Medieval Manuscripts

The Book of Kells, also known as the Book of Columba, is an illuminated manuscript containing the four gospels. The manuscript is housed at Trinity College in Dublin and is one of Ireland’s greatest treasures. The manuscript is based on the Latin Vulgate translated by St. Jerome in 384 CE. The Book of Kells contains 340 folios, written on calfskin vellum, in insular majuscule script. The ink was made from locally sourced plants and minerals. The blue ink color was made with Lapis Lazuli (found only in Asia at the time) demonstrating a trade route existed to these remote outposts in the Medieval era. The book folios today are roughly 10 inches by 12 inches (the folios were trimmed in the 19th century). The date of creation for this manuscript is not definite but is likely around 800CE. While not a certainty, it may have been created, at least partially, at a scriptorium on the island of Iona. Saint Columba founded the monastery on the island of Iona while in exile in 6th century. In 806CE, Vikings attacked the monastery on Iona, providing a possible date for the text making its way to Kells as the leadership of the monastery at Iona fled to Kells.

The book was not intended to be read but designed for a sacred purpose. There are numerous errors in the gospel text, meaning it was not suited for use in a mass. It could have been intended as part of the enshrining of relics related to Saint Columba. To the Irish script and the miraculous were close together. This rationale provides a reason for why the text and images are so intertwined. “The closer they can get, the more they validate each other”¹ The book of Kells demonstrates the influence of other manuscripts linked to the monasteries of Saint Columba. They include the Book of Durrow from about 100 years earlier, and the Lindisfarne Gospels made just before the Book of Kells. The Kells manuscript took concepts presented in these earlier manuscripts and improved and expanded on them.

According to scholar Franҫoise Henry, there are likely three artists who produced the illuminations, and possibly four scribes who copied the text for the manuscript. Pages such as the Chi-Rho and Circle Cross folios are credited to a monk given the moniker the “Goldsmith” by Henry because of the intricate precision of the drawings.  The “Illustrator” created folios such as the Temptation and Arrest of Christ and the “Portrait Painter” created the Virgin and Child and Evangelists, among others. The scribes did not receive names, but their personalities come through in their writing.  Scribe A presents a neat, conservative approach to his lettering. Scribe B is very extravagant with flourishes on his lettering, and he also made use of colorful inks. Scribe C created letters mixed with decoration from the illuminators. Some scholars argue for a fourth scribe who they feel is the most accomplished, with the ability as both scribe and decorator.

The art in the Book of Kells possesses a close relation to intricate Celtic metalwork designs. Book illustrators use many of the same tools and needed the same skill-set as metalworkers. Technically metal workers begin with a drawing, so the skill to create such detailed illustrations would have passed through many generations of metal workers. Carvings similar to the designs in the Book of Kells, like the snake boss motif, are found in Pictish art in Scotland. The Book of Kells also demonstrates influences from North-west European and Mediterranean art combined with their local Celtic design. On folios such as the Virgin and Child, artists show they had access to Byzantine icons or ivories. The book of Kells features incredible decorations, animal, spiritual, and human. Hundreds of illustrations of lively animals—including the famous cats and mice—fill the Book of Kells. We also find many images of humans illustrated in a unique Pictish style. “The distinctive human profile - with a powerful chin, large nose, ‘frontal’ eye, and hair ending in a curl at the nape of the neck - is found in both Irish and Pictish stone carving, but its ultimate origin remains a mystery.”²

Looking closer at one of the folios of this manuscript, folio 7v, the Virgin and Child, we find many symbols and cultural influences. It is the earliest Virgin and Child in the West. Images of the Virgin Mary and Child made their way to this region through the “Cult of the Virgin,” which was popular within Columba monasteries. The image of a Virgin enthroned between angels can be found on the St. Oran’s Cross on Iona as well as Byzantine icons. The Kells Virgin, “clearly follows early Christian/Byzantine models by depicting a seated Mother and Child on a jeweled throne flanked by angels, (however) the throne is decorated with Hiberno-Saxon enamel and animal ornament.”³ In this image, the Virgin sits on her throne dressed in regal purple, with Christ on her lap. The Virgin’s halo contains three crosses, a symbol of the trinity. Christ does not have a halo, displaying his humanity. The Virgin’s dress has a pattern of three white dots, possibly representing the trinity or maybe breast milk as it was considered “the milk of Christian instruction.”⁴ A kite-brooch with a lozenge design is on the right shoulder of her dress. There are other precedents for this diamond brooch insignia in art. One example was on a mosaic of the Adoration of the Magi located in Old St. Peter’s. The lozenge design of the brooch can be found throughout the manuscript

In Byzantine representations of the Enthroned Virgin and Child, the subjects are typically frontal. In this image, the Kells Virgin is presented in profile but looking forward. Christ is reclined in profile, facing the opposite direction creating a cross-diagonal. This type of asymmetrical Virgin and Child imagery is rare but appears in other Early Christian Art.  It has been termed “the complementary-profiles motif-which distinguishes it from almost all earlier or contemporary representations of Virgin and Child.”⁵

Indeed, volumes of pages could be drafted concerning the Virgin and Child page, or any of the other three-hundred plus pages in this incredible manuscript. It is easy to see why the Book of Kells is one of Ireland’s greatest treasures.

1.Grigor, Murray, Lentin, Louis “The Book of Kells” Crescendo Concepts Ltd. 2000, Film

2.Stalley, Roger. "Investigating the Book of Kells." Irish Arts Review Yearbook 10 (1994): 94-97.
www.jstor.org/stable/20492768

3. Whitfield, Niamh. "Brooch or Cross? The Iozenge on the Shoulder of the Virgin in the Book of Kells." Archaeology Ireland 10, no. 1 (1996): 20-23.
www.jstor.org/stable/20562237

4. “Decoration and Decorum.” Irish Arts Review, 19 Nov. 2014, .
www.irishartsreview.com/decoration-and-decorum/

5. Werner, Martin. "The Virgin and Child Miniature in the Book of Kells: Part I." The Art Bulletin 54, no. 1 (1972): 1-23. doi:10.2307/3048928.

OTHER SOURCES

Stokstad, Marilyn, “Medieval Art” Second Edition, Routledge, 2018, Print

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