From text to texture: Approaching early-modern continuities of medieval textual tradition through the manuscripts of Esther Inglis (1571-1624).

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In the history of the relationship between word and image, the Reformation of early-modern Britain offers a particularly important moment in its separation of text from icon. Reformation polemic emphasises a belief in the Word, the unadorned Biblical text, as the fundamental vehicle to religious understanding. Over the course of the sixteenth century, reformers warn of the idolatry of venerating the "graven image" prohibited in the Second Commandment; images are destroyed, church walls are whitewashed, and narrative stained glass replaced, in subservience to a new emphasis on the unembellished text. These attitudes, however, exist in stark contrast to the complex interaction of word and image which we find in late-medieval manuscript culture. The increase of print production in the fifteenth century begins the process of destabilising this manuscript culture, concurrent with the spread of early Protestant doctrine across Europe. It seems intriguingly fitting that a mechanics of print which isolates a text into moveable type, and physically separates this text from any engraved or woodcut illustration which might accompany it, should become the vehicle for a religious outlook which increasingly emphasises the unadorned text over the decorative image. This project will consider how a Reformed focus on word over image converses with early-modern textual production, and how this implicates the future of a manuscript culture which has roots in the image-based devotion of late-medieval Catholicism.The endurance of a scribal tradition beyond the rise of print has been the focus of important studies by David McKitterick, Julia Boffey, Peter Beal and, most recently, Aditi Nafde, among others. Rarely, if at all, however, do such studies acknowledge the complexities of tradition and medieval scribal heritage at play in the manuscripts of Esther Inglis (1571-1624), whose work will form the epicentre of my doctoral study. The daughter of French émigrés, Inglis was a celebrated Scottish Huguenot calligrapher, and one of very few professional female scribes within her lifetime. At least fifty-eight of Inglis' manuscripts survive today, many of which were presented as gift-books to Protestant recipients in hope of patronage. In an age where the printed text is fast becoming the norm, these gift-books bring together an astonishing range of calligraphic scripts, combined with emblematic drawings, imitation of the printed word, and painted illumination, all the product of Inglis' own hand. Inglis was highly praised during her own lifetime; James VI and I, with whose court Inglis and her husband were both associated, deemed her "the most exquisite writer in the realme, her skills uniquely unparalleled. The academic attention which Inglis has received in recent years from Georgiana Ziegler, Susan Frye and Helen Smith has likewise presented Inglis as an early-modern female artist with whom few other comparisons can be drawn. Showcasing Inglis in this way, however, overlooks the multiple textual and artistic networks in which her manuscripts are situated. Inglis' work is exceptional, but exceptional rather for her combination and, most importantly, her subversion, of the individual traditions of script, print, drawing, illumination and textile craft. My doctoral project will use Inglis' work as a material lens through which to approach the continuity of these late-medieval manuscript and artistic conventions.