Northumbria and the Book of Kells

T. J. Brown; C. D. Verey

doi:10.1017/S026367510000017X

Northumbria and the Book of Kells

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008

T. J. Brown and

C. D. Verey

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T. J. Brown: Affiliation:
King's College, London
C. D. Verey: Affiliation:
King's College, London

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It is a century and a half since the Book of Kells began to be revered as the supreme work of Irish calligraphy and art in the Early Christian period, and a quarter of a century since Monsieur François Masai challenged that traditional opinion, arguing that the Book was in fact made in Northumbria, apparently at Lindisfarne, or at least in some centre influenced both by Lindisfarne and Wearmouth–Jarrow – a definition which, he thought, could well apply to Iona. Masai's Essai sur les Origines de la Miniature dite irlandaise, completed in Brussels in 1944, makes no pretence to be based on research at first hand; it was written as a critique of traditional beliefs about the origins of Hiberno-Saxon illumination, with particular reference to works by Mlle Françoise Henry and Mrs Geneviève Marsh-Micheli. As such, it strikes me as a brilliant success, although some of its conclusions are false and some are not as well founded as they could have been, if Masai had revised his war-time text on the basis of a post-war examination of the manuscripts themselves. It was as a follower of Masai – his was the first book I read on Hiberno-Saxon art – that I persuaded Dr E. A. Lowe to consider, shortly before his death in August 1969, the attribution of the Book of Kells which will appear in the second edition of Codices Latini Antiquiores, part 11; and since Dr Lowe cited me as ‘an expert in this field’, I am under an obligation to publish the arguments that I advanced in 1968 and 1969, partly in letters and partly through reports which he received from his successive assistants Dr Braxton Ross and Dr Virginia Brown. The core of what I have to say is a reconsideration of a group of manuscripts, described in CLA, in the history of which Wearmouth–Jarrow had an important part to play. Lowe's devotion to the Venerable Bede and to the manuscripts produced at Wearmouth–Jarrow is well known, and I should like my lecture to count as a tribute not only to Bede's memory but to the memory of the palaeographer whose work has thrown such a bright light on the intellectual history of Bede's monastery.

Type: Research Article
Information: Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 1 , January 1972 , pp. 219 - 246

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S026367510000017X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

^{Page 219 note 1} Publications de Scriptorium 1 (Brussels and Antwerp, 1947).

^{Page 219 note 2} Henry, Françoise, La Sculpture irlandaise pendant les douze premiers Siècles de l'Ère Cbrétienne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1933)Google Scholar; Micheli, Geneviève L., L'Enluminure du Haut Moyen Âge et les Influences irlandaises (Brussels, 1939)Google Scholar; but not Henry, Françoise, Irish Art (London, 1940).Google Scholar

^{Page 219 note 3} Codices Latini Antiquiores: a Palaeographical Guide to Latin Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century, 12 pts (Oxford, 1934–1971)Google Scholar. The second edition of pt 11 is to appear in 1972.

^{Page 219 note 4} ‘A Key to Bede's Scriptorium’, Scriptorium 12 (1958), 182–90Google Scholar; English Uncial (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar.

^{Page 220 note 1} This paper is a revised version of the Jarrow Lecture delivered in St Paul's Church at Jarrow on Ascension Day 1971. Parts of the Book of Kells, the Durham Gospels and the Lindisfarne Gospels are reproduced by kind permission of, respectively, the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral and the Trustees of the British Museum. Of the many friends who have helped me in various ways, some by reading part of the text, I am most in debt to Gerald Bonner, Virginia Brown, Rosemary Cramp, Ian Doyle, Isabel Henderson, Kathleen Hughes, Braxton Ross, Robert Stevenson, Christopher Verey (especially for the Appendix) and David Wilson. My wife has been generous with indispensable advice and encouragement over many years. The following important paper reached me just too late for mention at the appropriate points: R. B. K. Stevenson, ‘Sculpture in Scotland in the Sixth–Ninth Centuries A.D.’, Kolloquium über spätantike und frübmittelalterlicbe Skulptur 11 (Mainz, 1971), 65–74. See also the additional notes, below, pp. 245–6.

^{Page 220 note 2} CL A 11, no. 274; Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Cenannensis, ed. Alton, E. H. and Meyer, Peter, 3 vols. (Berne, 1950–1951).Google Scholar

^{Page 220 note 3} Gwynn, Aubrey, ‘Some Notes on the History of the Book of Kells’, Irish Historical Studies 9 (1954–1955), 131–61CrossRef Google Scholar; William O'Sullivan, ‘The Donor of the Book of Kells’, Ibid. 11 (1958–9), 5–7.

^{Page 221 note 1} De Re Diplomatica Libri VI (Paris, 1681), pp. 45–53 and 350–9.Google Scholar

^{Page 221 note 2} CLA 11, no. 231.

^{Page 221 note 3} Librorum Vett. Septentrionalium … Catalogus (Oxford, 1705), sig. cv–c2r, pp. 81–2.Google Scholar

^{Page 221 note 4} [Tassin, and Toustain, ], Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, 6 vols. (Paris, 1750–1765)Google Scholar; Astle, Thomas, The Origin and Progress of Writing (London, 1784 and 1803)Google Scholar.

^{Page 221 note 5} CLA 111, no. 311.

^{Page 221 note 6} Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres (Buckingham and London, 1814) 1, cxxix–ccxxxvii.Google Scholar

^{Page 221 note 7} CLA 11, no. 187; Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis, ed. Kendrick, T. D., Brown, T. J., Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S., Roosen-Runge, Heinz, Ross, A. S. C., Stanley, E. G. and Werner, A. E. A., 2 vols. (Olten and Lausanne, 1956–1960)Google Scholar. Vol. 11, bk 1 cited henceforth as Cod. Lind.

^{Page 221 note 8} CLA 11, no. 273; Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Durmacbensis, ed. Luce, A. A., Simms, G. O., Meyer, Peter and Bieler, Ludwig, 2 vols. (Olten and Lausanne, 1960).Google Scholar

^{Page 221 note 9} Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores, pp. ccxxxvii–ccxli.Google Scholar

^{Page 221 note 10} Palæographia Sacra Pictoria (London, 1843–1845), pls. 16–17.Google Scholar

^{Page 221 note 11} CLA 11, no. 266.

^{Page 221 note 12} Steffens, Franz, Lateinische Paläographie, 2nd ed. (Trier, 1909)Google Scholar, nos. 30 and 31; Thompson, E. M., An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography (Oxford, 1912), pp. 374 and 385.Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 1} Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen 111 (Munich, 1920), 95–100Google Scholar (from ‘Perrona Scottorum’, first published in 1900).

^{Page 222 note 2} Early Irish Minuscule Script (Oxford, 1910)Google Scholar; Early Welsh Script (Oxford, 1912)Google Scholar; Notae Latinae (Cambridge, 1915).Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 3} Petrie, George, Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language, ed. Stokes, Margaret 11 (Dublin, 1878), 168–9.Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 4} CLA 11, no. 270.

^{Page 222 note 5} Millar, E. G., in Bulletin de la Société française de Reproductions de Manuscrits à Peinture, 8e année (1924), 7–15Google Scholar; Henry, Françoise, Irish Art During the Viking Invasions (London, 1967), pp. 102–5.Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 6} Die altgermanische Tbierornamentik (Stockholm, 1904), pp. 341–7.Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 7} Vorkarolingische Miniaturen (Berlin, 1916), pp. 21–37 and 231–310.Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 8} ‘Notes on the Origins of Hiberno-Saxon Art’, Antiquity 8 (1934), 43–57.Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 9} ‘Kells, Durrow and Lindisfarne’, Antiquity 9 (1935), 33–7.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{Page 222 note 10} CLA v, no. 578.

^{Page 223 note 1} CLA 111, no. 299.

^{Page 223 note 2} CLA 11, nos. 126 (X) and 230 (O).

^{Page 223 note 3} ‘“As we have forgiven” (Matthew vi. 12)’, JTS 33 (1931–1932), 253–5.Google Scholar

^{Page 223 note 4} CLA 11, xiv–xv.

^{Page 223 note 5} CLA 11, nos. 273 and 274.

^{Page 224 note 1} Essai, pp. 29–110.Google Scholar

^{Page 224 note 2} Ibid. pp. 120–3.

^{Page 224 note 3} Ibid. p. 210; Steffens, Lateiniscbe Paläographie, no. 31.

^{Page 224 note 4} Evangeliorum Versio Antehieronymiana (Dublin, 1884) 1, xxviGoogle Scholar, ‘fully endorsed’ by Luce, Codex Durmachensis, pp. 32–7. Cf. Bielei, Ibid. pp. 94–5.

^{Page 224 note 5} Vorkarolingiscbe Miniaturen, p. 35Google Scholar; Essai, p. 124.Google Scholar

^{Page 224 note 6} CLA 11, no. 149.

^{Page 224 note 7} Essai, pp. 126–7 and 128–34.Google Scholar

^{Page 224 note 8} Essai, pp. 137–9 and 101–10.Google Scholar

^{Page 224 note 9} Nordenfalk, Carl, ‘Before the Book of Durrow’, Acta Archaeologica 18 (1947), 141–74Google Scholar; Henry, Françoise, ‘Les Débuts de la Miniature irlandaise’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser. 37 (1950), 5–34Google Scholar. Reviews by Françoise Henry and Riordáin, S. P. Ó in Studies 37 (1948), 267–82Google Scholar; by Bieler, Ludwig in Speculum 23 (1948), 495–502CrossRef Google Scholar; and by Schapiro, Meyer in Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser. 37 (1950). 134–8.Google Scholar

^{Page 224 note 10} Although he ascribes K to Iona, MrOakeshott, Walter, The Sequence of English Medieval Art (London, 1950), pp. 32–41Google Scholar, is fully in agreement with Masai when he concludes (p. 37) that ‘in matters of art … the main stream flows … from Monkwearmouth and Lindisfarne to Kells’.

^{Page 226 note 1} See above, p. 223.

^{Page 226 note 2} CLA 111, no. 299 and ix, no. 1423a and b.

^{Page 226 note 3} CLA v, nos. 605 and 606a and 11, no. 139.

^{Page 226 note 4} CLA 11, no. 125.

^{Page 226 note 5} CLA 11, no. 276.

^{Page 226 note 6} CLA 11, no. 133.

^{Page 226 note 7} ‘The pure milk of Irish calligraphy’ was to be found in CLA 11, no. 266; 111, no. 311, vii, no. 998 and 11, nos. 275 and 276; and 11, nos. 286 and 270.

^{Page 227 note 1} For Italian and insular gospel books, McGurk, Patrick, Latin Gospel Books from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800, Publications de Scriptorium 5 (Brussels and Antwerp, 1961), 7–15.Google Scholar

^{Page 227 note 2} Cod. Lind., pp. 100–2 and 246–50.

^{Page 227 note 3} CLA 11, nos. 149 and 187; Cod. Lind., pp. 70 and 98, pl. 3 (E, lr).

^{Page 228 note 1} Cod. Lind., p. 94.Google Scholar

^{Page 228 note 2} Lowe, English Uncial, pp. 5–13s.

^{Page 228 note 3} See below, p. 245, n.1.

^{Page 228 note 4} CLA iv, xiii.

^{Page 228 note 5} Cod. Lind., pp. 5–16, 104–6, 246–50 and 288–9.

^{Page 228 note 6} Cod. Lind., pp. xxiii–xxiv, 11–16, 102–6, 245–9 and 256.

^{Page 228 note 7} Cod. Lind., pp. 96–7, 103–4 and 283.

^{Page 229 note 1} Cod. Lind., pp. 104–6 and 246–50; but note Bruce-Mitford's opinion on D, 2r (p. 249).

^{Page 229 note 2} Cod. Lind., pp. 105, n. 3 and 283. The Orosius is CLA 111, no. 328.

^{Page 229 note 3} Cf. Bruce-Mitford, Cod. Lind., pp. 255–7.

^{Page 229 note 4} See above, p. 224; McGurk, Latin Gospel Books, nos. 86 and 87.

^{Page 229 note 5} Cod. Lind., pp. 95–6.

^{Page 229 note 6} McGurk, Patrick, ‘Two Notes on the Book of Kells and its Relation to Other Insular Gospel Books’, Scriptorium 9 (1955), 105–6.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{Page 229 note 7} Cod. Lind., pp. 190–2.

^{Page 229 note 8} CLA 11, 2nd ed., no. 217.

^{Page 229 note 9} Mynors, R. A. B., Durham Cathedral Manuscripts (Oxford, 1939), p. 16Google Scholar. Verey confirms this.

^{Page 229 note 10} Verey, C. D., ‘A collation of the Gospel texts contained in Durham Cathedral MSS. A.II.10, A.II.16 and A.II.17 and some provisional conclusions therefrom regarding the type of Vulgate text employed in Northumbria in the eighth century together with a full description of each MS.’ (unpubl. M.A. thesis, Durham, 1969), pp. 276–80.Google Scholar

^{Page 229 note 11} Powell, Roger, ‘The Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow: Comments on the Vellum, the Make-Up and other Aspects’, Scriptorium 10 (1956), 3–21CrossRef Google Scholar. For Mynors, D., Durham Cathedral Manuscripts, p. 16Google Scholar and McGurk, , Latin Gospel Books, p. 29Google Scholar. For the few non-insular leaves in D, which resemble the membrane of E, Cod. Lind., p. 102.

^{Page 230 note 1} Cod. Lind., pp. 221–31.

^{Page 230 note 2} Cod. Lind., pp. 250 and 255.

^{Page 230 note 3} CLA 11, no. 152; Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts, pp. 21–2 and pls. 8–10.

^{Page 230 note 4} Cod. Lind., pp. 273–4; see above, p. 224, n. 5.

^{Page 231 note 1} Cod. Lind., pp. 73–4 and 96.

^{Page 231 note 2} Latin Gospel Books, pp. 10 and 14–15.

^{Page 231 note 3} Lowe, English Uncial, pls. vii–xiv; Wright, D. H., ‘Some Notes on English Uncial’, Traditio 17 (1961), 441–56, esp. 453–6.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{Page 231 note 4} CLA 111, no. 299; x, no. 1587; and 11, no. 150. Lowe, English Uncial, pls. viii, xi and xiii.

^{Page 232 note 1} Bieler, Codex Durmacbensis, p. 89; Brown, Cod. Lind., pp. 72–3 and 97–101. In K, note supra- and subscript letters, the several forms of a, current m and n written vertically and the ligature of the former with suprascript u, ligatures, expanded letters, uncial m and the monograms of u with uncial r and half-uncial n and s.

^{Page 232 note 2} CLA 11, nos. 159, 256 and 231.

^{Page 232 note 3} K, 12v and 2 or; for D, Cod. Lind., pp. 100–1 and pls. 4 and 11.

^{Page 232 note 4} For E, Cod. Lind., pp. 96–7 and pls. 5 and 12–13; L, I33r and v.

^{Page 232 note 5} CLA 11, no. 147.

^{Page 232 note 6} Cod. Lind., pls. 10 and 12.

^{Page 232 note 7} E.g. K, 8r–18r passim and 188v. For E and D, Cod. Lind., pp. 99–100 and pls. 6–7 and 9–14.

^{Page 232 note 8} CLA 11, nos. 125, 148b, 149, 187 and 274. Durham A.II.16, fols. 24–33 and 87–101 is CLA 11, no. 148b.

^{Page 232 note 9} Cod. Lind., pp. 99, 218, 260 and 287 and fig. 50.

^{Page 232 note 10} Ibid. pp. 260 and 287; ‘The Art of the Codex Amiatinus: Jarrow Lecture 1967’, JBAA 32 (1969), 21 and fig. 3 (including examples from K).Google Scholar

^{Page 232 note 11} CLA ix, no. 1249; Nordenfalk, Carl, Die spätantiken Zierbucbstaben (Stockholm, 1970), p. 175 and pl. 49c.Google Scholar

^{Page 232 note 12} Oakeshott, Sequence, pp. 35–6 on spiral space-fillers, and the ‘gut’ filling in initials, in Durrow, E, D and K. A spiral filler occurs at L, 57v.

^{Page 232 note 13} Cod. Lind., pp. 77–8.

^{Page 232 note 14} Ibid. pls. 42–3.

^{Page 233 note 1} D, 4V, 382V, 66r, 69r, 70*v, 72r, 72v, 73v, and 102v; cf. the initials for prefaces, 39r and 40r.

^{Page 233 note 2} ‘Two Notes’, pp. 106–7.

^{Page 233 note 3} E.g. K, 253v–84v (Luke xvi. 13–xxiii. 56).

^{Page 233 note 4} D, 4V, 382v, 66r, 69r, 70*v, 72v, 73v and 102v. For smaller initials with diminuendo, e.g. D, I7r, 34v, 35v, 52r and 69r. Cf. Nordenfalk, ‘Before the Book of Durrow’, pp. 156–7.

^{Page 233 note 5} Multiple tassels occur in the Cathach, 11r and 43r (Ibid. figs. 8c and 15b); in D, 7r and 28r; and in K, e.g. 93v. Single, enlarged tassels occur in D, 21r and 36r; and in K, e.g. 94r. The single tassels in K have been simplified into triangles.

^{Page 233 note 6} Das iriscbe Palimpsestsakramentar im CLM 14429, ed. Alban Dold and Leo Eizenhöfer, with D. H. Wright, Texte und Arbeiten 53–4 (Beuron, 1964), 37*–38*Google Scholar and pl. viii.

^{Page 233 note 7} D, 14r, 24v, 38r, 384r and 71v; for L, see above, p. 232, n. 14.

^{Page 233 note 8} Cf. Henderson, Isabel, The Picts (London, 1967), figs. 26 and 29k.Google Scholar

^{Page 234 note 1} E.g. Meyer, Codex Cenannensis, pl. vi.

^{Page 234 note 2} The Life of St Columba by Adamnan, ed. William Reeves (Dublin, 1857), pp. 278 and 388Google Scholar; Gwynn, Aubrey and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland (London, 1970), pp. 82 and 388.Google Scholar

^{Page 234 note 3} See above, p. 228.

^{Page 234 note 4} CLA xi, nos. 1642 and 1605 and 1, no. 63.

^{Page 235 note 1} Friend, A. M., ‘The Canon Tables of the Book of Kells’, Medieval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter, ed. Koehler, W. R. W. (Cambridge, Mass., 1939) 11, 611–66Google Scholar. Boeckler, Albert, ‘Die Evangelistenbilder der Adagruppe’, Müncbener Jabrbucb der bildenden Kunst 3rd ser. 3–4 (1952–1953), 121–44Google Scholar; ‘Die Kanonbogen der Adagruppe und ihre Vorlagen’, Ibid. 5 (1954), 7–22.

^{Page 235 note 2} See above, p. 229.

^{Page 235 note 3} CLA x, nos. 1558 and 1559; Bruce-Mitford, Cod. Lind., pp. 193–4.

^{Page 235 note 4} ‘The Decoration of the Leningrad Manuscript of Bede’, Scriptorium 12 (1958), 191–207.Google Scholar

^{Page 235 note 5} CLA xi, nos. 1621 and 1605.

^{Page 235 note 6} CLA S., no. 1703; Mynors, R. A. B. in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram, Colgrave and Mynors, (Oxford, 1969), pp. xliv and xlvi–xlvii.Google Scholar

^{Page 235 note 7} A term used of other books by Mabillon, , De Re Diplomatica, p. 46.Google Scholar

^{Page 235 note 8} See below, p. 245, n.2.

^{Page 236 note 1} English Uncial, pp. 10–13.

^{Page 236 note 2} CLA x, viii–xviii.

^{Page 236 note 3} Campbell, Alistair, Æthelwulf de Abbatibus (Oxford, 1967), lines 206–15.Google Scholar

^{Page 236 note 4} Henry, , Irish Art during the Viking Invasions, pp. 73–7.Google Scholar

^{Page 236 note 5} The Audience of Beowulf (Oxford, 1951), pp. 99–104.Google Scholar

^{Page 236 note 6} Esp. K, 19V, 114r, 202r and 285r; Meyer, Codex Cenanmnsis, p. 36; Bruce-Mitford, Cod. Lind., p. 254 and fig. 63, comparing scrolls in K and on the Ormside bowl.

^{Page 236 note 7} ‘The Coffin-Reliquary’, The Relics of St Cutbbert, ed. C. F. Battiscombe (Oxford, 1956), pp. 248–64Google Scholar and pls. iv, fig. 4a, and x.

^{Page 236 note 8} See below, p. 246, n.3.

^{Page 237 note 1} Hughes, Kathleen, ‘Evidence for Contacts between the Churches of the Irish and English from the Synod of Whitby to the Viking Age’, England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter, Clemoes and Kathleen, Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), p. 55.Google Scholar

^{Page 237 note 2} CLA VII, no. 998.

^{Page 237 note 3} Allen, J. Romilly, with Anderson, Joseph, The Early Christian Monuments of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1903) III, 381–2 and 389Google Scholar; also 391–3 (cross at Kildalton, Islay), 249–50 and 363–4 (crosses in eastern Scotland).

^{Page 237 note 4} ‘The Chronology and Relationships of some Irish and Scottish Crosses’, Jnl of the R. Soc. of Ant. of Ireland 86 (1956), 84–96, esp. 86.Google Scholar

^{Page 237 note 5} Two Lives of St Cutbbert, ed. Colgrave, Bertram (Cambridge, 1940), P. 82Google Scholar (Vita Anonyma 11. iv); also p. 192 (Bedae Vita xi).

^{Page 237 note 6} Early Christianity in Pictland (Jarrow, n.d.), esp. pp. 12–16.

^{Page 238 note 1} Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, p. 532.Google Scholar

^{Page 238 note 2} Ibid. p. 560.

^{Page 238 note 3} BM Cotton Domitian vii, 15r and v, ptd in Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, pt II, Latin (London, 1884), p. 81Google Scholar. The other two kings were Constantine (789–820) and Eoganan (d. 839).

^{Page 238 note 4} Whitelock, Dorothy, English Historical Documents, c. 500–1042 (London, 1955), p. 241Google Scholar; Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, ed. Thomas Arnold, Rolls Series (1882–1885), II, 40–1.Google Scholar

^{Page 238 note 5} Whitelock, EHD, pp. 243–4 and 248; ed. Arnold, pp. 45 and 57.

^{Page 238 note 6} Sculptured Stones of Scotland, 2 vols., Spalding Club (Aberdeen, 1856–67), esp. II, 14–15.

^{Page 238 note 7} See above, p. 237, n. 3.

^{Page 238 note 8} Mowbray, Cecil L., ‘Eastern Influence on Carvings at St Andrews and Nigg, Scotland’, Antiquity 10 (1936), 428–40Google Scholar; Curle, Cecil L., ‘The Chronology of the Early Christian Monuments of Scotland’, Proc. of the Soc. of Ant. of Scotland 74 (1939–1940), 60–116.Google Scholar

^{Page 238 note 9} Stevenson, R. B. K., ‘Pictish Art’, The Problem of the Picts, ed. Wainwright, F. T. (Edinburgh, 1955), pp. 97–128.Google Scholar

^{Page 238 note 10} The Picts (London, 1967), pp. 104–60.Google Scholar

^{Page 238 note 11} Reflections on the St Ninian's Isle Treasure, Jarrow Lecture 1969 (Jarrow, 1970).Google Scholar

^{Page 238 note 12} ‘Eastern Influences’, pp. 433–4; ‘Chronology’, pp. 80–2, 89–90 and 97–104. Also Stevenson, ‘Pictish Art’, pp. 112–23; Henderson, The Picts, pp. 127–34. The manuscripts most often cited are L and K.

^{Page 238 note 13} ‘Pictish Art’, pp. 106–10; The Picts, pp. 115–27.

^{Page 239 note 1} Ibid. pp. 51–9 and 81–2.

^{Page 239 note 2} Reflections, pp. 5–12.

^{Page 239 note 3} Notably the Hilton of Cadboll cross slab (Allen, ECMS, pp. 61–3) and a fragment from Tarbat, apparently by the same hand, now in Edinburgh (Ibid. pp. 73–5).

^{Page 239 note 4} Henry, , Sculpture irlandaise, pp. 109–11Google Scholar and pls. 54.4 (Tower Cross, Kells), 54.5 (Muiredach's Cross, Monasterboice) and 56 (Cross of the Scriptures, Clonmacnoise). The Kells example recalls Hilton of Cadboll; but Mlle Henry derives the Irish scrolls, which she dates in the ninth and tenth centuries, from Carolingian models.

^{Page 239 note 5} Allen, ECMS, pp. 351–3.

^{Page 239 note 6} Ibid. pp. 75–83; Henderson, , The Picts, pp. 147–9 and 154–7.Google Scholar

^{Page 239 note 7} K, 124v and 174v (eagle), 71r and 188v (fish), 76v (wolf) and 89r (horse-and-rider). Cf. Henderson, The Picts, pp. 117–27.

^{Page 239 note 8} Meyer, , Codex Cenannensis, pls. xi–xiiGoogle Scholar. Cf. Allen, , ECMS, pp. 303–5Google Scholar (Meigle, no. 26). For hunting and war scenes and for interlaced men on the Irish crosses, Henry, Sculpture irlandaise, pp. 117–27 and 82–7.

^{Page 239 note 9} The Picts, pp. 137–40.

^{Page 239 note 10} Letter of 14 October 1971; and see above, n. 6. Mrs Henderson also quotes Allen, Romilly, Proc. of the Soc. of Ant. of Scotland 25 (1890–1891), 426Google Scholar: ‘in the arrangement of the design [Nigg] approaches more nearly to the ornamental pages of the Irish books of the Gospels than any other [sculpture]’.

^{Page 239 note 11} ‘Chronology and Relationships’, pp. 86–91, suggesting that the ring in the crosses of lona and of Ireland derives from Pictish cross slabs.

^{Page 240 note 1} The Picts, pp. 62–6 and 91–103.

^{Page 240 note 2} Allen, ECMS, pp. 351–63, 373–4 and 511–13 (St Andrews); 296–305 and 329–40 (Meigle); 209–15 (Aberlemno); 234–42, 267–80 and 281 (St Vigeans); and 61–83 (Easter Ross).

^{Page 240 note 3} See below, p. 246, n. 4.

^{Page 240 note 4} Cod. Lind., pp. 18–19.

^{Page 240 note 5} See above, p. 238, n. 12. Henderson, The Picts, pp. 124–6 and pls. 37–8, derives the eagle of St John in CCCC 197, p. 245, from Pictish carvings such as the symbol stone from Knowe of Burrian, Birsay, Orkney; but I believe that the books inspired the greater naturalism of the carvings, which would otherwise have had to develop ex nibilo.

^{Page 240 note 6} Ordnance Survey Map of Britain in the Dark Ages, ed. Phillips, C. W., 2nd ed. (Southampton, 1966)Google Scholar, shows that the Northumbrian, and especially the Pictish sites are basically coastal, with landward extensions up river valleys.

^{Page 240 note 7} Hughes, Early Christianity in Pictland, p. 8.

^{Page 240 note 8} Bruyne, Donatien de, Les Préfaces de la Bible latins (Namur, 1920), p. 39.Google Scholar

^{Page 240 note 9} Bishop, , English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. xviiiGoogle Scholar; Rand, , A Survey of the Manuscripts of Tours (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), p. 63.Google Scholar

^{Page 241 note 1} Brown, T. J. in ‘The St Ninian's Isle Silver Hoard’, Antiquity 33 (1959), 250–2Google Scholar; O'Dell, A. C. and Cain, Alexander, St Ninian's Isle Treasure, Aberdeen University Studies 141 (Edinburgh, 1960), 46Google Scholar; Jackson, Kenneth, ‘The St Ninian's Isle Inscription: a Re-appraisal’, Antiquity 34 (1960), 38–42.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{Page 241 note 2} Allen, ECMS, pp. 235–9; cf. CLA 11, nos. 121, 129, 157 and 214, none of which appears to be earlier than the late eighth century.

^{Page 241 note 3} Allen, ECMS, pp. 94–5; cf. the stone from Lethnott, Forfarshire, Ibid. pp. 262–3.

^{Page 241 note 4} See above, p. 232, n. 7.

^{Page 241 note 5} Stuart, John, The Book of Deer, Spalding Club (Edinburgh, 1869), pp. xxi–xxivGoogle Scholar, sets out the all-too-inconclusive evidence for the late survival of ancient manuscripts in the Pictish area. The Book of Deer itself (Cambridge, University Library, Ii.6.32) contains marginal arabesques (Ibid. pls. xxi–xxii); but the script looks Irish, and arabesques occur in Ireland as early as the Book of Armagh (c. 807).

^{Page 241 note 6} See above, p. 234, n. 2.

^{Page 241 note 7} CLA iv, xxiii.

^{Page 241 note 8} CLA ix, no. 1298; and see above, p. 233, n. 6.

^{Page 242 note 1} CLA viii, no. 1198.

^{Page 242 note 2} CLA 111, no. 328; Cod. Lind., pl. 20a.

^{Page 242 note 3} Early Christian Irish Art (Dublin, 1954), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

^{Page 242 note 4} Vorkarolingische Miniaturen, pp. 22–3.

^{Page 242 note 5} See above, p. 237, n. 1.

^{Page 243 note 1} Henderson, The Picts, pp. 88–9.

^{Page 243 note 2} Ibid. p. 157.

^{Page 243 note 3} Cod. Lind., pp. 81–3.

^{Page 243 note 4} The unity of this group is discussed by Brown, Cod. Lind., p. 82, but he there connected them with the work of the rubricator.

^{Page 244 note 1} The word ‘serif’ is in inverted commas because the stroke in question is not properly a serif, as is explained in the text.

^{Page 244 note 2} Cod. Lind., pp. 89–100 and 246–50.

^{Page 244 note 3} On the Italo-Northumbrian text, see Novum Testamentum Latine – pars prior, Quattuor Evangelia, ed. J. Wordsworth and H. J. White (Oxford, 1889–1898), pp. 780–1.Google Scholar

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Northumbria and the Book of Kells

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