The Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Cotton Ms. Claudius B.iv: The Frontier of Seeing and Reading in Anglo-Saxon England »

Benjamin C. Withers is an associate professor and chair in the Department of Art at the University of Kentucky.

The Old English Hexateuch is a manuscript of the earliest vernacular translation of the Old Testament books of Genesis through Joshua. The texts belong, in part, to the Anglo-Saxon monk Aelfric (950-1010?) and to several anonymous translators and at least one artist who compiled these translations and illustrated them with nearly four hundred narrative images, which are carefully integrated into the manuscript.

The Hexateuch testifies to the creativity and innovation of Anglo-Saxon bookmakers and stands as an important, if little known, witness to the relationship between early book-making technology and the history of literacy. Benjamin C. Withers examines codicological features of the manuscript, focusing on the working processes of the artist and scribes and seeking to understand how they integrated newly translated text with newly developed imagery so deftly. Grounded in art history and literary theory, this work considers the narrative relationships created by the careful design and seeks to place the Hexateuch within the broader social and cultural development of vernacular literacy in the eleventh century.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations and Frequently Cited Sources

Introduction

Manuscript as Medium: Design and Construction of the Illustrated Book
Style, Date, and Origin
Iconographic Dependence, Artistic Innovations, and Adaptive Creations
Authority, Authors, Authorization
Audience, Literacy, and the Social Roles of Reading and ViewingRubrics, Genealogies, and Genesis
Picturing the Life of Joseph
The Sayable and Seeable: The Manuscript and the Phenomenal Landscape

Notes

Bibliography

Index