how do you "illuminate"?

Macclesfield Psalter, a lavishly illuminated manuscript from Great Britain, written in Latin, circa 1330

the text is written first on sheets of parchment or vellum, i.e., animal hides specially prepared for writing, cut down to the appropriate size. 

after the general layout of the page is planned (e.g., initial capital, borders), the page is lightly ruled with a pointed stick, and you (the scribe) go to work with an ink-pot and either sharpened quill feather or reed pen.

here usage depends on local customs and tastes. 

the Rustica Roman (from the early middle ages) gradually gave way to scripts such as Uncial and half-Uncial, especially in the British Isles, where distinctive scripts such as insular majuscule and insular minuscule developed.

(above you see stocky, richly textured black letter first seen around the 13th century and particularly popular in the later Middle Ages)

illumination takes pre-production to outline the work. you don't want your lettering all crowded into a format dominated by huge ornamented capitals that descended from uncial forms or by illustrations, so you plan for blank spaces for the decoration. see that the scribe and the illuminator are separate labors.

here is an approximate order of tasks:

1- silver-point drawing of the design is executed
2- burnished gold dots are applied
3- application of modulating colors
4- addition to the outlining of marginal figures
5- the penning of a rinceaux (or foliage) appearing on the border of a page
6- finally, the marginal figures are painted.

some examples of rinceaux:

Buffalo, NY (early 20th century)

Albi Cathedral (1280 CE)

Apse, San Clemente al Laterano (500 CE)

Mosaic, Pella, Greece (400 BC)

FOOD DESIGN in the middle ages

life in the Country: during the Middle Ages, most people lived in the country and worked as farmers. Usually, a local lord lived in a large house called a manor. local peasants worked the land for the lord. 

yes, they worked hard all year long, growing crops such as barley, wheat, and oats. it was a busy life. 

 

people had animals such as pigs, chickens for eggs and cows for milk. note: usually family animals, such as a cow, may also live inside the home (since the cow would provide a source of heat during the winter). (this is a controversial topic nowadays).    

 

the mark definitely extends to food. yes, food is design! CHEESE!

life in the city: city life was very different from country life, but it wasn't much more accessible. cities were crowded and dirty. lots of people worked as craftsmen and were members of a guild. young boys would serve as apprentices for seven years learning a craft. other jobs in the city included servants, merchants, bakers, doctors, and lawyers.

                                                a witness testimony: Brueghel the elder,

one last mark is excrement: this is a distinct mark of middle ages in Europe.

In any medieval city with a population of 10,000, people typically produced 900,000 liters of excrement and nearly three million liters of urine annually. This was before such cities had underground sewage systems. They were ankle-deep in a putrid mix of wet mud, rotten fish, garbage, entrails, and animal dung. People dumped their own buckets of faeces and urine into the street or simply sloshed them out the window. Dung (or excrement) was not the only filth that piled up in medieval cities. The waste products of various trades were equally pervasive. Tanneries and textile production were messy businesses. Worst were the slaughterhouses. 

Intestines and heads had to be thrown somewhere. The intestines were cleaned of dung. Blood and water with fur or hair had to be rinsed away. Complaints about butchers are found in older written sources from England. Pollution in the middle ages? Indeed. 

In 1371 the city council in York forbade butchers from discarding waste products in the river near a monastery. So, the butchers started throwing intestinal and bloody waste near their walls and gates and at another spot in the River Ouse. The friars complained again that the people of the city and country who used to attend their church «are withdrawing themselves because of the stench and the horrible sights.» The monks also feared that «sickness and manifold other harm» would result from this pollution.

life in the home: most people lived in tiny one or two-room homes. these homes were very crowded and usually, everyone slept in the same room. the home was usually dark, smoky from the fire, and uncomfortable. 

a medieval shepherd

clothing: 

the wealthy wore clothes made from fine wool, velvet, and even silk. men generally wore a tunic, woolen stockings, breeches, and a cloak.

 

 most peasants wore plain clothing made from heavy wool to keep them warm during the winter.

women wore a long skirt called a kirtle, an apron, woolen stockings, and a cloak. 

 

diet: diet consisted of mainly bread and stew. the stew would have beans, dried peas, cabbage, and other vegetables sometimes flavored with a bit of meat or bones. meat, cheese, and eggs were usually saved for special occasions.

since they didn't have a way to keep their meat cold, they would eat it fresh. leftover meat was smoked or salted to preserve it. the nobles ate a wider variety of food including meats and sweet puddings. 

schooling: very few people attended school in the Middle Ages. most peasants learned their job and how to survive from their parents. some children learned a craft through apprenticeship and the guild system. 

wealthy children often learned through tutors. they would go to live in the castle of another lord where they would work for the lord, learning about how a large manor was run. there were some schools run by the church. here students would learn to read and write latin (the lingua franca in Europe). 

                                                        The Abbey of Senanque, France

universities began during the Middle Ages. they started as cathedral schools. university students would study a wide range of subjects including reading, writing, logic, math, music, astronomy, and public speaking.

have you been to a scriptorium?

the scriptorium, this is the place to write

scribes often spent their entire life in an ill-lit scriptorium. the manuscript-writing was a laborious process that could damage one's health. this is a complained in the tenth century:

Only try to do it yourself and you will learn how arduous is the writer's task. It dims your eyes, makes your back ache, and knits your chest and belly together. It is a terrible ordeal for the whole body. 

the director of a monastic scriptorium was the armarius, who provided the scribes with their materials and supervised the copying process. the armarius also played the censor (not all books are permitted).

to break the monotony, scribes had the habit of drinking after a long and tedious session. they often drank piment. 

here's the recipe: 

it serves 12 to 16. 

2 litres or 3.5 pints or 8.75 cups of red wine

6oz of white sugar

1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon

0.75 tablespoon of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of ground cloves

1 teaspoon of marjoram (fresh is best)

1 teaspoon of ground cardamom

1 teaspoon of ground black pepper

a pinch of ground galingale (if available)

the original recipe calls for long pepper, grains of paradise and spikenard all of which are virtually unobtainable today but this recipe will produce a cheering and warming drink with a good spicy medieval flavor. 

warm the wine until just beginning to steam. add the sugar and allow to dissolve. mix all the spices and herbs together and stir HALF of this mixture into the wine. while you will probably need most if not all of this mixture, tastes vary and you should now taste the wine and add more of the mixture until the taste is to your liking. simmer the wine mixture gently for 10 minutes and then strain it through a jelly bag (this may take several hours). bottle the wine when it is cold and cork securely. drink within a week.

So we see that the entertainment value of graphic art (even in the Middle Ages) gained an audience

Casper von Regensburg, My heart Doth Small, 1485

how do you handle a "Book of Hours"?

Book of Hours, Paris, 1410

   
books of hours were devotional books of prayer used by individuals at home rather than in church. 

kind of our tik tok for gen Z.

These are very different times from today. The division of labor of the regular folk is 5am-7pm, with work and a little distraction in between. These books served as personal religious guides, with calendars of feast days, popular psalms, and, at their heart, a set of daily prayers to the Virgin tied to the hours of the day. 

The image of the Annunciation accompanies the psalms and prayers for terce, which were said at 9am. 

Some of these books were carried as such:

They often contained a very large number of illustrations -both because they were pleasing to look at, and also because their messages could be understood by children and those whose ability to read was limited. the images also provided an opportunity for spiritual reflection and prayer for salvation. 

above, the 1496 famous illustrations for the Dance of Death, showing that all classes of society were subject to the inevitable command to walk with death. other illustrations concern themselves with secular subjects, representing with realism the occupations and sports of everyday life. 

A general pragmatic literacy developed in the eleventh century. how? convents!

page from the codex ambrosianus

by the 11th century, the corpus of religious works comprised gospels, bibles, psalms, liturgical instruments and writing of the church fathers. 

the corpus of classical works comprised texts from history and philosophy, medicine, drama, poetry, drama and rhetoric.

people read much more, way more. how come? 

convents are houses of learning!

still for the most part this is confined to the learned class (they can afford to go to convents to study).  

Romanesque architecture (as a kind of typeface)

Above late romanesque, the Pisa cathedral (behind, the Pisa tower),

What do we see?

1. The exterior and interior elements focus on order, unity, readability, and monumentality.
2. The style reaches churches, monasteries, townhouses, farmhouses, and castles!
3. The material is masonry. Why? Fire prevention. wooden ceilings,

 santa maria cosmedin, rome, 9th century

4. Round arches are a significant hit & people loved them! 

 basilica st. procopius, Trebic

5. Archivolts which are arch moldings,

Now that you know the parts, look at this beauty:

 church of st. pierre moisac, 11th century

Sculptors competed to get a hand on these projects! The execution is amazing (and of course anonymous). 

6. parts to remember, from top to bottom of a Romanesque church: the tower, a few clustered columns, a parapet, then images of religious figures, some round arches, a tympanum with sculpture, and finally, a central entrance next to flanking side entrances.

Characteristics: 1. massive solidity and strength (as above). 

 2. Early Romanesque employed rubble walls, 

 

i.e., irregular stone facade, smaller windows and unvaulted roofs. late romanesque exhibits a refinement with increased use dressed stone and more elaborate vaults. 

3. romanesque uses barrel and groin vault. barrel vault goes back to eguypt and persia, but again, greece & rome). groin vaults are roman and disappeared until rescued again in caroligian architecture. why? they looked elegant & ponderous. 

                                                                (barrel) temple of jupiter, croacia,

 

                                                                   santa maria cremini, venice

4. capitals are late corinthian. 

why corinthian? the Corinthian capital is essentially round at the bottom (where it sits on a circular column) and square at the top, where it supports the wall or arch. it was achieved by cutting a rectangular block and taking the four lower corners off at an angle so that the block was square at the top, but octagonal at the bottom. this shape lent itself to a wide variety of superficial foliate treatments!

                                                                (groin) grande sauvy abbey, france

 

                                                            capitel from the Pisa tower, 

5. arches are nearly always semicircular, for openings such as doors and windows,

6. plan: most churches have the romanesque plan and were changed afterwards. 

Now, to typeface.

Is this half-uncial circa 9th century AD (the majuscule becomes -as it was- compressed by gravity) not sort of Romanesque?  

 

Doesn't this floor plan reminds you of a "T" plus the catedra?

The cathedral of Santiago de Compostela plan has an expansive appearance. 

Santiago was the most significant pilgrimage site in Europe. The narthex (antechamber to the entrance), the aisles (passage bet.rows), the large aisled transepts and numerous projecting chapels reflect this. The chancel (near the altar) is short and the altar set so as to provide clear view to a vast congregation simultaneously.

designing life in the middle ages (not as bad as we thought)

peter bruegel, 1540 

clothing

the aristocracy and wealthy merchants wore elaborate garments, which changed according to the dictates of fashion. towards the end of the middle ages, men of the wealthy classes sported hose and a jacket, often with pleating or skirting, or a tunic with a surcoat. 

women wore flowing gowns and elaborate headwear, ranging from headdresses shaped like hearts or butterflies to tall steeple caps and italian turbans. 

peasant men wore stockings or tunics, while women wore long gowns with sleeveless tunics and wimples to cover their hair. sheepskin cloaks, woolen hats, and mittens were worn in winter for protection from the cold and rain. leather boots were covered with wooden patens to keep the feet dry. 

the materials they used, by today's standards, are simply the best. 100% cotton, linen, wool, silk (if you could afford it).  

outer clothes were rarely laundered, but the linen underwear was regularly washed. 

anthropological detail: the smell of wood smoke permeated living quarters, including people's clothing. 

the smell acted as house deodorant! 

peasant women spun wool into the threads that were woven into the cloth for these garments. fur was often used to line the garments of the wealthy. 

anne of cleves, henry the eighth's wife

jewelry was lavish, much of it imported and often used as security against loans. if you've been to museums and wondered why gems exhibited look opaque? the reason is that gem cutting was not invented until the fifteenth century. 

the manor

houses

the homes of the rich were elaborate. floors were paved, as opposed to (in the case of peasants) being strewn with rushes and herbs and sometimes decorated with tiles. tapestries were hung on the walls, providing decoration and an extra layer of warmth!

fenestral windows, with lattice frames covered in a fabric soaked in resin and tallow, allowed in light, kept out drafts and could be removed in good weather. 

only the wealthy could afford panes of glass; sometimes, only churches and royal residences had glass windows.

vitrail, troyes cathedral, 14th century

stained glass (known in French as "vitrail") windows were the primary pictorial art form, particularly in northern France, Germany and England, where windows tended to be larger than in southern Europe.

the kitchen

the medieval kitchen consisted of a stone hearth in the center of the room. this was not only where the cooking took place, but also the source of central heating! 

a medieval kitchen like the one above can only be afforded today by the very rich 

in peasant families, the wife did the cooking and baking. peasant diet consisted of breads, vegetables from their own gardens, dairy products from their own sheep, goats, and cows, and pork from their own livestock. 

life in general

peasants worked the land and produced the goods needed in the manor. the exchange was not without hardship for the serfs. they were taxed and were required to relinquish much of what they harvested. the lords, in close association with the church, assumed the roles of judges in carrying out the laws of the manor. again, it was in the best interest of the lord to keep his serfs happy. some didn't and paid the price. don't forget that the wheel doesn't stop at the lord. they also contribute tithing to the king. 

women were largely in charge of household tasks such as cooking, baking bread (their bread was whole grain), sewing, weaving, and spinning (all manually, better fitted). however, they also hunted for food and fought in battles, learning to use weapons to defend their homes and castles.

not true that women didn't have a place in society outside the house. there were women blacksmiths, merchants, and apothecaries. 

how about a typeface project (with an in-class vernissage) for next week?

look at the borders of this 10th-century Canterbury manuscript 

dear class. the task is to design an illumined paragraph (a group of sentences in a block) in the style of illumined manuscripts. 

like this: 

with rubrication of an uncial (or capital) like this: 

please, observe the following guidelines: 

1. an 8 1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper. lined or blank. if lined preferably soft lines. 

 

2. think of a script that embodies your own aesthetics, that is, the way you'd execute "print" if you had all the time in the world.  

3. design your capitals (uncials) and minuscules (lower case). this is the time to choose either serif or sans-serif. don't mix them!

3. once you design your types, follow them! remember the whole thing needs to be as homogeneous as possible! practice obtaining a FLAWLESS execution. 

4. use a pen. ink is the closest to incunabula. felt tip? gel? ballpoint? fountain? up to you. 

imagine the sort of trace you want: thick? thin? (not too thin; not a legible option). smooth? a bit scratchy? keep in mind the thickness of your mark!  

 

5. as you practice each letter (by repeating it) think of each of its parts: leg, belly, spur, stem, spine, belly, loop, ascender, and descender. every detail of this design must be deliberate.

6. decoration: this is the most beautiful part. REMEMBER you leave the rubrication for last. leave space for your decoration.  

7. inserts: if your uncial has a bowl: "b" or "p" or "q" or "o" you may insert a motif inside it. 

 type parts: 

8. your printed text should exhibit cohesion and counterpoint. for your design think of a template: 

 

9. you may want to use ligatures, fine, but be consistent, for instance:

DO NOT IMPROVISE.

10. now comes an essential routine of  typography: kerning/leading

* think of kerning/tracking, or the spacing in between letters. 

choose the best space between your letters. this is sort of safe space between humans (for example the safe space when we're inside an elevator).

* now, think of leading, or the suitable space between lines. 

typography has its own rules. the result is readability. you want each character to stand independently and at the same time be a part of a community. 

11. think of your choice of leading (i.e., the space between lines). when you show your piece, I will ask you about your choices.

(take a look at this helpful video to understand the difference between kerning, leading & tracking)

12. remember to leave space for your uncial or capital (this is the last element of your design).  

practice your rinceau (the leafy or flowery, geometric, abstract, historical, or anything else in between). the rinceau is extremely important as this was the scribe's contribution to the manuscript.  

go ahead you scribes!