Although but few books were thus gorgeously written, many were sumptuously decorated; and, indeed, there exist no more brilliant volumes than some of those produced by Anglo-Saxon scribes. Of these several have been preserved; but if two or three only are noticed, it will be quite sufficient to establish the leading characteristics of the school, which appears to have been organized under Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, at New Minster, or Hyde Abbey, near Winchester, during the 10th century. The names of several leading masters of that great nursery of illumination have been handed down to us. Thus Ethric and Wulfric--monks--are recorded as having been "painters;" but Godemann is spoken of as the greatest of all. Fortunately, a magnificent specimen of his art is preserved in the celebrated benedictional of St. Ethelwold, in the library of the Duke of Devonshire, and engraved _in extenso_, with great care, in the twenty-fourth volume of the "Archæologia."[41] This is one of the most sumptuous manuscripts which has been executed in any age by any scribe, and differs widely from the Anglo-Saxon MSS. previously described. The text is generally enclosed within a rich framework, formed by wide and solid bars of gold, about and over which twine and break elegantly-shaded masses of conventional foliation. In the initial letters, and occasionally in the ornament, the peculiarly Saxon interlacing and knotwork is retained; but in most of the embellishments, a reaction can be traced from the Carlovingian manuscripts themselves, originally acted upon, as will be hereafter seen, by the Saxon school of caligraphy.[42] The figure subjects in this volume are cramped in style and action, exhibit but little classical influence, and possess, as a leading merit, only a singularly sustained brilliancy of tint and even execution throughout. Next to this great masterpiece, and from the same fountain-head, come the following, several of which are exceedingly beautiful:--The two Rouen Gospels; the Gospels of King Canute, in the British Museum, Reg. D 9; the Cottonian Psalter, Tib. C vi.; the Hyde Abbey Book, lately in the Stowe Library; and the Gospels of Trinity College, Cambridge. The ornaments in all these volumes are painted in thick body-colours, and with a vehicle so viscid in texture, that Dr. Dibdin[43] infers from its character, as evidenced in the Benedictional, "the possibility or even probability of oil being mixed up in the colours of the more ancient illuminations." In this opinion I do not concur, as I believe the peculiar body and gloss of the pigment to be produced by the use of white of egg.