Sunday Book-Thought 4

Labor scribentis refectio est legentis hic deficit corpore ille proficit mente quisquis ergo in hoc proficis opere operarii laborantis non dedignemini meminisse ut dominus inuocatus inmemor sit iniquitatibus tuis. Amen. Et pro uocem tuae orationis mercedem recipies in tempore iudicii quando dominus sanctis suis retribuere iusserit retributionem. quia qui nescit scribere laborem nullum extimat esse nam si uelis scire singulatim nuntio tibi quam grabe est scribturae pondus. oculis caliginemfacit. dorsumincurbat. costas et uentremfrangit. renibus dolorem inmittit et omne corpus fastidium nutrit. ideo tu lector lente folias uersa. longe a litteris digitos tene quia sicut grando fecunditatem telluris tollit sic lector inutilis scribturam et librum euertit. Nam quam suauis est nauigantibus portum extremum ita et scribtori nobissimus uersus. Explicit. deo gratias semper. 

The labo[u]r of the scribe is the refreshment of the reader: one damages the body, the other benefits the mind. Whoever you are, therefore, who benefit from this work, do not neglect to remember the working labo[u]rer: and so may God, thus invoked, forget your faults. Amen. And for the voice of your prayers may you receive your reward in the time of judgment when the Lord will command that retribution be distributed to his saints. One who knows little of writing thinks it no labo[u]r at all. For if you want to know I will explain to you in detail how heavy is the burden of writing. It makes the eyes misty. It twists the back. It breaks the ribs and belly. It makes the kidneys ache and fills the whole body with every kind of annoyance. So, reader, turn the pages slowly, and keep your fingers far away from the letters, for just as hail damages crops, so a useless reader ruins both writing and book. For as homeport is sweet to the sailor, so is the final line sweet to the writer. Explicit. Thanks be to God always.

– Some Random Scribe Named Florentius

Picasso, Michelangelo, and the Limbourg Brothers

If you’re reading this blog, you probably already know that in the Middle Ages books were handwritten and individually illustrated. A lot of time and money went into those babies. Indeed, manuscript illustrations are no less works of art than Picasso’s paintings or Michelangelo’s sculptures. I know I write about it a lot, but the Très Riches Heures is just one example of a manuscript that truly exemplifies (Late) Medieval art at its finest. In addition to being lavishly illustrated with copious amounts of lapis lazuli, gold leaf, and all that other stupidly expensive stuff, the Très Riches Heures also features illustrations that reveal Medieval attitudes toward social class, the feudal system, and life in general.

Medieval manuscript illustrations can, then, reveal a lot about the time in which they were made: religious beliefs and practices, artistic styles, social customs… Illustrators (also called illuminators, although the two terms are not synonymous) included everything from the mundane to the fantastic in their books. There are even some instances in which a book’s illustrations have absolutely nothing to do with its text. It kind of seems like the illustrator was just doodling, wasting time so that he could just mark some extra hours on his timesheet. For example, check out this beautiful illustration from a 12th-century book of Canon law called Concordia discordantium canonum:

Look at that picture. Just look at it. There is no way that is not a penis.

That man is riding a fuzzy green rabbitlike penis.

Above is just one example of a pretty fantastic illustration. However, I think that the mundane drawings – the ones that depict the everyday – are some of the most important pieces of art we have from the Middle Ages, as they tell us a lot about Medieval life. I started watching Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives on YouTube this week. Here’s a link to the first episode. You can learn all about peasants!

Yes, that’s the kind of television show I like to watch.

What’s really neat about this show is its heavy dependence on manuscript art. If you skip to just about any part of that YouTube video, you’ll see that all of the show’s “cartoons” are actually images taken from Medieval manuscripts, and then animated using computer software. Instead of using live actors to tell its story, Medieval Lives instead uses primary materials because, really, what could better represent the Middle Ages than the art of the people who lived during that time?

Much of the greatest and most accessible Medieval art we have today comes from manuscripts. This is why it’s so important that we work to save what we have. Through ongoing digitization projects, codicologists strive to make manuscript illustrations more widely accessible to the general public so that everyone can enjoy them, and can learn all about Medieval life.