2 A. 22--Description of style--The
Tenison Psalter--Features of this period--The Arundel Psalter--Hunting
and shooting scenes, and games--Characteristic pictures, grotesques, and
caricatures--Queen Mary's Psalter--Rapid changes under Richard
II.--Royal MS. 1 E. 9--Their cause.
In a former chapter we left our native schools of illumination at work
on such MSS. as the Devonshire and Rouen Benedictionals, and with the
reputation of being the best schools of the kind in Christendom. Mention
also is made elsewhere in dealing with monastic art of the usages of the
_scriptoria_. Such usages, of course, could only obtain in houses where
scribes themselves were to be had. Hence we should discover, were it not
otherwise known, that writing and illumination, even in the monastic
age, were not confined absolutely to the cloister.
With respect to the secular scribes, who sometimes worked in the
monastery, sometimes at their own homes, in those days when the monastic
orders still did most of the book-production, there were three classes
of specialists. These were the _Librarii_ or ordinary copyists; the
_Notarii_ or law-scribes, whose business lay in copying deeds, charters,
and such-like instruments, and taking notes in the courts; and
_Paginators_ or _Illuminatores_.
Pages:
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182