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Click to view high resolution image Title: New Minster Liber Vitae: Dedication page showing King Cnut and Queen Emma Creator: Description: This is the dedication page from the New Minster Liber Vitae showing King Cnut and Queen Emma presenting a golden altar cross to the New Minster, Winchester. Stylistically, this manuscript page was designed in the "Utrecht" style, which is characterized by a lightness of touch and a strong capacity for depicting emotional interactions between figures. This page is significant because it illustrates the alliance between royal and ecclesiastical interests; the king and queen present a golden cross to the New Minster while Christ and the patron saints of the Minster watch over them from the heavenly realm. Cnut carries a sword and is crowned by an angel who point up at Christ. At the same time, another angel who also gestures towards heaven places a headdress on the queen, Emma. Beneath Cnut and Emma an audience of monks gaze in reverence at the coronation. This image is unusual because of the presence of the queen; at the time of this manuscript’s creation, queens were not regularly depicted in Anglo-Saxon art. However, Emma was the sister of the Duke of Normandy and was the wife of the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelred II before she married the Danish-Viking king, Cnut. Her ties to the English throne legitimized his claim to it, and her important status as a patron is reflected in this image. Her role as a queen is divinely ordered by the angel placing the veil on her head; this is a parallel to the angel setting a crown on Cnut’s head. For both the king and the queen, this is a scene of royal power that is reinforced by their patronage of the church. Source: Wikimedia Commons Rights: Public domain Subject (See Also): Emma, Wife of Aethelred II, King of England, and Cnut, King of Denmark Kings Patronage, Ecclesiastical Queens Geographic Area: British Isles Century: 11 Date: 1031 Related Work: New Minster Liber Vitae: See selected images on the British Library website: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=94&CollID=21&NStart=944 Current Location: British Library, Stowe MS 944, fol. 6r Original Location: New Minster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, England Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Manuscript illuminations Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Vellum (parchment); Paint Donor: Height/Width/Length(cm): 25.5 cm/15 cm/ Inscription: Related Resources: Leslie Webster, Anglo-Saxon Art: A New History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 2012, pg. 181-182

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