the short Office of the Cross in the Vernon Psalter is coupled with a related text in Anglo-French, ascribed to ‘Pope Urban’ (J. Sonet, Répertoire d’incipit de prières en ancien français, Société de publications romanes et françaises, liv, Geneva 1956, no. 2043). In the Anglo-French text each of the canonical hours is correlated with two events from the life of Christ, viz., Matins — Betrayal and Descent into Limbo; Prime — Christ before Pilate and Noli me tangere; Tierce — Flagellation and Pentecost; Sext — Raising of the Cross and Annunciation; None — Crucifixion and Ascension; Vespers — Descent from the Cross and Last Supper; Compline — Agony in the Garden and Entombment. The illustrations, in the form of diptychs, follow the French rather than the Latin text. 33 E.g., Baltimore, Walters Art Gall. MS 102, Hours of the Virgin, etc., English, c. 1300, fols. 73–84V, 2–SV; London, British Lib. MS Arun. 83, pt. i, Howard Psalter, English, early fourteenth century, fols. 113V–16V. 34 E.g. W. de Brailes, Hours of the Virgin (London, British Lib. MS Add. 49999), English, c. 1240, fols. 1–65V, illustrated with an extensive passion cycle in historiated initials and miniatures; London, British Lib. MS Add. 48985, Salvin Hours, English, late thirteenth 30

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the choice of subject. Although the idea of illustrating the short Office of the Cross appears to have originated in the early fourteenth century, the illustrations themselves are simply adapted from a pattern previously established. Undoubtedly the most original part of the Escorial Psalter, textually and iconographically, is the Joys of the Virgin. The rhymed text is in French and Latin, in alternating stanzas. Actually it comprises two separate poems linked by their general subject, the Virgin. The French part is a series of thirty eight-line stanzas on the name Maria, for example: ‘Marie douce mere divine/cink lettres ad ton noun beneit/ ces sunt les porches de la piscine/ que les malades tous saneit/ “M” emporte medecine “A” amour, “R” tut dreit/ Rebecca la bele meschine/ que bevire au serf abraham doneit/ Marie per “I” Iael joiouse/ tu es que sysaran tua/ Abigael a qui sespouse/ david tu es per le derain/ “A” Chescune lettre est preciouse/ des cink — MARIA — / Aidez nous dame virtuose/ per ton seint noun quest maria.’ The only other catalogued example of this French poem is in the M. R. James Memorial Psalter, an English manuscript of the second half of the fourteenth century.35 Along with numerous Biblical equivalents for each of the five letters of the Virgin’s name, the James Psalter version assigns further symbolic values to the number five: ‘Marie cink ioies te magnifient/ com tut seint eglise croit/ Les queux les cink pains signifient/ dount dieux cink mil des gentz pessoit.’ In the Escorial Psalter the ‘cink ioies’ become ‘quinze joies’, upsetting the equation between the number of joys and the number of loaves in the miracle of Christ. Although makeshift, the variant reading in the Escorial manuscript seems to have been designed to link the French poem with the fifteen Latin ‘gaudia’, each of which is set forth in a six-line stanza following every two stanzas in French. These Latin Joys of the Virgin in the Escorial Psalter form an apparently unique cycle which has so far remained unnoticed by cataloguers of medieval devotional poetry.36 A standard series of fifteen joys of the Virgin century, fols. 2–43V, Hours of the Virgin illustrated with a passion cycle in historiated initials; New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS G. 50, De Lisle Hours, English, early fourteenth century, Hours of the Virgin, fols. 19–86V, illustrated with a passion cycle in miniatures originally facing the beginning of each hour. 35 London, British Lib. MS Add. 44949, 1360–1370, fols. 25–27V, with rubric (not found in the Escorial Psalter): ‘Ici comence un loenge a la dame qe comprent la significance de son beneite noun qest MARIA’ (Sonet, Répertoire d’incipit, no. 1104, inc. ‘Marie mere merciable’). 36 Inc. ‘Gaude virgo nondum nata/Sed concepta preservata.’

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in French developed in the course of the fourteenth century, but the Escorial cycle differs in its choice of joys from this and from all other cycles, including those of five and seven joys as well.37 It starts uniquely with three stanzas on the early life of the Virgin before the Annunciation. These are illustrated by the Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate (Fig. 5) ; the Education of the Virgin; and Joseph and the other suitors of the Virgin (Fig. 3). The remaining pictorial subjects are the Annunciation; the Visitation; Joseph and the Angel; the Nativity (Fig. 6); the Adoration of the Magi; the Presentation of Christ; Christ among the doctors; the Miracle at Cana (Fig. 24); the Resurrection (Fig. 24); the Ascension; the Assumption; and the Coronation of the Virgin. Unlike the other illustrated parts of the manuscript there are instructions for the illuminator in the margins of the pages containing the Fifteen Joys. Some of them are still legible, for example ‘Anna cum filia’ for the Education of the Virgin. These must have been essential for the illuminator because of the allusive, metaphorical character of the text, and even more because of its rarity. Neither a textual nor a pictorial tradition for the fifteen Joys of the Virgin existed at this time. In fact possibly the only other contemporary English manuscript to contain the Fifteen Joys (although in French and with different joys) — the De Bois Hours in the Pierpont Morgan Library — has no illustrations at all.38 When a scheme for illustrating the Joys of the Virgin developed in the later fourteenth century, the pictures were limited to a single image of the Virgin and Child at the beginning.39 While the Escorial text and the pictorial programme are rarities, the subjects illustrated are for the most part quite common and their presentation iconographically orthodox, although the scenes of the early life of the Virgin are less frequent than the rest. The Suitors of the Virgin (Fig. 3) in whIch Joseph’s rod has burst into green leaf, is probably the most unusual 37 Leroquais, Livres d’heures, i, p. xxvi; ii, pp. 310 f. The fifteen joys in the French version are: 1) Annunciation; 2) Visitation; 3) First movement of Christ in Mary’s womb; 4) Nativity; 5) Adoration of the Shepherds; 6) Adoration of the Magi; 7) Presentation; 8) Christ among the doctors; 9) Wedding at Cana; 10) Multiplication of the loaves and fishes; 11) Crucifixion; 12) Resurrection; 13) Ascension; 14) Pentecost; 15) Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. 38 MS M. 700, fols. 137V–38, differing however from the standard French text. 39 E.g., Paris, Bibl. Nationale MS lat. 1073A, Hours, north French, late thirteenth century, with Joys of the Virgin of the second half of the fourteenth century, illustrated with an initial of the Virgin and Child. One unusually early illustrated example occurs in the French hours, c. 1300, in the Pierpont Morgan Lib., MS G. 59, fol. 68.

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of this group. The one other iconographic peculiarity of the Escorial cycle is the miniature of the Miracle at Cana (Fig. 24). The subject is compressed: the main space is filled with three — not six — large cylindrical wine vats, and nothing else. In the margin outside the picture stands a small figure of Christ, blessing and holding the Holy Scriptures, a compositional arrangement not used elsewhere in the book. There is nothing in the text to suggest the reduced number or the giant scale of these wine containers. The motif must have derived from some other textual — or pictorial — source. It is noteworthy that in the Taymouth Hours the wine jars of Cana are represented in a similar way in the long marginal cycle of the life of Christ which illustrates the Hours of the Virgin.40 The calendar of the Escorial manuscript is illustrated in a conventional way with signs of the zodiac and labours of the months framed in neat circular medallions (Fig. 26). The psalter proper is also characterized by historiated initials whose subjects form a cycle standard for the early fourteenth century: Psalm i, David playing the harp (Fig. 25); Psalm xxvi, a king pointing to his eyes (Fig. 1) ; Psalm li, foliate (Psalm xxxviii is lost); Psalm lii, a fool (Fig. 7); Psalm lxviii, Jonah saved from the whale (Fig. 8); Psalm lxxx, a king playing bells, (Fig. 2); Psalm xcvii, clerics singing (Figs. 15, 18); Psalm ci, foliate; Psalm cix, the Lord enthroned.41 Certain iconographic tendencies stand out, most of all the reduction of the number of figures and the consequent simplification of the compositions. For example, the illustration of Psalm xxvi, with the standard kneeling king pointing to his eyes, is limited to this figure alone (Fig. 1), without the usual altar and even the hand or bust of the Lord (Figs. 16, 20). In like manner, for the king and the fool of Psalm lii we find simply the gesticulating fool (Fig. 7); Jonah emerges from the whale by hoisting himself up with the aid of the cross-bar of the initial ‘S’ of Psalm lxviii (Fig. 8), thus usurping the upper register ordinarily inhabited by the Lord blessing (Fig. 9); and finally, the figures of God the Father and God the Son or a full-scale Trinity, which form the standard theme for Psalm cix, are reduced to the single Deity enthroned. It may also be a sign of the simplification of the iconographic programme that Psalms li and ci, ordinarily illustrated in large psalters of this period with figural compositions, have simply foliate initials. London, British Lib. MS Yates Thompson 13, fols. 59V–118. Cf. the table of historiated initials in early fourteenth-century English psalters in L. F. Sandler, The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and other Fenland Manuscripts, London and New York 1974, pp. 98 f. 40 41

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The relative starkness and monumentality of these simplifications seem to have been matters of a principle which can be found in other contemporary English manuscripts, including — perhaps surprisingly — the Luttrell Psalter, ordinarily considered as the most undisciplined iconographic melange (Fig. 10).42 The same tendency can also be seen in the framed miniatures of some English manuscripts of the 1320s such as the Barlow Psalter, where in comparison to the compositions of its prototype — the Ramsey Psalter (Figs. 11, 12) — the motifs are severely limited and the concentration on single figures greatly strengthened.43 Stylistically the miniatures, initials and borders of the Escorial Psalter belong to that broad stream of early fourteenth-century English art characterized as ‘East Anglian’, a term with little geographical significance but nevertheless immediately calling to mind the bold, swinging borders of manuscripts such as the Peterborough, Gorleston (Figs. 13, 14) and Ormesby Psalters;44 borders richly coloured in rose, blue and gold, patterned in white linear motifs, with luxuriant foliage in vermilion and green, inhabited by a multitude of drolleries, grotesques and hybrids. The highest point of the East Anglian style is between 1300 and 1310. By the 1320s when the Escorial Psalter was executed a clear change had taken place. The borders framing the historiated initial pages of the Escorial book are much simplified in relation to earlier manuscripts and, most strikingly, are devoid of drolleries — like an empty stage with the actors gone (Fig. 15). And the disappearance of the inhabited border is not idiosyncratic to the Escorial Psalter. It is found in contemporary East Anglian manuscripts such as the Barlow Psalter (Fig. 16) and above all the Stowe Breviary (Figs. 17, 21). The Stowe Breviary, a well-known manuscript of superb quality, is usuLondon, British Lib. MS Add. 42130. The initial for Psalm xxvi (fol. 51) shows Christ standing alone pointing to his eye; Psalm xxxviii (fol. 75V), David standing alone pointing to his tongue; Psalm lii (fol. 98V), a standing fool holding bells and bauble; Psalm lxviii (fol. 121V), David crowned but naked standing alone in the water. The other initials follow more standard compositional schemes, for the most part. Although E. G. Millar (The Luttrell Psalter, London 1932, pp. 1, 3) dates the Luttrell Psalter as late as 1340, I believe that the manuscript fits better stylistically with works executed in the 1320s. 43 Barlow Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Barlow 22, 1321–38; Ramsey Psalter, New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 302 and St. Paul in Lavantthal, Cod. XXV/2, 19. c. 1300. 44 Peterborough Psalter, Brussels, Bibl. Royale MS 9961–2; Gorleston Psalter, London, British Lib. MS Add. 49622; Ormesby Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 366. 42

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ally coupled stylistically with the considerably earlier Gorleston Psalter,45 but it bears the same relation to this Psalter as does the Escorial manuscript. Indeed, in decorative style the Stowe book is so similar to the Escorial Psalter that the two volumes must have come from the same workshop. The borders in both manuscripts contain a vine-like tendril, alternating blue and rose, which winds around the page against a background panel alternating in blocks of the same colours plus gold. The contour of the background panel is irregular, being notched and scalloped, and the projecting tips have gold knobs. Both blue and rose are textured with white chain patterns, dot circles, dot-and-waves and the like. The tendril itself has as its source a serrated profile leaf or an elongated wedge, or sometimes a grotesque in close proximity to the historiated initial. At the corners of the frame, and in some cases midway along the vertical side opposite the historiated initial, the tendril takes a spiral twist which uncoils into the margin and sprouts small leaves, ivy- or clover-shaped, coloured vermilion or green. As for the initial proper, the figures are silhouetted against a contour-dotted gold field. The initial frames — striated vermilion and rose, or solid blue — are patterned in the same way as the background panel of the border. These frames in turn are silhouetted against an irregular rectangle of the opposing colour, blue or rose. Most of the background blocks of the initials are diaperpatterned with colourful precision. Finally, around the background panel is a thin outer frame of gold, and beyond a thin green line. This particular constellation of decorative detail is not met with among other contemporary manuscripts, even those generally similar in style such as the Barlow Psalter (Fig. 16). The leafy finials of this latter, for example, are larger than those of the Stowe and Escorial manuscripts, but the leaves are attached to a much more slender stem, often simply a single black line. The projecting points of the background panel behmd the tendril though tipped in gold have no additional knobs. The figural subjects in the Escorial Psalter and the Stowe Breviary also show striking correspondences. Some are purely stylistic, concerning colour, modelling, surface texture, figure poses and facial types. In this area the greatest similarities occur between the historiated initials of the Stowe tem45 Stowe Breviary, London, British Lib. MS Stowe 12. For the relation with the Gorleston Psalter, see S. C. Cockerell, The Gorleston Psalter, London 1907, p. 3. Most recently Nigel Morgan (Medieval Art in East Anglia, cat. nos. 20, 26) set forth the complex problems of date and style, suggesting that the Gorleston Psalter may be later than 1306, the date given by Cockerell.

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2. Psalm 80: fol. 92v. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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1. Psalm 26: fol. 36. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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4. Presentation of Christ: fol. 5. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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3. Suitors of the Virgin: fol. 3v. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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6. Nativity: fol. 4v. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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5. Meeting of Anna and Joachim: fol. 3. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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8. Psalm 68: fol. 75v. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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7. Psalm 52: fol. 63. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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10. Psalm 52. Luttrell Psalter, London, BL, MS Add. 42130, fol. 98v.

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9. Psalm 68. All Souls Psalter, Oxford, All Souls, MS 7, fol. 61.

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11. Passion cycle. Barlow Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Barlow 22, fol. 13v.

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12. Passion Cycle. Ramsey Psalter, New York, Morgan Library, MS M.302, fol. 3.

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14. Detail of Fig. 13.

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13. Canticles. Gorleston Psalter, London, BL, MS Add. 49622, fol. 190v.

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15. Psalm 97. Escorial Psalter, El Escorial, MS Q II 6, fol. 108.

667

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16. Psalm 26. Barlow Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Barlow 22, fol. 37v.

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17. Psalm 68. Stowe Breviary, London, BL, MS Stowe 12, fol. 184v.

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20. Detail of. Fig. 17.

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19. Detail of Fig. 16.

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18. Detail of Fig. 15.

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21. Nativity. Stowe Breviary, London, BL, MS Stowe 12, fol. 16v.

671

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22. Detail of Fig. 21.

23. Nativity. Gough Psalter, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gough liturg. 8, fol. 2.

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24. Joys of the Virgin. Escorial Psalter, El Escorial MS Q II 6, fol. 5v.

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26. October calendar page: fol. 11v. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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25. Beatus page; fol. 15. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

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27. Office of the Cross: fol. 14v. Escorial Psalter. El Escorial, MS Q II 6.

675

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porale and the major Escorial psalm initials. The range of hues is the same, and each colour is treated — modelled or textured — in the same way. The blue-lavender, for example, used by both artists for outer garments is modelled carefully with white to give the effect of highlit folds, and the surface patterned with tiny dot clusters (Figs. 2, 22). Similar dot clusters are also stippled on the gold grounds in both books. Other correspondences appear in iconographic motifs. Two psalter initials in particular are striking: Psalm xxvi with David kneeling, body frontal, on the lower frame of the initial ‘D’, his hands raised in exactly the same position in both manuscripts; and Psalm lxviii with the unusual Jonah who hoists himself out of the water with the bar of the initial ‘S’ (Figs. 8, 19). Finally, it is clear that sometimes the same model was used for entire compositions. The two Nativities are specially similar (Figs. 6, 22): the Virgin reclines, eyes open, hand beneath chin, head resting on a patterned pillow with knobs at the corner (vermilion in both manuscripts); the Child, swaddled in green, lies raised in the centre and Joseph sits on the right, his hands in similar position; finally the ass (grey-tan) and the ox (vermilion) are arranged behind the Holy Family, one profile, the other frontal.46 How close these compositions are may be gauged by comparison with the slightly earlier version of the subject in the Gough Psalter, generally related in format (Fig. 23). The overall distribution of the figures is similar but Mary is asleep, Joseph rests his head in his hand and the ox and ass, both in profile, are on the far left hand. The Stowe Breviary was produced between 1322 and 1325, years that provide a reasonable chronological framework for the Escorial Psalter, which otherwise could be designated only as ‘post-1316’. The diocese of Norwich was the destination of the Stowe Breviary, but the location of the workshop that made it — as well as the psalter — remains unknown. Wherever it was, the atelier must have had access to considerable pictorial and textual resources. Breviaries and psalters, after all, differ in text, format and programme of illustration. Furthermore the owners of the two manuscripts were quite different: for the Stowe Breviary a member of the secular clergy in the diocese of Norwich; in the case of the Escorial Psalter a laywoman in the diocese of Lincoln. That two such divergent books could 46 Another point of agreement between the Stowe Breviary and the Escorial Psalter is in the psalter texts. Based on the series of variants used by Dr. John Plummer of the Pierpont Morgan Library, the texts appear to be identical. The choice and sequence of canticles following the psalter text are identical also.

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have been produced by a single group of artists shows a flexibility of practice which suggests a highly professional origin in a cosmopolitan setting, not necessarily identical geographically with the destination of either volume. * * * Extensive’ study of individual East Anglian manuscripts has produced much agreement as to the broad characteristics of the style but fewer conclusions as to its internal development or the actual relationships among books. Which manuscripts were produced in the same workshops by artists familiar with each others’ works, sharing the models and practices? Many manuscripts — among them some of the most important, such as the Gorleston Psalter, the Tiptoft Missal47 and the Luttrell Psalter — have not yet found a precise artistic context. The Escorial Psalter provides such a context for one such orphan book, the Stowe Breviary. The two manuscripts considered together lend weight to the view that the 1320s marked a new phase in the development of the East Anglian style, one in which orderly, even austere conventions succeeded the unruly and exuberant inventions of the first decade of the century.

47

Tiptoft Missal, New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 107.

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Appendix Description of the Escorial Breviary Escorial Library MS Q II 6 178 fols. 305 x 185 mm. Collation: ii (fols. 1–2V) + 14 (fols. 3–6V) 28 (fols. 7–14V) 3–412 (fols. 15–38V) 512 wants 12 (fols. 39–49V) 6–1512 (fols. 50–169V) 1612 wants 10–12 (fols. 170–178v) + i Signatures in gatherings 1 and 3–16; catchwords in gatherings 3–4, 6–15 Textual Contents Fols. 1–2. In a different hand from rest of manuscript. Table of Gospel readings throughout the year. Two single leaves cut down from a larger manuscript. Fols. 3–6V. 2 cols., 32–33 lines. Scribe I. Poem in Anglo-French on the name of the Virgin (inc. ‘Marie mere merciable’, see J. Sonet, Répertoire d’incipit de prières en ancien français, Geneva 1956, no. 1104) in thirty 8-line stanzas, each two stanzas alternating with poem in Latin on the Fifteen Joys of the Virgin (inc. ‘Gaude virgo nondum nata’, unpublished) in fifteen 4-line stanzas. Fol. 6V. In a different fourteenth-century hand, Prayer of St. Blaise (inc. ‘[S]anctus Blasius oravit dicens’). Fols. 7–12V. Scribe II. Calendar for use of Austin Friars, graded semiduplex, minus duplex and maius duplex, written in black and red. Additions and grading changes in several fifteenth-century hands made at Premonstratensian priory of West Dereham, Norfolk. Fol. 13. Ruled in 2 cols. for 32-line text, originally left blank. In two later hands: (1) list of privileges of West Dereham Priory; (2) copy of letter

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dated 1522 from Abbot of Welbeck, Notts. to Prior of West Dereham. Fols.13V–14V. 2 cols., 32 lines. Scribe II. Short Office of the Cross (‘Incipit officium crucifixi editum per dominum johannem papam XXII’). Fols. 15–155V. 1 col., 18 lines. Scribe II. Psalms i–cl (Gallican). Between fol. 49V and fol. 50 one leaf, formerly containing Psalm xxxvii, verse 16 to Psalm xxxviii, verse 6, is missing. Fols. 156–168. 1 col., 18 lines. Scribe II. Canticles: (1) Confitebor tibi; (2) Ego dixi; (3) Exultavit cor meum; (4) Cantemus domino; (5) Domine audivi; (6) Audite celi; (7) Te Deum; (8) Benedicite omnia; (9) Benedictus dominus; (10) Magnificat; (11) Nunc dimittis; (12) Quicumque vult (same sequence as the Stowe Breviary, London British Lib. MS Stowe 12, fols. 212–216V). Fols. 168V–172V. Scribe II. Litany, for use of Austin Friars (cf. Vatican Lib. MS Vat. lat. 11438, fols. 355V–357V). Fols. 173–178V. 1 col., 18 lines. Scribe II. Office of the Dead for use of Austin Friars (= Roman, cf. Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Laud Misc. 188, Hours of the Virgin, late fourteenth century, fol. 246V, ‘Ci comence le office de mors solon del ordre de freres augustines’ with identical responses). Fol. 178V. Explicit. ‘Orationes ut Supra.//Explicit psalterium (erased) ordinis sancti Augustini’. Pictorial Contents Fols.3–6V. Joys of the Virgin. Rectangular miniatures, one column wide and generally 16 lines high. Artist A. Fol. 3. Meeting of Anna and Joachim at the Golden Gate; Education of the Virgin. Fol. 3V. Suitors of the Virgin; Annunciation. Fol. 4. Visitation; Angel and Joseph. Fol. 4V. Nativity; Adoration of the Magi. Fol. 5. Presentation in the Temple; Christ among the doctors. Fol. 5V. Wedding at Cana; Resurrection. Fol. 6. Ascension of Christ; Assumption of the Virgin. Fol. 6V. Coronation of the Virgin. Fols. 7–12V. Calendar. Miniatures by Artist A in circular medallions at bottom of each page. Initial KL and decorative borders by Artist B. Fol. 7. January. Man in cloak seated stirring pot. Aquarius. Fol. 7V. February. Man digging. Pisces.

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Fol. 8. March. Man cultivating. Aries. Fol. 8V. April. Man pruning. Taurus. Fol. 9. May. Woman holding branches. Gemini. Fol. 9V. June. Man cultivating. Cancer. Fol. 10. July. Man cultivating. Leo. Fol. 10V. August. Man reaping. Virgo. Fol. 11. September. Man winnowing. Libra. Fol. 11V. October. Man treading grapes. Scorpio. Fol. 12. November. Man slaughtering hog. Sagittarius. Fol. 12V. December. Man feasting. Capricorn. Fols. 13V–14V. Office of the Cross. Square miniatures, one column wide and generally 10 lines high. Artist A. Fol. 13V. Betrayal; Scourging of Christ before Pilate. Fol. 14. Christ bearing Cross; Crucifixion between thieves; Crucifixion with Longinus. Fol. 14V. Descent from Cross; Entombment; Resurrection; Crucifixion with woman bearing Bardolf arms and Austin Friar at foot of Cross. Fols. 15–178V. Psalter, Canticles, Litany and Office of the Dead. Historiated initials and full borders at main divisions. Two-line foliate or geometric-filled initials for each psalm with foliate marginal extensions. Artist B. Fol. 15. Psalm 1. Initial B (8 lines): David playing harp (background gold scraped away). In border, heraldic coats-of-arms (right margin top to bottom): Holland; Wells; Buckminster; (bottom margin, left to right) Bardolf; Bussey. In bottom margin, three hybrid grotesques, partially effaced. Fol. 36. Psalm xxvi. Initial D (8 lines): David, frontal, kneeling, pointing to his eyes. Arms of Bardolf and Bussey added later in bottom margin. Fol. 62V. Psalm li. Foliate initial Q (6 lines) with extension into left side margin. Fol. 63. Psalm lii. Initial D (6 lines) : Standing, frontal fool, holding bauble and pointing. Arms of Bardolf and Bussey added later in bottom margin. Fol. 75V. Psalm lxviii. Initial S (6 lines): Jonah, emerging from mouth of whale by hoisting himself up on cross-bar of ‘S’. Arms of Bardolf and Bussey added later in bottom margin. Fol. 92V. Psalm lxxx. Initial E (6 lines) : King, seated, playing three bells

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hung on separate curving ‘branches’. Arms of Bardolf and Bussey added later in bottom margin. Fol. 108. Psalm xcvii. Initial C (6 lines): Three tonsured clerics singing at lectern. Arms of Bardolf and Bussey added later in bottom margin. Fol. 110. Psalm ci. Foliate initial D (6 lines) with partial border. Fol. 124V. Psalm cix. Initial D (6 lines): The Lord, seated, blessing and holding a disc subdivided as a T-map. Arms of Bardolf and Bussey added later in bottom margin. Fol. 138V. Psalm cxix. Foliate initial A (3 lines) with extension into left side margin. Fol. 151. Psalm cxliii. Foliate initial B (3 lines) with extension into left side margin. Fol. 156. Canticles. Foliate initial C (3 lines) with extension into left side margin.

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A Fragment of the Chertsey Breviary in San Francisco

I

N 1960 William B. Partmann of San Francisco, California gave a medieval psalter fragment of twenty-nine folios to the Gleeson Library of the University of San Francisco (MS. BX 2033 A2).1 The fragment was not included in the Supplement to the census of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada (1962), and escaped scholarly notice until recently, when it was photographed and described by Professor James Marrow of the University of California at Berkeley.2 Professor Marrow’s work has made it possible to identify the fragment as a portion of the Chertsey Breviary, of which other fragments have been assembled in the Bodleian Library (MSS. Lat.liturg. d. 42, e. 6, e. 37, e. 39).3 The fragment 1 Steven Corey, Rare Book Librarian of the Gleeson Library, reports that Mr. Partmann purchased the fragment from David Magee, a San Francisco book dealer, perhaps in the 1940s. Magee acquired much of his stock from the London dealers Francis Edwards and Maggs Bros. 2 Professor Marrow brought the fragment to my attention in September 1982 and subsequently wrote a description on whose factual details the present note depends directly. The photograph here is his work as well. I am deeply grateful for his generosity in sharing the information that made it possible to identify the fragment. I am also much indebted to Dr. A. C. de la Mare for checking readings and dimensions in the Bodleian fragments. 3 See O. Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 3, British School (Oxford, 1973), no. 543 (where e. 40 is now d. 42), and J. J. G. Alexander, ‘English early fourteenth-century illumination: Recent Acquisitions’, Bodleian Library Record, ix (1974), 72–80, for a detailed description. Of approximately 550 folios once bound in a single volume, over 330 complete leaves are in the possession of the Bodleian Library. In addition, the library has more than forty historiated initials and small miniatures cut out from various parts of the manuscript. Five are reproduced in Fig. 1a–e; see also Pächt and Alexander vol. cit. Pl. liv and Alexander op. cit. Pls. vii–viii. All the Bodleian historiated initials and miniatures are ‘published’ by the library in a 35 mm. colour filmstrip, Roll 256.2 (65 frames).

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consists of almost all the last fifty psalms, most of the canticles, and part of the litany. In nearly every instance, these elements can be fitted by textual joins into material already in the possession of the Bodleian. The San Francisco and Oxford leaves also match exactly in page rulings, number of text lines, text block dimensions, script, and the major decoration throughout is by the same artist.4 In addition, the oldest of the three sets of foliation in the San Francisco fragment corresponds with one of the sets of foliation in Bodleian MS. Lat. liturg. e. 6. The corresponding foliations, the contents, and the textual joins are summarized on page 689. The tabulation shows that the psalter had at least nine and probably ten historiated initials marking both the eight liturgical divisions5 and the numerical divisions at Psalms 51 and 101. With the recovery of the initial for Psalm 101, only those for Psalms 51 and 52 are still missing. Psalm 101 in the San Francisco fragment has a five-line historiated initial with a representation of the Anointing of David and a partial border (Fig. 2). The initial scene, showing two priests flanking a boyish David, is painted on a gold ground; the initial frame is of pale rose with shaded white decorative patterns, and is silhouetted against a gold-edged blue-diapered background panel. From the spiralling finials of the initial, each filled with stylized fivepointed foliage, tendrils extend into the margins, coiled occasionally into further spirals, transformed into profile serrated leaves, and tipped with heart-shaped and five-pointed leaves amidst which gold balls are interspersed. The ordinary two-line psalm initials are of gold on counterchanged rose and blue background panels; from fol. 1 to fol. 8V these 4 Overall dimensions: San Francisco, approx. 200 x 125 mm. (severely clipped in upper margin); Oxford, approx. 250 x 130 mm. Column dimensions: approx. 147 x 33 mm. (psalter) or 147 x 35 mm. (temporale and sanctorale). Rulings: red ink, two columns, with additional double vertical rulings in top (upper line cut off in San Francisco), side, and bottom margins. Script: Gothic book hand in brown ink (psalter) and black (temporale and sanctorale). 5 It should be noted that the historiated initials fell at the liturgical divisions according to English secular (Sarum), not Benedictine use. For the differing systems, cf. J. B. L. Tolhurst, The monastic breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Henry Bradshaw Society, lxxx, (1942), 11–13 and F. Proctor and C. Wordsworth, eds., Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiae Sarum (Cambridge, 1879 — repr. 1970), ii (Psalterium cum commune sanctorum). The fourteenth-century Hyde Abbey Breviary (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Gough Liturg. 8) also has illustrations at the standard ferial subdivisions — that is, those of secular rather than monastic use.

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panels have neat golden tips; from fol. 9 to fol. 29V they are larger in size than previously. The fields of the psalm initials are filled with white linear patterns, geometric, foliate, and occasionally animal in design, likewise bolder in scale from fol. 9 to fol. 29V than earlier, suggesting a change in the hand of the minor decorator at fol. 9. The line initials are alternately blue and gold flourished with red or blue pen work, but again a change in hand occurs on fol. 9, apparent in a greener tonality of the blue pen work. Elaborate line-fillers of varied red and blue abstract patterns occur throughout the fragment. All these aspects of decoration of the San Francisco fragment match the psalter fragments in the Bodleian exactly, from the line-fillers to the figure painting. However, the historiated initial is five text lines in height while those for the psalms at the other divisions are nine lines high, except for Psalm 1, which has a half-page Beatus initial, as well as a full border. The relatively small size of the historiated initial for Psalm 101 is no surprise; this psalm, marking a numerical division of the psalter, is not always treated on a par with those marking the liturgical divisions.6 Should the still lost page with Psalm 51 ever come to light, it too might contain a smaller than usual historiated initial. The subject of the historiated initial for Psalm 101, the Anointing of David, is peculiarly characteristic of the Queen Mary Psalter group, with which J. J. G. Alexander has already identified the Chertsey Breviary in an article in this journal.7 In English psalters and breviaries of the first half of the fourteenth century the Anointing of David is found more frequently as an illustration for Psalm 26, and a praying supplicant as the illustration for Psalm 101. The Chertsey Breviary, the Queen Mary Psalter, and the Psalter e.g. in the Psalter of Richard of Canterbury (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. G. 53), a book illustrated by the Queen Mary Master, the initial for Ps. 101 is four lines in height, those at the other liturgical divisions are five lines high, except for the Beatus (eight lines). In the Hyde Abbey Breviary, neither Ps. 51 nor 101 is illustrated. 7 ‘English early fourteenth-century illumination: Recent Acquisitions’, Bodleian Library Record, ix (1974), 72–80. In addition to Alexander’s fundamental listing of manuscripts of the Queen Mary group, see, more recently, B. Watson, ‘The East Anglian problem: fresh perspectives from an unpublished psalter’, Gesta, xiii. 2 (1974), 3–16 (Longleat, Marquis of Bath, MS. 11, psalter); N. R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, II: AbbotsfordKeele (Oxford, 1977), pp. 48–52 (Bangor cathedral, pontifical); and M. A. Michael, ‘The Harnhulle Psalter-Hours: an early fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript at Downside Abbey’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, cxxiv (1981), 81–99, Pl. xvi (Downside MS. 26533, partly illustrated in Queen Mary style). 6

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1. Psalm initials cut from the Chertsey Breviary: (a) MS. Lat. liturg. d. 42, fol. 21 (Ps. 26); (b) fol. 22 (Ps. 38); (c) fol. 23 (Ps. 68); (d) fol. 24 (Ps. 80); (e) fol. 25 (Ps. 97).

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2. San Francisco, University of San Francisco, Gleeson Library, MS. BX 2033 A2, psalter fragment from the Chertsey breviary, fol. 1 (44), with initial and border for Ps. 101.

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3. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. Glazier 53, Psalter of Richard of Canterbury, fol. 89, initial to Ps. 101.

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of Richard of Canterbury (Fig. 3),8 also painted by the Queen Mary Master, are apparently alone in depicting the Anointing of David for Psalm 101. Indeed, the subjects of all the surviving historiated psalter initials of the Chertsey Breviary and the Psalter of Richard of Canterbury are identical, the compositions nearly duplicates, and the general layout of the page very close in spite of the difference between the two-column format of the breviary and the single column of the psalter. Only on close examination of the details of style does it become certain that the Queen Mary Master himself — the artist of the Psalter of Richard of Canterbury — did not also execute the decoration of the Chertsey Breviary. A page-by-page comparison on the basis of Psalm 101 makes it clear that the drawing technique of the Chertsey artist was more nervous and scratchy, that his modulation of colours was less suave and the hues themselves brighter, and that his border design was simpler, less varied in range of motifs, and bolder in scale.9 Particularly characteristic of the border decoration of the Chertsey artist, on the Psalm 101 page and elsewhere in the breviary, are sprays of large, multicoloured five-pointed leaves, amidst which gold balls are interspersed (Fig. 2). This motif, otherwise little known in the Queen Mary group, recurs only in the Somme le roi in St. John’s College, Cambridge, a volume with some historiated initials perhaps painted by the Queen Mary Master,10 but with borders closely approximating those of the Chertsey Breviary.

8 Queen Mary Psalter (London, British Library Royal MS. 2. B. VII, fol. 214V), see G. Warner, Queen Mary’s Psalter (London, 1912), Pl. 229; Psalter of Richard of Canterbury (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. Glazier 53, fol. 89). 9 It may be noted that while the compositions of the two historiated initials are very close, the Psalter of Richard of Canterbury is extraordinary in showing David balanced on the initial frame, the lower half of his body seen from the rear, the upper half from the front. The point of view from which the figure is seen in the Chertsey Breviary is consistent. 10 Somme le roi (Cambridge, St. John’s College MS. S. 30 (256)), see N. J. Morgan in Medieval art in East Anglia (exhibition catalogue) (Norwich, 1973), no. 6, and Pl. on p. 11. For the identification of the historiated initials as the work of the Queen Mary Master, see Alexander, op. cit. 74 n. 3.

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—————————————————————————————————————————————

Manuscript

Present folio

Old folio11

Contents

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Lat. liturg. e. 6 Lat. liturg. d. 42 Lat. liturg. d. 42

4–8v 20 21

221–5 — —

Cal., Jan.–Oct. Ps. 1 Ps. 26

Lat. liturg. d. 42

22

—

Ps. 38

Lat. liturg. d. 42

23

—

Ps. 68

Lat. liturg. d. 42

24

—

Ps. 80

Lat. liturg. d. 42

25

—

Ps. 97

12

BX 2033 A2

1 (44)

—

Ps. 100: 6–102: 3

Lat. liturg. e. 6 BX 2033 A2 Lat. liturg. d. 42 BX 2033 A2

12 2 (45)–6V (49) 26 7 (50)–22V (65)

27_ 27_–8_ — 28_–9_

BX 2033 A2

23 (66)–28V (71)

29_ –3_

Lat. liturg. e. 6

9–11V

306–8

BX 2033 A2 Lat. liturg. e. 39

29 (72) 153–60V

— —

Ps. 102: 3–103: 13 Ps. 103: 13–108: 13 Ps. 109 Ps. 110: 7–150, canticles canticles to Magnificat (Luke 1: 53) Magnificat (Luke 1: 54–5) to litany litany to collects13 collects to Office of the Dead14

whole pages whole page init. only (Fig. 1a) init. only (Fig. 1b) init. only (Fig. 1c) init. only (Fig. 1d) init. only (Fig. 1e) whole page (Fig. 2) whole page whole pages init. only whole pages whole pages whole pages whole page whole pages

————————————————————————————————————————————— 11 ‘Old foliation’ refers to an eighteenth-century foliation written in ink on the upper right corner of the rectos, at one time running through the entire breviary in the order temporale, psalter, sanctorale (see Alexander, op. cit. 78). 12 The present foliation (1–29) is written in pencil on the lower inside comer of each recto: the numbers in brackets refer to a pencil foliation (44–72) in the upper right corner of each recto (in the present binding fol. 68 incorrectly follows fol. 70). From this it would appear that in relatively recent times the psalter was more complete than it is now, since the missing fols. 1–43 (i.e. forty-four folios) would have sufficed, for the writing of the first hundred lost psalms as fols. 44–65 (i.e. twenty-two folios) were enough for the last fifty. 13 MS. Lat. liturg. e. 6, fol. 11V, ends with the litany petition ‘Ut omnibus benefactoribus sempiterna bona retribuas’; BX 2033 A2, fol. 29 (72) begins with the litany petition ‘Ut animas nostras et parentum’. Cf. the Hyde Abbey Breviary, fol. 67, for the identical sequence (see Tolhurst, Monastic breviary, Henry Bradshaw Society, lxxi, 1932). BX 2033 A2, fol. 29V ends with the collect after the litany, ‘Deus qui contritorum non despicis gemitum’; MS. Lat.liturg. e. 39, fol. 153 begins with the collect, ‘Animabus quesumus’. The sequence differs from that in the Hyde Abbey Breviary, and the collect ‘Deus qui contritorum’ is uncommon, but there is no doubt that the two leaves joined without a gap. 14 A leaf, or leaves, of the Office of the Dead is lost between fols. 159 and 160.

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XXVI

Jean Pucelle and the Lost Miniatures of the Belleville Breviary In memory of Frances G. Godwin

S

INCE it was translated by Elizabeth Holt and included in the paperback Documentary History of Art, the ‘Exposition des ymages qui sunt ou kalendrier et ou sautier’ on the opening pages of the Belleville Breviary has undoubtedly become one of the most widely known medieval accounts of a work of art.1 Certainly it is one of the very few lengthy contemporary descriptions of manuscript illuminations.2 The manuscript containing this 1 E. G. Holt, ed., A Documentary History of Art, Garden City, N.Y., 1957, I, 129–34, a paperback edition of Literary Sources of Art History, Princeton, 1947. In addition to Holt’s translation, the original text was transcribed and published twice: (1) M. de Fréville, ‘Commentaire sur le symbolisme religieux des miniatures d’un manuscrit du XIVe siècle par le miniaturiste luimême,’ Nouvelles Archives de l’art français, 1874–75, 146–51; (2) reprinted in A Descriptive Catalogue of the Second Series of Fifty Manuscripts in the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson, Cambridge, 1902, 365–68. The translation provided in this article has been modernized in punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing. The transcription follows the original. 2 In the Hamburg volume of a Bible Historiale of Charles V (Paris, Bibl. de l’Ars. MS 5212 and Hamburg, Kunsthalle MS fr. 1), painted c. 1370–75 by the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy, a comparable descriptive exposition (fols. 2–2v) follows the iconographically complex frontispiece (fol. 1); see F. Avril, ‘Une Bible historiale de Charles V,’ Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, XIV–XV, 1970, 45–75, esp. 74 f. for a discussion and transcription. The Hamburg text describes pictorial subjects directly dependent on the Bible, but not easily identifiable since they were not usually represented together in a single miniature; thus they could be clarified by a written identification. The expository text of the Belleville Breviary describes allegorical images, independent of a specific text, and they are not only described but interpreted symbolically.

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unique exposition — the Belleville Breviary — an exceptionally beautiful and lavishly illustrated two-volume Dominican breviary, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, was made in Paris, probably between 1323 and 1326, and later owned successively by Charles V of France, Charles VI, Richard II of England, Henry IV of England, and Jean, Duke of Berry — among them some of the greatest bibliophiles of the Middle Ages.3 The manuscript also contains the name of the first famous fourteenth-century Northern illuminator — Jean Pucelle — recording his payment of twentythree sols and six deniers to another artist, one Mahiet, who, from the comparatively large size of the payment, must have played an important role in the production of the book.4 A good deal has been written about the Belleville Breviary, primarily about its place in the career of Jean Pucelle, but also about the novelty of the pictorial program of the calendar and psalter of the manuscript.5 Certainly the expository text has aided in the interpretation of these two parts of the breviary. Conversely, any obscurities of the medieval French text can be clarified by reference to the pictures. But only in passing has it been noted that the text describes at length some pictures that are not in fact found in the manuscript; they have been characterized casually as lost by most scholars, and there is some disagreement as to their original number, proposals ranging from one to two to three.6 This section of the text comes between the passages describing the illustrations of the calendar and the psalter. The images described are striking, among them, ‘a page on which the apostles assemble and build a church of the stones that they have taken Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 10483–84, most completely described by Leroquais, III, 198–210. 4 For Pucelle documentation, see Morand, 1961, and 1962; most recently, F. Baron, ‘Enlumineurs, peintres et sculpteurs parisiens des XIVe et XVe siècles, d’après les archives de l’hôpital Saint-Jacques-au-Pèlerins,’ Bulletin archéologique du comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, n.s. VI, 1970–71, 77–115. 5 The most recent bibliographical summary is found in Paris, Grand Palais, No. 240, pp. 293–96. E. Panofsky (Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, I, 32–34) and Morand (1962, 10 f.) discussed the calendar and psalter illustrations in some detail. 6 S. C. Cockerell (Descriptive Catalogue [as in n. 1], 181) proposed one miniature, in which the Apostles assembled to build a church with the stones of the synagogue; Avril in Paris, Grand Palais (p. 294) suggested two, an allegory of the Church and an allegory of the Cross; Morand (1962, 10) proposed that there had been several, one of which — the Apostles assembling to build a church — was ‘actually necessary to complete the Calendar programme’ and another ‘showing a symbolic representation of the Crucifixion . . . would help to prepare the way for the Psalter iconography.’ 3

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and transported from the synagogue,’ ‘the cross . . . in the garden of earthly delights . . . and outside the garden, Eve . . . who picked the fruit against the will of Our Lord . . . and the Virgin Mary [who] would take this fruit, Jesus Christ, by command of the Lord,’ and ‘the treasure of Holy Church, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, held on one side by the Virgin Mary . . . and on the other by St. Peter, the first treasurer.’7 Although the pictures described in the text appear to be irretrievably lost, so explicit and detailed is their description that an attempt to reconstruct their original appearance seems warranted. Quite a number of questions arise: What happened to the miniatures? When were they lost? How many images are described in the text? What did they show? What pictorial or textual sources did they tap and what reflections did they generate? The answers may be sought in the physical characteristics of the Belleville Breviary, in other works of art, and finally and fundamentally in the expository text itself. The result of this search, it is hoped, will reveal more than was known before about the manuscript, its artist, and its place in the development of fourteenth-century religious imagery, both pictorial and literary. The Belleville Breviary, to summarize briefly, is a two-volume book containing the text of the Divine Office as recited daily by a convent of Dominican friars.8 Volume I, a winter breviary, contains the expository text followed by a richly illustrated liturgical calendar, from which all the months except November and December (fols. 6–6v) have been cut out, the book of psalms subdivided by large historiated initials and bas-de-page miniatures into eight sections corresponding to the sections read throughout each week at matins and vespers (fols. 7–87), and the sanctoral and temporal for the months from Advent to Pentecost, that is, December to June, with an illustration for each major Feast day (fols. 88–444). Volume II, a summer breviary, also contains an illustrated calendar, differing in decoration, however, from that in Volume I, and this time with only the months of January and February remaining (fols. 2–2v), the psalter, subdivided and illustrated almost exactly as in the first volume (fols. 3–80),9 7 See the Appendix for a complete transcription and a revised translation, depending mainly on Holt’s but with occasional insertions of passages she overlooked and with a few alternate readings. 8 See Leroquais, III, 198–210, for a detailed description of the textual contents. 9 Some pages with historiated initials or miniatures are lost from the psalter portion of each volume: in MS lat. 10484 the pages containing initials for Psalms 1, 38, and 97 are missing, and in both volumes the page with the illustration for Psalm 109 is lost.

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1. December calendar page, Belleville Breviary. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 10483, fol. 6v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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2. December calendar page, Hours of Jeanne de Navarre. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS nouv. acq. lat. 3145, fol. 9v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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3. Psalm 109, Breviary of Charles V. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 1052, fol. 261 (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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4. Psalm 26, Belleville Breviary. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 10484, fol. 12v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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5. Psalm 26, Breviary of Charles V. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 1052, fol. 217 (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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6. Apostles Composing the Creed, Somme le roi. London, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 54180, fol. 10v (photo: British Library).

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7. Catulla Building a Church, Vie de Saint Denis. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS fr. 2092, fol. 75v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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8. Paris, Ste. Chapelle, exterior.

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9. Paradise, Speculum Virginum. London, Brit. Lib. MS Arun. 44, fol. 13 (photo: British Library).

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and the temporal and sanctoral for the months from Trinity to Advent, that is, June to December, again illustrated (fols. 81–431v). As Leroquais showed, the book was executed between 1323 and 1326.10 The name ‘Belleville Breviary’ and the association with the Belleville family are recorded in the 1380 inventory of the books of Charles V, when the manuscript was described as having clasps with the Belleville arms, and also in the manuscript itself in an inscription written by the secretary of Jean, Duke of Berry, early in the fifteenth century. But originally the volumes were intended for use by a member of the Dominican Order, not by lay members of a noble family.11 The name of Jean Pucelle appears in occasional marginal notes recording his payment of various sums to other illuminators.12 There is still considerable discussion as to the relation between the names mentioned and the various hands in the manuscript and in other Pucellian manuscripts.13 From the evidence of these notes, the most judicious conclusion is that Jean Pucelle is certainly cast in a directorial or entrepreneurial role and somewhat less certainly in that of active craftsman. Although written by the same scribe as all the rest of the breviary, the expository text is confined to a separate gathering at the beginning of Volume I, where it fills two and a half folios of a gathering of four folios numbered 2–5; the text ends in the second column of folio 4 recto; folios 4 verso and 5 recto are blank but ruled for text; folio 5 verso is blank and unruled. The surviving months of the calendar — November and December — fill both sides of folio 6, which is the sole remnant of a gathering of at least six folios, and the psalter proper begins on folio 7, a new gathering. From this point on, the gathering structure is entirely regular, and marked out with signatures and catchwords. It is quite certain from the phrasing of the text, which first describes the calendar illustrations, then the The Feast of Corpus Christi, adopted by the Dominicans in 1323, is included in the temporal. The feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas (March 7), which became official in 1326, is not in the sanctoral (the March calendar pages are lost). 11 For the Dominican characteristics, see Leroquais, III, 198–210. 12 Notes of payment most recently transcribed by Morand, 1961, 31, 33 f. 13 See, among others, R. Blum, ‘Jean Pucelle et la miniature parisienne du XIVe siècle,’ Scriptorium, III, 1949, 211–17; Morand, 1961, 206–11, and 1962, 31–36; C. Nordenfalk, ‘Maître Honoré and Maître Pucelle,’ Apollo, 1964, 356–64; and F. Avril, ‘Un enlumineur ornemantiste parisien de la première moitié du XIVe siècle: Jacobus Mathey (Jacquot Maci?),’ Bulletin monumental, CXXIX, 1971, 249–64; idem, Manuscript Painting at the Court of France, The Fourteenth Century, New York, 1978, 19 f., 61 f., and in Paris, Grand Palais, 294. 10

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missing miniatures, and then the psalter illustrations, that the author expected all the pictorial imagery to follow his exposition in the order described. Consequently, physical evidence of the original existence of the full-page miniatures might — if it survives — be found between the end of the calendar and the beginning of the psalter. Unfortunately, not a single sign or shred remains — neither offset shadows of once-existing images, nor stubs of cut-off leaves. So from the present state of the Belleville Breviary, it is really impossible to know for certain whether the images described as following the calendar were ever there in fact. The text itself is the sole ‘proof ’ that the pictures once existed. Of course, the scribe, and the author of the text, expected that the full-page miniatures would be inserted in the book, writing ‘et est tout paint ce que ie di ici,’ and even naming colors, ‘le precieus sanc ihesucrist en un vert camp,’ just as he writes, ‘comme vous poes veoir es figures,’ referring to the calendar illustrations, which do survive. To turn now to the text, the first section is an introduction, an expansion of the rubricated title: ‘The exposition of the figural images in the calendar and the psalter, which is, properly speaking, the concordance of the Old and the New Testament.’ In the first line the author quotes Gregory the Great (the scribe writing ‘Saint Gringoire’) as saying that he who sees and does not understand profits as little as he who hunts and catches nothing.14 Then the author tells the reader that if one sees anything that is obscurely shown one should seek and ask for the meaning and the explanation, and so he intends to clarify any obscure figures that follow up to the end of the psalter, so that everyone can understand and profit from them. A second section of this introduction takes up the theme of the concordance of the Old and the New Testament as the basic message of the pictures, the author explaining that the New Testament is entirely prefigured and revealed in the figures of the Old, and that this concordance is the meaning of the images that follow. Exactly what the author means by the phrase, ‘le nouvel testament est tout figure et baillie en figures en lancien’ becomes clear when the next section of his text is studied in conjunction with the surviving calendar pictures of Volume I of the breviary. First of all, he says, there are the Apostles who are the executors of the New Testament, who gather the obscurely revealed phrases of the Old Testament and uncover and clarify them, and 14 I have not succeeded in identifying the source of this quotation, which may have been drawn from a book of distinctions or excerpts, rather than a Gregorian text.

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make from them the articles of faith. Thus, he continues, for each of the twelve months there is one of the twelve Apostles and one of the twelve Prophets represented in such a manner that the Prophet gives to the Apostle a veiled prophecy and the Apostle uncovers it and makes of it an article of faith. In the month of December, for example (Fig. 1), the Apostle Mathias unveils the prophecy of Zachariah, ‘I will raise up my sons’ (Zach. 9:13), and makes the article of faith, ‘Resurrection in the flesh, eternal life.’ The juxtaposition of representations of the twelve Prophets with appropriate prophecies and the twelve Apostles with the articles of faith — the Apostles’ Creed in summary form — was fairly common in the early fourteenth century.15 But in the Belleville Breviary, the correlation is elaborated by the further explanation that the Synagogue of the Old Testament and the Church of the new can be spoken of in a material as well as a spiritual sense, and that in a material sense the crumbling synagogue is shown in each successive picture as each Prophet gives a stone to the Apostle along with his prophecy, and the synagogue falls as the articles of faith mount up. Then the author elaborates on the meaning of the articles of faith. They are, he says, the road and the entrance gates of Paradise, and therefore he puts each of the twelve gates of the heavenly Jerusalem (as described in the Apocalypse) above the Apostles, and over each gate the Virgin, who is the door to Paradise, with a pennant with an image of the article of faith composed by the Apostle below. And finally Saint Paul is shown: first, his conversion (January) and then his preaching of the articles of faith to the eleven peoples to whom he wrote his epistles. The written description corresponds perfectly to the images on the surviving November and December pages of the calendar. In December, for example, over the head of Saint Paul as he preaches to the Hebrews, the Virgin — at the top of the page — holds a banner showing the resurrection in the flesh of a dead person. The identification of the audience as the Hebrews makes sense, as Hebrews is the last Pauline epistle, and confirmation is given by a replica of this page in which the audience is identified by inscription — Hebrei — in the Hours of Jeanne II of Navarre, a Parisian

15 See, for example, the Queen Mary Psalter (London, Brit. Lib. MS 2 B VII), fols. 67–67v (G. Warner, Queen Mary’s Psalter, London, 1912, 23 f., Pls. 121 f.); the Prophets, their prophecies, and the order of Apostles differ from the series in the Belleville Breviary, which is not prescribed specifically in the expository text.

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manuscript of the 1330s (Fig. 2).16 Indeed, the Hours of Jeanne of Navarre duplicates the entire calendar of the Belleville Breviary, thus providing a reliable record of the appearance of the now-lost pages of the breviary for the months of January through October. From a comparison between the months of November and December in both manuscripts, the duplication appears to be nearly complete, even down to small details of the stones of the collapsing synagogue, although the pages of the hours are smaller and the foliate border decoration is simpler and less varied. The Hours of Jeanne of Navarre is the earliest of six surviving manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that contain calendars whose illustrations are patterned after those of the Belleville Breviary.17 Five of the six are not breviaries but books of hours, and this is an important difference, because although both breviaries and books of hours include calendars, the hours do not include the text of the psalms, which is the main feature of the breviary. Thus, the whole of the program described by the author of the exposition of the Belleville Breviary pictures would be inapplicable to a book of hours, since its third section — which is logically tied with the rest — describes illustrations specifically intended for a psalter. It is no surprise, then, to find that the expository text of the Belleville Breviary was not copied in these books of hours, only the calendar pictures.18 One of the six manuscripts containing a related calendar cycle is, howHours of Jeanne II of Navarre (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS nouv. acq. lat 3145), calendar, fols. 4–9v, see H. Y. Thompson, Thirty-two Miniatures from the Book of Hours of Joan II. Queen of Navarre, London, 1899, II, Pls. I–XII; Saint Paul’s audiences occur in the Vulgate order of the Epistles. 17 (1) Hours of Jeanne of Navarre, Paris, c. 1336–40 (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS nouv. acq. lat. 3145), fols. 4–9v; (2) Hours of Yolande of Flanders, Paris, 1353–58 (London, Brit. Lib. MS Yates Thompson 27), fols. 1–12v; (3) Petites Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry, Paris, c. 1380 (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat; 18014), fols. 1–6v; (4) Grandes Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry, Paris, 1409 (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 919), fols. 1–6v; (5) Breviary of Martin II, King of Aragon, Catalonia, 1403 (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS Rothschild 2529), fols. 2v–14; (6) Hours of Paris Use, 1422–25 (Vienna, Nationalbibl. MS 1855), fols. 1–12v. 18 From comparison of the surviving pages of the Belleville Breviary calendar with the copies, it may be concluded that the pictorial schemes of the Hours of Jeanne of Navarre and the Hours of Yolande of Flanders differ from the earlier book only in some small details; but in the Petites Heures and the Grandes Heures the order of Prophets, and consequently their prophecies, is altered; in the Breviary of Martin of Aragon the mise-en-page differs, the Prophets and Apostles having been moved to the top of each page; and in the Hours in Vienna the mise-en-page is very dissimilar, the Prophets differ, and the crumbling synagogue is not represented in material form. 16

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ever, a breviary, known as the Breviary of Martin II of Aragon, written in a Cistercian abbey near Barcelona in 1398 and illustrated by an Italianate artist in 1403.19 Such a breviary might be expected to include a copy of the Belleville expository text, and a reflection of the exposition in the pictures of the psalter as well as the calendar, but lavishly illustrated as the book is, the chief decorated pages of the psalter are not of the same psalms as in the Belleville Breviary. The Breviary of Martin of Aragon is a Cistercian book; the psalms recited each day, and thus the decorated subdivisions of the text, follow the monastic use of the Cistercian Order, while the Belleville Breviary follows Dominican Use, which is identical in its subdivisions to the vast majority of secular uses based on that of Rome.20 The two differ not only in the psalms marking the divisions of the psalter, but in the number of such divisions as well— nine in the Cistercian breviary, eight in the Belleville.21 Consequently, the pictorial program described in the Belleville Breviary simply could not have been carried out in entirety in the Breviary of Martin of Aragon. One surviving breviary, however, follows the program of illustration of the psalter in the Pucelle manuscript. This book, which was catalogued in the library of Charles V at his death in 1380, is known as the Breviary of Charles V. Probably executed between 1364 and 1370, the text is a secular breviary for the regular clergy of the diocese of Paris.22 Although its calendar decoration is unrelated to that of the Belleville Breviary, its psalter has illustrations that duplicate the complex iconography of the psalter in the Belleville Breviary, so faithfully, in fact, that the appearance of the illustration for Psalm 109 — missing from both volumes of the Belleville manu19 J. Porcher, ‘Bréviaire de Martin le Vieux, roi d’Aragon (1395–1410),’ L’Illustration, CCLXVIII, 1950, and Le Bréviaire de Martin d’Aragon, Paris, Éditions Nomis, n.d. 20 On Roman and Dominican Use, see W. R. Bonniwell, A History of the Dominican Liturgy 1215–1945, New York, 1945. 21 The subdivisions in the Breviary of Martin of Aragon fall at Psalms 1 (actually read at Prime on Feria II, or Monday) and 20, 32, 45, 59, 73, 85, 101 (these for the matins readings throughout the week, beginning with Sunday), and 109 (this marking the beginning of the section read at vespers, starting with Sunday), while the Dominican Belleville Breviary, following standard Roman use, has subdivisions at Psalms 1, 26, 38, 52, 68, 80, and 97 (matins readings, beginning with Sunday) and 109 (beginning of vespers reading starting with Sunday). On the monastic divisions of the psalter, see J. B. L. Tolhurst, The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester (Henry Bradshaw Society, LXXX), VI, London, 1942, 11–13. 22 Breviary of Charles V (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 1052); see Leroquais, III, 49–56; for the date, see Avril in Paris, Grand Palais, No. 287, pp. 333 f.

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script — can be reconstructed with confidence on the basis of the comparable page of the Breviary of Charles V (Fig. 3). In describing the illustrations of the psalter, the expository text of the Belleville Breviary remains mute on the subjects of the historiated initials and miniatures,23 even though most depart from standard iconography. What the author says is that under the seven large letters of the matins of the psalter (the historiated initials at the liturgical divisions of the text) are the seven Sacraments, which through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit lead to the seven Virtues; and he warns the reader not to take the path on the left where the seven Vices are. The path of the Virtues, he says, is the road down which man and woman should be led in this world, and this is why the Virtues are put at matins, for they are life, while at vespers (Psalm 109) is the end of the world on the Day of Judgment (which is represented in the bas-de-page of the one surviving page illustrating Psalm 109, in the Breviary of Charles V). The author does not specify which Sacraments, which gifts of the Holy Spirit, or which Virtues correspond to each other or to the matins reading for which particular day of the week, so the guidance to the reader is of a general rather than specific sort.24 In the illustrations, the Sacrament is shown in each instance in, or near, the center of the lower margin; immediately to the right is a dove representing the Holy Spirit and a scroll, unfortunately usually blank but intended to identify the particular gift of the Holy Spirit; on the far right is a personification of one of the 23 Subjects listed in Leroquais, III, 198–210. Since the mode of illustration appears to have been literal or historical for the most part, the subjects of the psalm initials and miniatures did not fit into the grand scheme of concordance between the Old and New Testaments carried out in the calendar and the bas-de-pages of the psalter. Nevertheless, the cycle is as unique as the schemes described in the expository text, and deserves fuller study. 24 On a proposed textual source for the scheme of correspondence between the Sacraments, the Virtues and the Vices, see F. G. Godwin, ‘An Illustration to the De Sacramentis of St. Thomas Aquinas,’ Speculum, XXVI, 1951, 609–14. In the passage discussed by Godwin (Summa theol. 3a65, Blackfriars ed., Vol. LVI, New York and London, 1974), Aquinas reports that this scheme of correspondences represents the view of others (not necessarily his, or his alone) on the number of the Sacraments: ‘Some, however, regard the number of the sacraments as appropriate because it corresponds in a certain sense to the virtues, and also the penal consequences they entail.’ Elsewhere (Summa theol. 1a2ae68, Blackfriars ed., Vol. XXIV), Aquinas linked the gifts of the Holy Spirit with their corresponding Virtues, but in several different sequences, none of which is identical to that in the Belleville Breviary. In general, he avoided simple schemes of numerical correspondence, preferring to analyze relations between the components of various numerical sets in a less mechanical way.

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seven Virtues, sometimes shown in a narrative context; and on the far left, a vignette exemplifying a corresponding Vice with a narrative subject, in some cases clearly biblical. Some of the matins pages of the second volume of the Belleville Breviary provide inscriptions identifying the corresponding elements, for example, the set for Psalm 26 (Fig. 4). In the center of the lower margin, a cutaway view of a room reveals a bedridden figure sitting up to receive the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. The legend below, ‘I will show you the way of wisdom,’ identifies the corresponding gift of the Holy Spirit as Wisdom, and another inscription, on the right, identifies the crowned female above as Hope — ‘Hope in the Lord.’ On the left, the suicide of Judas — without an inscription — exemplifies either Anger or Despair.25 Throughout this cycle, the illustrations of the psalter in the Breviary of Charles V are, as observed previously, identical to those of both volumes of the Belleville Breviary, except that the scrolls of the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not inscribed (Fig. 5). Unfortunately, however, the calendar of the Breviary of Charles V does not resemble that of the Belleville Breviary, or at least not that of Volume I, which corresponds to the expository text. Instead, the Charles V calendar is generally similar in its cycle of vignettes of Labors of the Months and Signs of the Zodiac to that of Volume II of the Belleville Breviary; this, however, is standard calendar iconography, found in hundreds of illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages. Moreover, the psalter of the Breviary of Charles V is in the middle of the book, after the temporal, while the calendar is at the beginning, before the temporal. Under these circumstances, the promise of the Belleville exposi25 For a thorough discussion of the various sets of sevens in the Belleville Breviary and elsewhere, see R. Tuve, ‘Notes on the Vices and Virtues, II,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXV, 1964, 42–72, esp. 65–72. Tuve (p. 69, n. 108, p. 70, n. 109; and p. 71, n. 110) commented on the difficulties of identifying the gifts of the Holy Spirit specifically, although Leroquais had done so for those shown in the Breviary of Charles V (III, 54); in fact, the inscribed scrolls that would make such identifications possible occur only in the four surviving psalter initial pages of the second volume of the Belleville Breviary (MS lat. 10484, Pss. 26, 52, 68 and 80) and not in the first Belleville volume or in the Breviary of Charles V. Similarly, Tuve noted that the Vices or sins in the Belleville Breviary that are pictured by narrative exempla are sometimes ambiguous; the Suicide of Judas, for instance, could illustrate either Despair or Anger, the shearing of Samson’s hair by Delilah (juxtaposed with the Sacrament of Confirmation, and the gift and the Virtue of Fortitude as an illustration for Ps. 68) could refer to Cowardice or Lust, or, following the correspondences reported by Aquinas (Summa theol. 3a65, as in n. 24), to Weakness.

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tion that ‘ci apres [that is, from now on] iuques a la fin du sautier a aucunes figures oscurement bailliees je les vueil desclerier,’ could not have been fulfilled by the interrupted sequence in the Breviary of Charles V. And it comes as no surprise that there is no sign that a copy of the expository text of the Belleville Breviary was ever included in the Breviary of Charles V. In the end, it seems that not one of the manuscripts directly connected with the Belleville Breviary, either through calendar or psalter illustrations, shows any evidence of the inclusion of the Belleville text or the full-page miniatures described therein. What then can be determined from the text itself of the appearance of the lost pictures? Immediately following the description of the pictorial program of the calendar, the author writes, ‘Then after all this is seen [that is, after the calendar cycle] comes a page on which the apostles assemble and build a church from the stones that they have taken and transported from the synagogue, and this church is made in the form that St. Paul described in one of his epistles which says thus: You are no longer strangers and foreigners but are of the city of paradise and the fellowship of God; built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, that is, on the foundation of Holy Church and Jesus Christ.’ The biblical citation from Ephesians is simplified and paraphrased, but the point is clear enough.26 The author understands Saint Paul to speak of the foundation of the Church — the community of the faithful — on the Apostles and the Prophets. The text then goes on to describe the material equivalent to the spiritual Church, saying, ‘So, there is a stone cross above the bell-tower, and so the weather vane is the Angel Gabriel who announced to the Virgin Mary that she was the beginning of all this good. And at the right arm of the cross on the belltower is St. Paul who holds the inscribed scroll that I have put into French and explains this church.’27 How from all this can the image that corresponds to the description be 26 Cf. Eph. 2:19–22: ‘Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners; but you are fellow citizens with the saints and the domestics of God, Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, In whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord. In whom you also are built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit.’ Biblical quotations in English are from the Douay version. 27 ‘Saint pol qui tient lautorite que ie ai mise en francois,’ translated by Holt as ‘holds the authority,’ but perhaps, considering the reference to translation into French, more reasonably understood materially, as actually holding an inscribed scroll, une autorité meaning a valid, authorized document.

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visualized? The necessary elements would seem to be the twelve Apostles, shown as builders of the church; the church would have a single bell-tower surmounted by a cross and a weather vane in the form of the Angel Gabriel. To the right side of the tower would be a figure of Saint Paul — as the text noted previously, not yet one of the Apostles — with a scroll with the text of his epistle to the Ephesians. No known pictorial image indudes all these elements. At the end of the thirteenth century, in the Somme le roi, usually attributed to the Parisian miniaturist called Master Honoré,28 the Apostles are shown gathered together in a static circle to build the spiritual Church by composing the Creed (Fig. 6). But if the lost miniature from the Belleville Breviary was similar compositionally in any way to the preceding calendar scenes in which the Apostles appeared, then a degree of informality of compositional organization would seem plausible for this miniature of the building of the material church. Would this mean that the Apostles were shown, like medieval laborers, in the act of constructing a church building? Such a translation of the figurative act of building the spiritual Church into the literal act of piling stone on stone is difficult to imagine. In the Middle Ages, architects, for instance, are represented with planning instruments such as compasses,29 and ecclesiastical figures, such as bishops, who are often spoken of as builders of churches, are represented as holding models of buildings,30 certainly not actually engaging in construction activity. Secular figures to whom church construction was attributed are also shown in a supervisory capacity (Fig. 7).31 Consequently it is difficult to suppose that the Apostles in the Belleville miniature were shown doing anything more than holding token stones in their hands, perhaps as a group below, to the side, or in front of a complete church building. And indeed, the building would seem to have been complete, since it is described as having a cross atop its bell-tower and a statue of Gabriel as its weather vane. What would this building have looked like? When the idea of the 28 Somme le roi (London, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 54180), fol. 10v; see E. G. Millar, An Illuminated Manuscript of La Somme le Roy, Oxford, 1953; for Honoré, see E. Kosmer, ‘Master Honoré, A Reconsideration of the Documents,’ Gesta, XIV, 1975, 63–68. 29 See J. Harvey, The Medieval Architect, London, 1972. 30 The topos for the representation of the ecclesiastical builder with church model must be the sixth-century apse mosaic of S. Vitale, Ravenna, showing Bishop Ecclesius with a miniature S. Vitale. 31 E.g., the Vie de St. Denis, Paris, c. 1317 (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS fr. 2092), fol. 75v, showing the matron Catulla having a church built over the tomb of Saints Denis, Rustique, and Eleuthère.

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Church as the community of the faithful was invoked pictorially in the Middle Ages, it was most frequently personified as the Virgin Mary, or as a queenly female figure, and more rarely represented as a schematic architectural structure, in spite of the metaphor of Saint Paul.32 But it seems from the description given in the expository text, and from the way in which the synagogue building was represented in the calendar of the breviary, that the building shown in the lost miniature may have been seen from the outside alone, and not necessarily in a flat, schematic view, but rather one in which the church was represented in perspective, or at least in profile. This church should not be imagined as a Gothic cathedral either, because the architectural features described in the text are more characteristic of smaller buildings, the sort represented as the setting for some of the Sacraments in the psalter of the Belleville Breviary. In fact, the closest analogy in buildings actually constructed in France during the Gothic period is the Ste.-Chapelle (Fig. 8), which has a cross atop the bell-tower and an angel as the weather vane. In a miniature, even a full-page miniature in the Belleville Breviary, these elements would have been small in size but could nevertheless have been important in meaning, as witness the minuscule scale of some of the most significant components of the Belleville calendar and psalter miniatures. One’s mental image of the miniature of the Apostles constructing the church must remain imprecise because, while the description is clear enough, the activities depicted seem to have no direct pictorial parallels — either antecedents or followers. The second miniature described in the expository text emerges, however, with considerably greater clarity because it included more familiar elements. The author begins with a spiritual exposition, which is then followed by a description of the image itself. He says that ‘since the Scriptures can be explained in several ways I am explaining the Crucifixion differently by putting it in the terrestrial paradise, and it [the Crucifixion or crucified Christ] stands for the river in the paradise of delight which issued forth and divided itself in four parts to water paradise.’ He continues, ‘It is Jesus Christ who issued forth from paradise and A comparable literal representation of the Church can be found in a Franciscan missal in the Bodleian Library, related in style to the work of Jean Pucelle (MS Douce 313, fol. 263); the illustration for the Mass on the Feast of Cathedra Sancti Petri, which included the reading (Matt. 16:18), ‘Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church,’ shows the Apostles led by Peter, who bends to receive the key from Christ’s right hand while with his left hand Christ balances a church model on Peter’s shoulders. 32

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extended Himself on the cross in four directions to water paradise, for it was so dry there that no fruit could grow, no soul could be planted unless He watered it with His precious blood which spread out through the garden in seven streams. And at the ends of these streams are the seven sacraments of Holy Church, by which she is entirely watered, and which issued forth from and took their strength from the side of Jesus Christ.’ The last line, referring to the seven streams of blood from the wound of Christ ending in the seven Sacraments, previews the explanation of the psalter illustrations at the end of the expository text. Next the author turns to the exposition of the miniature that embodies materially the idea of the Crucifixion in the terrestrial paradise: ‘Again I explain this Crucifixion in another way, and what I say here is entirely painted for those who look at it well. By the cross in the garden of delight I mean the fruit of life, and by Jesus Christ the fruit.’ This is indeed another interpretation because in the first part of this passage the cross — or crucified Christ — was equated with the four rivers of Paradise and identified as the source of the seven streams of the Sacraments. Then, the author continues, writing more specifically about the image: ‘And below, outside the garden, is Eve, the first woman, who picked the fruit against the will and command of Our Lord. And facing her is the evil angel who told her that she might take it. And beneath the cross is the good angel who told the second woman, that is, the Virgin Mary, that she would take this fruit, Jesus Christ, by command of the Lord. And it is she who hears the news quietly and holds out her hand toward the fruit and says on a scroll: behold the fruit of life that I give.’ The idea of equating Christ with the rivers of Paradise, which was popularized by Saint Ambrose,33 was given visual form in a well-known diagram illustrating the twelfth-century Speculum Virginum (Fig. 9), a text that continued to be copied and illustrated into the thirteenth century, and was also translated into the vernacular:34 ‘Just as the source of four rivers welled up in the middle of paradise, so did Christ, the fount of all wisdom, pour forth the Evangelists and the Doctors of the Church that they might irrigate the Ambrose, De paradiso. I. 3 (Pat. Lat., XIV, 279–83): ‘Erat fons qui irrigavet paradisum. Qui fons, nisi Dominus Jesus-Christus!’ See A. Katzenellenbogen, Allegories of the Virtues and Vices in Mediaeval Art, London, 1939, 69. 34 On the Speculum Virginum, see M. Strube, Die illustrationen des Speculum Virginum, Bonn, 1937, and M. Bernards, Speculum virginum, Cologne/Graz, 1955, for a list of manuscripts. 33

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world with their teaching and cause the hearts of the faithful to blossom and bear fruit.’35 The image that corresponds to this text correlates the rivers, the Evangelists, the doctors of the Church, the cardinal Virtues and the eight beatitudes in a symmetrical circular scheme in whose center a personification of Paradise holds a bust of Christ.36 The relation with the Belleville text is apparent, yet so are the differences, for the focus in the Pucelle work is on Christ as the sacrifice, nourishing the faithful through the streams of the Sacraments that flow from the wound in his side. The Belleville text demands a tree of the cross planted in a garden, and a dead Christ, while the Speculum Virginum image could be circular, not earthbound, and centered around the Deity, shown as the Almighty, not the Agnus Dei. The second part of the passage relating to this miniature compares Christ on the cross to a fruit, the fruit of life, given to humanity by the Virgin, and contrasted with the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the garden of Paradise eaten by Eve. The description clearly places the figures of Eve, the ‘evil angel,’ the Virgin and Gabriel in proximity to the crucified Christ in the Garden of Paradise. Some of these components are reminiscent of the common Gothic image of the Tree of Life, described as a mental image by Saint Bonaventura, the author of a treatise of the same name, but given visual form by a follower of Bonaventura toward the end of the thirteenth century (Fig. 10).37 The typical representation of the Tree of Life shows the crucified Christ on a tree with branches, leaves, and fruit, and sometimes the tree is set in the Garden of Paradise.38 Such trees bear twelve fruits, each Quoted from Katzenellenbogen (as in n. 33), 69. Similar schemes appear in all the copies of the Speculum Virginum, see Bernards (as in n. 34), 7 ff. 37 Bonaventura, Lignum vitae (Opera omnia, Quaracchi, 1887, VIII), 68–80, and E. Cousins, ed. and trans., The Soul’s Journey into God; The Tree of Life; The Life of St. Francis, New York, 1978, 119–75. The transformation of mental into visual image was probably made by Johannes Metensis, a Franciscan compiler of a group of theological diagrams, who was active in Paris during the last quarter of the thirteenth century. For a discussion of this image of the Tree of Life, see R. Ligtenberg, ‘Het lignum vitae van den H. Bonaventura in de Ikonografie der veertiende Eeuw,’ Het Gildeboek, XI, 1928, 15–40, and L. F. Sandler, The Psalter of Robert de Lisle in the British Library, London, 1983, 24, 60, 130. 38 In the image of the Tree of Life, the Bonaventuran conception was augmented by quoting from the Old Testament Prophets Moses, Solomon, and Ezekiel, ‘the tree of life in the midst of paradise’ (Gen. 2:9), ‘I will go up into the palm tree and will take hold of the fruit thereof ’ (Cant. 7:8), and ‘and the fruits thereof shall be for food, and the leaves thereof for medicine’ (Ezek. 47:12), as well as those of the Evangelist John, ‘[I saw] the tree of life 35 36

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standing for a phase of the infancy, public life, Passion, or glorification of Jesus Christ, and each event is commented upon by one of the twelve Prophets of the Old Testament. Nothing in the Belleville text suggests that the fruits of the Tree of the Cross were identifiable or that Prophets were included in the image, so that although Jean Pucelle could certainly have been familiar with the Tree of Life,39 what he depicted in the lost miniature was not the standard representation of the theme. If some elements were left out, others were added. It seems clear that the image included elements not usually found in depictions of the Tree of Life — the temptation of Eve by the evil angel, and the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, the New Eve. The fruit plucked by Eve in the garden of Paradise was contrasted with the fruit in the womb of Mary. A parallel, although not a precedent, for the Belleville Breviary miniature is provided by the early fourteenth-century Franco-Flemish devotional miscellany known as the Rothschild Canticles.40 As an illustration correlated with a number of lines from the Song of Songs and Ecclesiasticus,41 this manuscript has a miniature showing the crucified Christ on a tree-cross bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruits every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations’ (John 22:2). In most representations of the tree, these lines are inscribed on the image, but pictorial representations of the Garden of Paradise as the setting of the Bonaventuran tree were less common; see Brussels, Bibl. Roy. MS 19610, fol. 3v, late thirteenth century, and Darmstadt, Hess. Landes- u. Hochschulbibl. MS 2777, fol. 43, c. 1300, both from Liège and both showing a single stream flowing from the base of the Tree of Life, the latter bearing the inscription ‘fons salientis aque in vitam eternam.’ See also Florence, Museo Nazionale, Tree of Life, an early fourteenth-century panel from Sta. Croce by an unknown Giottesque artist, with a pictorial cycle of the Creation of Man, the Temptation, the Fall and the Expulsion in seven vignettes at the bottom of the painting. 39 For example, see the Tree of Life prefaced to a Parisian Bible of c. 1310–1320, painted by an Honoré follower (Berlin, Kupferstichkab. MS 78 E 2, fol. 1v); see P. Wescher, Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der Miniaturen der Kupferstichkabinetts der Staatlichen Museen Berlin, Leipzig, 1931, 32–34. 40 Rothschild Canticles, New Haven, Yale Univ., Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Lib. MS 404, fol. 15; see M. R. James, Description of an Illuminated Manuscript of the XIIIth Century in the Possession of Bernard Quaritch, privately printed, n.d., and W. Cahn and J. Marrow, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Yale: A Selection (Yale University Library Gazette, LII, 1978), No. 29, pp. 203 f. 41 ‘Draw me; we will run after thee to the odor of thy ointments’ (Cant. 1:3, in the miniature, Christ, depicted flying down from above as well as hanging from the Cross, ‘draws’ the Wise Virgins upward); ‘I said: I will go up into the palm tree and will take hold of the fruit thereof ’ (Cant. 7:8); ‘Come over to me, all ye that desire me; and be filled with my fruits’ (Eccles. 24:26).

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flanked on the right by the Foolish Virgins of the parable (Matt. 25:1–13), their oil lamps reversed, as they are swallowed in the mouth of Hell, while on the left, the Virgin Mary, her arm caressing the trunk of the tree-cross, holds the infant Christ on her lap, as the Wise Virgins adore the infant and climb up to be received in Heaven (Fig. 11). This image is comparable to that in the Belleville Breviary in representing an imaginative reworking of the Tree of Life scheme, even though the elements incorporated are not identical to those in the Pucelle manuscript. The expository text of the Belleville Breviary echoes the common medieval conception of the Virgin as the New Eve.42 A juxtaposition comparable to that of the Annunciation and the temptation and fall of Eve described in the text occurs, for example, in the Moralized Bible, as a pictorial exegesis of the confrontation between the Lord and Satan in Job, chapter 2; on the left of the medallion Eve takes the fruit from the serpent in the tree, and on the right the Virgin, facing Gabriel, receives the incarnate Christ from the hand of the Lord (Fig. 12). The accompanying text explains that God allowed the Devil to tempt man to sin so that his Son might come into the world to liberate man from death through his Passion.43 The Moralized Bible medallion contrasts two pairs of figures, Eve and the serpent, with Gabriel and the Virgin. A similar juxtaposition, but with a central tree in a garden setting, occurred in a variety of formats and media by the early fifteenth century, for example, in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves as an illustration for matins of the Saturday office of the Virgin.44 But in these images the tree remains, visually at least, the Tree of Knowledge, not the Tree of Life. A dual tree, that is, a tree that is at once shown as the Tree of Knowledge in the terrestrial paradise and as the living Tree of the Cross, also occurred in the fifteenth century, quite rarely it would seem, as for example in an illustration in a mid-century English book of hours showing Adam and Eve See E. Guldan, Eva und Maria, Eine Antithese als Bildmotiv, Graz-Cologne, 1966, esp. 136–43. 43 Moralized Bible, Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Bodley 270b, fol. 208, Paris, c. 1240: ‘Hoc significat quod deus permissit diabolo hominem incitari ad peccandum ut hac de causa filium suum mitteret in mundum ut sua passione hominem a morte liberaret.’ See Guldan, Fig. 30. 44 Hours of Catherine of Cleves, New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 917, p. 139, Utrecht, c. 1435 (see Guldan [as in n. 42], 141, 221, Fig. 157). For other examples, see Guldan, frontispiece and Figs. 156, 158, 159. 42

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in an enclosed garden, a fruit-bearing tree in the center, the serpent wound round its lower trunk, and Christ crucified on its upper branches (Fig. 13).45 In this miniature, as almost without exception in Gothic representations of the Temptation and Fall of Man, the biblical serpent is the form taken by the Devil. The expository text of the Belleville Breviary, however, describes Eve’s tempter as an evil angel, as a consequence completing the equation Maria-Eva, Gabriel-Satan in a symmetrical way, and there is no reason to believe that the miniature departed from the text.46 Of all known examples of the Tree of Life, the closest counterpart to the image in the lost miniature of the Belleville Breviary seems to be represented by an early fifteenth-century Italian fresco in S. Petronio, Bologna (Fig. 14).47 This painting of 1421, by Giovanni da Modena, shows the crucified Christ on a tree set in a garden. Below, on the viewer’s right, is the Fall of Man, with Eve tempted by a female-headed serpent wound round the tree — the Tree of the Cross conflated with the Tree of Knowledge. To the left is the Virgin, although not the Virgin of the Annunciation but the mourning mother of Christ, and in addition Mary-Ecclesia, holding a chalice in her hands. In this fresco Mary is not only the New Eve, and the Mother of God, but the Church, whose chief Sacrament is symbolized by the chalice she holds, and whose administrators are shown beside her, in the form of Saint Peter, the other Apostles, and the saints. The figures with Eve and Adam on the right are the Prophets of the Old Law, among whom Moses, for instance, is clearly identifiable. Both Eve and the Virgin hold scrolls, on the one, ‘Through vain eating the human race was brought down/ Since I closed the gates of heaven to you, I will die,’ and on the other, ‘Now I open 45 London, Brit. Lib. MS Harley 3000, fol. 92v, England or Netherlands, c. 1450, illustrating a prayer to the image of Christ, ‘Omnibus consideratis/ paradysus voluptatis/ os ihesu piisime/ In te fons paternitatis/ omnius fructur suavitatis/ plantavit plenissime/ Passionis tue fructus/ et cuoris tui fluctus/ deflucus largissime/ Finem fecit nostri luctus/ per hunc inferius destructus/ genit amarissime.’ 46 Among the rare Gothic occurrences of the evil angel as the tempter is the Moralized Bible in London, c. 1240 (Brit. Lib. MS Harley 1527, fol. 18v). where the temptation of Adam and Eve is represented three times, each time as an exegesis of one of the temptations of Christ. In these medallions the Devil is shown once in serpentine form and twice in humanoid form, the latter to correspond to the form taken by Satan in his appearance before Christ. 47 See Guldan (as in n. 42), 136–38, 219 ff., Hg. 152. Guldan thought that the chalice was not an original component of the picture, and in fact it — and the apples on the tree — were removed in a post-World War II restoration. See also R. L. Füglister, Das lebende Kreuz, Einsiedeln-Zurich-Cologne, 1964.

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heaven, which Eve had closed to you/ Through my Son I will save every sinner.’48 The message is reminiscent of that of the Virgin in the Belleville miniature: ‘Behold the fruit of life that I give.’ The painting in Bologna should not be understood, however, as an echo, no matter how distant, of the Pucelle composition, but as the pictorial exposition of related, if not identical ideas. In fact, one of its chief compositional features, and indeed of all representations of the Tree of Life, is symmetry of arrangement — the tree in the center, and figures equally arranged on either side, whether Adam and Eve, or Eve and Mary, or the Wise and Foolish Virgins, or the larger groups of the Giovanni da Modena fresco. With independence of tradition typical of the entire expository text, the Belleville Breviary author, while certainly balancing Eve-evil angel against Mary-Gabriel, nevertheless described these pairs as occupying different parts of the miniature: ‘And below, outside the garden, is Eve . . . and facing her is the evil angel,’ ‘And beneath the cross is the good angel who told . . . the Virgin Mary . . . And it is she who hears the news quietly and holds out her hand . . .’ From this description it would seem that if there was a symmetrical grouping on either side of the tree, it was composed of the actors in the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel — probably on the left — and the Virgin — on the right. The garden in which the tree stood was likely to have been enclosed in some fashion,49 and it would seem that the Angel and the Virgin were within the enclosure, which may have been no more than a horizontal or curving wall the width of the miniature. Eve and the evil angel, exiled from Paradise, were ‘below, outside the garden.’ This phrase would be understood as referring to a separate compartment below the main section of the miniature rather than a different place in a continuous, perspectively rendered space. After the description of the Tree of the Cross miniature, the Belleville text has a short section that in part summarizes what has preceded and in 48 ‘Per esum vanum destruitur genus humanum/ Vos moriemini quia clausi ianuam coeli’; ‘Resero nunc aethera quem vobis clauserat eva/ Per filium meum salvabo quenlibet reum.’ 49 In the fifteenth century the Garden of Eden was sometimes represented as completely walled; see the manuscript referred to in n. 46 above, in which the garden is shown as a polygonal enclosure, perhaps echoing the ‘hortus conclusus’ of the Virgin. Usually, however, the garden enclosure was represented indirectly, through the gate, as in scenes of the Expulsion, rather than by means of an encircling wall. In such cases ‘outside the garden’ would be adjacent to the gate, on the same ground level. not — as in the Belleville text — ‘below.’

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part previews what follows. The writer says, ‘Thus we have how the apostles, executors of the New Testament, gathered the phrases of the Old Testament and brought them to Jesus Christ on the cross; thus the New Testament was confirmed and sealed, and the Church was ordained and confirmed, and St. Peter established as the foundation and first curate of Holy Church; and it is Jesus Christ who holds out to him the keys of paradise and he extends his hand to receive them.’ The last section of the passage, that is, the part mentioning Saint Peter receiving the keys, appears to refer in advance to one of the components of the description of the next — and last — lost miniature.50 The account of this last miniature is in some ways the most perplexing of the three, for the image described is more complex than the others. It consists of commonplace elements combined in novel ways, but also of elements whose visual form is extraordinarily difficult to imagine. The author begins, ‘Now comes another page on which are the four scribes of this Testament’ — that is, the New Testament mentioned just previously. The Apostles had been called the administrators — executeurs — of the New Testament. Using comparable legal language, the Evangelists are called scribes or notaries — tabellions. As the author continues, ‘these are the four evangelists and the four beasts appropriate to them who hold out to them the four instruments of the passion of Jesus Christ.’ The eagle of Saint John, he says, holds the nails, the angel of Saint Matthew, the cross, the lion of Saint Mark, the crown of thorns, and the bull of Saint Luke, the lance. He gives a detailed explanation as to why each instrument is allotted to a particular Evangelist, and then concludes with a summary: ‘Thus we have the scribes of the New Testament and their symbols, by which this Testament is confirmed, to endure forever, irrevocably.’51 Then the exposition continues: ‘In the midst of these four scribes, in a green field, is the treasure of Holy Church, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, from which this Testament is made. And the Virgin Mary, who helped Him to conquer, who holds Him on one side and calls all to come 50 The shift from what has already been shown to what is about to come is indicated by a shift in tense from the past to the present. A similar preview occurs between the description of the crucified Christ as the river that watered Paradise and as the fruit of life; see above, p. 712. 51 Summaries are introduced by the phrase, ‘Or avons,’ as here and previously (see text at n. 50). New descriptive material is introduced generally by the phrase, ‘Or vient,’ ‘Vient une page,’ or ‘et puis si va,’ that is, with verbs of action.

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and inquire whether they have any part in this Testament. And St. Peter on the other side, who was the first treasurer, who holds the key, is ready to give to each person his part in the Testament. And so that each person can readily see what is there, the mirror is in the middle of the treasure where one can understand it readily.’ The description ends with a short homily: ‘Jesus Christ leaves nothing in his Testament except to those who do his will. Therefore, reflect on [mire] your life and see Jesus Christ before you and the instruments of His passion, and watch whether you do His will well.’ First among the components of the miniature described in this text would have been the four Evangelists with their symbols. Since the author speaks of the treasure of Holy Church in their midst, it seems reasonable to imagine the Evangelists at the four corners of a square or rectangle, in the positions they occupy in countless medieval representations of the theme of Christ in Majesty, induding those of the atelier of Jean Pucelle (Fig. 15).52 However, there seem to be no other representations of the Evangelists in which their symbols hold the instruments of the Passion. The image of Christ in Majesty, the context in which all four Evangelists and their symbols are usually found, is not so often focused on the Passion or humanity of the Lord as on his deity and dominion, traditionally manifested in the throne, the orb, and the celestial setting of the subject. The central image of the Belleville miniature was described, however, not as the Lord enthroned, but as the precious blood of Jesus Christ displayed on — or in, or within — a green field. What visual form could these words have taken? A chalice containing the precious blood is one possibility, and indeed, during the fifteenth century a remarkable image of a chalice, whose bowl took the shape and dimensions of the wound in the side of Christ, was introduced into a number of French books of hours.53 But these images represent the late offshoots of the practice of contemplation of the bleeding wounds of Christ as isolated images which was already characteristic of the fourteenth century. To heighten emotional impact, narrative images were transformed into or replaced by devotional images — 52 E.g., the Pucellian frontispiece to the Bible Historiale in Geneva (Bibl. Publ. et Univ. MS fr. 2), fol. 1; See B. Gagnebin, ‘Une bible historiale de l’atelier de Jean Pucelle,’ Genava, n.s. IV, 1956, 23–65. 53 E.g., the Hours of Paris Use (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 13297), fol. 101, second half fifteenth century, accompanying the prayer ‘Stabat mater dolorosa/ iuxta crucem lacrimosa.’ The chalice is set in the foreground of a landscape painted in much smaller scale; see V. Leroquais, Les Livres d’heures de la Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1927, II, 125–27.

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Andachtsbilder — a process that produced the Pietà, the Man of Sorrows — and the Wound of Christ.54 Perhaps the earliest known representation of the wound is by a Parisian artist of around 1320, a near contemporary of Jean Pucelle (Fig. 16). In the middle band of a full-page composition, the wound is shown as a large vertical pointed oval with a white rim, a heart shaded from orange to deep red to a black central slit, and is flanked by instruments of the Passion in smaller size; in an upper compartment is a Crucifixion; in the lower are a praying bishop-saint and a friar together with more emblems of the Passion.55 In a yet more distilled version, the Wound of Christ entered the Pucelle repertory, appearing first in a workshop manuscript, the Psalter and Prayerbook of Bonne of Luxembourg, who died in the plague year of 1349 (Fig. 17).56 Nevertheless, the author of the expository text of the Belleville Breviary could not have been describing an image either of a chalice or a wound alone because he said that on the same green field as the treasure of Holy Church, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, was also the Virgin Mary, ‘who holds Him on one side and calls all to come and inquire whether they have any part in this Testament.’ This passage suggests quite clearly an image of the Man of Sorrows,57 in which the Virgin does indeed often hold the body of Christ on one side,58 and sometimes even calls — by gesture or inscripFor the latest bibliography on the Andachtsbild, see H. Belting, Das Bild und sein Publikum im Mittelalter, Form und Funktion früher Bildtafeln der Passion, Berlin, 1981. 55 Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS fr. 574, fol. 140v, painted on a blank leaf at the end of a contemporary copy of the encyclopedia known as L’Image du monde. The image is accompanied by a prayer naming the instruments of the Passion. The artist was in the following of the painter usually called Master Honoré. 56 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters MS 69. 86, fol. 331, attributed by F. Avril to Jean Le Noir and dated c. 1345–1350 (Paris, Grand Palais, No. 267, pp. 315 f.). 57 On the Man of Sorrows, or Imago pietatis, see E. Panofsky, ‘ “Imago Pietatis.” Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des “Schmerzenmanns” und der “Maria Mediatrix,’’ ’ Festschrift für Max J. Friedlander zum 60. Geburtstage, Leipzig, 1927, 261–308; C. Bertelli, ‘The Image of Pity in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme,’ Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, London, 1967, 40–55; J. Stubblebine, ‘Segna di Bonaventura and the Image of the Man of Sorrows,’ Gesta, VIII, 2, 1969, 3–13; and most recently, H. Belting (as in n. 54) — among many others. 58 See Panofsky (as in n. 57), Figs. 10–12 (Italian panels of the fourteenth century); for a number of Northern manuscript examples, dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century, see M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke, New York, 1967, text vol., 239, Pl. vol., Figs. 808–09. 54

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tion — to the viewer (Fig. 18).59 The known images of the Man of Sorrows containing these elements all postdate the Pucelle miniature. In fact, the earliest examples of the Man of Sorrows, which are of the thirteenth century,60 represent the dead Christ alone, half-length, arms crossed in front of the body and the arms of the cross close behind the figure. Encouraging the most intense and direct response from the viewer, such figures are the true imagines pietatis. An unsophisticated example of the type, in a midfifteenth-century English miniature (Fig. 19), shows, however, a number of other features that were part of the Pucelle image — the tomb in which Christ stands is set in a green field, the blood from his wounds flows into an axial chalice, and the symbols of the Evangelists (not, however, with instruments of the Passion) fill the four corners of the picture, with Christ in their midst.61 Almost contemporary with the Belleville description is a full-page miniature of the Man of Sorrows facing the text of Psalm 21 in a Flemish psalter of 1320–1330 now in the Bodleian Library (Fig. 20).62 The picture shows the half-length Christ, rising from his crumpled shroud, arms crossed on his 59 E.g., the fresco from the circle of Altichiero in the S. Felice chapel of S. Antonio, Padua (see Meiss [as in n. 58], Fig. 547), in which the Virgin, facing the viewer directly, extends her right hand palm up toward the spectator. In a French book of hours of c. 1407 (London, Brit. Lib. MS Add 29433, fol. 107v), a placard bearing the inscription, ‘O vos qui transitis per viam actendite et videte si est dolor similis dolor meus’ (Lam. 1:12), is placed next to the mourning Virgin in a miniature of the Man of Sorrows. This phrase, in Italian, with the additional line ‘e per voi lo portai,’ or in a longer Latin version, was found occasionally in Cionesque paintings of the Crucifixion or the Man of Sorrows, where it represented the voice of Christ rather than the Virgin (see M. Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death, Princeton, 1951, 121–25 and Belting [as in n. 54], 281–95). 60 On questions of dating, see Bertelli (as in n. 57), esp. 40–46, and Stubblebine (as in n. 57), passim. The earliest known example north of the Alps is on the Beatus page of a midthirteenth-century Thuringo-Saxon psalter in Munich (Bayer. Staatsbibl. MS Clm. 23094, fol. 7v); see W. Mersmann, Der Schmerzenmann, Düsseldorf, 1952, Pl. 5. 61 Cambridge, Trinity Coll. MS O. 4. 16, fol. ix, inserted together with fol. viii as a bifolium in a thirteenth-century English psalter. The facing verso (fol. viii b) contains a portrait of William Clarkson of London in prayer, the object of his devotion the image on the facing page (see M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts of Trinity College, Cambridge, Cambridge, 1900, I, 265–68). 62 Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 5–6, fol. 60v, psalter of St. Peter of Blandin, Ghent (see O. Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, I, Oxford, 1966, No. 296, p. 22, Pls. XXII–XXIII, and K. B. E. Carlvant, ‘Collaboration in a Fourteenth-Century Psalter: The Franciscan Iconographer and Two Flemish Illuminators of MS 3384, 8° in the Copenhagen Royal Library,’ Sacris erudiri, xxv, 1982, 139). To my

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breast, against a cave-like configuration, his tomb. Instruments of the Passion are strewn on the mound (of Calvary?) before Christ, and weeping Prophets, saints, and angels surround him (all holding blank scrolls), among them an angel who places his hands on the shoulders of the dead Savior. Not only is this image unique in itself, but the psalm it illustrates is not usually selected as part of the pictorial programs of psalters otherwise comparable in format to this one — that is, with miniatures and historiated initials at the eight liturgical divisions of the text. Psalm 21 is, however, important in the liturgy of the Passion and is recited on Good Friday because it begins with the line, ‘O God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,’ and it voices the cries of the psalmist and his forefathers to the Lord. The use of the psalm in the Good Friday liturgy and the words themselves seem to have inspired the subject of the illustration and the details of the composition. Like the image of the Man of Sorrows in the Belleville Breviary, this psalter miniature represents a highly individual variant on a pictorial theme, all the more astounding at a time when the standard iconography was yet to develop the complexity it achieved in the fifteenth century, and was still in its ‘primitive’ phase. According to the Belleville text, on the other side of the treasure of Holy Church was Saint Peter, the first treasurer, holding the key. Although representations of the Man of Sorrows often include the Virgin holding her son on one side, if there is another figure in the composition it is usually John the Evangelist or Mary Magdalen — reflecting Crucifixion groupings. Saint Peter is altogether unusual in such a context; he was included to serve the precise purposes of the particular pictorial program of the Belleville Breviary, both to guard and unlock the treasure of Holy Church. A comparable representation of Saint Peter is part of the frontispiece (Fig. 21) of the devotional treatise of c. 1300 called La Sainte-abbaye, in which the ideal state of the abbey — Christian life — is shown.63 In the lower part of the knowledge, the illustration has never been discussed in the literature on the Man of Sorrows. Its closest analogues are Giovanni Pisano’s pulpit fragments in Berlin (from Pistoia) and in the Cathedral of Pisa (see Belting [as in n. 54]. Figs. 31, 100). 63 London, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 39843, fols. 2–6v, preceded by the frontispiece, fol. 1v (see British Museum, Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts, 1916–1920, London, 1933, 210–12). Related in style are the volumes executed for Reginald de Bar, Bishop of Metz, e.g., London, Brit. Lib. MS Yates Thompson MS 8, a breviary of the diocese of Verdun. A Pucellian miniature of the Crucifixion in the ceremonial dated 1322 of the Abbey of St. Peter of Blandin, Ghent (Ghent, Bibl. Univ. MS 233), shows John holding the Virgin on one side and Saint Peter on the other side of the Cross (see Avril, in Paris, Grand Palais, No. 248, pp. 300 f.).

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miniature, the activities of a convent of nuns — teaching and prayer, and their concomitant virtues, obedience and piety — are shown as taking place in a schematically rendered convent. Above, the Trinity, an axial alignment of enthroned Father, Holy Spirit, and Lamb of God, is set in the midst of Evangelist symbols; in flanking compartments eight angels are shown above and below medallions enclosing, on one side, the Virgin seated on an altar — Mary-Ecclesia — and on the other side, Saint Peter, holding the key, as treasurer of the Church. The last and most mysterious component of the third miniature was the mirror, ‘in the middle of the treasure where one can understand it readily.’ Does this phrase refer to the representation of an actual mirror in which the viewer of the image might see himself or herself reflected fictively? Or is the phrase metaphorical only, the image of the Man of Sorrows itself being understood as the mirror? For the second alternative, there is the weight of the long tradition of conceiving of God as a mirror,64 given expression, for instance, in the thirteenth-century Roman de la rose by Jean de Meun: A son [God’s] miroer pardurable Que nus fors lui ne set polir Sens riens a franc vouleir tollir Cil miroers c’est il meismes De cui comencement preismes En cet bel miroer poli Qu’il tient et tint toujourz o li Ou tout veit quanqu’il avendra E toujouirz present le tendra Veit il ou les ames iront Qui leiaument le serviront E de ceus ausinc qui n’ont cure De leiaute ne de freiture E leur promet en ses ydees Des euvres qu’eus avront ouvree Sauvement ou damnacion.65 On God as mirror, see W. Gibson, ‘Hieronymus Bosch and the Mirror of Man,’ Oud Holland, LXXXVII, 1973, 215–18, and the literature cited there. 65 Le Roman de la rose, ed. E. Langlois (Société des anciens textes français LXIV), Paris, 1922, IV, 11. 17468–17483. ‘Within the everlasting mirror clear/ Which none but He knows how to polish bright/ Without detracting somewhat from free will./ This mirror is 64

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In this passage, Jean de Meun says that God himself is the mirror, ‘Cil miroers c’est il meismes,’ but he also says that God holds the mirror, ‘Qu’il tient,’ and that in the mirror he sees the future fate of mankind. Some indecision as to how to translate this passage pictorially was manifested by the miniaturist of a fourteenth-century copy of the Roman de la rose in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Fig. 22).66 He showed the seated Deity holding a large circular mirror in one hand, but the reflection in the mirror was not the acts of mankind but the face of God himself. Considering the apparent readiness of Jean Pucelle to invent imagery translating the metaphorical into the literal, or rather the visual, the hypothesis of the representation of an actual mirror in physical proximity to the Man of Sorrows in the Belleville miniature seems reasonable. As the final line of the expository text says, ‘Therefore, reflect on [mire] your life and see [voi] Jesus Christ before you and the instruments of His passion and watch [regarde] whether you do His will well.’ What would the mirror have reflected? Perhaps it would have been a shining disc of gold or silver, so that the viewer of the miniature could follow the command ‘Donc mire ta vie.’ Perhaps the image of a person was reflected in the mirror. If the words of the text faithfully describe the miniature, then the mirror was the mirror of conscience, an important literary motif in the second recension of Guillaume de Diguilleville’s moral allegory, La pèlerinage de vie humaine, completed in 1355.67 In the poem, Hagiographie (Holy Scripture), the ‘Maître cloistriere,’ offers mankind a choice of mirrors, which reflect truthfully or falsely. In one mirror the pilgrim looks, Et dedans ie me vouix mirer Mais silay my vy et hideux Que tout confus et tout honteux Himself, whence all things spring./ In this fair, shining glass, which e’er remains/ Within His presence, He sees every act/ That will occur as though it present were:/ He sees where souls that serve Him loyally/ Will go; and of the ones who have no care/ For loyalty and truth He sees the fate./ According to the works they perform./ Salvation or damnation He assigns’ (The Romance of the Rose, trans. H. W. Robbins, New York, 1962, 372 f.). The translator took some poetic license. 66 New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 132, fol. 130v, c. 1370–1380 (see Catalogue of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books . . . of the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan, London, 1907, No. 112 and Gibson [as in n. 64], 217). 67 See F. Faral, ‘Guillaume de Diguilleville,’ Histoire littéraire de la France, XXXIX, Paris, 1962, 29 ff., for the date of the second recension, and p. 43 for a brief discussion of the mirror of conscience, which is not included in the first version of the poem. of 1330. The only printed edition of the second recension is that made for Antoine Verard, Paris, 1511.

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and Hagiographie explains, Quau mirouer de conscience Du quel et vrey experience De vray monstrer sans menterie Sans echo et sans flaterie Quel face on a et quel visaige Quel on est et a quel image On est pourtrait et figure Et en quoy on est difforme Tu tes tourne et nen a cure Qui bien deusses ta grant laidure Amendet selon son raport En quoy certes tu a grant tort.68 More than a hundred and fifty years later, the Man of Sorrows, the Eye of God (God as eternal mirror), and the Mirror of Conscience (the awareness of sin) were combined in a single great pictorial amalgam, the Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins by Hieronymus Bosch (Fig. 23). This work, analyzed

68 Le pelerinage de lhomme, A. Verard, Paris, 1511, fol. xcii. Approximately ten manuscript examples are known; for list see J. J. Stürtzinger, Le pèlerinage de la vie humaine, London, 1893, xi–xiii, under sigla V2. The second recension was translated and expanded by John Lydgate in 1426 as The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man (Early English Text Society, extra ser. LXXVII), ed. F. J. Furnivall, London, 1899, from which the following passages are quoted: ‘Merours also, large and brode/ And ffor the syght, wonder gode/ Off hem I have fful greet plente/ ffor ffolke that haven volunte/ Byholde hem-silffe ther-ynne/ Wher they be cleene or ffoule of synne/’ (11. 22343–22348) . . . ‘In the whiche (withouten wene)/ I sawe my-sylff ffoule and uncleene/ And to byholde right hydous/ Abhomynabel and vecyous/’ . . . ‘In this merour (yt semyth me)/ Called the Merour of Concyence/ Which schewith (by trewe experyence)/ With-out Eccho or fflaterye/ Or any other losengerye/ Un-to a man what ymage/ He bereth aboute or what visage/ The portrature right as it is/ And in what thyng he dothe amys/ and how he schal the bette entende/ alle his ffylthës to amende’ (11. 22505–22518). The penultimate line of the Belleville description of this miniature, ‘Jesus Christ leaves nothing in his testament except to those who do His will,’ has an echo in another passage in the second recension of the Pèlerinage, the Testament of Jesus Christ, which begins, ‘Ie fais mon derrier testament.’ In this, Jesus leaves his soul to God the Father, his body to the sepulchre, and ‘Mon cueur ie laisse entierement/ A ceulx qui mon commandement/ et me statuz bien garderont/ Selon le pouvoir quilz auront.’

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in depth by Walter Gibson,69 contains a circular central image, at once a mirror in which the seven deadly sins of mankind are reflected in seven radial compartments containing pictorial examples of the sins, and an eye whose pupil is the Man of Sorrows and whose iris his golden radiance. It may be that Bosch’s painting forms the best guide to the recovery of the central image in the lost miniature of the Belleville Breviary. The authorship of the Exposition des ymages of the Belleville Breviary as well as the design or direction of the pictorial program was credited by Erwin Panofsky to an anonymous Dominican theologian70 rather than to the artist, in spite of the fact that throughout the writer speaks in the first person, in the voice of an artist, using phrases such as ‘I put’ and ‘I show.’ It may be that Panofsky thought that so much learning would not have been available to a painter. Yet a characterization of the expository text as the work of a theologian cannot be supported easily. In writing of the seven streams of the seven Sacraments, the author says that they ‘issued forth from and took their strength from the side of Jesus Christ,’ adding, ‘according to the clerics,’ separating himself in this way from scholars as a class. Moreover, the tone of the writing is earnestly instructional, moral, and devotional, and not profound in a philosophical or theological sense. Indeed, the content of the exposition is related to that of popular, and often vernacular, treatises of moral instruction for the clergy or the laity, such as the Somme le roi, which explains (at far greater length) the Ten Commandments, the twelve articles of faith, the seven deadly sins, the Virtues, the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit together with their related

Gibson (as in n. 64), esp. 209–26. The preceding discussion of the mirror in the Belleville Breviary image is indebted to Gibson’s essay, in which much of the analysis of the sources of the Bosch painting is equally illuminating in relation to the lost Pucelle miniature. 70 Panofsky (as in n. 5), I, 32 f., repeated by Avril, in Paris, Grand Palais, 293, but see contra Morand, 1962, 11. The identification of the theologian as a Dominican stems perhaps from the Dominican Use of the breviary and also from the proposed connection between the cycle of Sacraments-Gifts of the Holy Spirit-Virtues-Vices in the psalter and the treatise of Thomas Aquinas (see above, n. 24). The Pucelle atelier Psalter and Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg (see above, n. 56) contains a vernacular account of the Passion of Christ (fols. 246v–294v) prefaced by a rubric with interesting similarities in language to the Belleville text: ‘Ci commence la passion nostre seigneur ihesu crist exposee selonc les docteurs et les autres sains, mise du latin en francois.’ 69

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virtues.71 These teachings are not presented in a rigidly ordered way which could be reduced to a series of tables but rather in a series of homilies in which the writer, Lorens, Dominican confessor to King Philip III of France, patiently explains the concepts by a variety of similes, quotations from the Bible and its exegetes, and sometimes by using allegorical images such as the Tree of Life or the Garden of Virtues. Pictorially too the immediate antecedents of the Belleville miniatures would have been the kind of full-page frontispieces designed for the subdivisions of such texts as the Somme le roi and the Sainte-abbaye. Unlike the text illustrations of continuous allegories such as the Roman de la rose or the Pèlerinage de vie humaine, which are literal, these frontispieces are often allegorical evocations of the text, concentrating its sequential parts into single vivid images. In one such miniature in the late thirteenth-century Somme le roi in the British Library,72 the Garden of Virtues (Fig. 24), the picture has a long descriptive rubric, which does not repeat the words of the text: ‘This is the garden of the virtues. The seven trees stand for the seven virtues of which this book [the Somme le roi] speaks. The tree in the middle stands for Jesus Christ under whom the virtues grow. The seven springs of this garden are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit which water the garden. The seven maidens who draw water from these seven springs are the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer which pray for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.’ Not only is the descriptive rubric reminiscent of the language of the Belleville expository text, but the miniature — a refined, small-scale, non-monumental composition in which the taller ‘middle’ tree, symbolizing Jesus Christ, is Composed in 1279 by Frère Lorens, the Dominican confessor of Philip III of France and tutor to the King’s children. Between 1268 and 1270 Lorens had been prior of St.Jacques, the Dominican house in Paris, with responsibility for all Dominicans who came to study or teach at the university, and thus must have been equally familiar with the subtle theology of Saint Thomas and with the obligations of ministry to the laity. The Somme le roi, as W. Nelson Francis noted (The Book of Vices and Virtues [Early English Text Society, orig. ser. No. 217], London, 1942, xviii), ‘shows an interest in popular instruction and popular theology, rather than in the formal scholasticism which occupied the 13th century Masters of Theology.’ No printed edition of the Somme le roi exists (for a fourteenth-century English translation, see The Book of Vices and Virtues, ed. W. Nelson Francis). Ellen Kosmer (‘A Study of the Style and Iconography of a Thirteenth-Century Somme le roi [British Museum MS. Add. 54180],’ Ph.D. diss., New Haven, Yale Univ., 1973, I, App. A) summarized the French text. 72 London, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 54180, fol. 69v, by the artist usually called Master Honoré (see E. G. Millar, The Parisian Miniaturist Honoré, London, 1959, 22, Pl. 4, and Kosmer [as in n. 71]. 52–63). 71

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not even on the central axis — must be a good indication of the general appearance of the lost Pucelle miniatures. Another general precedent for the lost miniatures of the Belleville Breviary is provided by the volume of visionary and devotional images known as the Rothschild Canticles, among which is the Tree of Life mentioned previously.73 The manuscript contains more than forty images of the Deity, the Trinity, and the Virgin, many of them unique, most paired with appropriate biblical texts drawn from Psalms, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Ecclesiasticus, the Prophets, and the Apocalypse. The relation between word and picture is interdependent. The particular selection of texts makes sense only when seen together with the image, but the meaning of the images is made clear only by reading the companion texts. Picture and text together form the basis of meditation, while in the Belleville Breviary the text, as useful as it is, was intended as an aid to understanding the picture, not as the object of meditation itself. Nevertheless, among the miniatures of the Rothschild Canticles are some that offer striking parallels to those of the Belleville Breviary, for instance, the extraordinary Imago pietatis (Fig. 25) in which Christ, shown on one side tied to the column of the flagellation and on the other nailed to the Cross, the crown of thorns between his feet, points to the bleeding wound in his side. The accompanying text is drawn from the Song of Songs, ‘Thou hast wounded my heart’ (4:9). Another miniature is a vision of the Deity (Fig. 26) in which the accompanying text speaks of the unmoving God who moves the universe, comparing his eternal brilliance to a perfect mirror never changing or darkening. The ecstatic phrases of the text are complemented by an image of God, in a pink garment, hands stretched outward, and entire upper body — including the face — hidden by a radiant golden disc, the ‘speculum sine macula’ of the text.74 At the end of the thirteenth century, images comparable to the lost miniatures of the Belleville Breviary also began to be included sporadically in service books, psalters, books of hours and breviaries. The Psalter-Hours of Yolande of Soissons in the Morgan Library, for instance, includes not Above, p. 714 and n. 40. The complementary text (fol. 97v) reads: ‘Ego qui non mutor (Mal. 3:6) sed movens omnia. Candor eterne lucis & speculum sine macula (Wis. 7:26) apud quem non est transmutatio necque vicissitudinis obumbratio (James 1:17). In visione dei vidi & ecce ventus turbinis veniebat ab aquilone nubesque magna & ignis involvens splendorque in circuitu eius (Ezek. 1:4).’ 73 74

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only a Tree of Life facing the opening of the Penitential Psalms but an Andachtsbild of the Holy Face (as pressed on the sudarium of Veronica) accompanied by a special prayer and an indulgence of Pope Innocent III (1216) for saying it.75 However, the flowering of illustrations designed to accompany non-canonical texts — narratives and prayers — added to psalters and especially books of hours was a phenomenon of the later fourteenth century.76 Nevertheless, here too Jean Pucelle and his atelier were in the vanguard. The Psalter and Prayerbook of Bonne of Luxembourg, in addition to the Wound of Christ mentioned previously, which is accompanied by a prayer, includes several other unusual illustrations for uncommon texts: a ‘diptych’ of the Three Living and the Three Dead accompanied by ‘une moult merveilleuse et horrible exemplaire que len dit des iii vis & des iii mors’; a Throne of Love (Charité) in which the Lord is seated at the top of a flight of six steps which the supplicant climbs on her knees, accompanying a long devotional poem about the steps leading to ‘parfaite amour de Dieu’; and a speaking Christ (Fig. 27) who addresses a praying couple from the Cross, while pointing to his bleeding wound, ‘Ha homine & fame, voy que sueffie pour toy. Voy ma douleur, mon angoisseus conroy [state].’77 Finally, there is one extant full-page allegorical frontispiece in a manuscript with illustrations attributed to Jean Pucelle — Gautier de Coincy’s vernacular Miracles of the Virgin in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The book contains numerous text illustrations preceded by a full-page miniature of the Throne of Wisdom, or Throne of Solomon as symbolized by the Virgin (Fig. 28),78 The components of the image include the Virgin and Child enthroned, flanked by personifications of Caritas and Castitas, and surNew York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 729, Amiens?, end thirteenth century, Tree of Life, fol. 345v, Holy Face, fol. 15. See K. Gould, The Psalter and Hours of Yolande of Soissons (Medieval Academy of America, Speculum Anniversary Monographs, IV), Cambridge, Mass., 1978, 81–94, 99–103, and Belting (as in n. 57), 104. 76 See Meiss (as in n. 58), 183–89, citing various examples of the Man of Sorrows, the Vesperbild (Pietà), and the Madonna of Humility in manuscripts such as the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame and the Petites Heures of the Duke of Berry. 77 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, MS 69. 86, fols. 315–19v, 320v–28v, 329 (see F. Deuchler, ‘Looking at Bonne of Luxembourg’s Prayer Book,’ The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, XXIX, 1971, 267–78, Figs. 12, 14, 16, 17). The Throne of Love is the counterpart of the Throne of Wisdom or Solomon which is the frontispiece of Jean Pucelle’s Miracles of the Virgin (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS nouv. acq. fr. 24541, fol. AV, 1330–35). 78 See H. Focillon, Le peintre des miracles Notre Dame, Paris, 1950, for reproductions of many of the illustrations. 75

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rounded by seven doves identified as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John, the six steps of the throne of Solomon, each guarded by two lions, and six Prophets and Apostles juxtaposed with six personified Virtues, each with an inscribed scroll referring to the virtues epitomized by the Virgin Mary.79 These various elements are placed in the compartments of an illusionistically shaded architectural framework, façade-like in character; the flat, non-illusionistic backgrounds are gold or geometric patterns. The miniature embodies concepts disseminated from the ninth century on in the writings of Rabanus Maurus and others on the description of Solomon’s throne in the fourth Book of Kings. In these texts the steps are good works, or the virtues that lead to the Holy City, the site of the Throne of Wisdom, the lions are the Apostles, and the Virgin the throne ‘where that Majesty sits whose nod shakes the Earth.’80 But the Pucelle frontispiece is more complex than even its closest antecedent, the Throne of Solomon in the late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century Verger de soulas, which Francis Wormald had termed an elaborate allegory of the Annunciation and Incarnation.81 Pucelle added the Crucifixion, depicting the Virgin both as sorrowing and joyous mother, perhaps in order to form a closer link with Gautier de Coincy’s text, in which the account of the miracles is preceded by hymns to the Virgin, ‘piteus et doux.’82 As a frontispiece preceding an illustrated text, the Pucelle Throne of Wisdom functions somewhat differently from the series of fullpage pictures in the Belleville Breviary, which linked two cycles of illustrations, one before and one after the miniatures. The frontispiece position is perhaps responsible for a degree of compositional formality, symmetry, and architectural order greater than that of the three Belleville miniatures. Nevertheless, both the general design and the details of execution seem to offer the best and most reliable evidence for the actual appearance of the Belleville miniatures. The frontispiece was discussed in detail by F. Wormald, ‘The Throne of Solomon and St. Edward’s Chair,’ De Artibus Opuscula XL, Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, New York, 1961, I, 532–39, II, Pls. 175–77. 80 Wormald (as in n. 79), 534, quoting Nicholas of Clairvaux (olim Peter Damian), sermon on the birth of the Virgin (Pat. Lat., CXLV, 736–40). 81 Wormald (as in n. 79), 532. Verger de soulas, Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS fr. 9220, fol. 2, possibly from Picardy. The manuscript is a compendium of elaborate moral, theological, and devotional diagrams, including also the Tree of Life (see Sandler [as in n. 37], App. III). 82 Focillon, 29. 79

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10. Tree of Life, Bible. Berlin, Staatl. Mus., Kupferstichkab. MS 78 E 2, fol. 1v (photo: Staatlichen Museen).

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12. Eve and the Virgin, Moralized Bible, Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Bodley 270b, fol. 208 (photo: Bodleian Library).

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11. Tree of Life, Rothschild Canticles. New Haven, Yale Univ., Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Lib. MS 404, fol. 15 (photo: Beinecke Library).

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13. Adam and Eve flanking the Tree of the Cross, Sarum Hours. London, Brit. Lib. MS Harley 3000, fol. 92v (photo: British Library).

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14. Giovanni da Modena, Tree of the Cross. Bologna, S. Petronio (photo: Alinari).

15. Christ in Majesty, Bible historiale. Geneva, Bibl. Publ. et Univ. MS fr. 2, fol. 1 (photo: Geneva, Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire).

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17. Wound of Christ, Psalter and Prayerbook of Bonne of Luxembourg. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters MS 69. 86, fol. 331 (photo: The Cloisters).

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16. Wound of Christ, L’Image du monde. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS fr. 574, fol. 140v (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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18. Man of Sorrows. Padua, S. Antonio, S. Felice Chapel.

19. Man of Sorrows, inserted in English Psalter. Cambridge, Trinity Coll. MS O. 4. 16, fol ix (photo: Trinity College).

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21. Frontispiece, La Sainte-abbaye. London, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 39843, fol. 1v (photo: British Library).

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20. Man of Sorrows, Psalter. Oxford, Bodleian Lib. MS Douce 5, fol. 60v (photo: Bodleian Library).

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738 22. God with a Mirror, Roman de la rose. New York, Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M. 132, fol. 130v (photo: Pierpont Morgan Library).

23. Hieronymus Bosch, Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins. Madrid, Prado (photo: Prado).

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24. Garden of Virtues, Somme le roi. London, Brit. Lib. MS Add. 54180, fol. 69v (photo: British Library).

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26. God as a Mirror, Rothschild Canticles. New Haven, Yale Univ., Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Lib. MS 404, fol. 40 (photo: Beinecke Library).

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25. Imago Pietatis, Rothschild Canticles. New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Lib. MS 404, fol. 19 (photo: Beinecke Library).

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28. Throne of Solomon, Miracles de la Vièrge. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS nouv. acq. fr. 24541, fol. Av (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale).

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27. Christ Speaking from the Cross, Psalter and Prayerbook of Bonne of Luxembourg. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters MS 69. 86, fol. 328 (photo: The Cloisters).

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Two last questions remain: Why were the full-page miniatures apparently never copied when the calendar cycle of the Belleville Breviary was imitated so often in books of hours? Were the miniatures ever actually part of the manuscript, and if so, when were they lost? In part, the answers lie in the suitability of the pictorial program as a whole to breviaries only, and even then, to breviaries arranged in an order — that is, calendar immediately preceding psalter — that was not universal in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.83 But why are there no breviaries with the entire pictorial program, and none with the calendar cycle, and only one with the psalter cycle? Unless it is argued that the full-page pictures never actually existed, a conclusion that seems untenable because it would demand rejection of the words of the text as well as the evidence of the remaining parts of the program, it must be concluded that the miniatures were lost at an early date, probably along with the first ten months of the calendar of Volume I (and the last ten months of the calendar of Volume II). The earliest copy of the calendar of Volume I is in the Hours of Jeanne of Navarre of 1336–1340. Perhaps the entire manuscript was still intact then, but since neither the full-page miniatures nor psalter cycle were intended for a book of hours, they were not copied.84 However, by the mid-1360s when the Breviary of Charles V was executed, faithfully replicating the psalter cycle of the Belleville Breviary (and following very closely the compositions of the more ‘ordinary’ subjects of the temporal and sanctoral), the calendar was designed in a completely different manner from those of both Belleville volumes. This suggests that when the artist working for Charles V had the Belleville Breviary before his eyes, it no longer had its complete calendar and very probably had lost its full-page miniatures as well. The expository text would have had little value under these circumstances and was not copied then or ever again. But for the modern student, this text has proved to be the key 83 Leroquais, 1934, I, xv. See, for example, the Breviary of Charles V (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 1052), with the sequence calendar, temporal, psalter, sanctoral. 84 It should be pointed out that numerically the eight elements of the psalter cycle — that is, the seven sets of Sacrament, Virtue, Vice, and gift of the Holy Spirit at the matins divisions and the Last Judgment at the vespers division — correspond to the number of divisions of the Hours of the Virgin at the canonical hours of the day. But the author of the expository text of the Belleville Breviary specifically designed his eight-part program for the daily round of psalm readings of the Divine Office, not for the devotional office of the Virgin.

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to the restoration, if only in specula, of the extraordinary images that were once the treasure of the Belleville Breviary.

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Appendix Lexposition des ymages des figures qui sunt ou kalendier et ou sautier et est proprement lacordance du veil testament et du nouvel. Saint gringoire dit que tant fait cil de son profit qui voit et nentent com cil qui chace et riens ne prent. Et ce sacorde le sage salomon qui dit que en oiant et en entendant devient on plus sage. Et quant on voit aucune chose qui est oscurement bailliee len doit querre et demander le sens et lexposition. Et pour ce qui ci apres iuques a la fin du sautier a aucunes figures oscurement bailliees ie les vueil desclerier si que chacun les puist entendre et faire en son porfit. Lescripture dit que dieu nest pas un homme qui puist faillir nestre mue. Car combien que homme et toute creature puist estre muee en soi et en ses oevres et en ses pensees ne porquant le createur le souverain ouvrier ne puet recevoir mutation. Et pour ce que ce est cil qui ordena et establi le vieil testament el le nouvel convient il que les deus soient accordes et ramenes a un. Et a ce sacordent les sains en plusiers leus. en la sainte escripture qui dient que le nouvel testament est tout figure et baillie en figures en lancien. Et cete acordance senefient les ymages qui sunt ci apres. Premierement sont les apostres qui sont executeurs du nouvel testament qui cueillent les clauses du viel testament oscurement bailliees & les descuevrent et desclairent et en font les articles de la foy. Si que en chascun des .xii. mois. a .i. des .xii. apostres. et .i. des .xii. prophetes. en tel maniere. que le prophete baille a lapostre une prophecie envelopee et lapostre la descuevre et en fait un article. Et pour ce que de la synagoge qui fu ou temps de lancien testament. et de leglise qui est. ou temps du nouvel nous parlons en deus manieres. et quant au sens gros et materiel. et quant au sens soutil et esperituel. met ie: lun sens et lautre. Quar au derriere de chascun. a une synagoge materiel de quoi le prophete trait une pierre que il baille a lapos-

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tre ovec la prophecie. et va tous iours cele synagoge en defaillant selonc ce que il vont plus avant. Et les articles en monteploiant si comme vous poes veoir es figures. Et pour ce que les articles de la foi sont la voie et les portes dentrer en paradis. met ie les xii portes de ierusalem de paradis. au desus des .xii. apostres en la vierge marie par quoi nous fu la porte ouverte qui tient sus chascune des portes un panoncel ou est paint en ymage larticle que lapostre fait au desous par parole. Et respont chascun panoncel a chascun article en droit soi. Et pour ce que mesires saint pol nestoit uncore pas ou college des apostres quant il furent la credo et assemblerent les articles de la foy. met ie son ravissement comment il fu ravi et apele soz le premier article que la vierge marie li tient. ou pennoncel. Et puis apres tantost es autres mois comment il preeche et monstre les articles que la vierge tient sus la porte as onze manieres de gens a qui il escrist onze epistres. Puis apres tot ce veu. Vient une page ou les apostres sa semblent et edefient une eglise des pierres quil ont traites et aportees de la synagoge. et est faite cete eglise en tel disposition comme saint pol devise en une de ses epistres qui dist ensi. Vous neestres mais ostes ne estranges. ains estes la cite de paradis et de la compaignie dieu. edefies sus le fonement des apostres & des profetes. cest sus le fondement de sainte eglise et ihesu crist. Si est las crois de pierre desus le clochier. Et le cochet si est langre gabriel qui annunca a la vierge marie quelle fu commencement de tout ce bien. Et au destre bras de la crois dou clochier. est saint pol qui tient lautorite que ie ai mise en francois et expose cete eglise. Et pour ce que le scripture puet estre expose en plusiers manieres ie expose le crucefis. autrement le met en paradis terrestre ou jardin delicieus et senefie le fleuve qui estoit de paradis delicieus & issoit et devisoit en quatre parties pour arrouser paradis. Cest ihesucrist qui issi de paradis et sestendi en la crois en quatre parties pour arrouser paradis. Quar il estoit si sec que nul fruit ni proit venir nulle ame ni proit estre plantee si que il larrousa de son precieus sanc qui sesspandi parmi ce jardin en .vii. ruisseles. Et au bout de ces ruisseles sont les. vii. sacremens de sainte eglise. de quoi elle est toute arrousee qui issirent et eurent vertu vertu [sic] du coste ihesucrist selonc les clers. Encore autrement ie expose ce crucefis et est tout paint ce que ie di ici qui bien iregarde. Par la crois qui est ou iardin delicieus ientent le fruit de vie et par ihesucrist le fruit. Et par bas au dehors du jardin est eve la premiere fame. qui cueilli le fruit contre la volente et lordenance de nostre seignour. Et au devant de lui est le mauves angle qui li nunca quelle le preist. Et audesous de la crois est le bon angle que annunca a la seconde fame. cest a la vierge marie que elle preist ce fruit. ihesucrist de lordenance

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du seigneur. Et ce est celle qui ot doucement la nouvele & tent la main veres le fruit et dist en un rouliau. Veci le fruit de vie que ie rent. Or avons comment les apostres executeurs du nouvel testament ont quelli et aporte les clauses. de lancien testament a ihesucrist en la crois. or fu conferme et scelle le nouvau testament. et leglise ordenee et confermee et saint pierre establi fondement at premier cure de sainte eglise. et ihesucrist qui li tent les cles de paradis et il tent la main pour recevoir. Or vient lautre page ou sont les quatre tabellions de ce testament. ce sont les quatre evangilistres et les .iiii. bestes a qui il sont appropries qui leur tiennent les .iiii. instrumens de la passion de ihesucrist. Premierement legle tient a saint jehan les .iii. clous qui senefient la divinite et quant au nombre de .iii. personnes et quant a ceu que si comme la divinite qui est charite attret et ioint ensemble. les cuers: Ainsi les clous sont fet pour attacher et pour ioindre ensamble. et de la divinite parle saint iohan especiaument. Apres loume tient a saint mathe la crois qui senefie lhumanite ihesucrist qui fu homme amaniere de crois estendu en la crois et de lhumanite ihesucrist parle especiaument. saint mathe. Apres le lyon tient a saint marc la couronne qui senefie la resurreccion. Quar resurrection est une circulation de vie a mort et de mort a vie. Et de la resurrection. parle especiaument saint marc. Apres le buef tient a saint luc la lance qui senefie tourment & passion. Et de la passion parle especiaument saint luc. Or avons les tabellions du nouvel testament. et lors figures par quoi ce testament est conferme a tour iours durer. sans rapeler. Ou milieu de ces .iiii. tabellions est le tresor de sainte eglise le precieus sanc ihesucrist en un vert camp. de quoi est fet ce testament. Et la vierge marie qui leida a conquerir. qui le tient dune part et apelle tous a venir querre sil ont riens en ce testament. Et saint pierre dautre part. qui en fu premier tresorier qui tient la clef est prest de ballier a chescun sa part du testament. Et pour ce que chascun puisse veoir tantost que il y a. le mirouer est. ou milieu du tresor ou len le puet tantost savoir. Ihesucrist ne lesse riens en son testament fors a ceus qui font sa volonte. Donc mire ta vie et voi ihesucrist devant toi et les instrumens de sa passion et regarde se tu fes bien sa volonte et puis si va le rivage de ruissaus qui li issent du cost. ce est des .vii. sacremens que tu vois sous les .vii. grans lettres du sautier que le saint esperit maine par les .vii. dons au .vii. vertus quar cest la voie par quoi vie de homme et de fame doit estre menee en ce monde. Et pour ce met ie. les .vii. vertues sous les .vii. matines du sautier. Quar par matin nous est entendus la vie. Et par le vespre definement. selonc lescriture. Et pour ce ie met le finement du monde le iour du iugement sur les vespres: Dixit dominus. Et ne va pas la

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voie a senestre ou sont les .vii. vices opposes au .vii. veretus. Et ainsi tu vendras au general paiment au iour du iugement que tu vois paint desus dixit dominus. Et auras ce gracieus don: que diex donra a ses amis quant il dira. Venes ca mes amis qui aves fet ma volente. Prenes le reaume de paradis qui vous est appareillies a tourious sans fin. a celui reaume nous veille conduire et mener le saint esperit et ihesucrist nous vueille recevoir: qui est benedictus in secula seculorum. amen amen amen. Translation The exposition of the figural images in the calendar and in the psalter, which is, properly speaking, the concordance of the Old and the New Testament. St. Gringoire says that he who sees and does not understand profits as little as he who hunts and catches nothing. And the wise Solomon agrees with him when he says that by hearing and by understanding one becomes more wise. And when one sees anything that is obscurely shown one should seek and ask for its meaning and explanation. And in what follows to the end of the psalter if there are any obscurely shown figures, I wish to clarify them so that everyone can understand and profit from them. Scripture says that God is not a man, fallible or subject to change, for however much man and all creatures can be changed in themselves and in their works and in their thoughts, nevertheless, the Creator, the Sovereign Workman, cannot undergo change. And as it is He who ordained and established the Old Testament and the New, it is proper that the two should be brought into concordance and unity. And with this the saints agree in several places in Holy Scripture, which say that the New Testament is entirely prefigured and revealed in the figures of the Old. And this concordance is the meaning of the images that follow. First of all there are the apostles who are the executors of the New Testament, who gather the obscurely revealed phrases of the Old Testament and uncover and clarify them and make from them the articles of faith, so that for each of the twelve months there is one of the twelve apostles and one of the twelve prophets represented in such a manner that the prophet gives to the apostle a veiled prophecy and the apostle uncovers it and makes of it an article. And since we speak of the Synagogue in the time of the Old Testament and the Church in the time of the New in two different ways — in the broad and material sense and in the subtle and spiritual sense — I

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put one sense as well as the other. For behind each prophet is a material synagogue from which he takes a stone which he gives to the apostle along with the prophecy. And the synagogue crumbles away as the days move forward, and the articles of faith mount up, as you can see in the pictures. And since the articles of faith are the road and the entrance gates of paradise, I put the twelve gates of the heavenly Jerusalem above the twelve apostles, and the Virgin Mary, through whom the gate was opened to us, holding over each of the gates a pennant on which is painted, in images, the article of faith which the apostle makes below, in words. And each pennant corresponds to each article, as is fitting. And since St. Paul was not yet in the college of apostles when they made the creed and collected the articles of faith, I put his rapture, how he was rapt and called, under the first article shown on the pennant that the Virgin Mary holds out to him. And then afterwards, for the other months, how he preached and displayed the articles that the Virgin is holding over the gate to the eleven kinds of people to whom he wrote the eleven epistles. Then after all this is seen comes a page on which the apostles assemble and build a church from the stones that they have taken and transported from the synagogue, and this church is made in the form that St. Paul described in one of his epistles, which says thus: You are no longer strangers and foreigners but are of the city of paradise and the fellowship of God; built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, that is, on the foundation of Holy Church and Jesus Christ. So, there is a stone cross above the bell-tower, and so the weather vane is the Angel Gabriel who announced to the Virgin Mary that she was the beginning of all this good. And at the right arm of the cross on the bell-tower is St. Paul who holds the inscribed scroll that I have put into French and explains this church. And since the Scriptures can be explained in several ways I am explaining the Crucifixion differently by putting it in the terrestrial paradise, in the garden of delight, and it stands for the river in the paradise of delight which issued forth and divided itself in four parts to water paradise. It is Jesus Christ who issued forth from paradise and extended Himself on the cross in four directions to water paradise, for it was so dry there that no fruit could grow, no soul could be planted unless He watered it with His precious blood which spread out through the garden in seven streams. And at the ends of these streams are the seven sacraments of Holy Church, by which she is entirely watered, and which issued forth from and took their strength from the side of Jesus Christ — according to the clerics.

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Again I explain this Crucifixion in another way, and what I say here is entirely painted for those who look at it well. By the cross in the garden of delight I mean the fruit of life, and by Jesus Christ the fruit. And below, outside the garden, is Eve, the first woman, who picked the fruit against the will and command of Our Lord. And facing her is the evil angel who told her that she might take it. And beneath the cross is the good angel who told the seeond woman, that is, the Virgin Mary, that she would take this fruit, Jesus Christ, by command of the Lord. And it is she who hears the news quietly and holds out her hand toward the fruit and says on a scroll: behold the fruit of life that I give. Thus we have how the apostles, executors of the New Testament, gathered the phrases of the Old Testament and brought them to Jesus Christ on the cross; thus the New Testament was confirmed and sealed, and the Church was ordained and confirmed, and St. Peter established as the foundation and first curate of Holy Church; and it is Jesus Christ who holds out to him the keys of paradise and he extends his hand to receive them. Now comes another page on which are the four scribes of this Testament; these are the four evangelists and the four beasts appropriate to them who hold out to them the four instruments of the passion of Jesus Christ. First, the eagle holds out to St. John the three nails that signify Divinity, both because of the number of the three Persons and because Divinity — which is Love — draws and joins together. Thus, the nails are made to attach and to join together, and St. John speaks especially of Divinity. Next, the man holds out to St. Matthew the cross, which signifies the humanity of Jesus Christ who was a man stretehed out in cross-form on the cross, and St. Matthew speaks especially of the humanity of Jesus Christ. Next, the lion holds out to St. Mark the crown, which signifies the resurrection, for resurrection is the circular movement from life to death and from death to life, and St. Mark speaks especially of the resurrection. Next, the ox holds out to St. Luke the lance, which signifies torment and passion, and St. Luke speaks especially of the passion. Thus we have the scribes of the New Testament and their symbols, by which this Testament is confirmed, to endure forever, irrevocably. In the midst of these four scribes, in a green field, is the treasure of Holy Church, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, from which this Testament is made. And the Virgin Mary, who helped Him to conquer, who holds Him on one side and calls all to come and inquire whether they have any part in this Testament. And St. Peter on the other side, who was the first treasurer,

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who holds the key, is ready to give to each person his part in the Testament. And so that each person can readily see what is there, the mirror is in the middle of the treasure where one can understand it readily. Therefore, reflect on your life and see Jesus Christ before you and the instruments of His passion, and watch whether you do His will well. And then comes the shore of the streams that issue from the side; these are the seven sacraments that you see under the seven large letters of the psalter, which the Holy Spirit leads through the seven gifts to the seven virtues, for that is the path which the life of man and woman should follow is this world. And therefore I put the seven virtues under the seven matins of the psalter, for by matin we understand life, and by vespers, its ending, according to the Scriptures. And therefore I put the end of the world on the day of judgment at vespers: Dixit Dominus. And do not take the path to the left where there are the seven vices opposed to the seven virtues. And thus you will come to the general reckoning on the day of judgment, which you see painted above Dixit Dominus. And you will have this gracious gift that God will give to His friends when He will say: Come here my friends who have done my will. Take the kingdom of paradise which is given over to you forever, without end. To this kingdom may the Holy Spirit conduct and lead us, and may Jesus Christ, who is blessed throughout all generations, receive us. Amen, amen, amen.

Bibliography Leroquais, V., Les Bréviaires manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, 3 vols., Paris, 1934. Morand, K., Jean Pucelle, Oxford, 1962. ——, ‘Jean Pucelle: A Re-examination of the Evidence,’ Burlington Magazine, CIII, 1961, 206–11. Paris, Grand Palais, Les Fastes du gothique, le siècle de Charles V, exh. cat., MS entries F. Avril, 1981.

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XXVII

The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent*

T

HE identity of the couple in Jan Van Eyck’s painting of 1434, traditionally called the Arnolfini Wedding (Fig. 1), has been questioned several times, most recently by Peter Schabacker.1 Schabacker concluded that the figures represented could not be Giovanni Arnolfini and Jeanne Cenami. His argument was centered on the handclasp which joins the couple in matrimony. As Erwin Panofsky had noted in his first study of the painting in 1934, the man’s left hand grasps the right hand of the woman, whereas the traditional marriage handclasp is the iunctio dextrarum, or joining of the right hands of the two parties.2 Schabacker explained the

* I am indebted to my colleague, Professor Carol H. Krinsky, for guiding me through the recent literature on the Arnolfini Wedding. 1 P. Schabacker, ‘De Matrimonio ad Morganaticam Contracto: Jan Van Eyck’s “Arnolfini” Portrait Reconsidered,’ Art Quarterly, xxxv, 1972, 375–98. Schabacker’s interpretation has been accepted by E. Dhanens, Hubert et Jan Van Eyck, Antwerp, 1980, 197–99. 2 E. Panofsky, ‘Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait,’ Burlington Magazine, LXIV, 1934, 117–27, in which he explained the clasping of left and right hands as a compositional device to preserve the symmetry of the group (p. 125). In Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, I, 202, n. 3 and 203, n. 3, Panofsky, citing H. Rosenau’s article ‘Some English Influences on Jan Van Eyck with Special Reference to the Arnolfini Portrait,’ Apollo, XXXVI, 1942, 125–28, termed the handclasp ‘an anomaly often found in English art with which Jan Van Eyck was demonstrably familiar.’ He accepted Rosenau’s observation that English double tomb slabs or brasses show parallel handholding gestures as sufficient proof of Van Eyck’s familiarity with English art. Rosenau cited specifically only the brass of Edward Cerne (d. 1393) and his wife in Draycot Cerne, Wilts. as a source for the Arnolfini ‘handfasting’ but this work shows, in fact, a completely orthodox clasping of right hands. Indeed, no tomb slab could be expected to provide a complete parallel to the Van Eyck painting because

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unorthodox gesture of the couple as the pictorial evidence of a morganatic marriage, that is, a marriage between individuals of unequal social status in which the bride, and usually any offspring, acquired no rights of inheritance by reason of the union.3 Such a marriage was called in the vernacular a ‘lefthanded’ marriage.4 Since Giovanni Arnolfini and Jeanne Cenami were social equals and since there is no documentary evidence to indicate that theirs was in fact a morganatic marriage, Schabacker concluded that they are not the couple represented in the portrait.5 Schabacker respected Panofsky’s now-classic interpretation of the painting as the pictorial testimony of the holy Sacrament of Matrimony;6 he only tombs represent the married state, not the sacramental act. Rosenau further suggested that the unorthodox handclasp in the Arnolfini painting made it possible for the bridegroom to raise his right — correct — hand while making his vow of marriage (p. 126). Among the canon law illustrations cited hereafter, however (nn. 3, 14), are numerous examples of vowing with the left hand while clasping the hand of the bride with the right. 3 In a paper read at the College Art Association Annual Meeting in 1980, not published in extenso, Brian D’Argaville proposed that rather than recording a morganatic marriage the painting shows ‘the formal induction of the wife into her husband’s home’ after the exchange of vows — the deductio in domum (see ‘The Renaissance Interpretation of Van Eyck’s “Arnolfini Marriage,” ’ 68th Annual Meeting, College Art Association of America, New Orleans, 1980, Abstracts of Papers Delivered in Art History Sessions, 46). With access available only to the brief abstract of D’Argaville’s paper, it is not possible to judge the merit of his interpretation. Nevertheless, it seems that in marriage rites conducted by the Church, the formal ceremonies after the exchange of vows and the nuptial mass included a priestly blessing of bread and wine, which were shared by the couple either at the door of the home or within the bridal chamber, a blessing of the bridal chamber itself, and of the couple within it (see J. B. Molin and P. Mutembe, Le rituel du mariage en France du XIIe au XVIe siècle, Paris, 1974, 239 ff.). No manuscript or printed ritual discussed by Molin and Mutembe mentions the solemn gesture of oath-taking — as seen in the painting — as part of the ceremony, and of course in the painting neither the priest nor bread and wine appear. The raising of the hand, the fides levata, is occasionally mentioned in rituals as concurrent with the iunctio dextrarum, as for example in the printed rituals of Cambrai, Thérouanne, Amiens, and Arras (ibid., 100) and is represented in illustrations of marriage ceremonies in numerous canon law manuscripts (see A. Melnikas, The Corpus of Miniatures in the Manuscripts of Decretum Gratiani, Rome, 1975, III, 926, Fig. 26, 1127, Fig. 26, among others). 4 Schabacker (as in n. 1), 376. According to Schabacker, the concept of morganatic marriage originated in Salic (i.e., Frankish and Germanic) law; see, for example, H. Lincken, De matrimonio lege salica contracto, Germanice von der Vermählung zur lincken Hand, Altdorf, 1676, and O. Klein, Beiträge zur Lehre von der morganatische Ehe, Erlangen, 1897. 5 Schabacker (as in n. 1), 379–81. 6 Ibid., 376, Panofsky, 1934 (as in n. 2), 117–27, and Panofsky, 1953 (as in n. 2), I, 201–03.

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overlaid the spiritual with a new secular layer, for the concept of morganatic marriage belongs to the sphere of civil, not church law. Yet I believe that the peculiar handclasp in the painting has a meaning in canon law which may lead to a re-evaluation of Schabacker’s conclusion. The significance of the gesture is demonstrated by an illustration in a fourteenth-century English encyclopedia known as the Omne bonum, a massive compilation that contains lengthy extracts from the chief collectors and commentators on canon law.7 The illustration of the article titled ‘clandestinum matrimonium’ shows a friar between a man and a woman; between his own hands he draws together the right hand of the man and the left hand of the woman (Fig. 2). The irregularity of the wedding is suggested by the half-hidden figure of the bride, the ordinary, not sacerdotal garment of the cleric, and the gesture of admonishment of the cleric on the right, perhaps intended as a canonist. The accompanying text, referring to Gratian’s Decretum, the Decretals of Gregory IX, and their glosses, and the Summa of Henricus de Bartholomaeis de Segusio, as well as other legal treatises,8 states the Church’s position that clandestine marriage, though not automatically invalid, is clearly illicit. The text lists six characteristics, any single one of which makes a marriage clandestine in the eyes of the Church: (1) to marry without witnesses, (2) to marry without benedictions by a priest, (3) to marry without episcopal permission a woman other than the one to whom one was betrothed, (4) to marry a minor incapable of consent, without permission of her guardian, (5) to be married privately before a chaplain or judge rather than publicly at the door of the church, and (6) to be married without publication of banns or determination of possible impediments. The chief visual feature of the Omne bonum illustration — the joining of right and left hands — is not mentioned in the text; in fact, it is not known whether clandestine marriages were actually solemnized by such a 7 London, Brit. Lib. MS Royal 6 E VI, 6 E VII. See G. Warner and J. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, London, 1921, I, 157–59. The two-volume folio-size manuscript (respectively 562 fols. and 532 fols.) is the compilation of one James, who refused to declare his surname. An unicum, it was probably written and illustrated during the third quarter of the fourteenth century. It contains hundreds of entries on canon law subjects, as well as a multitude of others on topics in theology, natural science, human history, and morality, along with hundreds of illustrations in the form of lavishly gilded historiated initials. I am preparing a longer study of this encyclopedia, its illustrations, and its compiler. 8 See Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E. Friedberg, Leipzig, 1879–1881; Henricus de Segusio (Hostiensis), Summa aurea, Venice, 1574, 1586.

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gesture, in reverse of that traditionally signifying the marriage.9 More probably, even in a private, clandestine marriage the right hands were linked, in conformity with ancient marital custom.10 Indeed, much of what the Church demanded to legitimize a marriage from the twelfth century onward — particularly the conduct of the ceremony at the door of the church and the active role of the priest — would have been exceptional at an earlier time, when weddings were customarily private, family affairs.11 In fact, private, clandestine marriage may well have been the norm throughout the Middle Ages, as recent studies have shown.12 Consequently, the gesture in the Omne bonum illustration should probably be interpreted as a symbol of clandestinity rather than the accurate depiction of a particular moment in a clandestine ceremony, just as the woman’s half-hidden pose should be understood as a symbol of privacy or secrecy, rather than the literal act of hiding. The importance of the handclasp as a symbol can be judged by com9 Klein (as in n. 4), 11, commented that, although ‘left-handed marriage’ — a term that appeared in German first in the fifteenth century (and in English only in the seventeenth, see Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. ‘Left-handed’) — was originally thought by scholars to refer only to an actual marital handclasp of left with right hands, it arose in fact more from the idea of left as inferior and right as superior, or correct, so that the term could be a figure of speech referring to a marriage of socially unequal individuals rather than a literal description of a wedding custom. Although it appears that in modern times morganatic marriages may actually have been concluded by clasping of left and right hands (see Oxford English Dictionary, S.V. ‘Morganatic,’ ‘Morganic,’ where Disraeli is quoted as writing in 1827, ‘His Royal Highness espoused the lady with his left hand . . . which we . . . call a morganatic marriage’), Klein’s comment raises some doubt as to whether such handclasps already occurred in the time of Jan Van Eyck. 10 The clasping of right hands represented the giving of the parties to each other; the gesture is already described in the Old Testament account of the marriage of Tobias and Sara, ‘And taking the right hand of his daughter, he [Sara’s father] gave it into the right hand of Tobias’ (Tob. 7:15). The iunctio dextrarum was a Greco-Roman custom as well (see Panofsky, 1934, as in n. 2, Pl. IIA, and most recently Molin and Mutembe, as in n. 3, 88–102). There is overwhelming evidence that during the Middle Ages it was the right hands that were always joined in the ‘donation mutuelle.’ 11 For recent studies on the disparity between Church prescription and lay practice, see M. Sheehan, O.S.B., ‘The Formation and Stability of Marriage in Fourteenth-Century England: Evidence of An Ely Register,’ Medieval Studies, XXXIII, 1971, 228–63; R. H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, London, 1974, esp. 26–31; G. Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth Century France, Baltimore and London, 1978, 4; and idem, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest: The Making of Modern Marriage in Medieval France, New York, 1983. 12 Helmholz (as in n. 11), 31.

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parison with the illustration of coniugium — canonical marriage — in the same encyclopedia (Fig. 3). Here the man and woman, each fully visible, flank a priest, clothed in proper sacerdotal vestments, who joins their right hands. While no other illustrations of clandestine marriage have come to light, the representation of coniugium here is typical of hundreds of surviving images of marriage ceremonies in medieval legal texts.13 In the opinion of the Church a marriage was effected by mutual words of consent, but visible signs were necessary too — the giving of one to the other by clasping of right hands.14 In art, the words could not be heard; only the handclasp could be shown, so it became the chief visual evidence of marriage; it follows that any alteration in the gesture would be an immediately recognizable indication of a non-canonical form of marriage.15 As in the Omne bonum, then, in the Arnolfini Wedding the clasping of left and right hands appears to characterize the marriage as private, or clandestine.16 Doubtless, morganatic marriages in a civil sense could also take 13 For a large number of reproductions of illustrations of marriage ceremonies, see Melnikas (as in n. 3), Causae XXVII–XXXVI. Causae XXXIII and XXXVI concern marriages conducted publicly which are nevertheless considered invalid or irregular, and in those examples of these causae illustrated with marriage ceremonies, the handholding gestures differ from the normal iunctio dextrarum. the man either holding the left hand of the woman in his right, as in the Omne bonum, or the right hand of the woman in his left, as in the Arnolfini Wedding (see Causa XXXIII, 1040f., Figs. 17, 18, and Causa XXXVI, 1156 f., Figs. 19–21). The vast majority of Gratian illustrations of marriage rites show the clasping of right hands, usually held in those of a priest in stole and/or chasuble or cope. In addition to Gratian’s Decretum, the fourth book of the Decretals of Gregory IX — on marriage — is often illustrated with a single miniature or initial showing an orthodox marriage ceremony. right hands of the participants joined, conducted in the presence of a priest, left hands of one or both parties to the contract raised, and witnesses in attendance. Professor Melnikas is preparing a corpus of Decretals illustrations for publication. So far I have encountered no specific illustrations of texts on clandestinum matrimonium in any canon law volume. 14 Sheehan (as in n. 11), 247. 15 The non-canonical marriage symbolized by such a handclasp might be purely civil, as in ‘left-handed’ morganatic marriage (see above, n. 9), or completely invalid, as in illustrations of the bigamous second marriage discussed in the Decretum, Causa XXXIII (see above, n. 13), or valid only after a period of penance, as in illustrations of Decretum, Causa XXXVI, which discusses the validity of a rapist’s marriage to his victim (see above, n. 13) — or valid but illicit in the eyes of the Church, as in the clandestine marriage of the Omne bonum. 16 In Early Netherlandish Painting, Panofsky (as in n. 2, 202 f.) had referred to the clandestine character of the wedding, apparently without realizing the possible significance of the handclasp as its symbol. Sheehan (as in n. 11, 247, n. 12) suggested that the joining of hands in the Arnolfini Wedding might signify the sealing of a clandestine contract, without knowing of the Omne bonum illustration which confirms his hypothesis. In a discussion of

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place in private — but the components of the Arnolfini Wedding do not require that the ceremony depicted there must be morganatic. Consequently, the cautious title given by Martin Davies — The Marriage of Giovanni (?) Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami (?) — still remains the most reasonable as an identification of the couple in the painting.17 What is unresolved is whether the ‘handclasp of clandestinity’ refers merely to some as-yet-unknown biographical detail in the lives of the Arnolfini couple. The central importance of the handclasp amidst the motifs in the work referring to the privacy of the marriage — the bedroom, the absence of a priest, the witnesses seen only in reflection or through written testimony — raises the suspicion that such a concentration on the clandestine has a significance — symbolic and allegorical perhaps, rather than historical or biographical — beyond that already uncovered by the research of Panofsky and others. In this brief note it can only be suggested that some clarification might be forthcoming from a more searching investigation of the thematic relationship between the Arnolfini Wedding and the lost Eyckian panel showing a nude bather and a female companion, of which there is a small replica in the seventeenth-century painting (Fig. 4) of the Gallery of Cornelis Van der Geest by Willem Van Haecht (Antwerp, Rubenshuis.)18 The panel showed the two women in poses corresponding to those of Arnolfini and his bride, and the bedroom setting nearly duplicated that of the painting in the National Gallery. Julius Held suggested that the lost work depicted a ritual premarital bath of the bride — a prelude to the marriage shown in the Arnolfini Wedding.19 On the historical or biographical level this is plausible, just as the Arnolfini Wedding is the picture of the marriage of two historical individuals, whoever they may have been. But the Arnolfini Wedding is also a symbolic representation of the Sacrament of clandestine marriage, H. A. Kelly (Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer, Ithaca, 1975, 174 and n. 40) termed the Arnolfini Wedding the representation of a private marital contract preceding a public wedding at the door of the church and dismissed Panofsky’s idea that the iunctio dextrarum (or any form of handclasp) is the essential physical symbol of the verbal exchange of consent. 17 M. Davies, Les primitifs flamands, The National Gallery of London, Antwerp, 1954, II, No. 47, 117–28. 18 On this lost Van Eyck, see J. Held, ‘Artis pictoriae amator: An Antwerp Art Patron and His Collection,’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., L, 1957, 53–84. 19 Held (as in n. 18), 74–83. Held’s interpretation has been supported in the recent literature by Dhanens (as in n. 1, 207) and J. Purtle, The Marian Paintings of Jan Van Eyck, Princeton, 1982, 114–16.

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1. Van Eyck, Arnolfini Wedding. London, National Gallery (photo: National Gallery).

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2. Clandestine Marriage, London, Brit. Lib. MS Roy. 6 E VI, fol. 286v (photo: British Library).

3. Canonical Marriage, London, Brit. Lib. MS Roy. 6 E VI, fol. 375 (photo: British Library).

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4. Replica of Eyckian panel in Van Haecht, Gallery of Cornelis Van der Geest. Antwerp, Rubenshuis (from Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, I, Pl. 62b).

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Marriage, shown in a private setting to allude to the special aspect of marriage as the one Sacrament the recipients could confer upon themselves, in solitude, as Panofsky remarked.20 Could the lost bather have had a symbolic meaning also? Perhaps the modest, virginal girl with long, unbound hair, standing in a Venus pudica pose and bathing in the privacy of a bedroom, was intended to symbolize the Christian Virtue of Chastity, personified, as Rosemond Tuve wrote, as the ‘pure soul faithful in allegiance to God, to the good, to the right lover, to creatures loved through the creator.’21 If so, the pair of paintings would have belonged to the large family of medieval pictorial and literary images in which the Virtues and the Sacraments were correlated, the meaning of one enhancing the meaning of the other.22

Panofsky, 1953 (as in n. 2), 202. R. Tuve, Allegorical Imagery, Some Books and Their Posterity, Princeton, 1966, 119. Contra the proposal that the bather is a symbol of Chastity, see J. Briels, ‘Amator pictorae artis: De Antwerpse Kunstversamelaar Pieter Stevens (1590–1668) en zijn Constkamer,’ Jahrboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, 1980, 171–80, who interprets the lost Van Eyck as a Vanitas, adducing in support a Memling panel in Strasbourg. In my opinion, the Memling Vanitas differs in every significant detail from the Eyckian work. 22 Correlations of the Virtues and the Sacraments were a commonplace of medieval art and thought (see F. G. Godwin, ‘An Illustration to the De Sacramentis of St. Thomas Aquinas:’ Speculum, XXVI, 1951, 609–14, and R. Tuve, ‘Notes on the Virtues and Vices, Part II:’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXVII, 1964, 65–72). The spiritual Virtue of Chastity was, along with modesty and continence, a subdivision of the cardinal Virtue of Temperance, which in the standard systems of correlation is juxtaposed with the Sacrament of Matrimony. 20 21

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Bedford in Brooklyn*

T

HE Brooklyn Museum of Art has a small collection of illuminated manuscripts, among which is a fine fifteenth-century Parisian book of hours (Ms. 19.78) classified summarily by Millard Meiss as ‘Bedford Trend, ca. 1418,’ but discussed no further either by Meiss himself or by any scholar since.1 The recent exhibition Paris 1400, in which many manuscripts contemporary with the Brooklyn Hours were gathered together, provided an opportunity for re-evaluating the artistic personalities responsible for the astonishing flowering of illumination at the time of Charles VI, and some of the resultant conclusions were presented in the exhibition catalogue essays and entries of Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, François Avril, and Ines Villela-Petit and their colleagues.2 The essay that follows, which could not have been written without profiting from the immense scholarly riches of the exhibition and catalogue, is intended to serve as a modest addendum to this matière. In brief, the Brooklyn manuscript includes a Paris calendar, a * This note is offered with affection and admiration to Jim Marrow, who has discovered many remarkable manuscripts in unexpected places. 1 M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, 2 vols., Franklin Jasper Walls Lectures 2 (London and New York, 1974), vol. 1, 366. For prior citations, see S. A. Hutchinson, ‘The Mary Benson Bequest of Illuminated Manuscripts and Autograph Letters,’ Brooklyn Museum Quarterly 6 (1919): 222 and ‘Illuminated Manuscripts,’ Brooklyn Museum Quarterly 13 (1926): 72, 77, as Parisian; H. Comstock, ‘The Brooklyn Museum’s Manuscripts,’ International Studio 85 (November 1926): 44–48, as Flemish, fifteenth century; S. de Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 3 vols. (New York, 1935–40 ), vol. 2 (1937), 1195, no. 11, as Paris, c. 1460. 2 E. Taburet-Delahaye, with F. Avril et al., Paris 1400: Les arts sous Charles VI, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre (Paris, 2004).

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series of Gospel readings (Figs. 1–3), the Hours of the Virgin (Figs. 4–6), Penitential Psalms and Litany (Fig. 7), Short Office of the Cross, Hours of the Holy Spirit, Office of the Dead (Fig. 8), Fifteen Joys of the Virgin (Fig. 9), and a series of prayers and suffrages (see appendix). The main text components are illustrated with twenty arch-topped framed miniatures, placed above three or four lines of text beginning with historiated initials of equal height, each text-miniature unit framed with a full Italianate border incorporating figural, foliate, and floral motifs. The ordinary text pages are framed by vertical gold bars with sprays of gold foliage and seedpods attached to thorny branches drawn in black ink. One artist executed all the miniatures and historiated initials as well as the figural components of the borders, and may in fact have designed and painted their decorative features as well. The Brooklyn Hours is an exceptionally homogeneous manuscript, unusual among luxury Parisian books of the early fifteenth century in having been painted by a single artist. The mise-en-page is also unusual in including historiated initials rather than the decorated initials that are more common in devotional books of the Bedford group. Whatever the date of its execution, or the identity of its patron, the manuscript provides a closeup view of the artistic practice of a particular individual, on the basis of which his personality may be fleshed out more fully than if he were merely one participant among several. Who was this artist? When was the manuscript produced? For whom? Millard Meiss answered the first question convincingly by classifying the manuscript among works of the ‘Bedford Trend.’ By this term he meant ‘all paintings of the [Bedford] group earlier than the Châteauroux Breviary [Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms. 2], in which the chief master of the Bedford Hours seems . . . to me indubitably identifiable.’3 Meiss dated the Châteauroux Breviary to about 1414,4 the year before the death in 1415 of its owner, the dauphin Louis de Guyenne, although in the most recent study of the manuscript, Ines Villela-Petit has suggested that it was made about 1412–13 for use in Louis’s new private chapel.5 Awkward as it is, Meiss’s term for these early works of the Bedford Meiss, The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries (as in note 1), 363. Ibid., 364. 5 I. Villela-Petit, Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux (Paris, 2003), 32, 46; see also TaburetDelahaye et al., Paris 1400 (as in note 2), no. 69. 3 4

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Master continues to be used,6 suggesting the conviction that although the ‘real’ or most characteristic style of the artist did not develop until his contributions to the Châteauroux Breviary, and reached full maturity only in the 1420s, nevertheless some essential aspects of his artistic personality are evident even in the first decade of the century. The idiosyncrasies usually cited are ‘stocky, bulbous-nosed figures,’7 ‘soft, bifurcated beards,’ ‘elegant, sinuously draped figures,’ and ‘complex architectural articulation.’8 These are found in manuscripts attributed to the Bedford Master throughout his career, but as the artist matured, he showed an increasing tendency to narrative richness,9 the multiplication of figures and details of setting and landscape, especially in contrast to the sparer, more restrained work of his contemporary, the Boucicaut Master. Notwithstanding Meiss’s categorization of the Brooklyn Hours as a Bedford Trend manuscript, a number of perplexing questions remain regarding his attribution, and even his own definition of the term. First of all is the question of Meiss’s date of ‘ca. 1418.’ Was this a typographical error, since clearly the term ‘Bedford Trend’ was intended for manuscripts earlier than the Châteauroux Breviary? Or should Meiss’s dating be taken as intentional? And second, which of his two definitions should be operative: the first, quoted above, from the introduction to the list in the volume on the Limbourgs (1974), or the second — earlier — in the volume on the Boucicaut Master (1968), ‘all paintings of the [Bedford] group earlier than the Missal of St. Magloire [1412, Paris, Arsenal, Ms. 623] and the Châteauroux Breviary, in which the Master of the Bedford Hours and his workshop seem to me identifiable.’10 In his earlier formulation, Meiss 6 For example, by Villela-Petit, Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux (as in note 5), 48–52. Meiss’s list of Bedford Trend manuscripts (The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries [as in note 1], 363–68) and the dates of individual volumes have been amended, however, by more recent scholars; see Villela-Petit, Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux and Villela-Petit and F. Avril in Taburet-Delahaye et al., Paris 1400 (as in note 2), esp. nos. 55, 117, 139, 182, and 185; see also A. Châtelet, L’Age d’or du manuscrit à peintures en France au temps de Charles VI et les Heures du maréchal Boucicaut (Dijon, 2000),164. 7 M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Boucicaut Master, Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art 3 (London, 1968), 35. 8 Villela-Petit, Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux (as in note 5), 48. 9 Considered as narrative excess by some, e.g., François Avril, ‘le style truculent,’ and citing Charles Sterling, on the Lamoignon Hours (Lisbon, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Ms. LA 143), ‘porte à l’extrême ce “prodigieux appetit de narration’’ ’; see Taburet-Delahaye et al., Paris 1400 (as in note 2), 277, 353. 10 Meiss, The Boucicaut Master (as in note 7), 36.

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seemed less certain about the possibility of singling out the personality of the Bedford Master himself from his ‘workshop.’ Current scholars indeed use ‘Bedford Trend’ as a portmanteau term to refer to both the Bedford Master himself and the other artists working on the same projects in a closely related manner, without distinguishing among the multiple Bedford hands.11 Where, then, among manuscripts still agreed upon to constitute the Bedford Trend does the Brooklyn Hours ‘fit’? Or, is the manuscript actually more closely related to works that postdate the Châteauroux Breviary, as Meiss’s ‘ca. 1418’ suggests? To my mind, certain stylistic features found among the Bedford Trend manuscripts are conservative, still adhering to conventions of the late fourteenth century. These include rectangular rather than arched formats for the miniatures of devotional books; tessellated or tooled gold grounds rather than landscape or interior backgrounds; and borders composed primarily of vignettes rather than Italianate acanthus incorporating figural motifs. These conservative features continue to appear intermittently and separately in the Châteauroux Breviary and later Bedford books, although the more innovative alternatives predominate. Moreover, while the more developed features are introduced singly into Bedford Trend books, only in one case do they all occur together — the Hours in Brooklyn. As noted above, the miniatures of the Brooklyn Hours are all archshaped. Those subjects set indoors are provided with inner arched frames, so that the effect of looking into an interior from the outside of a structure is heightened; for subjects set outdoors, the curving top of the frame alludes to the arch of the sky, and its straight edges usually cut off some compositional element, thereby increasing the implied extent of the landscape. Further, the backgrounds of the Brooklyn miniatures are ‘natural,’ whether windowed interiors or sky; despite the stylized pattern of stars, the skies are often carefully shaded lighter toward the horizon, an illusionistic technique used first by the Boucicaut Master, who, however, also continued to employ conventional tessellated backgrounds, unlike the artist of the Brooklyn Hours. Lush vignette-and-acanthus borders in variegated colors and shaded gold frame every miniature of the Brooklyn Hours. Many include figures Meiss (The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries [as in note 1], 337) followed by Villela-Petit (Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux [as in note 5], 48), identified the Adelphoe Master as a distinct personality within the Bedford Trend. 11

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that serve as ‘witnesses’ to the subjects of the miniature, sometimes encapsulated in nodules of foliage, sometimes resting on sinuous branches, and sometimes ‘hidden’ amongst the small leaves and flowers of the vignettes. Within the overall development pattern of border decoration in the Bedford manuscripts, the Brooklyn Hours may be compared to the Douce Hours of 1408, the earliest book in which acanthus borders occur.12 The Douce miniatures and borders were painted by perhaps as many as five artists,13 one of whom can be placed in the Bedford Trend category;14 sometimes miniature and border were painted by the same individual, sometimes not. Although all the borders include acanthus, their designs vary significantly, and only some pages resemble those of the Brooklyn Hours in the form, color, and massing of the foliage. On these same pages, however, decorated bars frame the miniatures on either side, the vignettes are interspersed in defined areas, rather than being strewn among the acanthus leaves, and the small stylized leaves and flowers are often attached to painted branches outlined in black, recalling late-fourteenth-century border design. Closer to the overall design of the Brooklyn Hours borders are those of

12 Oxford, Bodl., Ms. Douce 144. See O. Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol. 1, German, Dutch, Flemish, French, and Spanish Schools (Oxford, 1966), no. 641; Meiss, The Boucicaut Master (as in note 7), 106–8; Taburet-Delahaye et al., Paris 1400 (as in note 2), no. 185. Although the manuscript appears to be firmly dated to 1408 by an inscription (added, according to Meiss, in the hand of the scribe), many of the miniatures and the borders — both in composition and in particular motifs, such as crowded groups of figures, narrative border medallions. unframed genre basde-page scenes, and ‘real’ flowers — seem more closely related to later Bedford manuscripts of the 1420s than to works of the early period. Châtelet (L’Age d’or [as in note 6], 162) suggested that execution of the manuscript ‘a pu se prolonger un peu plus longtemps [beyond 1408],’ although the inscription on folio 27 says that it was ‘factum et complectum’ in that year, the term ‘complectum’ suggesting the completion of the whole project. 13 Pächt and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (as in note 12), no. 641. 14 Pächt and Alexander (in ibid.) attributed all the miniature pages to the Boucicaut and Bedford Masters; Meiss (The Boucicaut Master [as in note 7], 107) attributed only the page with the Gospel reading for Mark (fol. 5v) to a Bedford Trend artist; Châtelet (L’Age d’or [as in note 6], Fig. 102) identified the Nativity page (fol. 63r) as an early work of the Bedford Master. In my opinion, the borders on fols. 1r, 2r, 5v, 63r, and 86v, as well as the miniatures on fols. 5v and 63r, should be assigned to a Bedford Trend artist, probably the painter of the Brooklyn Hours.

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the Terence des Ducs (c. 1411)15 and the De Lévis Hours (c. 1417),16 other early Bedford manuscripts in which Italianate foliage plays a major role. Like the Brooklyn Hours, these manuscripts have borders whose vignettes are scattered amongst the acanthus, the whole forming broad, richly varied, closely knit meshes extending directly and uninterruptedly from the curved miniature frames to the outer rectilinear contours. As in the Brooklyn Hours, too, the borders enclose subsidiary figures but not the ‘petites histoires’ that are so characteristic of later Bedford manuscripts.17 This survey of conservative vis à vis advanced motifs suggests that the Brooklyn Hours was executed sometime between 1408 and about 1417, but not as late as 1418. Is it possible to characterize the artistic personality of the painter and identify his hand elsewhere? His lush and colorful borders, if more developed than those of the Douce Hours, seem nevertheless to be by the same hand if the form, rhythm, and color of the acanthus, as well as the handling of the figural motifs, are taken into account. As far as the miniatures are concerned, the most distinctive — and somewhat surprising — feature is the delicate refinement in the shaping of the figures’ physiognomies. The bulbous-nosed faces of the males and the soft, ‘sweet,’ puffy lips, smudged eyes, and darkly shadowed, golden tan hair of the females are obtained by painterly means, that is, by shading to heighten the salience of the noses, the fleshiness of lips, and the volume of hair. Such shading is already employed in most Bedford Trend works, even in female faces, which are lighter in overall tonality but nevertheless far more subtle in surface modulation than the simple plastic ovoids favored by contemporary artists such as the Cité des Dames Master, or even the Boucicaut Master. While the general effect of the Brooklyn Master’s physiognomies is unmistakably Bedfordian, however, the system of shading is simple; single soft strokes rather than modulated areas serve to suggest shadows or projections. The particular delicacy of touch of the Brooklyn

15 Paris, Arsenal, Ms. 664, frontispiece on fol. 1v; see Taburet-Delahaye et al., Paris 1400 (as in note 2), no. 145. 16 New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, Ms. 400; cf. M. Meiss, The De Lévis Hours and the Bedford Workshop, Yale Lectures on Medieval Illumination (New Haven, 1972), 22 and passim. 17 Villela-Petit, Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux (as in note 5), 53, citing the frontispiece of Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, Paris, BNF, Ms. Fr. 226, fol. 1, which she dated c. 1416–20, as the earliest example of these marginal narratives.

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Hours miniaturist seems to be a factor of artistic personality, not an indication of early date in the development of the Bedford style. Among all the images painted by the Bedford Trend artists, few display a painterly touch as light as that in the Brooklyn Hours. One close parallel, however, is found in a single miniature in the copy of the collected writings of Christine de Pisan in the British Library, dated about 1413 by Villela-Petit, the latest scholar to study the volume.18 In the appealing miniature of a shepherdess, the physiognomy is shaped and lightly shaded in exactly the same way as in the Brooklyn miniatures. Other elements of the London composition also have exceptionally close counterparts in the Brooklyn manuscript, particularly the configuration of the little flower-topped clumps of grass and the pattern of the shepherdess’s drapery as it falls to the ground. Finally, comparison with the De Lévis Hours miniatures suggests that narrative restraint may be another personal characteristic of the Brooklyn Master, rather than only a key to the date of the manuscript. Subject for subject, the compositions of the Brooklyn artist have fewer accessory figures than the Bedford group miniatures in the De Lévis Hours, demonstrating a predilection for spaciousness and simplicity that leans toward the sensibility of the Boucicaut Master. In the work of the Brooklyn Master, then, a distinct artistic personality emerges from the group style of the Bedford Trend. His painterly touch is delicate, his acanthus-and-vignette borders lush, his use of natural settings consistent, and his figural compositions uncluttered. Although unreported by Meiss, the Brooklyn Hours carries an indication of its original owner in the form of a monogram on the matins page (Fig. 4). Centered in the lower margin, tangent to the bottom edge of the border, is a rose-pink Lombardic I overlapping a blue N, both letters delicately patterned in white. The hues are identical to those used in the border, and although the monogram is not integral to the border design, it seems reasonable to suppose that it was added immediately upon completion of the program of illustration in order to personalize a manuscript which otherwise had no preplanned signs of ownership, such as coats of arms. In the borders themselves various emblematic birds appear;19 centered in the lower border of the page with the Gospel reading of St. Mark 18 London, BL, Harley Ms. 4331, vol. 2, fol. 221; Villela-Petit in Taburet-Delahaye et al., Paris 1400 (as in note 2), no. 55, with illustration. 19 These include a parrot and a peacock, the latter an emblem used by Charles VI and the dauphin Louis de Guyenne; see Villela-Petit, Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux (as in note 5), 24.

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(Fig. 3) is a pale, delicately speckled erminelike animal whose coat is shaded to brown, also emblematic.20 Such birds and animals appear frequently in the borders of Bedford manuscripts. In any individual manuscript, however, they appear to allude to noble lineage and connections without necessarily identifying a particular person. Some connection may have existed between the original owner and Marie de Bretagne, a later owner of the manuscript. Two originally blank folios at the beginning of the volume (fols. iv–iiv) contain a copy dated 1815 of a document of 1477 relating to the burial of Marie de Bretagne in the convent of La Madeleine-des-Orléans.21 Marie, born in 1424, was the daughter of Richard de Bretagne (1395–1438), younger brother of two successive dukes of Brittany, and Marguerite d’Orléans (1406–1466), youngest daughter of Louis, duke of Orleans (killed 1407). Brought up by her widowed mother at the Clarissan abbey of Longchamps, she was appointed abbess of Fontevrault in 1457, and died at the Fontévriste priory of La Madeleine-des-Orléans, which she had reformed and rebuilt, on October 19, 1477.22 An inventory of her books includes ‘unes Heures de Nostre Dame, en franczoys, hystoriees, relyées, fermantes a fermouers d’argent doré,’ possibly a reference to the Brooklyn Museum manuscript, which indeed begins with a calendar in French.23 Although no member of Marie de Bretagne’s immediate family or any relative in the preceding generation has a name with the initials I-N, the Brooklyn Hours, illuminated by a master whose patrons were in the highest echelons of the nobility, would have been a fitting inheritance for an individual of her royal ancestry.

An addorsed pair of the same animals appears in the Bedford Hours, London, BL, Add. Ms. 18850, fol. 70v, border of terce of the Hours of the Virgin; the Bedford Hours borders incorporate other emblematic birds and animals, viz., cocks, peacocks, and bears. See J. Backhouse, The Bedford Hours (London, 1990), with illustrations of all the main bordered pages. 21 Printed in A. Jubien, L’abbesse Marie de Bretagne et la réforme de l’ordre de Fontevraut (Angers, 1872), 24–25. 22 For her life, see ibid. 23 For the inventory, see Jubien, L’abbesse Marie de Bretagne, 169. At the end of the transcription of the document of 1477 in the Brooklyn Hours (fol. ii) is a note saying that the nuns of La Madeleine-les-Orléans preserved the tradition that the manuscript had belonged to Marie de Bretagne. Another note in an eighteenth-/nineteenth-century hand on folio iiv also identifies the volume as belonging to Marie. 20

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1. Gospel reading: The Three Marys at the Tomb. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 13r (photo: © P. Gerson).

769

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2. Gospel reading: Saint John the Evangelist. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 17r (photo: © P. Gerson).

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3. Gospel reading: Saint Mark. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 22V (photo: © P. Gerson).

771

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4. Hours of the Virgin, matins: Annunciation. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 24r (photo: © P. Gerson).

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5. Hours of the Virgin, lauds: Visitation. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 47v (photo: © P. Gerson).

773

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6. Hours of the Virgin, prime: Nativity. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 58r (photo: © P. Gerson).

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7. Penitential Psalms: King David in Prayer. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 88r (photo: © P. Gerson).

775

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8. Office of the Dead: Funeral Service. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol. 119r (photo: © P. Gerson).

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9. Fifteen Joys of the Virgin: Virgin and Child in a Rose Garden. New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78, fol.162r (photo: © P. Gerson).

777

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778

Appendix New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Ms. 19.78 Ms. bequeathed by Mary Benson, 1919. DESCRIPTION ii + 199 fols.; 195 x 139 mm.; 1 col., 15 lines; text block 110 x 68 mm.; ruled in red ink; foliated 1–6 (calendar) and on rectos of folios with miniatures, otherwise too tightly bound to collate. Latin and French in Gothic bookhand. All text pages framed in vertical gold bars treated as cut-off branches at bottom and accented in blue and pink, from which spring gold vignettes and globular seedpods on black linear stems interspersed with a profusion of straight thorny projections. Numerous one-line champie initials and two-/three-line blue or rose initials on gold panels, the fields filled with foliated spirals. Twenty richly decorated pages at the main text divisions, with three-/four-line figured initials on rectangular panels, eleven-/ twelve-line arched miniatures and full acanthus-and-vignette borders incorporating birds, animals, and figures. Binding, French, early-seventeenthcentury olive morocco, gilt. CONTENTS ‘Extrait d’un acte fait après le trépas de Dame Marie de Bretagne abbesse de fontevraut allié de vie a trépas en son couvent de la Magdaleine-les-Orléans le 19 octobre 1477.’ Fols. iv–iiv. Blank. Fols. 1r–12v. Calendar Paris calendar in French, every day filled, entries alternately blue and red

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779

interrupted by major entries in gold. Fols. 13r–23v. Gospel readings Mark. Miniature: Three Marys at the Tomb (Fig. 1), the scene taking place within a circular arcaded domed structure. Initial: Joseph of Arimathea with unguent jar. Border: acanthus-and-vignette with stylized aroids and seed-pods (13r). Matthew. Miniature: Imago Pietatis. Initial: bearded prophet. Border: angel (15r). John. Miniature: John on Patmos, writing (Fig. 2), eagle holding pencase in beak. Initial: John holding chalice. Border: birds and angels (17r). Luke. Miniature: evangelist writing under canopy set in walled enclosure. Initial: Virgin reading, holding Christ Child. Border: half-length combatants and musicians in foliage nodules, pelican piercing breast (19v). Matthew. Miniature: writing evangelist, seated under canopy in interior, angel holding inkwell. Initial: angel pointing to text. Border: busts of prophets in foliage nodules (20v). Mark. Miniature: writing evangelist holding pince-nez to eyes (Fig. 3),24 seated under canopy in interior. Initial: standing saint, indicating eyes. Border: putti and ermine or weasel (22v). Fols. 24r–87r. Hours of the Virgin Matins. Miniature: Annunciation (Fig. 4), Virgin interrupted at reading, in axial vaulted interior, through a high window God-Father sending Dove of Holy Spirit. Initial: angel-musician. Border: angel-singers and musician, monogram I-N (24r). Lauds. Miniature: Visitation (Fig. 5), with angel holding mantle of Virgin, radiant sun above. Initial, monk contemplating. Border: male witnesses (47v). Prime. Miniature: Nativity (Fig. 6), naked Christ Child on bed; setting, a hut viewed obliquely, landscape beyond. Initial: shepherd looking up. Border: shepherd (58r). Terce. Miniature: Annunciation to the Shepherds, landscape with distant city. Initial, shepherd looking up. Border: shepherd (63v). Sext. Miniature: Adoration of the Magi, shepherds in distance. Initial: 24 Cf. the Bedford Hours, London, BL, Add. Ms. 18850, fol. 89v, Death of the Virgin, apostle reading; Jubien, L’abbesse Marie de Bretagne (as in note 21), Fig. 21.

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attendant and horse with ciborium. Border: angels and prophet (67v). None. Miniature: Presentation in the Temple, set in centralized windowed structure with dome seen from outside. Initial: Madonna of Humility. Border: witness figures (71v). Vespers. Miniature: Flight into Egypt, landscape with woven fence and distant city, radiant sun above. Initial: bearded man gesturing toward text. Border: figures with weapons, blank scrolls (75v). Compline. Miniature: Coronation of the Virgin, angel holding her mantle, another flying down with crown. Initial: angel-musician. Border: birds (82r). Ends fol. 87r: fol. 87v ruled, framed, and bordered, but blank. Fols. 88r–105r. Penitential Psalms and Litany Miniature: King David in Prayer (Fig. 7), harp on ground, God-Father with seraphim above. Initial: David reading. Border: birds (88r). Fols. 105v–112v. Short Office of the Cross Miniature: Crucifixion with Mary and John. Initial: centurion gesturing toward text. Border: armored men and fool with a club (105v). Fols. 112v–118v. Hours of the Holy Spirit (short form) Miniature: Pentecost, set obliquely in open vaulted structure seen from outside, ‘sculptural’ relief of naked praying soul at upper corner, dove and rays axial. Initial: praying apostle. Border: peacock and other birds (113r). Fols. 118v–161v. Office of the Dead Miniature: Funeral service in axial domed centralized structure seen from outside (Fig. 8), covered coffin placed obliquely. Initial, skeleton. Border: hunter aiming at bird, angel-musicians (119r). Fols. 161v–167v. Fifteen Joys of the Virgin In French. Miniature: crowned Virgin seated in rose garden (Fig. 9), her feet on a cushion, accompanied by angels, Christ Child bending forward on her lap to reach bowl of cherries held by angel. Initial: angel-musician. Border: angels praying and playing music (162r). Fols. 167vr–170v. Seven Requests to the Lord In French. Miniature: Mary and John the Baptist interceding with Christ at Last Judgment, trumpeting angels above, dead figure rising below. Initial, Virgin and naked Christ Child. Border: musician-angels and angels with Instruments of the Passion (168r). Fols. 171r–184r. Prayers and Masses in honor of the Holy Spirit, the Virgin, the Cross, the Dead

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Fols. 184v–189v. Suffrages In male voice, ending with Saints Nicholas, Leonard, Apollonia, Katherine, Mary Magdalen, and all saints. Fols. 190r–193v. Prayer Obsecro te in male voice. Fols. 193v–197r. Prayer O intemerata in male voice, the hand changing on fol. 196. Fols. 197v–199v. Blank, ruled.

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Index Aberdeen, University Library Ms. 240 139n.35 Amiens, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 353 40 fig. 3 Aarau, Kantonsbibliothek Ms. Bibl. Wett. Fol. Max. 1–3 561 Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery Ms. 10.133 426 fig. 9 Ms. 102 653n.33 Ms. 105 577 fig. 23, 578 fig. 24, 580, 580n.61 Bangor Cathedral Pontifical 684n.7 Berlin, Staatliche Museum, Kupferstichkabinett Ms. 78 E 2 714n.39, 731 fig. 10 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Ms. lat. qu. 487 233n.63, 279n.10 Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 60 648n.17 Bloomington, Lilly Library, Indiana University Ms. Ricketts 15 (formerly fol. 339) 328n.54 Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum of Art Ms. 19.78 761–781 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Ms. 9961–62 (Peterborough Psalter) 19, 84, 116 fig. 20, 503, 520–546, 657 Ms. 11060–61 (Très Belles Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry) 256, 268 fig. 13, 269 fig. 14 Ms. 19610 714n.38

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms. 53 (Psalter of Hugh of Stukeley) 562, 563, 576 figs. 21–22, 614n.23 Ms. 347 617n.34, 618n.37 Ms. 468 501n.2, 604n.51 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Ms. CFM 15 396, 473 fig. 9 Ms. 38–1950 (Bohun Psalter) 606n.1 Ms. 48 (Carew-Poyntz Hours) 253, 254, 264 fig. 6 Ms. 242 (Grey-Fitzpayn Hours) 13, 16 fig.4, 164n.37, 651n.25 Ms. 251 401, 402 Ms. 259 369, 369n.71, 380 fig. 19 Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College Ms. 11 462n.25 Cambridge, Magdalene College, Ms. 5 (Crowland Apocalypse) 564, 564n.56 Cambridge, Pembroke College, Ms. 254 230n.50 Ms. 277 145n.36 Cambridge, Peterhouse Ms. 131 139n.35 Ms. 132 139n.35 Cambridge, St. John’s College, Ms. S. 30 (256) 688 Cambridge, Trinity College,

784

Ms. B.5.13 443n.5 Ms. B.15.1 139n.35 Ms. O.4.16 721, 736 Ms. O.8.20 139n.35 Ms. R.16.2 (Trinity College Apocalypse) 510n.37 Ms. R.17.1 (Eadwine Psalter) 155, 155n.12, 193, 588 fig. 7, 589 fig. 10, 590 fig. 13, 591 fig. 14, 594, 595 Cambridge, University Library, Ms. Ee.IV.24 172n.61–62, 594 Ms. Ee.VI.31 139n.35 Ms. Ff.V.31 139n.35 Ms. Gg.II.18 139n.35 Ms. Mm.III.14 145n.35 Carinthia, St. Paul in Lavantthal, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. XXV/2, 19 (Ramsey Psalter) 71n.39, 501–519, 538n.41–42, 582–605, 632, 657 Cassino, Monte Cassino Monastery Cod. 132 388, 464n.35 Chantilly, Musée Condé Ms. 51 ex 1887 (Breviary of Jeanne d’Evreux) 556, 559n.40, 561 Ms. 65 (Très Riches Heures) 257n.22 Châteauroux, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 2 (Châteauroux Breviary) 762, 763, 764 Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek Ms. Thott 547.4° (Bohun Hours) 250, 251, 261 fig. 2, 606n.1 Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und. Hochschulbibliothek Ms. 2777 714n.38 Douai, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 171 (Douai Psalter) 580n.60, 615n.28, 644n.4 Downside Abbey Ms. 25633

(Harnhulle Psalter-Hours) 684n.7 Dublin, Trinity College Ms. E.i.40 (Life of St. Alban) 502n.4 Durham, Durham Cathedral Library Ms. B.IV.39A 139n.35 Edinburgh, National Library Ms. Adv. 18.6.5 (Bohun Hours and Psalter) 606n.1 Geneva, Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire Ms. Fr. 2 (Geneva Bible Historiale) 554, 555, 563, 570 fig. 12, 719n.52, 734 fig. 15, Ghent, Universiteitsbibliotheek Ms. 92 390 Ms. 233 722n.63 Ginge Manor, ex. coll. Viscount Astor Psalter of Elizabeth de Bohun 68n.31 Glasgow, University Library Ms. Hunter 231 (Miscellany of Roger of Waltham) 206, 212 fig. 6, 232, 241 fig. 7, 242 figs. 8–9, 243 fig. 10, 244 fig. 11, 279 Gloucestershire, Berkeley Castle Nevill Hours 254, 254n.14, 266 fig. 10 The Hague, Museum MeermannoWestreenianum Ms. 10 B 23 (Bible Historiale of Charles V) 216n.2, 452n.26 Hamburg, Kunsthalle Ms. fr. 1 690n.2 Hereford, Hereford Cathedral Library Ms. O.4.XIV 139n.35 Ms. O.5.XIII 139n.35 Hildesheim, St. Godehard St. Albans Psalter 593 fig. 16, 602n.41 North Norfolk, Holkham Hall, Earl of Leicester Ms. 26 501n.2 Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek Ms. 76A 87n.25

785

INDEX

Lincoln, Records Office Reg. IXd (Register of Bishop John Gynwell) 226n.40 Reg. XII (Episcopal register of John Buckingham, bishop of Lincoln) 223n.19 Lisbon, Calouste Gulbenkian Museum Ms. LA 143 (Lamoignon Hours) 763n.9 London, British Library Add. Ms. 11414 615n.28 Add. Ms. 11882 147 Add. Ms. 15253 584, 587 fig. 6 Add. Ms. 16975 285n.39 Add. Ms. 18850 (Bedford Hours) 762, 763, 768n.20, 779n.24 Add. Ms. 19352 (Theodore Psalter) 596n.16 Add. Ms. 24129 352n.8 Add. Ms. 24686 (Alphonso Psalter) 85n.13, 117 fig. 21, 552n.23, 651n.25 Add. Ms. 25558 625n.58 Add. Ms. 25722 368n.66 Add. Ms. 29433 721n.59 Add. Ms. 36684 61n.7 Add. Ms. 36763 282n.25 Add. Ms. 38116 (Huth Psalter) 649n.18 Add. Ms. 39843 722, 722n.63, 737 fig. 21 Add. Ms. 42130 (Luttrell Psalter) 6, 12, 13, 14 fig. 1, 15 fig. 2, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25 fig. 8, 26 figs. 9–10, 27 fig. 11, 28 figs. 13–14, 30 fig. 17, 35, 35n.7, 37, 41 fig. 6, 42 fig. 7, 42 fig. 9, 45–75, 83n.9, 86n.17, 90, 94, 97, 98, 99, 118 fig. 22, 121 fig. 25, 122 fig. 26, 123 fig. 27, 124 fig. 28, 130 fig. 3, 151, 157n.18, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163,









163n.33, 164, 165, 169, 171n.59, 176 fig. 11, 177 fig. 12, 180 fig. 16, 181 fig. 17, 182 fig. 18, 183 fig. 20, 189 fig. 27, 193, 564, 582, 657, 657n.42, 663 fig. 10, 677 Add. Ms. 44949 (M.R. James Memorial Psalter) 654 Add. Ms. 47680 564 Add. Ms. 47682 (Holkham Picture Bible) 564 Add. Ms. 48985 (Salvin Hours) 653n.34 Add. Ms. 49622 (Gorleston Psalter) 85n.13, 98, 100 fig. 4, 103 fig. 7, 119 fig. 23, 137n.25, 151, 157, 164, 580n.60, 597n.18, 615n.28, 622, 632, 643n.4, 650n.21, 657, 658, 666 figs. 13–14, 677 Add. Ms. 49999 (De Brailes Hours) 509n.36, 653n.34 Add. Ms. 54180 (Somme le roi) 698 fig. 6, 710, 710n.28, 727, 739 fig. 24 Add. Ms. 62925 (Rutland Psalter) 1–11, 17n.9, 18, 20, 22n.38, 25 fig. 7, 35, 68n.32–33, 83n.11, 107 fig. 11, 108 fig. 12, 113 fig. 17, 114 fig. 18, 129 fig. 2, 164, 164n.37–39 Arundel Ms. 44 701 fig. 9 Arundel Ms. 83 I (Howard Psalter) 494, 622, 623, 624, 625, 626, 627 fig. 9, 629 fig. 12, 630 figs. 13–14, 631 fig. 16, 632, 633, 653 Arundel Ms. 83 II (Psalter of Robert de Lisle) ii, iii, 347, 549, 550–581 Burney Ms. 3 (Bible of Robert de Bello) 584n.7, 596n.14

786



Cotton Cleop. Ms. C. xi 77n.4 Cotton Faustina Ms. B. viii 128n.2 Cotton Galba Ms. B. x 506n.20 Cotton Galba Ms. E. xiv 127n.2 Cotton Julius Ms. A. vi 11n.9 Cotton Nero Ms. D. iv 21 Cotton Roll II.16 502n.1, 604n.50 Egerton Ms. 3277 (Bohun Psalter) 606n.1 Harley Ms. 603 594n.9 Harley Ms. 1527 716n.46 Harley Ms. 2904 501n.2 Harley Ms. 2988 647n.14, 649 Harley Ms. 3000 716n.45, 733 fig. 13 Harley Ms. 3657 139n.35 Harley Ms. 4331 767 Harley Ms. 6563 13, 109 fig. 13 Lansdowne Ms. 346 590 fig. 12, 602 Royal Ms. 2.A.xviii (Beaufort Hours) 251, 252 Royal Ms. 2.B. vii (Queen Mary’s Psalter) 6n.7, 6n.9, 83n.10, 86n.20, 102 fig. 6, 509, 552n.23, 562, 621, 623, 684, 688n.8, 704n.15 Royal Ms. 2.B.viii 617n.36 Royal Ms. 3.D.vi (Ashridge Petrus Comestor) 222, 328n.52 Royal Ms. 4.E.ii 444n.11 Royal Ms. 5.C.vi 231n.51 Royal Ms. 5.D.x 518n.44 Royal Ms. 6.C.v 459n.11 Royal Ms. 6.E.vi–vii (Omne Bonum) ii, iii, 133n.11, 160n.24, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208n.46–48, 209 figs. 1–2, 210 fig. 3, 211 fig. 4–5, 214, 215, 215n.56, 231n.51, 235n.68, 236,







237, 238, 239, 240, 245 fig. 12, 246 figs. 13–14, 247n.93–101, 316–349, 350–385, 387, 402, 403, 409–441, 443n.5, 449n.20, 450n.22, 457–483, 753, 753n.7, 754, 755, 755n.13, 755n.15–16, 758 figs. 2–3, Royal Ms. 8.G.vi 230n.50, 231n.51, 280n.12 Royal Ms. 9.F.vii 352n.6 Royal Ms. 10.C.xi 352n.6 Royal Ms. 10.D.iv 352n.6 Royal Ms. 10.D.x 352n.6 Royal Ms. 10.E.iv (Smithfield Decretals) 83n.9, 130 fig. 4 Royal Ms. 11.C.v 363n.42 Royal Ms. 12.C.xvii 618n.37 Royal Ms. 16.G.vi (Chroniques de Saint-Denis) 330n.62, 338 fig. 15 Royal Ms. 19.A.xix 399 Royal Ms. 19.D.iii 317n.7 Royal Ms. 20.D.iv 606n.1 Sloane Ms. 471 352n.7, 397 Sloane Ms. 511 239n.85 Stowe Ms. 12 (Stowe Breviary) 613, 614, 615, 620, 628 fig. 10, 632, 643n.4, 644n.4, 657, 658, 658n.45, 669 fig. 17, 670 fig. 20, 671 fig. 21, 672 fig. 22, 676, 677 Stowe Ms. 49 127–149 Stowe Ms. 553 282n.25 Yates Thompson Ms. 8 (Breviary of Reginald of Bar) 130 fig. 5, 722n.63 Yates Thompson Ms. 13 (Taymouth Hours) 83n.9, 251, 263 fig. 4, 510n.36, 549, 550n.7, 566 fig. 4, 580, 653, 644n.31, 656 Yates Thomson Ms. 14 (St. Omer Psalter) 580n.60

787

INDEX



Yates Thompson Ms. 19 400 Yates Thompson Ms. 27 (Hours of Yolande of Flanders) 557, 558, 574 fig. 19, 705n.17–18 Yates Thomspon Ms. 34 (Ste. Chapelle Epistolary) 556, 572 figs. 15–16 London, College of Arms Ms. Arundel 30 528n.16, 532n.38 London, Corporation of London Record Office Husting Roll (Pleas of Land) 98.87 384n.77 Husting Roll (Pleas of Land) 98.98 384n.77 London, Guildhall Library Ms. 25121/9 311 Ms. 25121/14 311 Ms. 25121/19 311 Ms. 25121/179 311 Ms. 25121/180 311 Ms. 25121/208 311 Ms. 25121/582 311 Ms. 25121/1313 311 Ms. 25121/1316 311 Ms. 25121/1323 311 Ms. 25121/1329 311 Ms. 25121/1330 311 Ms. 25121/1331 311 Ms. 25121/1332 311 Ms. 25121/1630 311 Ms. 25121/1631 311 Ms. 25121/1632 311 Ms. 25121/1633 311 Ms. 25121/1634 311 Ms. 25121/1635 311 Ms. 25121/1636 311 Ms. 25121/1637 311 Ms. 25121/1638 311 Ms. 25121/1639 311 Ms. 25121/1640 311 Ms. 25121/1641 311 Ms. 25121/1643 311





Ms. 25121/1644 311 Ms. 25121/1647 311 Ms. 25121/1648 311 Ms. 25121/1650 279n.9, 289n.56, 310 Ms. 25121/1857 288n.52 Ms. 25121/1934 284n.35 Ms. 25121/1938 287n.46–47, 310 Ms. 25121/1939 290n.59–60, 291n.61–65, 293n.74, 296n.88–90, 297n.95, 310 Ms. 25121/3036 282n.29, 294n.74, 310 Ms. 25121/3037 282.n29, 283n.30–34, 284n.35, 286n.41–42, 289n.53, 194n.74, 310 Ms. 25121/3038 287n.45, 294n.74, 310 Ms. 25121/3039 279n.9, 289n.56, 310 Ms. 25121/3040 290n.57, 294n.76, 295n.82, 295n.85, 310 Ms. 25121/3041 310 Ms. 25121/3045 311 Ms. 25122/1341 287n.46, 287n.48–49, 288n.50–51, 294n.75, 310 Ms. 25161/1–10 311 Ms. 25162/1–10 311 Ms. 25162 310 Ms 25241/13 282n.28, 310 Ms. 25241/22 286n.44, 310 Ms. 25241/23 282n.28, 310 Ms. 25501 (Liber A sive Pilosus) 277n.2, 310 Ms. 25504 (Liber L) 292n.69, 295n.86 Ms. 25511 278n.4, 312 Ms. 25520 (Statua Minora) 292n.69

788 London, Lambeth Palace Library Ms. 23 322n.26, 358n.16 Ms. 209 510n.37 Ms. 222 145n.36 Ms. 233 (Bardolf–Vaux) Psalter) 13, 16 fig.3, 650n.21, 652n.28 Ms. 435 603 Ms. Arc. L. 24.1/Si 7M 280n.12 Register of Archibshop Courtenay 363n.33 London, Private Collection York Hours (formerly Dyson Perrins Ms. 12) 105 fig. 9 London, Public Records Office E. 403 364n.44 Exch. K. R. Misc. Books, i.28 502n.5 Pipe Roll of 1359 383 fig. 24 London, St. Paul’s Cathedral case B.13 599n.26, 600n.32, 603n.45 London, Westminster Abbey Ms. 37 (Litlyngton Missal) 318n.10, 370, 450n.22 Westminster Abbey Muniments 13848–850 384n.77 Longleat House, Marquess of Bath Ms. 10 (Longleat Breviary) 606– 642 Ms. 11 684n.7 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. Ludwig III 1 (Getty/Dyson Perrins Apocalypse) 74n.45, 99 Madrid, Escorial Ms. Q II 6 (Escorial Psalter) 643–681 Manchester, John Rylands Library Ms. 22 172n.61–62 Mount Athos, Mon. Pantokrator Ms. 61 596n.16 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 835 649n.18 Clm 5126 138n.28 Clm 16104a 492 fig. 1, 495



Clm 23094 721n.60 Cod. Gall. 16 (Psalter of Queen Isabella of England) 6n.7, 83n.10, 86n.20, 632–3 Munich, Treasury of Munich Residenz Prayer–book of Charles the Bald 217n.3 New Haven, Beinecke Library, Yale University Ms. 400 (De Lévis Hours) 766, 767 Ms. 404 (Rothschild Canticles) 205, 714, 728, 732 fig. 11, 740 figs. 25–26 Ms. N 417 (Yale Cluniac Psalter) 22, 30 fig. 18, 30 fig. 19, 644n.4 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection Ms 54.1.2 (Hours of Jeanne D’Evreux) 11n.10, 64n.21, 93, 94, 120 fig. 24, 547, 549n.5, 553, 554, 555, 557, 559n.40, 561, 565 figs. 1–3 Ms. 69.86 (Psalter and Hours of Bonne of Luxembourg) 257, 271 fig. 16, 559n.40, 561, 720, 726n.70, 729, 735 fig. 17, 741 fig. 27 New York, Mrs. J. Gordan Ms. 23 647n.14, 648 New York, New York Public Library Spencer Ms. 2 (De la Twyere Psalter) 150, 151n.4, 154 figs. 4–5, 157, 159, 164, 167, 168, 171, 174 fig. 7, 183 fig. 19, 186 fig. 22, 188 fig. 25, 192 fig. 30, 193 Spencer Ms. 26 (Tickhill Psalter) 6n.7, 106 fig. 10, 632, 633n.69 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library Ms. G. 42 596n.14 Ms. G. 50 (De Lisle Hours) 653n.31, 654n.34

789

INDEX



Ms. G. 53 (Psalter of Richard of Canterbury) 684n.6, 687 fig. 3, 688 Ms. G. 59 655n.39 Ms. M. 43 (Huntingfield Psalter) 78 fig. 1 Ms. M. 88 653n.31 Ms. M. 102 (Windmill Psalter) 327n.47, 582 Ms. M. 107 (Tiptoft Missal) 677 Ms. M. 132 724, 724n.66, 738 fig. 22 Ms. M. 302 (Ramsey Psalter) 501–519, 537 fig. 9, 538n.41–42, 582–605 Ms. M. 524 510n.37 Ms. M. 700 (De Bois Hours) 653, 655 Ms. M. 729 (Psalter and Hours of Yolande of Soissons) 111 fig. 15, 728, 729n.75 Ms. M. 754 61n.7, 110 fig. 14 Ms. M. 756 (Cuerden Psalter) 150, 154 fig. 3, 157, 158, 159, 168, 169, 171, 172n.63, 174 fig. 9, 178 figs. 13–14, 186 fig. 23, 188 fig. 26, 190 fig. 28 Ms. M. 805 317n.6 Ms. M. 917 (Hours of Catherine of Cleves) 715 Norwich, Castle Museum Ms. 158.926 4f. 104 fig. 8, 614n.23 Oxford, All Souls College, Ms. 6 88n.27 Ms. 7 585 figs. 1–2, 586 fig. 3, 587 fig. 5, 589 fig. 9, 663 fig. 9, Wren vol.2 299 fig. 2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Ashmole 1522 618n.37 Ms. Auct D.3.2 328n.53 Ms. Auct D.4.17 510n.37









Ms. Auct. D.4.4 (Bohun Psalter and Hours) 205n.34, 212 fig. 7, 254, 254, 258, 606n.1 Ms. Barlow 22 (Psalter of Walter of Rouceby) 573 fig. 17, 632, 657, 658, 664 fig. 11, 668 fig. 16, 670 fig. 19 Ms. Bodl. 270b (Bible Moralisée) 715n.43, 732 fig. 12 Ms. Bodl. 334 443n.5 Ms. Bodl. 336 139n.35 Ms. Douce 5–6 (Psalter of St. Peter of Blandin) 721, 737 fig. 20 Ms. Douce 59 594n.9 Ms. Douce 131 259, 274 fig. 20, 275, 580n.60 Ms. Douce 144 (Douce Hours) 765, 767 Ms. Douce 180 (Douce Apocalypse) 594n.10 Ms. Douce 313 711n.32 Ms. Douce 366 (Ormesby Psalter) 13, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24 fig. 5, 25 fig. 6, 29 fig. 15, 33–44, 79 fig. 2, 115 fig. 19, 503, 580n.60, 595n.12, 622, 649n.18, 657 Ms. Gough liturg. 8 (Gough Psalter) 537 fig. 10, 538n.42, 613, 672 fig. 23, 676, 683n.5, 689n.13 Ms. lat. liturg. e.6, e.37, e.39, d.42 (Chertsey Breviary) 329n.55, 613, 621, 682–689 Ms. lat.liturg. f. 2 252, 252n.7, 264 fig. 5 Ms. Laud Misc. 165 207, 213 fig. 9, 237n.79, 240n.92, 247n.100, 318n.10, 323n.37, 328n.52, 361, 362, 363, 369n.69, 372 fig. 8, 373 fig. 9, 384, 412, 413, 421 fig. 2, 442–456, 458 n.5

790

Ms. Laud Misc. 188 221 fig. 5, 253, 265 fig. 8 Ms. Laud. Misc. 489 139n.35 Ms. Rawl. B 333 502n.5, 504, 516 fig. 5 Ms. Rawl. G. 185 (Psalter of Stephen of Derby) 221 fig. 6, 250, 260 fig. 1 Ms. Rawl. liturg. e. 1 (Hyde Abbey Breviary) 613 Ms. Oppenheim 579 398 Oxford, Christ Church Library, Ms. E 11 564, 564n.55 Ms. 92 (Treatise of Walter of Milemete) 21, 22, 29 fig. 16, 31 fig. 19, Oxford, Exeter College, Ms. 47 (Bohun Psalter) 606n.1 Oxford, Jesus College, Ms. D.40 112 fig. 16 Oxford, Keble College, Ms. 47 252, 265 fig. 7 Oxford, Lincoln College, Ms. 65 139n.35 Oxford, Magdalen College, Ms. 160 448n.14, 456 Oxford, Merton College, Ms. 68 448n.14 Mss. 123–126 396 Ms. 157 448n.13–14 Oxford, St. John’s College, Ms. 178 552, 553n.21 Oxford, Trinity College, Ms. 18 225 Oxford, Queen’s College, Queen’s College Account Rolls 410n.4 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal Ms. 623 (Missal of St. Magloire) 763 Ms. 664 (Terence des Ducs) 766 Ms. 5212 (Bible Historiale of

Charles V) 690n.2 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Ms. fr. 146 419, 431 fig. 18, Ms. fr. 147 134n.16 Ms. fr. 226 766n.17 Ms. fr. 316 400 Ms. fr. 403 510n.37 Ms. fr. 571 400 Ms. fr. 574 398, 720n.55, 735 fig. 16 Ms. fr. 2092 (Vie de Saint Denis) 699, 710n.31 Ms. fr. 9141 401, 402 Ms. fr. 9220 (Verger de soulas) 71n.38, 169n.46, 730 Ms. lat. 1 (Vivian Bible) 216n.2 Ms. lat. 266 (Lothair Gospels) 216n.2 Ms. lat. 757 257, 270 fig. 15 Ms. lat. 770 649n.18 Ms. lat. 919 (Grandes Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry) 251, 262 fig. 3, 705n.17–18 Ms. lat. 1023 (Breviary of Philip the Fair) 595n.12, 621n.43 Ms. lat. 1029 A (Breviary of Saint-Maur of Verdun) 80 fig. 3 Ms. lat. 1052 (Breviary of Charles V) 255n.16, 267 fig. 11, 695 fig. 3, 697 fig. 5, 706, 707, 708, 709, 742 Ms. lat. 1073A 655n.39 Ms. lat. 1288 557, 574 fig. 18 Ms. lat. 3093 (Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame) 258 Ms. lat. 3893 (Wymonduswold Decretum) 339 fig. 16, 340n.66 Ms. lat. 5088 (Eulogy of Giangaleazzo Visconti) 258, 272 fig. 18 Ms. lat. 8846 (Paris Psalter) 150, 152 fig. 1, 153 fig. 2, 155, 157, ,

INDEX

158, 159, 160, 165, 166, 167, 171, 171n.57, 172n.63, 174 fig. 8, 184 fig. 21, 185 fig. 21a, 191 fig. 29, 193, 594n.9, 597 Ms. lat. 8865 391 Ms. lat. 10435 172n.61 Ms. lat. 10483–10484 (Belleville Breviary) iii, 66n.28, 547, 548, 553, 554, 555, 556n.31, 560, 569 fig. 11, 571 fig. 14, 616n.32, 621n.43, 690–750 Ms. lat. 11560 (Bible Moralisée) 171 Ms. lat. 11935 (Billyng Bible) 547, 548, 560 Ms. lat. 13297 719n.53 Ms. lat. 16260 596n.14 Ms. lat. 18014 (Petites Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry) 255–6, 258, 267 fig. 12, 555, 571 fig. 13, 705n.17–18 Ms. n. a. fr. 15939–15944 400 Ms. n. a. fr. 24541 (Miracles de Notre Dame) 510n.36, 559, 560, 561, 729, 741 fig. 28 Ms. n. a. lat. 2334 (Ashburnham Pentateuch) 165 Ms. n. a. lat. 3145 (Hours of Jeanne II de Navarre) 274 fig. 21, 275, 557, 558, 566 fig. 5, 694 fig. 2, 704, 705, 742 Ms. Rothschild 2529 (Breviary of Martin II, King of Aragon) 705n.17–18, 706, 706n.21 Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève Ms. 1029 401 Paris, Collection Gunzburg Ms. 287 398 Paris, Musée de Louvre, Cabinet de Dessins RF 2022–2024 (Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame) 258, 271 fig. 17

791 Paris, Musée Jacquemart André Ms. 2 (Hours of Maréchal de Boucicaut) 259, 273 fig. 19, Philadelphia, Free Library Lewis Coll. Ms. 185 172n.61 Pommersfelden, Gräflich Schönbornische Bibliothek Ms. 2934 205n.34 Reims, Bibliothèque Municipale Ms. 993 401 Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura Bible of S. Paolo fuori le mura 165 St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Ms. Q.v.I.67 172n.61 Salisbury, Salisbury Cathedral Library Ms. 40 139n.35 San Francisco, University of San Francisco, Gleeson Library, Ms. BX 2033 A2 (Chertsey Breviary) 682–689 San Marino, CA, Huntington Library Ms. EL 7 H 8 217, 218, 219 figs. 1–2, 220 figs. 3–4, 227, 228, 229 Ms. EL 9 H 3 224–5 Ms. EL 9 H 9 225 Ms. EL 9 H 15 223n.19, 226n.38–39, 227, 228n.45 Ms. EL 9 H 17 (Vernon Psalter) 653 Ms. HM 19999 469 fig. 3 Strasbourg, Bibliothèque municipale Hortus Deliciarum (destroyed 1870) 387, 393, 394, 395 Troyes, Cathedral Treasury Ms. 1 594n.9 Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale (destroyed), Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame 258 Turin, Museo Civico, Très Belles

792 Heures de Notre Dame (formerly Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziano) 258 Utrecht, Rijksuniversiteit Bibliotheek Ms. 32/484 (Utrecht Psalter) 46, 63, 150, 155, 156, 165, 166, 170, 171, 594, 595, 596n.15, 602 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana cod. Pal. lat. 291 388 Ms. Barb. gr. 372 596n.16 Ms. lat. 3225 (Vatican Virgil) 165 Ms. lat. 3867 (Roman Virgil) 216n.1 Ms. Ottob. Lat. 331 139n.35 Ms. Ottob. Lat. 599 603n.48 Ms. Reg. lat. 12 (Bury Psalter) 161 Ms. Vat. lat. 1370 423 fig. 4 Ms. Vat. lat. 2491 425 fig. 7, 468 fig. 2 Ms. Vat. lat. 11438 643

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 1826 (Bohun Psalter) 151, 157, 158, 159, 160, 165, 167, 171, 172n.63, 173 fig. 6, 175 fig. 10, 179 fig. 15, 187 fig. 24, 193, 606n.1 Ms. 1855 705n.17–18 Cod. Vind. med. gr. 1 (Vienna Discorides) 216n.1–2 Winchester, Winchester College Ms. 17 443n.5 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek cod. Gud. lat. 1.2° 390 Woolhampton, Douai Abbey Ms. 4 (Guisborough Priory Breviary) 613, 621, 621n.42 Worcester, Worcester Palace Library Ms. F. 128 322n.26, 358n.16

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