Made by: Unknown scribe(s) and illuminator(s), produced for the court of Margaret of Cleves
Date: c. 1395–1400
The Biblia Pauperum (Latin for 'Bible of the Poor') is a type of illustrated Bible manuscript that tells Bible stories mainly in pictures, rather than in text. This particular copy, known as the Golden Pauper's Bible, was made for the court of Margaret of Cleves in the Northern Netherlands c. 1395–1400. It is now housed at the British Library, King's MS 5. Each page has a New Testament scene at the center, flanked by two related Old Testament scenes that are meant to foreshadow it (a type of interpretation called typology), with brief spoken lines represented on scrolls coming from each figure’s mouth, much like a modern comic-book speech bubble. This is how information was designed before the printing press, showing that images, not just written words, functioned as a primary system for communicating information to audiences who could not read Latin. But this manuscript, despite its name, was not created for poor or illiterate people at all: it’s a luxury object, hand-painted with gold and silver leaf for a wealthy court, and truly affordable, mass-produced versions of the Biblia Pauperum did not exist until decades later, when printers began carving the images into wood blocks. This relates to accessibility and design standards, because it demonstrates that a design can seem accessible in theory (pictures versus text) but still not be accessible to the audience it purports to serve if the way that design is created and distributed excludes that audience.
