The only copy of an illustrated
Anglo-Norman verse Life of St Edward the Confessor, written in
England probably in the later 1230s or early 1240s and, as
preserved in this manuscript, executed c. 1250-60.
A masterpiece of mid
thirteenth-century English illumination, the present manuscript
preserves vital evidence for the study of the hagiographical
writings about St Edward sponsored by Henry III (1216-72), and also
for the complexity and sophistication of English pen and wash
narrative art in this period. The text, entitled in the first
rubric La estoire de seint aedward le rei translatee de latin,
is based upon Aelred of Rievaulx's twelfth-century Latin Life,
written around the time of the saint's canonisation in 1161. The
Life tells how Edward was exiled as a
boy during the Danish occupation, and how his rule proved of
benefit to the English people; it describes his visions and
miracles, his patronage of
Westminster Abbey and the manner of
his death, before covering the downfall
of his successor, Harold, and the eventual
opening of the king's tomb
The present translation into verse
was composed by someone either at Westminster, where the shrine of
the saint lay, or more probably at St Albans. Numerous
correspondences between the text and the historical works of
Matthew Paris (d. 1259) suggest very strongly that Matthew was in
fact the author. The text
opens with a form of dedication to Queen Eleanor of Provence,
and was thus composed after 1236, when Eleanor married Henry III,
but probably before the birth of Prince Edward, later Edward I, in
1239, and certainly before the start of work on the rebuilding of
Westminster Abbey by Henry III in 1245, which the passages in the
poem about St Edward's own refoundation of the Abbey appear to
anticipate.
Consisting of thirty-seven folios
and a total of sixty-four pictures, the present manuscript is a
slightly later copy of the original. The script and illustrations
demonstrate numerous points of contact with a number of
stylistically and codicologically similar manuscripts produced not
at St Albans but in London, or at Westminster itself: these include
the Getty (formerly Dyson Perrins) Apocalypse, the Morgan
Apocalypse and the Tanner Apocalypse. A similarly delicate hand was
employed on now fragmentary wall paintings in the Dean's Cloister
at Windsor Castle, made for Henry III in the 1250s. The Life of St
Edward is probably the latest of the series, since some of its
illustrations are in the French-influenced 'broad-fold' style
common from the later 1250s; these, and some of the pen and wash
marginalia, also include naturalistic foliage common only from the
1250s. This indicates that the present copy was probably made on
the basis of Matthew Paris's original by court illuminators working
around 1255, possibly for the use of Eleanor of Castile, who
married Prince Edward in 1254, and who later owned a manuscript
Life of St Edward.
The format of the manuscript, with
framed illustrations at the head of the page, resembles such
autograph works of Matthew Paris as his Life of St Alban in Dublin,
and also the stylistically related Apocalypses. Here, however, the
form of the poem, in octo-syllabic rhymed couplets which yield a
short line and thus three columns of text per page, has shaped the
appearance of each opening. As a rule the illustrations,
accompanied by rubrics, cover all three columns, but occasionally
occupy fewer. The marginalia are notable: that on the first
opening (fo. 3) shows a semi-erased image of a man and woman
kissing, perhaps a subversive reference to the substance of the
main text, which stresses Edward's chastity.
Paul Binski
Professor of the History of Medieval Art
University of Cambridge
Featured in The moving
word exhibition at Cambridge University Library.
This item is included in the
Library’s 600th anniversary exhibition
Lines of Thought: Discoveries that changed the world
which runs until 30 September 2016.
