ILLUMINATING, a kind of miniature-painting much practised in Britain about the 12th and 13th centuries, and of which many curious specimens are still remaining, particularly in the Harleian collection. From this word is derived the modern one of limning. It was chiefly used as we use copperplates, in illustrating and adorning the bible and other books. This art was much practised by the clergy, and even by some in the highest stations in the church. "The fa-
mous Osmund (says Bromton), who was consecrated bishop of Salisbury A. D. 1076, did not disdain to spend some part of his time in writing, binding, and illuminating books." Mr. Strutt hath given the public an opportunity of forming some judgment of the degree of delicacy and art with which these illuminations were executed, by publishing prints of a prodigious number of them, in his Regal and ecclesiastical antiquities of England, and View of the customs, &c. of England. In the first of these works we are presented with the genuine portraits, in miniature, of all the kings, and several of the queens, of England, from Edward the Confessor to Henry VII. mostly in their crowns and royal robes, together with the portraits of many other eminent persons of both sexes.
The illuminators and painters of this period seem to have been in possession of a considerable number of colouring materials, and to have known the arts of preparing and mixing them, so as to form a great variety of colours. In the specimens of their miniature-paintings that are still extant, we perceive not only the five primary colours, but also various combinations of them. There is even some appearance, that they were not ignorant of the art of painting in oil, from the following precept of Henry III. "Pay out of our treasury, to Odo the goldsmith, and Edward his son, one hundred and seventeen shillings and ten pence, for oil, varnish, and colours bought, and pictures made, in the chamber of our queen at Westminster, between the octaves of the Holy Trinity, in the twenty-third year of our reign, and the feast of St. Barnabas the apostle, in the same year, which is fifteen days." This was a considerable sum (equal in quantity of silver to 17 pounds 14 shillings of our money, and in efficacy to 88 pounds) to be expended in painting one chamber in so short a time.