Introduction

Just as we devote our time and energy into the objects we cherish, so too did the medieval and also the nineteenth-century users of illuminated manuscripts. A history of multi-sensory experiences has shaped the manuscripts to the cuttings we exhibit today.

Video Transcript

Fragments of Devotion: A Sensory History of Illuminated Manuscript Cuttings

Exhibition Introduction
Text by Philippa Harris

What does devotion look like to you?

Fragments of Devotion showcases a selection of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s rarely seen illuminated manuscript cuttings, and objects from the Barber Institute’s own collection.

Shining light on the ways that these objects reflect medieval society, the exhibition invites you to explore the illuminated pages of these rare objects, considering their representations of, and connections to, devotion.

As markers of a devotion to faith, these multifaceted manuscripts were used in all kinds of different ways. They were kept as personal books, used throughout each day to guide prayers. Their owners personalised them, adding calendars and family trees, and making their own annotations in the margins.

These small books of hours were treasured and passed down throughout generations. Once cherished, the pages of these exquisite manuscripts exist today in fragments, after being cut out and collected by Victorian art enthusiasts, after religious dissolution threatened to erase them forever.

Illuminated manuscripts uniquely present personal and communal acts of devotion from the medieval period. The manuscripts show how owners devoted themselves to their pages interacting with their religious teachings; revisiting pages over and over again, kissing illustrations of saints and tracing the lines of favourite prayers.

Choir books showcase communal acts of devotion, where choir members gathered around enormous manuscript scores, abundant with gilded hymns. Illustrations of the choir book’s margins offer us a glimpse of musical instruments being played and songs being sung. The Victorian collections of these prized cuttings have preserved the sacred objects, conserving them for us to cherish once again.

This online exhibition, Fragments of Devotion, is co-curated by nine Masters’ students from the University of Birmingham, and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, and displays illuminated manuscript cuttings and books of hours from the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Barber Institute, and the Cadbury Research Library at University of Birmingham.

These fragments endure not only through the stories they tell but also through the ways they were handled and used. In this exhibition, that focuses exclusively on the western European Christian tradition, we look at different forms of devotion, exploring the tangible and intangible acts that have preserved and modified these manuscripts across time.

Medieval manuscripts are handwritten documents that variously assisted with prayer, music, medicine and entertainment. To make a manuscript was a laborious task that involved stretching parchment, scoring lines and burnishing gold. They were highly valued parts of daily life for religious and secular communities. Royalty, aristocrats, nuns and monks, among others, used Books of Hours and choir books to show devotion either to their faith as a whole or to specific saints, with the richly illustrated images an important aide with this activity.

Illuminated manuscripts began to pass into the collections of private individuals in the late eighteenth century, a process that accelerated in the early nineteenth as a consequence of the upheaval across Europe caused by the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars and the suppression of religious institutions. Many collectors were only really interested in the beauty of their illustrations, and began cutting them up; a fashion that, in the United Kingdom, reached its height in the Victorian era. Some manuscripts were cut for educational purposes, but most served the Victorian devotion to beauty and artistic merit. Although the original use of illuminated manuscripts had fallen out of fashion by the later sixteenth century, the devotion of nineteenth-century collectors to separating their images and decorative elements has ensured that numerous fragments have survived as individual cuttings, as well as many intact examples.

Regardless of historical period, the concept of devotion is not one that exists purely in thought. To devote yourself to something can be to listen, kneel, create, sing or closely observe. Whether from smudges on images of saints where they have been touched, or personal annotations next to lines of music, manuscript cuttings provide evidence of the multisensory aspects of devotion. In drawing attention to these details, this exhibition aims to create sensory connections to past lives.

This exhibition is organized into three sections, expanding on the senses of vision, hearing, and touch within manuscript cuttings. Visual devotion was stimulated by iconography, colours and symbols. Physical devotion was manifested through the experience of touch, osculation and writing. Auditory devotion was brought to life through sound, rhythm, and language. Through these sections – supported by introductory videos, in-depth essays and a glossary of technical terms (for which see the Discover More section) – we invite you to journey back and experience the enduring power of these objects.

This exhibition has been researched, written and curated by the 2024/25 Barber Institute cohort of History of Art and Curating MA students at the University of Birmingham. It is largely drawn from material held in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s outstanding collection of illuminated manuscript cuttings, supplemented primarily by works in the Barber’s own collection and in the University of Birmingham’s Cadbury Research Library. The students received advice and support from various individuals, for whom please click the About tab above.