The renewal of art and learning in Gaul in the second half of the eighth century is ascribed to the patronage of Karl the Great and his descendants. He was a man of extraordinary gifts, and few figures of equal majesty have ever appeared on the stage of history. King of the Franks and the Lombards, Roman Emperor of the West, a great conqueror, a wise statesman, and a man of learning, he has left his name even in the annals of paleography. It can hardly have been in the beautiful Roman handwriting which is called after him that he transcribed the Frankish ballads or set down the rules of Frankish grammar, as he is said to have done. He was fond of practicing with his pen, but, as Eginhart says, the study was begun too late in life to be cultivated with success. He had excellent taste, however, and bestowed generous rewards upon the calligraphers who worked for him. His usual home was at Aachen, and his palace there contained a library and a scriptorium, in which scribes were always busy. A greater school of calligraphy was in the Abbey of St. Martin at Tours, directed by the famous Alcuin, under the Emperor's patronage. It was at Tours, undoubtedly, that the Carolingian writing reached the stage at which it became the model for all succeeding time, and Alcuin was almost certainly the man who introduced the Irish-Saxon fashion of decorative ornament, as practiced in York when he resided there with Archbishop Egbert. A great deal of the learning which (with some latitude of phraseology) has been attributed above to the Emperor, was due to the frequent lectures upon all branches of science which Alcuin was in the habit of delivering when he and his patron were together usually at Aachen. Karl did not spend much of his leisure time in the France which regards him as her own prince. He is believed to have founded the University of Paris, but he did not regard the city on the Seine as equal to Rome or Aries. It was not included in the twenty- one metropolitan cities of his empire.
Wherever the movement arose which produced the beauty of Carolingian work, we can have no difficulty in declaring it to have been in central or Southern France, not in the Rhenish territories. That contemporary calligraphers would have followed the lead was to be expected, whether they worked at Aachen or at Metz, or at Trier or elsewhere; but the real perfection of the style must have been attained in those parts of France which were most nearly connected with Provence. The uncials of Carolingian work were imitated from Roman work of the fifth century, the capitals from Roman inscriptions of the empire, and the minuscules were improved from the two contemporary Italian scripts in which they were found, that is the Papal Roman and the Gotho-Lombard. The art was cultivated (and we may allow that it had been so cultivated for many years before Alcuin's arrival) so carefully that a fine aesthetic sense had arisen, and every letter of all three kinds was drawn with an elegant simplicity and truth which the world has never ceased to admire. The letters are upright and wholly without angularities, and are quite free from the mannerisms by which in the two Gothic hands of the time certain unessential portions of the outline were dwelt upon and made over-prominent, to the deterioration of the graphic form. Fine as the writing is in the time of the great Emperor, it is still finer throughout the half century or so which followed his death, in all the Gallic centers.
At the same time, the decoration of manuscripts, otherwise remarkable for their calligraphical excellence, with illuminated initials, border ornamentation, and miniatures resembling in character those of the Anglo-Saxon school but infused to a greater degree with the feeling and the style of late classical art, render the Carolingian French school of the ninth century one of the most splendid in the history of paleography.
The scripts of Spain and Italy lived on for centuries uncorrected in certain peculiarities by the example of Carolingian writing, but gradually drawing nearer, and visibly improved in manner. This was brought about by the introduction into both countries of pure Carolingian work, practiced simultaneously with the native styles, and constantly increasing in influence. In England the Carolingian type won but little ground, notwithstanding the Romanizing tendencies of Winchester and Canterbury and the Southern monasteries in general. It was not till the tenth century that certain signs of Carolingian influence are seen in the writing of Latin charters, and it was only in the twelfth century that the handwriting of Northern France and of England began to take an identical character. In Germany, of course, Carolingian writing was an inheritance, but it was never cultivated with the same elegance as in France. The letters began gradually to slope and grow narrow, and to take small projections at the extremities which by and bye became medieval gothic forms.
Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, You Are Reading Chapter 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 chapters
No comments:
Post a Comment