Anglo-Saxon book illumination

Anglo-Saxon illumination refers to the production of illuminated manuscripts made in England between the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons on British soil in the 5th century and the Norman conquest of the country in 1066. Two periods are distinguished: the first, which extends from the 6th century to the beginning of the 9th century, generally referred to as Insular illumination and is often confused with production from neighboring Ireland. The production of illuminated manuscripts experienced a revival in quality and quantity specific to England, between the middle of the 10th century and 1066, within production centers located mainly in Winchester and Canterbury.

Island book illumination

Irish monks contributed to the evangelization of Scotland and northern Britain by founding new monasteries such as that of Iona in Scotland by Columba of Iona in 563, then that of Lindisfarne in 635 by Aidan of Lindisfarne, in Northumbria. Irish missionaries brought their art with them to this region. At the same time, southern Britain was directly influenced by continental Christianity, particularly Italian Christianity, during the 6th and 7th centuries, following in particular the Gregorian Mission. Italian and Byzantine manuscripts thus arrived on the island, in turn influencing the production of island illuminations. Gradually, the largest production centers were concentrated first in Northumbria, then in Kent during the 7th and 8th centuries. The monasteries there benefited from more favourable material conditions than in Ireland, as well as the protection and even patronage of the Anglo-Saxon kings. The scriptorium of Lindisfarne was one of the most prolific at the end of the 7th century.

Early Anglo-Saxon manuscript illumination forms part of Insular art, a combination of influences from Mediterranean, Celtic and Germanic styles that arose when the Anglo-Saxons encountered Irish missionary activity in Northumbria, at Lindisfarne and Iona in particular. At the same time the Gregorian mission from Rome and its successors imported continental manuscripts like the Italian St. Augustine Gospels, and for a considerable period the two styles appear mixed in a variety of proportions in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.

In the Lindisfarne Gospels, of around 700–715, there are carpet pages and Insular initials of unprecedented complexity and sophistication, but the evangelist portraits, clearly following Italian models, greatly simplify them, misunderstand some details of the setting, and give them a border with interlace corners. The portrait of St Matthew is based on the same Italian model, or one extremely similar, used for the figure of Ezra that is one of the two large miniatures in the Codex Amiatinus (before 716), but the style there is very different; a far more illusionistic treatment, and an "attempt to introduce a pure Mediterranean style into Anglo-Saxon England", which failed, as "perhaps too advanced", leaving these images apparently as the only evidence.

A different mixture is seen in the opening from the Stockholm Codex Aureus where the evangelist portrait to the left is in a consistent adaptation of Italian style, probably closely following some lost model, though adding interlace to the chair frame, while the text page to the right is mainly in Insular style, especially in the first line, with its vigorous Celtic spirals and interlace. The following lines revert to a quieter style more typical of Frankish manuscripts of the period. Yet the same artist almost certainly produced both pages, and is very confident in both styles; the evangelist portrait of John includes roundels with Celtic spiral decoration probably drawn from the enamelled escutcheons of hanging bowls.

This is one of the so-called "Tiberius group" of manuscripts, which leant towards the Italian style, and appear to be associated with Kent, or perhaps the kingdom of Mercia in the heyday of the Mercian Supremacy. It is, in the usual chronology, the last English manuscript in which "developed trumpet spiral patterns" are found.

The 9th century, especially the latter half, has very few major survivals made in England, but was a period when Insular and Anglo-Saxon influence on Carolingian manuscripts was at its height, from scriptoria such as those at the Anglo-Saxon mission's foundation at Echternach Abbey (though the important Echternach Gospels were created in Northumbria), and the major monastery at Tours, where Alcuin of York was followed by another Anglo-Saxon abbot, between them covering the period from 796 to 834. Although Tours' own library was destroyed by Norsemen, over 60 9th century illuminated manuscripts from the scriptorium survive, in a style showing many borrowings from English models, especially in initial pages, where Insular influence remained visible in northern France until even the 12th century. The Anglo-Saxon metalwork produced in the Salzburg area of modern Austria has a manuscript counterpart in the "Cutbercht Gospels" in Vienna.

Anglo-Saxon illumination of the 10th and 11th centuries

A fairly clear break occurred in Anglo-Saxon illumination during the 10th century. Changes occurred in the writing, motifs and iconography used.

Historical and cultural context

For a long time, the model of insular illumination remained prevalent in England and the country remained resistant to the models derived from Carolingian illumination which appeared from the end of the 8th century on the continent. A new political context on the island appeared, however, at the end of the 9th century with the quasi-reunification of England by Alfred the Great who contributed to gradually putting an end to the Viking occupation of the country. It was especially under the reign of his grandson Æthelstan that an artistic renaissance began on the island. Several monastic reformers increased their contacts with the abbeys of the continent: Dunstan of Canterbury went into exile at Saint-Pierre de Ghent between 955 and 957, Oswald of Worcester stayed at the abbey of Fleury between 950 and 958 for example. The Anglo-Saxon kings of this period protected the monastic centers and contributed to their religious and artistic development. They established their principal residence in Winchester, where Æthelwold, another great monastic reformer and lover of luxury books, was bishop. The city thus became the centre of artistic life at the time, alongside Canterbury, the seat of religious life.

By the 10th century Insular elements were relegated to decorative embellishments in England, as the first phase of the "Winchester style" developed. The first plant ornament, with leaves and grapes, was already seen in an initial in the Leningrad Bede, which can probably be dated to 746. The other large initial in the manuscript is the first historiated initial (one containing a portrait or scene, here Christ or a saint) in the whole of Europe. The classically derived vine or plant scroll was to largely oust interlace as the dominant filler of ornamental spaces in Anglo-Saxon art, just as it did in much of Europe beginning with Carolingian art, though in England animals within the scrolls remained much more common than abroad. For some long time scrolls, especially in metal, bone or ivory, are prone to have an animal head at one end and a plant element at the other.

All these changes were not restricted to manuscripts, and may not have been driven by manuscript style, but we have a greater number of manuscripts surviving than works in other media, even if in most cases illuminations are restricted to initials and perhaps a few miniatures. Several ambitious projects of illumination are unfinished, such as the Old English Hexateuch, which has some 550 scenes in various stages of completion, giving insight into working methods. The illustrations give Old Testament scenes an entirely contemporary setting and are valuable images of Anglo-Saxon life.

Manuscripts from the Winchester School or style only survive from about the 930s onwards; this coincided with a wave of revival and reform within English monasticism, encouraged by King Æthelstan (r. 924/5-939) and his successors. Æthelstan promoted Dunstan (909–988), a practising illuminator, eventually to Archbishop of Canterbury, and also Æthelwold and the French-trained Norseman Oswald. Illumination in a new style appears in a manuscript of the biographies by Bede of St Cuthbert given by Æthelstan to the monastery in Chester-le-Street about 937. There is a dedication portrait of the king presenting his book to the saint, the two of them standing outside a large church. This is the first real portrait of an English king, and heavily influenced by Carolingian style, with an elegant inhabited acanthus border. However, the initials in the text combine Carolingian elements with animal forms in inventive fashion. Miniatures added in England to the continental Aethelstan Psalter begin to show Anglo-Saxon liveliness in figure drawing in compositions derived from Carolingian and Byzantine models, and over the following decades the distinctive Winchester style with agitated draperies and elaborate acanthus borders develops.

The Benedictional of St. Æthelwold is a masterpiece of the later Winchester style, which drew on Insular, Carolingian, and Byzantine art to make a heavier and more grandiose style, where the broad classicising acanthus foliage sometimes seems over-luxuriant. Anglo-Saxon illustration included many lively pen drawings, on which the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, in Canterbury from about 1000, was highly influential; the Harley Psalter is a copy of it. The Ramsey Psalter (c. 990) contains pages in both the painted and tinted drawing styles, including the first Beatus initial with a "lion mask", while the Tiberius Psalter, from the last years before the Conquest, uses mainly the tinted. Anglo-Saxon culture was coming into increasing contact with, and exchanging influences with, a wider Latin Mediaeval Europe. Anglo-Saxon drawing had a great influence in Northern France throughout the 11th century, in the so-called "Channel school", and Insular decorative elements such as interlace remained popular into the 12th century in the Franco-Saxon style.

Features

Drawing and painting techniques

The illustration of manuscripts from this period uses two techniques between drawing and painting. The drawing is generally done with a pen, sometimes with the same brown-black ink as that used to write the text. It is also very often done with ink of different colors (red, green, blue, black). This change of color is used to distinguish, for example, the different parts of a character's body, between clothing and skin. The same colors are generally found in titles and initials, which are also polychrome. This polychrome drawing seems to be an Anglo-Saxon invention that spread throughout the rest of Europe in the following centuries. The painting is applied with gouache, in opaque and sometimes milky colors.

Motifs and iconography

Several fundamental changes occurred in the manuscripts of the 10th century. In addition to the Irish minuscule script being abandoned in favor of the Carolingian minuscule, the interlacing was replaced by decorations of acanthus leaves, ending in a curve in the form of ostrich feathers. The ornaments of the page frames were favored over the decoration of the initials, until then the place of the most abundant ornaments in Insular illumination. But it was above all the figures that took on a characteristic form, which continued until the Gothic period: they had an elongated body, a small head, and slender hands and feet. A style was then constructed that became specifically English. The other typical motif of Anglo-Saxon illumination was drapery. Over time, the form of these drapes becomes more and more tumultuous and agitated, but gradually freezes into stereotypical forms.

Among the main iconographic types specific to this illumination is the representation of hell in the form of a gaping mouth, a form which is subsequently taken up again on the continent. Another recurring iconography, the representation of the Ascension takes the form of feet disappearing into the clouds. Indeed, the unfolding of this episode in the life of Christ has been the subject of much speculation in Anglo-Saxon literature which may have influenced this original representation. On several occasions, Anglo-Saxon illuminators demonstrate originality in the iconography used, as in calendars for example.

Types of illuminated manuscripts

Several types of manuscripts were decorated during the period :

liturgical manuscripts intended for powerful figures such as the blessing of Saint Æthelwold, the most famous of them, but also the blessing of Archbishop Robert (BM Rouen, ms 369) perhaps originally intended for Æthelgar, Archbishop of Canterbury, or the sacramentary of Robert of Jumièges (BM Rouen, ms.274), later

Gospel books: these generally include decorated initials at the head of the Gospels, portraits of the Evangelists and decorated concordance tables. They most often come from Canterbury, such as the Arenberg Gospel Book (Pierpont Morgan Library, M.869) or a Gospel book kept at Trinity College (Cambridge) (B.10.4). Winchester produced later Gospel books such as the Grimbald Gospel Book (British Library, Add.34890).

the psalters: most are influenced by the arrival in Canterbury of the Utrecht Psalter, a Carolingian manuscript that served as a model for the production of manuscripts in the country for several generations. This is the case of the Harley Psalter, around 1000, left unfinished, or the Bury St Edmunds Psalter (Vatican Apostolic Library, Reg.Lat.12). Other manuscripts are based on different models, such as the Tiberius Psalter (BL, Tiberius C.VI), the Oswald Psalter or the Bosworth Psalter.

Vernacular manuscripts are not absent, two of which are particularly famous: the Old English Hexateuch and the Junius Manuscript.

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