165. The Women Who Illuminated Manuscripts

AMY HELMES: Hi everyone. We're back with another Lost ladies of Lit bonus episode. Last week we discussed Christine de Pizan and her Book of the City of Ladies. Could a woman's hand have been behind any of the beautiful illustrations in this medieval work? Given what we know about women's involvement as artists in the medieval manuscript making process, it's certainly possible. Last week's guest, Kathleen Jones, author of the new novel Cities of Women, is back with us today to talk about it. So let's jump right into the conversation. 

Kathy, I found it really illuminating, pun intended, to discover that it wasn't just male monks who were illustrating these manuscripts in the medieval period. I don't know how it took me this long, or maybe it took us all this long to know, but this gets to the heart of your novel, Cities of Women. You feature a character, Anastasia, who's kind of the name at the center of the mystery that unfolds in your book, and she has a connection to Christine de Pizan, right?

KATHLEEN JONES: Yeah. We don't know whether she's real or another of Christine's metaphors, but she appears in the Book of the City of Ladies, and if I can read the passage, it's in the part where Christine is celebrating the various accomplishments of women artists. And she says, "I know a woman today named Anastasia who is so learned and skilled in painting manuscript borders and miniature backgrounds that one cannot find an artisan in all the city of Paris who can surpass her." 

KIM: That seems very real. 

KATHLEEN: I know. It does seem real. And then she adds, "I know this from experience, for she has executed several things for me, which stand out among the ornamental borders of the great masters." So whether it was literally Anastasia or she's using Anastasia to stand in for a number of women artists with whom she worked on these manuscripts, we don't know for sure. We do know, there's documentation from the archives in Paris that have survived, that there were women artists in all aspects of the book industry in medieval Paris, and while I was researching the book, I came across a reference to a dissertation about medieval artists by a woman named Kouky Fianu, who currently teaches in Canada. I forget what university she's at right now. [Ed: University of Ottowa] And I read her dissertation in French and we conversed about women artists at the time, and definitely there were women working as painters, as bookbinders, as scribes, uh, I'm not sure about parchment makers, you know, the people who created the material that the books were, written on, but definitely in all aspects of the trade. And we know because Christine tells us that she supervised her production, uh, her workshop. It's not like a workshop we think of today where everybody's in the same, you know, room or series of rooms, because the way the medieval book industry worked was, you know, there would be a parchment maker in one part of Paris. There would be a scribe in another part of Paris, the illuminators, the painters were in a different place. And the book would move in its development from spot to spot. But Christine was very precise. And there's been research on this by what are called paleographers, people who study, you know, the actual physical dimensions of the book, to demonstrate that she took absolute control of what her books looked like. And in some cases, she was actually the scribe herself.

KIM ASKEW: That is so cool. I'd love to see an exhibit of that, because I feel like Amy and I have seen illuminated manuscript exhibitions, but I've never seen it from the women who were participating in this work, from their perspective.

KATHLEEN: You know, there's an exhibit of women artists in the medieval and Renaissance period that's ongoing at, I think the Baltimore Museum right now. There's another exhibition, women artists from medieval times to the present, I think, I believe in Boston, but I know that the British Library is going to have a special exhibition on medieval women that they're going to launch in 2024.

KIM: Trip to England, trip to London! 

KATHLEEN: Yeah, there you go. It'll certainly feature de Pizan, uh, because, you know, they have that very famous Queen's Book in their collection. 

KIM: Right. Right. 

AMY: So getting back to the illustrators, who we're finding out women were doing this work, I got so excited when I found this out, that teeth actually help solve this mystery. Can you talk a little bit about what was found in skeletal remains that led scientists to realize this?

KATHLEEN: Right. A few years ago, uh, there's a woman, an archeologist by the name of Anita Radini. She is currently, I think, at the University of Dublin, and she and her team of researchers were digging in the graveyard near a German convent, and they exhumed the remains of a jaw. And they weren't looking for this, but they found these blue spots on the teeth and they couldn't figure out what it was. And they went through a whole bunch of explorations to finally identify it as the remains of lapis lazuli, which is this very, very, you know, expensive, but very important blue color that was used, particularly when you were you know, showing the gowns of, the, you know, Mary, the Blessed Virgin or whatever in these manuscripts. And it's interesting, because Christine, herself, uses that blue or requires that blue in the drapery of the gowns that portray her in her illuminated manuscripts. But they found the remains on skeletal teeth. And that was absolute, incontrovertible evidence that, you know, not only monks, but women were involved in the actual illuminating of these manuscripts. What they hypothesized is that the brushes that were used, you've seen these portraits in books, they're so small. In some cases, strokes are so fine that to get the point of the brush very, very sharp, they would lick it and probably deposited some of the remains of the paint in their teeth. And that's how they, you know, had that evidence to prove that women were involved. And the teeth were the source. 

KIM: I love, of course a woman figured that out. So amazing. I love it. 

Well, you 

KATHLEEN: know that women who were doing the, uh, remember when watches would glow in the dark? Uh, and it was a chemical that was put on them. Many women who performed that very delicate kind of painting in the watches got poisoned from the material that they were using to create the illumination, and this is the same thing. They stick the brush point in their mouth to sharpen it and dip it in the chemical and it was deposited and they in that case they got sick from it. So, but it was an archaeologist several years ago who, yeah, uncovered that information. 

AMY: And I found an article that discusses that a little bit more, and listeners will put a link to that in our show notes.

KATHLEEN: Okay.

AMY: I really loved the detail with which you described the whole medieval book making process in your novel. You really take the reader through that whole process, the binding, the illustrating. What level of research did you do for that? Did you go to a tutorial like the character Verity does in your book?

KATHLEEN: I did. As a matter of fact, I did. Um, well, first of all, I read, you know, voluminously about how the manuscripts were put together. I mean, I love books. I love to hold books. And I love, you know, the physicality of books. But these books are beyond what our books are now because they're so tactile, you know? They have a kind of three dimensionality to it. I wanted to convey that to the reader and I wanted to convey, you know, the amount of labor of many hands that went into the creation of what were, of course, in most cases, very rare books. If they were illuminated, they were meant for the nobility. Um, and so first years ago, I took a bookmaking class. I was interested in how books were put together. So I took an art course with a group of other people that was offered in San Diego at the time on making your own book. But then when I was writing this and doing the research on it, I felt I needed a kind of hands-on experience. And so I went to a workshop that was actually sponsored by the Morgan Library. And there I learned about ink making and the manufacture of vellum. There is still a place in upstate New York, I don't remember the name of the town now, where they mimic the medieval process of vellum making in order to produce the same material that medieval scribes would have. And there are art historians, there's a woman in the UK named, Sara Charles, who teaches the making of vellum, the making of ink, and the process of inscribing words on these pages, as well as illuminating the initials and drawing pictures. I didn't go to that one, that was in London, but in order to demonstrate, you know, the extent of labor involved in the making of a single book. The material was so precious. They couldn't afford to like we do today. Oh, well, you know, let me... 

KIM: Yeah, crumple it up and throw it behind... 

KATHLEEN: Yeah, it was so precious. So I saw a manuscript in the Morgan Library where there's a huge hole in the middle of one page. They weren't going to throw that out. They just wrote around it, you know, they inscribed around it. In other cases, there would be a tear because you stretched this material and there might be a tear made. Well, you know, you'd figure out a way to either write around it or add another layer or patch it up somehow. So yeah, it's definitely a laborious process. Yeah. 

KIM: So talking about these books with intricate illustrations, So the City of Ladies manuscripts, how did it enhance the experience of reading and understanding her work? What do we know about the illustrations that accompany her writing and the impact that they would've had on their reader?

KATHLEEN: Well, there's a kind of conversation going on between text and image and the image is meant to, you know, I guess call attention to aspects of the text to amplify it. And in Christine's case in particular, she was very keen on having her own portrait in these books, and so that serves like instead of signing it like we would now, you know, that portrait. And it wasn't just a portrait of her and her study, although that happens in some cases. She'd show herself at work in her study, but she would show herself giving this book to an important dignitary, like the queen in the case of The Queen's Book. And that was meant to sort of doubly authorize the queen in her power and Christine, you know, as an author. 

KIM: The author photo circa 15th century. 

KATHLEEN: Yeah, an author photo, but with, with much more, you know, power. 

KIM: Yeah, yeah, 

AMY: And make sure you use that expensive lapis lazuli on my dress, please.

KATHLEEN: Exactly. Exactly, if you go online to the British Library and you put in Harley 4431, which is the catalog number for the Queen's Book, will tell you where the images are and you scroll through those. They're amazing. They're also meant to be allegories in themselves. And the positioning of women in them is very important because rather than show, say, men doing all of the heroic acts, she'll show women doing, women bringing things into the world. So, you know, it has a lot of levels of meaning, but it's meant to kind of be in conversation with the text and amplify certain points that the text is actually making. 

AMY: And the colors are so vibrant and crisp. 

KIM: Oh yeah, gorgeous. 

AMY: It's amazing that it has lasted all this time. 

KIM: Mm hmm. 

AMY: It's as if it's almost fresh, on the page. 

KIM: It looks fresh, yeah. 

KATHLEEN: Yeah, yeah, and they're even more in person, they're even more stunning, I suppose, than you could ever reproduce in a... like an image on the screen can't quite get the depth or the almost three dimensionality of the image, you know. It almost literally leaps off the page at you. 

KIM: Speaking of leaping off the page, I really love how you made this relationship between Christine and potential people who were crafting her books, making Anastasia a real person, as a character in your book, and bringing her to life. So, 

AMY: Yeah, it's a great premise. 

KIM: Yeah, Yeah, I love it. 

KATHLEEN: Thanks. 

AMY: That's all for today's episode. Tune in next week, when we'll be discussing a secret diary, which both liberates and torments its owner. Author Joy Castro will be back with us to discuss Forbidden Notebook. A 1952 work by Cuban-Italian writer, Alba de Céspedes. 

KIM: Our theme song was written and recorded by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes.