Medieval France
PALEOGRAPHY AND MANUSCRIPTS
. Before the invention of the printing press and movable type in the 15th century, books were hand-produced by scribes trained to copy literary texts, documents, or both. The scribes in many cases would also add minor decoration consisting of running titles, penwork initials, and headings in red and other colors. In the most elaborate volumes, scribes were assisted by illuminators who executed intricate initials, borders, and miniatures and frequently used gold leaf for dramatic visual effect.
The format, script, decoration, and binding of manuscript books depended upon their date and place of origin as well as upon their function within society. Volumes intended for use by a community of monks in 9th-century Tours would differ significantly from those written for a university student in 13th-century Paris.
The disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West saw the rise of “national hands” across Europe. These hands, tied to geographical locations, gradually superseded the widely used Roman system of scripts. In Merovingian Gaul, the local scripts were derived ultimately from the later Roman cursive, or running hand, used for official documents, but with an admixture of letterforms from the more formal bookscripts also used in the Roman Empire.
Among the monastic or cathedral scriptoria (writing places) that produced a distinctive French national hand is the abbey of Luxeuil in Burgundy. Founded ca. 590 by the Irishman St. Columbanus, Luxeuil was one of the most influential centers of Merovingian culture in the 7th and 8th centuries; its scriptorium produced fine manuscript books in a spidery style of writing today termed “Luxeuil minuscule.” The first illustration reproduces a leaf of a manuscript of St. Augustine’s Sermons copied at Luxeuil in the second half of the 7th century (Beinecke 481, no. 2). The minuscule script retains many features of its cursive models: letters were often run together; the words and sentences were usually not distinguished by spaces or by punctuation. Luxeuil minuscule differed from Roman cursive, however, in that the sprawling loops of the earlier running script were replaced by neatly clubbed shafts on such letters as b, d, and I; the Roman cursive was subdued into a style of writing suitable for copying Latin manu script books. Other distinctive types of French national hands developed at the monasteries of Corbie and Laon and the convent at Chelles.
During the period of Charlemagne (r. 771–814), a new script evolved that is now called “Carolingian minuscule”; during the late 8th and the 9th centuries, it gradually superseded the local styles of writing throughout France. Although the precise origins of the script are still subject to debate, its development and eventual acceptance were related to cultural and historical phenomena affecting the production of manuscripts: the interest of Charlemagne and Alcuin, the abbot of Tours, in promoting Christianity; Charlemagne’s commitment to the advancement of education and scholarship; the political advantage of employing a single script and model for books throughout the empire.
The second illustration (above left) reproduces a page from a manuscript containing the Capitularies of Charlemagne, of his son Louis the Pious, and of Charles the Bald (Beinecke 413). Produced in northeastern France ca. 873, it is an impressive example of well-developed Carolingian script and book production. The text and decoration are neatly arranged on the page, with broad margins and welldefined interlinear spaces; the decorative initial and the elegant capitals used for headings help the reader to focus attention on the beginning of the chapter. The script itself is easy to decipher, especially when compared with Luxeuil minuscule: Carolingian letterforms, well proportioned and uniformly written, sit firmly on the text line; regular word division and clear punctuation enhance legibility. Whether the texts being copied were biblical, liturgical, or patristic, the standardization of graphic conventions and book production ensured that every Carolingian manuscript would be intelligible.
The Carolingian empire did not endure past the 9th century; yet Carolingian minuscule survived in France well into the 12th century, as it continued to be the preferred style of writing in monastic book production. The script, however, changed and developed over time, so that its overall appearance and individual letterforms were significantly altered in the 11th and 12th centuries. Illustration (bottom left) shows the late, transitional stage of Carolingian minuscule; Beinecke 414 is the second part of a two-volume Bible produced in Aquitaine or Limousin in the early 12th century. The script appears to be compressed laterally, so that letterforms are taller, less round, and more oval. Ascenders, as in the letters b, d, and l, have short horizontal finishing strokes added to their tops. Words are frequently abbreviated, so that more text is accommodated on each page. As in the earlier phase of Carolingian script, distinct portions of text are signaled by rows of calligraphic capitals. Fine polychrome initials are a hallmark of this final stage of Carolingian book production.
Before ca. 1200, monks in monasteries produced most of the manuscript books, transmitting texts from one generation of readers to the next; in the period ca. 1200–1500, book production shifted to professional workshops associated with wealthy patrons or to stationers who marketed university textbooks. In both instances, there was increasing demand for books in the vernacular languages as well as in Latin.
The university at Paris was a main center of textbook production throughout the later Middle Ages. As the university prospered, large numbers of students required texts for study. University books copied in Parisian workshops differed significantly from books written in monasteries in the preceding centuries; the layout, script, and method of production all changed to meet the needs of the students and teachers who used the books. Two 13th-century manuscripts from Paris illustrate the dramatic transformation of medieval books and the way that they were produced.
The works of Aristotle in Latin translation were standard texts in the university curriculum at Paris; after 1255, many were required reading. Illustration (opposite right) reproduces a fine Aristotle manuscript, attributed to Paris in the third quarter of the 13th century (Yale Medical Historical 12). The text of Aristotle occupies a narrowly defined central space; the remainder of each leaf has ample margins ready to receive notes and diagrams. Attractive historiated initials begin each treatise; paragraph marks in red or blue denote internal divisions. The text is written in a Gothic bookhand that developed from the late Carolingian minuscule. The lateral compression noted earlier in the 12th century (bottom left) is now pronounced, with letterforms often touching and joined together. The fusion, or “biting,” of letters is characteristic of formal Gothic script. The oval shape of such letters as o has become more angu
lar and compact. The annotations surrounding the text were written by at least two individuals in less formal styles of Gothic writing that are characterized by cursive elements and an abundance of abbreviations; both of these features allowed the script to be written more rapidly and permitted the commentary to be squashed into the margins close to the relevant passage being discussed.
Because of the increased demand for inexpensive university books in 13th-century Paris, special bookdealers, or university stationers, developed a system of mass production for selected works. In the pecia, or piece, system of transcribing manuscripts, the stationer’s “fair” copy (exemplar) of the text was divided into numbered pieces, each of which could be rented out to individuals for copying. The system helped to guarantee accuracy, since every new manuscript was made directly from the stationer’s exemplar, and accelerated book production, since several scholars or scribes could copy from the one complete work at the same time.
Among the many works copied and marketed according to the pecia system were those of St. Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1224–1274), a Dominican friar who was master of theology at the University of Paris. Aquinas’s commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences was composed ca. 1254–56 but was probably revised later in his life. On page 693 is a portion of Aquinas’s commentary from a manuscript of the third book, produced in Paris ca. 1270 (Beinecke 207). Recent scholarship has proven that this manuscript was transcribed from an exemplar of the stationer William of Sens, who lived and worked on the rue Saint-Jacques; this shop, conveniently located down the street from the Dominican house of studies, assumed a significant role in the dissemination of Aquinas’s works. Beinecke 207 bears internal evidence that it was a product of the pecia system. The lower edges of some leaves contain notes where the scribe recorded the number of the piece just completed; most of these numbers, however, were trimmed when the volume was bound or rebound. In addition, the manuscript contains a remarkable statement by the scribe in the lower margin, just below an unsightly erasure: Nota confundatur stacionarius qui me fecit deturpari librum alicuius probi uiri (“Take note! Confound the stationer who made me disfigure the book of some worthy man.”)
The scribe blamed the stationer for the sloppy appearance of the erasure and superimposed corrections.
In 13th-century Paris, the everyday spoken language was French rather than the Latin language used in the Bible, liturgical texts, and philosophical discourse. Although it is still debated at what precise time vernacular language was regularly used, it is clear that secular texts were being composed in French and transcribed and illuminated in manuscript books by the mid-13th century. It was during the later Middle Ages that a wealthy and literate lay audience, fascinated by the Arthurian and other romances, created a demand for deluxe manuscripts of vernacular prose and poetry.
A splendidly illuminated volume of the Arthurian romances, produced in France in the late 13th century, graphically illustrates the type of expensive book produced by professional scribes and artists in a secular context (below left; Beinecke 229). The French text was copied in an elegant Gothic bookhand, with several small decorative initials to demarcate text divisions. What is most remarkable about this genre of manuscripts is the number of beautifully painted pictures throughout the volume that visually re-
create the narrative account. For readers already familiar with the text, it would be possible to follow the story through the images without actually reading the prose. The Beinecke manuscript alone contains more than 160 miniatures and historiated initials.
By the mid-14th century, there was a great demand for manuscript books of Latin texts that had been translated into French. The audience for these volumes comprised primarily members of the court, aristocrats who could afford elegantly written and illuminated texts of classical and medieval authors. This genre of French manuscript was generally produced in folio format on parchment of excellent quality and transcribed in distinctive styles of Gothic script characterized by a variety of cursive letterforms. Because of the combination of letterforms from more formal Gothic scripts (as illustrated in Plate 6) with cursive features derived from the chancery, the spiky styles of French Gothic script are often termed “bastard” (bâtarde) or “hybrid.”
Among the many Latin texts rendered into French was St. Augustine’s monumental De civitate Dei. Beinecke 215 (opposite right) contains the complete work in four volumes, originally bound as two. Produced in a Parisian workshop ca. 1415, it is illustrative of manuscripts popu lar among the French nobility during the 14th and 15th centuries. The spiky style of Gothic script seen here is characterized by decorative shading of such letters as the tall s and loops on d, h, and I.
The tradition of transcribing and illuminating vernacular literary manuscripts flourished throughout 15th-century France to the extent that hundreds of copies still survive today of the popular French works, such as the Roman de la Rose and the texts of Christine de Pizan. Many of these manuscripts were copied in an elegant grade of bâtarde script with fewer cursive features, a style associated with deluxe book production of the Burgundian court and often termed lettre bourguignonne. The overall appearance of the script is calligraphic, though it exhibits some of the prickly aspects of Gothic cursive script.
Beinecke 226 (opposite) is a beautifully illuminated copy of Julius Caesar’s Commentaries, translated into French by Jean de Chesne. The script, regular and relatively devoid of loops on tall letters, retains many features of the formal Gothic bookhand but also incorporates selected cursive features. The manuscript is a large luxury book containing ten half-page and three smaller miniatures. Lettre bourguignonne, as illustrated here, survived into the 16th century as a popular choice for deluxe manuscripts.
Barbara A.Shailor
[See also: LIBRARIES; MANUSCRIPTS, HEBREW ILLUMINATED; MANUSCRIPTS, PRODUCTION AND ILLUMINATION; UNIVERSITIES]
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Rouse, Richard H. and Mary A. “The Commerical Production of Manuscript Books in Late Thirteenth- and Early Fourteenth-Century Paris.” In Medieval Book Production: Assessing the Evidence, ed. Linda L.Brownrigg. Los Altos Hills: Anderson-Lovelace/Red Gull, 1990, pp. 103–15.
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