14 May 2020
How to be a hermit
When John Donne famously remarked that ‘no man is an island’, he meant, in a literal sense, that no person is isolated. The word ‘isolate’ comes from the Latin insulatus ('insulated'), which came, in turn from insula ('island'). Insulatus became Italian isolato, which gave us the Modern English ‘isolate’. Many of us are currently feeling the pain of being islands, isolated from family or friends. But, throughout history, many cultures have construed isolation as having a symbolic power. This tradition was especially strong in the Christian West in the Middle Ages, when people chose to 'island' themselves to bring them closer to God.
Medieval Christian solitaries often sought to emulate Biblical examples. The Old Testament prophet Elijah was visited by an angel who told him to travel for forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb. There he dwelt in a cave and heard the voice of God (1 Kings 19:7–10). Elijah’s retreat was emulated by later figures. For instance, John the Baptist retreated into the desert in fulfilment of a prophecy of Isaiah that he would be a ‘voice of one crying in the desert’. There he wore camel skins, fed on locusts and wild honey, and preached penance, before he baptised Christ in the River Jordan (Matthew 3:3–13). Christ also famously emulated Elijah’s forty days and forty nights when he was tempted in the wilderness by the Devil (Matthew 4:1–11).
A historiated initial 'D'(eus), showing John the Baptist clad in animal skins, in the Hours of Bonaparte Ghislieri (Bologna, c. 1500): Yates Thompson MS 29, f. 48r
In the 3rd and 4th centuries, a group of people retreated into the Egyptian desert to pursue lives of isolation. E. A. Jones has noted that, when Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire under the Emperor Constantine (r. 306–337), it 'lost its dangerous, ‘edgy’ status as a countercultural movement', so that devout Christians could no longer seek martyrdom (Hermits and Anchorites in England, 1200–1550, Manchester University Press, 2019, p. 2). Consequently, they sought other forms of martyrdom in regimes of self-discipline and the denial of bodily desire. These figures saw themselves as spiritual athletes (many Christian writers of this period used the term askesis, which was originally used of athletes training for a contest), intent on difficult and arduous labour in the pursuit of spiritual perfection.
Perhaps the most famous of the Desert Fathers was St Anthony of Egypt (c. 251–356), who is often considered the ‘founder of monasticism’. He made his life in the wilderness, where he was soon joined by followers with whom he formed an early monastic community. Like many hermits, he is said to have undergone demonic torments, including being tempted by devils in the shape of beautiful women and wild beasts. He is the patron saint of animals, skin diseases, farmers, butchers, basket-makers, brush-makers and gravediggers.
St Anthony in the desert, in the Hours of Charles le Clerc (Netherlands, 15th century): Add MS 19416, f. 126v
Alongside these Desert Fathers, there were also Desert Mothers. Perhaps one of the most engaging stories is that of St Mary of Egypt. Mary lived in the city of Alexandria, where she led a dissolute life for 17 years, ‘lying in the fire of promiscuity’ as the Old English version of her Life puts it. One day, she saw a large crowd of people hurrying to the sea to board a boat. They told her they were going to Jerusalem to venerate the Cross and she decided to join them, but not necessarily for religious reasons. In the Old English translation of her Life in Cotton MS Julius E VII, Mary describes how, ‘I saw ten young men standing together by the shore, good-looking enough in body and in demeanour … for the pleasure of my body’ (translated by Hugh Magennis, The Old English Life of Saint Mary of Egypt, University of Exeter Press, 2002, pp. 85–87). Mary travelled with them, but in Jerusalem she experienced a religious conversion. Thereafter she retreated into the desert, where she lived for 47 years, subsisting on desert plants and wearing only ‘the garment of the word of God’, when the scraps of her clothes had withered away. You can read more about her in our blogpost Hairy Mary.
St Zosimas hands his cloak to St Mary of Egypt, from the Dunois Hours (Paris, c. 1439–c. 1450): Yates Thompson MS 3, f. 287r
In early medieval England, a number of figures sought to emulate the Desert Fathers and Mothers. St Guthlac was a 7th-century Mercian who, after a life as a soldier, retreated to the East Anglian fens (presumably the closest approximation of a desert that rainy England could offer). There he lived in a disused barrow on an island, and dispensed spiritual counsel to those who visited him. The 8th-century Life of Guthlac by a monk named Felix described how he fasted often, eating only barley bread. He had terrifying visions of devils, which some modern scholars think may have been the result of ergot poisoning. (Ergot is a fungus which can grow on barley and produces a compound similar to lysergic acid or LSD.) Guthlac’s life is clearly modelled, to some degree, on that of St Anthony. The modern medical explanation for Guthlac’s torments is ironic, because St Anthony’s intercession was often invoked by sufferers of ergotism.
St Guthlac being tormented by devils, in the Guthlac Roll (England, late 12th or early 13h century): Harley Roll Y 6
Each of these figures lived in isolated places away from human society. In England a form of eremitical life emerged around the late 11th century called anchoritism, which allowed people to live as recluses but within the fold of society. Anchorites or anchoresses (the female form) would permanently enclose themselves in cells attached to a church in order to live a life of prayer and contemplation. The word comes from the Greek ἀναχωρεῖν (‘anachorein’) meaning ‘to retire or retreat’. In their cells they lived a life of extraordinary restriction. They had a small window which looked onto the church, another which led onto a servant’s parlour (through which they could receive food and get rid of waste) and a third window on the church yard or street, from which they could dispense spiritual counsel. They were otherwise confined to a single room for what could be decades. You can read more about the lives of anchoresses on the Discovering Literature: Medieval website.
Miniature of an anchoress being enclosed, in a pontifical (England, 15th century): Lansdowne MS 451, f. 76v
Perhaps the most famous English anchoress was Julian of Norwich, who wrote the first work in English authored by a woman. During a period of illness in 1373, at the age of 30, Julian experienced visions of Christ. She recovered and composed a short account of her experiences. This account may have been submitted to ecclesiastical authorities when she applied for the right to become an anchoress. Her application was successful and she lived in a cell at St Julian’s Church in Conesford, in Norwich, for at least 20 years. During this time, she meditated on the meaning of her visions, producing a longer version of her initial account (which survives only in post-Reformation copies). This second version of the text represents Julian’s transition from mystic to sophisticated theologian. It is an elegant piece of rhetorical writing, in lyrical prose, which contains some unforgettable imagery. Given the privation of her life — a life of permanent enclosure — Julian’s work is strikingly, almost radically, hopeful.
The short version of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love (England, 15th century): Add MS 37790, f. 97r
Julian never makes reference to the realities of her way of life. At one point she writes that ‘this place is pryson, and this lyfe is pennannce’, but she was likely referring to her life on Earth, rather than the confines of her cell. Her work is instead suffused with optimism. Julian’s most famous line, 'all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well', delivers a hopeful message of love as the guiding force of the universe.
Julian of Norwich’s Long Text of Revelations of Divine Love (France, c. 1675): Stowe MS 42, f. 33r
In this time of isolation, the lives of medieval hermits may seem stranger to us, as we realise the true toll that isolation takes. But this strangeness perhaps also gives us a new appreciation of these figures, battling demons in mountain caves or fenland barrows or ‘islanded’ in small, dark cells. Julian’s hope in the darkness is a message that speaks to us across the centuries.
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09 May 2020
In search of the books of Richard Amadas
Many of the medieval manuscripts that survive today passed through the hands of early modern book collectors. One of these was Richard Amadas, vicar of the small village and civil parish of Great Hallingbury, Essex, in the late 16th and early 17th century. Much of what we know about him (which is indeed very little) comes from the testament that he made and signed in 1626. From it, we learn that Amadas's will was proved in 1629, which suggests that he died in that year. We also learn that he bequeathed ‘all my bookes that I have’ to his wife, Mary.
St Giles’ Church, Great Hallingbury, Essex, remodelled in 1874, but featuring medieval elements as old as the 11th century (image by The Rambling Man / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Not long after Amadas’s death his books were dispersed. Only a small number of these have been identified in modern times; in our cataloguing work at the British Library, we have now discovered three medieval manuscripts from his collection. They survive in two of our foundation collections, formed respectively by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1574–1631), and by the Lord High Treasurer Robert Harley (1661–1724), first earl of Oxford and Mortimer, and his son Edward Harley (1689–1741). Here we explore what can be gleaned from these manuscripts about Amadas’s interests as an early modern book collector.
In the early 1980s, the librarian J. C. T. Oates identified a number of Amadas’s medieval manuscripts and printed books at Cambridge University Library. Among these is the so-called ‘Cambridge Juvencus Manuscript’ (Cambridge, University Library, Ff.4.42), containing a 9th-century copy of the Evangeliorum libri IV (The Four Books of the Gospels) by the 4th-century poet Juvencus, with the earliest surviving poems in Old Welsh entered in the margins. The manuscript has been annotated in a script that is identical to that found in Amadas’s testament. If this is Amadas's own handwriting, it suggests that he closely studied Juvencus’s verse rendering of the Gospel narrative.
The 'Cambridge Juvencus Manuscript' contains annotations attributed to Richard Amadas, including the name 'Mr. Price' on f. 1v: the whole manuscript can be viewed online
Each of the three newly-identified manuscripts from Amadas’s collection bears his signature on its opening page. But his signature is difficult to read, with Oates describing it as ‘an almost illegible tangle of narrow sloping loops’.
The signature of Richard Amadas (‘Richarde Amadas’) in Cotton MS Titus D XVI, f. 1r, followed by the full page in which it is found
One of Amadas’s manuscripts is Cotton MS Titus D XVI. It contains an early 12th-century copy of the Psychomachia (Battle of the Soul) by the early 5th-century Roman poet Prudentius, an allegorical work in which personifications of the seven vices and virtues combat each other. Colin Tite, who dedicated much of his career to studying the Cotton collection, managed to decipher Amadas’s signature but did not identify him with the book-collecting vicar of Great Hallingbury.
Cotton MS Titus D XVI provides interesting clues about how Amadas used his books. Writing in bright red ink and in a distinct squarish script with an unusually large letter ‘v’, he frequently added annotations to the Psychomachia. The annotations usually contain expansions of Latin abbreviations or synonyms for words in Prudentius’s work. For example, in a section that describes how Pride attacks Humility, Amadas has underlined the word ‘umbonis’ (boss of a shield) and added the word ‘bucklar’ (from the Old French bucler or Latin buccularius, a shield with a boss) in the page’s outer margin.
Amadas’s annotation for ‘umbonis’ (underlined) in the outer margin (‘bucklar’) in Prudentius’s Psychomachia (St Albans Abbey, 1st quarter of the 12th century): Cotton MS Titus D XVI, f. 14r
Amadas also owned Cotton MS Vespasian D XI. This 12th-century manuscript contains the Hypognosticon — a salvation history from the Creation until the present time — by the poet Lawrence of Durham (c. 1110–1154), prior of Durham Cathedral Priory. The manuscript’s opening page features two signatures that previously had not been deciphered. However, a comparison with the signature that Colin Tite deciphered from Cotton MS Titus D XVI provides us with a match, leaving no doubt that this is another of Amadas’s manuscripts.
Two signatures of Richard Amadas are found on the opening page of Lawrence of Durham's poems, one in the lower margin and the other in the upper left corner (Dore Abbey, 2nd half of the 12th century): Cotton MS Vespasian D XI, f. 2r
Cotton MS Vespasian D XI also contains annotations that suggest that Amadas closely studied its contents. Aside from expanding Latin abbreviations, he may also have been responsible for adding punctuation marks and corrections to the poems. For example, in a section which was highlighted as a ‘poem of the planets’ (planetarum versus), he may also have corrected the word ‘myras’ (wonderful) with ‘vias’ (ways).
Amadas’s annotations to Lawrence of Durham’s Hypognosticon (Abbey Dore, 2nd half of the 12th century): Cotton MS Vespasian D XI, f. 62v
A third manuscript with Amadas’s signature (Harley MS 399) was recently discovered in our ongoing cataloguing project on the Harley collection. It contains a 15th-century copy of the Secretum Secretorum, a treatise that purports to be a letter from the Greek philosopher Aristotle to his pupil Alexander the Great, covering a wide range of subjects such as alchemy, astrology, ethics, magic, medicine and politics.
Amadas did not annotate the Secretum Secretorum, perhaps because there was little scholarly interest in this work during his lifetime. Although it was well known during the later Middle Ages, it lost its popularity during the 16th century when it became widely recognized that there was no evidence for Aristotle’s claimed authorship.
Richard Amadas’s signature at the opening of the Secretum Secretorum (England, 15th century): Harley MS 399, f. 1r
Richard Amadas was clearly a student of Latin language and literature. By clarifying and correcting the grammar of the Latin poems in his manuscripts, he followed a tradition of humanist scholars who sought to create accurate editions of Classical Latin texts. Today he is virtually unknown as a book collector, but through these new identifications we can gain a better understanding of the small but important collection of medieval manuscripts that he studied and preserved for posterity.
You can read more about Amadas and the Cambridge Juvencus in J. C. T. Oates, ‘Notes on the Later History of the Oldest Manuscript of Welsh Poetry: The Cambridge Juvencus’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 3 (1982), 81-87. This manuscript can be viewed on the Cambridge Digital Library, and there is also a facsimile and commentary by Helen McKee published for CMCS Publications (2000). Colin Tite deciphered the signature in Cotton MS Titus D XVI in his The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton's Library: Formation, Cataloguing, Use (London: The British Library, 2003), p. 199.
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06 May 2020
The legend of Alexander in late Antique and medieval literary culture: PhD studentship at the British Library
The British Library is collaborating with Durham University to offer a fully-funded full-time or part-time PhD studentship via the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme. The student’s research will focus on the legend of Alexander the Great, and the successful applicant will be supervised by Dr Venetia Bridges (Durham) and Dr Peter Toth (British Library).
Alexander the Great on Fortune’s Wheel, in a French chronicle of the ancient world (France, 3rd quarter of the 15th century): Harley MS 4376, f. 271r (detail)
Alexander the Great is one of the most fascinating figures of the ancient world. He conquered the world from Greece to India in less than 10 years. Although he died in 323 BC when he was only 33, Alexander's legacy continues to influence European, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures.
Alexander the Great, anointed by the personification of Philosophy, in a Latin version of the Alexander Romance (England, last quarter of the 11th century): Royal MS 13 A I, f. 1v
In the last two millennia, Alexander the Great has been represented as a magician, a scientist, a statesman, a philosopher and as one of the greatest explorers of humankind. The British Library’s collection of materials relating to the legend of Alexander provides an exceptional opportunity for PhD research into his immense impact on European literary culture from a transnational and multilingual perspective. As a student at Durham but working on the British Library’s collections, the successful applicant will have a unique opportunity to study the fascinating Alexander legends in their primary sources. This studentship will coincide with an exhibition about the legends of Alexander to be held at the British Library in late 2022.
Alexander the Great fighting the headless blemmyae in a French version of the Alexander Romance (Flanders 1st quarter of the 14th century): Harley MS 4979, f. 72v (detail)
Legends of Alexander’s life and conquests were combined into a narrative, known as the Alexander Romance, soon after his death. This compilation quickly became a ‘best-seller’, with translations in almost every language of the medieval Mediterranean, including Latin, Armenian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, English, French and German. Moreover, many of these texts are lavishly decorated with fascinating combinations of ancient and medieval imagery.
Applicants are invited to propose a multilingual and comparative project on Alexander’s reception from Late Antiquity to the close of the Middle Ages in European contexts, with a particular focus on the Alexander Romance. The proposal should focus on texts in more than one language, and include manuscripts in the Library’s collections. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- the Alexander Romance’s influence upon high medieval literature (11th-13th centuries);
- the Alexander Romance’s influence on travel and scientific literature and geographical exploration;
- the Alexander Romance’s dissemination in the later Middle Ages (14th-15th centuries) in translations, adaptations and material witnesses;
- a comparative study of the Alexander Romance in Western (European) and Eastern (Byzantine and Slavonic) versions;
- the role of Alexander in royal and religious propaganda, including ‘nationalist’ historiographies and Crusader literature;
- a study of key medieval manuscripts and/or texts related to the Alexander Romance that demonstrate aspects of Alexander’s appropriation in different cultures;
- the Late Antique beginnings of the Alexander Romance’s textual histories.
Applicants
The successful applicant will have multilingual interests in medieval and/or late Antique literature and culture with reading fluency in at least two European languages. Applicants should have received a first or high upper-second class honours degree and a master’s either achieved or completed by the time of taking up the doctoral study, both in a relevant discipline. Applicants must satisfy the standard UKRI eligibility criteria.
Stipend
For the academic year 2020-21 the student stipend will be £16,885, consisting of £15,285 basic stipend, a maintenance payment of £600 and an additional allowance of £1,000. The British Library will also provide a research allowance to the student for agreed research-related costs of up to £1,000 a year.
Duration
The studentship is fully funded for 3 years and 9 months full-time or part-time equivalent, with the potential to be extended by a further 3 months to provide additional professional development opportunities.
For full details and how to apply, please visit https://www.dur.ac.uk/english.studies/postgrad/support/
The deadline for applications, including references, is 5pm on 29 May 2020.
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27 April 2020
Designing the Arnstein Bible
Following our blogpost on the Worms Bible earlier this month, today I focus on another remarkable German Romanesque Bible in the Library’s collection: the Arnstein Bible. Like the Worms Bible, it is enormous (540 x 355 mm), and now in two volumes. The first volume includes Genesis to Malachi, and the second Job to Revelation, with large illuminated and decorated initials at the beginning of the biblical books. The manuscript is fully digitised, and available to view online (Harley MS 2798 and Harley MS 2799).
The Bible was made at the Premonstratensian abbey of St Mary and St Nicholas in Arnstein, on the Lahn river about 30 kilometres east of Coblenz, which was founded in 1139 by the last count of Arnstein, Ludwig III (d. 1185), who became a lay brother there.
In date, the Arnstein Bible was produced around twenty-five years after the Worms Bible. Originally, the manuscript included historical annals recording important events related to the Abbey (now Darmstadt, Hessische Landesbibliothek, MS 4128), that reveal an approximate date for it of 1172. We also know the name of the man who wrote it, identified in the entry for that year as a brother called Lunandus.
Lunandus had a formidable task to undertake in planning out the design and layout of this enormous book. The text is written out in 39 lines to a page, with generous margins. Most of the biblical books and introductory material are presented in two columns of 130 mm in width.
An indication that this Bible is a great monastic book is the inclusion of not one, but rather three translations of the book of Psalms, arranged in three parallel columns, each of 80 mm width. This allowed the reader to study the variant Psalm texts across the page (see this previous blog post for more on St Jerome’s (d. 420) three translations of the Psalms in this Bible).
For Lunandus, planning the layout for the transition from two to three columns and back again presented particular challenges. The three comparable versions of the Psalms proper finish about three-quarters of the way down the page (f. 57r). The next texts that had to be included only required one version; however the rest of the page was still ruled for three columns. Lunandus had to signal that the reader must switch from comparing the variant Psalm translations across the page to reading one column and then going to the next, sequentially.
He did this by identifying the following texts with a series of rubrics, or headings in red ink (the term rubric is derived from the Latin 'rubrica', the name of the red ochre pigment used to make the colour red). Lunandus presented the short so-called Psalm 151 in the first column and started the prologue to the next biblical book in the second and third columns.
The rubric in the first column summarises the contents of Psalm 151: 'Hic p[salmu]s pr[opr]ie scriptus est David [et] extra numerum cum pugnaret cum gloria et in hebraicis codicibus non habetur' (This Psalm was written by David himself and is outside the number [of the Psalms] and is not contained in Hebrew bibles. It is about the time when David fought with glory.) The short text in seven verses follows below this heading.
The adjoining rubric, spread out over columns two and three, explains that the Psalms have ended, 'explicit libor psalmorum' (here ends the book of Psalms), and that the prologue to Proverbs is about to begin (incipit). The start of this prologue begins in the middle column. Here Lunandus left room for an enlarged initial letter on eight lines, the letter ‘C’ of the first word ‘Chromatio’, the name of the original addressee. The rest of the word is written in individual letters vertically to the right of the first letter. The initial itself is embellished with stylized acanthus leaf decoration punctuated with characteristically Germanic gold bands ornamented by small round dots that are cinched around the foliate form.
This sophisticated presentation of text and image represents a stunning achievement in scholarship and design. Like other great or giant Romanesque Bibles, the Arnstein Bible represents a testament to the commitment of its makers to the elegant presentation of the Word of God.
Kathleen Doyle
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Further reading
Walter Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination (Cornell, 1982), pp. 26, 230, 253 no. 8, pls 157, 162.
Jeffrey F. Hamburger, 'The Hand of God and the Hand of the Scribe: Craft and Collaboration at Arnstein', in Die Bibliothek des Mittelalters als dynamischer Prozess, ed. by Michael Embach, Claudine Moulin and Andrea Rapp, Trierer Beiträge zu den Historischen Kulturwissenschaften, 3 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2012), pp. 53-78 (p. 62, fig. 22, colour plate 17).
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, The Art of the Bible: Illuminated Manuscripts from the Medieval World (London: Thames & Hudson and the British Library, 2016), no. 23.
20 April 2020
The Holy Helpers
Medieval men and women often sought help from saints — holy figures who were considered to be miracle workers. Thousands of saints were venerated across Europe, and some of the most popular were known as the Holy Helpers. Written accounts of their lives typically told that, just before they died, they had asked God to grant their future worshippers specific forms of protection or rewards, and that a voice from Heaven or an angel had confirmed their requests. Their legends suggested that venerating them was a sure-fire method to obtain divine aid.
A cult of ‘Fourteen Holy Helpers’ was founded in the 14th century. It originated in the Rhineland (western Germany), before spreading to other European regions. The group’s number and members varied regionally but often included early Christians who had been martyred during Roman persecutions, such as Saints Christopher, Dorothy, Blaise, Apollonia, and Cyricus and Julitta.
The Fourteen Holy Helpers with the Virgin Mary and Christ Child (south-western Germany, 1509): Add MS 24153, f. 190v
Groups of Holy Helpers were also venerated in England. In Harley MS 2255 (ff. 70r-71v), the poet John Lydgate (c. 1370–1449/50) praised ten of them for securing a special boon for their followers:
‘God granted you while that you were here
to each of you remarkable privileges:
whoever prays to you wholeheartedly and sincerely,
to hear all their requests graciously
[and] remedy worldly dangers and misfortunes
Because of this remember in your special prayers
all those who have you devoutly in memory’
(‘God grauntyd you whil that ye wer heere
to ech of you synguler prerogatives
who prayeth to you of hool herte and enteere
Alle ther requestys graciously to heere
Geyn worldly tempestis and troublys transitorye
For which rembemrith in your special prayeere
On alle that have you devoutly in memorye’ (f. 71r))
John Lydgate, Prayers to Ten Saints (Bury St Edmunds, c. 1460–c. 1470): Harley MS 2255, f. 70r
Late medieval English religious manuscripts often detailed how and what forms of protection could be obtained from individual Holy Helpers. An example of this is the prayer to St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, added to the 13th-century Mostyn-Psalter Hours (Add MS 89250). The prayer states that ‘wherever Christopher is venerated, snow, famine or plague, and evil death will not prevail there’ (‘ubi Christoforus memoratur / Vix fames aut pestis mala mors ibi non dominatur’ (f. 159v)). The 14th-century Neville of Hornby Hours (Egerton MS 2781) specifies that one needed to look at an image of St Christopher so as not to faint on that day:
‘Whoever shall behold the image of St Christopher shall not faint on that day’
(‘Christofori sanctam speciem quicumque tuetur / illo nempe die nullo languore tenetur’ (f. 37r))
St Christopher carrying the Christ Child in the Neville of Hornby Hours (London, 2nd quarter of the 14th century): Egerton MS 2781, f. 36v
St Dorothy, patron saint of gardeners, was believed to have secured protection for the homes of her followers. Those who wanted to gain her protection, according to a Latin poem added to a Middle English rendering of her life in Arundel MS 168, had either to write her name in or to place an image of her in their houses:
‘In whatever house the name or image of the excellent virgin Dorothy will be: no dead [or premature or stillborn] child will be born there, nor will the house experience fire, thievery or destruction, nor can anyone in there die from an evil death and the dying shall die with heavenly bread’
(‘In quacumque domo nomen fuit vel ymago / Virginis eximie dorothee virginis alme / Nullus abortivus infans nascetur in illa / Nec domus nec ignis furtique pericula sentit / Nec quisquam poterit ibi mala morte perire / Celestique pane moriens quin moriatur’ (f. 6v))
St Dorothy petitioning God for protection for her followers (south-western Germany, 1509): Add MS 24153, f. 117v
The protection of the Holy Helpers could also be invoked in medical contexts. St Blaise, according to the South English Legendary, had asked God that whoever venerated him and requested his help would be protected against obstructions in the throat. This explains why medical practitioners such as Thomas Fayreford (Harley MS 2558) added prayers for the saint to their recipes for throat ailments:
‘Lord Jesus Christ, true god, our father, through the virtue of the name and the prayer of St Blaise, your servant, deign to liberate your worthy male or female servant of the infirmity of the gullet, of the throat, of the uvula and of their other limbs, who lives and reigns, God throughout all ages. Amen. For this reason it is recited and say three Paternosters and Aves.’
(‘Dominus ihesus christus verus deus noster per virtutem nominis tui oracionem sancti blasii servi tui liberare digneris famulum tuum vel fa[mulam] tuam de infirmitate gule gutteris uvule et aliorum membrorum suorum qui vivis et regnas deus per omnia saecula · saeculorum · Amen [igi]tur dicatur et iij pater noster et Ave maria’ (f. 87r))
Thomas Fayreford’s prayer to St Blaise (South-West England, 1st half of the 15th century): Harley MS 2558, f. 87r
St Apollonia can also often be found in medical manuscripts. It was believed that, while her own teeth were being smashed by her persecutors, she requested God to give her followers relief from toothache. Her protection is invoked in a spell against toothache (‘charme for þe tothache’) in Harley MS 1600:
‘St Apollonia endured a grave martyrdom for the Lord by a tyrant who shattered her teeth with iron hammers and in this torment she prayed to the Lord, that whosoever will wear her name on him will have no toothache’
(‘Sancta Appollonia pro domino grave sustinuit martirium tyranni eius dentes cum malleis ferreis fregerunt et in hoc tormento oravit ad dominum ut quicumque nomen eius portaverit secum dolorem non habuerit in dentibus’ (f. 39r))
A charm for toothache invoking St Apollonia (England, 15th century): Harley MS 1600, f. 39r
St Jullita and St Cyricus, a mother and son who had been martyred together, were believed to offer protection for women in labour. Because of this, they were invoked on amulet rolls that pregnant women used as birthing girdles. Harley Ch 43 A 14 and Harley Roll T 11 both explain that the two saints had asked God to protect pregnant women who carried amulets of the Holy Cross on their bodies while giving birth:
‘þe childe schall have cristendom [be baptized] and þe moder schall have purificacion [be blessed] ffor Seynt Cerice and Seynt Julitt his moder desirid þise graciouse gyftis [gifts] of god which he grauntid un to þem’ (Harley Ch 43 A 14, f. 1br)
A birthing girdle invoking St Cyricus and St Julitta (England, 15th century): Harley Roll T 11, f. 1r
The requests for protection that the Holy Helpers were believed to have made to God for their followers formed the foundation for their joint cult. In England, it flourished during the 15th and 16th centuries when prayers dedicated to them identified more than 25 saints as Holy Helpers. This suggests that, whatever the effect of the prayers, spells and amulets that invoked them, their promises were important sources of hope, comfort and solace for those in need.
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13 April 2020
Medieval rabbits: the good, the bad and the bizarre
As this year’s Easter egg hunt is over, join us in a hunt through the pages of British Library manuscripts for some seasonal rabbits. Searching in our Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts yielded an amazing 80 images – they are everywhere! We found rabbits in the margins of prayer books and law books, in the borders of romances and chronicles, and even playing a supporting role in saints’ lives. Here are some of our favourites: from the cute and cuddly, to the dangerously criminal and the wonderfully weird.
Natural beauty
Each page of the Cocharelli Codex is decorated with features of the natural world, such as foliage, flowers, insects, birds, animals and seashells. The glorious meadow on this page includes a caterpillar, a dragonfly and two life-like hares.
Beasts of the earth
Medieval bestiaries are works containing images of animals with descriptions their attributes. The rabbit is described as ‘a wild and lithe beast’. In this image, Adam is naming a group of animals, including the rabbit, showing that man was considered lord over beasts.
Useful to humans
The British Library has a number of highly decorated books containing scenes from rural life in the Middle Ages. Such scenes often contain images of rabbits, showing how important these creatures were in the rural economy: they were farmed for their fur and meat and hunted with hounds or ferrets.
The Taymouth Hours contains a series of images of a lady hunting rabbits; here she sends a hound or ferret into a warren to flush out the rabbits inside.
A lordly rabbit
This Jewish liturgical book, the Barcelona Haggadah, contains the Haggadah, as well as liturgical poems and biblical readings for Passover. A colourful miniature shows the Israelites building a tower, supervised by an Egyptian master, at the beginning of the passage, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh’. Above is a rabbit seated on a throne, being served wine in a golden goblet by a dog.
Rabbits in exile
Rabbits are not always in the margins – sometimes they take part in the action, as in this illuminated Book of Revelations. At the beginning, the Angel appears to St John while he is exiled on the Island of Patmos, with rabbits and a deer watching, in a lush, green landscape
Rabbits and the saint
John Lydgate’s Life of St Edmund tells the story of his martyrdom and how his severed head was looked after by a friendly wolf until it was found in a thicket by monks with hunting dogs. This miniature shows St Edmund's head being found and reunited with his body, still pierced with arrows. The dogs have now begun hunting rabbits, who scamper to their burrows.
Rabbits in a romance
This manuscript of Roman de la Rose opens with a scene of the lover dreaming of the rose and the walled garden of delights. In the lower margin are rabbits being chased by hounds (again). But, not to worry - they will have their revenge – see below!
Bunnies' revenge
The Smithfield Decretals is a large volume of canon law with narrative scenes added in the margins by a London artist. Rabbit hunting is depicted several times, but finally the rabbits take their revenge! There are several images of rabbits with bows and arrows shooting their persecutors, and a three-page series of a hound being brought to justice. First, he is bound, then he is tried by rabbits in an outdoor courtroom, and on the next pages, he is executed.
Trouble in a trumpet
We kept some of the weirdest rabbit images we found to last. This copy of the Holy Grail legend begins with a splendid illumination of Arthur’s court of Camelot and of Lancelot on his quest. Around the edges are scenes of jousting, a man shooting a butterfly, hybrid creatures, and in the upper margin, a naked man blowing a long trumpet out of which emerges…a rabbit!
Jousting rabbit
This scene of a tournament with magnificent pavilions and finely-dressed knights is in a copy Froissart’s Chronicle. Look carefully, and in the decorative border are a rabbit and a snail jousting, both mounted on the shoulders of apes, in a parody of chivalric culture.
Sadly, we could not include all the great images we found, but why not try a search of your own? Go to the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts and search ‘Rabbit’ or ‘Rabbits’ in the 'image description' field. Be careful, though – despite their cute and cuddly appearance, some can be dangerous!
Chantry Westwell
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11 April 2020
Exultet rolls: celebrating the return of the light
The medieval churches of Southern Italy maintained a very special Easter tradition. They celebrated the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday from a scroll made to be used once a year for this specific ritual. Known as Exultet rolls, these manuscripts combine words, music and pictures to create an enthralling multimedia experience centred on the joyful theme of light returning to the world.
The British Library's Exultet roll (Add MS 30337) was made at the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino around 1075-1080. This ancient abbey was founded by St Benedict, father of the Benedictine order, in around 529. The use of Exultet rolls was a tradition that went back to the early Beneventan practices of the area, while the style of the paintings in Add MS 30337 was influenced by near-contemporary Byzantine works.
Exultet rolls were made for performance. They were designed to be read by a deacon standing in the church's ambo (a raised platform used for readings). As he was reading, he would turn the top of the roll over so that it draped in front of the ambo, displaying the images to the congregation. For this reason, the pictures are generally arranged upside-down in relation to the text so they would appear the right way up to the viewers. The people would look up and see the beautiful images unfurling before their eyes like a moving picture show.
The use of the Exultet roll is illustrated in the roll itself:
The Exultet is a lyrical prayer, named after its opening words 'Exultet iam angelica turba caelorum' (Rejoice now, angelic choir of the heavens), which is chanted during the ceremonial lighting of the Paschal candle during the Easter Vigil. The Exultet roll provides the text for the ritual along with neumes, a type of medieval musical notation, which guide the melody.
The roll begins with an image of Christ enthroned and adored by angels, with a banner that reads, 'Lumen xpisti lumen xpi lumen xpi' (light of Christ, light of Christ, light of Christ), emphasising the central message of the ritual—that the Resurrection of Christ at Easter is the return of light to the world.
The text celebrates the renewal of life at springtime, illustrated by a personification of Mother Earth (Tellus Mater). She is depicted in the illumination as a naked woman with her arms outspread in a loving gesture, surrounded by plants and nurturing a cow and a serpent at her breasts. Based on classical imagery, this represents the natural abundance and goodness of Earth.
Following Mother Earth is an image of Mother Church (Mater Ecclesia), where the juxtaposition of the two allegorical mothers suggests worldly and spiritual nurture. As the text announces, Mother Church is celebrating and adorned with brightness. She is shown richly dressed like an empress, holding up a church and surrounded by the faithful.
The text goes on to recall all the events that make the eve of Easter so gloriously bright, declaring: 'This is the night which purged the shadows of sin with a column of light' (Hec igitur nox est que peccatorum tenebras columne illuminatione purgauit).
As it explains, on the Paschal feast, God delivered the Israelites from captivity in Egypt through the parting the Red Sea. On the eve of Easter, Christ descended to the underworld and redeemed the righteous through the Harrowing of Hell, cancelling the sin of Adam and Eve. On this night, Christ's Resurrection took place. Each of these events is illustrated in the roll.
After this, the deacon asks God to accept the offering of the Paschal candle, then gives lengthy praise to the bees who produced its wax. The text announces that 'the bee surpasses all the other living things that are subject to man' (Apis ceteris que subiecta sunt homini animantibus antecellit).
Drawing on the Georgics of Virgil, the text describes how the bee emerges in the springtime and immediately gets to work, gathering flowers, building a hive, making honey, forming wax and caring for the young. In this way, the bees are a fitting symbol of Spring and of the community working together for the common good.
Bees are also praised for their chastity, which the text links to the Virgin Mary whose chaste motherhood made the events of Easter possible.
The Exultet ends with a prayer for the end of the dark night and for the rise of the morning star that will never set. It asks God to grant peace and joy to the clergy, the pope, the bishop, all the congregation and the emperor.
In the church, we can imagine the deacon coming to the end of the prayer with the light of the newly lit Paschal candle glinting on the gold of the Exultet roll. The bright images descending from the ambo brought the themes of the text to life. For the people gathered in the church and sharing the experience, the roll reinforced the joyful messages of hope, renewal and brightness of the Easter celebration.
Happy Easter to all from BL Medieval!
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Translations are from Thomas Forrest Kelly, The exultet in southern Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
09 April 2020
Illuminating the Worms Bible
Some of the finest examples of medieval book art are Bibles. Medieval scribes and artists illustrated biblical manuscripts in order to adorn and elaborate the sacred text, as you can discover in our Biblical Illumination article on the Discovering Sacred Texts webspace. A particularly impressive example is the Worms Bible (Harley MS 2803). With pages measuring 540 x 355 mm, this is one of a number of giant multi-volume Bibles that were produced throughout Western Europe in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.
The Worms Bible includes a seventeenth-century inscription recording that it belonged to the Augustinian abbey of St Mary Magdalene in Frankenthal, about ten kilometres (six miles) south of Worms. Frankenthal was an important scriptorium, and this Bible may have been made at the Abbey. There is a very small inscription on the first folio before the text proper, right on the edge of the lower margin, recording the date of 1148 (anno MCXLVIII), which was probably when the work was either begun or completed.
Like most Vulgate Bibles, the two volumes of the Worms Bible include several letters by St Jerome arranged as prefatory material. The first text is St Jerome’s letter to bishop Paulinus of Nola (d. 431), in which St Jerome urged Paulinus to study the Scriptures diligently, to live in and meditate on them (inter haec vivere, ista meditari). It begins with a large illustration of St Jerome seated as a scribe writing (f. 1v). Here St Jerome holds a quill pen and a knife with which to make corrections. A small tonsured figure, perhaps the commissioning abbot, holds up an ink horn to St Jerome to supply him with ink for his task.
On the pages of his open book, we can see that St Jerome is writing the first words of the letter: ‘Frater ambrosi/us tua m[ih]i mu/nuscula’ (Brother Ambrosius [has delivered your] your little gifts to me). Immediately next to the scene is a large letter ‘F’(rater) that begins the text itself. The letter is embellished with bright stylized acanthus leaf decoration interwoven around the gold bars of the letter. Characteristically Germanic gold bands with small round dots are cinched around the foliate forms.
In the large initial beginning the book of Genesis a few pages later, tight scrolls join the foliate decoration, and the illustrations move into the initial ‘I’(n) itself (f. 6v). The second word of the text, ‘principio’ ([in] the beginning), is also displayed in the panel of decoration. Two scenes from Genesis are included: at the top of the letter, God orders ‘FIAT LUX’ (let there be light), while below, God creates Eve from Adam's side while the speech scroll contains his observation that ‘Non est bonu[m] homine[m] esse solum fa/cimus ei adiutoriu[m] simile sui’ (It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself, Genesis 2:18). Skin tones are shaded in green and pink, and the painting contains fine details, such as the incision on the sleeping Adam’s side from which Eve, who stands behind him, has just emerged.
These features of the stylized acanthus, clasps, colours, and modelling of tones are found in the other large initials that begin each biblical book. Most depict the book’s author, often writing or holding a scroll with a quotation from his text. For example, Job reclines in the initial letter of his book, covered with sores with a devil tormenting him (f. 288v). He laments: ‘pereat dies in qua nat[us] su[m] et nox in qu[a] dictu[m] e[st] c[on]cept[us] e[st] homo’ (Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said: A man child is conceived, Job 3:3).
The Worms Bible was exhibited in Mannheim in 2013, and was featured in blog about the exhibition at that time. You can view both volumes on the Digitised Manuscripts website, and discover more about the production of medieval manuscripts in our article, How to make a medieval manuscript. For more about this Bible, see Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, The Art of the Bible: Illuminated Manuscripts from the Medieval World (London: Thames & Hudson, 2015), no. 21.
Kathleen Doyle
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