Description
Illuminated manuscripts are a number of the richest and most revealing relics of the pre-print Western world, and are central to our working out of medieval social and cultural history. The British Library boasts the world’s finest number of medieval manuscripts, and on this new and lavishly illustrated survey, Janet Backhouse draws on these collections to offer a comprehensive introduction to those exciting and colourful materials.
The manuscripts featured include bestiaries, psalters, Bibles, books of hours, and medical and herbal collections that originated in workrooms as geographically diverse as the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria and the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. There may be an ideal chronological diversity a number of the selected manuscripts, with examples ranging from the seventh century AD and the Lindisfarne Gospels to early Renaissance offerings.
Each of the almost 220 illluminations presented are accompanied by a caption and have been reproduced in colour. Among the immages chosen have been reproduced here for the primary time.