Our knowledge of how people in the middle ages went
about their daily life and work is obtained partly from the
study of objects that have survived — like buildings, tools and
domestic utensils — and from written texts and administrative
records. Their activities are also illustrated in pictorial form, as
in sculpture and carving in stone and wood, in wall and panel
painting, decorated metal work, stained glass, tapestry and
embroidery. Illuminations and drawings in manuscripts pro-
vide the most numerous group of illustrations, since a manu-
script can contain more than 100 separate pictures: these
illustrations are particularly attractive, as most of them are
coloured.

Until the 13th century, illuminated manuscripts were usually
produced in the monasteries; by that time, however, secular
workshops had come into existence, and these workshops
gradually replaced the monasteries as centres for manuscript
illumination. Decoration of a manuscript, which can include
borders, initial letters, marginal images and miniatures, was
added after the text of a manuscript was complete. The word
'miniature', which may derive from the Latin word miniare,
meaning to paint with red lead, is now employed to describe a
picture in an illuminated manuscript. Therefore, although it is
perhaps natural to think of a miniature as a small item, the term
is also correctly used for illustrations that cover an entire page.

Pictures in a medieval manuscript are usually related to the text
of the volume in which they occur. The most important book in
the middle ages was, of course, the Bible, and the Bible is
essentially a story book. The stories were not only illustrated in
the Bible itself, but in service books incorporating Biblical
texts, such as the Psalter (the Book of Psalms), or the Lectionary,
a collection of readings from scripture used by the clergy at
Mass (see Fig. 55 ). The Harley Psalter, produced at Christ
Church, Canterbury, in the early 11th century, contains numer-
ous drawings, including agricultural scenes. An example from
this manuscript ( Fig. 1 ) shows the close relationship between

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