The British Library’s current exhibition, Royal Manuscripts The Genius of Illumination, is a triumph.
The show draws its material primarily from the Royal Library that was given to the nation in 1757 and includes more than 150 of the most exquisite and ancient illuminated manuscripts to be found in Europe.
Visitors enter past a short display that describes how such manuscripts were made – by monks and scribes writing and illustrating upon parchment made sheepskin and vellum, from calfskin.
Their paints were created from the likes of lapis lazuli (blue) and minium (red) – hence, the display explains, the word miniature.
Gold was often referred to as shell gold, because it was sometimes held in a mussel shell during the painting process. The end result was burnished with a stone or animal tooth to ensure make it shine.
And, even today, the gold capitals and details do just that.
The first segment of the exhibition is dedicated to the manuscripts acquired by King Edward 1V (1442 – 1483), which form a key part of the British Library’s current collection.
Many of these are large-scale works, but more impressive than their size is how remarkably well their colours and craftsmanship have endured.
Gold capitals and borders gleam under the rather muted lighting of the gallery. Red strawberries and blue grapes in the margins look as though they could have been painted yesterday, while birds such as goldfinches and great tits are clearly recognisable.
Among all these extraordinary works is one that may have a very poignant human element. Entitled The Path to True Valour and Knighthood, it tells the tale of a knight’s journey to meet the Goddess of Valour, it may well have been commissioned for King Edward’s sons, the so-called princes in the tower, believed to have been murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III.
The exhibition is divided into six sections, each with a different background colour.
In the red-hued segment entitled the Christian Monarch are the oldest items in the exhibition: a ninth-century royal bible and a gospel book that was probably produced at the monastery of Lindisfarne in the early eighth century.
It seems extraordinary that such an item has survived in such pristine condition, with its neatly formed writing and sinuous stork-like capital letter in blue, green and orange.
More astonishing still, however, is the handwritten note in the margin that records how King Athelstan freed his slave Eadhelm in the year 925.
Such personalisation is a recurring factor throughout the exhibition.
Highlights include the Goda gospels, dating to the 11th century that belonged to Goda, sister of Edward the Confessor; Henry VIII’s psalm book, complete with the king’s handwritten annotation ‘Note who is blessed’ in small, neat writing and a psalter belonging to Elizabeth of York, which also records the death of her brother, the Duke of York, and son at the battle of Wakefield during the Wars of the Roses.
Other sections of the display deal with topics such as ‘How to be a King’, ‘The European Monarch’ and ‘The World’s Knowledge’.
Among the latter are a History of Ireland compiled by Gerald of Wales around 1200 and once owned by Henry VIII. A propagandist work looking to justify an English invasion it depicts the Irish as a wild and hairy bunch.
A range of touch screen displays around the exhibition help to bring it to life and allow visitors to flick through a digital version of, for example, The Bedford Hours, given by the Duke of Bedford to his nine-year-old nephew, Henry VI, on Christmas eve 1429.
www.bl.uk/royal
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