Books created for use in church services, and for devotion at home, have two distinct sets of text. Red headings are particularly common in liturgical manuscripts of Christian Europe. When referring to manuscripts, miniature has nothing to do with the size of the picture. In classical Latin, the word for red is minium, from which comes our word ‘miniature,’ meaning illustrations in a manuscript. Vermilion (mercuric sulphide) and red lead were both readily available across Europe since ancient times. Why red? Most likely red was the most convenient and easily-created colour. Changes in the size and colour of initials break up the text visually, making it easier to read. Passages in medieval manuscripts were often written in one solid block with few breaks or division. The Hierarchy of Lettering in Medieval ManuscriptsĪ change of colour or size alters the importance of an initial, a word or a sentence – the larger the letter, the more important the text that follows it. Just put your preference in the “I Would Like to Support” Box after you Click to Donate Below: Support This Expert’s Articles, This Category of Articles, or the Site in General Here. Would you like to see more articles like this? In any case, when you see red in a medieval manuscript you know something important is happening. Subsequent headings mark the divisions between chapters.Īt the end of the text, the final words, known as the colophon, often written in red, might indicate the date, the place of preparation, and occasionally the name of the scribe. Since medieval manuscripts have no title or content pages, the opening heading of a book might contain such information as the author’s name and the title of the text.
Using red pigments for headings dates back to late Antiquity and was standard practice from the fifth century onwards. Alternatively, key words might be plainly written but in set in highly ornate boxes to make them stand out. Important initial letters or entire words or phrases might be decorated with floral tracery, inhabited by animals, grotesques and other strange items, or even embellished with brilliant gold.
It must have been extremely difficult navigating through hundreds of pages of text – so the scribes wrote key words or headings in red or other colours such as blue or green. Today we have the advantage of page numbering, but medieval manuscripts had no page numbering system. We could apply other typographical variations such as capitalising or italicising the entire heading, or changing the colour. But what did medieval scribes do and how have books changed? Medieval Manuscripts: How Times Have Changed An online edition is available as part of Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance.The font is larger than the text that follows and it stands alone at the top of the text.It is available in the Reference Collection of Bobst Libary at: Z6611.H8 K7.Also essential for scholars of Renaissance manuscripts is Kristeller's Iter Italicum a finding list of uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other libraries, 6 vols.An online edition is available from the MGH.A supplement edited by Krämer and Birgit Christine Arensmann appeared in 2007. Z6601.A1 K68 2007.The essential guide to catalogues of Latin manuscripts is: Paul Oskar Kristeller, Latin manuscript books before 1600: a list of the printed catalogues and unpublished inventories of extant collections - fourth revised and enlarged edition by Sigrid Krämer (Munich, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1993). Bobst collection at Z6605.元 K75 1993.is uptown in Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
0 kommentar(er)
