13th century Anglo-Norman inspired scroll
I volunteered to take a scroll for Crown. I was surprised and pleased when it turned out to be a Scarlet Banner for Baroness Nicolaa, my Laurel . Her Excellency has a fairly strong persona and so I wanted to design a scroll that respected it with a 13th centry Anglo-Norman feel, a style I haven't really done before.
So I dug around the online British Library and found a few examples that I liked from manuscripts such as the Anglo-Norman verse Life of St. Edward the Confessor (wow! Bayeux-style storytelling), Guillelmus Gemmeticensis (Gesta Normannorum ducum), Royal 12 F XIII, Harley 4664 f.145v (lovely historiated initial of a fool), Royal 1 D 1 f.4v of Martin and the beggar, Arundel 233 f. 96v (historiated initial D for Domine, Psalm 101) and Harley 928 f.30 of Margaret emerging from the belly of a dragon (Lauds of the Virgin).
Some of the scans had good views of their accompanying Gothic-y text. I'm not very familiar with Gothic but these examples look more transitional than pure Gothic yet not Carolingian either. I only have one book of calligraphic alphabets and it's not very good. I tried the Gothic example that looked most like my examples but it just didn't flow, so I ignored it and copied out a rough alphabet from the extant samples. That felt much better.
I had been reading The Troubadour's Song by David Boyle, so for the text initially I looked at trouveres verse from the 12th century, including some from Blondel de Nesle, (according to Boyle likely one of Richard the Lionheart's lovers, yeesh. Gotta love sensationalistic history). Richard the Lionheart himself had written some songs and in one he used the same line to end each stanza for dramatic effect. This attracted me. I had decided to compare Nicolaa to the Roman goddess Diana (because the award was for archery), so I came up with the French line "Par raison on l'appelle Diane" (10 syllables) ("For good reason they call her Diana").
I did look at writing 2 or 3 stanzas of 7 lines or so, 10 syllables each. In the end I decided not to bother versifying the whole text as my calligraphy is not small and I would run out of space too fast. But I kept the Diana line. And rather than make the line a lacuna in a sea of English I decided to write the whole scroll in French - which caused an issue later :-) The other reason was that Nicolaa did my Award of Arms scroll several years ago in French, which touched me, and I felt this was a chance to return the favour.
For the illumination I wanted to incorporate elements of Nicolaa's heraldry. Nicolaa has a registered device that includes a gold pall, red crescenty-things, and counter-ermine (white bits on black). The award she was to receive has black wolves, a red wavy line and white for contrast. I wanted to use blue for contrast.
I decided it was best to historiate the N in her name, making the N gold, enclosing a scene of Nicolaa drawing the bow wearing a red dress wearing her characteristic veil and her coronet. The historiated initials found in this style of illumination often have diapering or chequey-style grids with little dots, ermines and other tiny designs in white, gold or sometimes red or blue on a contrasting background. Sometimes the grid lines are marked.
So I laid out a grid on the entire initial but I didn't consider the fact that the outer border of the initial should have had its own grid. As a result the border diapering of counter-ermine (black with white bits) is too infrequent and off-rhythm.
For the image of Nicolaa with the bow I was guided by an early 14th century ms (MS 47682, f.40, c. 1327-1335). It was later than my other sources but at least I could see the archer's stance. Unfortunately he was facing the wrong way and I didn't do a very good job reversing the stance. More importantly I could NOT draw a decent face (typical last-evening procrastination). I repainted it in white half a dozen times and finally gave up. Believe me, the blank white mask on the final is far better than the various haggish Joker visages I drew.
Initially the background in the initial was completely white but it looked too stark, even with some little gold dots in the cross-hatchings. I had already done the azur border around the Scarlet Banner device, so I decided to fill in some of the diamonds in the initial with blue. I left some blank and the overall effect is nice.
The wolves on the device turned out well, but they are rather individual and not the mirror images they should be.
I didn't have time to work out marginalia (e.g. using her comet badge or any of her favourite things like cats or ice wine ) so I feel the scroll is a little bare, not as dressed as it should be. I didn't find a place to use her red crescents either. However, I did slide in some white work on the gold N and some extra dots on the blue border of the award device. I also outlined some of the text capitals in blue or red and added a row of multi-coloured circles, an element I saw in Harley 4664 f.145v.
Note: I get the impression from some that whitework is hard. But after messing with tiny red dots on 8th century illuminations the whitework I attempted didn't seem too bad. What I found hard was not screwing up the counter ermine. I drew them in with pencil before I did the black fill, but had some trouble keeping them clean, so the diamond points are not that great.
I am not happy with the calligraphy as I didn't really understand the hand and I was rushed. Probably the best examples are towards the end of the first column where the rhythm and tightness look best. On the second column I was working around some damp paint and the angle of letters keeps changing. I was writing the text from memory at some points rather than from my pre-printed herald's copy, and as a result committed an error in translation that is not on the herald's copy - "champ de l'archerie" should have been "champ d'archerie". I also wrote patiente as patientente (the hazards of breaking a word across two lines) and had to use some white paint to cover it up. If I had more time I would have figured out a little marginalia for that too, but as it was I was still up to 5 am the day of Crown. Such is my life.
We couldn't stick around for Court as our guest needed to attend a Masquerade in Guelph, so I missed the presentation. I am quite sorry as I was looking forward to it, and I mercilessly chivvied Nicolaa's husband Gunther to let us know how it went. It's not often one gets to do an award scroll for one's Laurel! Especially one who has done two of my award scrolls.
As Nicolaa does the court heralding I was curious to find out how they would hand off that scroll. Beaudoin had been there earlier and reads French so I thought they would grab him, but he left early as well, so they hauled in Baron James Mercer. Hope he didn't have any problems.
Materials: pergamenta, gouache (cadmium red, ultramarine blue, white, gold), india ink, 000 brush, nib pen (C-4?), pencil, brown micropen.
So I dug around the online British Library and found a few examples that I liked from manuscripts such as the Anglo-Norman verse Life of St. Edward the Confessor (wow! Bayeux-style storytelling), Guillelmus Gemmeticensis (Gesta Normannorum ducum), Royal 12 F XIII, Harley 4664 f.145v (lovely historiated initial of a fool), Royal 1 D 1 f.4v of Martin and the beggar, Arundel 233 f. 96v (historiated initial D for Domine, Psalm 101) and Harley 928 f.30 of Margaret emerging from the belly of a dragon (Lauds of the Virgin).
Some of the scans had good views of their accompanying Gothic-y text. I'm not very familiar with Gothic but these examples look more transitional than pure Gothic yet not Carolingian either. I only have one book of calligraphic alphabets and it's not very good. I tried the Gothic example that looked most like my examples but it just didn't flow, so I ignored it and copied out a rough alphabet from the extant samples. That felt much better.
I had been reading The Troubadour's Song by David Boyle, so for the text initially I looked at trouveres verse from the 12th century, including some from Blondel de Nesle, (according to Boyle likely one of Richard the Lionheart's lovers, yeesh. Gotta love sensationalistic history). Richard the Lionheart himself had written some songs and in one he used the same line to end each stanza for dramatic effect. This attracted me. I had decided to compare Nicolaa to the Roman goddess Diana (because the award was for archery), so I came up with the French line "Par raison on l'appelle Diane" (10 syllables) ("For good reason they call her Diana").
I did look at writing 2 or 3 stanzas of 7 lines or so, 10 syllables each. In the end I decided not to bother versifying the whole text as my calligraphy is not small and I would run out of space too fast. But I kept the Diana line. And rather than make the line a lacuna in a sea of English I decided to write the whole scroll in French - which caused an issue later :-) The other reason was that Nicolaa did my Award of Arms scroll several years ago in French, which touched me, and I felt this was a chance to return the favour.
For the illumination I wanted to incorporate elements of Nicolaa's heraldry. Nicolaa has a registered device that includes a gold pall, red crescenty-things, and counter-ermine (white bits on black). The award she was to receive has black wolves, a red wavy line and white for contrast. I wanted to use blue for contrast.
I decided it was best to historiate the N in her name, making the N gold, enclosing a scene of Nicolaa drawing the bow wearing a red dress wearing her characteristic veil and her coronet. The historiated initials found in this style of illumination often have diapering or chequey-style grids with little dots, ermines and other tiny designs in white, gold or sometimes red or blue on a contrasting background. Sometimes the grid lines are marked.
So I laid out a grid on the entire initial but I didn't consider the fact that the outer border of the initial should have had its own grid. As a result the border diapering of counter-ermine (black with white bits) is too infrequent and off-rhythm.
For the image of Nicolaa with the bow I was guided by an early 14th century ms (MS 47682, f.40, c. 1327-1335). It was later than my other sources but at least I could see the archer's stance. Unfortunately he was facing the wrong way and I didn't do a very good job reversing the stance. More importantly I could NOT draw a decent face (typical last-evening procrastination). I repainted it in white half a dozen times and finally gave up. Believe me, the blank white mask on the final is far better than the various haggish Joker visages I drew.
Initially the background in the initial was completely white but it looked too stark, even with some little gold dots in the cross-hatchings. I had already done the azur border around the Scarlet Banner device, so I decided to fill in some of the diamonds in the initial with blue. I left some blank and the overall effect is nice.
The wolves on the device turned out well, but they are rather individual and not the mirror images they should be.
I didn't have time to work out marginalia (e.g. using her comet badge or any of her favourite things like cats or ice wine ) so I feel the scroll is a little bare, not as dressed as it should be. I didn't find a place to use her red crescents either. However, I did slide in some white work on the gold N and some extra dots on the blue border of the award device. I also outlined some of the text capitals in blue or red and added a row of multi-coloured circles, an element I saw in Harley 4664 f.145v.
Note: I get the impression from some that whitework is hard. But after messing with tiny red dots on 8th century illuminations the whitework I attempted didn't seem too bad. What I found hard was not screwing up the counter ermine. I drew them in with pencil before I did the black fill, but had some trouble keeping them clean, so the diamond points are not that great.
I am not happy with the calligraphy as I didn't really understand the hand and I was rushed. Probably the best examples are towards the end of the first column where the rhythm and tightness look best. On the second column I was working around some damp paint and the angle of letters keeps changing. I was writing the text from memory at some points rather than from my pre-printed herald's copy, and as a result committed an error in translation that is not on the herald's copy - "champ de l'archerie" should have been "champ d'archerie". I also wrote patiente as patientente (the hazards of breaking a word across two lines) and had to use some white paint to cover it up. If I had more time I would have figured out a little marginalia for that too, but as it was I was still up to 5 am the day of Crown. Such is my life.
We couldn't stick around for Court as our guest needed to attend a Masquerade in Guelph, so I missed the presentation. I am quite sorry as I was looking forward to it, and I mercilessly chivvied Nicolaa's husband Gunther to let us know how it went. It's not often one gets to do an award scroll for one's Laurel! Especially one who has done two of my award scrolls.
As Nicolaa does the court heralding I was curious to find out how they would hand off that scroll. Beaudoin had been there earlier and reads French so I thought they would grab him, but he left early as well, so they hauled in Baron James Mercer. Hope he didn't have any problems.
Materials: pergamenta, gouache (cadmium red, ultramarine blue, white, gold), india ink, 000 brush, nib pen (C-4?), pencil, brown micropen.