ABSTRACT

In the late thirteenth century the Caligula manuscript of the Brut, an English verse history, came to be illustrated with a portrait of the poet Layamon, and in the fourteenth century the Auchinleck and the Vernon manuscripts, each large enough to serve as a vernacular library in a single volume, were provided with iconic illustrations. The change in the visual focus of attention subtly reflects a shift from the divine to the human, and from Latin to the English vernacular in a way that characterizes this first English collection of religious and secular subjects. The vast selection and range of its religious contents in vernacular verse and prose means that the resources of a large monastic library were available for copying. The act of writing in the vernacular is identified as a labor spiritually beneficial to poet and audience. Because the Vernon has pictures for this poem, it was meant to be seen as well as heard.