A Companion to the History of the Book (35 page)

Alfred founded schools for his subjects’ sons and acquired for himself a standard of literacy unusual amongst the laity of the day. Charlemagne attempted to learn in middle age but could not master the letters inscribed on the little wax tablet he kept hidden beneath his pillow. Old English played an important role in improving the nation’s literacy, and Alfred himself translated Orosius’
History Against the Pagans
and Gregory the Great’s
Pastoral Care,
copies of which he circulated to his bishops, along with an
aestel,
probably a pointer (the Alfred Jewel may be a surviving example) used when reading aloud from sacred texts, like the Jewish
yad.
Other translations came to include Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
Latin works, such as Aldhelm’s
In Praise of Virginity,
were revived or composed, including Asser ’s biography of Alfred. Also composed during Alfred’s reign, perhaps at the behest of one of his ealdormen, was the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
compiled from sets of annals (records of annual events originally annotated in the margins of Easter tables). During the Alfredian revival, script (Anglo-Saxon pointed minuscule) and decoration (zoomorphic initials of Mercian-style beasts, given clumps of Carolingian acanthus to munch upon) were largely indebted to earlier ninth-century Mercian practice, with Carolingian overtones introduced by recruits such as the historian Grimbald of St. Bertin.

Greater rapprochement with Carolingian styles and texts occurred under Alfred’s grandson, King Athelstan, a renowned book collector who acquired Carolingian, English, and Celtic manuscripts – some as relics from the “age of the saints” (Temple 1976; Turner et al. 1984; Brown 2007b). An eighth-century Gospel-book (BL Royal MS 1. B. vii), made in Northumbria or Mercia, and presented by Athelstan to Canterbury Cathedral, had inscribed within an Old English manumission, freeing slaves at his accession. Such holy “books of the high altar” could serve as the sacred ground upon which legal transactions were enacted (we still swear oaths in court upon sacred texts) and recorded within them. Athelstan’s books include his little Psalter, for personal devotions, made around Liège in the ninth century and modernized at Winchester, and a Carolingian Gospel-book from Lobbes, subsequently used at the coronation of Anglo-Saxon kings.

The symbolic role of the book, as well as its spiritual, educational, and scholarly value, was evidently also revived. Insular cultural collaboration was over, however, and henceforth Celtic regions protected their traditions in the face of English expansion, stimulating the compilation of such works as the
Historia Brittonum,
a collection of texts (some relating to “King Arthur”) celebrating British identity copied c.830 by the Welsh priest Nennius. Irish script and decoration remained remarkably conservative: tenth-and eleventh-century Psalters and two Gospel-books written at Armagh in the early twelfth century all resemble earlier Insular books (Alexander 1978).

During the second half of the tenth century, the English Church was reformed along mainstream continental Benedictine lines by Saints Dunstan, Ethelwold, and Oswald, under the patronage of King Edgar. Church and state were closely aligned, as in Caro-lingia, and likewise opulent book commissions, such as the
Regularis Concordia
(the “Monastic Agreement of the English Church”), the New Minster Charter (the instrument by which Edgar reformed Winchester Cathedral), and the magnificent Benedictional of St. Ethelwold contain images reinforcing that relationship (Brown 2007b). Illumination is characterized by a classicizing, stylized figure style with agitated flying drapery and frames of exuberant, fleshy acanthus. Although practiced elsewhere, this is known as the Winchester (or “First”) style. It was also used for elegant tinted drawings. Around 1000, it was joined by the “Utrecht” (or “Second”) style, stimulated by the importation of the lively Reimsian drawing style. These styles fused to form the monumental, mannerist style encountered in the mid-tenth-century Tiberius Psalter (BL Cotton MS Tiberius C. vi).

Caroline minuscule was adopted for Latin texts, often assuming a characteristic English rotund style probably influenced by Insular half-uncial. Anglo-Saxon minuscule continued to be used for Old English, often alongside Caroline in bi-lingual parallel texts, such as the Anglo-Saxon Scientific Miscellany (BL Cotton MS Tiberius B. v) and the Old English Herbal (BL Cotton MS Vitellius C. iii). Carolingian learning also had an impact, stimulating Anglo-Saxon copies of texts by Cicero, Dioscorides, Pseudo-Apuleius, Vitruvius, Boethius, Prudentius, and others.

Around 1000, in the face of renewed Viking aggression, English monastic librarians and scribes codified their heritage, assembling compilations of scientific texts, exegesis, and poetry to preserve their identity. Famous compilations of vernacular poetry, such as the Exeter Book and the Vercelli Book (Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3501; Vercelli, Bibioteca Capitulare, CXVII), were assembled and the great epic
Beowulf
was committed to writing (BL Cotton MS Vitellius A. xv, pt. ii; Brown 2007b). Some see it as the product of centuries of oral transmission, its cultural allusions recalling the early seventh-century ship burial at Sutton Hoo; whilst others see it as the composition of a Christian author c.1000, emphasizing the shared Germanic origins of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Also of this period were rousing collections of sermons, designed to stiffen national resistance, by Aelfric and Wulfstan. Aelfric also produced an abbreviated Old English Pentateuch (or Hexateuch, as another book was added; BL Cotton MS Claudius B. iv), perhaps for a female audience, linking illustrations to vernacular summaries and prefiguring medieval picture Bibles, as does the Old English Genesis (Bodleian Library, Junius MS 11; Brown 2007b).

Late tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon books continued to be influenced by, and to influence, those made on the continent under the Ottonians, successors to the Carolingians in the northern and eastern (German) part of their empire from c.962 to 1056. The imperial concept flourished, along with conscious allusion to the symbolism and scholarship of the Roman and Carolingian empires. But Ottonian scriptoria (such as Trier, Cologne, Echternach, Regensburg, and Reichenau) concentrated upon imposing illuminated volumes for use in public liturgy and the private devotions of wealthy patrons (Mayr-Harting 1991; Brown 2006b). Amongst them are the Gospels of Otto III, made at Reichenau c.996 (Aachen, Domschatzkammer), the Sacramentary of Henry II, made in Regensburg, 1002–14 (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4456), and the Gospels of Abbess Hitda of Cologne, c.1000 (Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Hs. 1640). Like their Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon counterparts, they favored classically inspired, yet stylized, figures and lavish use of imperial purple, gold, and silver. As in the Gospel-books of Charlemagne’s Court School, entire books might be written in gold ink (chrysography). Such trends received stimulus from renewed Byzantine influence following the marriage of Emperor Otto II to the Byzantine princess Theophanu (972).

Byzantine book production, focusing upon scriptural and liturgical volumes, patristic exegesis, and works of history and scholarship, flourished during the early Christian period (from which little survives) but hit a low during the Iconoclast Controversy (720s to 787 and 814–43) when imagery was largely outlawed – only the book and the cross being considered acceptable public manifestations of belief and art. Learning likewise stagnated. The Council of Nicaea (787) reinstated images, and book production stepped up, featuring Gospel-books containing decorative head-pieces and bearded portraits of evangelist-scribes and Psalters enlivened with marginal illustrations (such as the Theodore Psalter, written in Constantinople in 1066, BL Add. MS 19352; Lowden 1997; Safran 1998). Such images, and the writings of Eastern Church Fathers, such as Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, and Ephrem the Syrian, impacted upon the West.

Appreciation of the iconic status of the book as an object of veneration was also transmitted to the West, as was the practice of enshrining sacred texts within treasure bindings. Metalwork plates attached to wooden binding boards, sometimes adorned with gemstones, are encountered from Byzantine, Coptic, Armenian, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Carolingian, and Ottonian contexts (particularly important examples include the Lindau Gospels, New York, PML, MSM 1, and the Codex Aureus of Charles the Bald, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000). Coptic and Irish metalwork shrines occurred, such as the Soiscél Molaise (National Museum of Ireland; Brown 2003). Ivories also adorned books (such as the Lorsch Gospels cover in the Victoria and Albert Museum); late Roman consular diptychs and early Christian ivories were sometimes adapted to adorn early medieval bindings, or contemporary covers were carved from walrus ivory.

Gatherings were sewn together, either onto supports (leather bands) or unsupported with only the sewing thread linking them together. The latter technique is known as “Coptic sewing,” although widely practiced throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Sewing on supports was the preferred Western technique, but the earliest Western binding to have survived, on the St. Cuthbert Gospel, a little copy of St. John’s Gospel made in Wearmouth/Jarrow in Northumbria in the 690s and found inside St. Cuth-bert’s coffin in 1104, is made in unsupported Coptic fashion – tangible evidence of the links between these far-flung regions. Wooden boards were then laced on, often with thongs tying them together to keep the vellum flat. These might be covered with leather, sometimes tooled or molded, as on the St. Cuthbert Gospel (formerly the Stony-hurst Gospel, BL Loan MS 74; T. J. Brown 1969; Needham 1979; van Regemorter 1992). Some Coptic bindings resemble their books’ carpet pages, and a late eighth-century Irish shrine (the Lough Kinale Shrine, National Museum of Ireland) likewise bears metalwork reminiscent of the Lindisfarne Gospels’ carpet pages. It was tossed into an Irish lake during the ninth century when a disappointed Viking raider found that it contained only an old book (Brown 2003).

Vikings also threatened the Carolingian empire, Duke Rollo carving out the kingdom of Normandy in the ninth century. In the eleventh century, Normans impacted upon the European stage in earnest, when Duke William seized the English throne in 1066. Norman influence was apparent in England from c.1000, especially under King Edward the Confessor (whose mother, Emma, was Norman), with intermarriage and Normans holding plum positions in the English Church, such as Archbishop Robert of Jumièges. The influence flowed in both directions, and Norman books, such as the Jumièges Gospels and the Préaux Gospels (BL Add. MSS 17739 and 11850), were heavily indebted to Winches ter-style illumination and English Caroline script. The twelfth-century “Channel School” had its origins in a trans-manche cultural milieu of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Women were amongst the leading book-owners. Edward the Confessor’s mother, Emma, joined her second husband, the Danish King Cnut, in a policy of giving books to court leading subjects following his seizure of the English throne (1016). Impressive illuminated books abound, several by Eadui Basan, who also penned important royal charters and seems to have been given leave from the cloister to follow Cnut’s court – a monk working in a secular context for lay patrons. Laity were also sometimes involved in making books. In the Pericope Book of Henry III, made at Echternach c.1039–43, is a miniature depicting a monk and a layman working together in the scriptorium (Bremen, Universitátsbibliothek, msb 0021, f 124v; Diebold 2000: 132–132, pi. 61). We do not know how widespread lay participation was, but Charlemagne and Alfred established schools for boys, and they and their sisters might always obtain an education in monastic schoolrooms. There is some indication of laymen writing charters in early medieval Switzerland (McKitterick 1990), and it is likely that literate lay managers helped run estates.

Women could be scribes and authors; for example, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim was renowned for her literary style (Brown 2001) and female bibliophiles included the eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon noblewomen Countess Judith of Flanders and St. Margaret of Scotland, wife of King Malcolm Canmore who, although illiterate himself, commissioned books for her. She reformed the Scottish Church and her Gospel-book allegedly survived miraculously when lost in a river – a relic by association, as were cult-books associated with Saints Columba and Cuthbert.

Following the Norman Conquest, English scriptoria perpetuated their traditions, but as Church reform and the number of Norman personnel within the Church escalated in the late eleventh century, Norman scribes trained in scriptoria such as Mont St. Michel, Jumièges, and Bec can be detected working alongside their English counterparts in leading scriptoria such as Canterbury, Salisbury, and Durham (Alexander 1970; Kauffmann 1975; Webber 1992; Gameson 1999). Acquisition of advanced Anglo-Saxon administration aided the success of Norman rule, enabling the construction of the Angevin empire. An early manifestation of this new power was to be a book – Domesday Book of 1086 (National Archives), the first full census in the post-Roman world.

From such political and cultural fusion – along with the Norman espousal of reformed Cluniac monasticism and expansion into parts of France, Italy, Sicily, Byzantium, and the Crusader kingdoms – came the international culture termed “Romanesque,” which characterized the twelfth century. The book was one of its foremost vehicles, for the early Middle Ages had ensured the triumph of the codex as the primary means of conveying thought, of establishing and administering power, and of recording collective memory and individual achievement and aspiration.

References and Further Reading

Alexander, J. J. G. (1970)
Norman Illumination at Mont St. Michel, 966–1100.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.

— (1978)
Insular Manuscripts, 6th to the 9th Century.
London: Harvey Miller.

— (1992)
Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work.
New Haven: Yale University Press.