"John Lowden's impressive powers of analysis and interpretation have been fully engaged with remarkably fruitful results in this important study. His research sheds important new light on virtually every major aspect of each codex individually and on the Bibles Moralisées as a genre of medieval manuscript illumination overall. This brilliant scholarly work will become the benchmark by which all subsequent studies on the Moralized Bibles will be measured." -Jaroslav Folda, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"One of the most important studies of medieval manuscript illumination published in many years, Lowden's work sets a new standard for interpretive codicology. In these two volumes, Lowden has laid the foundation for all future scholarship on the Bibles Moralisées." -Jeffrey Hamburger, University of Toronto

The Bibles Moralisées are by far the richest and most complex attempt at biblical illustration ever undertaken. Seven of them survive today, made primarily for the kings and queens of France between the early thirteenth and late fifteenth centuries. John Lowden's pioneering two-volume study brings new material to light and offers a wholly new approach to understanding the Bibles, which contain literally thousands of figures.

Volume I, based on exhaustive codicological analysis, considers the making and the later history of use of each of the manuscripts. Volume II investigates in detail the treatment of one portion of the Bible, the Book of Ruth, in all the manuscripts. Discussion is supported by many new photographs in color and black and white. Together the two volumes challenge conventional wisdom about both the Bibles Moralisées and the relationship of word and image in medieval culture.