The previous chapters describe the development in western Europe of a new artistic genre, the illuminated manuscript, which brought many features of codicology and script together with decoration in a manner that might be called systemic, if not systematic, designed to serve new readers and new manners of reading. Manuscripts of this new type may be distinguished from the unornamented or very simply ornamented text manuscripts of the ancient world, including those few rare examples that inserted illustrations, pictures, into the text. Carl Nordenfalk, in his fundamental article of 1947 to which the title of this chapter pays tribute, called attention to this shift from what he termed “restrained” to what he termed “unrestrained” decoration.