Illuminated manuscripts and printed books, in many ways, often appear the antithesis of one another. For centuries, Illuminated Scripts were painstakingly designed, illustrated, and hand written by dedicated monks of the early Christian church. Mere decades after their introduction, printed books were massed produced by the thousands. Illuminated manuscripts were a symbol of power, education, and prestige, owned only by the church and the excessively wealthy, while printed books were made readily available for the lower-class, the everyday man. Soon, printed books combined their type with woodblock printed illustrations, and began to seriously compete with illuminated manuscripts for the empty spaces in citizen’s personal libraries. Despite …show more content…
Printing was seen as inferior to illuminated manuscripts, and manuscripts became increasingly focused on catering to the upper class and church. Tradition had a lot to do with this response. Illuminated manuscripts had been an elevated art form for centuries that only a few dignified people of the populace could partake in. With literacy at essentially nonexistent levels, being able to read, let alone having the money for an illuminated manuscript exalted the individual to a state of superiority. The manuscripts themselves, being ornamented and the representation of God’s holy word, carried within themselves a state of power. Unlike the manuscripts, printed books had no such lofty calling. The printed books sole purpose was to earn the printing firms money.
The illuminated manuscripts and printed books share many similarities. Where printed gained the advantage, is the printers ability to mass produce them at low costs. If the illuminated manuscripts could have been able to keep up with the sheer amount of books being printed, they would have possibly stayed popular and continued on until today. Ultimately, the amount of time, effort, and cost it took to create them made it impossible for them to remain a viable option, and unfortunately brought this dazzling art form to an