Note.—This diagram suggests a simple
treatment of an initial word in colours and
gold. The graphic method employed by
heralds for indicating these—by lines and
dots—is here discarded for the stronger con¬
trasts of black, white, and “grey.”

The letters contained inside the initial P
are kept distinct—(i) crimson (“grey” in
diagram) being used solely for the patches of
ground adjoining the (gold) letters, and for
filling the hollow part of the (gold) P, the
whole word stands out in crimson and gold;
(2) the floral pattern is also in gold, but it
does not cover or hide any_ part of the word.

The remaining ground is green inside and
blue outside the P. The doors «î. are in
red on the green ground, in cream with a
red centre dot on the blue.

The gold throughout is outlined black, and the blue ground has a
black outline, separated from it by a white line.

complete opening are sometimes covered with illumi- The De¬
nation. In late and modern usage the border is velopmentof
frequently separated from the initial, constituting a Illumination
“framing border.”1

In some MSS. there are two side-borders on a
page, one springing from the Initials on the left,
the other sending branches into the gaps on the
right (see Plates XVII, XVI). In some cases the
two pages of an opening are balanced by a side-
border in each of the wide side margins (p. 414).

Backgrounds of Initials (see pp. 154-9, 4°7~9)
and borders are treated very similarly. It may be
noted that, where a solid-stem pattern cuts up the
ground into small pieces, these are often painted in
different colours—commonly red, and green, and
blue (see pp. 175, 416). And the groups of dots (fig.

129)—in white or other colours—may fill the inter¬
stices of a background, putting the finishing touch
to the even covering and pleasant intricacy of the
decoration [comp. p. 167). Or little flowers and
leaves may be used instead—growing from a thin
(white) stem which appears to twine throughout the
main pattern—-just as the smaller plants in a hedge
creep and twine among the larger stems. There is
no better model in nature for the illuminator than
a country hedgerow.

’ Narrow ornamental frames are to be found in early MSS.
before the full development of the Initial Letter. These, like
various other primitive ornaments, such as are suggested at
pp. 161, 162 & 181-2, are not an outgrowth of the Initial.

Whether narrow or broad, framing borders, or borders which
surround the text, should generally not encroach on the writing-
space (which is kept uniform throughout the pages of the book),
though broad framing borders may be allowed nearly to fill the
entire marginal space.

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