Leaf from a Bible (Book of Esther), present-day Belgium (Liège), ca. 1300.
A duplicate number MS.723 was assigned to this object in error and was subsequently cancelled.

Book of Esther
Leaf, with 11-line initial L (interlace decoration, faces and grotesques); initial I descending 27 lines in margin; monkey on ass shooting arrow at monkey with shield and club on bull; 3-line initial H (in blue with red flourishing).
Running title: Incipit prologus I Librum Hester: Incipit Liber Hester
40 lines; 2 cols.

Part of a Bible in three volumes which probably belonged to the house of the Teutonic Knights in Maastricht (Nieuwe Biesen), according to an inscription on a leaf from vol. II (see London, British Library, Add. MS 32058, fol. 9). All leaves now in the V&A collection belong to volume II. The second volume was dismantled by the time the museum acquired a first batch of leaves in 1883 from W.H. James Weale (9036A to 9036Z, 9036Z/A, 9036F/1). Another batch was bought in 1906 (D.544 to D.599-1906). No part of volume I is known to survive (Genesis to II Chronicles) and volume III is now Oxford, Keble College, MS 69.

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). These included 27 leaves and 1 cutting from the Teutonic Knights Bible, vol. II.

Cuttings from the same manuscript in the V&A collection: Museum nos 9036A to 9036Z, 9036Z/A, 9036F/1, D.544 to D.599-1906.

Cuttings from the same manuscript in other collections: London, British Library, Add. MS 32058, ff. 9-22.

Vol. III (containing the Old Testament): Oxford, Keble College, MS 69.

Professionally-made books used decorative initials to signal the major divisions of a text. There was usually a hierarchy of intials within any book to designate sections, chapters, paragraphs and other breaks. The initials were added either by the scribe or, increasingly in the later Middle Ages, by a specialist, in spaces left blank by the scribe. The important initials might be historiated or decorated, while the lesser initials were made up of coloured letters on coloured or gold grounds, often with flourishing in ink of a contrasting colour.

Grotesque animals and figures are no strangers to medieval art; they are much in evidence in the Gothic cathedrals and still dominate European city centres, and were much beloved of Victorian restorers. There is occasionally a link between grotesques and text, but often there seems little more than incongrous romping.

'Illuminated Manuscripts and their makers'; Rowan Watson, 2003

This is a page from a Bible made for the monastery of the Teutonic Knights at Nieuwe Biesen in Maastricht, where the order owned property. The Teutonic Knights were among the more successful military orders. They were given papal approval in 1199 and oversaw the colonization by German settlers and the imposition of Christianity in what is now Poland and Lithuania. Like their counterparts, the Templars, who suffered the brutal suppression and nationalization of their assets by the French crown just after 1300, they operated a system of banking to get money 'to the front line'. This Bible was made in Liège. The ornament in the initials is inhabited by dragons, heads and grotesques that spill over into the margins.

9036E