Description

‘More manuscripts of the Bible, or parts of the Bible, survive from the Middle Ages than any other tangible artefacts'. This statement by the renowned book historian Christopher de Hamel signals the immense richness of the topic of biblical manuscripts and its importance for our understanding of the medieval period.

The module will be concerned with the most prominent illuminated biblical manuscripts (including Psalters and Apocalypses) from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. These will be analyzed in tandem with other contemporary illuminated manuscripts which were used for the study of the biblical text. Examples include a giant Bible of Bury St Edmunds Abbey, diagrammatical chronicles developed for students in the University of Paris, and the moralized Bibles made for the kings and queens of France.

Through the lens of such case-studies we will evaluate the role of images and other visual devices in relation to the text as well as addressing broader issues of manuscript production, patronage, and use. The module therefore serves as an introduction to the topic of Western illuminated manuscripts more generally which in turn forms an important part of the history of books and digital media that we are using today.

Objectives

By the end of the module, students should have acquired:

• a good knowledge of key examples of illuminated manuscripts of the period
• a nuanced approach to the relationship between image, text, and layout in medieval manuscripts
• acquaintance with a range of different approaches to the study of illuminated manuscripts and with the terminology that is used for their analysis

Preliminary Reading

• Christopher de Hamel, The Book. A History of the Bible (New York: Phaidon, 2001)
• Paul Binski and Stella Panyotova (eds), The Cambridge Illuminations. Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West (London and Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2005), pp. esp. pp. 74-117
• C. M. Kauffmann, Biblical Imagery in Medieval England 700-1550(London: Harvey Miller, 2003)
• Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 years of scribes and scripture (London: The British Library, 2007)
• Stella Panayotova, 'The Illustrated Psalter: Luxury and Practical Use', in: Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (eds), The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception, & Performance in Western Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 247-271
• John Lowden, 'The "Bible Moralisée" in the fifteenth century and the challenge of the "Bible Historiale"', in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 68 (2005), pp. 73-136
• Frans van Liere, An Introduction to the Medieval Bible (Cambridge, 2014)