Translation
This Bible of St Louis represents the highwater mark of early medieval translation from the Old Testament, a movement which is closely linked with the military orders and the crusade. The version of the book of Job is the oldest in any western vernacular language, and one of the finest.
The Acre Bible was translated from the Latin of the Vulgate version, not the original Hebrew. It is a "primitive" and "inelegant" translation, at times veering into paraphrase. Certain books are abridged, Deuteronomy most heavily, making it shorter than Judges.
Not all the books of the Acre Bible were translated anew into French. Three of them are 12th-century translations originating in England. The prologue to Judges in manuscript N says that it was translated on the orders of "Master Richard and Brother Otho" (maistre Richart et frere Othon), who can be identified with two Templars, Otho of Saint-Omer and Richard of Hastings. Otho was the master of the order's English province from 1153 to 1155, and Richard was his successor until 1185. There is no record of Otho after 1174, so Judges was probably translated between 1155 and 1174 in England. Richard traveled to Acre in 1185, probably bringing with him his copy of Judges, which passed to the Templar house in that city on his death.Samuel and Kings were combined in a 12th-century translation known as the Quatre livres des Rois , also from England. That translation dates to about 1170.
In other cases, the Acre Bible contains what seem to be revisions of already existing translations. Its Hexateuch, for example, bears strong similarity to that of the Anglo-Norman Bible. The former is not derived directly from the latter, but both share a common source.
The language of the Acre Bible contains Arabicisms and Occitanisms consistent with an origin in the Near East. This suggests that the compiling, editing and translation and not just the copying of the oldest manuscript was performed in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Toponyms (e.g., Sayete for Sidon) indicate familiarity with contemporary crusader names. The Acre Bible "may have been sponsored by the king", but in its choice of what books to include, it "appears better fitted to the ideals of the aristocratic warriors who defended what little was left of the Kingdom of Jerusalem"
Decoration
The Arsenal Bible measures only in 285 mm × 200 mm (11.2 in × 7.9 in), which indicates that it was intended for private use. It is a deluxe codex, fit for a royal patron. To Hugo Buchthal, it was "the crowning achievement of miniature painting" in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. [h] It contains twenty large (usually full-page) miniatures, one at the start of each book (counting 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings and the three divisions of Proverbs separately, but Maccabbees as one). It also has twenty large decorated initials, six of which are historiated.
There are two distinct styles of illustration. Nobel describes the illustrations as in the "Parisian style ... following Byzantine models." Buchthal refers to the "supremely intelligent and fruitful use of Byzantine models." C. A. Robson describes the illustrations accompanying the Hexateuch as Byzantine, but the rest of them as Parisian. The Byzantine style imitated is that of the 9th and 10th century. There is some affinity between the Arsenal style and the style of the frescos of Francis of Assisi in the old Franciscan church in Constantinople, executed between 1228 and 1261. Possibly the same artist worked in both cities.
The Arsenal Bible was influenced by the Oxford Bible Moralisée and the Morgan Picture Bible. Its scheme of illustrations has been compared to the stained glass in Sainte-Chapelle, also the work of Louis iX.
The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures which to a certain degree are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, Islam, the Baháʼí Faith, and other Abrahamic religions. The Bible is an anthology originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies.
The deuterocanonical books, meaning 'of, pertaining to, or constituting a second canon', collectively known as the Deuterocanon (DC), are certain books and passages considered to be canonical books of the Old Testament by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Church of the East. In contrast, modern Rabbinic Judaism and Protestants regard the DC as Apocrypha.
The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
The Old English Bible translations are the partial translations of the Bible prepared in medieval England into the Old English language. The translations are from Latin texts, not the original languages.
The Melisende Psalter is an illuminated manuscript commissioned around 1135 in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, probably by King Fulk for his wife Queen Melisende. It is a notable example of Crusader art, which resulted from a merging of the artistic styles of Roman Catholic Europe, the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire and the art of the Armenian illuminated manuscript.
The Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse is a heavily illustrated deluxe illuminated manuscript in four volumes, containing a French text of Froissart's Chronicles, written and illuminated in the first half of the 1470s in Bruges, Flanders, in modern Belgium. The text of Froissart's Chronicles is preserved in more than 150 manuscript copies. This is one of the most lavishly illuminated examples, commissioned by Louis of Gruuthuse, a Flemish nobleman and bibliophile. Several leading Flemish illuminators worked on the miniatures.
The Paris Psalter is a Byzantine illuminated manuscript, 38 x 26.5 cm in size, containing 449 folios and 14 full-page miniatures. The Paris Psalter is considered a key monument of the so-called Macedonian Renaissance, a 10th-century renewal of interest in classical art closely identified with the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (909–959) and his immediate successors.
The art of the Crusades, produced in the Levant under Latin rulership, spanned two artistic periods in Europe, the Romanesque and the Gothic, but in the Crusader states the Gothic style barely appeared. The military crusaders themselves were mostly interested in artistic and development matters, or sophisticated in their taste, and much of their art was destroyed in the loss of their kingdoms so that only a few pieces survive today. Probably their most notable and influential artistic achievement was the Crusader castles, many of which achieve a stark, massive beauty. They developed the Byzantine methods of city-fortification for stand-alone castles far larger than any constructed before, either locally or in Europe.
The Bible of St Louis, also called the Rich Bible of Toledo or simply the Toledo Bible, is a Bible moralisée in three volumes, made between 1226 and 1234 for King Louis IX of France at the request of his mother Blanche of Castile. It is an illuminated manuscript that contains selections of the text of the Bible, along with a commentary and illustrations. Each page pairs Old and New Testament episodes with illustrations explaining their moral significance in terms of typology. Every excerpt of the Bible is illustrated with two miniatures. The first shows a representation of the text fragment as such, the second shows a theological or an allegorical scene explaining the text fragment in the light of the teachings of the Church. The miniatures are accompanied by the Bible text and by a short comment on the typological relationship between the two images.
The Bible Historiale was the predominant medieval translation of the Bible into French. It translates from the Latin Vulgate significant portions from the Bible accompanied by selections from the Historia Scholastica by Peter Comestor, a literal-historical commentary that summarizes and interprets episodes from the historical books of the Bible and situates them chronologically with respect to events from pagan history and mythology.
Burchard of Mount Sion, was a German priest, Dominican friar, pilgrim and author probably from Magdeburg in northern Germany, who travelled to the Middle East at the end of the 13th century. There he wrote his book called: Descriptio Terrae Sanctae or "Description of the Holy Land" which is considered to be of "extraordinary importance".
Jean Miélot, also Jehan, was an author, translator, manuscript illuminator, scribe and priest, who served as secretary to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy from 1449 to Philip's death in 1467, and then to his son Charles the Bold. He also served as chaplain to Louis of Luxembourg, Count of St. Pol from 1468, after Philip's death. He was mainly employed in the production of de luxe illuminated manuscripts for Philip's library. He translated many works, both religious and secular, from Latin or Italian into French, as well as writing or compiling books himself, and composing verse. Between his own writings and his translations he produced some twenty-two works whilst working for Philip, which were widely disseminated, many being given printed editions in the years after his death, and influenced the development of French prose style.
The British Library is a research library in London that is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the United Kingdom. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Bible translations in the Middle Ages went through several phases, all using the Vulgate. In the Early Middle Ages, written translations tended to be associated with royal or episcopal patronage, or with glosses on Latin texts; in the High Middle Ages with monasteries and universities; in the Late Middle Ages, with popular movements which caused, when the movement were associated with violence, official crackdowns of various kinds on vernacular scripture in Spain, England and France.
The Old English Hexateuch, or Aelfric Paraphrase, is the collaborative project of the late Anglo-Saxon period that translated the six books of the Hexateuch into Old English, presumably under the editorship of Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham. It is the first English vernacular translation of the first six books of the Old Testament, i.e. the five books of the Torah and Joshua. It was probably made for use by lay people.
Gennady's Bible is the first full manuscript translation of the Bible into Church Slavonic, completed in 1499.
The Faits des Romains is a Medieval work of prose written in Old French, composed in the Île-de-France, or by a native of that region, around 1213–14. It chronicles the life of Julius Caesar.
The Libellus de expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum, also called the Chronicon Terrae Sanctae, is a short anonymous Latin account of the conquests of Saladin in the Holy Land between 1186 and 1191. The core of the text was written shortly after the events it describes and then supplemented by the addition of an account of the Third Crusade early in the thirteenth century. This probably took place at Coggeshall Abbey in England. Neither the original author nor the continuator/compiler is known by name.
John of Antioch, also known as Harent of Antioch, was a 13th-century Old French writer of Outremer who made important translations from Latin. He translated Cicero, Boethius, the Otia imperialia and possibly the rule of the Knights Hospitaller. His original writing consists of an epilogue to Cicero and some additional chapters appended to the Otia.
The Proverbia Grecorum is an anonymous Latin collection of proverbs compiled in the seventh or eighth century AD in the British Isles, probably in Ireland. Despite the name, it has no known Greek source. It was perhaps designed as a secular complement to the Hebrew Bible's Book of Proverbs.
