DECORATION
The earliest Latin New Testament
manuscripts have little in the way of decoration to the text, apart from lines
or dashes surrounding the book titles (e.g., V[etus]L[atina] 1 and 5). From the
sixth century, capital letters start to attract decoration either through the
use of several colours of ink or the introduction of zoomorphic elements such
as animal and bird heads or leaves (e.g. VL 13). Outsize initials afford the opportunity for
more complex ornamentation, whether in the form of interlace and geometric
patterns (seventh century onwards) or, eventually, human figures (e.g., VL 6).
The latter develop from around the ninth century as in the Moutier-Grandval
Bible (VGs ΦG),
with a head of Paul in the first initial of Romans, or the depiction of John on
Patmos in Revelation in VGsL. They reach their apogee in Romanesque
Bibles of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries; the Paris Bibles produced for
academic purposes are less lavish. The Eusebian apparatus also affords an
opportunity for artistic creativity, either in the architectural structures
enclosing the initial canon tables (see Image 15) or the arcades at the bottom
of the page in VL 10 and 11.
The style of illustrations in a
few manuscripts could derive from classical models. The Gospels of St.
Augustine (Vg [Oxford Vulgate]O X), produced in Italy in the sixth
century, provide the earliest surviving full-page colours illustrations in a
Latin New Testament manuscript. The two surviving pages feature twelve scenes
from the Passion and twelve episodes from the Gospel according to Luke with a
picture of the evangelist. Their depiction of events in the life of Christ is
unique in surviving Latin tradition, although there are contemporary parallels
in Greek and Syriac manuscripts. The trier Apocalypse (VgO Σ) has a series of seventy-four full-page colour images whose
exemplar may go back to fifth-century Italy. A large number of single-volume
illustrated Apocalypses were produced from the ninth century onwards, of which
the Trier Apocalypse and Valenciennes, BM, 99, are the earliest. Bede records
that Benedict Biscop brought back a series of paintings from Italy to
Warmouth-Jarow in 675, including a cycle based on the Apocalypse to hang in the
monastery church.
The first quire of VG A (Codex
Amiatinus) has two illustrations which have been connected with those of
Cassiodorus’ sixth-century codex grandior. These comprise an
illustration of the Tabernacle, across a single opening, and a copyist seated
in front of a bookcase containing a nine-volume Bible. Cassiodorus’ Institutiones
indicate that his pandect also featured an illustration of the Temple in
Jerusalem, which is not present in Vg A. Instead, its other pages contain three
diagrams of different systems of groping the books of the Bible and a page with
a painted series of roundels describing the contents of each book of the
Pentateuch. The only other picture in Vg A is a magnificent full-colour image
preceding the New Testament. A central roundel depicts Christ in majesty,
flanked by two angels, against a background of dark blue concentric circles studded
with white points, while the corners of the rectangular frame are the four
evangelists, each with their symbol.
The association of each Gospel
writer with the four creatures listed in Revelation 4:7, a man, lion, ox, and
eagle, is found in numerous Christian writers although the correspondences
vary. The earliest surviving reference in Irenaeus of Lyons, identifies Matthew
with the man, John with the lion, Luke with the ox, and Mark with the eagle (Against
Heresies 3.11.8). This is the same sequence as the most common order of the
Gospels in Old Latin codices, and also features in the seventh-century Book of
Durrow (VgS D). Nevertheless, the standard sequence in Latin and
Greek tradition identifies Mark with the lion and John with the eagle.
Evangelist symbols are particularly favoured in Insular tradition. The
Echternach Gospels (VGO EP) has only a full-page symbol before each
Gospel rather than a human figure, while other gospel books with evangelist
portraits also include a symbol page depicting all four creatures (e.g. VGS
D, VGOe L, VGO Q). Full-page portraits of evangelists
occur across all traditions of the New Testament, although allusion to the
evangelist symbols in these illustrations tens to be peculiar to Latin
tradition. In Irish manuscripts, the evangelists are also presented facing the
reader directly rather than in profile.
Insular gospel books from the
seventh century onwards have a particular illustrations, in addition to
evangelist portraits and a four-symbols page. ‘Carpet pages’, entire pages with
a colourful geometric design (VgSe D; Vg Oe L, Q, Y), are
found either at the beginning of the manuscript or before each Gospel. The
opening page for each book is highly stylized, with the initial letters woven
into a full-page design and decorated with interlacing patterns. This is also
the case in the chi-rho at Matthew 1:18, based on the nomen sacrum
which begins the verse (ΧΡΙ autem
generatio). The illustration of Matthew sometimes appears opposite this
page rather than at the beginning of the Gospel. At the end of VL 48, copied in
Ireland at the end of the eighth century, are full-page colour pictures of the
Crucifixion and Christ in Majesty (or possibly the Last Judgment). The Book of
Mulling (VL 35) contains a line drawing at the back of the manuscript which may
be a plan of the monastery.
A sequence of five images became
standard for gospel books copied in Tours around 830. This consisted of the
four evangelist portraits and an initial Christ. in Majesty surrounded by the
evangelists and their symbols, comparable to that described above in Codex
Amiatinus. Later in the ninth century, two more illustrations were added at the
beginning of Tours Gospels depicting the emperor on his throne and the twenty-four
elders adoring the lamb (from Revelation 5:8). Two styles of decoration can be
discerned in these manuscripts. The Moutier-Grandval Bible (VgS ΦG)
is a lavish production, although it has no evangelist portraits. It features
full-page colour pictures of Christ in Majesty before the Gospels and the book
with seven seals flanked by evangelist symbols after the conclusion of
Revelation, and decorated arcades for the canon tables and the concordance to
the Epistles. Miniature illustrations are added in outsize capitals: in Acts,
these include human heads and the Lukan evangelist symbol, while capitals in
Romans contain Paul and a man with a sword. Initial illustrations of Christ in
Majesty are also found in the eighth-century VL 39 and, more surprisingly, at
the beginning of the Pauline commentary in VL 89. Certain Latin scholars in the
time of Charlemagne, however, among them Theodulf and Claudius of Turin, were
iconoclasts, disapproving of sculpture and human representation.
Spanish pandects are illustrated
in a distinctive style. Chief among them is the tenth-century Codex Legionensis
(VL 91 and also 133). In the Old Testament, one or more columns of the page are
interrupted or displaced in order to accommodate colourful representations of
the biblical passage. These are less common in the New Testament, apart from
Revelation, which seem to be a special case (e.g. VL 62). Illustrations were an
integral part of the Commentary on the Apocalypse by the eighth-century
Beatus of Liébana. The ever-increasing use of images in mediaeval picture
Bibles, such as the Bible moralisée or the Biblica pauperum, some
of which had Latin rather than or as well as vernacular text, is beyond the
scope of the present volume. Even so, the full-page of the devil in Codex Gigas
(VL 51) led to its being known as the ‘Devil’s Bible’.
Bindings are also part of the
decoration of manuscripts, although in most cases the original binding has
perished or been replaced. One of the earliest to survive is the late
seventh-century tooled leather cover of the Cuthbert Gospel (VG S). Jerome’s comment about ‘jewelled gospel
books’ shows that the practice of creating luxurious bindings was already
prevalent at the end of the fourth century. The magnificent casings of gospel
books at the court of Charlemagne, and later the Ottonian dynasty, stand in the
same tradition. The incorporation of carved ivory panels, a feature of luxury
late antique bindings, was reintroduced in Carolingian times; decorative
metalwork and precious stones are also found in particularly lavish
productions. In Ireland, biblical manuscripts were often treated as relics and
kept in a case or shrine (e.g. VL 35). (H. A. G. Houghton, The Latin New
Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts [Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016], 204, 206-8)
The following is the image of VL7 from p. 205, referenced above (click to enlarge):
It should also be noted that Jerome was opposed to certain
stylized manuscripts:
Jerome’s disdain for luxury
manuscripts is expressed in some of his letters:
inficitur membrana colore
purpureo, aurum liquescit in litteras, gemmis codices uestiuntur et nudas ante
fores earum Christus emoritur (HI ep 22 54)
Parchment is dyed with purple hue,
gold liquefies into writing, books are covered in jewels, and Christ is dying
naked before their doors. (Ibid., 45)
Jerome also refers scornfully to
‘books . . . copied on purple parchment in gold and silver’ (libros . . . in
membranis purpureis auro argentoque descriptos) in his Prologue to Job
(HI Jb pr H). Ibid., 45 n. 5)
Further Reading:
Answering Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
