Illuminated Manuscripts from the High Middle Ages

The 12th century can be seen as the age of the Spaltleisteninitiale a type of scroll initial that emerged almost simultaneously across Latin Europe as the dominant form of book decoration, appearing in manuscripts from Portugal to Poland, and from Sweden to Italy. The surprising uniformity of the basic form its diverging letter shafts and scroll ornaments bound together with belt-like elements makes it a distinctive, super-regional feature of Romanesque, which could only have spread in this way by means of intensive, personal contacts. It testifies to an advanced book-culture based on exchange, transfer, and training. Such developments were enabled primarily by the monasteries, which following a period of reform and spiritual renewal experienced a sustained upswing in this period. Through the foundation of daughter houses, monasteries spread not only the Christian faith, but also a culture of study and learning on the basis of texts, copies of which as is widely known were supplied by in-house production, in some cases organized in a scriptorium. For works created in such contexts it is often far from sure when, where, and for whom they were made. Books at that time were intended not only to record information, but also to transport it and the original date and place of production were very rarely noted. Yet if the books contain basic decoration with at least ornamental initials they can be classified by art-historical methods, and set within their historical contexts as achievements of a particular region or products of specific historical- cultural realities. Such classifications require considerable research work not least because the remarkable uniformity of the scroll initials makes identification regional characteristics and tendencies difficult. The matter is further complicated by the seemingly diverse forms of collaboration between monasteries and convents in manuscript production, which was in no way restrained by institutional borders. Transfers are thus apparent not only from a founding house to its affiliations, or from one Benedictine abbey to another, but also between monasteries belonging to different orders. These circumstances inform the two main aims of the project. On one level, it makes grounded classifications for a clearly defined, representative collection of decorated manuscripts that of the University Library in Graz and thus creates fixed points for further attributions. On a second level, it seeks to use this work-group to investigate the networks of 12th-century book production. With its numerous, comparatively well-preserved medieval monastic libraries, Austria offers optimal conditions for such an enterprise, promising fundamental insights into medieval book production and thus into the material side of super-regional communication in Europe as a whole.

Based on the findings of the research project, it is now possible to paint a vivid picture of early book illumination in some major monasteries of Styria, Carinthia and Slovenia. By examining manuscripts not only from Central Europe but also from Southern and Western Europe, the art-historical and critical catalogue currently being prepared for publication provides a vital foundation for research into book culture in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Through stylistic analysis, the manuscripts and fragments of the High Middle Ages, which found their way into the University Library of Graz, the second largest Austrian public manuscript collection from the monasteries of Seckau, St. Lambrecht, Millstatt, Neuberg an der Mürz, Ptuj (Pettau) and Žiče (Seitz), have been dated and attributed to a place of origin or a region. With regard to the manuscripts preserved from the Augustinian double monastery in Seckau, it can be established that there is no evidence of any independent book production in the first decades following the foundation of the monastery in 1140. Rather, those works previously regarded as evidence of early scriptorial activity at Seckau have been shown to be imports from Upper Austria and Salzburg, or works produced with the collaboration of illuminators trained in Salzburg. It was not until the third quarter of the century that the beginnings of an independent Seckau production emerged, featuring scribes identified by name and uniformly designed scroll initials. The collection originating from the Benedictine monastery of St. Lambrecht proves to be extremely heterogeneous in its early period; however, stylistic groups with artistic connections to works in Lambach, Seckau and the southern German region have been identified. It is not until the late 12th and early 13th centuries that a more distinctive production can be demonstrated. The surviving works, some of which can be directly linked to St Lambrecht due to the mention of the monastery's patron saint in the text, demonstrate the activity of a productive scriptorium with several illuminators and a characteristic formal vocabulary. For works that were not produced in St. Lambrecht or Seckau, or that found their way into the University Library from other monasteries, it has been possible to demonstrate stylistic links to manuscripts from Styria, Carinthia and Slovenia, Lower and Upper Austria, Salzburg, and southern and south-western Germany, thereby establishing their context of origin. Of the codices from Italy and France, four glossary manuscripts from the late 12th century in the 'Channel Style' and a fragment that later served as binding material are particularly noteworthy. The latter can be attributed to the 'Early Geometrical Style', a stylistic movement originating in Rome that was used in the design of Italian giant Bibles from the third quarter of the 11th century onwards.