Images to be Read and Words to be Seen
The Iconic Role of the Early Medieval Book
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/post.v6i1-3.39Keywords:
Codex, Bible, bibliographic history, book-artsAbstract
How did the codex take on iconic status? This article surveys the history of the early medieval book, especially the transmission of religious texts in the codex format, in order to understand how the material form of the book itself came to take on religious significance.
References
Aethelwulf, De Abbatibus, ed. and trans. Alistair Campbell. 1967. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Avrin, Leila. 1991. Scribes, Script and Books. London and Chicago, IL: British Library and University of Chicago Press.
Alexander, Jonathan J. G. 1992. Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Ayerst, David and A. S. T. Fisher. 1977. Records of Christianity II. Oxford: Blackwell.
Badawy, Alexander. 1978. Coptic Art and Archaeology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brown, Michelle P. 1998. The British Library Guide to Writing and Scripts. 2nd ed. London and Toronto: British Library and University of Toronto Press.
———. 2000. “‘In the beginning was the Word’: Books and Faith in the Age of Bede.” The Jarrow Lecture 2000. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Jarrow Lectures.
———. 2003. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. London and Toronto: British Library Publications and University of Toronto Press.
———. 2005. “The Tower of Babel: The Architecture of the Early Western Written Vernaculars.” In Omnia Disce. Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O.P., edited by Ann J. Duggan, Joan Greatrex and Brenda Bolton, 109-128. Ashgate: Aldershot.
———. 2006. How Christianity Came to Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Lion Hudson.
———, ed. 2006a. In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000, exhibition catalog, Freer and Sackler Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute.
———. 2010. The Lindisfarne Gospels and the Early Medieval World. London and Chicago, IL: British Library and University of Chicago Press.
———. 2011. The Book and the Transformation of Britain, c.550-1050. The Sandars Lectures in Bibliography, 2009. London and Chicago, IL: British Library and University of Chicago Press.
———. 2012. “Insular Script: Display Scripts.” In The History of the Book in Britain, I, edited by R. G. Gameson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, T. Julian et al., ed. 1969. The Stonyhurst Gospel of St John. Oxford: Roxburghe Club.
Brubaker, Leslie. 1995. “The Sacred Image.” In The Sacred Image, East and West, Illinois Byzantine Studies 4, edited by Robert G. Ousterhout and Leslie Brubaker, 1–24. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.
Buckton, David, ed. 1994. Byzantium. Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture. London: British Museum Press.
Cassiodorus, De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum, ch. 30; see Magni Aurelii, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 96; Migne, Jacques. P. 1847. Patrologiae Cursus Completus 70: cols 1144–1145.
Chazelle, Celia. 1990. “Pictures, Books and the Illiterate: Pope Gregory I’s Letters to Serenus of Marseilles.” Word and Image 6(2): 138–153.
Colgrave, Bertram and Roger A. B. Mynors, ed. and trans.1969. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Hamel, Christopher. 1986. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. Oxford: Phaidon.
Déroche, François and Francis Richard. 1997. Scribes et manuscrits du Moyen-Orient. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Deshman, Robert. 1980. “The Exalted Servant: The Ruler Theology of the Prayerbook of Charles the Bald.” Viator 11: 385–417.
Diebold, William. 2000. Word and Image: A History of Early Medieval Art. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Dutton, Paul and Herbert Kessler. 1997. The Poetry and Painting of the First Bible of Charles the Bald. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Gabra, Gawdat. 1993. Cairo: The Coptic Museum and Old Churches. Cairo: Longman.
Gameson, Richard G. 2001. “The Scribe Speaks? Colophons in Early English Manuscripts.” H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 12.
Hurst, David, ed. 1960. Bede, Expositio in Lucam, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 120: prol. 93–115. Turnhout: Brepols.
Kelly, Eamonn P. 1994. “The Lough Kinale Shrine: the Implications for the Manuscripts.” In The Book of Kells. Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College Dublin, 6–9 September 1992, edited by Felicity O’Mahony, 280–289. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kelly, Susan. 1990. “Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word.” In The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, edited by Rosamond McKitterick, 36–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kitzinger, Ernst. 1975. The Place of Book Illumination in Byzantine Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lowden, John. 1997. Early Christian and Byzantine Art. London: Phaidon.
Marner, Dominic. 2001. St Cuthbert, His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham. London: British Library.
Mellors, John and Ann Parsons. 2002. Ethiopian Bookmaking and Scribes of South Gondar. London: New Cross Books.
Migne, Jacques P. 1844–1864. Patrologiae Cursus Completus, 221 vols. Paris.
Mütherich, Florentine and Joachim Gaehde. 1976. Carolingian Painting. London: Chatto and Windus.
Nersessian, Vrej. 2001. Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art. London: British Library.
Nordenfalk, Carl. 1988. Early Medieval Book Illumination. New York: Rizzoli.
Ó Floinn, Raghnall. 1994. Irish Shrines and Reliquaries of the Middle Ages. Dublin: Country House and NMI.
Ong, Walter J. 1981. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen.
O’Reilly, Jennifer, 2001. “The Library of Scripture: Views from the Vivarium and Wearmouth-Jarrow.” In New Offerings, Ancient Treasures. Essays in Medieval Art for George Henderson, edited by Paul Binski and William G. Noel. Stroud: Alan Sutton.
Pächt, Otto. 1986. Book Illumination in the Middle Ages: An Introduction. London: Harvey Miller.
Page, Ray I. 1995. Runes and Runic Inscriptions. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
Parkes, Malcolm B. 1992. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Aldershot: Scolar Press.
———. 2000. “Rædan, areccan, smeagan: How the Anglo-Saxons Read.” Anglo-Saxon England 26: 1–22.
Prospero’s Bookstore, 2007, http://www.prosperosbookstore.com/full_content.php?article_id=777&full=yes&pbr=1 Accessed 26 January 2011].
Roberts, Colin H. and T. C. Skeat. 1983 (reptd). The Birth of the Codex. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ryan, Michael, ed. 1983. Treasures of Ireland. Irish Art, 3000 B.C.–1500 A.D. Dublin: NMI.
Safran, Linda, ed. 1998. Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Stansbury, Mark. 1999. “Early Medieval Biblical Commentaries, Their Writers and Readers.” In Frühmittelalterliche Studien, Herausgegeben von H. Keller und C. Meier, edited by K. Hauck, 50–82. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Tudor, Victoria. 1989. “The Cult of St Cuthbert in the Twelfth Century: The Evidence of Reginald of Durham.” In St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200, edited by Gerald Bonner et al., 447–468. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
van Regemorter, Berthe. 1992. Binding Structures in the Middle Ages, translated by Jane Greenfield. Brussels: Bibliotheca Wittockiana; London: Maggs Bros.
Walsh, Maura and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, eds. 1988. Cummian’s Letter De Controversia Paschale. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
Webster, Leslie and Janet M. Backhouse, eds. 1991. The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900. London: British Museum Press.
——— and Michelle P. Brown, eds. 1997. The Transformation of the Roman World. London: British Museum Press.
Weitzmann, Kurt. 1977. Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination. London: Chatto and Windus.
Whitelock, Dorothy. 1979. English Historical Documents I, rev. ed. London: Eyre and Spottiswoods.
Wright, David H. 1967. The Vespasian Psalter, Early English Manuscipts in Facsimile 14. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger.
———. 1993. The Vatican Virgil. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Avrin, Leila. 1991. Scribes, Script and Books. London and Chicago, IL: British Library and University of Chicago Press.
Alexander, Jonathan J. G. 1992. Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Ayerst, David and A. S. T. Fisher. 1977. Records of Christianity II. Oxford: Blackwell.
Badawy, Alexander. 1978. Coptic Art and Archaeology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Brown, Michelle P. 1998. The British Library Guide to Writing and Scripts. 2nd ed. London and Toronto: British Library and University of Toronto Press.
———. 2000. “‘In the beginning was the Word’: Books and Faith in the Age of Bede.” The Jarrow Lecture 2000. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Jarrow Lectures.
———. 2003. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. London and Toronto: British Library Publications and University of Toronto Press.
———. 2005. “The Tower of Babel: The Architecture of the Early Western Written Vernaculars.” In Omnia Disce. Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O.P., edited by Ann J. Duggan, Joan Greatrex and Brenda Bolton, 109-128. Ashgate: Aldershot.
———. 2006. How Christianity Came to Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Lion Hudson.
———, ed. 2006a. In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000, exhibition catalog, Freer and Sackler Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute.
———. 2010. The Lindisfarne Gospels and the Early Medieval World. London and Chicago, IL: British Library and University of Chicago Press.
———. 2011. The Book and the Transformation of Britain, c.550-1050. The Sandars Lectures in Bibliography, 2009. London and Chicago, IL: British Library and University of Chicago Press.
———. 2012. “Insular Script: Display Scripts.” In The History of the Book in Britain, I, edited by R. G. Gameson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, T. Julian et al., ed. 1969. The Stonyhurst Gospel of St John. Oxford: Roxburghe Club.
Brubaker, Leslie. 1995. “The Sacred Image.” In The Sacred Image, East and West, Illinois Byzantine Studies 4, edited by Robert G. Ousterhout and Leslie Brubaker, 1–24. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.
Buckton, David, ed. 1994. Byzantium. Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture. London: British Museum Press.
Cassiodorus, De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum, ch. 30; see Magni Aurelii, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 96; Migne, Jacques. P. 1847. Patrologiae Cursus Completus 70: cols 1144–1145.
Chazelle, Celia. 1990. “Pictures, Books and the Illiterate: Pope Gregory I’s Letters to Serenus of Marseilles.” Word and Image 6(2): 138–153.
Colgrave, Bertram and Roger A. B. Mynors, ed. and trans.1969. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Oxford Medieval Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Hamel, Christopher. 1986. A History of Illuminated Manuscripts. Oxford: Phaidon.
Déroche, François and Francis Richard. 1997. Scribes et manuscrits du Moyen-Orient. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Deshman, Robert. 1980. “The Exalted Servant: The Ruler Theology of the Prayerbook of Charles the Bald.” Viator 11: 385–417.
Diebold, William. 2000. Word and Image: A History of Early Medieval Art. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Dutton, Paul and Herbert Kessler. 1997. The Poetry and Painting of the First Bible of Charles the Bald. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Gabra, Gawdat. 1993. Cairo: The Coptic Museum and Old Churches. Cairo: Longman.
Gameson, Richard G. 2001. “The Scribe Speaks? Colophons in Early English Manuscripts.” H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 12.
Hurst, David, ed. 1960. Bede, Expositio in Lucam, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 120: prol. 93–115. Turnhout: Brepols.
Kelly, Eamonn P. 1994. “The Lough Kinale Shrine: the Implications for the Manuscripts.” In The Book of Kells. Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College Dublin, 6–9 September 1992, edited by Felicity O’Mahony, 280–289. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kelly, Susan. 1990. “Anglo-Saxon Lay Society and the Written Word.” In The Uses of Literacy in Early Mediaeval Europe, edited by Rosamond McKitterick, 36–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kitzinger, Ernst. 1975. The Place of Book Illumination in Byzantine Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lowden, John. 1997. Early Christian and Byzantine Art. London: Phaidon.
Marner, Dominic. 2001. St Cuthbert, His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham. London: British Library.
Mellors, John and Ann Parsons. 2002. Ethiopian Bookmaking and Scribes of South Gondar. London: New Cross Books.
Migne, Jacques P. 1844–1864. Patrologiae Cursus Completus, 221 vols. Paris.
Mütherich, Florentine and Joachim Gaehde. 1976. Carolingian Painting. London: Chatto and Windus.
Nersessian, Vrej. 2001. Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art. London: British Library.
Nordenfalk, Carl. 1988. Early Medieval Book Illumination. New York: Rizzoli.
Ó Floinn, Raghnall. 1994. Irish Shrines and Reliquaries of the Middle Ages. Dublin: Country House and NMI.
Ong, Walter J. 1981. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen.
O’Reilly, Jennifer, 2001. “The Library of Scripture: Views from the Vivarium and Wearmouth-Jarrow.” In New Offerings, Ancient Treasures. Essays in Medieval Art for George Henderson, edited by Paul Binski and William G. Noel. Stroud: Alan Sutton.
Pächt, Otto. 1986. Book Illumination in the Middle Ages: An Introduction. London: Harvey Miller.
Page, Ray I. 1995. Runes and Runic Inscriptions. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
Parkes, Malcolm B. 1992. Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Aldershot: Scolar Press.
———. 2000. “Rædan, areccan, smeagan: How the Anglo-Saxons Read.” Anglo-Saxon England 26: 1–22.
Prospero’s Bookstore, 2007, http://www.prosperosbookstore.com/full_content.php?article_id=777&full=yes&pbr=1 Accessed 26 January 2011].
Roberts, Colin H. and T. C. Skeat. 1983 (reptd). The Birth of the Codex. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ryan, Michael, ed. 1983. Treasures of Ireland. Irish Art, 3000 B.C.–1500 A.D. Dublin: NMI.
Safran, Linda, ed. 1998. Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Stansbury, Mark. 1999. “Early Medieval Biblical Commentaries, Their Writers and Readers.” In Frühmittelalterliche Studien, Herausgegeben von H. Keller und C. Meier, edited by K. Hauck, 50–82. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Tudor, Victoria. 1989. “The Cult of St Cuthbert in the Twelfth Century: The Evidence of Reginald of Durham.” In St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200, edited by Gerald Bonner et al., 447–468. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
van Regemorter, Berthe. 1992. Binding Structures in the Middle Ages, translated by Jane Greenfield. Brussels: Bibliotheca Wittockiana; London: Maggs Bros.
Walsh, Maura and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, eds. 1988. Cummian’s Letter De Controversia Paschale. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
Webster, Leslie and Janet M. Backhouse, eds. 1991. The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900. London: British Museum Press.
——— and Michelle P. Brown, eds. 1997. The Transformation of the Roman World. London: British Museum Press.
Weitzmann, Kurt. 1977. Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination. London: Chatto and Windus.
Whitelock, Dorothy. 1979. English Historical Documents I, rev. ed. London: Eyre and Spottiswoods.
Wright, David H. 1967. The Vespasian Psalter, Early English Manuscipts in Facsimile 14. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger.
———. 1993. The Vatican Virgil. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Published
2012-06-27
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Brown, M. P. (2012). Images to be Read and Words to be Seen: The Iconic Role of the Early Medieval Book. Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts, 6(1-3), 39-66. https://doi.org/10.1558/post.v6i1-3.39
