Although you don't often hear about, women worked as painters in AngloSaxon times. In this excerpt from Courting Trouble, the heroine's stepmother is painting the border of an illuminated manuscript. Borders were painted before the calligraphers set to work on the script.
She was sitting near her desk in the hall, painting a border for one of the bishop’s manuscripts. She bent over her work closely; she was short-sighted. The piece was on a large wooden frame that held the painting upright. As I approached I took in her elaborate design. Two narrow gold borders were set around the page, one inside the other. Red, blue, and green leaves straddled the space in between. Sometimes Waldberg’s understanding of form was a little wobbly, but I was always surprised at how sensitive her drawings were. It didn’t seem to fit with the rest of her personality.
Her brushes were arranged in a box on her desk. Her pigments were set to one side, each in its own oyster shell. She mixed the colors with egg yolk on a small piece of wood that she held in one hand.
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