Miniature (illuminated manuscript) in the context of "Armenian illuminated manuscripts"

An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers and liturgical books such as psalters and courtly literature, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories, and deeds.

The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts are a small number from late antiquity, and date from between 400 and 600 CE. Examples include the Vergilius Romanus, Vergilius Vaticanus, and the Rossano Gospels. The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance. While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted.

A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel of wood, either a single piece or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, panel painting was the normal method, when not painting directly onto a wall (fresco) or on vellum (used for miniatures in illuminated manuscripts). Wood panels were also used for mounting vellum paintings.

The Biblia pauperum (Latin for "Paupers' Bible") was a tradition of picture Bibles beginning probably with Ansgar, and a common printed block-book in the later Middle Ages to visualize the typological correspondences between the Old and New Testaments. Unlike a simple "illustrated Bible", where the pictures are subordinated to the text, these Bibles placed the illustration in the centre, with only a brief text or sometimes no text at all. Words spoken by the figures in the miniatures could be written on scrolls coming out of their mouths. To this extent one might see parallels with modern comics.

The tradition is a further simplification of the Bible moralisée tradition, which was similar but with more text. Like these, the Biblia pauperum was usually in the local vernacular language, rather than Latin.

The Menologion, Menologium, or Menology of Basil II is a Greek illuminated manuscript designed as a church calendar or Eastern Orthodox Church service book (menologion) that was compiled c. 1000 AD for the Byzantine Emperor Basil II (r. 976–1025). It contains a synaxarion, a short collection of saints' lives, compiled at Constantinople for liturgical use and around 430 miniature paintings by eight different artists. It was unusual for a menologion from that era to be so richly painted. It currently resides in the Vatican Library (Ms. Vat. gr. 1613).A full facsimile was produced in 1907.

A Persian miniature (Persian: نگارگری ایرانی, romanized: negârgari-ye Irâni) is a small Persian painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western Medieval and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts.

Although there is an equally well-established Persian tradition of wall-painting, the survival rate and state of preservation of miniatures is better, and miniatures are much the best-known form of Persian painting in the West, and many of the most important examples are in Western, or Turkish, museums. Miniature painting became a significant genre in Persian art in the 13th century, receiving Chinese influence after the Mongol conquests, and the highest point in the tradition was reached in the 15th and 16th centuries. The tradition continued, under some Western influence, after this, and has many modern exponents. The Persian miniature was the dominant influence on other Islamic miniature traditions, principally the Ottoman miniature in Turkey, and the Mughal miniature in the Indian subcontinent.

The Madrid Skylitzes is a 12th-century illuminated manuscript version of the Synopsis of Histories (Greek: Σύνοψις Ἱστοριῶν) by John Skylitzes, which covers the reigns of the Byzantine emperors from the death of Nicephorus I in 811 to the deposition of Michael VI in 1057. The manuscript was produced at the Norman court of Palermo in Sicily (although there is some debate on whether the main body was made in Palermo or Constantinople) and is now housed in the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid. It remains the only preserved Greek-language illustrated chronicle from the Byzantine period. The chronicle includes 574 miniatures detailing depictions of everyday life in the Byzantine Empire such as boats, literary practices, sieges, and ceremonies, in "both purely Byzantine and Western styles while also reflecting Islamic elements".

Herrad of Landsberg (Latin: Herrada Landsbergensis; c. 1130 – July 25, 1195) was a 12th-century Alsatian nun and abbess of Hohenburg Abbey in the Vosges mountains. She was known as the author of the pictorial encyclopedia Hortus deliciarum (The Garden of Delights).

The annunciation to the shepherds is an episode in the Nativity of Jesus described in the Bible in Luke 2, in which angels tell a group of shepherds about the birth of Jesus. It is a common subject of Christian art and of Christmas carols.