William de Brailes
Encyclopedia
Brailes
Brailes is a civil parish about east of Shipston-on-Stour in Warwickshire, England. It comprises the two villages of Lower and Upper Brailes but is often referred to as one village as the two adjoin each other...
, Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
. He signed two manuscripts, and apparently worked in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, where he is documented from 1238 to 1252, owning property in Catte Street
Catte Street
Catte Street is a historic street in central Oxford, England.- Location :Catte Street runs north-south, continuing as Parks Road to the north...
near the University Church of St Mary the Virgin
University Church of St Mary the Virgin
The University Church of St Mary the Virgin is the largest of Oxford's parish churches and the centre from which the University of Oxford grew...
, roughly on the site now occupied by the chapel of All Souls College, where various members of the book-trade lived. He was married, to Celena, but evidently also held minor orders
Minor orders
The minor orders are the lowest ranks in the Christian clergy. The most recognized minor orders are porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte. In the Latin rite Catholic Church, the minor orders were in most cases replaced by "instituted" ministries of lector and acolyte, though communities that use...
, as at least three self-portrait
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
s show him with a clerical tonsure
Tonsure
Tonsure is the traditional practice of Christian churches of cutting or shaving the hair from the scalp of clerics, monastics, and, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, all baptized members...
. This was not unusual: by this date, and with the exception of the St. Albans workshop of Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris was a Benedictine monk, English chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire...
, the only other English illuminator of the period about whom we have significant personal information, most English illumination seems to have been done in commercial workshops run by laymen.
Manuscripts
Psalter
A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were...
s, a book of hours
Book of Hours
The book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and...
and secular texts, and may also have been a scribe. He is associated with a distinctive style, but other artists also worked in this manner, and distinguishing his hand from theirs is difficult. The style is characterised by energetic gesticulating figures, though with a limited range of facial expression, and a concern for narrative. Ornamental bars stretch out from historiated initial
Historiated initial
A historiated initial is an enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, which contains a picture. Strictly speaking, an inhabited initial contains figures that are decorative only, without forming a subject, whereas in a historiated initial there is an identifiable...
s to the top or sides of the text, a feature in transition from the Romanesque style
Romanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
to the mature Gothic style, where decorative borders run round the whole page. Larger miniatures often contain different scenes in separate roundels. Most of his manuscripts have a page size similar to that of a standard modern paperback, and reflect the trend towards the personal ownership of books by well off but not extravagant members of both clergy and laity
Laity
In religious organizations, the laity comprises all people who are not in the clergy. A person who is a member of a religious order who is not ordained legitimate clergy is considered as a member of the laity, even though they are members of a religious order .In the past in Christian cultures, the...
.
The principal works attributed to Brailes and his workshop include:
- The "De Brailes Hours" in the British LibraryBritish LibraryThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
(MS Add. 49999) is the earliest surviving separate English book of hoursBook of HoursThe book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and...
(it has incorrectly been claimed to be the earliest anywhere, and the prototype of the form), the type of book that was to become the leading vehicle for illumination in the late Middle Ages. It was probably created for an unknown laywoman whose generic "portrait" is shown four times. It has been suggested she was from North HinkseyNorth HinkseyNorth Hinksey , is a small civil parish in county Berkshire, 2 miles west of Oxford, and 5 miles north of of Abingdon,situated on the right bank of the Isis...
near Oxford, and possibly called Suzanna. Signed twice by "W. de Brail", adding once "q[ui]. me depeint" ("who painted me"). Despite its small size of 150 x 123 mm, it contains a large number of historiated initials and full page miniatures introducing sections. - A series of small leaves (135 x 98 mm) illuminated on one or both sides with full-page miniatures, probably from a psalter (perhaps a psalter now in Stockholm which has a major historiated initial by de Brailes), with twenty-four now in the Walters Art MuseumWalters Art MuseumThe Walters Art Museum, located in Baltimore, Maryland's Mount Vernon neighborhood, is a public art museum founded in 1934. The museum's collection was amassed substantially by two men, William Thompson Walters , who began serious collecting when he moved to Paris at the outbreak of the American...
, Philadelphia, and seven in the Wildenstein CollectionDaniel WildensteinDaniel Leopold Wildenstein was a French art dealer and scholar, as well as a leading thoroughbred race horse owner and breeder....
, Musée Marmottan Paris. - "The New CollegeNew College, OxfordNew College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
Psalter", at 350 x 250 mm, the "largest and most elaborate extant work from the de Brailes workshop", and relatively late in date, this work belongs to the category of luxury psalters, with an illuminated calendarCalendarA calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...
and abundant decoration throughout, although there is no cycle of full-page miniatures. - Miniatures from a Psalter, consisting of six leaves in the Fitzwilliam MuseumFitzwilliam MuseumThe Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
and one in the Morgan LibraryMorgan LibraryThe Morgan Library & Museum is a museum and research library in New York City, USA. It was founded to house the private library of J. P. Morgan in 1906, which included, besides the manuscripts and printed books, some of them in rare bindings, his collection of prints and drawings...
extant, from a series of full-page illuminations on the Old and New Testaments (215 x 143 mm). - Bible with some Masses (British Library, Harley MS. 2813) - recently attributed, for a FranciscanFranciscanMost Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
patron, 183 x 133 mm, with two remaining historiated initials. - Bible with some Masses, in the Bodleian LibraryBodleian LibraryThe Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
, Oxford. A small (167 x 116 mm) Bible, probably made for a DominicanDominican OrderThe Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
patron. - Bible in Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge - the workshop's "most elaborate surviving example of Bible illustration", with 79 illuminated, mostly historiated, initials from which the decoration typically extends down the page. 245 x 175 mm.
- Bible, Free Library of PhiladelphiaFree Library of PhiladelphiaThe Free Library of Philadelphia is the public library system serving Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-History:History of the Free Library of Philadelphia: Initiated by the efforts of Dr...
, 182 x 113 mm, with many historiated initials.
Further reading
- Claire Donovan. The de Brailes Hours: Shaping the Book of Hours in Thirteenth-century Oxford, 1991, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0802059511 (for online review, see notes)