In Medieval times, book illustrators aimed to produce very rich illustrations to decorate their books. For inspiration they kept pattern or model books.
EnlargeThese books contained jottings of anything that caught the illustrator's eye: figures, animals, monsters, decorative capital letters, borders, motifs. But these weren't drawn firsthand - they were all borrowed from earlier books, paintings or glass windows.
Today artists aim to create innovative and original images. However in the Middle Ages, artists looked back on what previously had been done and aimed to copy it. Tradition was important.
Pattern books were practical tools and also helped to circulate artistic traditions and ideas around the manuscript making community. Because they were working documents, passing between many different people, few medieval pattern books have survived.
Here you can look at several pages from this medieval pattern book and see a selection of designs for illuminating manuscripts.
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