The Impact of Silk in Ottonian and Salian Illuminated Manuscripts

 

by

 

Stephen Wagner

 

            A group of lavishly illuminated German manuscripts challenges customary lines of distinction between two classes of objects normally considered within distinct art historical traditions.  Manuscript painters of the late tenth and eleventh centuries in Ottonian Germany, produced decorative pages in their books that copy or evoke Byzantine and Near Eastern silk textiles made between the eighth and eleventh centuries.  This practice has no clear precedents or followers, and has remained enigmatic. Because of its great value, silk played an important role in trade negotiations, diplomatic relationships and marriage alliances during the late antique and medieval periods.  It was an important commodity in Byzantine society, and in the Islamic world, but was far more rare in the Latin West.  Illuminated manuscripts were esteemed in both Eastern and Western Europe, and, like silk, were also made as gifts. Three significant centers in northwestern Germany, Corvey, Hildesheim and Echternach, produced luxury manuscripts with imitation textiles.  This presentation focuses on identification and analysis of design attributes and similarities between textiles and painted manuscripts.  Some manuscripts contain actual silk curtains that protect the miniatures. Others contain painted pages, based on textile patterns, that divide major sections of the manuscript, and some manuscripts use painted textile-inspired patterns behind figural imagery or text. In this unique group two prestigious art forms produced by traditionally adversarial cultures coalesced into innovative and decorative programs in manuscript painting.  They elucidate the discourse not only between the Byzantium and the West, but also between two artistic media at the turn of the first millennium.

 

 

Stephen Wagner is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Delaware.  He is currently writing his dissertation, entitled, “Byzantine Silk and German Illuminated Manuscripts and their relationship in design, function and patronage.” The dissertation explores how these luxury manuscripts reflect political and religious developments in Germany during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Also at UD, he has taught several art history courses. In 1996 he was an intern in the Manuscripts and Rare Books department at the Walters Art Museum.  He completed his M.A. at Florida State University where he wrote his thesis on representations of the Holy Family as a model for notice nuns in late medieval Italy.  Mr. Wagner has presented papers at Dumbarton Oaks and the International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University.