Amongst its varied ornamentation, the 14 th century St Denis missal has decorated finials in the shape of dragons on a number of pages Msl/1891/1346 folio 261r, The St Denis Missal, France, ca. © V&A Museum.ĭecoration increasingly spread over the whole page of a manuscript, spreading out from the initials. Msl/1868/5836, folio 48r, The Camaldolese Gradual, written in north Italy illuminations attributed to Simone da Siena, ca.
George is shown protecting the maiden from her dragony fate. The historiated initial P starts the prayer ‘Protexisti me, Deus…’ (Thou hast protected me, O God, from the assembly of the malignant). In this 14 th century gradual (a book of the music used in the Mass) Saint George battles a dragon.
Images of saints (some of whom were renowned for run-ins with dragons) often appear in Medieval manuscripts. 8977a, Initial H with the Virgin and Child on a bench on a trellis background in blue and gold. The shape of an initial H (inhabited with figures of the virgin and child) from this 14 th century manuscript is formed by a dragon. 8987a, Page from the Glazier-Rylands Bible (Preface of St Jerome to the Acts of the Apostles) with an initial I decorated with a dragon with foliated tail Low Countries (Hainaut) 1260-70, © V&A Museum.ĭecorated initials developed to feature figures (inhabited initials) or a narrative scene (historiated initials). 244:3, Leaf from choir-book with initial S in red pen-work on green and blue ground depicting a dragon. The sinewy body of dragons were perfect for such adornment as seen in these manuscripts from the 13 th century. It was influenced by Celtic and Germanic art and was popular from around the 8 th century. Interlacing decoration is characteristic of medieval manuscripts. Prepare to gawp in wonder at these marvellous beasts. They don’t seem to go out of fashion despite the variety in decorative schemes in manuscript illumination throughout the Middle Ages. When looking through the V&A’s beautiful collection of Medieval manuscripts and manuscript cuttings, images of dragons are a regular, and always thrilling, find. “…continually at variance with them, and evermore fighting, and those of such greatnesse, that they can easily claspe and wind round about the Elephants, … the dragons ware hereof, entangle and snarle his feet and legges first with their taile: the Elephants on the other side, undoe those knots wiht their trunke as with a hand.”Ī Medieval person might be justified in being fearful of encountering the serpent-like figure of a dragon in real life!
Msl/1896/1504, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, Italy,, © V&A Museum.Pliny tells us that the elephant in particular is a sworn enemy of the dragon, they are: This 15 th century illustrated version of Pliny’s ‘Natural History’ (written in 1 st century AD and referenced throughout the Middle Ages) has a dragon in the initial for book eight, accompanied by other monstrous beasts such as a lion and an elephant.
Sightings of dragons appear periodically in medieval chronicles such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of AD.793 which mentions ‘dreadful fore-warnings…whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament”.
MEDIEVAL DRAGON MANUSCRIPT FULL
When we think of the Middle Ages we often imagine a world full of knights, castles and, of course, dragons.
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