Merovingian illumination

Ornamental in form, the style consists of initials constructed from lines and circles based on Late Antique illumination, title pages with arcades and crucifixes.

From the eight century, zoomorphic decoration began to appear and become so dominant that in some manuscripts from Chelles whole pages are made up of letters formed from animals.

Unlike the contemporary Insular illumination with its rampant decoration, the Merovingian style aims for a clean page.

The foundation of Willibrord strongly influenced continental illumination and led to the brought Irish culture into the Merovingian realm.

The Merovingian realm was the largest and most powerful of the states of western Europe following the breaking up of the empire of Theodoric the Great.

The dynastic name, medieval Latin Merovingi or Merohingii ("sons of Merovech"), derives from an unattested Frankish form, akin to the attested Old English Merewīowing,[2] with the final -ing being a typical Germanic patronymic suffix.

Unlike the Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies, the Merovingians never claimed descent from a god, nor is there evidence that they were regarded as sacred.

Some historians have put forward the hypothesis that the Merovingian illuminators sometimes took as models motifs found on oriental fabrics having wrapped relics.

Several abbeys, founded by abbots from Ireland or Northumbria, were places of production of manuscripts mixing the two styles and sometimes artists from the islands and the continent.

[8] With a few exceptions, the precise localization of the place of production of the Merovingian manuscripts is not guaranteed and is sometimes called into question.

This episcopal see, founded by Remigius at the beginning of the sixth century, is a notable exception among others to the cultural decline of the cities.

Always dominated by its bishops, Laon remained, during the Merovingian and Carolingian period, a living artistic and intellectual center, and in particular the Colombian abbey of Saint-Vincent.

Plundered and ravaged by the Saracens, who massacred all the monks, in 731 or 732, the abbey was relieved by Charlemagne who entrusted it to the Benedictines.

Manuscripts produced on site use less zoomorphic motifs but more ornaments such as the "bull's eye" (a circle with a dot in the middle).

In 584, Chilperic I was assassinated there on the orders of the mayor of the Landry palace, lover of Frédégonde, the king's own wife.

The historian Bernard Bischoff has shown that nine nuns of this abbey, whose names are known, copied and illuminated at the end of the Merovingian era, three manuscripts for the archchaplain of Charlemagne, Bishop Hildebold of Cologne.

The scriptorium of the abbey of Saint-Denis, protected by Charles Martel and Pepin the Short, is, according to some historians, perhaps the place of production of one of the most famous Merovingian illuminated manuscripts: the Gelasian Sacramentary which keeps track transformations of the liturgy due to Gelasius.