Birds part I
If you look carefully you’ll begin to notice birds in all sorts of medieval manuscripts, used as anything from decorative flourishes to representations of the divine. In this series of posts I’ll explore a variety of bird imagery, beginning today with ornamental figures and moving on to birds as symbols of power. In the next post, birds of morality, philosophy, and religion. (As usual, click the images to go directly to the sources.)
Our first examples come from Huntington Library HM 65, a copy of Ptolemy’s Almagest made in southern France in 1279. This is an astronomical text, so the birds and other animals in the margins are purely decorative. Like acanthus leaves and running hares, these birds are a familiar visual trope of the period. Out of all the medieval birds they’re probably my favorites.
Sometimes birds illuminations aren’t just decorative but refer to the text. Harvard University’s Houghton Library MS Typ 0446 is a 13th-century Latin Bible. On one page we see a decorative bird perched on an illuminated initial, but in Exodus a stork appears with a frog in its beak—a reference to the plague of frogs.
Birds also grace the bindings of books. These clasps date from 14th-century Germany. Columbia University X242.1.S.
Bird in a blind stamped binding, bound between 1510 and 1519 by a Dutch binder named John Reynes who was active in London. Huntington Library HM 36336.
The margins of manuscripts were a kind of no-man’s land where artists could explore subversive fears and fantasies. The creepier aspects of birds are apparent in these grotesques from the pages of a 16th-century Dominican gradual. University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center HRC 013.
But manuscript birds were just as likely to have a humorous character. The Macclesfield Psalter, for instance, depicts a man riding a ‘hobby duck’.
A charming bird sneaks a bite from a penwork initial, from the University of Notre Dame, Hesburgh Library MS 12. You are what you eat, after all.
Birds were also common as heraldic devices and symbols of authority. This lovely 13th-century wax seal featuring a bird on a branch is affixed to a “Quit claim by Gwenllian, widow of Madoc ap Seycil to the monks of Abbey Dore of her widow’s third of the 4 1/2 bovates of land on Grosmont hill which Madoc gave to them for his burial for her soul and the soul of Madoc.” Lawrence, University of Kanses, Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS 191:13.
The Luttrell Psalter is famous for its idealized depiction of English manor life. Here a peasant feed chickens and a man uses a slingshot to drive crows from the newly tilled fields. In this case the birds are a significant part of the manuscript’s meta-narrative: depicting its patron Geoffrey Luttrell as a benevolent and pious lord presiding over a bountiful estate.
Another way that birds embodied power and status was via falconry scenes — depictions of the nobility engaging in one of their favorite pastimes. You could argue that owning a falcon was the medieval equivalent of driving a super car or owning a yacht, and wealthy book patrons would have enjoyed seeing this high status activity reflected in the pages of the luxury texts they commissioned. Below is the illumination for the month of May from the Fecamp Psalter, created in France circa 1180.
Ptolemy with a falcon, from Der Naturen Bloeme, a 14th-century Flemish bestiary, KB KA 16.
Two examples of falconry from British Library Yates Thompson 13, a 14th-century English book of hours: the first is part of a calander page for the month of May.
Books of Hours
The following two images are from MS Type 443, an illuminated, late 15th century book of hours in the digital collection of Harvard’s Houghton Library.*
The book of hours originated in the 13th century. One of the most common forms of late Medieval illuminated manuscript, it was a religious text for laypeople, often women. Many of these volumes were important works of art and indicators of social status, though less elaborate versions were available for those of moderate means, especially following the development of mass book production in the 1400s. These books provided a framework for Christian devotion throughout the year by organizing psalms and prayers, the choice of which could be adapted to different tastes. Most books of hours include calendars and seasonal or zodiacal themes like those below. And like MS Type 443, most books of hours were written in Latin.
October, carrying grain:
November, gathering acorns:
From the catalog description of MS Typ 443:
The text is written in a gothic rotunda book-hand in one column.
Each page has an outer border panel in tempera and gold in trompe-l’oeil style. Many pages have full borders in this style. There are also 7 miniatures, 14 historiated borders, 28 historiated initials, and 24 calendar illustrations in tempera and gold. (At least 23 further miniatures originally in the ms. are now missing.) The illuminators include the Master of the Houghton Miniatures (named for this ms.), the Ghent Associates of the Master of Mary of Burgundy, the Louthe Master or Simon Marmion, and the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook.
Trompe-l’oeil, meaning “to deceive the eye,” is a style of painting which utilizes perspective and shading to create the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface. I’ve seen it in other online books of hours, but used here it is especially lovely and delicate (it’s what drew me to the volume in the first place). Do check out the links to the illuminators above, it’s really fascinating stuff.
Looking at these pages I also became curious about the structure of the book and the text itself. Unfortunately, my Latin and palaeography skills aren’t quite up to the task, but I found two websites with more information:
— The Frick Fine Arts Library at the University of Pittsburgh has a very nice page detailing the structure of a typical book of hours, featuring examples and images from one of their holdings, the Frick Book of Hours.
— Medievalist.net, run by Glenn Gunnhouse of Georgia State University, is fantastic. It includes an introduction to books of hours and an entire book of hours in Latin and English, side by side, plus a calendar of saint’s days, an entire YouTube channel, and list of online resources for Medieval art.
For general information on Medieval illumination check out these sites:
— Highlights of Digital Scriptorium. This database provides access to manuscripts from a number of institutions, and has made available many wonderful images.
— Continuing their tradition of excellent web tutorials, the British Library has a great site on illuminated manuscripts. It’s split into an into an introduction and five time periods, from pre-800 AD up to 1400-1600. Lots of nice images here, too.
— The National Library of the Netherlands features images and information related to several types of manuscripts, including highlights like “fabulous animals,” “death by unnatural causes,” and “devils and demons.” (The images on this site are supposed to enlarge when you click them, but maybe there’s something wrong with my browser, becuase it’s not working.)
*Special thanks to the Houghton Library for allowing me to use these images and adding the attributions.
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