During the medieval ages only those that were closely connected to the Christian church could read and write. This held a great advantage to those who were literate because they had power over a majority of the illiterate citizens. Monks would write and illustrate the books by hand making each manuscript one of a kind. These books are known as illuminated manuscripts. They consisted of the stories of The Bible and other religious tales. The pages of these books were filled with colorful, hand painted pictures that depicted the stories being told in words on the pages. This allowed those that could not read what was written the ability to still comprehend the story being told by following the pictures. Each image is placed in order according to the story being told, and they are placed into their own separate boxes to help the viewer move along. Also, these boxes would sometimes have phrases underneath them telling of what was being shown. Because of these characteristics, illuminated manuscripts are truly the original comic books that we all know of today. What also connects comic books to illuminated manuscripts are the references used within the images. In today’s comics, images and personalities of popular people and figures are used within stories to help readers relate to the message the artist is trying to tell. In the illuminated manuscripts, this same approach was used with figures of the time to help the viewers comprehend the moral of the story. It is incredibly interesting how similar the two are even though they are centuries apart from each other.
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