Royal Manuscripts at the British Library

Royal Manuscripts at the British Library

11 November, 2011
by: Tom Jeffreys

Tom Jeffreys explores a fascinating and beautiful insight into medieval monarchical power relations.

At a time when dewy-eyed bibliophiles worldwide are railing against the evil, soulless Kindle and eulogising the printed page as some kind of sacred symbol of eternal knowledge (mostly on the internet, ironically enough) it's nice to get a little perspective. After all, it's a long time since William Caxton, and books these days are largely the machine-made products of an industrialised nation. The romance is misplaced; the false nostalgia that of the Shoreditch warehouse-dweller for a Victorian past that never was. Or at least, that's the feeling I get after viewing the simply incredible objects that make up the British Library's new exhibition, Royal Manuscripts - The Genius of Illumination.

As the title suggests, the exhibition is made up of a whole host of illuminated manuscripts dating from as far back as the 8th century. Many of the pieces on display are unimaginably beautiful, and together they form a sumptuous feast of an exhibition – surely the most beautiful show to have graced London in some years. Highlights include Henry VIII's choirbook; Henry VII's guide to astrology; a highly detailed map for a journey to the Holy Land; a stunning thirteenth century version of Genesis and Exodus; and the exquisite Bodmer Hours and Psalter from the late fourteenth century – a delicately glittering masterpiece.

But illuminated manuscripts are about more than just aesthetics. Or rather, this is a form of aesthetics that is far more than simply visual. The books incorporate all manner of different conceptual threads: Gospel texts, religious interpretation, exquisitely detailed battle scenes, heraldic symbolism, myths, legends, history and politics are all woven together in a dizzying array of hand-written lettering, narrative depictions, and highly complex patterns packed with birds, fruit, stylised foliage. It's a feast, but one that takes time to digest.

The time is well spent though. By focusing on the royal aspect of these manuscripts, the British Library demonstrates how this weaving process was an essential aspect of their political power-function. Kingliness – the right to rule – was the major preoccupation of medieval monarchs, and kingliness was largely about two things: God, and lineage. By tying a ruler to the great figures of myth and history, like Solomon, Hercules and Alexander the Great, the implication is that he follows in this great tradition. The depiction of Caesar born to a room dressed in fourteenth century clothing and a queue of Roman women clad in medieval Flemish fashions epitomise this potent conflation of eras and narratives. Similarly, by embedding a monarch's coat of arms into Biblical stories, the aim is to reinforce his authority – an authority which often rested not simply on military might but on precarious genealogical arguments.



Intriguingly, these books frequently depict their own role in this process, as the scribes seek to insert themselves (and the authors whose texts they illuminate) into the complex network of power relations that they were so instrumental in helping to construct. Henry VIII is seen praying from the very book that depicts him doing so; whilst Mark writes his gospel inspired by a book borne aloft by a winged lion – the power of one book passed down to another. In one self-fulfilling illustration to a text on military tactics, the Roman author of the text, Vegetium, is seen teaching Edward I, the recipient of the book. In another, an anonymous scribe depicts himself surrounded by books, channelling their knowledge through his own creative output. Courtier and bureaucrat Thomas Hoccleve is depicted giving his book to Henry V – or perhaps it is, in these two of the three surviving early copies, Hoccleve's patron giving it as his own gift to the monarch.

The book then was never simply a text; it was always an object with a multiplicity of purposes. The book is a gift, an instruction manual, a justification or confirmation of power, a creator of identity, a maker of laws. Nowhere is this clearer than in Henry VIII's contract with Westminster Abbey – one of the most striking (and ludicrously grand) objects in the exhibition. Here, the text is framed by lush velvet casing and adorned with all manner of royal seals. It's as if there was a worry about the instability of language (French and Latin mostly); and that the elaborate illumination process was an attempt to fix – and so control – meaning. The more laborious the illumination the more lavishly Godly, and so the more authoritative.

And the process was certainly a laborious one: the exhibition kicks off with a video showing us the various stages – from scraping calf skin to form vellum to the painstaking application of gold leaf. Jean de Wavrin, we're told, took the last 25 years of his life to compile his history of England in the fifteenth century. It's hardly surprising that such scribes sought to get a little credit by inserting themselves and their creations into the texts of royal history.

This is why ownership is so important, and why books made such popular gifts. Ownership meant not only ownership of a sumptuous object; it also meant control – of meaning and authority. The changing illustrations of the St Omer Psalter are a good example of the varied priorities of its various owners, whilst the red stamp that covers so many – Museum Britanicum – demonstrates that this was not simply a medieval phenomenon, but one that extends to this day.

This is not a perfect exhibition – it's a tad too large, the structure is a little unclear in places and a more detailed exploration of changing styles would have been interesting – but it is nonetheless a brilliant one. Rich, beautiful, engaging and intellectually complex: this is a rare treat indeed.

Royal Manuscripts - The Genius of Illumination is at the British Library until 13th March 2011.

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Images courtesy of the British Library.

Tom Jeffreys