Image 6.2

CAROLINGIAN ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT (c. 850)1

Codices, or bound books, were less expensive than papyrus rolls, could contain longer texts, and were far easier to use for reference purposes. The early Christians constantly dis- puted with pagans and Jews on the basis of philosophical and religious texts, in particular the Old Testa- ment. The shift to codices doubtless simplified these efforts enormously. Codices could also be made much smaller than scrolls, to the ad- vantage of itinerant missionaries. The success of the codex followed— and perhaps helped—that of Chris- tianity. By the time Emperor Theo- dosius I proclaimed Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380, the codex had be- come the predominant form for books in the Roman world. Medieval European artists (for the most part monks) “illuminated” thousands of ancient and revered texts with lovely illustrations and ornamentation. A small number of illuminated manuscripts descend from antiquity, but the vast majority has been handed down from the medieval period when monks lovingly copied and recopied cherished texts. They probably saved many books from destruction by illiterate warlords who presumably attributed more value to illustrated volumes than to ones filled on- ly with text. (Alas, monks also condemned to slow obliteration those texts they failed to copy, like most works by Marcus Varro, a celebrated Roman author). The image reproduced above comes from a Carolingian manuscript dubbed the Drogo Sacramentary, a prayer book. It is named after an illegitimate son of Charlemagne, Drogo of Metz (801–855), a bishop of the French city of Metz and a great patron of the arts. Master art- ists of his workshop invented the decorated initial letter, which became a standard feature of medieval illuminated manuscripts. In the above image, the initial letter C is decorated with a depiction of the Ascension of Christ. For the image’s original Internet location, click here.

1 Image provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.