Picture Bibles

In the Middle Ages the Church made use of pictures as a means of instruction,

to supplement the knowledge acquired by reading or oral teaching. For books

only existed in manuscript form and, being costly, were beyond the means of

most people. Besides, had it been possible for the multitude to come into the

possession of books, they could not have read them, since in those rude times,

education was the privilege of few. In fact, hardly anyone could read, outside the

ranks of the clergy and the monks. So frescoes of scenes from the Old and New

Testaments, stained-glass windows, an the like were set up in the churches,

because, as the Synod of Arras (1025) said, "The illiterate contemplated in the

lineaments of painting what they, having never learnt to read, could not discern in

writing". Especially did the Church make use of pictures to spread abroad a

knowledge of the events recorded in the Bible and of the mutual connection

between the leading facts of the Old and New Testaments, whether as type and

antitype, or as prophecy and fulfillment. For this purpose the picture Bibles of the

Middle Ages were copied and put in circulation. The most important of the picture

Bibles of the Middle Ages which have survived is that variously styled the "Bible

Moralisée", the "Bible Historiée", the "Bible Allégorisée" and sometimes

"Emblémes Bibliques". It is a work of the thirteenth century, and from the copies

that still survive there is no doubt that it existed in at least two editions, like to

one another in the choice and order of the Biblical texts used, but differing in the

allegorical and moral deductions drawn from these passages. The few remarks to

be made here about the "Bible Moralisée" will be made in connection with copies

of the first and second redactions which have come down to us.

The copy of the first edition, to which reference has been made, is one of the

most sumptuous illustrated MSS, preserved to us from the Middle Ages.

Unfortunately, it no longer exists in the form of a single volume, nor is it kept in

one place. It has been split up into three separate parts kept in three distinct

libraries. The first part, consisting of 224 leaves, is in the Bodleian Library at

Oxford. The second part of 222 leaves is in the National Library in Paris; and the

third part, made up of 178 leaves, is kept in the library of the British Museum. Six

leaves of the third part are missing, so that it ought to contain 184 leaves. When

complete and bound together, therefore, the whole volume consisted of 630

leaves, written and illustrated on one side only. This Bible, as indeed all the

picture Bibles of the Middle Ages, did not contain the full text of the Bible. Short

passages only were cited, and these not so as to give any continuous sense or

line of thought. But the object of the writer seems to have been chiefly to make

the texts cited the basis of moral and allegorical teaching, in the manner so

common in those days. In the Psalter he was content with copying out the first

verse of each psalm; whilst when dealing with the Gospels he did not quote from

each evangelist separately, but made use of a kind of confused diatessaron of all

four combined. An attempt was made to establish a connection between the

events recorded in the Old Testament and those recorded in the New, even when

there does not seem to be any very obvious connection between them. Thus the

sleep of Adam, recorded in the beginning of Genesis, is said to prefigure the

death of Christ; and Abraham sending his servant with rich presents to seek a

wife for his son is a type of the Eternal Father giving the Gospels to the Apostles

to prepare the union of His Son with the Church.

The entire work contains about 5,000 illustrations. The pictures are arranged in

two parallel columns on each page, each column having four medallions with

pictures. Parallel to the pictures and alternating with them are two other narrower

columns, with four legends each, one legend to each picture; the legends

consisting alternatively of Biblical texts and moral or allegorical applications;

whilst the pictures represent the subjects of the Biblical texts or of the

applications of them. In the MS. copy of the "Bible Moralisée", now under

consideration, the illustrations are executed with the greatest skill. The painting

is said to be one of the best specimens of thirteenth-century work and the MS.

was in all probability prepared for someone in the highest rank of life. A specimen

of the second edition of the "Bible Moralisée" is to be found in the National

Library in Paris (MS. Français No. 167). Whilst it is identical with the copy which

has just been examined in the selection and order of the Biblical passages, it

differs from it in the greater simplicity and brevity of the moral and allegorical

teaching based on them. Another important Bible, intended to instruct by means

of pictures, was that which has been called the "Bible Historiée toute figurée". It

was a work of the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century.

In general outline and plan it resembles the class of Bible which has gone before,

but it differs from it in the selection of Bible passages and in the allegorical

explanations derived from them. Coming to the life of Our Lord, the author of the

"Bible Historiée toute figurée" dispensed with a written text altogether, and

contented himself with writing over the pictures depicting scenes of Our Saviour's

life, a brief explanatory legend. Many specimens of this Bible have come down to

us, but we select part of one preserved in the National Library in Paris (MS

Français No. 9561) for a brief description. In this MS. 129 pages are taken up

with the Old Testament. Of these the earlier ones are divided horizontally in the

centre, and it is the upper part of the page that contains the picture illustrative of

some Old Testament event. The lower part represents a corresponding scene

from the New Testament. further on in the volume, three pictures appear in the

upper part of the page, and three below. Seventy-six pages at the end of the

volume are devoted to depicting the lives of Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

It must not be supposed that these were the only Bibles of this class that

existed in the Middle Ages. On the contrary, from the great number of copies

that have survived to our own day we may guess how wide their circulation must

have been. We have a MS. existing in the British Museum (addit. 1577) entitled

"Figures de la Bible" consisting of pictures illustrating events in the Bible with

short descriptive text. this is of the end of the thirteenth, or the beginning of the

fourteenth, century. Of the same date is the "Historia Bibliæ metrice" which is

preserved in the same library and, as the name implies, has a metrical text. But

we have specimens of manuscript illustrated Bibles of earlier date. Such is the

Bible preserved in the library of St. Paul's, outside the walls of Rome; that of the

Amiens Library (MS. 108), and that of the Royal Library of The Hague (MS. 69).

So numerous are the surviving relics of such Bibles, back even so far as the

eleventh and twelfth centuries, that it may be safely said that the Church made a

systematic effort to teach the Scriptures in those days by means of illustrated

Bibles.

SINGLE ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE BIBLE

The Bibles that have come under notice so far illustrate the entire Scriptures. But

what was done for the Bible in full was also done for its various parts. Numerous

beautifully illustrated psalters have come down to us, some of them going as far

back as the ninth century, as, for instance, the Psalter of the University of

Utrecht. One thing that comes out clearly from a study of the contents and

character of these psalters is that a very large proportion of them were executed

by artists working in England. So, too, the book of Job and the Apocalypse were

copied separately and adorned with numerous illustrations. But, as we should

have expected, the Gospels were a specially favourite field for the medieval

artists who devoted their time to picture-painting.

BIBLIA PAUPERUM

A class of illustrated Bibles to which no allusion has been made, but which had a

wide circulation especially in the fifteenth century was the "Biblia Pauperum". As

it name indicates, it was especially intended for the poor and ignorant, and some

say that it was used for purposes of preaching by the mendicant orders. It

existed at first in manuscript (indeed a manuscript copy is still in existence in

the library of the British Museum); but at a very early period it was reproduced by

xylography, then coming into use in Europe. As a consequence the "Biblia

Pauperum" was published and sold at a much cheaper rate than the older

manuscript picture Bibles. The general characteristics of this Bible are the same

as those of the earlier picture Bibles. The pictures are generally placed only on

one side of the page, and are framed in a kind of triptych of architectural design.

In the centre is a scene from the New Testament, and on either side of it typical

events from the Old Testament. Above and below the central picture are busts of

four noted prophets or other famous characters of the Old Testament. In the

corners of the picture are the legends. The number of these pictures in the "Biblia

Pauperum" was usually from forty to fifty.

Picture Bibles of the Middle Ages did not exhaust the resources of Christians in

illustration of the Bible. Since the fifteenth century a host of artistic geniuses

have contributed to make the events of Scripture live in colour before our eyes.

Most noted amongst them were Michelangelo and Raphael; the former chiefly

famous for his Pietà and the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel; the latter for seven

cartoons illustrating events in the New Testament. Perhaps no sacred picture

has been so often copied as "The Last Supper" of Leonardo da Vinci painted in

the refectory of the Dominican convent in Milan. Well known, too, are Fra

Bartolomeo's "Presentation in the Temple" in vienna, and Rubens's numerous

Bible pictures, to be found in the Louvre, Brussels, Vienna, Munich, and London,

but chiefly at Antwerp, where are his "Descent from the Cross", "Crucifixion", and

"Adoration of the Magi", the most famous of his works. These are but a few out of

a number of illustrious names too numerous to mention here and including

Botticelli, Carrucci, Holman, Hunt, Leighton, Murillo, Veronese, Tintoretto, and

Watts.

To study the works of the great Bible-illustrators is not so difficult as might be

supposed. For of late years a great number of collections of Bible prints have

been made, some containing engravings of the most famous paintings. In the first

half of the last century Julius Schnorr collected together 180 designs called his

"Bible Pictures, or Scripture History"; and another series of 240 pictures was

published in 1860 by george Wigand; whilst later in the century appeared

Dalziel's "Bible Gallery". Hodder and Stoughton have published excellent

volumes reproducing some of the pictures of the greatest masters. Such are "The

Old Testament in Art" (2 parts); "The Gospels in Art", "The Apostles in Art", and

"Bethlehem to Olivet", this latter being made up of modern pictures. The Society

for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge has not been behindhand, but has

issued amongst other publications a volume on "Art Pictures from the Old

Testament" with ninety illustrations, and another on the Gospels with 350

illustrations from the works of the great masters of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and

sixteenth centuries.

HORNE, Introduction to the Holy Scriptures (London, 1822), II, 3d ed.; HUMPHREY, History of the

Art of Printing (London, 1868); LEVESQUE in VIG., Dict. de la Bible (Paris, 1894), s.v. Bible en

image; DELISLE, Hist. littéraire de la France (Paris, 1893), XXXI, 213-285; BERJEAU, Biblia

Pauperum, reproduced in facsimile from one of the copies in the British Museum, with an historical

and bibliographical introduction (London, 1859).

J.A. HOWLETT

Transcribed by Bryan R. Johnson

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org