Leaf with decorated initial P, from the Epistles of St Paul (I Corinthians XVI, 3-24; II Corinthians, I, 1-5) with Gloss of Gilbert de la Porée; French (possibly Poitiers); ca 1140-50

Leaf with decorated initial P. Initial drawn in ink and coloured with sepia wash and green enclosing a dragon in green, the whole on a sepia ground. On verso, 7-line initial Q against a blue ground with red outline. Initial is white with banded decoration in orange, and foliate decoration inside in white and orange against a green ground. Tail of the Q terminates with green foliation. Also a 5-line simple initial P in blue for the gloss. On both recto and verso are two columns of text in Caroline miniscule script. One column contains the gloss; the other contains the text of the bible. 45 lines for text and gloss.

Part of cuttings purchased in batches from William Henry James Weale in 1883, 95 on 9 April 1883, 258 on 17 April 1883, 20 on 20 February, for the total sum of £96.7.2 (now Museum nos 8972-9042).

The illumination gathered by the South Kensington Museum in the nineteenth century represented a new kind of collection. Unlike the encyclopaedic historic collections of the British Museum or the Bodleian Library, it aimed to provide examples of medieval illumination and book ornament for students to copy. As with other kinds of artifact collected by the Museum, there was a tension between documenting stylistic traditions and acquiring works of artistic excellence.

From the beginning, the Museum tended to buy ready-made collections. A portfolio of cuttings from an Italian choirbook was bought from J.& W. Boone in 1866, a similar collection of more variegated material from Goldschmidt in 1872 and a very large number of leaves and cuttings from the scholar W.H. James Weale in 1883. At the same time, a number of complete medieval illuminated manuscripts began to join the Library's collections.

Data taken from notes compiled by Rowan Watson. The full text of the entry is as follows:

( The following text refers to 9037 A, B, D, E)

'Cat. 000 EPISTLES OF ST PAUL WITH THE GLOSS OF GILBERT DE LA PORÈE; France (South -west), c. 1150. (9037 A, B, D, E)

Iduvidual item text

Cat. no. 0.1
9037 A
EPISTLES OF ST PAUL (I Corinthians XVI, 3-24; II Corinthians, I, 1-5) with gloss by Gilbert de la Porée
Leaf, with decorated initial P (letter-shape drawn in ink and coloured with sepia wash and green enclosing a dragon in green, the whole on a sepia ground) for the text a decorated 7-line initial Q (letter-shape drawn in ink, floriate terminals with green and red, the whole on a blue ground bounded by a red line) and a 5-line simple initial P in blue for the gloss

Inc. (gloss on recto): Quiusdam Corunthiorum per precedentem epistolam (text on verso): Paulus Apostolus

France (South-West) c. 1150
(240 x 165) mm; written space 201 x 138 mm; 45 lines for text and gloss; 2 cols.

Bought from Weale, 1883 mm; £2.7s 0d for 9037 A,B, D, E (C missing)
Pub: 1923 cat, 71 ( "Italian"); De Hamel, 1984, p. 20'

Caroline or Carolingian Miniscule script (Littera Miniscula Caroline)

No other medieval reform of script, or rather canonization of an evolved script, was as far-reaching and systematic as that of Caroline miniscule. Its successful diffusion throughout much of early medieval Europe was closely linked to an increase in intellectual activity based on the dissemination of texts, partly due to the emperor Charlemagne's promotion of scholarship and education. Heightened royal, noble and ecclesiastical patronage of book production from the late-eighth century onwards, and the adoption of Caroline miniscule by the religious foundations and ecclesiastical institutions which were largely responsible for book production at this time, were also key factors in the success of this script.

Diffusion: most of Western Europe from eighth century until eleventh to thirteenth depending on the region.

Taken from Brown, Michelle P. A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600. London, 1900.

stylistic reasons

There was a great effort of academic scholarship in the cathedral schools of the twelfth century to provide a commentary on the Bible. From about 1130, the whole of the Bible had a gloss; Gilbert de la Porée (ca.1080-1154) further revised the gloss for the Psalms and the Epistles of St Paul. Copies of his gloss have the page layout found in leaves at the V&A, with the gloss written out continuously and the biblical text in a larger script put at the appropriate place alongside. This arrangement seems rather clumsy when compared to the alternate-line layout that characterized glossed books produced in Paris, but it was consistently followed for Gilbert's text throughout Europe.

Gilbert had a dramatic career. He was Chancellor of the Cathedral Chapter at Chartres from 1126, but was in Paris from ca 1140 before being elected Bishop of Poitiers in western France in 1142. Before the establishment of the university in Paris at the end of the twelfth century, study and teaching centred on outstanding scholars based in cathedral schools - Laon, Chartres and Paris among others - where books were produced to record their teaching. After ca1160 Paris came to predominate as a centre of teaching and book production, but before this date books were produced in cathedral towns: their design and decoration established the standard for the text in question. It has been argued that the books produced in the circle of Gilbert in Chartres were copied in all their aspects when this scholar migrated to Paris (this has been difficult to prove since the library at Chartres was totally destroyed in 1944), so that the first Paris copies were in fact imitations of Chartres books and their illumination.

When Gilbert went to Poitiers in 1142, however, his works were copied in books that were decorated in local styles. The V&A leaves are among these. The designs of the initials are of a kind found in manuscripts produced at this time in such centres as Limoges, Angoulême and Moissac. The neat interlace of the initial, and even the colour scheme with a bright green and rich red are in a totally different idiom from Paris works of this date. The style indicates a date in the mid-twelfth century or shortly after, which suggests that it represents textual tradition supervised by Gilbert himself.

9037A