At the end of today's class Dr. Mann began to show us and describe the "Books of Hours". Just last Friday Sara and I's Special Topics class that covers the British Isles took a field trip to Wash U's library to examine authentic medieval texts with our own eyes. While there were a lot of different texts set up for us to examine, the Book of Hours that was present took my breath away. I couldn't believe the detail that was on each page. At every flip of the page my eyes met another beautiful illustration that depicted various biblical stories. On the opposite side of each illustration were the most elaborate hand written passages I had ever seen. The pages were so beautifully detailed I almost couldn't believe that everything written and drawn on the pages was done by hand. In the book that was present in Wash U's library there is real gold highlighting different letters in the passages and all the Saints depicted in the illustrations have authentic gold halos surrounding their heads. I sat there and contemplated how long it must have taken to create one of these texts from start to finish as I examined each page.
Originally, these texts were created by monks and nuns so that lay people (people who aren't authorities of the church) could read them and pray in their own homes. When these books initially began getting produced in the 1200's they went exclusively to wealthy upper class member's society. It wasn't until 300 years later in the 1500's that they began getting produced by printing shops, in which case they began getting into the hands of the middle class as well. However, the monks and nuns created the most elaborate books. The books that they created are arguably the best of examples of medieval book art available to us today, after all, the Book of Hours that I was given the privilege to examine at Wash U was the most beautifully decorated book I've ever seen in my life and it was created over 500 years ago.
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| I took this photo myself |
That is awesome! It would be awesome for more English classes to take trips to large libraries to look at actual artifacts from the period we're studying! The picture is absolutely beautiful I can't imagine seeing it in person! Can you imagine if books were still made like this how much they would cost, and how few there would be?! I'm glad that the printing press was invented, but I'm also glad that these were created and that they are still available for viewing! This is really awesome thanks for sharing Bobby!!
ReplyDeleteI 100% agree with Danielle! Bobby what you and Sara were able to experience is an amazing opportunity! I'd bet with how much gold is in them they'd be worth a fortune! The stories may be over exaggerated from that time era, but the stories are amazing to read and I'm sure the fact that you got to hold one made it even more of a real experience for you!
ReplyDeleteDanielle, I think that is a great idea. It comes at no cost to the University as we all just drove ourselves, unless we pay Wash U for the time and resources or there is an underlying cost elsewhere. There is currently an English club being formed on our campus, this would be a fun thing that we could organize for ourselves!Also the printing press was a an amazing and revolutionary development, but by machinating the process the craftsmanship that went into book making before its invention became a lost art form. Can you imagine hand writing every letter in a 300 page book, let alone a 5 pager that looks anywhere near that beautiful?
ReplyDeletePaige, according to a man speaking in a Youtube video titled, "How to Buy a Book of Hours" he says that they can go from 60-70 thousand dollars for one in decent condition and that, "you can spend millions of dollars for a truly exceptional example" at about the minute 30 mark of the video. If this is true, considering the quality of the book at Wash U's library, I wouldn't be surprised if I was holding a book that was worth over a million dollars. The story's that are told in these books are a bit exaggerated indeed, but aren't a lot of the stories that we've come up with in the 20th and 21st century also a bit exaggerated? There was no story that was more popular in this time period than Christ's story.