The Illuminated Manuscripts

Medieval Europe is often referred to as the Dark Ages. During this period, people were ignorant, close minded and illiterate. Few individuals survived to reach the age above thirty due to the plague and pestilence. A time where fear and darkness inhabited and consumed the minds of people but alas a ray of light emerged; the illuminated manuscripts were created.

The earliest surviving manuscript dates from the 5th century and served an important purpose in preserving the literary heritage of the Greeks and Romans. Not only is the content important but its design and decoration created a new impact on art since they are also the only remaining traces of medieval paintings. The reason why they are referred to as ‘illuminated’ is because of the silver or gold leaf on the page. On the right hand- side we have typography and illustrations incorporated as a whole creating a very decorative piece of work. Illuminators began to sign their work, no longer anonymous when illuminated manuscript was gaining popularity and art was highly praised. Few manuscripts survived on papyrus while most others survived on animal skin, most commonly calf. Since printing was not invented, a room devoted to scribes called the scriptorium allowed them to make copies by hand.

Illuminators required materials such as papyrus in order to produce their work on, however due to over-harvesting, this writing surface was replaced by parchment and vellum. Some parchment manuscripts had their original texts scraped off in order to be rewritten on, this is known as palimpsest.

Characteristics of Illuminated Manuscript :

• Borders were used to enclose the whole text space or just at the corners, they were also stylized and decorated with illustrations.

• Historiated initial or initial alphabet was found at the beginning of a paragraph which was an enlarged letter with elaborate designs.

• Large illustrations and miniature illustrations.

The end of Manuscript and the introduction of Printing...