V. Contemporary Artefacts Illustrated in Late Saxon Manuscripts

Abstract

How far do the pictures in early medieval manuscripts reflect contemporary life? Are the busy and attractive figures which populate many Carolingian or Late Saxon illuminations reflections of their painters and their patrons, or are they ghostly survivors of the Roman Empire, fossilized in a scribal convention? For some archaeologists, of course, the question of authenticity has never arisen, the contemporary relevance of pictures being cheerfully assumed; but it has to be stated at the outset that the odds are generally set against such optimism. That early painted books were usually copied from other painted books is clear from a continuity of image, picturecycle or design, all having roots in the Late Antique period. Thus drawing from life, or even abstract invention, where it occurred, will not be obvious and is probably only detectable at all by a process of elimination