Icon Diploma Student

Perfect Proportions: Anglo-Saxon Style

By ronniecruwys on February 11, 2016

Hello icon friends,

Next along in the lettering posts is an example of some gorgeous Anglo-Saxon; the magnificent Benedictional of St Aethelwold. The original manuscript is held by the British Library and considered to be one of their greatest treasures: “A Masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon art”.

The images have all been digitised and are available to see through the British Library’s website here. There is a great deal of embellishment on the images but zoom in past all this and have a close look at the way the garments have been painted on the figures in particular the colours, composition and fabric folds – some wonderful examples for iconographers.

This entire book was written by the scribe Godeman for St Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester from 963-984 and is one of the earliest and most significant surviving examples of the Anglo-Saxon Winchester scriptorium.

Born c AD 909, the aptly named Aethelwold “noble ruler”, was key to the transformation of English religious life. He initiated the reform of the Benedictine Rule which culminated with his written document ‘Regularis Concordia’.

Godeman, the scribe, was a monk at the Old Minster, Winchester. He may have belonged to the group of monks from the Abbey at Abingdon that Æthelwold placed in Winchester Cathedral as part of the renewal of the Benedictine Rule. The artist for the illuminations has not been identified although some scholars attribute these to Godeman too.

Here are just a few examples of the lettering in this manuscript – the British Library is a fantastic resource and there are many good quality images of this Benedictional available to study online.

Having studied as many examples of each of the letters available, here are my attempts to create a painted Anglo Saxon style alphabet which would suit icons which depict Anglo Saxon Saints, or saints contemporary with this period (listed at the end of this post).

 

I have saved the full set of letters which you can download and save to your desktop as a six page pdf document here: Aethelwold Letters 

Thanks for reading and I will leave you with some suggestions for saints which may lend themselves to icons using this script:

Some saints associated directly and indirectly with the manuscript: St Swithun                            St Aethelwold     St Dunstan            St Cuthbert St Æthelthryth                     St Benedict           St Vedast               St Stephen St Aetheldreda                     St Edgar                 St Gregory St Mary Magdalene             St John the Baptist

SOME SAINTS CONTEMPORARY WITH THIS PERIOD Gaudentius (Radim Gaudentius) born 970 d 1020 Archbishop of Niezno Firmian d 1020 Heribert of Cologne (Herbert) b 970 d 1021 Herve d 1021 Berward of Hildesheim b 960 d 1022 Bishop of Hildesheim Theodoric of Orleans b 980 d 1022 Bishop of Orleans Agatha Hildegard d 1024 Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor b972  d1024 Romauld 952 d1057 Fulbert of Chartres 970—1028 Bishop of Chartres Elfleda (Ethelfleda) d.1030 963 Athanasius the Athonite buys the island of Kyra-Panagia from the                     Byzantine noblemen of Constantinople as a dependency of Mount Athos.   969 Olga of Kiev, grandmother of the Grand Prince Vladimir of Kiev 978 Edward the Martyr, King of England, March 18. 988 Dunstan, Abp. of Canterbury, May 19. 980 Translation of the holy relics of Birinus of Dorchester from Winchester to a new shrine, September 4 by St. AEthelwold.