![]() The selection includes a number of creatures that would now be considered fantastic, including the griffin, the manticore, and of course the fabled unicorn. This book is arranged in manner of a proper bestiary, with essays on the medieval lore and iconography of one hundred creatures alphabetized by their Latin names, from the alauda, or lark, whose morning song was thought to be a hymn to Creation, to the vultur, whose taste for carrion made it a symbol of the sinner who indulges in worldly pleasures. ![]() They were illustrated not only in bestiaries―the compendiums of animal fact and fable that were exceedingly popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries―but in every sort of manuscript, sacred and profane, from the Gospels to the Romance of the Rose. But then there are additional stories imprinted on the completed text, how was it being used? Were these objects of reverence with barely a scratch as proof of their sacred status, or are they everyday books to be used and thumbed and splashed and cleaned? Much the same way as our favourite recipe books contain evidence of the ingredients we use, manuscripts may present similar signatures from their users, a drop of wine here, a stain of milk there, a veritable feast of biomolecules preserved for posterity, lying dormant waiting to be revealed.Now in an affordable edition, a splendid pageant of the animal kingdom as the Middle Ages saw it As the 587 colorful images in this magnificent volume reveal, animals were a constant―and delightful―presence in illuminated manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages. Understanding book production in terms of the livestock economies that sustained them, the choice of animals (age, sex, breed), the idocincracies of each skin requiring specialist knowledge of treatment and production. Understanding the craftsmanship involved in the production of materials, so intrinsically linked to the users themselves, are as much a part of the codex as the words inscribed on the page. The emerging field of Biocodicology 1 offers the tantalising prospect to read these long forgotten biographies, revealing complex stories of use, handling, storage and production.īut why is this relevant? What can we really learn that cannot already be ascertained from reading the text? The value of the materiality of manuscript production cannot be overstated. However, what if an eye is not enough? Invisible traces have seemed impossible to recover, but this is all changing with recent technological advances available to us. The life of a book holds many stories, all leaving an invisible signature trapped in the pages, waiting to be read by those with the keenest eye. Common creatures such as lions, birds, and monkeys appear beside fantastical dragons, griffins, centaurs, unicorns, and grotesques. Medieval art abounds in animals, both real and imaginary. ![]() Their meanings, opaque to today’s viewers, form one of the many tantalizing mysteries of medieval art. Medieval manuscripts are full of strange animals rabbits, snails, dragons, and more. Copyright Cambridge University Library Continue reading → The Medieval Menagerie: Animals in Illuminated Manuscripts. The illustrator made critical decisions not only about which moments of the narrative would receive greater emphasis, but also about the iconography of these scenes, thereby deciding how they were presented and constructing reader responses.ĬUL, Kk.1.7, fol. ![]() In Kk.1.7, a total of seventeen scenes are illustrated, and possibly one or two others are missing due to loss. Most copies show preparation or completion of twenty-six scenes, and these scenes show a high degree of consistency in subject and, often, iconography. Close comparison of the scenes chosen for illustration reveals an archetypal programme of illustration. All of the extant manuscript copies of the Soul reserve space for illustration, indicating that miniatures played an integral role in the manuscript tradition of the Soul. MS Kk.1.7 contains The Pilgrimage of the Soul – the Middle English adaptation of Guillaume de Deguilleville’s fourteenth-century poem Le Pèlerinage de l’Âme. ![]()
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