Picture Bible of Manchester

So-called picture Bibles, manuscripts whose contents are dominated by imagery rather than text, are among the rarest and most sought-after codices from the Middle Ages. Here we have a small but very fine example of such a work, which consists of 48 full-page miniatures with gold leaf backgrounds in the Byzantine style and captions in French depicting events from Genesis and Exodus: the Picture Bible of Manchester. Produced sometime between 1200 and 1250, it is regarded as a fine specimen of the Gothic style from the so-called Channel school in Northern France. It is stored in the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library under the shelf mark French MS 5. This is an unusual and precious manuscript of the early French Gothic style.

A Costly Commission

Although the exact provenance of the manuscript remains a mystery, its quality, the fact that only one side of the parchment was used, and the richness of the materials – expensive paints and gold leaf – indicate that is must have been the commission of a wealthy nobleman. This manuscript’s format and content preclude the possibility that it was commissioned by a member of the clergy. Its handheld size indicates that it was intended for personal use, but the unusual format consisting solely of full-page miniatures indicates that this was a luxury item intended to display their wealth, piety, and sophistication. It was rebound in the 17th century, at which time some of the manuscript’s content may have been separated from the main body.

An Image-Driven Manuscript

The full-page miniatures are accompanied by captions in French, but they do not appear to have originally been part of the design. Many picture Bibles have text blocks that are distinctly laid out and which are uniformly filled, but the texts in this manuscript were clearly an afterthought and were added after the images were created. While most narrate the events in the miniature, others explain what is happening off the page. Some of these captions may have been added as much as fifty years later by an Italian hand, indicating a change of ownership, but which sometimes mislabeled the miniatures. Furthermore, the selection of single scenes does not point to any one source – some are biblical events while others are only elucidated in various commentaries and glosses. Other scenes are depicted in a way that varies considerably from the way they are described in the Bible. Another unique feature of the Picture Bible of Manchester is the fact that each miniature is focused on a single scene, and takes a much more patient approach to depicting events than other picture Bibles, which usually combine four scenes on a single page. The images trace the events of the Bible from Creation to the Marriage of Moses and Sophora, an unusual place to stop, which indicates that the manuscript is either a fragment or was not completed. It was likely intended to either contain a full Old Testament cycle, or a cycle which incorporated scenes from the New Testament and possibly the lives of saints.