Stockholm Codex Aureus
The Stockholm Codex Aureus (Stockholm, National Library of Sweden, MS A. 135, also known as the Codex Aureus of Canterbury and Codex Aureus Holmiensis) is a Gospel book written in the mid-eighth century in Southumbria, probably in Canterbury, whose decoration combines Insular and Italian elements. Southumbria produced a number of important illuminated manuscripts during the eighth and early ninth centuries, including the Vespasian Psalter, the Stockholm Codex Aureus, three Mercian prayer books (the Royal Prayer book, the Book of Nunnaminster and the Book of Cerne), the Tiberius Bede and the British Library's Royal Bible. Description The manuscript has 193 surviving folios which measure . It contains the text of the four Gospels in Latin written in an uncial script on vellum leaves that alternately are dyed purple and undyed. The purple-dyed leaves are written with gold, silver, and white pigment, the undyed ones with black ink and red pigment. On some folios, the differing co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other animals, or otherwise being of higher quality. Vellum is prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices, or books. Modern scholars and custodians increasingly use only the less specific, potentially-confusing term "membrane".Stokes and Almagno 2001, 114Clemens and Graham 2007, pp. 9–10. Depending on factors such as the method of preparation it may be very hard to determine the animal species involved (let alone its age) without using a laboratory, and the term avoids the need to distinguish between vellum and parchment. Vellum is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation and the quality of the skin. The manufacture involves the cleaning, bleaching, stretching ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9–22. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, North Africa, Volga Bulgaria, the Middle East, and Greenland, North America. In some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a collective whole. The Vikings had a profound impact on the Early Middle Ages, early medieval history of Scandinavia, the History of the British Isles, British Isles, France in the Middle Ages, France, Viking Age in Estonia, Estonia, and Kievan Rus'. Expert sailors and navigators aboard their characteristic longships, Vikings established Norse settlem ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mercian Supremacy
The Mercian Supremacy was the period of Anglo-Saxon history between c. 716 and c. 825, when the kingdom of Mercia dominated the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy in England. Sir Frank Stenton apparently coined the phrase, arguing that Offa of Mercia, who ruled 757–796, effectively achieved the unification of England south of the Humber estuary. Scholastic opinion on the relationship between the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia at this time remains divided. While the precise period during which the Mercian Supremacy existed remains uncertain – depending upon whether one includes the reigns of Penda (c. 626–655) and Wulfhere (658–675) – the end of the era is generally agreed to be around 825, following the defeat of King Beornwulf at the Battle of Ellandun (near present-day Swindon). Nicholas Brooks noted that "the Mercians stand out as by far the most successful of the various early Anglo-Saxon peoples until the later ninth century" and with the exception of three years under Northum ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mercia
la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , year_start=527 , event_end= , date_end= , year_end=918 , event1= , date_event1= , event2= , date_event2= , event3= , date_event3= , event4= , date_event4= , p1=Sub-Roman Britain , flag_p1=Vexilloid of the Roman Empire.svg , border_p1=no , p2=Hwicce , flag_p2= , p3=Kingdom of Lindsey , flag_p3= , p4=Kingdom of Northumbria , flag_p4= , s1=Kingdom of England , flag_s1=Flag of Wessex.svg , border_s1=no , s2= , flag_s2= , image_flag= , image_map=Mercian Supremacy x 4 alt.png , image_map_caption=The Kingdom of Mercia (thick line) and the kingdom's extent during the Mercian Supremacy (green shading) , national_motto= , national_anthem= , common_languages=Old English *Mercian dialect British Latin , currency=Sceat Penny , religion=PaganismChristia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces the French department of Pas-de-Calais across the Strait of Dover. The county town is Maidstone. It is the fifth most populous county in England, the most populous non-Metropolitan county and the most populous of the home counties. Kent was one of the first British territories to be settled by Germanic tribes, most notably the Jutes, following the withdrawal of the Romans. Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the oldest cathedral in England, has been the seat of the Archbishops of Canterbury since the conversion of England to Christianity that began in the 6th century with Saint Augustine. Rochester Cathedral in Medway is England's second-oldest cathedral. Located between London and the Strait of Dover, which separates England from mainla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hanging Bowl
Hanging bowls are a distinctive type of artefact of the period between the end of Roman rule in Britain in c. 410 AD and the emergence of the Christian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the 7th century. The surviving examples have mostly been found in Anglo-Saxon graves, but there is general agreement that they reflect Celtic traditions of decoration. The bowls are usually of thin beaten bronze, between 15–30 cm (6-12 inches) in diameter, and dished or cauldron-shaped in profile. Typically they have three decorated plates ('escutcheons') applied externally just below the rim to support hooks with rings, by which they were suspended. The ornament of these plates is often very sophisticated, and in many cases includes beautiful coloured enamel work, commonly in champlevé and using spiral motifs. Although their designs and manufacture are thought to proceed from Celtic technique, they are principally found in eastern Britain, and especially in the areas which received Angl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Celtic Art
Celtic art is associated with the peoples known as Celts; those who spoke the Celtic languages in Europe from pre-history through to the modern period, as well as the art of ancient peoples whose language is uncertain, but have cultural and stylistic similarities with speakers of Celtic languages. Celtic art is a difficult term to define, covering a huge expanse of time, geography and cultures. A case has been made for artistic continuity in Europe from the Bronze Age, and indeed the preceding Neolithic age; however archaeologists generally use "Celtic" to refer to the culture of the European Iron Age from around 1000 BC onwards, until the conquest by the Roman Empire of most of the territory concerned, and art historians typically begin to talk about "Celtic art" only from the La Tène culture, La Tène period (broadly 5th to 1st centuries BC) onwards. Early Celtic art is another term used for this period, stretching in Britain to about 150 AD. The Early Medieval art of Britain ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Franks
The Franks ( la, Franci or ) were a group of Germanic peoples whose name was first mentioned in 3rd-century Roman sources, and associated with tribes between the Lower Rhine and the Ems River, on the edge of the Roman Empire.H. Schutz: Tools, Weapons and Ornaments: Germanic Material Culture in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe, 400-750. BRILL, 2001, p.42. Later the term was associated with Romanized Germanic dynasties within the collapsing Western Roman Empire, who eventually commanded the whole region between the rivers Loire and Rhine. They imposed power over many other post-Roman kingdoms and Germanic peoples. Beginning with Charlemagne in 800, Frankish rulers were given recognition by the Catholic Church as successors to the old rulers of the Western Roman Empire. Although the Frankish name does not appear until the 3rd century, at least some of the original Frankish tribes had long been known to the Romans under their own names, both as allies providing soldiers, and as e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carolingian Art
Carolingian art comes from the Frankish Empire in the period of roughly 120 years from about 780 to 900—during the reign of Charlemagne and his immediate heirs—popularly known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The art was produced by and for the court circle and a group of important monasteries under Imperial patronage; survivals from outside this charmed circle show a considerable drop in quality of workmanship and sophistication of design. The art was produced in several centres in what are now France, Germany, Austria, northern Italy and the Low Countries, and received considerable influence, via continental mission centres, from the Insular art of the British Isles, as well as a number of Byzantine artists who appear to have been resident in Carolingian centres. There was for the first time a thoroughgoing attempt in Northern Europe to revive and emulate classical Mediterranean art forms and styles, that resulted in a blending of classical and Northern elements in a sumptuo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chi-Rho
The Chi Rho (☧, English pronunciation ; also known as ''chrismon'') is one of the earliest forms of Christogram, formed by superimposing the first two (capital) letters—chi (letter), chi and rho (ΧΡ)—of the Greek word (Christ (title), Christos) in such a way that the vertical stroke of the rho intersects the center of the chi. The Chi-Rho symbol was used by the Roman Emperors, Roman Emperor Constantine I (emperor), Constantine I (r. 306–337 AD) as part of a military standard (vexillum). Constantine's standard was known as the Labarum. Early symbols similar to the Chi Rho were the Staurogram () and the IX monogram (). In pre-Christian times, the Chi-Rho symbol was also used to mark a particularly valuable or relevant passage in the margin of a page, abbreviating ''chrēston'' (good). Some coins of Ptolemy III Euergetes (r. 246–222 BC) were marked with a Chi-Rho. Although formed of Greek characters, the device (or its separate parts) is frequently found serving as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gold Leaf
Gold leaf is gold that has been hammered into thin sheets (usually around 0.1 µm thick) by goldbeating and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades. The most commonly used gold is 22-karat yellow gold. Gold leaf is a type of metal leaf, but the term is rarely used when referring to gold leaf. The term ''metal leaf'' is normally used for thin sheets of metal of any color that do not contain any real gold. Pure gold is 24 karat. Real, yellow gold leaf is approximately 91.7% pure (i.e. 22-karat) gold. Silver-colored white gold is about 50% pure gold. Layering gold leaf over a surface is called gold leafing or gilding. Traditional water gilding is the most difficult and highly regarded form of gold leafing. It has remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years and is still done by hand. In art Gold leaf is sometimes used in art in a "raw" state, without a gilding process. In cultures including the European Bronze Age it ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |