8 - Conclusion

Summary

In the previous chapters I suggested an avenue toward understanding the beginnings of the new art of manuscript illumination in the late antique and early medieval period. The art developed as a way of articulating the new form of book by that time in universal use in the Christian world, the codex, and presenting its now often very extensive contents in a wasy that is linked with other changes in reading and writing practices. Those changes included silent visual reading, word separation, cursive and minuscule scripts as a book hand, hierarchy of scripts, and ornamentation of some features, primarily but not exclusively letters, with pattern and color. The new illuminated books of the earliest period, roughly the seventh century, seem primarily associated with volumes for study, rather than for liturgical use. Texts by patristic authors, especially Gregory the Great, were special favorites. The decoration seems likely to have helped readers to find their way about in these volumes, and perhaps served also to aid their understanding and memory, for example finding again passages that were of special interest.