MINIATURIST, English
(active 1240-1260 in Salisbury)

Missal (Sarum), folio 152v

1240-1260
Manuscript (Latin MS 24), parchment, 318 x 203 mm
John Rylands Library, Manchester

The Resurrection follows the Crucifixion and closes the cycle on folio 152v, painted on a pink ground patterned with white rings. Christ, bearing the cross and banner of victory, steps from the tomb, while an angel on either side plays a fiddle and a harp, and three sleeping soldiers in mail lie in the foreground.

Taken together, the full-page miniatures and historiated initials of the manuscript exemplify the sophisticated figural style associated with the Salisbury scriptorium in the mid-thirteenth century. Elegant, elongated figures, decoratively patterned gold, blue, and pink grounds, and a fondness for framing devices such as trefoil, cinquefoil, and pointed arches are the characteristics of the style. The consistent use of dark faces for tormentors and antagonists throughout the Passion sequence, and the recurring gold grounds that unify the miniatures with the historiated initials, point to a coherent decorative programme carried out by a single accomplished workshop rather than an accumulation of unrelated additions.

As a document, the manuscript is also a rare survival: relatively few missals from thirteenth-century England retain such an extensive and well-preserved cycle of illumination.