Illuminations: a delight for the eye

Illuminations are hand-painted book illustrations. Illuminations are often colourful, glossy, and shiny; they light up the manuscripts. The word comes from the Latin illuminatio, which means “enlightenment”.

Illuminations of high artistic quality and expensive colours in gold and silver certainly underlined the wealth and status of individuals who commissioned splendid manuscripts. At the same time, they are often complex motifs, full of religious and political symbolism that could communicate, for example, religious devotion or political propaganda. Legal illuminations, i.e. illustrations in law manuscripts, offer insights into the medieval understanding of law and justice. They depict rulers and lawmen, examples of legal cases, illegal behavior, methods of punishment, and so on.

Although some motifs are inspired by important legal works or Bibles and other religious books, many of the illustrations in Norwegian and Icelandic law manuscripts are unique. So-called text-related illuminations are often found at the beginning of sections and visualize important themes in the text. They often served as commentary on or elaboration of the content of sections while also helping the reader navigate the text.

The Codex Hardenbergianus and Codex Reenhielmianus, which are referred to in many instances in this exhibition, are good examples of law manuscripts with text-related illuminations. At the same time, they are not typical of Norwegian law books. Only three Norwegian law manuscripts with text-related illuminations survive, compared to 39 from Iceland.