Browse Items (53 total)

Leaf 23. "While the script of this leaf is almost certainly French, the initial letters and filigree decoration might easily be of Italian workmanship, and the greenish tone of the ink suggests English manufacture. The dorsal motif in the bar…

Leaf 22. "This particular manuscript was written by Benedictine monks for the Parochial School of St. John the Baptist in Wurzburg shortly after 1300 A.D. The musical notation is the rare type which is a transition between the early neumes and the…

Leaf 21. "Much of the material incorporated in the hymnals was based on folk melodies. Hymns, like the other chants of the Church, varied according to their place in the liturgy" (Ege). "The initial letter design of this leaf persisted with little or…

Leaf 20. "Small Psalters of this period are comparatively rare, since Pslaters were used primarily in the church services and not by the layman. Here, the letters and ornament still retain all the rigidity of the previous century and give no…

Leaf 19. "The rich black lettering of this manuscript is in the transitional rotunda script and is executed with skill and beauty. It is supplemented by initial letters of ultramarine blue and deep cinnabar (vermilion), which colors are reflected in…

Leaf 18. "The Breviary is one of the six official books used by the Roman Catholic Church in its liturgy" (Ege). "The angular script of this lead is executed with great skill and precision. The small and vigorous black initials and the hair line…

Leaf 17. "Illuminated Psalters occur as early as the VIIIth century, and from the XIth to the beginning of the XIVth century they predominate among illuminated manuscripts." "At this time the pendant tails of the initial letters are rigid or only…

Leaf 16. "Brevaries were seldom owned by laymen. They were service books and contained the Psalter with the versicles, responses, collects and lections for Sundays, weekdays, and saints' days. Other texts could be included. A Breviary, therefore, was…

Leaf 15. "This manuscript, a special gift to a church in the city of Beauvais, was written for Robert de Hangest, a canon, about 1285 A.D." (Ege). "The ornament of this leaf shows the first flowering of Gothic interest in nature. The formal hieratic…

Leaf 14. "This copy of the Latin version by St. Jerome was made during the period when France stood at the height of her medieval glory" (Ege). "The bar borders came to be exectued in rich opaque gouache pigments, with ultramarine made of powdered…