Original Documents,
ILLUSTRATING THE ARTS, &C. OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
EARLY ENGLISH RECEIPTS FOR PAINTING, GILDING, &c.
The old monastic artists frequently inserted in the margins or blank pages of a manuscript, receipts and directions for the different materials and processes connected with their work. These receipts deserve being collected: they are curious illustrations of the progress of art, and they may even afford valuable hints for modern times. The colours used in the Middle Ages were often more brilliant and durable than any we have at present. The following examples of these receipts are furnished by a manuscript in the British Museum, (MS. Harl. No. 2253. fol. 52. v°.,) written at the beginning of the reign of Edward II., and therefore in, or soon after, 1307.
Vorte make cynople[1]. Tac brasyl and seoth in dichwatur[2] to the halfendel other to the thridde partie, ant seththe tac a ston of chalk, ant mak an hole ithe chalk, as deop ant as muche as thu wenest that thi watur wol gon in, ant heldit therin, ant seththe anon riht quicliche tak a bord other a ston ant keover hit that non eyr ne passe out, ant let hit stonde vorte hit beo colt.
Vorte temprene asure. 𝔷ef thin asure is fin, tak gumme arabuk i-noh, ant cast into a standys[3] with cler watur vorte hit beo i-molten, ant seththe cast therof into thin asure, ant sture ham togedere, ant 𝔷ef ther beth bobeles theron, tac a lutel ere-wax ant pute therin, ant thenne writ. Et[4] ne grynt- ↑ A bright colour, apparently red, in Medieval Latin called sinopis, which Ducange pretends was green. The lexicographer quotes the following passage from a life of St. Willelm, in the Acta Sanctorum —"Qui enim solebat paulo ante in palatiis degere, auro radiantibus ac depictis sinopide." [Since this was in type, I have met with the following more definite account of this colour (which appears to have been used very extensively) in Whethamstede's Granarium, MS. Cotton, Nero c. vi. folio. 156, r°. "Sinopim, colorem videlicet illum cujus tres sunt species, videlicet rubea, subrubea, et inter has media, invenerunt primitus, ut scribit Ysidorus, viri regionis Ponticæ in urbe eorum quam solent ipsi Sinopem vocitare."]
- ↑ Room for three or four words is here left blank in the MS. This is the earliest instance I have yet met with in English of the word brasil, which signified a kind of wood, from which perhaps the name was afterwards given to the country. See Mr. Way's note on this word in the Promptorium. In Latin documents written on the Continent the word is found as early as the twelfth century.
- ↑ A wine-vessel.
- ↑ This word et occurs frequently at the commencement of a phrase, apparently written for and.
