The Anglo-Saxons are some of the heroes of this cross-border narrative. This collection illustrates the vibrant exchanges and colorful connections that characterized the early Middle Ages and challenges us to consider the historical flexibility of borders across the British Isles and the European continent. After two years of painstaking, labor-intensive, page-by-page digitization, and numerous scholarly conferences and meetings, the two libraries published the results of their efforts: a bilingual educational web resource, a new book, and the online collection. The project, France and England: Illuminated Manuscripts 700-1200, is a collaboration between the British Library and the National Library of France (Bibliotheque nationale de France), two institutions whose collections of medieval manuscripts are independently world class and unrivalled. But a new digitization project that brings together 800 medieval manuscripts offers a different image of the early middle ages: one of connection and exchange, where borders and geography were frequently crossed and redefined.
The medieval period in Europe is typically thought to mean that the existing cultures were stagnant and isolated from the rest of the world. After all, this fall, historians claimed 536 was the worst year in human history to be alive. Medieval globalization may seem like an oxymoron. These opening letters for one of the psalms are a classic illustration of medieval illumination, relying on vibrant colors, geometric patterns, and illustrated scenes (image courtesy the British Library).