Friday, 26 January 2007

Regensburg Manuscript - Vitae et passiones apostolorum

"Vitae et passiones apostolorum" (München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. lat. 13074.)
Prüfening (Regensburg), 1170/1180.


A more heavily illustrated manuscript, with quite a few women illustrated, but no calf length tunics and no patterned fabrics.

Women in the manuscript:
I haven't included picture captions, as bildindex was unusually uninformative. (captions such as "
Minature from Matthew")

[28], [66v], [90], [140], [100v],
Plain dress with flared sleeves, veil (or loose hair), some with rucked up chemise sleeves. The veils are probably wrap around ones - see how the 2nd image has a clear line across the shoulder where a wrap would cross itself, and the others have similar pattern of folds.



[66], [66v], [82v], As above, but with beanie caps. The beanie caps are worn over the same veils as above or just over the hair (2nd lady, first image). Most have bands of trim around the edge. Some of them are a plain circle, others vee upwards on the forehead. Several here appear to be worn jauntily, slightly off centre on the head, but they could be ones with a vee where i can't see the second side clearly. The one's that don't vee remind me of Jewish skullcaps.





[90v] Veil is loosely draped - doesn't cover front of neck. Rest of dress same as others. This could be a man (i've seen such head drapes on people with beards), but I don't think so.


[100v] Dress same as others, but she is wearing a turban. It's hard to tell with the smudge mark, but I think she is wearing the same wrap veil as the others (you can even see a dangling end behind her shoulder), and then the turban on top of that. It could be a pre-wrapped turban. Or it might be a different variety of hat I've not seen before, but I'm pretty sure I can see bands of wrapping. Her face appears to be contorted (big nose, fat face, scowl?) which may be a racial stereotype, or may just be me reading too much into a smudge mark. I should note my reasons for assuming this is a female - floor length dress and long maunches, features I haven't seen on guys before (ankle length, or longer with a slit, and only short maunches I have seen).


Image summary of remaining pages and rest of featured pages:

I find this manuscript a little strange in it's fashion sense. About half the men are still wearing the fashion of the prüfening miscellany - tunics with shirts showing underneath and many bands of decoration. But none of the women wear the female version of this fashion - all have floor length dresses, and none even have a band of decorated trim on the end of their sleeves. Some have what looks like a plain coloured band, but no decoration. Perhaps the artist didn't have enough time to do such elaborations (but calf length doesn't take time) or perhaps this vain fashion was not considered appropriate for saintly women (but none wear halos, and other manuscripts show Mary with a calf length tunic). Or maybe this shows a diversion over time (this manuscript is slightly later than the others so far) from byzantine fashion?

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