Notes on the decoration. (See also pp. 414, 422, fig. 130, and Plate
Plat« XXIII.)

PLATE XV.—English Writing and Illumination, circa
1284 a.D. (P salteri) Brit. Museum, Addi. MS.
24686.

THE WRITING is a fine, freely formed, “Gothic”
(p. 295). Note, the i’s are “dotted.” Note the double
MARGINAL LINES (p. 307).

THE SMALL INITIALS are of the “Lombardie”
type (p. 176), in which the Serifs are much thickened
and ornamented. Note the tails of the <¡)’s are turned to
the left to clear the writing. The LINE-FILLINGS
match the small initials (p. 159).

THE LARGE INITIAL, &c.—The plate shows
the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth

Psalm ( ^ Omine ÍJUÍSÍ liabítabít). Note “Arabic"
numerals (15) in margin.

The tail of the Initial & is formed of a dragon, the
head of which rests on the О-part: its wings project into
the inner margin (and these in the plate, which shows a
fragment of a verso page, run into the fold between the
pages): the tail (together with the background) descends
till a convenient point is reached from which the lower
scroll-work springs. The tail, wing, and claws above,
belong to a magpie which is perched on the initial.

THE DRAWING: see reference to this at p. 169,
and below.

Sir Edward Maunde Thompson (p. 39, “English
Illuminated MSS.”) says of this—

“—the Additional MS. 24686 in the British Museum, known
as the Tenison Psalter, from its having once formed part of the
library of Archbishop Tenison. This psalter is one of the most
beautiful illuminated English manuscripts of its time, but un¬
fortunately only in part, for it was not finished in the perfect

412

style in which it was begun ... in the first quire of the text
the ornamentation is of peculiar beauty. ...”1

“—the progress of the art [since the earlier part of the
thirteenth century] . . . is . . . manifest. There is more
freedom in the drawing, the stiffness of the earlier examples
is in great measure overcome ; and the pendant has thrown out
a branch which has already put forth leaves. A great variety
of colours, blue, rose, vermilion, lake, green, brown, as well
as burnished gold, is employed in the composition of the large
initial and its accompanying pendant and border, and the small
initials are of gold laid on a ground of blue or lake, and filled
with lake or blue; while the ribbons which fill up the spaces
at the ends of the verses are alternately of the same colours and
are decorated with patterns in silver on the blue and in gold on
the lake.”

“The group of the dismounted knight despatching* a
gryphon, which has proved too much for the horse, upon
whose dying body the expectant raven has already perched,
is tinted in lighter colours. It is an instance of the use to
which marginal space was put, particularly by English artists,
for the introduction of little scenes, such as episodes in romances
or stories, games, grotesque combats, social scenes, &c.,_ often
drawn with a light free hand and most artistic touch. Without
these little sketches, much of the manners and customs, dress,
and daily life of our ancestors would have remained for ever
unknown to us.”

1 It is supposed that the book was at first intended as a
marriage gift for Alphonso, son of Edward I.

2 The characteristic over and under arrangement of the
gryphon’s upper and lower bill, makes this doubtful.

PLATE XVI.—Italian Fourteenth-century MS., Brit.

Mus., Addi. MS. 28841.

THE VOLUME: one of two (the other numbered
27695), a Latin treatise on the Virtues and Vices (The
miniatures, drawings, See., probably by “the Monk of
Hyères,” Genoa). The vellum leaves have been sepa¬
rated, and are now preserved in paper books. The leaf
illustrated shows a margin of vellum of less than inch
all round (the plate).

The decorative borders are much more naturalistic in

41З

Notes on the
Plates