Medieval Manuscripts

Medieval manuscript expert Christopher de Hamel selects and discusses a range of illuminated manuscripts from The British Library's unparalleled collection, some of them unfinished and so revealing the processes involved in an illuminator's work. He also explores the role of illuminators in the medieval book trade - how books were commissioned, the patron's expectations, how illuminators worked with scribes, the materials and techniques they used, and the time and expertise involved in creating some outstanding masterpieces of medieval art.

With over 70 color and black-and-white illustrations, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination is an authoritative and engaging guide to one of the central aspects of medieval bookmaking for anyone interested in medieval art, social history, calligraphy, or illumination. One of a series of accessible and lively introductions to the history of books and how they are made.

This magnificent production illustrates in full color a tremendous variety of illuminated manuscripts from over 50 collections worldwide. Each entry is described and notes on origin, style, significance, etc. are provided. The introduction contains an outline of the development of the book covering papyrus, scrolls, parchment, the evolution of writing styles, etc. Listed at the back are the illuminators, great libraries and their manuscripts, and a select bibliography.

Books of Hours survive in their thousands in libraries, museums, and private collections across the western world, reflecting both the personal piety and the fashionable taste of the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe. They owe their name to a single essential text, the Hours (or Little Office) of the Virgin Mary, but otherwise their contents may vary quite considerably. This extensively illustrated book acts as an introduction to some of the most beautiful and historically interesting manuscripts in the collections of the British Library, and contains 140 full-colour reproductions from this rich tradition. Selected and with an introduction by Janet Backhouse, Illuminations from Books of Hours offers an unparalleled opportunity to see a wide range of examples from these precious manuscripts, many of which have never been reproduced before.

Providing a comprehensive and accessible orientation to the field of medieval manuscript studies, this lavishly illustrated book by Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham is unique among handbooks on paleography, codicology, and manuscript illumination in its scope and level of detail. It will be of immeasurable help to students in history, art history, literature, and religious studies who are encountering medieval manuscripts for the first time, while also appealing to advanced scholars and general readers interested in the history of the book before the age of print.

Shows how medieval manuscripts came into being, how illuminations were accomplished, and what materials were used. Also explains the combinations of artistic talent, religious devotion and intellectual integrity that enabled the artists and artisans of the monasteries to accomplish their work.

This volume presents definitive bibliographical scholarship on the medieval manuscript collections of Otto F. Ege (d. 1951), a self-proclaimed "biblioclast." Ege created the American middle class market for medieval manuscript pages through a method offensive to modern librarians: dismemberment and dispersal. Between 1917 and 1950 Ege tore apart almost two hundred precious manuscripts and scattered their leaves across the continent, seeking to make accessible "great books" of the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. For the first time ever, comprehensive bibliographical data gathered from over 3,000 of Ege's manuscripts in more than 110 North American collections has enabled the reconstruction of Ege's dismembered manuscripts.