‘Mediæval Women in Their Own Words’ book

This five-star rated 2024–2025 blockbuster exhibition by the British Library is an incredible collection of many manuscripts and artefacts of the period demonstrating aspects of women’s lives. However, the accompanying book is mighty impressive too, including as it does additional images from the exhibition! The book follows the exhibition’s focus on four aspects: Private Lives, Public Lives, Working Lives, and Spiritual Lives. Each section in the book starts with essays giving more details of each of these, and then shorter accounts of individual women or a focus of one the items – and what items they are in the exhibition and in the book – some not seen before and likely not to be seen again.

There is much in the book that is truly amazing, but it is one small figure that particularly caught my eye. The Luttrell Psalter is by any definition an astounding book, made for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell of Irnham (and includes image of two women on the same page as him – his wife and daughter-in-law). The precise prescissus (cut off) strong script marching across the page is well balanced by jewel colours of weird and wonderful combinations of human and animal figures surrounding the text. At the bottom of some of the pages, though, in contrast to the ‘in yer face’ of the other images, are delicate paintings mainly of the work of ordinary people. In this image, women are harvesting corn with sickles, grasping a bunch of stalks, cutting it ready to be picked up by the man behind who is binding it into sheaves. But one of them has taken a break, and it was this that stood out. Look at how she’s standing stretching her back – you can almost feel the ache of many hours in the same tiring position – so well depicted!

One of the outright stars of the exhibition, and with a glorious double spread image in the book is a manuscript that hasn’t been on display before. It is a discoloured and stained piece of hand-made paper that shows the signature of Joan of Arc. It was held in the vaults in Riom and the content of the letter is Joan asking for military items and gunpowder for her army to fight against the English.

The book doesn’t just include amazing and eye-catching images of manuscripts – the artefacts included are pretty stunning too. Wouldn’t you feel a queen if you tried this crown on? Consisting of incredible gold work, single and quatrefoil pearls, and what look like sapphires and rubies. This was the crown of Anne of Bohemia, Queen of England and wife of Richard II.

Also in the Luttrell psalter is another image. A rather grumpy women having her hair done by her servant. What’s wrong to you think? Is she just generally grumpy? Has her servant just pulled out a tangle? You can see the comb she’s been using; it looks exactly the same as the two-sided ivory comb here which could possibly have been a love token as it shows scenes of romance.

One of the most unusual ‘artefacts’, beautifully photographed in the book, is the skull of a lion, but not just any lion. The Tower of London was famous for its menagerie and it housed over the years many exotic animals. This skull is that of a Barbary lion and was found in the moat at the Tower. It’s been dated to 1420–1480; that would cover the time that Margaret of Anjou who, when she travelled from France to England to marry Henry VI actually brought with her a lion. Could this be the skull of the very one?

But in a book about an exhibition in the British Library, manuscripts are obviously featured well. And there is nothing better than this absolute tour-de-force of an illuminated letter B. Look at the gold shining on that – another instance of the fantastic photographs in this book. It was created by Sister ‘Modesta’ in Germany in the 15th century. Feast your eyes on that – what a treat!

So is the book worth getting if you’re not able to visit the exhibition? Absolutely, without a doubt! First, the information is all inclusive, it is an amazing and informative read with contributions by many eminent scholars, but written in a very user-friendly way. Then the images are just outstanding – whole pages of colour wonderfully photographed by Jonathan Vines from the British Library. This is a book to buy soon, read it thoroughly and enjoy studying the photographs. You won’t regret it!

Trajan’s Column II

Trajan’s Column in Rome, completed in 113 AD, commemorates the victory of the Emperor Trajan over the Dacians. It is stunning when viewed in real life as it towers over the ruins of Trajan’s Forum and Market, being 98 feet (30 metres) high. The main part of the column consists of a frieze in bas relief which shows in great detail the preparations, movement of troops and battles that took place before the final victory, with Trajan, not surprisingly, being the tallest of all the figures in the column. There are 20 drums in all around which the figures wind, each drum weighing about 32 tons. It truly is a magnificent example of Roman engineering.

It is the base of the column, though, which is most interesting to calligraphers and letterers because it shows exquisitely carved Roman Capitals, regarded by many as the purest examples. It has been only recently (post written May 2024) that it has been possible to get anywhere near this part of the column to view the lettering.

An exhibition in spring 2024 at the Coliseum detailed how the column was constructed. Huge blocks of Carrara marble were moved from the quarries in Lunigiana sliding on wooden poles and being pulled by a team of oxen.

The stone drums were shaped into circles and the inner staircase cut as well. What is amazing is the accuracy of each block which had to fit on the next. The masons also had to allow for the fact that to make the columns look straight, there needed to be a swelling just below half way. This is explained in a blogpost on this website here. The huge round blocks were then loaded on to ships using a system of pulleys and a lot of labour as shown here.

Once at the forum, they needed to be put into position. The stone blocks were far too heavy to use a simple system of pulleys, and so a tower was built as here.

Either side of the column were two libraries, one for Greek texts and one for Roman, with bookshelves to store the scrolls. It was possible from balconies on these buildings to view the carvings spiralling round the column close up.

At the base of the column during construction was a huge wooden treadwheel. A similar one is shown carved into the family tomb of the Haterii. During the reign of Domitian (81–96 AD) Haterius was working on the construction of buildings and would have used a treadmill as the one carved on his tomb. The treadwheel had 5 men inside and ropes held by more men outside acted as brakes. There were two parallel wide poles creating the crane’s mast between which was the wheel’s axle; this all made up a strong block and tackle system.

This is shown more clearly here. The sheer mass of the wood being used for construction is amazing, and also the strength of the men using this machinery.

The spiral stone staircase carved inside the blocks led to the top of the column where there was a viewing platform. It must have been quite a sight, climbing the stairs and reaching the top for a view over Trajan’s Forum and the main Forum itself!

But, of course, it is the carvings on the outside of the column that are the true stars! Twisting round the column, with no allowance given from one stone drum to the next, a narrow carved line stands proud and separates the scenes one from another.

Here preparations are being made for the battles, with Neptune looking on benignly, no doubt giving his blessing to the campaign. The detail on the clothing, the wooden ships, the horses, a wooden bridge and building walls is really wonderful.

And even the base has the same care and attention to detail, with enviable precision of carving. Note the carefully carved garland of individuals leaves, and the metal ‘scales’ on the cuirass in the middle.

It truly is one of the wonders of the ancient world, and still astounds today.

Victorian Radicals – the Pre-Raphaelites

The rather garish colours and attention to detail marked the work of those seven initial members of the Pre-Raphaelite Botherhood from that of their fellows. They followed the teachings of John Ruskin who encouraged getting back to nature and depicting that in finite detail. The figures in this portrait of ‘The Long Engagement’ by Arthur Hughes show the cleric looking skywards for divine inspiration perhaps, while his fiancée looks longingly at him in hope. The dark and light on their faces is a contrast emphasising this. His lowly stipend may well have delayed their marriage considerably. Despite the poignancy of the figures, the tree trunk in the foreground is perhaps more dominant than may be expected.

John Ruskin’s encouragement of getting back to Nature led to an almost photographic representation of foliage and flowers. The particular and carefully placed tiny brushstrokes on each leaf and the lichen is certainly not in anyway impressionistic! The time spent on depicting the vegetation in such detail must have been considerable.

But it is not only aspects of nature that were treated with such precision. The folds of fabric and the sheen of this satin or silk dress means that it looks as if it could be touched and the luxury of the fabric felt. Note, too, here the carefully depicted ferns and the hairs of the dog – what a shiny coat it has!

It wasn’t just men who were painting so carefully. Emma Sandys focused on portraits of women and children, and here is ‘A Young Woman Holding a Rose’. Note the detail in painting each petal of the rose, and the strands of glorious auburn hair entangled with her fingers.

Perhaps William Morris is the most well-known member of the Arts and Crafts movement. This is his design for wallpaper. It is an admirably balanced design, with the dark leaves and stems forming their own pattern within the design, and matched by the even spread of the bunches of jasmine flowers.

This enlargement shows the outline sketches of leaves and flowers before they are coloured.

The ‘Victorian Radicals’ exhibition is on in Birmingham at the Gas Hall of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery until 30th October 2024 and is certainly worth visiting.

‘Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens’

The story of Elizabeth I, daughter of Ann Boleyn and Henry VIII, and Mary, Queens of Scots, is well-known from films and TV series, but this exhibition at the British Library (October 2021–February 2022) approaches these two monarchs from the point of view of documentary evidence – and much more. Bearing in mind how fragile much of these papers must be it is quite amazing how many have survived in good condition and are exhibited here. But don’t be put off by ‘boring’ letters and charters, there is much else here to excite the eye, but this post will focus on the written word.

But starting with images, here are two glorious miniatures of the two Queens painted by the incomparable Nicholas Hilliard. On the left, Elizabeth I in 1580–5, and on the right Mary, Queen of Scots in 1576. These are both really small and show well the amazing skill of the great artist. Both are in the Royal Collection Trust.

Elizabeth’s handwriting when she was young was neat, precise and very clear. There is certainly an Italic feel to this with the letter a, but there is also a touch of Humanistic Minuscule with the arches on the letters n and h. This is a translation into Latin, French and Italian of English prayers and meditations put together by Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth wife. It was presented by Elizabeth to her father, the king, in December 1545.

By 1563, though, the precise and careful script of Elizabeth has deteriorated to what is described in the excellent catalogue as being written in her ‘atrocious cursive or ‘business’ hand, which had replaced the elegant italic hand of her youth’. Here she is reserving the right to choose whether she would ever marry, but had not decided not to marry!

The ‘scrawl’ of Elizabeth contrasts with the still precise handwriting of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1571. This is written by her to Elizabeth after the Ridolfi Plot had been discovered and Mary is writing in despair at her continued imprisonment, saying that if she can’t get support from Elizabeth then she must turn to other sources. Her neat and unadorned signature is at the bottom right of this letter – ‘Marie R’.

The famous signature of Elizabeth I and the ways in which she embellished with flourishes the descenders is well demonstrated here, in contrast with that of Mary. It seems to be pretty consistent throughout her life and was used here on a document which supported the Earl of Mar being regent to James VI in 1571. The script used for the body of the text – Gothic Cursive – contrasts with Elizabeth’s Italic signature. Note the four vertical slits on the left-hand side which indicate where the document would have been sealed after folding.

Mary was involved in plotting, if only to escape imprisonment, and codes were often used. Documents in code were also sent from the Tudor court. This document, though, is by Mary herself and written to Patrick, Master of Gray, as Scottish ambassador in 1584 to England. Mary wanted to return to Scotland or remain in England but to be free. This, of course, never happened and this letter was intercepted by one of Sir Francis Walsingham’s spies and deciphered by Thomas Phelippes.

This superb exhibition is certainly well worth seeing to give greater insight and background to these two queens, and the exhibition catalogue is, typical of the British Library, beautifully designed and a joy to read through, with thorough, well-researched text – and absolutely worth buying if you can’t make the exhibition.

The Lost Words – Forget-me-not

It is always very sad when we lose words, not just because we can’t remember what to say in a conversation, but when the very words themselves seem to have lost their value. It was noted that a children’s dictionary decided to leave out words which it judged to have ‘lack of use’. These very words conjure up images in our memories – of collecting blackberries from brambles, of threading a piece of string through a conker, of pigs pannaging for acorns in the New Forest, of a lark ascending, of holly and ivy in the Christmas carol, of a sea of bluebells swaying in the wind. All these words have been removed from this dictionary. To mark their loss, the Lettering Arts Trust exhibited a number of beautiful letter-cut artworks at their gallery in Snape Matings in 2019. They also produced a wonderfully designed, exquisitely illustrated catalogue to accompany this.

The ingenuity of the letter cutters, demonstrating also their craftsmanship, is shown in this piece by the great Tom Perkins. With his distinctive letter-forms, the letters R and U nestle under their respective preceding Cs, and the letter O is replaced by a gentle opening crocus but still retaining the letter-form.

Hazel is often used for weaving and basketry and here Emi Gordon has woven the strokes of the letters so that they interlace and overlap, with a gently twisted crossbar to the letter A and an elegant flourish at the end. The selection of the paint colour for the letters is particularly appropriate.

The delicacy of hazel is in sharp contrast to Gillian Forbes’ piece, with the network of pointed leaves sitting like hands cradling the gilded conkers. The style of lettering seems particularly apt and the way in which the leaves have been cut outlines their shape in the top left-hand corner.

Occasionally, the letters themselves aren’t really necessary to convey meaning and shape. Here the word pasture is suggested in a field of pasture. Let your eyes blur a little to work out the shapes – they are there! Phil Surey’s work certainly gives new meaning to ‘pastures new’!

And very graphically, here a little boy is fishing for minnows, sitting on a deck which is supported by the very word. Gentle reeds blowing in the wind add movement to the piece and point the way to the boy, his float bobbing colourfully on the water. A very evocative piece by Stuart Buckle.

Work out willow here in a piece that mirrors the gentle willow swaying in the breeze. Joe Hickey mourns the loss of the word where the wood is used for weaving and for cricket bats.

The exhibition is on at the Lettering Arts Trust at Snape Matings, Suffolk IP17 1SP from 15th March to 26th May 2019 and is well worth a visit. The catalogue is available from their website.

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

The Lindisfarne Gospels, the St Cuthbert Gospel, the Book of Durrow, the Alfred Jewel, the Vespasian Psalter, Beowulf, items from the Staffordshire Hoard, the Domesday Book, these and many other gems are all there in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition at the British Library, from October 2018 to February 2019. It is an astonishing array of manuscripts and artefacts, and some, like the great bible that Abbot Ceolfrid at Monkwearmouth (Sunderland) had loaded on to his boat by two men to take to present to the pope on 16th June 716, have not been on show in the UK for centuries (and in the case of the Ceolfrid Bible – not since 716!).

The accompanying catalogue (see above) is packed with details of each exhibit, every one of which is photographed beautifully, and there is also fascinating background information in a series of essays, which include Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent (Joanna Story), Language, Learning and Literature (Andy Orchard), Interactions with Ireland (Bernard Meehan), The Emergence of a Kingdom of England (Simon Keynes) and Conquests and Continuities (Julia Crick). Each of these essays is lavishly illustrated with many full-page illustrations of manuscripts, including that of the comet drawn at the bottom of the page of the Eadwine Psalter shown here, heralding, according to many at the time, impending significant events – as in the conquest of England.

An early manuscript in the exhibition is the earliest copy of the Rule of St Benedict. Made in England around 700 AD it shows a very ‘pure’ (in my opinion) form of Uncial script with larger initials written in red, outlined in black and with a black horizontal ornamental line, and surrounded by red dots made with a quill. This form of Uncial incorporates many pen nib angle changes and so would have been slow to write. For the letter N, for example, the pen nib angle is changed to 90° to the horizontal guideline for the first vertical stroke, the base triangular serif is then constructed with the left-hand corner of the nib, a change of pen nib angle to 0° for the narrow top serif and that thicker diagonal stroke, and then back to 90° for the second vertical stroke and again a constructed serif. Try it yourself and see how much longer this is than when you write a simple majuscule N!

And what real gems there are here! This magnificent page from the Harley Golden Gospels, so well named, is a riot of gold, pattern and colour. There is, as would be expected in a manuscript of this period (first quarter of the ninth century), interlace, but also a type of Greek key design, an intriguing pattern of semi-circles and white dots in triangles, but what caught my eye was the pattern half way down the right and left borders. This angular design, outlined in white, shows an understanding of perspective not always evident at this time. The two doe-eyed golden lions on a rich blue background, have their feet trapped in interlace – no wonder their tongues are sticking out in frustration!

Having copied out the David as Psalmist page from the Vespasian Psalter, the horns blown by the musicians to the sides of the main image are fascinating, not least because only one of the four looks happy in playing their music!

How amazing, though, that an example of those very instruments, the River Erne Horn, is on display as part of this exhibition. The wooden horn was made by splitting the yew wood into two, hollowing out the middle, and then sticking it back together again, reinforcing the join with bronze hoops. There is also a bronze mouthpiece, with the metal bent back to make a rim for the player’s mouth.

The Tiberius Psalter was made in Winchester in the second or third quarter of the 11th century, and has a series of prefatory drawings in the typical lively outline and coloured wash of that time. The incredible imagination of the artist is shown in this enlargement of St Michael (in this instance) and the dragon. The saint is poking his spear at a rather benign animal sitting on his haunches with a wonderfully curling tail, a slight snort coming from his nostrils, and a cheeky little animal representing his tongue, also about to attack the saint, and also with another tongue poking out of his mouth.

There are so many wonderful examples of manuscript illumination and scripts which are such a delight to the eye and a joy to the soul. But, of course, a favourite must be Eadui Basan, shown here in a Charter for King Cnut granting land at Ticehurst in Sussex to Ælfstan, archbishop of Canterbury. His identifiable writing includes an idiosyncratic construction of the letter d. For more information about this, please see The Art and History of Calligraphy

This exhibition is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see in one place a whole range of significant manuscripts and artefacts. It really is a ‘must-see’, but if that isn’t possible, then the exhibition catalogue, with its essays, fabulous images and detailed information about each exhibit comes a good second.

Patricia Lovett: Exhibition at Sevenoaks Library 2017

I was delighted and honoured to be invited by Sevenoaks Museum to put on a small exhibition of my work at Sevenoaks Library. It is small because there are but two shelves in a display case. However, I was thrilled when Lord Sackville kindly came to see a piece I had done on stretched calfskin vellum with leaf gold on gesso of the Sackville family coat of arms which is on display (Photo kindly taken by Roger Lee).

Because there is restricted room, many of the pieces are small, and these certainly are! Two dice, about an inch long on each side. Here’s more about them in a previous post.

This piece came about in a way because of a large new Roll of Honour I had been asked to do by Plaxtol village, more details here. I loved painting the cob nuts and hops at the base of this panel and did this again to decorate this poem by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.

Many subscribers to my free online monthly newsletter will know that I love using colour in a pen. This is what I did here, combining red and blue, to indicate the two people in this piece, one finding ‘in this shadowland of life one true heart’ and the other being that true heart. Those phrases that I found particularly poignant, I wrote in one colour and added shell gold background to the letters (powdered gold in gum Arabic base) for emphasis.

This butterfly and caterpillar piece is on stretched calfskin vellum, with the writing in shell gold. The caterpillar, feeling that its world is at an end, is sheltering under the shape of a hill, whereas the butterfly, which the caterpillar turns into when that world doesn’t end, is flying free from a valley-shape.

I know that some people may think this a little weird, but I had wanted to make a flagellum since I saw one on display in the British Library. Flagella were often used during Lent to ‘beat’ the devil out of a sinner’s body, the strips of the flagellum having biblical texts written on them. This seemed rather archaic, but I do hate the way business-speak contorts the English language.

So I wrote out all those phrases and words which I find so annoying – faux=fake, compact=small, I hear what you say=I’m not actually listening, economical with the truth=lying etc. and figured that these were beating the living daylights out of the language we love! With Chinese stick ink and vermilion ink on strips of vellum, with the phrases separated by gold leaf dots on gesso, it seems a fitting combination of new words and old techniques. here‘s more.

This is a simple copy of David as Psalmist from the Westminster Psalter.

And this one I wrote about recently in a blogpost – again combining colours in the pen as I write, ‘controlled random’ writing. It is a verse from Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Gift, and worth reading in full. More about it here.

Gilding and painting a miniature of a female martyr

I had been asked to speak at the Houghton Library, and teach and give a demonstration at Harvard as part of the wonderful ‘Beyond Words’ exhibition there. Taking a lot of tools and materials on a plane is not sensible, and so I decided to almost finish a tiny miniature shown in the exhibition, which is a cutting from an Italian mid-fifteenth century Anitphonal (Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 983), and then add some more gold and paint more as a demonstration. The original female martyr, holding her martyr’s palm, had a bit of a double chin and a rather unfortunate expression, so I decided to do a bit of cosmetic surgery on her, and make a few adjustments (if only it was that easy in real life!).

I selected a piece of vellum which had hair follicle markings on it and traced down the outline in red (minium) which is traditional. I then laid gesso ready to receive the real gold leaf.

I planned from the start not to gild it all so that I could show how it was done when I went to Harvard.

Then it was on to painting the base colours. At this point, as always, any painting skills that you think you might have seem to go out the window (!).

However, once the shades and tones, fine lines and details are added, suddenly the whole thing seems to come to life. The face, hair, hands and delicate white tracery on the blue background are very finely painted indeed, the dress and left-hand side of the initial ‘D’ less so. It is quite possible that the ‘master’ did the former, and an apprentice did the slightly less-well executed ‘colouring in’. It was a very interesting exercise and I do hope that Harvard find it a useful addition to their teaching repertoire.

Gold on Parchment, exhibition at Cornelissen in London

It was a great privilege to work with L Cornelissen & Son at 105 Great Russell Street in London (just along from the British Museum) to mount the very first exhibition they have had at the shop. They are on a very busy thoroughfare and most people visiting the British Museum go past their front door. The exhibition was in the window and so it could be seen even when the shop was closed. The shop itself is wonderful as can be seen on the right – and it really is almost impossible not to go inside! Kathy Pearlson from Cornelissen, who set up the exhibition, did a terrific job of making sure that every piece could be seen and that the exhibition looked wonderful.

The exhibition was arranged on behalf of the Heritage Crafts Association for London Craft Week 2016, echoing the theme of ‘paper’ for their first anniversary. Some of the best calligraphers and illuminators in the country were asked to submit one or two pieces of their work on vellum for the exhibition, and the response was terrific! For those who didn’t mange to see it, here are some of the pieces exhibited. The photographs were kindly taken by Yanko Tihov. On the right: Sam Somerville.

Tim Noad, on the right

Mary Noble (this piece is tiny!)

Ronnie Cruwys – also see her website ‘Drawing the Street‘, and again a small piece

Ann Hechle

Patricia Lovett, another small piece

Peter Thornton, small again

Peter Halliday (I am featuring this piece in my British Library book, The Art and History of Calligraphy, to be published in 2017).

Ewan Clayton

John Woodcock (another tiny piece)

Gemma Black

Jan Pickett

Jan Mehigan

Cathy Stables

Lin Kerr

His Hands Magic – Michael Renton

Michael Renton was a jack-of-many-trades and a real master of all of them! He started as wood engraver, having left Harrow Art School to ‘do’ rather than study. His apprenticeship lasted five years, but rather than the pedestrian engraving of his training, he wanted to do things more imaginatively. His Sun and Moon design for a book jacket on the right are a good example of this. Throughout his life shied away from ‘Art’ (with a capital ‘A’); Michael wanted to make things for a living, not as a way of life.
Michael realised that he needed to improve his drawing and while at City and Guilds to do this he found the lettering classes by William Sharpington. Sharpington ran a signwriting workshop and, after delayed National Service, Michael set up on his own as an engraver and lettering craftsman, with signwriting in association with Sharpington.

But Michael longed for the country, and in 1963 settled first in Winchelsea, near Rye in Sussex, and then to a small outbuilding on a farm near Icklesham. He stayed here for 20 years and there are example of his work in the surroundings, such as that for the Martello Bookshop in Rye.

Michael also cut letters in stone receiving commissions from many eminent institutions and individuals, and he even carved his own gravestone, see right. The slightly curved edges of the MR rectangle are reflected in the curved lines of the lettering – making this so very individual and personal, yet classic at the same time.

When Michael moved to Winchester in 1994, it meant that it was easier for him to work on the lettering for the Cathedral. The clear signage in red and black letters painted on limed oak panels are distinctive. His painted Royal Arms above St Swithun’s gate and his cut lettering for the sign for the Visitors’ Centre are just two examples of his versatility.

The exhibition – His Hands Magic – at the Lettering Arts Centre at Snape Maltings from 3rd April to 28th June 2015 is a chance to see Michael’s work in detail. There are examples of his painting, letter cutting, wood engraving and drawings. There is also an excellent and detailed book about Michael, with essays by Harriet Frazer, John Nash, Simon Langsdale and others, and concludes with Michael’s writing about his experiences learning wood engraving. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs of Michael and his wonderful work. It’s available from the Lettering Arts Centre and through the website here.

Patricia Lovett MBE

Calligraphy | Illumination | Design