What: This is an illuminated document in the style of a typical middle Tudor grant of arms by letters patent.

Who: Generally speaking, such a document would have been made for the recipient of Arms. A document with this much illumination would typically be commissioned by the recipient; this was one way in which scribes and illuminators remained employed after the advent of the printed press.

Where: This is an English example of an illuminated document; the documents used as exemplars for this project were created around London between the years 1450-1540. The primary change in the style of the specific documents observed for this project was a change from Latin to vernacular languages, and the eventual practice of portraying the herald granting the arms in the historiated initial.

When: See above.

How: In period, these documents were typically written on vellum. First, the scribe would do any needed layout, indicating where the major illumination would be, sketching some elements thereof with a lead point, treated bone, or ink, and so forth. The lines for the writing would be ruled, often by pinpricking guides into the vellum and scribing with a lead point and straight edge, and the document lettered with a quill pen and ferro-gallic ink. The scribe would then do the gilding, usually laying gesso or gum ammoniac, allowing the gilding base to set, and then applying the gold. This required the scribe to breath upon the base, put the gold into place, press it on the base, and burnish the gold with a burnisher--usually of agate, hematite, or tooth/bone. The scroll would then be painted, using a variety of paints typically made from gum Arabic or glair (but egg tempera, casein, or other glue sizes could be used as a binder) and a pigment. Illuminators of the Tudor era frequently used lapis lazuli, azurite, malachite, sap green, orpiment, lead red, vermilion, lead white, and a variety of earth pigments, although a plethora of other pigments existed and could be used.

I used the above methodology to make this document. However, my materials list is composed primarily of modern materials, chosen for ease of availability . I used 100% cotton paper, as vellum is quite pricey. Both paper and cotton were available in period, and by the time this type of document was made, paper was being commercially produced in England. I used a glue size to adhere the gold as I was out of gum ammoniac and wanted to do flat gilding. I used real gold leaf, but chose to substitute aluminum leaf for the more period silver leaf, as silver leaf eventually tarnishes to black. Aluminum leaf remains silvery. The only handmade paints on this document are the ultramarine blues, ultramarine violet, and Spanish ochre; the carmine, cadmium red, red ochre, lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, bleedproof white, and cinnabar green are all commercially prepared gouaches. I chose gouache, as it is an opaque, water-based paint that is comprised of gum Arabic, pigment, and an inert white pigment for opacity, thus making it a modern equivalent of a period paint. I scribed the calligraphy lines with a pencil (graphite, the actual writing component in a pencil, was in use in England by the 16th century), ruler, and lettering guide, and wrote this document out with a modern sumi ink and a Mitchell nib with penholder. I chose sumi ink because it is composed primarily of gum Arabic and soot; this type of ink was well known in period. I like Mitchell nibs as they are quite flexible; while no metal nib can be as flexible as a quill, Mitchell is, in my opinion, most able to mimic the qualities of a quill. I applied the paints with sable brushes purchased from the local art store. I used a crow quill loaded with India ink (another soot based ink) to do the drawing. I did the shading on this piece by fist applying the medium shade and then by applying the lighter (or darker, as appropriate) shade or color. There is little blending on this piece, although it would appear otherwise; I achieved the blended effects by putting the darker tones on the lighter tones as a thin application.

The illumination design and layout is loosely based on an English grant of arms of 1492. While I used the grant as a guide, I in no way tried to make a direct copy thereof. Elements from other heraldic documents are included, such as the portrait of the herald, the adjustment of the arms to a vertical rather than a tilted display, and the removal of the standard. The crest was eliminated from the helm to give room for a large purple fret; I wanted to be sure that the purple fret was as eye-catching as the arms. I have attached copies of several illuminated heraldic documents to this documentation in order to provide you with a visual comparison.

This is written in a hand called English Bastard Secretary. It is very similar to the hands in many of the attached documents. I based the ductus on that provided by David Harris in The Art of Calligraphy; I have attached a copy of the ductus for your viewing. It was a fairly prevalent hand, and I have attached several examples from other books and documents for your comparison. In writing the text, I tried to use a number of period abbreviations and avoided the modern manner of using "I", "j", "u, and "v", instead using the rules I have observed in manuscripts and transcriptions in paleographical books: "j" is used as a decorative capital or as the last "letter" in a Roman numeral with "I" being used in all other cases, and "v" is used at the beginning of words and "u" is used in all other cases. I believe this gives a more period look to the calligraphy without making it completely illegible to the recipient.

For the sake of brevity, I have not included citations in this paper. Nonetheless, I did glean my information from the source references in the section following, which includes several translations of period manuals, 20th century books built on long study of medieval methods, and a variety of visual references. I discovered that there is a certain similarity in materials and method through all these period books; I rather expected that different locations and times would have at least some radically different practices, but, truth be told, they are all similar, with the primary difference being in the use of plant materials used to make lake pigments. This makes sense; woad was the usual thing growing in the British Isle, while Indigo was to be found in the Mediterranean areas. I am fairly practiced with a number of the medieval methods used in this piece, and so much of my learning came from the combination of the medieval method with modern materials. I learned that glue size gilding does not work so very well on this particular paper--the rough surface makes good adhesion and drying difficult. This was a very interesting discovery, too, as I have done glue size gilding on other brands of very rough paper and had no real problems. I did try to size gild on a different day upon the same paper and received the same result. I learned that illumination styles using a lot of thin lines don’t work really well on this paper. In fact, I can say that I learned that I don’t really like this paper! I learned a lot about illuminated documents: while the illuminated heraldic document is not usual, it is in existence during the last part of our period.

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Copyright 1999, Elise (Elyse) C. Boucher.