History for Kids: Early Medieval Art Free Coloring Page and Educational Video

Today we have some fun, free coloring pages featuring some Early Medieval artwork that you can download and print. These free coloring pages about Early Medieval artwork are great for kids and adults of all ages. You can simply download and print our two coloring pages about Early Medieval artwork and use them in the classroom or at home. Learn all about medieval art while coloring these pages and watch a fun, educational video about how Early Medieval manuscripts were made!

These Early Medieval Art coloring pages include two pages of some fun and interesting Early Medieval Art inspired designs. They are perfect for kids and adults that love coloring activities involving history and the early medieval period. You can use these fun facts at home or in the classroom! Want to learn more about Early Medieval art? Check out the history section at the end of this article!

DOWNLOAD & PRINT FREE Early Medieval Art COLORING PAGES PDF HERE

This printable set includes three fun coloring pages! Our coloring pages feature Celtic inspired patterns as well as a helmet artifact from the Sutton Hoo ship burial! Click the green button to download and print the Parthenon coloring page now:

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Free printable early medieval Art coloring page includes

Our Early Medieval Art coloring pages includes three different designs for you to color! We have one of a helmet artifact and two of some Celtic inspired designs. Check them out below!

1. Sutton Hoo Helmet

Here is our design inspired by the famous helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship burial! This design is perfect for kids who love knights, history, or coloring! Want to learn more about Sutton Hoo? Check out the end of this article!

2. Celtic inspired Circular design

This design is inspired by the Sutton Hoo purse cover and Celtic artwork. The circular designs come from the purse cover, read more about it at the end of this article!

3. Celtic Inspired full page design

This design is inspired by the solder clasps from Sutton Hoo, illuminated manuscripts, and various motifs from Celtic art! Read about Sutton Hoo and illuminated manuscripts at the end of this article!

Benefits of coloring pages for kids and adults alike

We may think of coloring pages as just fun, but they also have some really cool benefits for both kids and adults:

• For kids: Fine motor skill development and hand-eye coordination develop with the action of coloring or painting coloring pages. It also helps with learning patterns, color recognition, structure of drawing and so much more!
• For adults: Relaxation, deep breathing and low-set up creativity are enhanced with coloring pages.

Early Medieval Art History for kids

All across medieval Europe people made all sort of art! Today we will focus on instances of Celtic art from England, Ireland, and other places in the British Isles.

Sutton Hoo Ship Burial

The Sutton Hoo Ship burial is an Anglo-Saxon ship burial first discovered in 1939 on the Sutton Hoo estate in Suffolk, England. The Sutton Hoo estate was owned by Mrs. Eden Pretty, a wealthy woman, at the time.

Pretty noticed some mounds around the property of her estate, so she commissioned Basil Brown, an archeologist, to excavate the mounds. At first, Brown just found some broken Anglo-Saxon artifacts, though there wasn’t much since looters and grave robbers had likely stolen some artifacts in the past. Feeling a bit hopeless, Brown moved on to the biggest of the mounds and started excavating.

Under the mound he found a 27 meter (88.6 feet) long ship burial! In the burial, Brown found a trove of different treasures. Due to the expensive and ornate nature of the artifacts, Brown theorized that burial may have been for the Anglo-Saxon king, Raedwald of East Anglia. The burial was dated to circa 625 CE!

Some of the most notable artifacts were an ornate helmet, and an ornate belt buckle, purse, and shoulder clasps featuring art typical of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic art of the time. The belt buckle was made of gold and featured complex, swirling, designs that alluded to animal forms, such as snakes or birds. The purse and shoulder claps feature similar design motifs as the belt buckle, and are made of gold, ivory, and precious gems. This indicates that the person buried with the ship was a very, very wealthy person. This furthers the theory that the burial belonged to King Raedwald of East Anglia.

Much of these motifs found in the Sutton Hoo ship burial were typical of Celtic design. The designs would be carried over into later illuminated manuscripts made throughout Ireland.

Illuminated manuscripts

During the medieval era, books and manuscripts were not easy to come by. Books took an extremely long time to make and required immense skill to create. Monks, who lived in remote monasteries and studied for most of the lives, would spend their time creating these impressive manuscripts. Most, if not all, of the manuscripts created were copies of Christian texts like the Gospels and other books of the Bible. If you want to know more about how these impressive books were made, check out the video below!

Monks in Ireland, who lived in the remote, rugged terrain of Iona spent their days working away on these manuscripts. The manuscripts were not just simple books with words on a page, but they were beautiful works of art. Many of the pages in the manuscripts contained works of illustrated art that was reminiscent of early Celtic art works.

The art found within these illuminated manuscripts, usually on carpet pages (which are pages that only have artwork on them), depicts interlocking forms that when you look hard enough resemble symbols, figures, and animals. Cats were fairly common to find in these details along with people and depictions of Biblical scenes. The Chi-roh page from the Book of Cells is an excellent example of this.

In addition to carpet pages and other embellishments, illuminated manuscripts also featured a page depicting the author of the text. These are called author pages. The art style of the author depicted often varies based on time period and whomever the artist of the drawing was. Since the books most often made into manuscripts were the Gospels, the four authors of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were often drawn.

Some earlier depictions of the authors, such as the portrait of Matthew in the Book of Durrow, take inspiration from early Celtic art. In this depiction, Matthew is shown to be a 2D figure with very little demotion of shadow, he wears simple, checkered clothing, and is drawn in a simplified art style. Later depictions of Matthew would gradually become more detailed and show a sense of depth and space.

Video: How were MEDIEVAL Illuminated Manuscripts Made?

Here is an interesting and educational video by the Getty Museum on how illuminated manuscripts were made! The video illustrates how parchment was made, the process of writing, adding illuminations, and finally binding all the pages together so a manuscript could be made.

MORE HISTORY FUN AND ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS FROM KIDS ACTIVITIES BLOG

Did you enjoy the coloring pages? Let us know in the comments!

Sources

Cartwright, Mark. “Ancient Celtic Art.” World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org#organization, April 3, 2023. Last modified April 3, 2023. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://www.worldhistory.org/Ancient_Celtic_Art/.

Dr. Nancy Ross. “Medieval Manuscripts, an Introduction.” Smarthistory Medieval Manuscripts an Introduction Comments. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://smarthistory.org/medieval-manuscripts/.

Getty Museum. “Making Manuscripts.” YouTube. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://youtu.be/nuNfdHNTv.

Layla Seale. “Early Medieval England and Ireland.” ART 2350 Section 001: Art History Survey I. (class lecture, Fall 2023).

The British Museum. “Sutton Hoo Ship Burial.” SmartHistory Sutton Hoo Ship Burial. Accessed December 8, 2023. https://smarthistory.org/the-sutton-hoo-ship-burial/.