Dress, Music and Fighting: 11th-century life through the eyes of an Anglo-Saxon artist (Part I - Dress)

by Christopher Monk

How should we imagine life back in early medieval England (pre-1066)?  What did people look like?  What did they believe?  What did they do to ‘hang out’, as one historical fiction writer put it to me recently?

There are, of course, written historical records upon which we can draw.  We have laws, charters and wills, for example – written from as early as 600 in the case of the Kentish laws of Ethelbert – from which we may tease out details about everyday life.  We also have the rich archaeological record from the Anglo-Saxon period (c.450-c.1066), which furnishes us with many a revelation, be they somewhat tantalising at times.

Not to be overlooked as a resource is the art of the period.  As a specialist in Anglo-Saxon cultural history, I’ve found it immensely rewarding to explore the world of the early English peoples through the illustrated pages of their books.  My favourite manuscript for doing this is the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch.  Let me tell you something about it, and let us see what insights it might bring to our understanding of life back in the eleventh century.

The Hexateuch goes by the official ‘shelfmark’ of London, British Library, Cotton Claudius B.iv.  To see it in the flesh, then, you would need to go to the British Library, though it’s extremely unlikely that it would be made available for your perusal at leisure.  Fortunately, we can see it online, as the Library has made it available in full as one of its digitised manuscripts (a link is provided at the end).  And what’s particularly exciting is that we can zoom in really close to examine the detail.

The Hexateuch was produced around 1020-40, so towards the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, very probably during the reign of King Cnut (reigned 1016-35).  Its origin is likely the St Augustine’s monastery at Canterbury.  The Hexateuch combines both a textual and visual treatment of the first six books of the Bible, Genesis through to Judges.  It is essentially a picture book – certainly the design of the book focused on the illustrations – accompanied by vernacular (Old English [OE]) translations and paraphrases of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate bible.

To the modern eye, it resembles a comic book.  The pictures closely follow the order of the text but they dominate the pages, there being 394 framed illustrations in total.  Furthermore, they frequently amplify the text, revealing emotions, tensions and scenarios not always evident in the words themselves.  What is key for our purposes is that the artist draws upon contemporary life in order to bring the lives of the patriarchs and the Israelites into sharp focus.  

Let us have a look at just a handful of pictorial scenes to see what they reveal about life in eleventh-century England.  And hopefully that will help us all appreciate that we have another resource in which our imagining of the Anglo-Saxons can be rooted.

Dapper dressers

So what did the Anglo-Saxons look like?  How did they dress, for example?

First, I should point out that we need to show care when interpreting art.  To illustrate: when God or angelic messengers appear in the Hexateuch, they are depicted in classical garb, thus we have a nod to Roman culture rather than a representation of what figures of authority in the period would have gone around wearing.  And I should also make the observation that colour is not always used in a realistic way by the artist.  So, for example, please don’t think that blue rinses were in fashion!

One of my favourite images for demonstrating male attire is the one here of four ‘unrighteous’ men in the days of Noah before the Flood.  They are probably meant to represent the giants or ‘entas’* who were born from the miscegenation of ‘the sons of God’ and ‘the daughters of men’ (Genesis 6:1-8)

They wear the ubiquitous long-sleeved short tunic, along with a cloak fastened by a brooch, either at the shoulder or centrally (the majority of men are shown wearing it at the shoulder).  

Elsewhere men are shown without cloaks or with shorter versions than you see here.  Sometimes we also see men with longer tunics, often kings or pharaohs, though these are also very often shown on men who are seated and so perhaps the artist is concerned with preserving modesty rather than wishing to indicate actual length. 

Though the vast majority of tunics are plain, nevertheless we do come across a significant number of tunics with decorated edging, very similar to those worn by the two central figures.  As you see, these fringes run along the bottom and partway up the sides of the garment.  This may indicate that some tunics had side slits, similar to those on Joseph’s famous ‘coat of many colours’, depicted later – although Joseph’s garment lacks an embellished edging.  Incidentally, the ‘technicolour dreamcoat’ is not shown as truly multi-coloured because the artist is following the slightly odd OE translation – hringfag, meaning ‘ring-patterned’ – of the Latin polymita, meaning ‘cloth woven from threads of many colours’. 

These decorative edges, or fringes, may be representative of embroidery, and would likely have been worn by men of some note, not by ordinary ceorls (free-men of low rank) and certainly not by slaves.  Indeed, in the Hexateuch they appear on men from important families, such as Joseph’s brothers, who as you see here are shown with golden edging on their tunics. 

It would seem, then, that if you really wanted to look the dapper man about town in the eleventh century, you needed embroidered garments.  Maybe it might catch on today? 

I’m afraid that’s all I have space for in this post concerning dress.  There was so much more that could have been said about both male and female dress, too, which brings me to a core area of my present research: women in Anglo-Saxon culture.

For my second detail from the Hexateuch, I want to focus on a particular ‘female’ skill, and in doing so throw something out there that may cause a stir.  Now, I bet you’re thinking weaving, spinning or embroidery, aren’t you?  Well, I’m not going there; instead we’re going to look at women as musicians. And then it will be back to the men for my final insight from the Hexateuch.  And what is it in Anglo-Saxon culture that men did best?  All you living history performers know, don’t you?  Yes, fighting, of course.  

[These will be published in Part 2 - Music and Fighting - on Saturday (27th August)]

*Tolkien fans will recognise the origin here of his giant tree-beings, the ‘ents’.

Works consulted:

Graham Lawson and Susan Rankin, ‘Music’, and Graeme Lawson, ‘Musical Instruments’, from The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Michael Lapidge et al. (Blackwell, 2001). 

Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: Revised and enlarged edition (Boydell, 2004)

Dorothy Whitelock (ed.), English Historical Documents c. 500-1042 (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955)

Online:

Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources: http://logeion.uchicago.edu/

Douay-Rheims Bible:  http://www.drbo.org/

The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/BriefDisplay.aspx: Just type ‘hexateuch’ into the search box.

Dr Christopher Monk taught for four years at the University of Manchester (UK) on subjects ranging from the language and history of Beowulf to sex and sexuality in Anglo-Saxon art.  He now works as an independent consultant and development editor.  Recently he was the medieval history and manuscript expert for a major permanent exhibition at Rochester Cathedral (due to open later in 2016) about one of Britain’s most important, but overlooked, medieval books, the twelfth-century Textus Roffensis.  Chris continues to juggle scholarly work with creative writing.  He has just published a chapter in a collection of essays about the Bayeux Tapestry, and has an eBook under review called Sodom in the Anglo-Saxon Imagination.  But he’s also written a screenplay based in 1978 about a Kate Bush obsessive and is presently writing what he describes as “a sort of historical fantasy prequel to Beowulf”. He blogs as the transhistorical Anglo-Saxon Monk.

Find him At his website

and On his blog

Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts.

By E.M. Powell

The word manuscript literally means ‘written by hand’ and medieval manuscripts refers to those books produced in Europe between about the fifth century and the late fifteenth century. Illuminated manuscripts are works which are decorated with a variety of pictures and ornamentation.

Psalm 27 from the Vespasian Psalter- 8th Century Kent.
It is the earliest surviving English biblical example of an initial with a narrative scene.

The word ‘illuminated’ comes from a usage of the Latin word illuminare in the sense of its meaning ‘to adorn’. Burnished gold was often used in the decorating of books from the 13th century onwards but the term ‘illuminated’ does not only apply to manuscripts where gold or silver is used. It applies more broadly to any manuscript that is more elaborately decorated than with simple coloured initials.

From the early writings of Saint Jerome (who died c.420) to around 1100, the vast majority of manuscripts were produced in the scriptoria or cloisters of abbeys and monasteries. They were primarily theological, liturgical and academic works.

The Lindisfarne Gospels- 8th Century
Written & illustrated probably by Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne.

Prior to the time of Saint Jerome, manuscripts (such as those produced in Rome) were in scroll format and made of papyrus. The use of papyrus is problematic in that, as a material, it is more likely to break, especially if it is handled frequently. Early medieval scribes moved to the use of prepared animal skin, the material that we refer to as parchment or vellum. The format also underwent a significant change to that of the book or codex, with separate pages that can be turned, read in sequence and much more easily navigated by a reader.

Initial from the Howard Psalter & Hours- England,1310 -1320.
Clerics sing from a scroll, which contains musical notation. 

The codex didn’t only make life easier for readers. It also improved the lot of those who wrote and illustrated the manuscripts—our medieval scribes. It is much easier to write on the flat, stable surface of a page than on a lengthy, unrolled scroll. But it’s probably fair to say the ‘easier’ is a relative term. Even the preparation was laborious and demanded perfection. Producing fine vellum involved the soaking in lime and skilled, meticulous scraping and stretching of expensive calfskin. Inks such as oak gall and lampblack had to be produced. Guide lines had to be ruled with absolute precision.

Book of Hours- Oxford, 1240, written in & illuminated by William de Brailes.
It is the earliest surviving English Book of Hours.

Note that such precision also had to be achieved using a feather quill pen. Quill pens were introduced around the sixth century and replaced the reed pen. They were most commonly made from the flight feathers of geese but could also be made from swan, duck, crow, or even pelicans and peacocks. Most of the feather was removed and the end sharpened and slit so it could be filled with ink.  The sharpening of the nib was done at different angles, which would make pen strokes of differing thickness. Such careful nib-work didn’t last long. A scribe would have to trim it frequently with a quill-cutter to keep its sharpness.

A seated scribe from the Life of St Dunstan.
Canterbury- late 11th/early 12th Century

All that before the most challenging and skilled task of all: the writing and illustrating of the text. One can only deeply admire the concentration, dedication and sheer physical toll it must have taken, with scribes having no reading glasses, no electric light and no modern heating through freezing and damp winters.

The fruits of their labours, that are the decorations on medieval illuminated manuscripts, are of three main types. First, larger illustrations that can take up a whole page and /or miniatures or small pictures incorporated into the text. These usually illustrate or complement the content of the text.

A map of the whole known world from Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon.
England, last quarter of the 14th century.

The second type are initial letters that contain scenes (known as historiated initials) or that have elaborate decoration. Again, these usually illustrate or complement the content of the text.

Historiated initial 'D'(omine) with a crowned Virgin and Child.
English Book of Hours, 1st quarter of the 15th century.

Third, we have borders and line-endings, which may have many detailed images/miniatures in them. These often do not relate directly to the text and can contain unusual figures.

Marginal illustration from the Gorleston Psalter- Norfolk, early 14th century.
How much do we love the medieval duck? 

And while the illuminations could serve to illustrate or to decorate, they also provided aids for contemplation and meditation for those reading them as part of their daily prayer and devotion. On another (very practical) level, the illustrations were useful markers for less literate readers to be able to navigate a lengthy manuscript. One does not have to be able to read to identify a picture of the Virgin Mary or one of the story of Adam and Eve.

Four scenes from the Book of Genesis, with three of Adam & Eve.
The Huth Psalter, England, late 13th century.

Although so many wonderful works were produced by men (and women) of the church, by 1100 this situation began to change. The production of manuscripts was no longer the preserve of the church, and secular scribes and illustrators rose in importance. This was in part due to the expansion of the content of manuscripts. Romances, chronicles, medical and other texts and aristocratic family trees all began to be produced. The rise of the universities and the increase in book ownership by the wealthy saw a thriving secular book trade in Paris and Bologna by the 13th century.

Guinevere questioning Lancelot about his love for her.
Lancelot du Lac, France, c.1316.

It was another university city, the city of Cologne, that was to trigger the start of the demise of the manuscript. By the 1470s Cologne had become the most important centre of printing in north-west Germany and where a certain William Caxton was perfecting his own particular art. Handwritten texts were being replaced by the printed version.

From the Arnstein Bible, a large two-volume MS, Germany c. 1172.
It was written by a single scribe, a monk named Lunandus.

But it was English Reformation that was to see the wanton destruction of the illuminated manuscript. Henry VIII decreed that the 'images and pictures' of Saint Thomas Becket shall 'through the whole realm be put down and avoided out of all churches, chapels, and other places.’ The Act against Superstitious Books and Images (1550) ordered that prayer and service books that did not comply with the reformed liturgy should be destroyed. The religious communities did their best to keep their handwritten treasures safe. Books were smuggled out of religious houses and hidden in sympathetic homes. But not all could be saved. Priceless manuscripts were torn up, burned, used to clean candlesticks, clean boots, stop up beer barrels and even deployed in the privies.

The martyrdom of Thomas Becket from the Harley collection-
a rare survival in an English context.
Netherlands, 3rd quarter of the 15th century.
           

Yet despite all of this appalling vandalism, medieval manuscripts have preserved for posterity the lion’s share of medieval painting. As Beal so beautifully puts it: ‘Books have a knack of surviving.’ It is our great good fortune that they do.

Detail of marginal images of apes with books.
France, 1318-1330.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
References:
All images are in the Public Domain and are part of the British Library's Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. (This online resource is truly a treasure trove and I cannot recommend it highly enough.)
Beal, Peter, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology 1450–2000: Oxford University Press, Current Online Version. (2011)
Brigstocke, Hugh, The Oxford Companion to Western Art: Oxford University Press, Current Online Version (2003)
Chilvers, Ian, The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (4 ed.): Oxford University Press, Current Online Version (2014)
De Hamel, Christopher, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (2nd ed.), London: Phaidon Press Ltd. (1994).
Kerr, Julie: Life in the Medieval Cloister, London, Continuum Publishing (2009)
Whittock, Martyn, A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages: London, Constable & Robinson (2009)
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E.M. Powell’s medieval thrillers THE FIFTH KNIGHT and THE BLOOD OF THE FIFTH KNIGHT have been #1 Amazon bestsellers and a Bild bestseller in Germany. Book #3 in the series, THE LORD OF IRELAND, about John’s failed campaign in Ireland was published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5 2016. Born and raised in the Republic of Ireland into the family of Michael Collins (the legendary revolutionary and founder of the Irish Free State), she now lives in northwest England with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. As well as blogging and editing for EHFA, she is a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill magazine, reviews fiction & non-fiction for the Historical Novel Society and is part of the HNS Social Media Team. Find out more by visiting www.empowell.com.

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