Prologue to the Book of Jonah, Winchester Bible, ca. 1150–80. Winchester Cathedral Priory of St, Swithun. Tempera and gold on parchment. Lent by the Chapter of Winchester Cathedral. Image courtesy of the Chapter of Winchester Cathedral
Welcome to the exhibition blog for The Winchester Bible: A Masterpiece of Medieval Art, opening today. Throughout the run of the exhibition, curators, conservators, and outside scholars will explore a variety of topics related to the display of this magnificent work and will attempt to present a fuller picture of its visual and thematic richness, artistic issues, and historical context. Some of the planned topics include giant Bibles as an art form, the patronage and production of the Winchester Bible, individual masters who worked on the book, and issues of conservation. We hope, through these weekly posts, to develop a fuller understanding of this important Bible, raise new questions, and inspire conversation.
Giant Latin Bibles were a distinctive achievement of Europe during the high Middle Ages (1050–1200). They functioned as special, often royal, gifts to churches and monasteries. Publicly displayed on special feast or celebration days, they were also sometimes read aloud in the refectory during meals. The Winchester Bible is one such giant Bible now consisting of four bound volumes whose pages measure approximately 23 inches high by 15 inches wide. The text of 468 folios was written over a period of thirty years by a single scribe with at least six different gifted painters applying expensive pigments to calf-skin parchment. Likely commissioned around 1150 by the bishop of Winchester, Henry of Blois (1129–1171), this lavishly ornamented manuscript is among the most important monuments produced in England at any time. Two of its four volumes are on view in the exhibition.
The city of Winchester lies sixty-eight miles west of London and just north of Southampton in Hampshire, and was initially an important Roman town. At the time of the Bible's making, Winchester was already the capital and royal seat of Wessex, but it had many international connections. I'll explore Winchester's position as an artistic center in medieval England in my next post.
Related Link
Winchester Cathedral website