1 00:00:10,190 --> 00:00:15,950 Welcome to this webinar, Meet the Manuscript's Hidden Treasures of Mediaeval Illumination. 2 00:00:15,950 --> 00:00:17,360 Thank you very much for being here. 3 00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:24,440 My name is Helen, I'm the Education Officer at the Bodleian Libraries. Just to let you know a few practical things before we start, 4 00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:31,610 we are recording the event, but as this is a Zoom webinar, your video and audio are turned off and you won't appear in the video. 5 00:00:31,610 --> 00:00:35,390 We will share a link to the film a week or so after the event. 6 00:00:35,390 --> 00:00:41,420 Today's event features two of our wonderful Bodleian colleagues in conversation over some extraordinary manuscripts, 7 00:00:41,420 --> 00:00:45,590 and we'd like you to join the discussion. So if you would like to ask a question, 8 00:00:45,590 --> 00:00:51,800 please do type it into the Q&A window throughout the event, and please do check now that you can find the Q&A. 9 00:00:51,800 --> 00:00:58,430 You can also vote for questions you are interested in by clicking on the thumbs up and comment on the questions there. 10 00:00:58,430 --> 00:01:03,880 I will put your questions live to our experts after we've looked to each manuscript in turn. 11 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:08,590 In your booking email, we shared links to the manuscripts which have been digitised and shared online 12 00:01:08,590 --> 00:01:12,760 for the first time as part of the Polonsky Foundation digitisation project, 13 00:01:12,760 --> 00:01:18,280 so you can take a look for yourselves. We have another exciting event on the 14th of June from the same project, 14 00:01:18,280 --> 00:01:24,070 one of our Singing Together, Apart series, which this time will explore drama and Gregorian chants. 15 00:01:24,070 --> 00:01:29,110 Sign up to the Bodleian newsletter and check the Bodleian website next month for further details. 16 00:01:29,110 --> 00:01:33,550 We really value your feedback, so please do fill out the short questionnaire after the webinar. 17 00:01:33,550 --> 00:01:37,030 The link is in your booking email and we'll share it again at the end. 18 00:01:37,030 --> 00:01:41,590 This helps us to continue to offer and improve free events like this for everyone. 19 00:01:41,590 --> 00:01:46,660 We also invite you to take part in more detailed evaluation for our funders if you wish. 20 00:01:46,660 --> 00:01:53,830 So once again, welcome. The plan for today is to take a look at three manuscripts featuring great treasures of mediaeval painting. 21 00:01:53,830 --> 00:02:01,750 Our speakers are Matthew Holford, the Tolkien curator of mediaeval manuscripts, and Martin Kauffmann, head of Early and Rare Collections. 22 00:02:01,750 --> 00:02:06,460 Matthew and Martin are both in the Weston Library on Broad Street in Oxford, but in different rooms, 23 00:02:06,460 --> 00:02:11,080 and they will be examining the manuscripts together to consider how they were produced, 24 00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:18,510 the artistic style and meaning, and the significance of the images. As I said, we'll pause after each manuscript for questions, 25 00:02:18,510 --> 00:02:24,270 so please do add these to the Q&A box throughout. If we don't have time to answer all your questions today, 26 00:02:24,270 --> 00:02:29,100 we'll collate the most popular ones and do our best to answer them in our follow up email. 27 00:02:29,100 --> 00:02:33,000 So I'll hand over now to Matthew and Martin. Thank you very much, Helen. 28 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,320 And, and welcome everybody to the Bodleian Library. 29 00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:42,980 It's wonderful to have you all here and to share these manuscripts with. 30 00:02:42,980 --> 00:02:49,700 And we're starting with an image that I hope encapsulates very nicely the idea of hidden treasure, 31 00:02:49,700 --> 00:02:55,730 that we, we've organised the session around, wonderfully rich image, 32 00:02:55,730 --> 00:03:00,410 sparkling with gold on a deep purple background, obviously a treasure, 33 00:03:00,410 --> 00:03:06,920 but something whose meaning is, is perhaps not immediately obvious and a little bit elusive. 34 00:03:06,920 --> 00:03:11,780 So we're just going to leave that on the screen for everyone to feast their eyes on, 35 00:03:11,780 --> 00:03:17,830 while Martin says a few introductory words about how the session is going to work. 36 00:03:17,830 --> 00:03:28,180 Thanks, Matthew. And hello, everyone. Yes, I think we're going to come back to this and look in a bit more detail at this, this page in a moment. 37 00:03:28,180 --> 00:03:31,060 But just to say, as Helen mentioned, 38 00:03:31,060 --> 00:03:43,690 we're going to look in a bit of detail at three manuscripts out of about 10000 manuscripts from mediaeval Europe in the Bodleian's collection. 39 00:03:43,690 --> 00:03:53,890 We're just approaching the end of a digitisation project which is focussed on manuscripts, mediaeval manuscripts from Germany. 40 00:03:53,890 --> 00:04:06,850 And so the manuscripts we're going to be showing are Latin manuscripts from, from Germany. 41 00:04:06,850 --> 00:04:11,470 They're in wonderful condition. I'm looking at this one on the screen. 42 00:04:11,470 --> 00:04:24,490 I'm not in the same room as, as, as Matthew. And I think the state of preservation of, of this manuscript is the first thing one notices. 43 00:04:24,490 --> 00:04:36,760 This is a manuscript which dates from the early 11th century, from the 1010s or 1020s. 44 00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:49,470 But it's the quality of its craftsmanship and the fact that it's been kept closed in a book has kept it in a miraculous state of preservation. 45 00:04:49,470 --> 00:05:01,330 Matthew mentioned the word hidden, we don't try and hide these manuscripts, but to make them more widely available, we've been digitising. 46 00:05:01,330 --> 00:05:07,320 But in this session, Matthew will be turning the pages of the real manuscript. 47 00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:20,840 And I think that thrill of handling the actual manuscript is still very different from looking at still images on, on, on the screen. 48 00:05:20,840 --> 00:05:28,400 So we're going to move away from this image briefly, aren't we, Martin, to look at perhaps a less exciting page, 49 00:05:28,400 --> 00:05:35,840 but something that will tell us a bit more about when and where the manuscript was written and its later history. 50 00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:45,680 You, you mentioned just now that the manuscript was from the early 11th century, a sort of quite imprecise dating. 51 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:55,920 And perhaps you'd like to say something about how we go about dating and localising these manuscripts and assessing where and when they were made. 52 00:05:55,920 --> 00:06:04,110 Yes, because I think that's one of the key things to, to, to come to terms with is that these, these manuscripts on the whole, 53 00:06:04,110 --> 00:06:11,280 don't say where they were made, when they were made, by whom they were made. 54 00:06:11,280 --> 00:06:18,600 That's all, everything we know about them is really the result of sort of detective work on the manuscript. 55 00:06:18,600 --> 00:06:27,330 We don't, for the most part, either have sort of external documents in the way that you might for a Renaissance painting, 56 00:06:27,330 --> 00:06:31,890 have an artist's contract or something. 57 00:06:31,890 --> 00:06:40,050 Everything we can get comes for the most part from the manuscript itself and trying to put together all the evidence, 58 00:06:40,050 --> 00:06:48,960 not only of the contents, but of the style of script and, and the style of illumination. 59 00:06:48,960 --> 00:07:03,990 And one of the, this is, this is a sacramentary, it's a book to be used by a priest in the, in the same celebration of the, of the mass. 60 00:07:03,990 --> 00:07:12,060 And like many liturgical books, it begins with a calendar of saints and feasts, and their feast days. 61 00:07:12,060 --> 00:07:16,800 And that's very, very useful in several ways. 62 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:24,390 Different saints were venerated in different, different places. 63 00:07:24,390 --> 00:07:29,580 In this case, it also helps with the dating because we have Saint 64 00:07:29,580 --> 00:07:37,260 Adalbert who only died in the year 997. So we know the book has to have been made after that year. 65 00:07:37,260 --> 00:07:44,700 And we can also see sometimes additions, clearly in a different script. 66 00:07:44,700 --> 00:07:49,680 And I can see on the, on the left hand, at the bottom of left hand page here, 67 00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:58,620 one of those additions, the obit, the commemoration of the, of the death of a man called Sigehard, 68 00:07:58,620 --> 00:08:06,510 who was patriarch of Aquileia in, in northern Italy. 69 00:08:06,510 --> 00:08:11,890 So putting all the evidence together. 70 00:08:11,890 --> 00:08:27,610 It was made in an abbey called Reichenau on Lake Constance, but that it was taken quite early in its life to Italy, to Aquileia. Sigehard, 71 00:08:27,610 --> 00:08:36,280 we know when he died, he died in 1077. So the manuscript seems to have been moved quite early in its life. 72 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:46,210 And, of course, the things written in these, in these manuscripts is sort of in the margins or added to them, help us to trace their movements. 73 00:08:46,210 --> 00:08:54,850 And it's from Italy that the Bodleian acquired it in the collection of the great Venetian collector, collector in the 18th, 74 00:08:54,850 --> 00:09:01,930 the second half of the 18th century called Matteo Luigi Canonici. 75 00:09:01,930 --> 00:09:07,310 Now, as I, as I page back towards the picture that we started at. 76 00:09:07,310 --> 00:09:12,950 It's perhaps worth emphasising, isn't it, that of the 10000 manuscripts you mentioned, 77 00:09:12,950 --> 00:09:19,270 really quite a small number of them have, have the luxurious decoration that we're going to see today. 78 00:09:19,270 --> 00:09:27,230 And as you can see, as I page through, even, even this manuscript is by no means decorated all the way through. 79 00:09:27,230 --> 00:09:36,650 So decoration is something that particular books tend to have and they tend to often have at particular places as well. 80 00:09:36,650 --> 00:09:48,170 It's not evenly spread throughout the book. And perhaps that will, that will help us to understand something about what we're looking at on this page, 81 00:09:48,170 --> 00:10:06,490 Martin? Yes, indeed, the majority, but not all of the books containing illumination from the Middle Ages are religious in, in, in, in content. 82 00:10:06,490 --> 00:10:10,840 This is, this is a book for use in Christian ritual, 83 00:10:10,840 --> 00:10:20,470 in the most important, the, the celebration of the mass, the most important ritual of the Christian church. 84 00:10:20,470 --> 00:10:29,890 And the illumination is concentrated on the most important parts of the book. 85 00:10:29,890 --> 00:10:35,350 And we'll, we'll see in a little while that there is a sort of hierarchy of illumination, 86 00:10:35,350 --> 00:10:48,580 but they are very conscious of the matching that the, the, the, the biggest illumination to the most important moments in the, in the text. 87 00:10:48,580 --> 00:10:53,950 But it's only really, we have to understand these as part of an art of the book. 88 00:10:53,950 --> 00:11:02,770 And I think sometimes when one sees individual pictures or, you know a Christmas card or something, and, and just an image on its own, 89 00:11:02,770 --> 00:11:10,060 one, one isn't really pushing the, this art in context. 90 00:11:10,060 --> 00:11:16,840 And what we have here on the left, at the beginning of the preface to the canon of the mass, 91 00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:29,520 the fixed portion of the text of the mass is in fact not, not a picture as such, but a monogram made out of two letters. 92 00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:35,680 Standing for Vere Dignum, VD. 93 00:11:35,680 --> 00:11:43,630 It is truly right and just, our duty and celebration always and everywhere to give you thanks. 94 00:11:43,630 --> 00:11:55,690 So the, the, the, the words have been, have been decorated, knitted together into a wonderful, 95 00:11:55,690 --> 00:12:04,630 almost mystical sign with a cross very prominently where they, where they join. 96 00:12:04,630 --> 00:12:09,700 And we'll look at forms of decoration more closely in a little while. 97 00:12:09,700 --> 00:12:15,220 But here we can see that there's a great amount of gold being used. 98 00:12:15,220 --> 00:12:22,000 We can see that there are sort of very stylised but still recognisably sort of organic forms. 99 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:29,770 And I can see a sort of dragon's head or something biting the end of that sort of tendril. 100 00:12:29,770 --> 00:12:38,350 So there's, we'll, we'll come back and talk about the meaning of decoration in a moment. 101 00:12:38,350 --> 00:12:48,970 But this is very much an art that linked together image and text, pictures and words. 102 00:12:48,970 --> 00:12:56,770 We tend to think that scribes and artists may be different people. 103 00:12:56,770 --> 00:13:04,170 But in saying that, we have to realise how closely knitted together those forms were. 104 00:13:04,170 --> 00:13:15,710 We can see that very nicely, again, can't we, if we turn over the page and look at, look at the following miniature, which introduces the canon of the mass. 105 00:13:15,710 --> 00:13:19,550 Yes, yes, isn't that wonderful? 106 00:13:19,550 --> 00:13:34,820 Here we have the, the crucified Christ, which is obviously appropriate for the commemoration and re-enactment of, of, of his sacrifice in the Eucharist. 107 00:13:34,820 --> 00:13:50,130 But here again, here again, it's a, it's an image of the crucifixion, but it's also knitted together with the words because the text begins, 108 00:13:50,130 --> 00:13:56,960 Te igitur clementissime Pater, You therefore most merciful Father. 109 00:13:56,960 --> 00:14:04,400 So the, the cross is, in fact, also doubling up as the, as the T here. 110 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:10,700 So, so, again, there's this knitting together of the two. 111 00:14:10,700 --> 00:14:20,540 Just, just we, also to notice there are so many crucifixions in mediaeval art, and yet they are all different. 112 00:14:20,540 --> 00:14:32,900 And even at this period, there is a variety, some showing a very human Christ sort of suffering and dying on the cross. 113 00:14:32,900 --> 00:14:40,940 But here we have a rather majestic, very living, eyes open Christ on the cross. 114 00:14:40,940 --> 00:14:47,070 So there are very different forms that that central image can take. 115 00:14:47,070 --> 00:14:53,430 We've got one more image to look at from this manuscript, and as I page through to it, we can, 116 00:14:53,430 --> 00:15:03,120 we can again emphasise the point that the decoration is coming at particular places in the book to mark particularly important feasts. 117 00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:08,130 So the next, opening of 118 00:15:08,130 --> 00:15:18,700 decoration that we'll see, it's marking one of the most important feast of the year, which is Christmas, and we can see, 119 00:15:18,700 --> 00:15:22,750 we can see the nativity, here, 120 00:15:22,750 --> 00:15:28,510 but it seems like rather a strange arrangement in some ways for the nativity, Martin, 121 00:15:28,510 --> 00:15:33,380 and this image is a little bit difficult to understand perhaps what's going on here. 122 00:15:33,380 --> 00:15:38,270 Yes, I think, I think it's good 123 00:15:38,270 --> 00:15:47,780 to try to understand how artists were working, so we've got the Nativity and the, the Angels announcing the good news to the shepherds 124 00:15:47,780 --> 00:15:55,350 underneath, and then the, the opening of the mass for Christmas Day opposite. 125 00:15:55,350 --> 00:16:05,460 We've, we've already said when we were looking at the calendar that these manuscripts don't say where and when they were made or 126 00:16:05,460 --> 00:16:19,140 by whom these artists are, and scribes are anonymous, and there are different ways of trying to understand how they, how they worked. 127 00:16:19,140 --> 00:16:26,910 One way is where we get the chance to try and see what's underneath a composition. 128 00:16:26,910 --> 00:16:32,850 And there are some unfinished manuscripts which reveal the existence sometimes 129 00:16:32,850 --> 00:16:43,130 of, of sketches of the composition underneath the, underneath the miniature. 130 00:16:43,130 --> 00:16:53,510 But the other way that we can tell how they worked is by comparing the, the images to those in other manuscripts, 131 00:16:53,510 --> 00:17:02,390 because I think it's very, very important to understand that the artist who did this didn't just, wasn't just told, 132 00:17:02,390 --> 00:17:13,580 well, do, you know, do a nativity or combine it with the Annunciation to the shepherds in any way you can, you can imagine, and sort of make it up. 133 00:17:13,580 --> 00:17:27,920 They were, they were in a context where this scene was, was being shown in other comparable books in, in a similar style. 134 00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:38,930 And so I think Helen, Helen sent in the, in the introduction to this session, a link to another manuscript which, which we've chosen, 135 00:17:38,930 --> 00:17:49,300 which is today in, in the Bavarian State Library in Munich and has the similar composition. 136 00:17:49,300 --> 00:18:03,020 It's, it's, again, a book from the early 11th century, and it has the two scenes put on different, different sides of the opening. 137 00:18:03,020 --> 00:18:07,730 And if one looks at that, one can compare it in style, 138 00:18:07,730 --> 00:18:18,290 but also in composition and see that our artist has taken elements of that composition and put them together in a different way. 139 00:18:18,290 --> 00:18:29,480 And so this is an art of strong traditions in which small divergences from the tradition are worth studying. 140 00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:37,070 And it also challenges us to think how that happened. 141 00:18:37,070 --> 00:18:44,030 There aren't as many model books or pattern books from this period as we, we'd like to see. 142 00:18:44,030 --> 00:18:51,890 So it's not always possible to say whether artists are looking at actual other manuscripts 143 00:18:51,890 --> 00:19:00,590 or whether they do have model books with compositions that they're working, working from. 144 00:19:00,590 --> 00:19:07,190 And they, as I say they, they're, they're looking at the compositions, but also stylistically. 145 00:19:07,190 --> 00:19:19,340 So, again, this is, this is not so much as an individual style, perhaps as a, as a style of a particular place and time. 146 00:19:19,340 --> 00:19:29,840 Having said which, styles constantly change. And it's that balance between, between strong traditions and constant movements 147 00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:39,540 that is one of the fascinations of these books. I think it's time for us to take our first set of questions now. 148 00:19:39,540 --> 00:19:45,510 Thank you very much. I think we've all been struck by the colours and the materials that are used in these manuscripts. 149 00:19:45,510 --> 00:19:50,190 I wonder if you could say a little bit about that, particularly if particular colours have significance or not. 150 00:19:50,190 --> 00:19:54,450 For example, there's a lot of purple in some of the images you've shown us. 151 00:19:54,450 --> 00:20:05,820 Thank you. Yes. Shall I have a go? I mean, the first thing to say is that we haven't done, we haven't done colour analysis of these manuscripts. 152 00:20:05,820 --> 00:20:10,410 There is some very interesting work going on with manuscripts these days. 153 00:20:10,410 --> 00:20:15,930 In the, in the past, if you wanted to test the composition of the colour, you had to scrape a bit off, 154 00:20:15,930 --> 00:20:18,460 and curators didn't much want that. 155 00:20:18,460 --> 00:20:30,450 So, but now there's, there are new techniques of imaging which can, can do that work without damaging the, the pigments. 156 00:20:30,450 --> 00:20:37,460 I think there are, and so we are learning more about which pigments were used, where, and when. 157 00:20:37,460 --> 00:20:44,960 I think there are two, two ways, I suppose, to approach this, one is to understand actually what the, what the chemical composition is. 158 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:53,420 And I think there that you need to be, you need to be careful if you're doing it with the naked eye. 159 00:20:53,420 --> 00:21:02,150 This goes for the blues, say, people often look at some wonderful sort of deep blues and say ah lapis lazuli, 160 00:21:02,150 --> 00:21:06,470 which is a famous colour which was only available in Afghanistan. 161 00:21:06,470 --> 00:21:08,930 And there's a wonderful, 162 00:21:08,930 --> 00:21:20,660 wonderful image of, of the trade routes involved in getting lapis from, from Afghanistan long before Marco Polo to, to Europe. 163 00:21:20,660 --> 00:21:28,880 But actually with the naked eye, it's often very difficult to tell whether what you're looking at in a blue is 164 00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:35,990 lapis or is azurite, a much more common mineral which was available in Europe. 165 00:21:35,990 --> 00:21:43,430 So I think one has to be aware that there were different sources of very similar colours. 166 00:21:43,430 --> 00:21:51,830 I think the other way to look at it, which, which is in the spirit of the question, is also the significance of colours. 167 00:21:51,830 --> 00:22:03,110 And that's absolutely right, that the purples here, purple is a colour which in the classical in Roman times had imperial associations. 168 00:22:03,110 --> 00:22:14,930 And although we're in, we're in the Christian Middle Ages, those associations go back to classical times, are still very strong. 169 00:22:14,930 --> 00:22:22,190 And, thank you. We've had a question about why the text is bound. And I wonder, and also the vellum being so light. 170 00:22:22,190 --> 00:22:26,090 And I wonder if the two were connected because it's a bound manuscript and has been preserved, 171 00:22:26,090 --> 00:22:36,810 that might explain why the vellum is a lighter colour. Matthew, are you, 172 00:22:36,810 --> 00:22:43,830 Yes, I'm not quite sure that I've understood the question. And so firstly, why is the text bound? 173 00:22:43,830 --> 00:22:50,940 Was, there was a question whether the books came along later, whether it was common for this and also about the vellum. 174 00:22:50,940 --> 00:22:56,490 And I wondered if there was any connection with the way it's been bound and the colours of the vellum. 175 00:22:56,490 --> 00:23:03,480 I suppose it's, it's probably important to say that when it was painted and written, it wouldn't have been bound. 176 00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:08,460 So binding was the last stage in the production of a book. 177 00:23:08,460 --> 00:23:13,710 Now, we'll, we're actually going to talk about the binding as part of our next manuscript. 178 00:23:13,710 --> 00:23:17,610 So I want to sort of push off that question about what, what the book would have 179 00:23:17,610 --> 00:23:22,570 looked like in the Middle Ages as something we'll consider with the next item. 180 00:23:22,570 --> 00:23:27,570 OK, and we've also actually had a question. I'll just, I'll just pop in as well, 181 00:23:27,570 --> 00:23:34,470 just to say that one thing that we, we need to bear in mind is that the fact that the 182 00:23:34,470 --> 00:23:44,130 manuscript is, is written and illuminated before it's bound, it's, it's most likely 183 00:23:44,130 --> 00:23:50,820 in sections or gatherings, means that you can have several scribes and several 184 00:23:50,820 --> 00:23:58,470 artists working on the manuscript at the same time as a sort of coordinated team. 185 00:23:58,470 --> 00:24:02,880 And so another thing that art historians try and do is work out, 186 00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:07,320 it can be very, very difficult because they're trying to work in a unified style, 187 00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,880 but how many people are actually involved in the production of an individual book? 188 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:17,850 So that question does raise very fundamental, very fundamental issues. 189 00:24:17,850 --> 00:24:23,310 Thank you. I'm aware we've got lots to talk about, so we may move on, but we are, I think, 190 00:24:23,310 --> 00:24:30,600 going to look on to figurative versus abstract designs, so that's also come up as a question. 191 00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:35,170 So thank you. I think we'll go into the second manuscript. Brilliant. 192 00:24:35,170 --> 00:24:43,510 Yes, so let me just close this manuscript up, and as I do that, you can see that it's binding is, is not mediaeval. 193 00:24:43,510 --> 00:24:56,020 It's in an 18th century binding. And so, too, is the next manuscript we're going to look at. 194 00:24:56,020 --> 00:25:07,100 So just excuse me while I adjust the visualiser, the next manuscript is slightly larger, so we need to move the visualiser up to get a full view of it. 195 00:25:07,100 --> 00:25:13,370 So if you just take a quick look at the binding, I'm going to page through to the decoration, 196 00:25:13,370 --> 00:25:21,930 but Martin's going to start by saying a bit about what we know about the original binding of the book, in contrast to the binding it has now. 197 00:25:21,930 --> 00:25:33,900 Yes. Thank you, Matthew, because having said that, we don't usually know where and when things were made, 198 00:25:33,900 --> 00:25:43,950 this manuscript is a bit of an exception because it has a note of, of, of miraculous usefulness at the end, telling us about its binding. 199 00:25:43,950 --> 00:25:53,490 Actually, as Matthew leafs through, I'm just going to also just say that what he's opening here is a gospel book. 200 00:25:53,490 --> 00:26:00,210 And the, what what he's leafing through are the, the canon tables, 201 00:26:00,210 --> 00:26:09,600 which link the, the episodes of the Gospels between the different gospel accounts in these, in these tables. 202 00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:20,970 But just going back to the, back to the binding, so the note at the, at the very end tells us that the manuscript was bound in the year 1178. 203 00:26:20,970 --> 00:26:37,590 So we're now in the 12th century, and it tells us where it was bound, which was at a place called Ranshofen in Upper Austria. 204 00:26:37,590 --> 00:26:48,330 And it tells us that the original binding was consisted of gold and silver and precious stones. 205 00:26:48,330 --> 00:26:56,040 It was what we would call a treasure binding. And so that's been lost from this manuscript. 206 00:26:56,040 --> 00:27:03,210 And as Matthew said, this, this manuscript, again, has a later binding, an 18th century binding. 207 00:27:03,210 --> 00:27:08,370 It comes from the same collection, that of Canonici, as the previous manuscript, 208 00:27:08,370 --> 00:27:21,900 but it did originally have a treasure binding, which would be appropriate for a gospel book being carried in procession. 209 00:27:21,900 --> 00:27:26,220 And so its outside would be visible to the, to the faithful. 210 00:27:26,220 --> 00:27:37,020 But that, that is lost. And we have to wait until we're inside the book for its, for its artistic wonders. 211 00:27:37,020 --> 00:27:43,320 So I paged through as, as you would have seen to the, the first major piece of decoration, 212 00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:51,220 one of the major highlights of the book and perhaps, perhaps Martin you could tell us what we're looking at here. 213 00:27:51,220 --> 00:28:03,670 Yes, so this is, I mean, as, as with the other, as with the last book, the most important illumination comes at certain key moments in the book. 214 00:28:03,670 --> 00:28:14,290 And so in this in a gospel book, very typically at the opening of each gospel, is this, this kind of presentation. 215 00:28:14,290 --> 00:28:19,390 And we'll speak in a moment about the beginning of the text on the right. 216 00:28:19,390 --> 00:28:26,980 But just looking first of all, at the left, what we've got is the author of the, of the Gospel. 217 00:28:26,980 --> 00:28:35,710 This is, this is Saint Matthew. And so each time we've got an evangelist portrait, we call it a portrait. 218 00:28:35,710 --> 00:28:45,930 We don't know what Saint Matthew looked like, but here he is as a mediaeval scribe. 219 00:28:45,930 --> 00:28:56,070 I suppose you would say, he's sitting at a desk, he's holding open a book. 220 00:28:56,070 --> 00:29:00,480 I don't think I can see any, any writing on it yet. 221 00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:13,440 He's got an ink well, sort of slotted into the frame of his desk and in his right hand, 222 00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:22,650 he's sort of holding something which I think is more likely to be a pen knife than a pen. 223 00:29:22,650 --> 00:29:29,100 So it looks as though he's, well, he's sort of deep in thought and he's not actually writing. 224 00:29:29,100 --> 00:29:42,480 And the pen knife is a crucial piece of equipment because it was a, a scribe would, would, would sharpen the pen with, what they would hold 225 00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:56,550 the, the quite springy parchment, sort of level, and also scrape out any mistakes that they immediately noticed from the surface of the parchment. 226 00:29:56,550 --> 00:30:03,480 So here one is starting to try to use this as a realistic depiction of a mediaeval scribe. 227 00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:10,890 They're, of course, great limits to the realism here. So one has to judge. 228 00:30:10,890 --> 00:30:20,460 But, but it is quite precious information for us trying to understand mediaeval 229 00:30:20,460 --> 00:30:24,180 scribes and each of the, we're not going to have time to look at each one, 230 00:30:24,180 --> 00:30:32,370 but each of the evangelists in this manuscript is portrayed in a very different pose. 231 00:30:32,370 --> 00:30:38,640 But meanwhile, of course, he inhabits a realm, a golden background, 232 00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:51,180 a sort of heavenly realm, in a sort of fantasy ecclesiastical architecture above him. 233 00:30:51,180 --> 00:30:56,460 So there are, there are, yes, 234 00:30:56,460 --> 00:31:03,170 this isn't a realistic depiction. The style is 235 00:31:03,170 --> 00:31:14,900 very Byzantine, actually, and is part of the whole story of the influence of Byzantine illumination on the illumination in Europe, 236 00:31:14,900 --> 00:31:22,310 which was very, very strong in the 12th, in the 12th century. 237 00:31:22,310 --> 00:31:33,230 So, yes, but that's probably something we don't have time to go into a great deal of detail about, about now. 238 00:31:33,230 --> 00:31:40,400 One of the real sort of treats of being here and paging through the book, as well as the very important point you made, 239 00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:44,330 Martin, about putting the images in their context in the book as a whole, 240 00:31:44,330 --> 00:31:51,260 is that you can really appreciate these, the sort of magnificent two page, two page spreads and openings in a way that can 241 00:31:51,260 --> 00:31:57,150 be very hard to do again with isolated images or scrolling through images online. 242 00:31:57,150 --> 00:32:00,180 And just as in the, in the previous manuscript, we've got here, 243 00:32:00,180 --> 00:32:12,710 a magnificent combination of the figurative art portrait on one side and then the sort of abstract, decorated letter on the other side. 244 00:32:12,710 --> 00:32:22,300 Which seems to be sort of equally prominent and given, given equal care and attention, um, can you, can you say something about that? 245 00:32:22,300 --> 00:32:30,010 Yes, I think that's really crucial, what you just said, that it, that, that it is, it's just as prominent. 246 00:32:30,010 --> 00:32:43,810 And I think, I mean, what we're looking at here, this wonderful form is all a large letter L beginning the word liber, book, 247 00:32:43,810 --> 00:32:50,440 the, the, the opening of Matthew's Gospel, looking at it's sort of wrapped, 248 00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:59,830 wrapped around the frame as if, if it weren't sort of tethered to the frame, it would sort of fly, fly off the, the page. 249 00:32:59,830 --> 00:33:11,320 And I think, I think it's so important to realise that the, it's the, the, the decoration and especially in this form of initial letters, 250 00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:21,370 which gets just as much care and, and, and artistic excellence as, as the pictorial art. 251 00:33:21,370 --> 00:33:33,910 But I think it's much harder for the, for modern, modern art historians to know quite how to speak about it or to understand its meaning. 252 00:33:33,910 --> 00:33:37,670 We can try and describe it, although that's not easy. 253 00:33:37,670 --> 00:33:47,200 But again, I think it's even clearer here than it was in our first manuscript, that we have organic forms. 254 00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:55,420 We've got sort of leaf forms and enormous sort of flowers. 255 00:33:55,420 --> 00:34:07,690 And some writers talk about this in terms of, of, of the theology of God's creation, for instance. 256 00:34:07,690 --> 00:34:14,200 Others look at particular, particular plant forms, particularly, especially the acanthus leaf, 257 00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:19,150 and realise that that has, again, classical echoes, just like the purple. 258 00:34:19,150 --> 00:34:24,700 There's an artistic vocabulary which does go back to, to classical times. 259 00:34:24,700 --> 00:34:34,310 But again, this is an art that doesn't really tell us, you know, there isn't a crib telling us how to interpret it. 260 00:34:34,310 --> 00:34:41,770 That's, it's for us to, to enjoy it, but also to try to, to, to, to understand it. 261 00:34:41,770 --> 00:34:53,830 But certainly, decoration is absolutely as prominent in these manuscript, manuscripts as illustration. 262 00:34:53,830 --> 00:34:55,630 This is a nice example, isn't it, 263 00:34:55,630 --> 00:35:07,330 because it pushes the sort of very edges of legibility and turns a letter L into something, something quite extraordinary. 264 00:35:07,330 --> 00:35:14,950 But if we, if we turn over the pages, there are other ways, aren't there, in which the, the perhaps less spectacular 265 00:35:14,950 --> 00:35:21,570 letters are helping to, to increase the legibility of the manuscript. 266 00:35:21,570 --> 00:35:28,200 Yes, and this has, I mean, by contrast, I suppose you might say, there's a wonderful plainness here, 267 00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:41,220 although it's still very, very grand and with, with the wide margins of, of blank parchment. 268 00:35:41,220 --> 00:35:48,300 But also we see, we see other smaller initials still using gold. 269 00:35:48,300 --> 00:35:54,660 These are, these are lesser not in their materials, but in their place, in the hierarchy. 270 00:35:54,660 --> 00:36:02,730 And I think understanding the art of the initial as part of the way of structuring the text is also really, 271 00:36:02,730 --> 00:36:15,700 really important, that you'd never have a larger initial at a, at a minor section of the text and a smaller initial at the opening of the gospel, 272 00:36:15,700 --> 00:36:24,450 or something, the size of the initials is very carefully controlled to structure the text, so that you might have larger initials 273 00:36:24,450 --> 00:36:29,940 for, for sort of chapters, smaller initials for sort of verses. 274 00:36:29,940 --> 00:36:33,840 This is an age before page numbering on the whole. 275 00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:43,080 And so the initials are also helping you to find your way around the text, also to memorise the text. 276 00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:50,650 And presumably we mentioned before that this, the manuscript is being made in sections. 277 00:36:50,650 --> 00:37:01,950 And so there is whether your, you know a team of, of, of religious in an abbey or a team of professional artists, 278 00:37:01,950 --> 00:37:08,730 you've got perhaps the more junior members of the workshop doing these smaller initials while 279 00:37:08,730 --> 00:37:19,200 the, the, the, the masters are doing the the kind of illumination we saw at the opening of the gospel. 280 00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:23,370 Should we take some questions now Helen, about this manuscript? Yes, certainly. So 281 00:37:23,370 --> 00:37:27,780 we've seen a lot of very beautiful golds in both the manuscript so far. 282 00:37:27,780 --> 00:37:33,840 Firstly, practical question, what kind of fixative was used to fix the gold to the page? 283 00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:37,740 Absolutely. Thank you for that question, 284 00:37:37,740 --> 00:37:49,110 because I, I ought to have said that. It's important to realise that there are several different ways in which the gold might be put on. 285 00:37:49,110 --> 00:38:01,410 Essentially, one is, one is gold leaf, and the other is sort of the gold ground up into a sort of gold ink or paint, 286 00:38:01,410 --> 00:38:09,270 you, you would call it. They would be done at different stages. 287 00:38:09,270 --> 00:38:16,680 The gold leaf, you need to, it is, is crinkly when you put it on and so needs to be 288 00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:23,430 burnished with a tool and that burnishing might damage other surrounding colours. 289 00:38:23,430 --> 00:38:29,310 And so rather contrary to our expectation, and we know this again from the, some 290 00:38:29,310 --> 00:38:37,110 unfinished manuscripts which I mentioned are so useful to understand technique. 291 00:38:37,110 --> 00:38:45,600 The gold is the first of the colours to be applied, not the, as you might rather think, the sort of crowning glory and the last. 292 00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:54,270 And so you do sometimes see a page unfinished, just with drawing, and just with gold and no other colors. 293 00:38:54,270 --> 00:39:06,570 Just coming back specifically to the question, you've got to have something that you're if you're using leaf, that your your gold is going to stick to. 294 00:39:06,570 --> 00:39:11,790 And that might be some kind of, any kind of sort of glue. 295 00:39:11,790 --> 00:39:20,220 But, but can sometimes be a sort of gesso, and sometimes the gesso will be white, 296 00:39:20,220 --> 00:39:29,160 but sometimes it might have a little, a reddish tint, which will also help the gold to, to, to, to glow. 297 00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:31,830 And, and if you've got gesso underneath, 298 00:39:31,830 --> 00:39:41,520 then you're also going to get the kind of slightly three dimensional effect that you sometimes, you sometimes see in these manuscripts. Thank you. And the gold, 299 00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:46,710 and to have so much gold sort of seems to suggest a considerable investment in terms of materials. 300 00:39:46,710 --> 00:39:54,110 Do we know anything about, if there are patrons behind the production of this manuscript and the previous one. 301 00:39:54,110 --> 00:40:03,590 Yes, I mean, that's, thank you, the, the note in this manuscript about the treasure binding actually gives the credit to 302 00:40:03,590 --> 00:40:13,170 the provost of Ranshofen and the treasurer of the religious house, sort of financially. 303 00:40:13,170 --> 00:40:25,070 So the treasurer was presumably, you know, allocating the funds, which isn't to say that the whole manuscript was necessarily made at Ranshofen. 304 00:40:25,070 --> 00:40:35,700 We know the binding was, but we know even at this, at this sort of date that there were professional artists. 305 00:40:35,700 --> 00:40:42,920 So this, for instance, might have been commissioned from a professional workshop in, in Saltzberg, 306 00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:47,210 which would have been the nearest major centre of illumination. 307 00:40:47,210 --> 00:40:55,340 Or sometimes we know that professional artists came and stayed for a while in a religious house. 308 00:40:55,340 --> 00:41:03,110 But, yes, these are very considerable investments in, in the, you know, 309 00:41:03,110 --> 00:41:14,870 the, the most important books for the religious house and objects of great pride, but also of, of great expense. 310 00:41:14,870 --> 00:41:19,220 And just thinking about the colours, again, the white colour was that lead white, 311 00:41:19,220 --> 00:41:26,580 and if so, why didn't it oxidise and turn black, how did the colours stay so fresh? 312 00:41:26,580 --> 00:41:29,360 I'm just carrying on with these until Matthew corrects me. 313 00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:40,910 But yes, I mean, again, we haven't, we haven't, you know, done analysis of this, but white lead, could be, but it's the same, 314 00:41:40,910 --> 00:41:45,530 and so oxidisation is a, is a danger. 315 00:41:45,530 --> 00:41:58,640 It's not a, gold doesn't tarnish but silver does, and white led can. In many ways we talked about hidden treasures at the beginning. 316 00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:07,700 But what has protected this so wonderfully is the fact that it's been kept closed in a book. 317 00:42:07,700 --> 00:42:20,660 And if you, if you compare it to the kind of state that 12th century painting on the wall of a church survives in, you can see the difference. 318 00:42:20,660 --> 00:42:27,890 It's the, it's the quality of the materials, but also the protection that the codex gives, gives it. 319 00:42:27,890 --> 00:42:35,000 So there is, yes, these are things we want to show to the world, they're great works of art. 320 00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:44,590 But we're also trying to preserve them in this wonderful, this wonderful freshness. And thinking about the artists who created these beautiful images. 321 00:42:44,590 --> 00:42:51,940 How long would it have taken for an artist to be able to work at this level of skills, do you think. 322 00:42:51,940 --> 00:43:01,150 Yeah, that's really hard and the same question goes, I think, for writing the text, 323 00:43:01,150 --> 00:43:09,120 people want to know how long it took to write out the Gospels or whatever. 324 00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:21,040 There are a few clues in mediaeval accounts, but some of the, some of our understanding of this goes to modern practitioners. 325 00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:27,670 I don't know whether we have any in our audience, but modern calligraphers, illuminators. 326 00:43:27,670 --> 00:43:40,210 I think sometimes that we imagine, oh it would have taken a lifetime to produce one book because it's so beautifully done and so precious. 327 00:43:40,210 --> 00:43:45,820 But I think, of course, they didn't have a lifetime to spare. 328 00:43:45,820 --> 00:43:49,600 They wanted a gospel book to use at Ranshofen. 329 00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:59,830 And so I think the answer is often slightly faster than we imagine, that the scribe 330 00:43:59,830 --> 00:44:05,920 might be doing several pages in a, in a day depending on the grade of script. 331 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:16,360 And of course, we also mentioned the fact that you might have several artists working at once, and that also speeds up the process. 332 00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:24,460 But I think in many cases we might be looking at things produced in weeks and months rather than years and years and years, 333 00:44:24,460 --> 00:44:29,350 although there are some famous examples of manuscripts which just got stuck. 334 00:44:29,350 --> 00:44:33,820 They were very magnificent and they just took too long and ran out of steam. 335 00:44:33,820 --> 00:44:38,170 So it, it's a very hard question to answer. Thank you. 336 00:44:38,170 --> 00:44:45,430 And lastly, for this section, you mentioned the Byzantine influence, do you have any references that help, that can explore this further, 337 00:44:45,430 --> 00:44:50,980 that our attendees could look at, particularly the influence on 12th century German miniatures. 338 00:44:50,980 --> 00:45:00,010 Yes, well, I realise in, in, in recommending a book that that can be hard for people to get their hands on. 339 00:45:00,010 --> 00:45:04,810 But, one of the sort of great points 340 00:45:04,810 --> 00:45:10,770 at the beginning of that study was a book called Byzantine, Byzantine Art of the West by a great, 341 00:45:10,770 --> 00:45:15,460 a great art historian, no longer alive, called Otto Demus, D-e-m-u-s. 342 00:45:15,460 --> 00:45:21,190 And we can put the details of that in a, in a, in a message. 343 00:45:21,190 --> 00:45:28,180 So it's, it's, it's very interesting thinking of people in Europe looking into 344 00:45:28,180 --> 00:45:36,880 Byzantium as in many ways a rich culture artistically and trying to imitate it. 345 00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:41,590 And that's a wonderfully interesting story in its own right. Thank you. 346 00:45:41,590 --> 00:45:49,470 And I think we'll move on to our final manuscript. Thank you very much. 347 00:45:49,470 --> 00:45:57,560 Our last manuscript, is, is something a little different, which is to say it's not a liturgical book, 348 00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:03,650 so we've been looking at books that were used in the celebration of the divine office. 349 00:46:03,650 --> 00:46:09,210 But the final manuscript is a book of the, well, not precisely a book of the Bible, 350 00:46:09,210 --> 00:46:15,930 but a commentary on the book of the Bible, and perhaps Martin we might start by saying something about biblical illustration, 351 00:46:15,930 --> 00:46:22,780 I mean, would we expect all books of the Bible to be llustrated or was it concentrated on certain parts of the book? 352 00:46:22,780 --> 00:46:30,900 Yes, because one might expect, yes, every bit of the Bible to get illustrated. 353 00:46:30,900 --> 00:46:39,780 Many Bibles at this state, we're actually still in the 12th century in this manuscript. 354 00:46:39,780 --> 00:46:50,250 Many Bibles were not single volumes. They were, you've got your Bible in several volumes, and some books of the Bible were produced a sort of 355 00:46:50,250 --> 00:46:56,670 individual stand alone Bibles and got more, tended to get more illustrations than others. 356 00:46:56,670 --> 00:47:04,590 And this is an apocalypse. What we might know is the Book of Revelation, the last book, 357 00:47:04,590 --> 00:47:21,860 of the New Testament and the, The Apocalypse attracted illustration more intensively than some other books of the Bible. 358 00:47:21,860 --> 00:47:33,920 This is actually the text of this manuscript is a commentary on the, on the apocalypse, the, the events of the end of, the end of time, 359 00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:44,330 and that's perhaps not surprising either because the apocalypse, a series of visions, is very, very difficult to understand. 360 00:47:44,330 --> 00:47:47,570 It was difficult for people in the Middle Ages to understand. 361 00:47:47,570 --> 00:47:59,720 And so they they wrote commentaries and, to try and help them to understand what was, what was going on. 362 00:47:59,720 --> 00:48:07,640 And so there is, again, a whole tradition of apocalypse illustration, and we don't have enough time now. 363 00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:17,510 But we could look at these pictures in this book in relation to earlier manuscripts of apocalypse illustration and again, 364 00:48:17,510 --> 00:48:24,410 see a sort of strong tradition, but then a sort of adaptation of that tradition. 365 00:48:24,410 --> 00:48:32,420 So what we're looking at here, is, is a judgement scene on the left, 366 00:48:32,420 --> 00:48:43,970 particularly the, we've got the, the, the lamb at the centre of the heavenly Jerusalem on the right and a judgement scene on the left. 367 00:48:43,970 --> 00:48:49,880 And so the, in the sort of lower left are the blessed and alas, 368 00:48:49,880 --> 00:49:01,090 on the, the, the lower right are the dammed being dragged down to, dragged down to hell. 369 00:49:01,090 --> 00:49:07,090 One of the things that I think is so interesting about this image is the figure of the devil in the, in the bottom corner, 370 00:49:07,090 --> 00:49:12,630 which I'm just going to hold my finger above and perhaps I'll zoom in on slightly because, 371 00:49:12,630 --> 00:49:20,070 what I think might become a bit clearer is that the image has been rubbed and deliberately damaged, 372 00:49:20,070 --> 00:49:28,500 it seems, almost as if the sort of early readers of the manuscript were expressing their hostility to the devil. 373 00:49:28,500 --> 00:49:32,640 Is that, is that something that we see in other manuscripts as well? I mean, that's interesting. 374 00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:35,910 And I, I'm just looking at it on the, on the screen now, and 375 00:49:35,910 --> 00:49:41,830 yes, because, I mean, sometimes you see damage to a miniature throughout the miniature. 376 00:49:41,830 --> 00:49:47,310 But as far as I can see, the damage here is very concentrated. 377 00:49:47,310 --> 00:49:53,160 You've zoomed in and it does look as though it's concentrated on the, on, on the devil. 378 00:49:53,160 --> 00:50:05,760 And so this seems to be a kind of attack on the villain of the piece, which is a really interesting bit of, sort of reader interaction, 379 00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:11,610 I suppose you would, you would say. One does see this, 380 00:50:11,610 --> 00:50:19,230 but actually one also sees sometimes damage done to some of the holy figures depicted. 381 00:50:19,230 --> 00:50:28,710 And I think there that might be the opposite kind of interaction, a kind of devotional touching, 382 00:50:28,710 --> 00:50:35,310 even perhaps kissing of a figure which is has, paradoxically, has damaged it. 383 00:50:35,310 --> 00:50:43,260 And I think, well, even today, if you go into an Orthodox church and you have icons, 384 00:50:43,260 --> 00:50:52,890 you may see, you may see worshippers sort of greeting an icon by, by, by touching it or kissing it. 385 00:50:52,890 --> 00:50:56,310 And so that, so, so I think what one can see, yes, 386 00:50:56,310 --> 00:51:01,500 both a sort of hostile interaction and the veneration of these images, 387 00:51:01,500 --> 00:51:11,040 which I suppose reminds us that although we're looking at them in a way as great artistic productions, 388 00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:24,980 they are, you know, they bear this meaning, and their, their their original readers and users were, were interacting with them in a variety of ways. 389 00:51:24,980 --> 00:51:31,100 Yes, sometimes I think that talking about them as art is, is a little bit unhelpful, isn't it, 390 00:51:31,100 --> 00:51:38,590 because it imposes our sort of modern relationship back onto what was something quite different sometimes. 391 00:51:38,590 --> 00:51:46,600 So going back to the, the apocalypse is a text for illustration, it must have caused particular challenges for artists, 392 00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:52,990 not only in terms of the, the subject matter and turning that into a narrative, 393 00:51:52,990 --> 00:52:02,090 but also in sort of in trying to express that it's a series of visions being, being seen by John. 394 00:52:02,090 --> 00:52:10,100 How did artists deal with those problems? Yes, because, 395 00:52:10,100 --> 00:52:17,150 well, here is Saint John, yes, on the left, there, it is, 396 00:52:17,150 --> 00:52:27,230 what we're looking at is supposed to be a series of visions seen by John. 397 00:52:27,230 --> 00:52:32,390 And so I suppose that's a challenge to the artist, you know how to do that. 398 00:52:32,390 --> 00:52:41,720 And this, this manuscript is actually quite innovative in, in bringing John into the picture in earlier apocalypses 399 00:52:41,720 --> 00:52:47,540 you often just get the visions without John and you're just sort of seeing through his eyes. 400 00:52:47,540 --> 00:53:04,730 But here he is, Haloed, you know, a large figure looking at the enthroned, the enthroned Lord with the, the elders around him. 401 00:53:04,730 --> 00:53:08,600 There's a sort of open door with that sort of curving metalwork 402 00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:15,320 sort of next to him. He's hearing a voice which commands him, 403 00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:23,150 Come up here. That's written in the, in the sort of flying scroll above his head. 404 00:53:23,150 --> 00:53:28,580 But it's really interesting because he's, he's sort of pointing, I think, 405 00:53:28,580 --> 00:53:39,710 not just at his face, but at his eyes to sort of emphasise that he's having the vision. 406 00:53:39,710 --> 00:53:48,260 And in fact, in the Middle Ages, there was, there was a very, going right back to St. Augustine, 407 00:53:48,260 --> 00:53:57,050 one of the great fathers of the church, a very sophisticated sort of theology of different kinds of seeing. 408 00:53:57,050 --> 00:54:02,090 You've got sort of corporeal vision, you know, with your, with your senses. 409 00:54:02,090 --> 00:54:13,100 Looking at the world around us. You've got what they would have referred to as spiritual vision, which is the stuff of visions, of dreams. 410 00:54:13,100 --> 00:54:20,600 And you've got the highest form of vision, which they might have referred to as sort of intellectual vision, 411 00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:30,210 a sort of non, non seeing vision, as sort of you're apprehending something by reason and you're 412 00:54:30,210 --> 00:54:36,080 you're, you're, you're coming into union with the divinity and writers about the apocalypse, 413 00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:44,720 one of the things that they wondered about was which kind of vision are Saint John's visions. 414 00:54:44,720 --> 00:54:50,360 So I think that's really interesting here, an attempt. It's sort of difficult for the artist, 415 00:54:50,360 --> 00:55:03,370 but it's an attempt here, perhaps to convey some of the importance of the whole business of seeing in the context of the apocalypse. 416 00:55:03,370 --> 00:55:08,860 One of the things that's so striking about this manuscript, in contrast to the other two we've looked at, 417 00:55:08,860 --> 00:55:14,410 is that we have this great massive illustration at the beginning of the manuscript. 418 00:55:14,410 --> 00:55:24,610 It's not, it's not spaced out as it was in the other manuscripts, taking its meaning from, from where it occurs and the text it's, it's adjacent to. 419 00:55:24,610 --> 00:55:32,290 But we have, we have it all as a sort of whole cycle, a narrative cycle at the beginning of the manuscript, 420 00:55:32,290 --> 00:55:40,400 which I suppose implies a slightly different relationship perhaps between the pictures and the text. 421 00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:50,960 Yes, yes, absolutely, because actually, the, once you've got past sort of 12 leaves of, of, of, of pictures, 422 00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:56,810 you're into the text, which is not illustrated. Someone's just put in the, in the chat, 423 00:55:56,810 --> 00:56:03,200 it's like a graphic novel. And absolutely it is, isn't it? And in sort of registers here. 424 00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:09,590 I mean, what we're looking at, we haven't, haven't time enough to you know, 425 00:56:09,590 --> 00:56:16,970 we could enjoy the detail of this endlessly, but we've got the horsemen of the apocalypse on the left here. 426 00:56:16,970 --> 00:56:24,110 And you've got death on a pale horse in the middle there. 427 00:56:24,110 --> 00:56:31,940 But yes, where to put the pictures in a book was a, was a big issue. 428 00:56:31,940 --> 00:56:42,080 And, and we've been, we looked first, I suppose, at liturgical books where there is this great integration of text and image and, and, and we examined that. 429 00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:47,750 But this is another way in which you might get pictures in a book right at the beginning. 430 00:56:47,750 --> 00:56:52,190 And it's not only in Apocalypses. You sometimes get that in the Book of Psalms, 431 00:56:52,190 --> 00:57:02,760 the Psalter with a whole cycle of pictures at the beginning of the book, but it didn't stay necessarily set. 432 00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:13,100 So this is, this is a 12th century apocalypse. But in the 13th century, there's a whole group of apocalypses produced in England. 433 00:57:13,100 --> 00:57:13,520 And again, 434 00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:25,580 I think we've put a, a link to one, a Bodleian example in the message that Helen sent out, where the texts and the pictures go sort of hand in hand. 435 00:57:25,580 --> 00:57:32,870 Each page has a picture of the top half and the text, a chunk of text below. 436 00:57:32,870 --> 00:57:41,600 So they're, they're constantly experimenting with how to combine words and pictures and looking here, 437 00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:49,760 I think I can see that the, some of the text of the apocalypse is actually written into the frame. 438 00:57:49,760 --> 00:58:00,590 And so in order to give some kind of, of, of textual context, it's, it's been been squeezed in like that. 439 00:58:00,590 --> 00:58:06,110 So I think, I think that is really interesting. 440 00:58:06,110 --> 00:58:22,280 And it is, there's no set relationship. It is like so many of these books, very strong in tradition and yet constantly experimental. 441 00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:27,440 That's fantastic. Thank you. And I think we have, we're ready to take questions now, Helen. 442 00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:32,300 Great. Thank you. We've got a few questions, not many, so we may go over by a few minutes. 443 00:58:32,300 --> 00:58:39,010 But to start off with, does this apocalypse relate somehow to Spanish Beatus manuscripts. 444 00:58:39,010 --> 00:58:42,460 Yes, thank you. I mean, 445 00:58:42,460 --> 00:58:48,160 we mentioned this is a commentary, the text of this is actually a commentary, and 446 00:58:48,160 --> 00:58:56,710 there's a commentary on, on the Apocalypse by a man called Beatus in Spain, 447 00:58:56,710 --> 00:59:06,130 which, again, there's a whole tradition, a wonderful traditional of illustrated what are called Beatus manuscripts illustrated with Apocalypses, 448 00:59:06,130 --> 00:59:15,280 with the commentary of this man Beatus. In fact, interestingly, that is a rather separate tradition. 449 00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:22,200 So although I said, yes, there's a strong tradition, there's more than one tradition, if you like. 450 00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:23,890 There are, there are traditions. 451 00:59:23,890 --> 00:59:36,190 And that that wonderful series of Spanish manuscripts, Beatus manuscripts going back to the, the 8th century and onward, and onwards are in fact, 452 00:59:36,190 --> 00:59:41,410 in terms of their compositions and presentation, rather distinct. 453 00:59:41,410 --> 00:59:49,720 But the study of apocalypse illustration is wonderfully rich and wonderfully complex and 454 00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:57,250 art historians sort of start drawing family trees of which manuscripts relate to which others. 455 00:59:57,250 --> 01:00:05,320 But the Beatus manuscripts are wonderful, but, but in some ways different from the compositions here. 456 01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:10,450 Thank you. And just thinking about the style of this manuscript and the others we've seen, and we've had a question 457 01:00:10,450 --> 01:00:17,670 about whether you think William Blake might be referring to mediaeval manuscripts in his art. 458 01:00:17,670 --> 01:00:32,850 That's really interesting. I don't know the answer, but there's another whole you know, another day, you know, 459 01:00:32,850 --> 01:00:40,330 the, the, the sort of afterlife of these manuscripts and the influence they've had on later 460 01:00:40,330 --> 01:00:49,690 artists and trying to track down exactly who saw what and what influence it had on them. 461 01:00:49,690 --> 01:00:56,020 And I can't quite answer about Blake, although I absolutely see why that question has been asked. 462 01:00:56,020 --> 01:01:06,760 But for instance, William Morris rather, rather later, very, very interested in mediaeval manuscripts. 463 01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:16,180 And he was an Oxford student and our predecessors in the library kept careful records of who had seen which manuscripts. 464 01:01:16,180 --> 01:01:19,570 And so we know when William Morris came into the Bodleian library, 465 01:01:19,570 --> 01:01:26,560 into the reading room, and which manuscripts he ordered on which days and can therefore, you know, give us 466 01:01:26,560 --> 01:01:33,520 some really strong evidence of what influence those manuscripts might have, might have had on him. 467 01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:38,290 So absolutely, I think the, the revival, 468 01:01:38,290 --> 01:01:48,040 especially perhaps in the, from the late 18th century into the 19th century, of interest in these manuscripts and 469 01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:58,840 very intense study of them, and and use of them by, by artists is a really interesting subject in its own right. 470 01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:04,030 Absolutely. Yes. And in thinking about that, actually, and the fact that they have inspired other artists, 471 01:02:04,030 --> 01:02:10,000 can you say a little bit about how the Bodleian acquired these three manuscripts and where they might have come from? 472 01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:14,140 Yes, sorry, yeah, we should have. So 473 01:02:14,140 --> 01:02:22,930 the collector, the Venetian collector called Canonici who owned the first two, the library 474 01:02:22,930 --> 01:02:32,320 bought the greater part of the Canonici collection in 1817, its largest ever sort of purchase of mediaeval manuscripts. 475 01:02:32,320 --> 01:02:38,830 And that's why actually we're, we're very rich also in Italian manuscripts, because he had a lot of them. 476 01:02:38,830 --> 01:02:52,510 This manuscript, although made in Germany, in keeping with our theme and we don't know exactly where, but from some of the annotations in the margins, 477 01:02:52,510 --> 01:02:59,500 not on this page, but in the text, we can see that it seems to have come to England by the end of the Middle Ages. 478 01:02:59,500 --> 01:03:07,030 There are some annotations which look as though they're 15th century, and the library acquired it, 479 01:03:07,030 --> 01:03:16,390 we don't know exactly where from around 1603, which is very, 480 01:03:16,390 --> 01:03:25,000 very early in the library's history because the Bodleian was, Thomas Bodley opened the doors of the library in 1602. 481 01:03:25,000 --> 01:03:33,670 So, but to answer more generally, I think it's worth for, for the Bodleian's great collections, 482 01:03:33,670 --> 01:03:40,450 many of our mediaeval manuscripts are from England and had been in monastic libraries in the 483 01:03:40,450 --> 01:03:47,110 Middle Ages, and obviously were dispersed at the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. 484 01:03:47,110 --> 01:04:00,580 And so the Bodleian founded, you know, some decades later, there were still very large numbers of mediaeval manuscripts to be, to be had. 485 01:04:00,580 --> 01:04:08,410 So, yes, the, the provenance, as we would say, the travels of these manuscripts through time is another very, very interesting subject. 486 01:04:08,410 --> 01:04:12,640 Yes. And it's one. Sorry. I was just going to say 487 01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:18,940 it is fascinating to think about how far some of these manuscripts have travelled and what that can tell us about 488 01:04:18,940 --> 01:04:24,820 their history and if, even in the Middle Ages, as Martin said this manuscript written in 12th century Germany, 489 01:04:24,820 --> 01:04:34,920 but coming to England, we don't, we don't really know how in the 15th century, and then, then ended up in Oxford in the early 17th. 490 01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:40,290 And it's wonderful that we're able to see them now as part of the Polonsky Foundation funded digitisation project, 491 01:04:40,290 --> 01:04:46,190 so I wonder if you could say a little bit more about the digitisation process. Oh, yes. 492 01:04:46,190 --> 01:04:58,840 And the project itself. Perhaps I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll let Matthew, Matthew's been very, very, yes, very intensely involved in this project. 493 01:04:58,840 --> 01:05:04,420 I think that the best place to look for more information about that is the website for the project. 494 01:05:04,420 --> 01:05:11,380 And perhaps Helen can share a link to that in the chat where we've got several blog posts that our 495 01:05:11,380 --> 01:05:17,590 photographers have written about the actual process of photographing these for digitisation, 496 01:05:17,590 --> 01:05:26,200 which is extremely sort of intricate and technical craft, so there's, there's a lot to learn about there. 497 01:05:26,200 --> 01:05:32,200 I think the other, the other things, the other stages that are important to mention are the sort of selection process, so how we go about 498 01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:38,350 choosing the manuscripts and deciding what's important and what, what sort of belongs in a project. 499 01:05:38,350 --> 01:05:42,310 And then the assessment that we would do before photography to make sure they're 500 01:05:42,310 --> 01:05:46,040 suitable for, for being photographed without possibly undergoing damage. 501 01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:52,670 So the conservation assessment that we do together with our colleagues in conservation. 502 01:05:52,670 --> 01:05:59,810 Lovely, thank you. And just to go back to some of the detail, because we weren't able to cover this earlier, just for the last moments, 503 01:05:59,810 --> 01:06:09,740 firstly about the framing of the beautiful lettering that we saw in the first manuscript and also in the second. 504 01:06:09,740 --> 01:06:13,370 Where does that kind of framing come from? Can you say anything about that? 505 01:06:13,370 --> 01:06:19,430 And also whether it reflects anything of the education of the artist. 506 01:06:19,430 --> 01:06:29,390 Yes, I mean, I suppose there are different ways to think that because the framing, I mean 507 01:06:29,390 --> 01:06:39,050 there's a lot to be said about the shape of, of pictures and the shape of books themselves and the way in which, 508 01:06:39,050 --> 01:06:45,320 I suppose framing, framing defines sometimes a pictorial sphere. 509 01:06:45,320 --> 01:06:50,180 But there are lots of illuminated initials which aren't framed. 510 01:06:50,180 --> 01:06:56,150 And so perhaps we shouldn't give the impression that everything's framed. 511 01:06:56,150 --> 01:07:05,480 I think perhaps part of the question might be about about the decoration within the frame. 512 01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:09,320 And again, there's a whole vocabulary there. 513 01:07:09,320 --> 01:07:15,480 I, I think some of the things we saw, we, we haven't got time to go back. 514 01:07:15,480 --> 01:07:27,560 But some of the things we saw were like sort of palmettes and again, might be seen as part of a sort of classical, artistic, decorative vocabulary. 515 01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:37,350 And then, of course, I suppose once you've got framing, I mean, here, here very unusually framing is used to contain the text as well. 516 01:07:37,350 --> 01:07:38,900 But once you've got framing, 517 01:07:38,900 --> 01:07:48,470 artists can also play with sort of going beyond the frame, because the frame seems to contain a pictorial world that you're looking into. 518 01:07:48,470 --> 01:07:52,970 But then, as it were, if you cross the frame, then you're coming out of that world. 519 01:07:52,970 --> 01:08:02,150 And in a way, there's a hint of that. Just looking at this on the right hand side here at the top, you know, 520 01:08:02,150 --> 01:08:10,580 but, but, the, the, the, the top of this angel is sort of emerging from beyond the frame. 521 01:08:10,580 --> 01:08:17,930 So once you've got a frame, as with many later, you know, artists, you can then play with the frame. 522 01:08:17,930 --> 01:08:24,980 So, yes, frames are themselves a wonderful subject. 523 01:08:24,980 --> 01:08:33,130 And just to finish off with, thank you, are the public or the readers able to see these manuscripts in the Bodleian, at all. 524 01:08:33,130 --> 01:08:43,390 Yes, we are not only open to, I suppose, the majority of our readers, 525 01:08:43,390 --> 01:08:51,910 many of our readers are doing academic study, but our readership isn't limited to, to that. 526 01:08:51,910 --> 01:08:58,780 And yes, indeed, we welcome, we welcome readers to the library. 527 01:08:58,780 --> 01:09:10,600 And there's information about, about obtaining a reader's card, getting admitted to the library on our, on our Web pages. 528 01:09:10,600 --> 01:09:19,930 And the, yes. The, the, the, the, the thrill of turning the pages of a mediaeval manuscript is, it's a great experience. 529 01:09:19,930 --> 01:09:31,240 Having said that, there are some manuscripts which we deem, you know, very, very precious, very fragile, 530 01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:43,060 and which we do limit access to, to try and find that balance between making them available and preserving them for the next many centuries. 531 01:09:43,060 --> 01:09:49,540 And so, in a way, the digitisation of manuscripts, it's not a substitute for the real thing, 532 01:09:49,540 --> 01:09:54,970 but it is a way also not only of spreading these images far and wide, 533 01:09:54,970 --> 01:09:59,920 but also making them very immediately available to the vast majority of people who 534 01:09:59,920 --> 01:10:07,280 aren't going to be able to come, and come into the library and sit in the reading room. 535 01:10:07,280 --> 01:10:10,310 Excellent. Well, I think that's, that's a really good place to leave it, 536 01:10:10,310 --> 01:10:15,830 to encourage people both to look online and if they can, get to Oxford to come and see the manuscripts for themselves. 537 01:10:15,830 --> 01:10:20,150 So, thank you very much to everyone for joining us today. 538 01:10:20,150 --> 01:10:24,590 It's been a real pleasure to be able to connect with friends of the Bodleian from all over the world. 539 01:10:24,590 --> 01:10:28,310 I'm aware we've had people from America, from Argentina, all over the place today. 540 01:10:28,310 --> 01:10:31,520 So thank you for your curiosity and enthusiasm. 541 01:10:31,520 --> 01:10:38,910 Thank you very much to Matthew Holford and Martin Kauffmann for their knowledge and expertise and to our behind the scenes technical team, 542 01:10:38,910 --> 01:10:45,470 Karen, Steph, and Rebecca. So do look out for an email with a link to the session recording, which we'll send out in a week or so. 543 01:10:45,470 --> 01:10:51,710 And please take a moment to fill out the quick feedback form so we can continue to offer free events like this in the future. 544 01:10:51,710 --> 01:10:55,850 And do sign up to our newsletter to find out more about our upcoming events. 545 01:10:55,850 --> 01:11:04,169 We hope to see you again soon. Have a good evening and thank you very much again.