Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts

This volume based on Dr Scott's 2004 Lyell lectures at Oxford, examines a number of English manuscripts of the 15th and early 16th centuries never previously studied and all of which make a unique contribution to art history in this period. Dr Scott's researches establish criteria for genuine artistic originality in manuscript books and fully contextualize her analyses. Each manuscript is assessed in detail in terms of its text, scribe(s), artists, decorative programme and circumstances of creation and is also set in the wider contexts of contemporary English manuscript art history by extensive reference to related manuscripts both contemporary and earlier, in England, and on the Continent. This ground-breaking study, by a leading historian of English art of the 15th century, offers an original investigation of motives for including pictures in manuscripts, of the role of the author in illustration, and of the traditional and innovative nature of visual representation in medieval manuscripts. Included are numerous colour plates.

Table of Contents:
Preface vii; Introduction ix; Abbreviations and Abbreviated Titles xii; I An English Modelbook for Nicholas of Lyra's Postilla litteralis 1; 11 The Enigma of All Souls 10 33 III The Unique Pictorial 'Afterpiece' to the Abbey of the Holy Ghost in BL Stowe MS 39 61; 1V The Genealogical Genre: BL Royal MS I.B.x 87; A Gothic Episode in the Renaissance: BL Additional MS 21974, Longland's Pontifical Book of Benedictions 119; V1 Conclusions 141; Notes 149; Appendix A 178; Appendix B 179; Appendix C 184; Appendix D 185; Appendix E 186; Appendix F 190; Index of Manuscripts 191

About the Author :
Kathleen L.Scott is the author of Later Gothic Manuscripts(2vols, 1996) and Dated and Datable English Manuscript Borders c.1396-1499 (2002). She is also general editor of Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the time of Chaucer to Henry VIII.

Review :
"With few exceptions, late-medieval book decoration of English execution or use has attracted very little critical attention. . . . [Kathleen] Scott is the only scholar ever to have surveyed the bulk of the surviving material, and her work in the field has been consistently of a pioneering character. Tradition and Innovation is thoroughly in that vein. . . . A lucid sense of what will interest a historically minded audience . . . contributes heavily to an important, readable, and handsomely produced book."--Julian M. Luxford "Speculum"