Tag Archives: Bury Bible

The Evangelists’ Symbols

A number of saints are depicted with their symbol – St Jerome may be shown with a lion, as he removed a thorn from the lion’s paw and so it accompanied him as he worked, St Catherine is often depicted with her wheel, and St Lawrence with his gridiron, and so on. The four Evangelists are also often shown with their symbols: that for Matthew is a winged lion, for Mark a winged lion, for Luke a winged calf or ox, and for John a winged eagle. But why? How did these four symbols come to be associated with these four New Testament greats?

In the Bury Bible (above) the animals representing the Gospellers are shown in the four corners in an image of Christ sitting on a rainbow within a mandorla (a mandorla is the shape of two spheres overlapping; Jesus occupied that space between the sphere of heaven and the sphere of earth). The symbols around Christ are shown in this order – the man for St Matthew is top left (but on the right hand of Christ), the lion for St Mark below that, across the bottom is St Luke’s ox or calf, and finally the symbol for St John, the eagle, top right. All are winged and hold scrolls – the scrolls represent the writing of the Gospels.

These symbols didn’t come about by accident as they were noted by the prophet Ezekiel, 1, vv 4–14:

Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings, as for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, the face of a lion on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.

In the Book of Revelation, 4, 5–8, St John also has a vision of four animals surrounding the throne of heaven.

… and round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast was like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

Towards the end of the second century St Irenaeus of Lyon, associated each animal to the Evangelists. The man represented St Matthew, the lion St Mark, the ox or calf St Luke and the eagle St John.

The reason for this allocation is that the Gospel of Matthew starts with the genealogy of Jesus, and thus Christ as a human, his incarnation. Mark’s symbol of a lion indicates courage and monarchy, and this book starts with John the Baptist ‘preaching like a lion and Christ as king roaring in the desert’. The calf for Luke indicates sacrifice, service and strength. And finally the eagle of St John is the ‘king’ of birds and the one that flies closet to the sun and highest in the heavens and so brings the word of God directly.

St. John,[Whole folio] St. John, with his symbol, an eagle carrying a book
Image taken from Lindisfarne Gospels.
Originally published/produced in N.E. England [Lindisfarne]; 710-721.

These four images are from the Lindisfarne Gospels and show each Evangelist with their symbols and their names preceded by ‘Agios’ which is the Greek for ‘Saint’ in an angular runic-style script .

The Bury Bible

The Bury Bible is a stunner! It is thought that it was made about 1135 at the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in the east of England. We even know who did the illuminations and who commissioned the bible (quite unusual for a book of this age). The Gesta Sacrum includes this (in Latin obviously!): ‘This Hervey, brother of Prior Talbot, met all the expenses for his brother the Prior to have a great Bible written, and he had it incomparably illuminated by Master Hugo. Because he could not find calf skins that suited him in our region, he procured parchment in Scotia.’ Although it may seem an obvious translation that the skin came from Scotland, the skins could also have come from Ireland.

© Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Master Hugo’s talent was certainly as incomparable as his illuminations. Detailed figures with expressive faces react with one another and look out from wide and heavily detailed framed borders. There is not a lot of gold and the adhesive isn’t very raised, but the vibrant colours make up for any lack of it. The figures in many of the larger illustrations are set against a dark green rectangle as here; in many manuscript books this would have been gold leaf, but the detailed drapery (wet-linen-look) and active, realistic figures would have competed against shiny raised gold. (Note the interestingly cut hole in this image so that the text from the previous page shows through. I can’t see any reason why this hole was cut out; it is unlikely that there would have been anything which was later controversial in this picture that then had to be removed, nor is there anything that I could detect on the previous page of text that should be cut out either. Another mystery about the book!).

Another mystery is that most of the illuminations are on double pieces of skin. A smaller piece of vellum has been pasted on where the images are to the main page. It’s intriguing why this should have been done. I think there are two possibilities. First, there is a lot of paint over the illuminations and it is possible that the water in large areas of paint can relax the structure of the vellum and cause it to cockle and buckle, by having a reinforcing layer underneath this may prevent this. In addition, this density of colour can cause serious show-through to the other side of the skin. By adding an additional layer of skin this will help to prevent this show through. However, it doesn’t look as if the images were produced on separate pieces of skin and these were then pasted in afterwards. As can be seen here, the piece of skin is longer at the bottom, so some of the second line of green lettering is written over the join (look at the letter ‘S’), and the foot, neck and part of the head and ear of the lion on the top right also are painted over the join.

This image gives an indication of the detail of the painting. Even in small areas three or four different tones and shades are used to create a three-dimensional effect, a fine white line gives a highlight and a lift, and the areas and shapes are outlined in black. In this small section, there are two bearded men’s heads also squeezed in, and although tiny, they have been painted so carefully that they still look terrified!

There are very detailed decorated initial letters too such as this one with two blue and orange winged animals munching on a blue swirl, two bearded men, that same green background, and a narrow double ribbon of gold outlining the letter. The intense blue is ultramarine pigment made from lapis lazuli from north-west Afghanistan. Interestingly, it is thought that this actual pigment came via the Holy Land as a result of raids by the Crusaders, although tests have shown that much of the blue in manuscripts at this time was foliate.

The incredibly detailed painting can be seen easily here with just about every hair in the prophet’s white beard and eyebrows painted separately, and the care with which this face and the modelling on the pink (madder) robe have been minutely picked out is also shown. It is thought that the bible took two years to produce; my very rough estimate is that it would have taken this long to do the illuminations alone.

There are other enlarged letters too, in red, blue, green and a tan colour. Calligraphically, these are called Versals – letters where the width of the letter is made by repeated strokes. Note here where letters have been placed inside others to save on space. Perhaps the second word on the second line is a little too contracted!

That tan colour is most intriguing. The blue is, as indicated above, lapis lazuli which produces ultramarine pigment. The vibrant red is cinnabar (vermilion), and the green, verdigris (‘Greek green’ produced from copper and quite corrosive).But what of that tan? It is certainly very wishy washy and doesn’t stand up at all against the other jewel colours. And it’s not an adhesive for gold as it’s not sticky. As yet, work has not been done on identifying the pigments used in the bible, but it would be interesting to know what this colour is. Master Hugo and whoever wrote these wonderful letters were experts in colour and balance, surely it was a much stronger colour originally to hold its own against the rest, and has just deteriorated over the years – but what is it?

© The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

There has been some debate as to whether these letters have been painted or made with a pen. This shows clearly that it is a pen that has made repeated strokes to build up the width as some of the verdigris paint has been worn away revealing the process.

Here the central part of the letter has almost worn away completely.

And what inventiveness, as here various patterns have been etched into the strokes of the letters to add interest – or this may have been done by someone not particularly competent later.

It is thought that the text was written by one person. It is particularly strong and vibrant – and needed to be with such wonderful illuminations; it had to hold its own.

As is typical with manuscripts of this age, there are many abbreviations. The one here indicates that the letters ‘us’ have been omitted (eius), and is usually written as a curving comma just above the letter ‘i’. Here, the scribe has used the left-hand corner of the pen to draw what looks like a bell-shaped flower. In the absence of a more technical term, we decided to call it a ‘bluebell’ abbreviation!

The usual swiftly written abbreviations are taken to another level of careful construction in the Bury Bible. A horizontal bar above letters, again indicating an omission, is written with a thick stroke downwards and slightly to the right (some are almost hooked), and then the second thick stroke is made after a pen lift and with the pen repositioned before making the stroke.

It is clearer here where the repositioning of the last, third, stroke is made after a pen lift as a tiny part of the thin horizontal stroke peeps out beyond the second abbreviation.

And the abbreviation looking like a little ‘2’ shown here on the second line is written by making first a stroke to the left. The pen is then lifted and the curved stroke moving right is made then downwards to the left, and finally a thin stroke to the right. The abbreviation is finished by lifting the pen to make a serif downwards and to the right. This is a tiny curved abbreviation, not even an actual letter, and yet it involves three separate strokes. In this image the surface of the skin can be seen easily, with a wonderful speckling of dark hair follicles.

It’s not known whether the incomparable Master Hugo completed the lettering as well as the illuminations. He certainly was a talented man and could well have done so as it is of such a high standard and the care taken on writing matches that of the illustrations. There’s more information about of the book itself here, and images of each page on the Parker Library website here.

Was Moses Born with Horns?

This very famous Michelangelo statue from the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, shows Moses with the most exuberant and lush beard, which he seems almost to caress with his left hand, which is at the same time holding the stone tablets of law. However he also has two horns sprouting from his head.

Images of Moses with horns were used in manuscripts, too. This delightful miniature in a British Library manuscript of a rather youthful God, possibly a golden angel peeping over his right shoulder and clearly in a blue sky, is explaining the proper forms of sacrifice to a rather young horned Moses (unbearded, unlike the wonderfully soft curly bearded locks of Michelangelo’s Moses), a young Aaron – shown as a Bishop with his crozier and mitre – and an attendant.

A favourite manuscript, the twelfth-century (about 1355) Bury Bible, now in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, has magnificent miniatures (although some are almost 30 cm, one foot square, so not so mini, though more on this in a later blog) painted by ‘the incomparable Master Hugo’. This is one is two-storey and shows Moses, in the upper part he is instructing the Israelites using the recently received laws, and below that, Moses is pointing out the birds and animals Jews can and cannot eat by law. The Jews are recognised by their Jewish hats – brims with a conical middle part. Moses has bright white, very obvious horns. Note, too, the stunning borders, intricate colourful patterns on a black background which are very characteristic of Master Hugo. Another design device he uses is to paint a plain dark green rectangle behind the main figures, which focuses the viewer on the central action. Master Hugo’s palette and painting style is quite simply stunning (more on this later too).

So why should Moses be shown with horns in this way? Was he born with horns? Other images of Moses, before he went up on Mount Sinai show Moses un-horned, so it was when he went to get the tablets of law from God that the horns appeared.

There are some theories about this. First, when Jerome was translating the Old and New Testaments into Latin Vulgate in the fourth century, it is thought that he may have mistranslated the Hebrew word qaran – meaning to shine – to qeren – meaning horn. As Hebrew was usually written without vowels, this confusion is understandable. Horns can also be quite shiny, so context is quite important. This theory seems perfectly reasonable and is one that many find very plausible.

However, when Jerome translated this text into Latin his words were: splendor eius ut lux erit cornua in manibus eius ibi abscondita est fortitudo eius (Exodus 34), which can be translated as: His brightness shall be as the light: horns are in his hands; There is his strength hid.

Now the horns seem to be not on Moses’ head but in his hands!

Others have thought that again there is no confusion by Jerome. The sun’s rays can be considered as horns in shape, and horns can be polished until they shine and reflect the light.

Some feel that horns are a symbol of ancient mystery. Greek and Roman gods, such as Pan (seen right with Daphnis), Triton, Dionysos, and Bacchus were horned, and so the special god-like attributes of those with horns – those who were divine and honoured – may have been applied by artists to Moses once he had received the tablets of law from God.

On a recent trip to Rome, I was delighted to see in the Piazza di Spagna, close to the Spanish Steps, at the base of the Colonna dell’Immacolata, a statue of Moses where the sculptor had decided to cover every eventuality. Here is Moses holding the tablets of law and with horns on his head, but the horns are shown as beams of light as well!

Patricia Lovett MBE

Calligraphy | Illumination | Design

Tag Archives: Bury Bible

The Evangelists’ Symbols

The Bury Bible

Was Moses Born with Horns?