N HUMPHREYS L. **

PORTION OF A M.S, BIBLE, WRITTEN FOR CHARLES THE BALD.

IN THE PBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE. PARIS

of St. Germain (Plate XIV. No. 2) may, however, be cited as a fine Latin example, as early as the fifth century.

Ovid refers to purple papyrus at a much earlier period; and a copy of Homer written in gold letters on a purple ground is mentioned by Capitolinus, in his Life of the Emperor Maximus (the Younger), which he received from his mother, when he returned to his preceptor.

The British Museum contains a magnificent copy of the Gospels, written at Aix-la-Chapelle in the eighth century, the style of ornament being that known as the Charlemagne style. This copy has been long known as the Codex Aureus, or Golden Gospels, the entire text being written in gold, but on white vellum; in which style there is another copy in the National Library of France. Our National Museum possesses also a singular, and, it is believed, unique example of a manuscript of the tenth century, written entirely in red ink, except the headings of the chapters, which are gold, the appended date of which is DCCCCXLIX (949 A.D.).

In decorative capital letters, the style of the "Durham Book" (Plate X.), and the Lombardic manner (No. 1, Plate XIV.) gradually disappeared towards the eighth century (though in remote districts this manner was continued till the 12th), and was replaced by one in which, as I have said, the debased Roman treatment of the acanthus-leaf superseded to a great extent, as a medium of ornamentation, the lizards and interlaced bands of the styles above alluded to. In the ninth century immense letters began to appear, decorated in the manner, infinitely varied, of the gigantic C (Plate XI.), from the Prayer-Book of Drogon, Archbishop of Metz, a grandson of Charlemagne, a magnificent specimen copied from the work of Count Bastard. Curious anthropomorphic letters, like the L, formed of a kneeling angel, also occur about the ninth and tenth centuries, executed in the calligraphic school of Aix-la-Chapelle (Plate XI.), About this epoch, the eighth and tenth century, great ingenuity was displayed by calligraphers, or illuminators working in conjunction with them, in reducing, not only the human figure, but birds and animals to the forms of letters; which, by the learned Benedictines in their great work, the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatie, have been divided into classes, and termed anthropomorphic, or formed of human figures; ornithomorphic, or formed of birds; ichthyomorphic, or formed of fishes; zoömorphic, or formed of quadrupeds; anthophyllomorphic, or formed of flowers and leaves; details into which it is not the purpose of the present work to enter. But the portly zoomorphic letter of Plate X., and the fish, quadruped, and bird-formed letters of Plate XIV*, will convey a sufficient idea of this class of calligraphic art; and Plate XV. a good example of the anthropomorphic class.

130

CHAPTER XII.

THE PROGRESS OF WRITING AND ITS DECORATIONS, IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND SCOTLAND, AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS.

OTH the Saxons and the Gaelic races of Ireland and Scotland used the Roman alphabet, with but small variation; but there appears some reason to conjecture that reminiscences of a national British alphabet, received through Gaul, and formed of Greek or Pelasgian letters, still lingered in the country in Roman times, or, that Gothic letters, founded on the Greek, mingled, though but slightly, with the Roman, in the formation of the alphabet finally adopted by the Saxons. Previous to the final settlement of the Saxon invaders, however, the only existing examples of writing in this country are Roman, and consist of such inscriptions as are found on altars, or on the imperial coinage, some portion of which may possibly have been executed, though in the Roman character, by British artists, although it is well known that the bulk of the coinage for the Western portions of the empire was manufactured at Rome.

In treating of the alphabet of the Anglo-Saxons, I have been led to these preliminary observations in consequence of the occurrence of letters on some of the earliest written monuments of that period, which are evidently of the Greek or Pelasgian origin, unaltered by Roman influence; such, for instance, as the Greek P, equivalent to the Roman F; and also the theta, or th; while the Y is not unlike the Greek Y.

In the highly decorative capital letters of the Saxon period, the Roman uncials or rounded characters evidently served as the model, rather than the square or true capitals; probably from their waving outline presenting greater facilities for the curiously interweaving decorations with which they are in some cases so profusely ornamented; as may be seen by reference to my specimen from the splendid MS. of Lindisfarne (Plate X.). The same remarks apply equally to the Lombardic or Italic decorative capitals, which are somewhat similarly decorated, though possessing peculiar and distinctive characteristics. But although the uncial or round form of capital was generally used for decorative purposes up to the eighth or ninth century, square capitals were also used occasionally for the same purpose. These decorative, or rather "illuminated" capitals, are frequently combined into groups, forming a grand ornamental device at the head of a book or chapter; such as the LIB, of " Liber generationis," beginning the Latin version of the Gospel of St. Matthew; or

SPECIMENS EXHIBITING THE PROGRESS OF ANGLO SAXON WRITING, PL 15.

N°2.

No3.

N°1. Specimen of the Earhest Style of Saxon, termed Roman Saxon",

Fdilecy. Abanedica

6th Century

N° 2. Specimen of the Style termed "Set Saxon","

yûl purruyêam, quam mungu plorá

about 800 AD.

No 3. Specimen of the Style termed Cursive Saxon

No4. placop bid phterð ungn

No 5

No6

date 891, A D.

No 4. Specimen of the Style termed "Elegant Saxon"

Hipag mmm atpoamo

N°5. Specimen from an Early Gælic M.S.

ཁ་ད་ ས་ཨག་ས་་་ད་ཚུormཥོཐད་ཏ1ude

N° 6. Specimen from an Hiberno-Galic M. S.

date 960, A.D.

10th or 11th Century.

N°7.1EÇO SEBBIREX CAST SAX PRO

N°7, From a Charter of Sebbi King of the East Saxons,

between 664 & 670.AD.

No8 Maneaty: ml hommup ppua pymitaTE

N8. From a Saxon Charter, dated 704, AD.

No9 dccclxxv. - Ezo alxped spatmadiphe hanc

No 9. Portion of a Charter of Alfred the Great

from 800 to 825.AD.

No10 nomina bic caraxatafunt — FapyUEARIUS

PRINTED BY P JERRARD. I FLEET ST

No 10. From a Charter of Edward the Confessor,

dated 1045 AD.