The Holkham Bible
by Michelle P. Brown
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Description
"This celebrated medieval picture-book tells the Biblical story, focusing upon the Creation to the Flood, the Life of Christ, and the Apocalypse, with the help of illustrations of everyday 14th-century England. It is only loosely based on the Bible and includes plenty of apocryphal episodes, for example Christ 'surfing' on sunbeams as a child, and God telling Noah to hurry up with the Ark so that he is forced to finish the top section in wicker rather than wood. The costumes, tools, weapons show more and buildings in the pictures give a near documentary-style representation of many occupations in the age of Chaucer, such as dyer, smith, carpenter and midwife. The depiction of drapery, textiles and clothing is exceptionally well realised; the people could almost step right out of the page and perform a medieval miracle play in front of us. The scenes and their accompanying text reflect a strong element of personal choice as the artist dared to tell the story of salvation from his own perspective, and is a unique record both of its times and of the mindset that produced it. Most probably created in London around 1337-1340, it is remarkable in that an artist took it upon himself to tell the biblical story through pictures in book form, with the text being composed to accompany them. This distinctive manuscript has now been carefully photographed and reproduced on special paper designed to replicate the look and feel of the original vellum. The facsimile includes Michelle Browns full transcript and translation of the text, and a commentary based on her unrivalled knowledge of the period."--BOOK JACKET. show lessTags
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Beautiful Facsimile Edition from Folio Society
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Author Information
36+ Works 1,951 Members
Michelle P. Brown FSA is Professor Emerita of Medieval Manuscript. Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London and was formerly the Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library. Ildar Garipzanov is Professor of Early Medieval History at the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History at the University of show more Oslo. Beniamin C. Tilghman is Assistant Professor of Art History at Washington College and a member of the Material Collective. show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1330 ca. (manuscript) (manuscript); 1380 (ca.) (ca.); 2007 (edition: Brown) (edition: Brown)
- Disambiguation notice
- This book is by Michelle P. Brown and its entries need to be edited so that it can be placed on the proper author page.
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- Languages
- English, Romance (Other)
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 1
- ASINs
- 3
