Manuscript Cutting: Leaf from an Antiphoner from the Franciscan Convent of Saint Klara, Cologne with an Historiated Initial ‘D’

While it is known that many women were involved in manuscript illumination, examples of named female illuminators are relatively rare. The writing and notation in this cutting were completed by Sister Loppa de Speculo (Loppa vom Spiegel) of the convent of Poor Clares in Cologne. With other existing records confirming her skill as an illuminator, she likely also created the images in this manuscript.

The Order of Poor Clares were nuns who followed the teachings of Saints Clare and Francis of Assisi, vowing to live in poverty and servitude. The Poor Clares of Cologne ran their own scriptorium in the fourteenth century, producing religious books to further assist in their devotional practice. A signature attribute of their manuscripts was the appearance of nuns kneeling in prayer in the margins. An example from the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne (Fig. 1) [image to come], shows a likely self-portrait of Sister Speculo kneeling besides a friar. The red note beside her states that she wrote and notated the text, highlighting how she intended her contributions to be acknowledged for future generations. Speculo was active during the most brutal years of the black death in Cologne, with another example of her work noting it was completed when ‘there was a great plague everywhere’. With mortality rates so high, this may explain why these nuns felt so compelled to record their presence within their manuscripts. By placing themselves within the margins, it forever links them to acts of devotion and hopeful prayer in a time of great change and turmoil.