medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Tom Izbicki <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I agree.
with what?
that it looks like a hyphen?
that Rebecca's opinion is worth $0.25?
that $5.00 will get you a cupa coffee at almost any Starbucks on the planet?
that the Staatsbibliothekpolitzei would jump all over Rebecca's case if she
sent me a repro of her example?
all of the above ?
Karen Jolly <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Sorry this is so scattered.
not scattered at all.
you've not lost your Amateur Standing, viz-a-viz scattered, as far as i can
see, and, as a Pro, i should know.
>I can think of one later scribal portrait in a psalter, the
extravagant portrait in the twelfth Eadwine Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity
College MS R 17.1).....A quick check of a volume on the Eadwine Psalter
?
>turns up references to other scribal portraits (like yours, scribe seated
writing on a text) as well as donation portraits (scribe/donor kneeling and
handing book to patron).
perhaps i'm making an arbitrary distinction here, but i take the second class
of images to be something rather Else.
unless we can see the scribal self-portrait as a kind of "donation" portrait
in itself --but, is it? and to whom?
>Of course, these look like similar portraits of various famous
figures writing (the evangelists, Bede, Augustine, Dunstan, other
saints, etc).
yes, that's clearly (to me at least) the "model" for the one i've got, and,
apparently, for the Eadwine example.
Rotbertvs and his ilk are piggybacking on this tradition.
>So is it hubris for a scribe to portray himself in this fashion? Some have
said so regarding Eadwine.
rather hard not to see it as such.
this (to me) brings up the whole question of why so much middlevil art is
"annonymous" --or, to put it conversely, why there are so few cases of artists
identifying themselves on/in their works before the rather late m.a.
the actual *number* of such instances is not really all that small, i don't
believe -- "xxxxVS me/hoc fecit" inscriptions/paintings survive on quite a few
11th-12th c. sculptures, for example, and it is usually *assumed* that they
refer to the sculptors (rather than, say, the donors).
but *statiscally*, relative to the total number of surviving artifacts, the
figure is quite small, even leaving aside the vexing question of, say,
monuments entirely lost or damaged (like the paint weathered off of sculpture
which was clearly originally polychromed, which may have included painted
"inscriptions").
and totally enigmatic anomolies, like the laconic "ROBERTVS" inscription on
the Royal Portal of Chartres (sorry, i don't have a .jpg of that, but it's
just a single, laconic and lonely name carved on one of the exterior-facing
jambs between the portals).
>Also, your man is facing forward,
yes, at least his lower body is :
http://www.ariadne.org/centrechartraine/mss/chartresmss/chartresms29-244v-rotbert.jpg
>while most of the ones
the "author" portraits, presumably.
>I have seen are shown sideview seated
yes, and, if i recall rightly, they are among the most iconographically
"tradition bound" of all medieval imagery, going back, theoretically, to
(lost) ancient ms traditions.
say, now that i think about it, i *believe* that there is an evangelist
portrait on the (later 12th c.) *north* portal of Fleury (just a coincidence,
surely) which is somewhat twisted about (looking up, over his shoulder, at his
"symbol" behind him) --i'll have to find a pic of that one.
>--the theory is that he faces to our right if the portrait is at the
beginning of the ms, looking toward his text, or facing left if at the end
(the case with Eadwine).
i'd not heard of this little formula.
sounds a bit too pat, but perhaps.
the exact position of the drawing in relationship to the text in this ms is
not precisely clear to me, the description in Omont et al.'s catalogue being
somewhat ambiguous :
--Ms 29 ( anc. cote 70). "Libri Josephi, historiographi, totius operis
antiquitatis Judaice" --Traduction de Rufin.
Commence : "In principio creavit Deus..." A la suite du _De antiquitatibus_,
se trouve le _De bello contra Romanos_ (fol. 17 et suiv.).
Fol. 245v : "Tractatus domni Jeronimi presbiteri de Paschae. Hodie, fratres,
nova lux processit in mundo..." La fin manque; dernier mots : "...originali
peccato obstricti..."
Notes marginales. Dessins grossiers a la plume aux f. 9v, 67, 84v, 94, 102v,
162v, 168v, 217.
[the description in Delaporte's catalogue is *much* more detailed about the
number and nature of the "illuminations", which were quite extensive,
apparently --a real loss, this ms, i'm thinking.]
***--Fol. 244v***, un ecrivain devant un pupitre, sur laquel on lit le nom
"Rothbertus." [**SIC**] --A la fin, ecriture du temps : "Hic est
> liber Sancti Petri apostoli Carnotensis cenobi, nomine Josephus. Si quis
furaverit, anathema sit. Amen."
Xe siecle. Parchemin. 245 feuillets a 2 col. 340 sur 273 millim. Initiales de
couleur. Rel. délabée. (Saint-Pere.)
looks to me like the drawing appears *at the end* of the Josephus text but
doesn't really relate to the brief fragment of the Jerome(?)
>So why is Rotbert awkwardly seated facing the reader while trying to write
with his right hand on a text on his left that is also turned directly at the
reader?
mmm... unusual, perhaps, but not all that uncommon, i don't believe --though i
can't find another example just at the moment, except for the 12th c. Fleury
one i mentioned above.
>And while we are at it, what is the text of the manuscript?
Rufinus' translation of Josephus, plus a [one folio?] fragment of a Jerome
commentary on Easter(?).
>If it is a psalter or monastic rule
nope.
>the Fleury manuscript connections cross channel are legion,
i've come across a few, brief mentions of this, but i'm new to the subject and
have yet to unearth the Mother Load in the literature. any suggestions would
be appreciated, Life Being Short, any Port in a Storm, Pons Asinorum, and All
That.
>particularly in the 10th-11th century.
Abbot Abbo (988-1104) is pivital, apparently, with his itchy feet.
as i implied, my reading of this drawing is that it is the work of a fellow
who is definitely under the influence of A-S figure style :
note fluidity of line, despite its "crudity" (more precisely : lack of
Visionary Clarity) ; the "broken" shoulder ; the elongated fingers and the
pose of the right hand ; the "ridged" drapery, perhaps between the legs, but
esp. on the sleeve ; the fancy feather quill ; the "pointed" right shoe.
cf. this rather fantastic Fleury drawing, now in Orleans :
http://www.ariadne.org/centrechartraine/mss/fleurymss/orleans342pA-d.jpg
http://www.ariadne.org/centrechartraine/mss/fleurymss/orleans342pA-d3.jpg
http://www.ariadne.org/centrechartraine/mss/fleurymss/orleans342pA-d2.jpg
but he's certainly not in *command* of that Form Language, to judge by this
bit of work.
i attribute this to an insufficency of and lack of Clarity in his powers of
Visualisation.
was he a resident of Fleury or of St. Peter's of Chartres, an independant
institution but one with (perhaps) considerable Fleury influence?
in his "provisional" catalogue of the Fleury library mss, Mostart suggests
that this Rotbertus might be identifiable with two other fellows mentioned in
Fleury-connected mss :
"BF245 [the Chartres ms] : On f.244v a picture of a scribe at work, with the
name 'Rotbertus'; possibly the scribe of BF102 (q.v.)."
BF102 is Berne 183, which he dates to Abbo's reign [do abbots reign, or what?]
"Written by 'Rotbertus laicus', maybe identical with Rotbertus, the scribe who
named himself in BF245 [the Chartres29 ms]. The same name also occurs in BF912
and BF355." --in "pen trials in these last two are the names 'Rotbertus' and
'Benignus Rotbertus'.
>An iconographic index would give you some leads--the ones I know are
for Anglo-Saxon manuscripts (Ohlgren).
yes, well it looks like Ohlgren's digital index is "missing" from the I.U.
F.A. lieberry, so i may just have to re-invent that wheel.
i hate it when that happens.
thanks, Karen & Tom.
all responses have been and will be appreciated.
christopher
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