The Decorated Letter [antikvár]

Introduction This book is an anthology of decorated letters to be found in European manuscripts from the fourth to the fifteenth century. At the beginning of this period, the codex form of book with which we are still familiar was becoming standard, that is, a book consisting of bound, folded sheets generally of animal skin. As early as the second century A.D. it had begun to make obsolete the papyrus roll of the Ancient World. All the processes involved in the production of the codex—the preparation ofthe skin, the writing ("manuscript" meaning "hand written"), the decoration, and illustration — were done by hand. By the end of this period, however, the mechanical art of printing texts with moveable type had been invented, the first complete book so produced being the forty-two-line Bible printed by Gutenberg at Mainz in 1456. The printers were also able to use wood blocks for the mechanical reproduction of illustrations and decorations in their books. The decorated letters chosen in this selection must, therefore, be seen in the context of the period during which they were produced and of the purpose for which they were designed. Carl Nordenfalk has made a masterly study of the earliest initials, that is in our context, letters which, emphasized by decoration of some form, generally introduced a textual division in a book or a heading.' He has observed that there are two vital factors which gave rise to the development ofthe decorated letter. The first was the change over in attitude to the text. In the Ancient World, literature was thought of as something spoken or heard since the texts were read aloud. It was, therefore, a matter of the organs of speech and hearing, not of sight. As the text came to be considered as something revealed visually to the understanding through the written word (a development that may have had something to do with the spread and triumph of Christianity and its emphasis on a revealed truth recorded in the written text of the Gospels), so did the appearance of the text become a matter of concern. It could be decorated and embellished, whereas before only simple linear text divisions or diagrams or illustrations necessary for the understanding and clarification of the text, were considered suitable.^ The second point concerns the people involved in the writing and reading of ancient literature, who were for the most part slave copyists and readers. Only as the owner of the book became directly involved in its perusal and as the maker of it (who might, of course, be the same person) became a relatively free agent, did there arise the necessary conditions of artistic independence, and therefore, of interest in the embellishment of the text. This point of the artist's independence in decorating a book is certainly a vital one to any understanding of the medieval initial. There can be no doubt that the greatest period for the creation of decorated letters was the early Middle Ages, the period from the seventh to the twelfth century. This was the period of monastic book production, in which very often the monks were writing and decorating books for the use of their own community, whether in the celebration of the liturgy in church or in the meditation enjoined in the cloister by the rule of Saint Benedict (died c. 550). Often scribe and artist were one and the same person.^ We thus find in this period, to an extreme degree, the two factors already mentioned: personal use, that is, visual perusal of the text, and personal independence in the decisions preceding its making; which goes far to explain the vitality and originality of this period in the creation of decorated letters.