Old English Hexateuch
The translation is known in seven manuscripts,
Though described as "vivid and dynamic",[5] the drawing and style of the Claudius miniatures has been regarded as somewhat crude compared to other manuscripts of the period, variously described as "rough", "incompetent" and "not of outstanding artistic importance".[6] The whole manuscript is available online at the British Library website.[7]
Cotton Claudius B.iv, British Library
Claudius B.iv. was probably compiled in the second quarter of the 11th century at
One or, more likely, several artists accompanied the narrative with 394 drawings in inks of various colours, most brightly coloured with washes, containing about 550 scenes. Many of these are unfinished, at varying stages of completion, and like most unfinished manuscript programmes, the degree of completion falls off in later sections.[9] The settings do not attempt to represent Old Testament life as anything different from that of contemporary Anglo-Saxons, and so give valuable depictions of many aspects of the Anglo-Saxon world. The extensive illustrations suggest that it was designed mainly for lay use,[10] and possibly intended for a single highly-placed individual or family.[11] It is the earliest illustrated manuscript of a large part of the bible in any vernacular language.[12]
There are twelve full-page miniatures spread through the texts, and the other miniatures range from nearly full-page to about a quarter of a page.
In particular the MS is believed to be the earliest surviving visual representation of the Horns of Moses, an iconographic convention which grew over the rest of the Middle Ages.[17]
Together with the
Possible Late antique model
Although the 1975 edition edited by Dodwell and Clemoes asserted that "the artist was not copying the pictures of a remote and long-forgotten age; like other creative artists he was thinking in terms of his own life and times”,
This is especially the case for details in the
-
Lot and his wife
-
Folio 60 verso
-
Two scenes of Tamar
See also
Notes
- ^ as used by Mellinkoff for example
- ^ Fox and Sharma 6.
- ^ Breay & Story, 244-245; Mellinkoff, 23-26
- ^ Mellinkoff, 25
- ^ Breay & Story, 245
- ^ Mellinkoff, 16 quoting others
- ^ BL
- ^ BL
- ^ Mellinkoff, 16
- ^ Dodwell (1993), 118-120
- ^ Breay & Story, 244-245
- ^ Breay & Story, 245
- ^ BL
- ^ Porck illustrates 5 stages of completion; Mellinkoff, 16
- ^ Mellinkoff, 16
- ^ BL
- ^ Mellinkoff, 13-15
- ^ Broderick, Chapter 1; Mellinkoff, 16, 22
- ^ Quoted by Porck
- ^ Broderick, chapter 2
- ^ Broderick, chapter 2
- ^ Broderick, chapter 3
References
- BL: British Library, Cotton MS Claudius B IV
- Breay, Clare and Story, Joanna (eds), Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War, 2018, British Library (exhibition catalogue), ISBN 9780712352079
- Broderick, Herbert, Moses the Egyptian in the Illustrated Old English Hexateuch (London, British Library Cotton MS Claudius B.iv), 2017, University of Notre Dame Press, ISBN 0268102058 / 9780268102050, google books
- ISBN 0-300-06493-4
- Fox, Michael; Sharma, Manish (2012). "Introduction". In Michael, Fox (ed.). Old English Literature and the Old Testament. Manish Sharma. Toronto: U of Toronto P. pp. 3–24. ISBN 978-0-8020-9854-2.
- Mellinkoff, Ruth (1970). The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought. California Studies in the History of Art. Vol. 14. University of California Press. ISBN 0520017056.
- Porck, Thijs, "The Illustrated Old English Hexateuch: An early medieval picture book", 2016, blog by academic
Further reading
Editions
- Dodwell, C. R. & Clemoes, Peter (eds.). The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch. Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile; 18. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1974. Facsimile edition of British Library, Cotton MS Claudius B.iv.
- Crawford, Samuel J. (ed.). The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, Ælfric's Treatise on the Old and New Testament and His Preface to Genesis. Early English Text Society; 160. London: Oxford University Press, 1969. Critical edition of the text.
- Marsden, Richard (ed.). The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric's "Libellus de veteri testamento et novo". Early English Text Society; 330. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2008.
Secondary literature
- Barnhouse, Rebecca, and Benjamin C. Withers (eds.). The Old English Hexateuch: aspects and approaches. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 2000.
- Mellinkoff, Ruth. "Serpent Imagery in the Illustrated Old English Hexateuch." Brown, P. R., et al. (eds.) Modes of Interpretation in Old English Literature: essays in honour of Stanley B. Greenfield / edited by Phyllis Rugg Brown. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986.
- Withers, Benjamin C. The Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, ISBN 978-0-7123-0940-0.
- Withers, Benjamin C. "A 'secret and feverish genesis': the Prefaces of the Old English Hexateuch." The Art Bulletin; 81:1 (1999): 53-71.