Oxford Menologion

This so-called menologion is one of the most splendidly painted Byzantine manuscripts to survive to this day. The term menologion or menology first and foremost connotes a collection of detailed lives of the saints. These works are ordered according to the dates of feast- and memorial-days for the honored saints of the Orthodox Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches, who are celebrated throughout the liturgical year. A variant of the menologion with the lives of saints in abbreviated form is designated as a Synaxarion. The artful Oxford Menologion is just such a text. This codex numbers among the primary works of the excellent Byzantine style of illumination and is illustrated with over 430 splendid, richly furnished miniatures with noble gold leaf.

At the Behest of the Sovereign

The Oxford Menologion was made ca. 1330 at the behest of the Despot of Thessalonica, Demetrios Palaiologos. He came from the Palaiogian dynasty and was the sovereign of Thessalonica from 1322 to 1340. The city of Thessalonica was truly flourishing in the Byzantine Empire, experiencing a golden age, so to speak. After Constantinople, Thessalonica was the second most important city in the empire for a long time and was the Byzantine Emperors’ secondary seat of power. Thessalonica was not only one of the most important trade metropolises in the Orient, but was also a capital of knowledge and the arts. Wondrous architectural monuments filled the exceedingly wealthy city, as did artistic and literary masterpieces, some of which survive to this day and continue to cast their spell on beholders centuries later. The Oxford Menologion counts among the last evidence of this artistic golden age.

An Important Hagiographic Manuscript

The collection of abbreviated saints’ vitae was made for liturgical use in Byzantine church rites. The manuscript was written in Greek, in so-called “pearl script” on high-quality parchment sheets. Generally, a page consists of a six-line text, for which a painter created an image of a saint, group of saints, or a ceremonial act honoring the saints. The pictures, which number over 430, are an important example of hagiography, the veneration of saints, in the book art of Byzantium. Texts and images depict only half of the Byzantine liturgical year, only the months September through February are illustrated. Therefore, it can be assumed that a second volume of the work existed, which unfortunately went missing in the course of history.

Trailblazing Book Art

With his work, the artist who contributed the images to the Oxford Menologion created a breath-taking magnum opus of medieval Illumination. He depicted the people in his miniatures in a way that was revolutionarily perspectival and realistic. With that, he modified the flat method of representation that was commonly practiced in most illuminated codices of the Middle Ages. The gestures of the figures and their garments’ fall of folds were vividly depicted and the architecture portrayed in the background of the pictures attests to the unbelievably fine observational skills of the artist. The facial expressions of the people were also reproduced in a natural way, something that few artists were able to achieve to a similar extent during this period. This is a painting style that is sometimes identified as Macedonian Renaissance, in which artists drew heavily from great ancient examples.