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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Another Assessment

I in general agree with Andrew. HoweverI went through all of the articles in Category: Illuminated Manuscripts and its various sub categories (except the stubs) and have come up with my own assesment. I did not closely look at the Mesoamerican codices, as I know nothing about them. I think that it is a fine idea to segregate them from the rest of the mss in the category. (Although I will note that some of the post-Columbian mss show clear influence of European book arts.)

Here is how I would break up the articles. I am not sure if we should have the “Judeo-Christian”, but if we do, it should be renamed. As I have mentioned elsewhere, almost all of the post classical manuscripts in this category should be classified as “Christian”. However I can live with a split between “religious” and “secular” manuscripts. If my suggestion for a “Classical illuminated manuscript” were to be accepted, some of the categories below will be smaller. I hold no opinion on how many articles should exist before the category is created. The illustrated manuscript category is not valid and should be done away with. Note than a few manuscripts are in more than one category.

The following categories contain articles on individual illuminated manuscripts.

DONE, also Charioteer Papyrus & mythologies below - 19 in total
DONE
DONE, also Voynich manuscript, not verifiable maybe, but ....
DONE, with 6 in main cat, incl Church history, and article + 5 MS in sub-cat for Swiss chronicles
DONE, with literary

The following categories contain articles on things other than individual manuscripts, but which probably should be part of the category.

These categories contain articles which I believe should not be part of the category at all. This stems from my conviction that we should keep a firm separation between texts, authors and manuscripts. Every text from before Gutenberg was transmitted via manuscript. Articles on the texts and authors do not belong in this category.

Dsmdgold 04:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

ITEMS DONE MARKED OFF ABOVE, with some comments Johnbod 01:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
In general I would agree, though some points:
  • I think there is a case for keeping complete (or once complete, maybe) Bibles seperate; it isn't logical to have seperate cats for Psalms & Gospel books, and then put the Joshua roll in with the complete texts. We could have a miscellaneous cat; i'd rather do it horizontally than vertically. I kbnow we have the Ashburnham pentateuch in with the completes now.
  • Are you suggesting we actually set up all these as sub-categories? I think that would be a bit extreme. I would certainly agree with setting them up down to say Theological MS on your list - ie down to ones with 5 articles now. Plus the motifs(iconography would be a better name)/types/styles. I think the lists should stay on the main page individually ideally. I appreciate there is a benefit in explaining what things are by category name when many MS names give no indication. Perhaps (reversing my usual preference for flat schemes) the smaller categories could be lumped together in a misc. sub-cat.
  • I would rather keep the main division by type of MS, rather than period, area etc. So eg the 3 Dioscurides stay together. But of course we can set up further sub-cats for classical and Byzantine MS - this would be a good idea.
  • Whilst I agree in principle about texts and authors, the articles at the end (all short) have more info on the manuscripts than anything else. John Skylitzes could & should be converted into a stub on the historian & one on the Madrid MS. I have just added Matthew Paris to the category - a comparable case, though I imagine he gets in as an artist alone.

That's all i can think of at the moment. Johnbod 05:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

To answer your points

  • It probaably wouldn't be a bad idea to separate the complete Bibles. However, how many books of the Bible should a ms have be in the category? What about mss that contain only Old Testament? As it stands, in addition to Ashburnham, we the two Genesis mss (Cotton and Vienna). We also have two mss that are so fragmentary, that it is impossible to know how much of the Bible they originally had (Quedlinburg Itala, and Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele III, 1 B 18). Keep them in or remove them; either way is fine with me. However, since we have the category "Hebrew manuscripts", I question the wisdom of having both Jewish and Christian versions. (I also don't like the use of the word "Hebrew" as stand in for "Jewish".) Also the Codex Argentus probably should go to the Gospel Book category.
  • I am not suggesting that all these categories be made. Although I actually don't have a problem with a category with only one member, I also realize that this is a minority view, and don't insist on it. Any number greater than 1 is good cut point for me. I am not tied to the word "motifs" it's what came off the type of my head. I agree that the lists should remain under the main category.
  • I prefer multiple category trees. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this. If we have one category tree based on manuscript type then the "Judeo-Christian" and "Hebrew" categories should go away. (I think having two trees, one based on style, and the other on type would be a good compromise. One that has already started, see Category:Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts)
  • I agree that the Skylitzes article needs to be split. If the Pseudo-Apuleius article is ever expanded, I perdict it will not be by putting more MS info in. I guess we agree that Flos Duellatorum. Matthew Paris is as important as an artist as he is as an author and should stay. (Artists is a potential category that could be greatly expanded.) Dsmdgold 19:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we are pretty much in agreement; I see your points on Bibles - perhaps a note on the category page to explain what(ever) is finally included will help. I've rather been regretting going with Hebrew after realizing it left the Alba Bible (Hebrew trans into Catalan) rather stranded.
I've no objection to multiple cross-categories, but I think it is best if one tree is the main one, which is maintained & kept complete as a priority - this in itself requires a reasonable amount of work. This would be the one we are discussing, by type of work. Its status as the main one is indicated by having the sub-categories direct from the main category. Other trees start from the main category as eg "Illuminated manuscripts by place of origin" etc, rather than having "French illuminated Manuscripts" coming straight off the main category. Does this make sense? Johnbod 19:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with one tree being the main one, and the "by type" makes as much sense as any other. I am willing to wait until there are enough mss to flesh out a tree before implementing it. If manuscript type is going to be the main category, then the Hebrew and Judeo-Christian categories make no sense to me. Put all of the Biblical manuscripts, be they Hebrew, Latin or whatever together. Move the Sarajevo Haggadah to a category for litugical mss. And kill the two categories. (I suppose that rather using the word Bible, which is Christian POV, we could use the Scripture, and include Illuminated Korans there, if we ever get any article on them.) Dsmdgold 22:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I in general agree with Dsmdgold's assessment, and have no big issues with it, and wouldn't mind seeing all the categories down to "Legal treatise" made within the coming weeks. Here are a few ideas. Since there is already a category for Fetchbucher, just add that category here (and CfD the illustrated category?) If we were to put the mythological in with the literary, I would personally want to see the myth a subcat of the lit. I also think we should have a category to hold all the Christian religious subcats, and have the misc texts at the parent level of that cat (presumably just rename "Judeo-Christian illuminated manuscripts" to just "Christian..."). I also strongly support renaming the "Illuminated Bibles" to "Illuminated biblical manuscripts." I wouldn't mind keeping the complete bibles in their own subcat, as along as it was part of the "Illuminated biblical manuscripts" category, and not in the parent directory. I think keeping the Qur'an manuscripts separate from the Christian manuscripts is better than combining them (do we even have any Muslim MSS yet?) My only other concern is "Illuminated Gospel Books". How many articles do we have on non-illuminated Gospel Books? How many non-illuminated Gospel Books exist? I caved (reluctantly) with creating the "Illuminated Psalter" category because we had 2 articles on printed psalters, but I feel that the vast majority of Gospel Books are illuminated, so I wouldn't feel bad if a very small handful weren't illuminated. Categories don't have to be perfect. Instead of a strict tree, I view it more like Venn diagrams where if enough of the circle fits the cat, its ok to put it there. (does that make sense?) Anyway, thank you very much for putting all that energy into viewing and assessing our current articles. This is really shaping up!-Andrew c 00:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I tend to think that categories should be trees, I don't like the Venn Diagram aproach. I've been around here long enough to realize that my way is not the only aprach used here. Having full Bibles as a sub-cat of biblical manuscripts works well for me. I suppose that Gospel Books and Psalters should be subcats as well. (Eventually we will need subcats for Apocalpse mss, Pentateuchs, and Octoteuchs as well). We have, so far as I know one article on non-illluminated Gospel Book (Stonyhurst Gospel). There is a whole class of non-illuminated Gospels known as Pocket Gospels, most of which are have no decoration. If I remeber correctly there about fifteen of them. Those are just the insular ones. I assume others exist. There are also printed Gospel Book editions. I am fine with keeping Christian, Jewish and Muslim scripture in different catagories.
The problem I have with the separating the "Christian" manuscripts from the "secular" manuscripts, is that it so damn hard to tell where to draw the line. A few examples, BL Cotton A. X. contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. which would seem to be a secular poem, but the same ms contains Pearl, a very religious poem. Where do you put a ms of Piers Plowman. How about a ms of The Miller's Tale. In my mind they are all literary manuscripts, its just some of them are religious. We may soon have a category for legal treatises. What about Canon Law. Christianity permeated everything in the Middle Ages and you can't easily draw the line between the "Christian" and not "Christian". (If you have a category for Christian mss, you imply that anything in isn't Christian). This is a bit of a ramble, but I hope you see my point. Dsmdgold 00:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your concerns, but how much of a problem is this likely to be in practice? Not many of the manuscripts just mentioned are illuminated I think - Canon or secular law etc, and how many are likely to have articles written about them? The big formats for illumination were Gospel Books, Psalters, Bibles, & Books of Hours (the last two seriously under-represented at present) and I think those all need main sub-category rank, not to be tucked away down (or up) the tree. Maybe Apocalypses if we get more articles. A high % of the articles we have now are very short stubs, just sourced off the web, and the number of even B-class articles we have on individual manuscripts is unfortunately small. Of course people will always go and add stubs, especially with more stuff on the web, but what we really need is mostly better articles, not more articles. I don't know of any articles on Koran's - I must say I'm not sure when calligraphy becomes illumination, but I suspect many of the most notable (early ones) would not count as illuminated. We don't seem to have any articles on Persian (or Turkish) manuscripts either, rather surprisingly - obviously they will deserve a category when any get written. On the other hand we are nearly complete on all the early non-complete Biblical manuscripts there are, so I don't expect many more. I would be happy with them in the same category, with a note explaining not all are complete. If we must go to sub-categories, the incompletes should I think take the sub-category. But it all makes for more time for people looking for things, especially if you have the overarching Christian category above. You would then go:
Illuminated MS
Xtian MS
Biblical MS
Sub-cat of Biblical MS

- 4 layers; I think many people would just give up, especially as they may have started from a few categories away before they got to Illuminated MS. Johnbod 01:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I see your point. Another reason to do away with the Judeo-Christian/Christian mss. For the moment, we could do without the biblical sub categories as well. On your other points, the Gawain manuscript is illuminated, that's why I mentioned it. (There is only one manuscript with Gawain.) Many (most?) of the Chaucer manuscripts are illuminated. Same for Piers. Many Canon law manuscripts have at least illuminated initials. I have seen pictures of illuminated Korans from as early as the 11th century, but I believe they started much earlier. I agree that articles we have need to be improved. (BTW if you look at the origin of the articles, many of the stubs were started by me. I didn't source anything off the web.) We are also sadly lacking in even stubs for MANY important manuscripts. And as you note, we have huge areas not even touched on. We have a lot to do. Dsmdgold 04:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Don't worry Dsm, I can usually tell your stubs! But there are lots of others, especially on MS with a particular national significance, that come off the web - several have been cut and pasted from the European Libraries site for example, some of which I have tidied up. We have the 2 main Chaucer Ms already I think. I'll search around for Koranic Ms, maybe they are just hiding. It's surprising what you can find - I happened on the quite old List of Bestiaries quite by chance yesterday. The wonder of Wiki! My impression from the BL display, which now has considerably more Korans than Bibles on display, is that the earliest ones are just script, so calligraphic rather than illuminated. If no one has bothered to write articles, that is interesting. Andrew, what do you feel? Johnbod 12:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I saw Category:Medieval music manuscript sources and I saw Category:Music illuminated manuscripts. It seems to me that the to categories are closely related. And I know merging them wouldn't get approval because we might end up mixing illuminated with non-illuminated, but perhaps the illuminated category is a subcat of the manuscript category? Anyway, good work so far.-Andrew c 16:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I thought of that - at the moment it is a sub-cat of music books (a motley crew), so it is on that tree. It seems to me they were all/nearly all sources, but I'm not sure, I think the plainchant may be more standard. Most of the Illuminated MS are members of the source cat individually. I'd be happy with it as a sub-cat, but really I think it is for the music editors to do. I will put up alternative suggestions for the exact names of some of the categories still to be set up soon - I'll start a new section. Johnbod 16:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care (Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 504)

Should this count as illuminated? Johnbod 02:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

You know when wrote that stub, I debated that very question. De Hamel did not have an image, so I wasn't certain. However when I think about it now, penwork inials from that early probably would be significiant. (See for example the Cathach of St. Columba.) I would be less likely to catagorize a manuscript containing only penwork initial from, say, the 14th century as illuminated (although in a very strict sense it would be, of course.) I wrote that article because this is one of the oldest copies of the text. I think it might be the earliest but I'm don't know and neither my local library nor the closest university library (OSU) have a copy of Lowe's Codices latini antiquiores, which would answer the question. In short I think that, for now, it probably should categorized as illuminated. (Under Theological manuscripts, I guess). Dsmdgold 03:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok will do - that was my thought. I don't know in what context De Hamel mentions the MS, but probably not for the text alone. Johnbod 03:19, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I see that you have done. If I recall correctly, he mentions it as an example of what the mss carried by early missionaries would have carried with them. Dsmdgold 21:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I've found & added a pic; also moved the the title for the spelling. Certainly should count as illuminated, I think Johnbod 04:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Qur'an

So far: Uthman Qur'an, Topkapi manuscript,Qur'an in the House of Manuscript in Sana'a (talk of artistic embellishment) - the images of the first two on the ext links look like plain calligraphy, like the BM ones. Of course I don't know any of the names - I'll try to find the right talk page to ask on. Johnbod 03:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Painters

I have come across Category:Miniature painters, which contains several MS painters - Bening, Fouquet, the Hortus Deliciarum lady, & several Persians with ok articles. Plus a load of portrait miniature painters. Really the category needs dividing in some fashion, & the book people integrated here. Maybe just a split between Ill Ms/portrait minis/others? Then the Ill Ms cat can be a sub-category here, to which Matthew Paris et al are added. Any thoughts? Johnbod 16:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I've always considered MS iluminators and portrait miniaturists two separate categories united by an unfortunate etymology. Dsmdgold 20:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Quite - or the unfortunate convergence of two different etymologies! Johnbod 21:11, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Memo to self or anyone, the French version of Safavid art has a lot on miniatures, and is being translated - coulfd be separate MS article perhaps. Johnbod 17:55, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

As I was exchanging links to online medieval manuscripts with a colleague, it occurred to me that this might be a useful Wikipedia function: as facsimiles of medieval manuscripts make their way on to the web, it would be convenient for teachers, scholars, and others to have a readily-editable and updateable list of links. This may not be the best page for it. But perhaps someone has an idea of a place that would be more suitable?

For example, some of the following are medieval manuscripts on-line which people may be unaware of:

  • A Medieval Islamic Cosmography [1]
  • Pages from Al-Idrisi [2]
  • The Luttrell Psalter and the Lindisfarne Gospels: [3]
  • The Aberdeen Bestiary [4]

I'm sure there are many, many more out there -- these are just a few I use regularly. Alaraxis 00:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of doing a bit of wiki formatting to your suggestion, and have moved it to the bottom of the page. As to your proposal, although it may be useful to scholars and the like, I am afraid that this would in conflict with what we are doing here. (See here, for full explanation). However, all is not lost. Although it would be difficult to find, such a list could be maintained in user space. (See here for something similar on one my user sub-pages. Feel free to add anything I have missed, please) Links to type of facsimiles you mention can be added to the individual manuscript articles. (Of the ones you mention, Aberdeen Bestiary, Lindisfarne Gospels, and Luttrell Psalter have articles. I know that the Book of Deer also has an online facsimile as well. Dsmdgold 02:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I think all of those links should already be on the articles, where they exist. There is also List of illuminated manuscripts. Personally, if we don't have an article, I would not mind inline links there, although many would prefer them footnoted to links at the bottom of the page, & maybe some prefer not to have them at all. Btw www.libraries.theeuropeanlibrary.org has recently been blacklisted for "spamming" (I have seen some crude linking to it to a few East European MS, but from 2005). I have asked for it to be whitelisted here. Johnbod 03:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem. What I was really looking for, though, was not individual articles on individual manuscripts, but a place where scholars, teachers and students could find out which manuscripts are readily available in facsimile online. This could be a great resource for those without access to a good university library or slide collection. The "turn the pages" stuff at the Brtish Library is a nice way for students to get a sense of what a medieval book "feels" like, too. Alaraxis 01:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it would be a great thing, and if such a site existed I would be a big user, but in the end we can't be all things to all people. The goal here is to be an encyclopedia, not a web guide. Dsmdgold 03:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

True, but instead of thinking of wikipedia as "just" an encyclopedia, wouldn't it be more helpful to think of things that its unique method of compilation allows it to do more effectively than other media? There are books out there on various subjects on medieval manuscripts. There is no guide to web resources for those interested in medieval manuscripts, and particularly for those who would like to look at an entire medieval manuscript (as opposed to an image of any one particular folio, howsoever lovely). No one person can reliably keep tabs on what projects are out there to web-publish medieval manuscripts, but a larger community has a better chance of being up-to-date and/or comprehensive. And I think that those who visit a wikipedia page in search of medieval manuscripts could find such information useful. As I said from the beginning, I don't know that this page is necessarily the right place for such information, but to me, somewhere on wikipedia is the obvious place. Isn't more information better than less information? Alaraxis 15:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with dmsgold, but where there is no article, I think individual links could be added to MS on List of illuminated manuscripts. If you want to set up such a page, I would think the best/easiest place to set up would be at [the WWW Virtual Library] - not as popular as it was (home page still google page rank 9 though), but essentially you can set up your own page & (if adopted) run it through them, getting the branding etc. Their focus is links, but more general stuff can be added. There is considerable resistance to turning WP pages into web resource guides. Johnbod 15:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

A pity, because that's actually a niche that I think wikipedia could fill that something like Virtual Library can't really. I'll be honest -- I don't have the time or resources to maintain a "superlative" guide to any part of the web, which is what the Virtual Library asks for. I'm not an art historian -- just an overworked medieval historian who likes to have resources available and accessible for me and my students. Ah well. Alaraxis 20:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

They may ask for it, but they don't seem to get it! There are some decent sites - do you know the enguerrand (or whatever) one in French? Johnbod 21:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
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