Color in the Medieval Manuscripts

The Multifaceted Role of Color

Color was a means of spiritual and economic expression in the Middle Ages. It had rich cultural symbolism and was the object of theoretical and theological dispute. In order to understand how it functioned in medieval manuscripts, we must look at how the Middle Ages “saw” color, as well as how it was used and applied in manuscripts.

Evolution of Patronage and Function

Manuscripts were largely produced for and by religious institutions until the thirteenth century, when royal patrons began to commission them and lay professional scribes began to appear. In the fourteenth century, an even wider audience opened up through the new upper and middle class patronage. This signalled a change in the function of manuscripts and their illustrations, and more personal texts such as the Book of Hours grew increasingly popular. Throughout this transition, color in manuscripts retained its main purposes of visual appeal and the expression of wealth or piety. As the last stage of the illumination process, color represents the crowning achievement of book production in the Middle Ages.

The Illumination Process and the Value of Light

The illumination process began after the scribe had written out the text, leaving room for large-scale illustration and the illumination of initials and borders. The illuminator would then mark out the frames and outlines of their drawings in plummet (also known as leadpoint, this was a tool similar to a pencil) before applying the gilding, which was always the first stage of illumination. Only with the application of gilding does a manuscript become illuminated rather than just illustrated.

The richness of the tones in the gold leaf was brought out through the use of a red adhesive such as bole (refined red clay), or a red pigment added to the adhesive. In this, we can see the value the Middle Ages placed on intensity and light-absorbing or light-reflecting qualities over hue. This is largely due to the belief in Aristotelian theories of color in Europe from the eleventh century onwards.

Theological Perspectives: Color as Divine Manifestation

These theories mainly focused on the color spectrum; Aristotle had theorised that all colors lie between the extremities of black and white, and that each color held a balance of the two. Hue was then created by the luminosity or intensity of the color. This belief was especially prevalent in the late medieval period, when color was seen as a by-product of light, being light’s manifestation on or from a surface.

People at this time believed that light itself could not be seen by the human eye, but color, its material manifestation, could. And as light came directly from God, color therefore became the visible facet of the divine. If color was not only symbolically linked to God (for example, red symbolising Christ’s Passion), but also manifested the divine in its very materiality, then it is undeniable that it was an important factor in imagery of the time.

Materiality and Technique in Pigment Application

The pigments used in manuscripts added to this already complex symbolism by being derived directly from the materials that produced their theoretical or theological meanings. When gold leaf is used to represent a king’s crown, for example, the gold not only represents but embodies the crown. Similarly, pigments used to create paints may come from natural sources closely connected to the symbolism of the color; the awareness of natural sources and their symbolic and material value came in part from Pliny’s Natural History, which offered an Ancient Roman perspective on artistic materials.

These natural pigments were ground up and mixed with egg whites to form egg tempera, a paint used throughout the Middle Ages that could be very vibrant, but dried down very quickly. This meant that egg tempera was hard to blend, forcing artists to add depth and modelling in other ways. This was usually achieved by applying multiple coats of paint, one of a slightly darker shade to create depth, and then white or yellow highlights. These highlights were applied by hatching or cross-hatching, which not only helped to create modelling, but could also have suggested the brilliance of the colors. It was the qualities of the colors, after all, that medieval viewers prized over hue and naturalism. Medieval images have often been accused of failing to be naturalistic, but it is important to keep in mind the different function of images at the time.

The Active Viewer and Religious Empathy

Michael Baxandall (1972), when examining the purpose of Renaissance religious imagery, looked at several records of sermons in the late medieval and early Renaissance period that instruct the congregation in how to view religious images. Instead of relying on the images to create a “window onto the world”, these sermons instead encourage the congregation to be active viewers, sympathising with biblical figures by relating the stories to their own lives. When reading the Bible, they should relate it to their own circumstances, using places and perhaps even people known to them to increase the pathos of the stories.

Baxandall therefore argues that religious imagery was designed to be generic to allow people to project their own details onto the paintings, ensuring a personal experience for every viewer that was far more powerful than anything the painter could manufacture.

Decorative Qualities and Spiritual Guidance

Similarly, we can see how naturalism is often overruled in favor of decorative qualities in manuscripts. Indeed, manuscript illumination is hardly restricted to full-page illustrations, but includes decorated initials and borders. Initials in particular serve as more than just decoration. Their vivid colors and complex designs are intended to help the viewer call each passage to memory, using imagery to simplify and enliven the text.

The use of color and imagery in medieval manuscripts creates a kind of spiritual guide intended to foster piety in the viewer. By understanding more of this intellectual and religious context, we can begin to “see” the color of these manuscripts in the same way as it was intended.