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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
In a recent study of the iconographic character of the cross-carpet page (lv) opening the Book of Durrow (Dublin, Trinity College A. 4. 5 (57)), I suggested that the miniature and its facing evangelist symbols page (2r) were intended to call to mind images of adjacent loca sancta of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – the relic of the True Cross exhibited on the altar of Golgotha church for the sombre Good Friday Adoratio crucis and the monumental cross on Golgotha Hill, the site of the Crucifixion. These and other references I claimed for Adomnán, the scholarly abbot of the Columban foundation of Iona, who, very likely, sponsored the creation of the gospelbook between 682 and 686. Besides the opening miniatures just cited, the codex contains separate evangelist symbol pages, elaborately decorated incipits, small ornamental initials and five carpet pages. Given the great and unusual weight which the Durrow introductory sequence places on the iconographic explication of the Easter theme, an examination of the possibility that other of the decorated pages in the manuscript develop or reiterate Easter associations seems warranted.
1 Werner, M., ‘The Cross-Carpet Page in the Book of Durrow: the Cult of the True Cross, Adomnan and Iona:’, Art Bull. 72 (1990), 174–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 McGurk, P., ‘The Text at the Opening of the Book’, The Book of Kells: MS 58 Trinity College Library Dublin, Commentary, ed. Fox, P. (Lucerne, 1990), pp. 57–8.Google Scholar
3 Alexander, J. J. G., ‘The Illustrations’, Kells Commentary, ed. Fox, , p. 247.Google Scholar
4 Cf. discussion of theories suggestive of ornamental impulse in Werner, , ‘Cross-Carpet Page’, pp. 174–80.Google Scholar
5 Werner, M., ‘Crucifixi, Sepulti, Suscitati: Remarks on the Decoration of the Book of Kells’, The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College, Dublin 6–9 September, 1992, ed. O'Mahony, F. (Dublin, 1994), pp. 450–88, at 456.Google Scholar
6 The Lindisfarne Gospels contains a list of Neapolitan gospel readings and festivals introduced as liturgical notations in the margins. Some of the lections also appear in London, British Library, Royal 1.B.VII, a Northumbrian gospelbook of the first half of the eighth century; some are found written in an Insular uncial hand of the late seventh or early eighth century, in the sixth-century Burchard Gospels. A similar list is employed in the Durham Gospels. For references, see Werner, , ‘Cross-Carpet Page’, p. 198, n. 115.Google Scholar
7 McGurk, P., ‘Two Notes on the Book of Kells and its Relation to Other Insular Gospel Books’, Scriptorium 9 (1955), 106–7Google Scholar; idem, Latin Gospel Books from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800 (Paris and Brussels, 1961), pp. 117–19.Google Scholar
8 Durham, Cathedral Library A. II. 10, fols. 2–5 and 338 + C. III. 13, fols. 192–5 + C. III. 20, fols. 1–2; see Alexander, J. J. G., Insular Manuscripts: Sixth to the Ninth Century (London, 1978), pp. 29–30Google Scholar; Roth, U., ‘Studien zur Ornamentik frühchristlicher Handscriften des insularen Bereichs – Von dem Anfängen bis zum Book of Durrow’, Bericht der romisch-germanische Kommission (Berlin, 1979), pp. 96–116Google Scholar, and the remarks of Brown, T. J. in The Durham Gospels, Together with Fragments of a Gospel Book in Uncial: Durham Cathedral Library MS A. II. 17, ed. Verey, C., Brown, T. J. and Coatsworth, E., EEMF 20 (Copenhagen, 1980), 43–50.Google Scholar
9 See McGurk, , Latin Gospel Books, p. 27.Google Scholar
10 Cf. Farr, C. A., ‘Lection and Interpretation: The Liturgical and Exegetical Background of the Illustrations in the “Book of Kells”’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Texas at Austin, 1989), pp. 128–9, with nn. 17–23.Google Scholar
11 Ibid. p. 338, n. 68; Werner, , ‘Crucifixi’, p. 454, n. 21.Google Scholar
12 Cf. Godu, G., ‘Évangiles’, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ed. Cabrol, F. and Leclercq, H., 15 vols. in 30 (Paris, 1907–53) V.I, col. 857Google Scholar; Beissel, S., Entstehung der Perikopen des römischen Messbuches: zur Geschichte der Evangelienbucher in der ersten Hälfte des Mittelalters (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1907), pp. 93, 118 and 123Google Scholar; and Underwood, P. A., ‘The Fountain of Life in Manuscripts of the Gospels’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 5 (1950), 43–138, at 58, n. 70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 The enlarged XPI of Matthew introduces an Insular tradition of emphasizing the Christi autem generatio which proclaims the mystery of the Incarnation and effects as it were a second opening in the Gospel of Matthew. See discussion of its references to Incarnation and Resurrection in the corresponding Kells page (Matt. I.8) in Werner, , ‘Crucifixi’, pp. 455–62.Google Scholar I intend to explore the origin, evolution and meaning of the Chi-Rho page in a future study.
14 Farr, , ‘Lection and Interpretation’, p. 339, n. 74.Google Scholar
15 Alexander, , Insular Manuscripts, fig. 53Google Scholar; Henry, F., The Book of Kells (London, 1974), pl. 63.Google Scholar
16 Cf.Wink, W., John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition (London, 1968).Google Scholar
17 See The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome, trans. Dix, G. (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Whitaker, E., Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy, 2nd ed. (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Hamman, A., Baptism: Ancient Liturgies and Patristic Texts (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; and Willis, G. G., A History of Early Roman Liturgy, HBS Subsidia 1 (London, 1994), 117 and 126–36.Google Scholar
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19 Augustine claims that the fish denotes the mystical name of Christ based on its Greek anagram (De civitate Dei XVIII.23; Confessiones XIII. 21 and 23; In Iohannis Evangelium tractates XVII.11). See Dölger, F., Ichthys: Das Fisch Symbol in frühchristlicher Zeit, 2 vols. (Münster, 1928)Google Scholar, and Snyder, G. F., Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life before Constantine (Macon, GA, 1985), pp. 24–6.Google Scholar Severianus reports that the fish was understood as a symbol of the Incarnation and Resurrection (Sermo sancti Severiani episcopi, cited by Dolger, , Ichthys II, 28).Google Scholar For Zeno of Verona (Tractatus II.xiii.2: PL 11, col. 430), the fish rising from the sea is a figure of Christ's Resurrection. Cracow, Cathedral Library, 43 contains an eighth-century Hiberno-Latin sermon on John XXI, wherein the fish and the bread refer to the body of the Saviour, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection; see David, P., ‘Un Recueil de conférences monastiques irlandaises du VIIIe siècle’, RB 49 (1937), 62–89, at 81.Google Scholar
20 Werner, , ‘Cross-Carpet Page’, pp. 185–7.Google Scholar
21 Cf. above, n. 11; Davies, J. G., Holy Week: A Short History (Richmond, VA, 1963), p. 34.Google Scholar
22 See Werner, , ‘Crucifixi’, p. 454.Google Scholar
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24 Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Durmachensis, ed. Luce, A. A., 2 vols. (Olten, Lausanne and Fribourg, 1960) II, 31.Google Scholar I wish to thank Mary Thérèse Zenner for bringing the liturgical relevance of this text to my attention.
25 See Bertoniere, G., The Historical Development of the Easter Vigil and Related Services in the Greek Church (Rome, 1972), pp. 29–70Google Scholar; Jones, E. O., Seasonal Feasts and Festivals (New York, 1961), pp. 221–3Google Scholar; Davies, , Holy Week, pp. 17–18Google Scholar; Wilkinson, J., Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades (Warminster, 1981), pp. 78–9.Google Scholar That the Irish may have regarded the Pentecost feast as of particular importance is suggested by the tract on the mass in the Stowe Missal (Dublin, Royal Irish Academy D. II. 3) of c. 800. In it the fraction (a mystical explanation of the particles on the paten) numbers sixty-five, the number for the great feasts of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost; cf. The Stowe Missal, ed. Warner, G. F., 2 vols., HBS 31–2 (London, 1906) II, 40–2.Google Scholar
26 For this relationship, see Gunstone, J., The Feast of the Pentecost The Great Fifty Days in the Liturgy (Westminster, 1967).Google Scholar
27 In the early twelfth century the gospelbook presumably was at Durrow when a charter concerning the monastery was entered on its last leaf (248v); see Best, R. I., ‘An Early Monastic Grant in the Book of Durrow’, Ériu 10 (1926–1928), 135–42Google Scholar; Davies, W., ‘The Latin Charter Tradition in Western Britain, Brittany and Ireland in the Early Medieval Period’, Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe. Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes, ed. Whitelock, D., McKitterick, R. and Dumville, D. (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 258–80, at 261.Google Scholar
28 The order of equivalence is not the canonical one of St Jerome. Instead, in the Durrow Gospels, the eagle introduces Mark, not John, and the lion John, not Mark. Very likely the scribe-artist here depended on the system proposed by St Irenaeus. Cf. Werner, M., ‘The Four Evangelist Symbols Page in the Book of Durrow’, Gesta 8 (1969), 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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31 Elbern, V. H., ‘Die Dreifaltigkeitsminiatur im Book of Durrow: Eine Studie zur unfigürlichen Ikonographie im frühen Mittelalter’, Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch 17 (1955), 7–42.Google Scholar
32 Indeed, it may be said that formulations on the Trinity (such as those by Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Hippolytus), with their emphasis on the three-in-one relationship, greatly advanced the sense of the importance of mystical numbers for Christian theologians. As Hopper, V. F., Medieval Number Symbolism, its Sources, Meaning and Influence on Thought and Expression (New York, 1938) p. 70Google Scholar, points out, exegetes sought the Trinity in the ‘three gifts of the magi, in Peter's three-fold denial, in the three days between the death and resurrection, in the three at Gethsemane awakening three times, in the three temptations of Christ, and the three appearances of Christ to his disciples after his death’.
33 For the Antiphonary of Bangor (Milan, Bibl. Ambros., C. 5 inf.), a collection of hymns of c. 680–91, see Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores, 11 vols. and suppl. (Oxford, 1934–71) III, no. 311 and IV, pp. xx–xxiGoogle Scholar; cf. Werner, , ‘Cross-Carpet Page’, p. 195, n. 93.Google Scholar
34 Within the triple D-shaped design, 3v displays Matthew's explicit and Mark's incipit above and the text of the Lord's Prayer below; Alexander, , Insular Manuscripts, pp. 29–30Google Scholar, with fig. 10. See further Bullough, D. A., ‘The Missions to the English and Picts and their Heritage’, Die Iren und Europa in früheren Mittelalter, ed. Lowe, H., 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1982) I, 80–98, at 88, n. 24.Google Scholar
35 Schaflhausen, Stadtbibl. Gen. 1. The manuscript was written by Dorbene, abbot or prior of Iona, between 704 and 713; Lowe, , Codices VII, no. 998Google Scholar; Picard, J. M., ‘The Schaflhausen Adomnan - Unique Witness to Hiberno-Latin’, Peritia 1 (1982), 216–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A version of the Gloria Patri in Greek is also inscribed on the Fahan Mura slab in Donegal. The slab is traditionally assigned to a mid- to late-seventh-century date, but in recent years several scholars have given it a later date. Cf. references in Werner, , ‘Cross-Carpet Page’, p. 197, n. 109Google Scholar; further: Berschin, W., ‘Griechisches bei den Iren’, Die Iren und Europa, ed. Löwe, I, 501–10, at 510.Google Scholar
36 Cf. Werner, , ‘Crucifixi’, p. 476.Google Scholar
37 Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum, I.4 (PL 24, col. 1045), and preface to Tractatus in Ioannis evangelium (PL 24, col. 1377). See also Bede, Homilia I.8 (CCSL122,52–9) and I.9 (ibid. p. 62).
38 See Brown, T. J., The Stonyhurst Gospels (Oxford, 1969), pp. 30–2Google Scholar; Werner, , ‘Crucifixi’, p. 476, n. 91.Google ScholarPowell, R., ‘The Book of Kells and Durrow: Comments on the Vellum, the Make-Up and Other Aspects’, Scriptorium 10 (1956), 3–21, esp. 14–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, referring to the employment of the Book of Durrow as a cure for sick cattle, notes the condition of the leaves of the manuscript to indicate that it was a portion of John (VI.63–XII.4) used for immersion. Additionally, let us take note of the Book of Deer (Cambridge, University Library, Ii.6.32), a manuscript of possible ninth- or tenth-century date; Alexander, , Insular Manuscripts, p. 87.Google Scholar As Hughes, K. (‘The Book of Deer’, Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Scottish and Welsh Sources by the late Kathleen Hughes, ed. Dumville, D. (Woodbridge, 1980), pp. 22–37Google Scholar) pointed out, the Gospel of John is the only gospel copied in full in the codex. Moreover, its portrait of John is elaborated with six angels and a cross below the author; and important passages of the text of John are emphasized with arabesques and other decoration.
39 ‘The Rule of Tallaght’, ed. Gwynn, E. J., Hermathena 44, 2nd supplemental vol. (1927), 2–109, at 13Google Scholar; Kelly, J. F., ‘Hiberno-Latin Theology’, Die hen und Europa, ed. Löwe, II, 549–67, at 558–9.Google Scholar
40 Maccuc´in, A., Sruith in Tiag appears in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster (Dublin, Trinity College, H. 2. 18 + Franciscan Library, A.5)Google Scholar; Gwyn, L., ‘The Reliquary of Adomn´n’, Archivium Hibernicum 4–5 (1915–1916), 199–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the first to edit the poem, considered it to be a work of the eleventh or twelfth century, despite its traditional ascription to Adomn´n. Carney, J., ‘A Maccu´in, Sruith in Tíag’, Celtica 15 (1983), 25–41Google Scholar, has convincingly reaffirmed its associations with the ninth abbot of Iona and places the poem in the late seventh century.
41 Cited in Herbert, M., Iona, Kills and Derry (Oxford, 1988), pp. 37, n. 7 and 148, n. 49.Google Scholar
42 Cf. Wainwright, A. W., The Trinity in the New Testament, 2nd ed. (London, 1969)Google Scholar; O'Carroll, M., Trinitas:A Theological Encyclopedia of the Holy Trinity (Wilmington, DE, 1986)Google Scholar; Torrence, T. F., The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh, 1988).Google Scholar
43 Werner, , ‘Cross-Carpet Page’, pp. 200–8.Google Scholar
44 The text is ed. and trans. Meehan, D., Adomn´n's De locis sanctis (Dublin, 1958).Google Scholar See also Wilkinson, , Jerusalem Pilgrims, pp. 9–10 and 117–18.Google Scholar
45 Werner, , ‘Crucifixi’, pp. 463–72.Google Scholar
46 . Ibid. pp. 475–81.
47 Cf. Jungman, J. A., The Early Liturgy (Notre Dame, IN, 1959), pp. 253–65.Google Scholar
48 De locis sanctis I.2 (ed. Meehan, , pp. 42–5)Google Scholar: ‘Quae utique ualde grandis eclesia tota lapidea mira rotunditate ex omni parte conlocata, a fundamentis in tribus consurgens parietibus, inter unum quemque parietem et alterum latum habens sparium uiae, tria quoque altaria in tribus locis parietis medii artifice fabricatis. Hanc rotundam et summam eclesiam memorata habentem altaria, unum ad meridiem respiciens, alterum ad aquilonem, tertium ad occasum uersus, duodecim mirae magnitudinis sustentant columnae.’
49 See also Wilkinson, , Jerusalem Pilgrims, pl. VI.Google Scholar Vienna 458 was written c. 850 by Baldo, a teacher in the cathedral school of Salzburg who had as pupil and friend an Irishman named Dungal; see Adomnán's De locis sanctis, ed. Meehan, , p. 30.Google Scholar
50 See Werner, , ‘Crucifixi’, p. 478, n. 99.Google Scholar The eighth-century Hiberno-Latin sermon on John XXI (cited above, n. 19) paraphrases Augustine on the meaning of the bread: ‘Illi pisces assi et ille panis unum sensum habent; significant corpus Christi quia ille captus in hamo crucis in mare hujus seculi …’; see Lewis, S., ‘Sacred Calligraphy: The Chi Rho Page in the Book of Kells’, Traditio 36 (1980), 139–59, at 146, n. 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Likewise, Irenaeus (Adversus haereses V.ii.2–3: PG 7, cols. 1124–8) writes of the bread as the flesh of the Incarnate Saviour and as a testament to the physical truth of the Resurrection. Arculf's influence may have extended to Irish metalwork in an interesting fashion. He described to Adomnán the chalice of the Last Supper preserved in the ‘chapel’ of Golgotha as a silver chalice holding ‘the measure of a Gaulish pint’ and having ‘two handles fashioned on either side’ (Adomn´n's De locis sanctis, ed. Meehan, , p. 51).Google ScholarGogan, L., The Ardagh Chalice (Dublin, 1932), p. 44Google Scholar, suggested that the size and shape of Irish chalices derived from this description. That the Irish chalice type does depend on a reported pattern is proposed by Ryan, M., The Derrynaflan Hoard, I: A Preliminary Account (Dublin, 1983), p. 15Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Derrynaflan and Other Early Irish Ecclesiastic Chalices: Some Speculations’, Irland und Europa: die Kirche im Frühmittelalter, ed. Chathain, P. Ni and Richter, M. (Stuttgart, 1984), pp. 135–48.Google Scholar
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53 Ibid. I. 11 (ed. Meehan, , p. 57).Google Scholar For discussion of the relation of the column to the iconography of the cross-carpet page in Durrow, see Werner, , ‘Cross-Carpet Page’, pp. 209–16.Google Scholar See further Kühnel, , Earthly to Heavenly Jerusalem, p. 92.Google Scholar
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55 For sources consult Kühnel, , Earthly to Heavenly Jerusalem.Google Scholar
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59 Ibid. We are here reminded of the glass bottles from Jerusalem used by pilgrims as containers of oil or water. The vessels are usually decorated on three sides with three different crosses indicating dissimilar aspects of the Cross of Golgotha. One of these crosses has a bulbous base within two circles suggesting the navel of the earth; see Kühnel, , Earthly to Heavenly Jerusalem, p. 100Google Scholar; Barag, D., ‘Glass Pilgrim Vessels from Jerusalem’, Jnl of Glass Stud. 12 (1970), 35–63, and 13 (1971), 45–63.Google Scholar
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61 See Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism; Horn, W., ‘On the Selective Use of Sacred Numbers and the Creation in Carolingian Architecture of a New Aesthetic Based on Modular Concepts’, Viator 6 (1975), 351–90Google Scholar; and Heitz, C., ‘Symbolisme et architecture: les nombres et l'architecture religieuse du haut moyen âge’, SettSpol 23 (1976), 387–420, at 387–8.Google Scholar
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67 See above, p. 25, n. 13.