The Winchester Bible is a Romanesque

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

produced in

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

between 1150 and 1175 for

Winchester Cathedral The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity,Historic England. "Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity (1095509)". ''National Heritage List for England''. Retrieved 8 September 2014. Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winches ...

. With

folios The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

measuring 583 x 396 mm., it is the largest surviving 12th-century

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

. The bible belongs to a group of large-sized bibles that were made for religious houses all over England and the continent during the 12th century. The Winchester Bible is important to understanding the history of medieval art, because it was left only partially completed, giving insight into the creation and production of these kinds of Bibles. It can still be seen in the Winchester Cathedral Library, which has been its home for more than eight hundred years. Before it was returned to Winchester Cathedral, the Bible had many owners and suffered because of it. Pages have been removed and torn out; one of those pages is known as the Morgan Leaf and is now owned by the

Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

History

Origin

During the Romanesque period, the focus of major illumination in Western Europe moved from the

Gospel Book A Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels (Greek: , ''Evangélion'') is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament – normally all four – centering on the life of Jesus of Nazar ...

to the

Psalter A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters we ...

and the Bible. The Winchester manuscript is one of the most lavish Bibles of this kind. The manuscript was probably commissioned by the

Bishop of Winchester The Bishop of Winchester is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Winchester in the Church of England. The bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The Bishop of Winchester has always held ''ex officio'' (except dur ...

Henry of Blois Henry of Blois ( c. 1096 8 August 1171), often known as Henry of Winchester, was Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey from 1126, and Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to his death. He was a younger son of Stephen Henry, Count of Blois by Adela of Normandy, da ...

, for the Cathedral. The book would have been originally housed in Winchester Cathedral's collection of sacred texts. One theory is that this was the actual Bible that was given to

Witham Charterhouse Witham Charterhouse, also Witham Priory, at Witham Friary, Somerset, was established in 1178/79, the earliest of the ten medieval Carthusian houses (charterhouses) in England. It was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. Hist ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. This suggestion, however, is not widely accepted. If it was in fact the same manuscript that was given to Witham, that would imply that all the text and illuminations would have had to have been completed by 1186. It is more widely thought that the Bible could have been worked on all the way up to 1190.

Provenance

Over the years, the manuscript has suffered at the hands of thieves and collectors, the full extent of which is unknown. Currently, the Bible is at

Library. One leaf of the Bible, however, has been removed and is now housed at the

Description

The Bible contains 936 pages, as 468 leaves of

calf-skin Calfskin or calf leather is a leather or membrane produced from the hide of a calf, or juvenile domestic cattle. Calfskin is particularly valuable because of its softness and fine grain, as well as durability. It is commonly used for high-quality ...

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins of ...

, which equates to hides of about 250 calves. It is thought that the Winchester Bible was worked on between 1160 and 1190, either as one continuous project from ca. 1160-1180, or in two campaigns, the first starting around 1160 and the other starting 1170-1190. Its first recorded mention, in 1622, describes the manuscript as a Bible in two volumes. Over the years it has been rebound twice, first in 1820, when it was divided into three volumes, and again in 1948. The Bible now spans four separate volumes, bound in gold-tooled cream-coloured leather.

Decoration

Bodleian Libraries, Comedies of Terence 60r

The artwork of the Winchester Bible is incomplete. Many illuminations were left unfinished, while others were deliberately removed later on. The illuminations throughout the manuscript appear in varying stages of completion, ranging from rough outlines and inked drawings to unpainted

gilded Gilding is a decorative technique for applying a very thin coating of gold over solid surfaces such as metal (most common), wood, porcelain, or stone. A gilded object is also described as "gilt". Where metal is gilded, the metal below was tradi ...

images and figures complete in all but the final details. In all, 48 of the major

historiated initial A historiated initial is an initial, an enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, that contains a picture. Strictly speaking, a historiated initial depicts an identifiable figure or a specific scene, while an inh ...

s that begin each book stand complete.Donovan 1993, 6. The different books of the Bible are determined by large decorative first initials; three books were important enough to have full-paged scenes dedicated to them.

I Samuel The Book of Samuel (, ''Sefer Shmuel'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Samuel) in the Old Testament. The book is part of the narrative history of Ancient Israel called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books (Joshu ...

, Judith, and

Maccabees The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees ( he, מַכַּבִּים, or , ; la, Machabaei or ; grc, Μακκαβαῖοι, ), were a group of Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. ...

all have full page frontispieces but only I Samuel's was actually completed; the other two were left only as drawings. The decoration of the manuscript involved many different artists with different styles, both figural and decorative. The presence of various styles makes it hard to determine the exact date of the Bible. The different styles could point towards two different periods the Bible was worked on, one earlier and one later. However, it could also imply that both traditional and ground-breaking artists of the time worked on the piece during the same period.

Text

Although many of the illuminations remain unfinished, the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

text itself is complete. The Bible consists of the entire

Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

, comprising both

Old Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary *Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Mai ...

and

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

s, two versions of the

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

, and the

Apocrypha Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

, and is written in the Latin of St Jerome. Interestingly, the books of the Bible are all started on the same page as the last page of the previous book. The text also includes many abbreviations and shortened versions of words. This unusual system was thought to have been used to save space and money because the materials were so expensive.

Creation

Preparation

To prepare each calf skin to be included in the Bible the skin had to be soaked in a

lye A lye is a metal hydroxide traditionally obtained by leaching wood ashes, or a strong alkali which is highly soluble in water producing caustic basic solutions. "Lye" most commonly refers to sodium hydroxide (NaOH), but historically has been u ...

/water solution. The hair and skin then had to scraped off, and the skin had to stretched, dried and processed. Because so many materials were needed to make manuscripts like the Winchester Bible, supplies typically needed to be procured from outside of England. For example,

Master Hugo Master Hugo (fl. c.1130-c.1150) was a Romanesque lay artist and the earliest recorded professional artist in England. His documented career at Bury St Edmunds Abbey spans from before 1136 to after 1148. He is most famous for illuminating the fi ...

, the maker of the Bible for the

Abbey of Bury St Edmunds The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was once among the richest Benedictine monasteries in England, until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. It is in the town that grew up around it, Bury St Edmunds in the county of Suffolk, England. It was ...

, had to obtain supplies from Ireland.

Transcribing

Due to the large size of the Bible, it had to be organized into many

quires Various measures of paper quantity have been and are in use. Although there are no S.I. units such as quires and bales, there are ISO''ISO 4046-3:2002 Paper, board, pulps and related terms – Vocabulary – Part 3: Paper-making terminology'' ( ...

of four bi-folios. Each bi-folio would have been pricked for ruling to ensure the pages and lines of text were arranged properly. Ruling lines were lightly scored into the parchment, which the scribe would use as guides like the lines of a notebook. Unlike other manuscripts of this size, the Winchester Bible was written by the hand of one scribe with a goose feather quill. It is thought that the scribe would have been an accomplished member of the Winchester's Priory of

St Swithun Swithun (or Swithin; ang, Swīþhūn; la, Swithunus; died 863 AD) was an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester and subsequently patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. His historical importance as bishop is overshadowed by his reputation for post ...

, and the work has been estimated to have taken four years to complete. After the text was written it was reviewed by a monk, and then colour was added to important words and letters.

Art

The illuminations reflect the work of at least six different hands, and was worked on for 25 years between 1150 and 1175. The art historian Walter Oakeshott first identified and named these artists in 1945, referring to them as the Master of the Leaping Figures, the Master of the Apocrypha Drawings, the Master of the Genesis Initial, the Master of the Amalekite, the Master of the Morgan Leaf, and the Master of the Gothic Majesty. The Apocrypha Drawings Master was likely trained in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

since his style of energetic and mannered poses more closely resembles French art at the time, more so than

. The Master of Leaping Figures is almost positively English. The dramatic poses and leaping movements are hallmarks of the Byzantine style that was influential in Winchester, starting around 1130. The Master of the Morgan Leaf, the Amalekite Master, the Master of the Genesis Initial, and the Master of the Gothic Majesty all have varying styles derived from

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

influences and are precursors to the Early English Gothic Style. Close examination of the illustrations revealed that multiple artists would have worked together on the same piece within the manuscript. First a dry point drawing would be traced by one artist, then another would apply gilding or silver accents, and then another artist would add coloured paint. Pigments were sourced from plants, animals, and minerals. The most expensive pigment to produce was not the silver or gold gilding, but the bright blue

ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afgh ...

which could only be sourced from

lapis lazuli Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, ...

from

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. Forty-eight illuminated letters were completed, and many more were left unfinished.

Unfortunately, the Bible no longer holds all of its original pages. Nine illuminated initials and at least one full-page illustration have been removed entirely. Of these, only one (the initial of the Book of Obadiah) has been recovered and restored to the text. Another missing leaf was recovered but never restored to the book. This individual leaf is now housed at the

and is commonly referred to as the Morgan Leaf. Whether other similar full-page miniatures have been removed is unknown.

The Morgan Leaf

This page of the Winchester Bible is unique as it is one of three full-paged illuminations in the manuscript, and it is the only one that has been completed. This leaf shows scenes from the lives of

Samuel Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bibl ...

on the

recto ''Recto'' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. Etymology The terms are shortened from ...

and of

King David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

on the

verso ' is the "right" or "front" side and ''verso'' is the "left" or "back" side when text is written or printed on a leaf of paper () in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. Etymology The terms are shortened from Latin ...

. The Morgan Leaf was painted by the Master of the Morgan Leaf, and is why he was named as such. The Morgan Leaf is characterized by the bold emotion shown in the figures, with less attention paid to the details. The bold blues and reds also add to the emotional depth of the scene. The leaf was removed during the rebinding process in 1820, and was sold to

John Pierpont Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became kno ...

in 1912 for 30,000 francs. The first person to recognise the connection between the Morgan Leaf and the Winchester Bible was the British Museum's Keeper of Manuscripts, Eric Millar, in 1926. The identification was later supported by other art historians, and supported by the evidence that the original drawing of the Morgan Leaf was also done by the same hand that did the underdrawings of the Winchester Bible, the Master of the Apocrypha Drawings. This was proven by comparison of the underdrawings of the Morgan Leaf to the incomplete illuminations of the Winchester Bible.

Gallery

File:Winchester bible - 02e - 1150.jpg, Fol.169.

Lamentations The Book of Lamentations ( he, אֵיכָה, , from its incipit meaning "how") is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. In the Hebrew Bible it appears in the Ketuvim ("Writings") as one of the Five Megillot ...

5. The prayer of

Jeremiah Jeremiah, Modern: , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning " Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish ...

File:WinchesterBibleGenesisLastJudgement.GIF, Fol.5, detail.

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...

at the

Last Judgment The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...

File:WinchesterBible2Kings(frontpiece).GIF, Fol.120v. Beginning of Second Kings with

showing the messengers of

Elijah Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books of ...

and

Ahaziah Ahaziah ( he, אֲחַזְיָהוּ, "held by Yah(-weh)"; Douay–Rheims: Ochozias) was the name of two kings mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: *Ahaziah of Israel *Ahaziah of Judah Ahaziah ( he, אֲחַזְיָהוּ, "held by Yah(-weh)"; Douay– ...

File:MorganLeafVerso.jpg, The Morgan Leaf. Scenes from the life of

File:12th-century painters - Winchester Bible - WGA15734.jpg, Illuminated page of the Winchester Bible. File:Bodleian Libraries, Comedies of Terence 60v.jpg, Comedies of Terence. Incomplete page of the Winchester Bible. File:WinchesterBibleJeremiah(cover).GIF