It is easy to dismiss representations of textile items in Anglo-Saxon manuscript art as incidental: A pair of curtains, bedclothes, or a tent might be read as nothing more than decorative embellishments. When examined more closely, however, such items may take on an important role in the structuring of a visual narrative, or their deployment may even become, in effect, commentary or discourse. Moreover, it can be demonstrated that some textile items are used strategically to compel the viewer toward interacting intellectually and/or emotionally with what is on the page.

The research of Catherine Karkov has done much to dispel the notion that the drawings that form part of Old Testament narratives in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts are merely illustrations of the text. In her study of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11, for example, she explains and demonstrates the idea of “a metonymic compilation of text and illustration” which creates a “dialogue that echoes back and forth throughout the manuscript.” This is a useful way of understanding how image-text relationships produce discourse: As images trigger associations with words, and vice versa, the mind of the active reader-viewer absorbs the echoing dialogue, and as a consequence the reader-viewer is propelled into an exercise of hermeneutic endeavour. Stephen Nichols perhaps hints at something more. He remarks on the “two kinds of literacy” within “the dynamic of the medieval manuscript matrix,” observing how “reading text and interpreting visual signs […] offer a dual route of penetration to the underside of consciousness.” In essence, this essay attempts to penetrate both the consciousness of the artist and that of the reader-viewer. Its particular angle is the analysis of representations of everyday textile items as part of narrative strategies. Appreciating these strategies opens up our understanding of artistic intent and audience reception in the Anglo-Saxon period. Several scenes from two late-Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, scenes that are in actuality sexual narratives, will provide the focus for this study. The manuscripts are the Illustrated Old English Hexateuch and MS Junius 11.

Curtains that Reveal

Anyone who has been to a theatre production can relate to the metaphor of the revealing curtain: The drawing back of theatrical curtains may reveal the identity of an individual, perhaps a villain or a hero; or it may open up to the audience an imagined world, perhaps a private, inner space; or it may stimulate anticipation in some other way.