Exhibition in focus: Royal Manuscripts, British Library
It is easy for us to be dazzled by illuminated manuscripts – all that gloriously vivid colour and brightly glittering gold. In part that was what their makers and owners wanted us to feel. We should wonder at the supreme artistry of some of the finest paintings to survive from the Middle Ages, painstakingly created over months, sometimes years, by the leading artists of their day. We should also be impressed by those well-preserved vestiges that showcase the magnificence of the great and the good of the medieval world. Yet, it is worth trying to look more carefully and to understand them more deeply. For they have so much to tell us about times very different from our own. Indeed they do so in a unique way, not as mere records of historical fact, but as active players in history. Reading their texts and viewing their illustrations informed how medieval people lived – what they knew and who they aspired to be.
The present exhibition, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination, is the culmination of a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and undertaken by the British Library in collaboration with the Courtauld Institute of Art. Over the past three years we have focused on one unique collection of manuscripts held by the British Library. Comprising around 2,000 handwritten books and owned by the British nation since its presentation in 1757 by George II, this collection contains many of the finest illuminated volumes associated with the Royal family from Anglo-Saxon to Tudor times. Taken together, these volumes offer by far the largest body of evidence for the interplay between the monarchy and art in the Middle Ages. The exhibition aims to make them as well known as landmark medieval buildings linked to the monarchy, such as the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle.
The first section of our exhibition focuses on Edward IV (who reigned from 1461-70 and 1471-83). A key figure in the War of the Roses, Edward was also important as the earliest king to have preserved a large part of his library. At the heart of the collection of Royal manuscripts in the British Library are around 50 illuminated manuscripts made for Edward in the Flemish town of Bruges. Huge in size and lavishly illustrated, Edward’s books remain the best witnesses of both the splendours and cultural sophistication of Yorkist England.
British Monarchy Records - News
God the Creator in a French History Bible, Bible historiale, Clairefontaine and Paris, 1411. Image: British Library Board In the next section, the Christian Monarch, the chronological reach of the exhibition is greatly expanded.
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