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first Bible of Charles the Bald (the so-called Vivian Bible). Prepared for
presentation to Charles by the canons of st Martin of tours, it contains a
series of miniatures accompanied by tituli. the poet, identified by dutton
and kessler with Audradus Modicus, praises both the images per se and
the personages they depict:
Psalmificus david resplendet et ordo peritus
eius opus canere musica ab arte bene.
‘the psalm maker david shines brilliantly, and the company is
Well trained in the art of music to sing his work.’82
Rex micat aethereus condigne sive prophetae
Hic, euangelicae quattuor atque tubae.
‘the heavenly king gleams worthily, and the prophets [also shine]
Here, and the four evangelical heralds.’83
Altogether, Carolingian illustrators, in such splendid presentation volumes
as this Bible, the utrecht Psalter and the drogo sacramentary, cultivated a
characteristic partnering of words and images where the two media interact
closely and subtly.84 the images are characteristically vivid and suggestive of
movement, as if to complement a narrative.85
Against this Carolingian cultivation of verbal and visual media, it
is striking, as scholars such as Margaret Clunies Ross and signe Horn
fuglesang have remarked, that ekphrasis seems to have flourished among
what are conventionally reckoned to be the earliest skalds. Prime examples
of this short efflorescence are the fragments of the Ragnarsdrápa of Bragi
Boddason and the Haustlǫng of Þjóðólfr ór Hvini. In both cases internal
evidence indicates that the poets’ respective patrons rewarded them with
decorated shields for their services and that the poets then reciprocated
82 Paul edward dutton, The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald,
Recentiores (Ann Arbor, MI: university of Michigan Press, 1997), 114–15.
83 dutton, The Poetry and Paintings, 116–17.
84 Henderson, ‘emulation’, 259–69; cf. dutton, The Poetry and Paintings, 89–90.
85 Celia Chazelle, ‘Archbishops ebo and Hincmar of Reims and the utrecht Psalter’, Speculum
72 (1997): 1055.