History of Illuminated Manuscripts

Illuminated Manuscripts were created in Europe in order to preserve knowledge and information. Monks usually copied down information onto other pieces of paper because of the education they had and the social status they carried with them. Monks that resided in Italy were the most common people to copy down the manuscripts. The time that the Manuscripts were being copied down was a time before the printing press was invented, which made the creation of these beautiful pieces of art a very long and tedious process. Generally, people that had a lot of money were the only ones that were able to buy these illuminated manuscripts. They were made costly because of all of the time and effort that was put into making them. The monks, who were responsible for writing down this information in the form of illuminated manuscripts, wrote them down on Vellum, which is a good quality of animal skin that is very durable and is able to survive through years of use. The production of Illuminated manuscripts eventually came to an end when the printing press came into the world. Illuminated Manuscripts were very expensive because of all the work that went into making them. Because the printing press offered a way to make copies of paper much more inexpensively and much more quickly, people did not really see a need to pay a lot of money for something that could be purchased for much cheaper and a lot quicker. Spain was the last nation to continue the production of Illuminated manuscripts. They continued to write them until the eighteenth century, when they could not afford to continue their business anymore. People today still remember about Illuminated manuscripts. Their purpose was to copy down pages of information and various other things into beautiful works of art that contained the same information that they were copying over in the first place. There are still original Illuminated Manuscripts from the middle ages in existence today. They were able to survive through all of these years for several different reasons. One reason is because of the paper they were printed on. This paper is very durable and is not as easily damaged compared to regular paper. Another reason is because of how they were cared for. They were purposely treated with much care and delicacy in order to preserve them. They were kept in storage facilities that kept them at a cool temperature and away from the earth’s elements. Several things that damage the illuminated manuscripts are changes in temperature, changes in humidity, exposer to heat, and exposure to sunlight. Also, chemicals were not used when trying to preserve the illuminated manuscripts, so there were no instances where the chemicals broke down and destroyed the manuscripts, instead of protecting them. If people today want to make illuminated manuscripts the way that they were made back then, there are several things that can be done to help keep the illuminated manuscripts preserved. The first thing that can be done is putting the illuminated manuscripts in a frame and putting an ultraviolet light filter in front of it. Ultraviolet light can damage the illuminated manuscripts, so putting the ultraviolet light filter in front of it can protect it from the harmful rays. Another thing that can be done is putting the illuminated manuscripts inside of archival quality acid-free containers. Although these containers can get quite costly, they will help keep the illuminated manuscripts safe by closing them off from the rest of the environment and by keeping them much safer than without the containers. I hope you had a good time reading this post and learned a little something about the history of illuminated manuscripts.

http://www.hermes-press.com/illum1.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09620a.htm

http://www.historicpages.com/texts/mshist.htm