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Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls some isolated single sheets survive. However, especially from the thirteenth century onward, an increasing number of secular texts were illuminated. The majority of these manuscripts are of a religious nature. The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many illuminated manuscripts survive from the fifteenth century Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The very existence of illuminated manuscripts as a way of giving stature and commemoration to ancient documents may have been largely responsible for their preservation in an era when barbarian hordes had overrun continental Europe and ruling classes were no longer literate. Had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, the entire literature of Greece and Rome would have perished as it was, the patterns of textual survivals were shaped by their usefulness to the severely constricted literate group of Christians. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent art history value, but in the maintenance of a link of literacy offered by non-illuminated texts as well. (also in the gothic period), primarily produced in Ireland, Constantinople and Italy. The earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period 400 to 600 C.E. As with other religious works, the creative process involved in making an illuminated manuscript was also a time of religious devotion and prayer monks used bright colors in order to illustrate the religious truth and the glory of God. It was surely for a member of the court that the manuscript, relaying intimate knowledge of the queen's devotional practice, was destined.Many illuminated manuscripts were made by monks at monasteries. The prayerbook to which these leaves belonged clearly combined the well-established taste of the Spanish court for Flemish illumination with features newly absorbed from the Sforza Hours. The latter manuscript contains the prayers carried on the present leaves and the emperor's wife and queen consort is likely to be the 'Helysabeth' cited in these rubrics. de El Escorial, Vit.4-7) and the Book of Hours made for his wife, Isabella of Portugal (San Marino, Huntington Library, H M 1162). That manuscript had probably reached Charles V in Spain around 1521, and its influence is evident in borders of both the Breviary made for the emperor (Bib. The colourful border densely filled with gold renaissance ornament attests to the impact upon Spanish illumination of Giovan Pietro Birago's work in the Hours of Bona Sforza (BL, Add. While the scatter border appears to be the work of an illuminator trained in Flanders the script and prayers demonstrate the origin of the manuscript in Spain.
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The sumptuousness and finesse of the borders suggest that they were once part of an Hours of exceptional quality.
![illuminated manuscript borders illuminated manuscript borders](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ef/7a/db/ef7adb329b821d4b2db39a60f89d1e63.jpg)
These striking and richly-decorated leaves contain prayers rubricated as those recited by 'Helysabeth', queen of Spain, on rising and retiring to bed. Both leaves with large opening initial and four-sided border on recto, the first with a scatter border on a gold ground, the second with gold all'antica decoration on coloured grounds, 16 lines of text in a round gothic bookhand. Two leaves with full-page borders from a Prayerbook, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUMġ28 x 95mm 131 x 96mm.