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Lindisfarne Gospels (Medieval Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The Lindisfarne Gospels is a large format, splendidly decorated manuscript presenting the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the first four books of the New Testament, introduced by canon tables, prefatory texts, a capitulary, carpet pages, evangelist portraits with symbols, and large decorated incipits. It is widely accepted, based on its 10th-century colophon, to have been made at the monastery on Lindisfarne (Holy Island) in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, during the episcopacy of Eadfrith (698–721). A national treasure of Great Britain, the manuscript is now kept at the British Library in London, where it is identified by its shelfmark, Cotton MS Nero D.IV. Nearly every aspect of the Lindisfarne Gospels is notable. Its scale, ambition, and quality of execution tell of the resources, power, and prestige of Christianity in early 8th-century Northumbria. Its gospel text is among the best and most complete of surviving early examples of the Vulgate version of the gospels. Its interlinear gloss, along with the colophon, was added in the 10th century in Old English, the earliest English translation of the gospels. The design of its elegant canon tables represents one of the earliest surviving Insular uses of arcade frames to organize the columns of indexing numbers (Eusebian sections). Its capitulary reveals links with continental gospel books and their liturgical use. Its script is an influential synthesis of earlier forms, from Ireland, Britain, and Italy, and the layout of its pages reflects a similar unification of earlier graphic styles, achieving great clarity and elegance. The carpet pages and decorated initials at the beginning of each gospel represent a turning point from earlier styles, as seen in the Book of Durrow, to the decoration appearing in manuscripts such as the Lichfield Gospels and the Book of Kells. A remarkable stylistic synthesis of Insular and Mediterranean styles can be seen in the evangelist portraits. Moreover, they are the earliest Insular examples in which portrait and symbol appear together, and they have unique or important features, such as an unexplained extra figure in the Matthew portrait, inscriptions in hybrid script, and a distinctive presentation of the figure of John. One of the foundation blocks of the study of Insular art, the Lindisfarne Gospels has also been an object of textual, linguistic, and paleographic studies since the 16th century.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. Available overviews present the manuscript to readers at several levels. Backhouse 1992 remains among the best for general audiences, while Brown 2011 clearly defines by format the introductory sections of the text and aids the reader with spectacular illustrations and an array of didactic materials. For students, Neuman de Vegvar 1987 presents a fine introduction to the Northumbrian context. A survey of the Irish artistic context still useful for students is given in Henry 1965, and Henderson 1987 provides a stimulating survey of Insular manuscripts. These, along with the “brown” sections of Brown 2011, would all be appropriate for students through advanced levels. Indeed, Henry 1965, Neuman de Vegvar 1987, and Henderson 1987 are still cited regularly in specialized scholarship as they offer valuable insights. The commentary volumes of the two facsimiles, Kendrick, et al. 1960 and Brown 2003, are essential overviews for specialist scholars. Brown 2003 moreover is accessible to readers with more general backgrounds. Koehler 1972 is of great value to the specialist art historian or manuscripts scholar who can put Koehler’s notes into the bigger picture of early medieval manuscripts.
  8.  
  9. Backhouse, Janet. The Lindisfarne Gospels. Oxford: Phaidon, 1992.
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  11. A short, heavily illustrated general survey covering the manuscript’s early and later history, text, script, construction, decoration, and artistic context. Has a dated but still useful bibliography. A good introduction to the manuscript. Originally published in 1981.
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  13. Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. London: British Library, 2003.
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  15. The commentary volume for the 2002 facsimile (Brown 2002, cited under Complete Facsimiles) published as an affordable free-standing study. Includes detailed studies on all aspects of the manuscript, with appendices presenting results of the Raman microscopy pigment analysis and a textual collation (on CD-ROM). Has become the standard reference. Also see Gospel Texts, Capitulae Lectionem, Quasi-Capitularies, and Liturgical Lections, and Decorated Initials and Display Script.
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  17. Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels and the Early Medieval World. London: British Library, 2011.
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  19. Integrates multiple aims: beautiful coffee table book, general introduction, and series of detailed studies citing much relevant bibliography and the author’s own views. The introductory-level texts are printed in black, with detailed analytical sections in brown. Includes Prittlewell and Staffordshire finds and a wealth of contextual material, maps, timelines, photographic details (erasures, underdrawings), and so on.
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  21. Henderson, George. “The Lindisfarne and Lichfield Gospels.” In From Durrow to Kells: The Insular Gospel-Books 650–800. By George Henderson, 171–184. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
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  23. This chapter is an art historical study of the decoration, with interesting cross-media comparisons. Discusses questions associated with provenance and date along with the colophon and later history. Presents an influential analysis of the Matthew portrait.
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  25. Henry, Françoise. Irish Art in the Early Christian Period (to A.D. 800). 3d ed. London: Methuen, 1965.
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  27. Useful, although dated, for the broader context, encompassing Irish art. Discussion of Lindisfarne Gospels gives alternative view for date (cf. Brown 2003), comparison of design techniques with construction drawings on Irish trial pieces (cf. Bruce-Mitford 1960, cited under Evangelist Portraits and Symbols), and analysis of relationship to the Lichfield Gospels.
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  29. Kendrick, Thomas D., T. Julian Brown, Rupert L. S. Bruce-Mitford, et al., eds. Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis. Vol. 2, Commentariorum Libri Duo, Quorum Unus de Textu Evangeliorum Latino et Codicis Ornatione, Alter de Glossa Anglo-Saxonica. Olten, Switzerland: Urs Graf, 1960.
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  31. At least two essays put forth compelling or controversial analyses and interpretations. T. Julian Brown’s palaeographic study is the foundation for that in Brown 2003. Bruce-Mitford’s study of the decoration presents influential analyses and, along with T. Julian Brown’s essay, proposes the controversial “Durham-Echternach calligrapher.”
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  33. Koehler, Wilhelm R. W. Buchmalerei des frühen Mittelalters. Fragmente und Entwürfe aus dem Nachlaß. Edited by Ernst Kitzinger and Florentine Mütherich. Munich: Prestel, 1972.
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  35. Posthumously edited notes. Has full indices of manuscripts and extensive endnotes on the text, contextualizing the jotted-down ideas. Several sections treat Lindisfarne. A fresh but informed view, Koehler’s insight is still valuable. The book itself is of considerable historiographic interest.
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  37. Neuman de Vegvar, Carol L. The Northumbrian Renaissance: A Study in the Transmission of Style. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 1987.
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  39. Clearly written survey of 7th- and 8th-century Northumbrian visual art. Has a discussion of the Lindisfarne Gospels tracing its art style’s genesis to reveal its true, creative synthesis. Analyzes and evaluates theories on important questions concerning stylistic and iconographic sources. Puts the manuscript and scholarship on it in context.
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  41. Reference Works
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  43. The Lindisfarne Gospels appear in a range of reference works such as catalogs and encyclopedias. The lists reference works in a variety of disciplines: art history, Old English, history, paleography, and codicology. Kenney 1966 and Gameson 2012 provide articles approaching the manuscript with a variety of disciplines. Alexander 1978 remains the standard art historical reference for Insular manuscripts. Ker 1964 and Ker and Watson 1987 make accessible a vast amount of information on provenance of manuscripts, useful for example to discover the bibliographic companions of the Lindisfarne Gospels through the medieval period. Gneuss 2001 presents linguistic and paleographic reference for the gloss and colophon, one of several starting points for research on Aldred’s Old English language and script. Lowe 1972 presents an influential paleographic catalog entry, although some of the author’s dates for other manuscripts have not been widely accepted. McGurk 1961 presents valuable information on the “architecture” of early Latin gospel manuscripts written by one of the leading authorities on gospel texts and codicology.
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  45. Alexander, Jonathan J. G. Insular Manuscripts 6th to the 9th Century. London: Miller, 1978.
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  47. Has a lengthy entry on the Lindisfarne Gospels: descriptions of illuminated pages, followed by discussions of historical and art historical contexts, text, and questions on iconography (the evangelist portraits and their relationships to portraits in the Codex Amiatinus, Cassiodorus’s Novem Codices, and the Copenhagen Gospels). Also provenance and references.
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  49. Gameson, Richard, ed. Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Vol. 1, c. 400–1100. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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  51. Covers all aspects of manuscripts and their production in the early medieval period. Articles relevant to the Lindisfarne Gospels by Gameson, Michelle P. Brown, Netzer, Crick, and Pfaff.
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  53. Gneuss, Helmut. Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001.
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  55. An extensive list of manuscripts containing Old English. Useful source for linguistic and paleographic researches of gloss and colophon. Lindisfarne Gospels listed as No. 243.
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  57. Kenney, James F. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Ecclesiastical, an Introduction and Guide. Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies 11. New York: Octagon Books, 1966.
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  59. Presents in a short entry (No. 490) the historiography of studies on the manuscript up to the 1920s, as well as a brief critical discussion of the colophon, giving some original and usually unmentioned insights. Originally published in 1929 (New York: Columbia University Press).
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  61. Ker, Neil R., ed. Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. 2d ed. London: Royal Historical Society, 1964.
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  63. A useful listing of manuscripts that can be documented in British monasteries or to other ownership in the middle ages. Organized by medieval library location. Particularly important entry on Aldred’s colophon (Chester-Le-Street). Key reference for Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.
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  65. Ker, Neil R., and Andrew G. Watson, eds. Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books. Supplement to the Second Edition. London: Royal Historical Society, 1987.
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  67. Essential update of Ker 1964. The Lindisfarne Gospels is listed on p. 30.
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  69. Lowe, Elias Avery, ed. Codices Latini Antiquiores. Vol. 2, Great Britain and Ireland. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
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  71. Remains the comprehensive paleographic catalog of Insular manuscripts. Entry on Lindisfarne Gospels (No. 187) concerns the Latin text, with only a mention of the gloss. Includes summary listing of contents and provenance. Plate illustrates the verso of the incipit page of Gospel of Luke.
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  73. McGurk, Patrick. Latin Gospel Books From A.D. 400 to A.D. 800. Paris: Éditions “Érasme” 1961.
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  75. Catalog entries emphasize codicological and textual structure, relating them to decoration and other types of graphic articulation (Lindisfarne Gospels, No. 22). The introduction gives a scholarly account of early Latin gospel manuscripts.
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  77. Facsimiles
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  79. Facsimiles allow detailed study of the Lindisfarne Gospels’ decoration, script, and design in lieu of examination of the original, access to which is very highly restricted. Prior to the invention of photo-mechanical reproduction techniques, facsimiles were limited to specimen reproductions of small areas of decoration or single letters, rarely whole folios. These reproductions were produced by hand drawing copies from the original and then creating engravings after the drawings. Over the 19th century and into the 20th century, photography, lithography, and collotype processes expanded the possibilities for reproducing whole pages. Complete facsimiles only became possible with the invention in the 20th century of advanced techniques of photo-mechanical reproduction, and even then color reproduction was limited by cost. Complete color facsimiles of the Lindisfarne Gospels came into being only after the advent of digital images, computerized printing processes, and the Internet.
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  81. Complete Facsimiles
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  83. All three complete facsimiles of the Lindisfarne Gospels that have been produced remain important to provide access to the manuscript. The published ones (Brown 2002; Kendrick, et al. 1956–1960) provide some sense of the physical object. Kendrick, et al. 1956–1960 was groundbreaking in its presentation of a complete facsimile and by the scholarship of its commentary essays, which took paleographic and art historical study of the manuscript to new heights. The full-color facsimile published by Faksimile Verlag (Brown 2002) represents further progress in replication of the object and recognition of the importance of the whole manuscript, not just the major decorated pages. The online facsimile (Cotton MS Nero D IV) offers excellent digital reproductions, free access, and impressive magnification.
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  85. Brown, Michelle P., ed. The Lindisfarne Gospels, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D. iv. Lucerne, Switzerland: Faksimile Verlag, 2002.
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  87. High quality, full-color facsimile created from digital scans of the manuscript. Still provides the best facsimile of the material object, short of examination of the original, which is closed to nearly all first-hand study. For detailed commentary published as free-standing study, see Brown 2003 (cited under General Overviews).
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  89. Cotton MS Nero D IV. Digitised Manuscripts, British Library, London.
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  91. Excellent quality digital images, with powerful zoom. Easy to navigate. Introductory window has some information, brief bibliography. No download facility. The most accessible high-quality, color facsimile of the Lindisfarne Gospels. See also the related gospel book, Royal MS 1.B.vii.
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  93. Kendrick, Thomas D., T. Julian Brown, Rupert L. S. Bruce-Mitford, et al., eds. Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis. 2 vols. Olten, Switzerland: Urs Graf, 1956–1960.
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  95. Part-color facsimile. Remains useful for preliminary study: some libraries may have only this facsimile. Although in part superseded, the commentary volume (Volume 2) contains some essays that remain influential, for example, those by Kendrick, Brown, and Bruce-Mitford.
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  97. Reproductions of Single Pages and Details
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  99. With the publication of the full-color facsimile and the online digital facsimile, single-page and specimen facsimiles have limited importance compared with the vital roles they played in previous centuries. They are still important, however, to historiography of the study of manuscripts and art history. Some still provide convenient collections for preliminary comparisons of decoration and script. Early specimen reproductions such as Strutt 1775–1776, Astle 1973, and Madden and Shaw 1833 document antiquarian interest in Britain as it developed in the 19th century into archaeological, paleographic, and art historical disciplines. Westwood 1868 represents the author’s groundbreaking analytic method, rooted in the methods of Victorian natural science. Palaeographical Society 1873–1883 reproduces decorated pages of the manuscript rather than specimens of its scripts. Brun 1897 is of interest for the recognition of Insular manuscript art in the discipline of art history, the Lindisfarne Gospels being a conspicuous exponent of the style. Zimmerman 1916 (however flawed), now available on Heidelberg University’s Digitale Bibliothek, demonstrates the advances in photographic reproduction and until relatively recently was a standard source for images of Insular manuscript decoration, its monochrome plates exerting a pejorative influence on art historical studies. Millar 1923 is also important historiographically, its text more accurate and detailed than Zimmerman 1916.
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  101. Astle, Thomas. The Origin and Progress of Writing, as Well Hieroglyphic as Elementary, Illustrated by Engravings Taken From Marbles, Manuscripts and Charters, Ancient and Modern: Also, Some Account of the Origin and Progress of Printing. 2d ed. New York: AMS, 1973.
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  103. The earliest reproductions of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Includes script specimens and copies of the Lucan portrait and incipit. Documents for early interest in scripts and illumination, the original drawings are kept in the British Library, Sloane MS 1061, folios 42–46. Originally published in 1784.
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  105. Brun, Johann A. An Inquiry into the Art of the Illuminated Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, Part 1, Celtic Illuminated Manuscripts. Edinburgh: Douglas, 1897.
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  107. Presents an early overview of Insular manuscript illumination. Brun’s survey is of interest in relation to the historiography of the Lindisfarne Gospels’ decoration.
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  109. Madden, Frederic, and Henry Shaw. Illuminated Ornaments of the Middle Ages: An Account of the Development and Progress of the Art of Illumination, as a Distinct Branch of Pictorial Ornamentation, from the IVth. to the XVIIth. Centuries. London: Pickering, 1833.
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  111. An early illustrated survey of manuscript illumination. Includes some decorated pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
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  113. Millar, Eric G. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Three Plates in Colour and Thirty-Six in Monochrome From Cotton MS Nero D.IV in the British Museum With Pages From Two Related Manuscripts. London: British Museum, 1923.
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  115. An official publication of the British Museum, it remains one of the most widely available volumes of facsimiles of the manuscript. The facsimiles represent advances in photo-mechanical printing that made possible extensive photographic reproduction. Millar’s text was the authoritative monograph reference until the commentary essays of the Urs Graf facsimile.
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  117. Palaeographical Society. Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions. Series 1. Edited by E. A. Bond, Edward M. Thompson, and G. F. Warner. London: Palaeographical Society, 1873–1883.
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  119. Collection of monochrome reproductions assembled by a distinguished trio of late 19th-century British manuscripts scholars, including the first director of the British Museum (Edward M. Thompson). Has some reproductions of decorated pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
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  121. Strutt, Joseph. Horda Angelcynnan; or a Compleat View of the Manners, Customs, Arms, Habits, Etc. of the Inhabitants of England: Pls XXIII–XXVI. Vol. 3. London: Jones, 1775–1776.
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  123. An eighteenth-century antiquarian view of early English “design,” with engravings of the evangelist portraits. Strutt’s comments provide an example of postmedieval aesthetic judgment of Insular art.
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  125. Westwood, John O. Facsimiles of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts. London: Quaritch, 1868.
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  127. The later of Westwood’s two volumes of specimens of Insular miniatures. It included some decorated pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels in color lithograph reproductions. Westwood, a renowned British entomologist familiar with all the major Insular gospel books, was the first to categorize Insular ornament types.
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  129. Zimmerman, E. Heinrich. Vorkarolingische Miniaturen. 5 vols. Berlin: Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, 1916.
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  131. Four volumes of plates, and one volume of text. Lindisfarne Gospels, Volume 3, nos. 223–244. Along with Millar, the most widely known facsimiles pre-1960s. Zimmermann’s folio-size, black-and-white collotypes (helio-gravure) exaggerated linearity and flatness. The facsimiles and flawed text volume are of historiographic importance. Text available online from Digitale Bibliothek.
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  133. Exhibitions
  134.  
  135. The Lindisfarne Gospels became a treasure of the British Museum in London when it was founded in 1753. It is one of the most carefully guarded objects, having traveled outside the museum only five times, although it has been exhibited in the galleries of the British Museum and then of the British Library on a regular basis. Its first departure was during the evacuation of the Museum in 1939 at the start of the Second World War. Since then it has been exhibited outside these confines only four times. For a few weeks in 1961, it visited the Royal Academy, Burlington House, to be shown alongside the Book of Durrow and Book of Kells in the exhibition “Treasure of Trinity College, Dublin” (Hurst 1961). In 1987 in honor of the 1300th anniversary of St Cuthbert’s death, it traveled to Durham to be displayed in the Cathedral Treasury and to be laid briefly on his tomb (see Bonner, et al. 1989, cited under St Cuthbert and His Cult: Secondary Sources). Its first journey north of the Tyne since 883 (establishment of the saint’s shrine at Chester-le-Street) was made in 1996 for display in the exhibition “Treasures of the Lost Kingdom of Northumbria” at the Laing Gallery, to mark Newcastle’s hosting of Visual Arts UK (Hawkes 1996). It returned to the Laing Gallery in a special millennial exhibition in 2000. The British Library has put on two specialized exhibitions which included the manuscript. “The Making of England” in 1991 was a groundbreaking event in for both general public and scholarly audiences, bringing together an unprecedented number of objects of the early Anglo-Saxon period, and its catalog (Webster and Backhouse 1991) presents a high level of scholarship. The second exhibition, “Painted Labyrinth: The World of the Lindisfarne Gospels” (Brown 2004), celebrated the publication of the full-color facsimile in 2003. In 2013, the manuscript will travel again to Durham to be exhibited with the St Cuthbert Gospel of John for the exhibition “Lindisfarne Gospels Durham,” 1 July to 30 September 2013, at Palace Green Library, Durham University.
  136.  
  137. Brown, Michelle P. Painted Labyrinth: the World of the Lindisfarne Gospels. London: British Library, 2004.
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  139. Revised reissue of the first version of the general audience guide. Heavily interpretive of the manuscript’s significance, the history of the Lindisfarne community and St Cuthbert, emphasizing multicultural dimensions of the displayed objects and referencing contemporary communities via Cuthbert’s activities as a Christian holy man.
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  141. Hawkes, Jane. The Golden Age of Northumbria. Morpeth, UK: Tyne & Wear Museums, 1996.
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  143. Guide for the exhibition held at the Laing Gallery, Newcastle. Short, illustrated survey of visual arts in Northumbria, from the Roman period to the Vikings. A section on the Lindisfarne Gospels and related manuscripts summarizes current interpretations of the objects and theories on their stylistic and iconographic sources. Includes references.
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  145. Hurst, Frances J. E. Treasures of Trinity College, Dublin, an exhibition chosen from the College and its Library, Burlington House, London W1, 12 January–5 March 1961. London: Clowes, 1961.
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  147. A thirty-four page catalog for the exhibition of manuscripts from Trinity College Library. One of a few surviving published documents of the historic exhibition, at which the Lindisfarne Gospels was displayed alongside the other two famous manuscripts associated with the monasteries founded out of Iona, the Book of Durrow and Book of Kells.
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  149. Webster, Leslie, and Janet Backhouse, eds. The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900. London: British Museum Press, 1991.
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  151. Scholarly catalog for a blockbuster exhibition of objects and manuscripts from the British Museum and British Library with treasures from other museums and libraries, held at the British Museum. Illustrated authoritative essays and catalogue entries that enrich understanding of the Lindisfarne Gospels (No. 80) and their context. A standard reference.
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  153. Gospel Texts
  154.  
  155. The study of the text of the Gospels has a long history. The following represent some of the most important modern editions of the Vulgate, all of which include collations of the text of the Lindisfarne Gospels and a few studies bearing on implications of the position of the manuscript within the textual comparisons. Most of the editions include the prefaces including material such as the chapter lists. Wordsworth and White 1889, a 19th-century collation, remains important in its attempt to approach Jerome’s edition. Chapman 1908 is informative for placing the Lindisfarne Gospels within textual history as is Courcelle 1948. Burkitt 1935, a brief but influential article, represents a step in the development of studies of Northumbrian gospel texts centering around the key manuscripts, Lindisfarne and the Codex Amiatinus. Verey 1989 focuses on the close textual relatives of the Lindisfarne Gospels within Northumbrian and wider Insular contexts. Fischer 1988–1991 represents the most important, although incomplete, modern collation of the Latin gospels. Fischer died before he had finished work on the study. Brown 2003 continues Fischer’s collation of the Lindisfarne Gospels with the Vulgate and other Latin gospels texts, giving important discussion and the convenient CD-ROM publication of the table of collations.
  156.  
  157. Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. London: British Library, 2003.
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  159. Based on Fischer’s collation (Fischer 1988–1991), the entire text of Lindisfarne collated against the Douai-Reims Vulgate, giving the variant readings’ correspondences in other manuscripts, as per Fischer. Brown discusses the findings (see chapter 3, “Enshrining Scripture: The Text of the Lindisfarne Gospels,” pp. 150–199); accompanying CD-ROM presents a table of the collation. CD-ROM also with Brown 2002 (cited under Complete Facsimiles). Also see General Overviews, Capitulae Lectionem, Quasi-Capitularies, and Liturgical Lections, and Decorated Initials and Display Script.
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  161. Burkitt, F. C. “Kells, Durrow and Lindisfarne.” Antiquity 9.33 (1935): 33–37.
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  163. Argues a Northumbrian origin of the Book of Durrow based on textual comparisons of its non-Irish variants with the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Codex Amiatinus. One of the studies that opened the way for reconsidering the Irish attribution of the major manuscripts. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  165. Chapman, John. Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908.
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  167. Has section on the Vulgate in Northumbria, with discussion of the Lindisfarne Gospels and its textual exemplars and a table assembled from the capitularies and chapter lists of the Lindisfarne Gospels, Royal 1.B.VII and the Burchard Gospels. Also see Capitulae Lectionem, Quasi-Capitularies and Liturgical Lections.
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  169. Courcelle, Pierre. Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore. Paris: de Boccard, 1948.
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  171. Has (pp. 356–362) discussion of the Northumbrian Vulgate text and its close relationship to that of the Codex Fuldensis from South Italy.
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  173. Fischer, Bonafatius, ed. Die lateinischen Evangelien bis zum 10.Jahrhundert. 4 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1988–1991.
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  175. Critical edition of the four gospels. The text of the Lindisfarne Gospels, designated “Ny,” was partially collated. Each gospel is published in a single volume: Volume 1, Varianten zu Matthäus in 1988; Volume 2, Varianten zu Markus in 1989; Volume 3, Varianten zu Lukas, in 1990; and Varianten zu Johannes in 1991. An essential reference for textual studies.
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  177. Verey, Christopher. “The Gospel Texts at Lindisfarne at the Time of St Cuthbert.” In St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Edited by Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe, 143–150. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1989.
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  179. A careful comparative analysis and evaluation of texts of Durham MSS A.II.10 and A.II.17; Echternach Gospels, Cambridge Corpus Christi College 197B; and Cotton Otho C.V and Lindisfarne Gospels, addressing their possible relationships to Lindisfarne and Italian manuscripts.
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  181. Wordsworth, John, and Henry J. White, eds. Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Jesu Christi latine: secundum editionem Sancti Hieronymi. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon, 1889.
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  183. Critical edition aiming to reconstruct Jerome’s Vulgate edition of the New Testament. A standard reference for history of the Vulgate. Presented in a long table, the text is divided after the Northumbrian Codex Amiatinus and compared with the text of the Old Latin Codex Brixianus. Lindisfarne designated “Y” (p. xiv). The 1905 reprint is available online.
  184. Find this resource:
  185. Canon Tables
  186.  
  187. Devised by Eusebius of Caesarea in the 4th century, canon tables present a comparative index of the four gospels referencing Eusebius’s system of numbered textual divisions. In gospel manuscripts, a scribe added the Eusebian numbers in the margins of the finished text pages to identify the divisions. These numbers correspond to those in the canon tables, arranged in one to four columns, one for each gospel. Reading across a single row of numbers in the table, the user can locate the passages in each gospel that present accounts of the same event. They are based on a Vulgate text and so do not appear in gospel books with Old Latin texts. The Eusebian sections differ from today’s chapter-and-verse system. In the Lindisfarne Gospels, the canon tables have a harmonious, efficient design framing the numeric columns under a large arch within which smaller arches divide the lists of numbers. The design, arrangement of the numbers, and possible sources for Lindisfarne’s version of the tables are all significant within the history of bible texts and Insular manuscript illumination. An excellent starting point, Brown 2003 gives a clear, succinct summary, with complete references, of the questions and significance of the canon tables. Much of the scholarship is quite specialized. For canon tables in general and important observations on the Lindisfarne tables, Nordenfalk 1938 is the seminal work. Published in English, Nordenfalk 1963 concerns a particular type of canon table and presents important comparative material for the Lindisfarne Gospels. A convenient collection of essays, Nordenfalk 1992 contains some of the author’s important articles, which he updated right before his death. Based on the Vulgate edition Fischer 1988–1991 (cited under Gospel Texts) and on Nordenfalk 1938, McGurk 1993 brings out illuminating points on the arrangements of numbers, with special attention to the Lindisfarne Gospels and related Insular manuscripts. Taking cues from Morin 1891 (cited under Capitulae Lectionem, Quasi-Capitularies and Liturgical Lections) and a detail noted in Lowe 1972 (Reference Works), McGurk 1955 compares the canon tables of the Lindisfarne Gospels with the sixteen-page tables in the Neapolitan Codex Fuldensis, filling in discussion of exemplars given in Nordenfalk 1938 and showing further links of Northumbrian gospel manuscripts with south Italy. Netzer 1994 provides further comparative material on Insular canon tables. Neuman de Vegvar 2007 takes the interpretations of Brown 2003 further and contributes to the interpretative trend in Insular art history.
  188.  
  189. Brown, Michelle P. “Enshrining Scripture: The Text of the Lindisfarne Gospels.” In The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. By Michelle P. Brown, 150–199. London: British Library, 2003.
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  191. In particular, see “The Canon Tables” (pp. 179–182). An up-to-date summary of scholarship on Insular canon tables with her own observations and interpretations on the Lindisfarne canon tables, several of which represent significant contributions.
  192. Find this resource:
  193. Nordenfalk, Carl A. J. Die spätantiken Kanontafeln: Kunstgeschichtliche Studien über dieeusebianische Evangelien-Konkordanz in den vier ersterlangung deren Jahrhunderten ihrer Geschichte. 2 vols. Göteborg, Sweden Boktryckeri, 1938.
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  195. The standard overview of canon tables and their development. Essential for any study involving Greek or Latin canon tables, it sets out the background history for the Lindisfarne tables. In two volumes: Volume 1, the text, and Volume 2, the plates. In German, with Greek and Latin.
  196. Find this resource:
  197. Nordenfalk, Carl A. J. “The Apostolic Canon Tables.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6.2 (1963): 17–34.
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  199. Deals with canon tables that have apostle portraits on their frames (the Lindisfarne Gospels are not in this group although the oldest Latin ones are Insular) and presents, in English, some relevant background material and explains Nordenfalk’s terminology, such as “m” and “n” types.
  200. Find this resource:
  201. Nordenfalk, Carl A. J. Studies in the History of Book Illumination. London: Pindar, 1992.
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  203. A volume of Nordenfalk’s papers, updated in 1992. Includes several on Insular manuscripts and early canon tables. The updates present important observations made over the decades since publication of the canon table articles.
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  205. McGurk, Patrick. “The Canon Tables in the Book of Lindisfarne and in the Codex Fuldensis of St. Victor of Capua.” Journal of Theological Studies 6.2 (1955): 192–198.
  206. DOI: 10.1093/jts/VI.2.192Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  207. Makes the highly significant comparison of the Lindisfarne canon tables with the sixteen-page tables of the Codex Fuldensis, further suggesting the manuscript’s connections with south Italian gospel books. McGurk discusses the pros and cons. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  209. McGurk, Patrick. “The Disposition of Numbers in Latin Eusebian Canon Tables.” In Philologia Sacra: Biblische un patristische Studien für Hermann J. Frede und Walter Thiele zu ihrem siebzigsten Geburtstag. Vol. 1, Altes und Neues Testament. Edited by Roger Gryson, 242–258. Freiburg, Germany: Herder, 1993.
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  211. Within a study of canon tables, gives a detailed analysis of the numbers as they are arranged in the columns of the Lindisfarne canon tables. Points out relationships with other canon tables revealed by the analysis.
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  213. Netzer, Nancy. “The Origin of the Beast Canon Tables Reconsidered.” In The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College, Dublin, 6–9 September 1992. Edited by Felicity O’Mahony, 322–332. Aldershot, UK: Scolar Press, 1994.
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  215. On a particular type of canon table, with evangelist symbols or other animals over the number columns, most well-known in the Book of Kells. A discussion of finer points and scholarship that are relevant to the broader historical and textual context of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
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  217. Neuman de Vegvar, Carol L. “Remembering Jerusalem: Architecture and Meaning in Insular Canon Table Arcades.” In Making and Meaning in Insular Art: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Insular Art Held at Trinity College, Dublin, 25–28 August 2005. Edited by Rachel Moss, 242–256. Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 2007.
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  219. Does not have extended discussion of the Lindisfarne Gospels’ canon tables, but its exploration of iconographic significance has direct relevance to them. Argues multilayered iconographic significance of “architectural” canon tables that refers to exegesis and Christian architectural monuments in Jerusalem.
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  221. Capitulae Lectionem, Quasi-Capitularies and Liturgical Lections
  222.  
  223. The Lindisfarne Gospels has several liturgical indications. Each gospel has among its preceding texts a list of feasts (capitulary) called “quasi-capitularies,” lacking notation of the beginning of the feast day’s reading. The lists include, significantly, feasts associated with Naples. Another liturgical link is the chapter list, the capitula lectionum or “brief summaries for reading” before each gospel, some of which have liturgical rubrics that integrate readings found in Neapolitan lists. Moreover, some enlarged letters emphasize points in the gospels that suggest complex influences of several liturgical traditions, and a few marginal crosses mark beginnings of lections for important feasts. Morin 1891, first to note the Neapolitan connections, has a full edition and learned interpretation of the quasi-capitulary. Beissel 1907 is useful for comparison of readings in “non-Roman” liturgies. Chapman 1908 reconstructs the Italian prototype in table format. Gamber 1968 provides an authoritative, well-organized presentation of the Neapolitan context of the Lindisfarne quasi-capitulary and capitula lectionum. Fassler 2000 is a modern study of Advent liturgy that includes Lindisfarne’s related Neapolitan lections. The most detailed manuscript-based study so far of Anglo-Saxon lection systems is given in Lenker 1997. Brown 2003 gives a clear, thorough discussion of the liturgical features and their implications. See also Farr 1997, Farr 2005 (cited under Layout of Text Pages and Punctuation), and Farr 2009 (cited under Decorated Initials and Display Script).
  224.  
  225. Beissel, Stephan. Entstehung der Perikopen des römischen Messbuches: zur Geschichte der Evangelienbücher in der ersten Hälfte des Mittelalters. Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany: Herdersche Verlagshundlung, 1907.
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  227. Reprinted in 1967 (Rome: Herder). A useful, extensive compendium of tables of early lection notations by region and manuscript or source. Indices by biblical text (modern, Eusebian, and other divisions) and feast name (in German and Latin). Has short, guiding discussions for each table but historical information should be double-checked. Text available online.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Brown, Michelle P. The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. London: British Library, 2003.
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  231. Developing from T. Julian Brown’s section, “The Palaeography of the Latin Text,” Vol. 2, Book 1, pp. 61–106, 1960 (cited under Complete Facsimiles), Michelle Brown’s analysis makes clear the extraordinary nature of several features of Lindisfarne’s graphic presentation of the text. The CD-ROM conveniently lists the features within the manuscript’s contents. Essential reference for liturgical investigation. Also see General Overviews, Gospel Texts, and Decorated Initials and Display Script.
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  233. Chapman, John. Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908.
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  235. An early publication in English of the quasi-capitularies and capitulae lectionem. Chapman integrated in a table the lections given in the Lindisfarne lists and those of two other Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, British Library, Royal MS 1.B.VII and the Burchard Gospels. Also see Gospel Texts.
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  237. Fassler, Margot E. “Sermons, Sacramentaries, and Early Sources for the Office in the Latin West: The Example of Advent.” In The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiogaphy. Edited by Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer, 15–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
  238. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195124538.003.0002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239. A comparative study of the liturgy of Advent in early non-Roman liturgies. Places the Neapolitan capitulary lections within the broader context of early medieval Western liturgies.
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  241. Gamber, Klaus, ed. Codices liturgici Latini antiquiores. 2d ed. 2 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany: Universitätsverlag, 1968.
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  243. See No. 405. Brief entry with bibliography of older liturgical studies. Royal MS 1.B.VII at No. 406. Within a section on Campanian liturgies; a good source for liturgical manuscripts and older studies. The Supplementum (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1988), also edited by Klaus Gamber, has further references.
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  245. Lenker, Ursula. Die westsächsische Evangelienversionen und die Perikopenordnungen im angelsächsischen England. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1997.
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  247. The most complete and detailed study of liturgical lections in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, relating the liturgical material to versions of the gospel text. Gives in-depth sections on the liturgical year; history of readings and associated vocabulary; types of notes, lists, and liturgical books; individual manuscripts; and so on through the end of the Anglo-Saxon period.
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  249. Morin, Germain. “La liturgie de Naples au temps de Saint Grégoire d’après deux évangéliaires du septième siècle.” Revue bénédictine 8 (1891): 481–493, 529–537.
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  251. Edition of the quasi-capitulary with invaluable discussion by a great liturgical specialist. Reconstructs the pericopes in calendrical order, relates the result with other early liturgies. Issue is available online. Reprinted in Anecdota Maredsolana 1 (1893): 426–435.
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  253. Aldred’s Colophon and Gloss
  254.  
  255. The Lindisfarne Gospels stands as one of the anchor monuments of Insular history and culture in large part because of the colophon (inscription concerning the book’s production) added about 950–960 in Old English on the manuscript’s last folio by Aldred, a member (later provost) of Cuthbert’s relocated community at Chester-le-Street. In his colophon, Aldred says that Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, wrote the book “for God and for St Cuthbert.” Thus on the colophon’s evidence, the Lindisfarne Gospels was written either right before or during Eadfrith’s tenure as bishop (698–721) on Holy Island (Lindisfarne). The evidence is widely accepted, but questions arise about exactly what it says and to what extent it can be taken at face value. First, the Old English only says that Eadfrith wrote the manuscript, not that he painted its decoration. But sometimes medieval colophons use “wrote” to mean “wrote and painted.” Nevertheless Aldred explicitly described the contributions of two other members: Aethilwald (cover or binding) and the hermit Billfrith (gold and silver book shrine ornaments). Therefore, some ambiguity exists as to whether Eadfrith was supposed to have created the magnificent illumination and also executed the brilliant script of the nearly perfect text. Second, the colophon’s date is well-established. Can an inscription written 250 years after the fact be taken as absolute truth? Aldred also added a word-by-word gloss in Old English between the lines of the Latin texts of the gospels and most of their prefatory material. Aldred’s gloss, in itself a monument of the English language, is the earliest surviving English translation of the gospels, an important text for the study of Old English. The following studies are presented in two groups: historical and linguistic.
  256.  
  257. Historical Studies
  258.  
  259. The colophon and gloss have been much studied as major historic documents for the Anglo-Saxon period. Some attempt to explain and put into context their meaning. Others may aim to refine understanding of Aldred’s motives in creating them and of how the colophon’s message is related to the original manuscript. Boyd 1975, Gameson 2001a, Ker 1985, and Roberts 2005 are key references for the historic, paleographic, and literary background. Gameson 2001b, Nees 2003, and Roberts 2006 are recent, detailed attempts to explore the colophon’s historical significance and its place among the relics of Cuthbert. Jolly 2012 is directed at the 10th-century community at Chester-le-Street, relating Aldred to his own time and place rather than his colophon and gloss to the original community.
  260.  
  261. Boyd, William J. P. Aldred’s Marginalia: Explanatory Comments in the Lindisfarne Gospels. Exeter, UK: Exeter University Press, 1975.
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  263. Key work that examines the explanatory words and phrases in the context of Benedictine monasticism and Northumbrian Christianity. Attributes to Aldred inscriptions in other manuscripts, including four collects in the Durham Ritual.
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  265. Gameson, Richard G. The Scribe Speaks? Colophons in Early English Manuscripts. Cambridge, UK: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, University of Cambridge, 2001a.
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  267. Compendium of colophons in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, exploring their functions and scribal intentions in creating them. Gameson’s comparison of Aldred’s colophon with that by Owun and Farmon in the Macregol or Rushworth Gospels sheds some light on its significance.
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  269. Gameson, Richard G. “Why Did Eadfrith Write the Lindisfarne Gospels?” In Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting. Edited by Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser, 45–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001b.
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  271. Accepting the colophon’s reliability, examines questions surrounding the intentions and desires behind Aldred’s attribution of the book’s creation to Eadfrith.
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  273. Jolly, Karen Louise. The Community of St Cuthbert in the Late Tenth Century: The Chester-le-Street Additions to Durham Cathedral Library A.IV.19. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2012.
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  275. Has a chapter on Aldred with a long section on the Lindisfarne colophon and gloss. Explores their significance within the tenth-century community at Chester-le-Street, with further context provided by chapters on liturgy and scholarship.
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  277. Ker, Neil R. “Aldred the Scribe.” In Books, Collectors and Libraries: Studies in the Medieval Heritage. Edited by Andrew G. Watson, 3–8. London: Hambledon, 1985.
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  279. Originally published in Essays and Studies 38 (1943): 7–12. A thorough paleographic analysis of Aldred’s colophon and gloss, identifying the scribe who signed the gloss in the Durham Ritual.
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  281. Nees, Lawrence. “Reading Aldred’s Colophon for the Lindisfarne Gospels.” Speculum 78.2 (April 2003): 333–377.
  282. DOI: 10.1017/S0038713400168605Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. Probes the arguments for attributing the manuscript to Lindisfarne during Eadfrith’s tenure, Aldred’s colophon being the primary evidence. A detailed reexamination, seriously questioning the Lindisfarne Gospels’ status as an anchor for chronology of Insular art. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  285. Roberts, Jane A. Guide to Scripts Used in English Writings up to 1500. London: British Library, 2005.
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  287. Handbook of scripts including Anglo-Saxon, giving a paleographical overview of Aldred’s gloss and its place in the development of English vernacular scripts.
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  289. Roberts, Jane A. “Aldred Signs Off From Glossing the Lindisfarne Gospels.” In Scribes and Texts in Anglo-Saxon England. Edited by Alexander Rumble, 28–43. Cambridge, UK: Brewer, 2006.
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  291. Historic, paleographic, linguistic and literary analysis of the colophon, suggesting a poetic model associated with Cuthbert’s shrine, some lines of which it may incorporate. Gives important insights and offers revision of some arguments in Nees 2003.
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  293. Linguistic Studies
  294.  
  295. Aldred’s gloss and colophon have received much attention from linguists. The approaches vary, ranging from studies of the occurrences of word forms to translations of foreign vocabulary, translation styles, and social and cultural influences. The following is a sampling of some important studies. Boyd 1975 relates to biblical studies of the Hebrew terms from the Old Testament that occur in the gospels. Ross 1932 approaches the gloss and colophon through vocabulary and translation. Using an analytic method, Brunner 1947–1948 explores Aldred’s sources by studying the variants of the Old English vocabulary in the gloss and colophon. Brunner’s approach differs from that of Ross, et al. 1960, which emphasizes paleography of gloss and colophon and arrives at a conclusion consistent with those of other chapters in the volume—that they were the work of one person, Aldred. Millar 2000 surveys linguistic development of English over four and a half centuries, placing Aldred’s gloss and colophon within the process. Pons-Sanz 2004 approaches Aldred’s gloss along with that of Farmon and Owun in the Rushworth (Macregol) Gospels by considering how social forces act upon language: what was the effect of the culture of Scandinavians upon Old English, specifically as used in glosses of the gospels.
  296.  
  297. Boyd, W. J. P. “Aldrediana xxv: Ritual Hebraica.” English Philological Studies 14 (1975): 1–57.
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  299. A philological study of Aldred’s translation of biblical terms relating to the Old Testament.
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  301. Brunner, Alice. “A Note on the Distribution of the Variant Forms of the Lindisfarne Gospels.” English and Germanic Studies 1 (1947–1948): 32–52.
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  303. Was the gloss entirely Aldred’s work? Brunner analyzes the linguistic variants in it, concluding that he probably relied on earlier translations. Her important conclusion differs from those of paleographic studies.
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  305. Millar, Robert M. System Collapse System Rebirth: The Demonstrative Pronouns of English 900–1350 and the Birth of the Definite Article. New York: Lang, 2000.
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  307. Linguistic study on selected points. Millar’s detailed book covers aspects of Aldred’s gloss and colophon.
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  309. Pons-Sanz, Sara María. “A Sociolinguistic Approach to the Norse-Derived Words in the Glosses to the Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels.” Special Issue: New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics: Selected papers from 12 ICEHL, Glasgow, 21–26 August 2002. Edited by Christian J. Kay, Carole A. Hough, and Irené Wotherspoon. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 252 (2004): 177–192.
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  311. On the social effects of Norse cultural elements as revealed in the language of the Lindisfarne gloss and the related one in the Rushworth or Macregol Gospels (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct D.2.19).
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  313. Ross, Alan S. C. “The Errors in the Old English Gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels.” Review of English Studies 8.32 (1932): 385–394.
  314. DOI: 10.1093/res/os-VIII.32.385Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. A study of the incorrect translations found in Aldred’s gloss. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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  317. Ross, Alan S. C., and Eric G. Stanley. “The Anglo-Saxon Gloss.” In Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis. Vol. 2, Commentariorum Libri Duo, Quorum Unus de Textu Evangeliorum Latino et Codicis Ornatione, Alter de Glossa Anglo-Saxonica. Edited by Thomas D. Kendrick, T. Julian Brown, Rupert L. S. Bruce-Mitford, et al. Book 2, 1–176. Olten, Switzerland: Urs Graf, 1960.
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  319. Influential linguistic and paleographic study of the gloss. Concludes that Aldred was the sole author of the colophon and gloss, and that its content is totally authentic.
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  321. Layout of Text Pages and Punctuation
  322.  
  323. The Lindisfarne Gospels is famous for its elegant and effective design. Its text pages are laid out by an antique system of textual articulation called per cola et commata, in which sense units (phrases) are written one to a line to make the Latin easier to read correctly (disambiguation), especially when presenting a text orally. The resulting layout resembles verse and lends itself well to double-columned pages. The visual contrast with traditional Insular gospel page layout is striking because there the layout is block-like, the sense units articulated by enlarged or decorated initial letters, punctuation marks, and spaces. The Lindisfarne Gospels however presents an innovation in that its layout integrates the graphic feature of emphasized initials to create a hierarchy of divisions within the text (e.g., chapters, pericopes or sections for reading, Eusebian sections, canticles or prayers within the gospels such as the Magnificat or Lord’s Prayer). The most important overview of the layout and punctuation of the Lindisfarne Gospels remains that by T. Julian Brown, Book I, Part III, “The Palaeography of the Latin Text,” pp. 75–84, in Kendrick, et al. 1956–1960, Vol. 2 (1960) (cited under Complete Facsimiles). Brown 2002 (cited under Complete Facsimiles), drawing upon the work of Farr 1997 and T. Julian Brown, presents further analysis and observations on the manuscript’s layout and graphic articulation. See also the essential McGurk 1961 (cited under Reference Works). Parkes 1991 gives an important overview of the development of graphic articulation and punctuation in Insular manuscripts. Farr 1997 presents comparisons of the articulation of the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells for passages in Matthew and Luke, with discussion of possible liturgical significances. Farr 2005 gives further discussion of the comparison of articulation of the Passion text in Matthew and significance. See also Farr 2009 (cited under Decorated Initials and Display Script.
  324.  
  325. Farr, Carol A. The Book of Kells: Its Function and Audience. London: British Library, 1997.
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  327. Studies the relationship between graphic articulation of the gospel text in the Book of Kells and liturgical reading. Gives detailed comparisons of selected points with the Lindisfarne and other early Latin gospel manuscripts. Extensive material on early systems of liturgical readings.
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  329. Farr, Carol A. “Commas and Columba, Power and Patrick: Restating the Archaic in the Book of Kells.” In Omnia Disce: Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O. P. Edited by Anne J. Duggan, Joan Greatrex, and Brenda Bolton, 129–154. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
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  331. Detailed study of the graphic presentation of the Passion in Matthew in the Book of Kells based in part on illustrated comparisons with the textual articulation in other Insular gospel books, including the Lindisfarne Gospels.
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  333. Parkes, Malcolm B. “The Contribution of Insular Scribes of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries to the ‘Grammar of Legibility.’” In Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts. By Malcolm B. Parkes, 1–18. London: Hambledon, 1991.
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  335. Previously published in Graphia e interpunzione del latino nel medioevo (Rome, Edizion dell’Ateneo, 1987), edited by Alphonso Marierù, pp. 15–30. Unique reference on the development of punctuation and “disambiguation” in Insular manuscripts.
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  337. Paleography
  338.  
  339. The Lindisfarne Gospels is nearly always mentioned in surveys on the paleography of medieval manuscripts, but it also has been the subject of detailed paleographic study. Modern paleographic discussion was instigated by the detailed analysis and conclusions presented in Brown 1960. T. Julian Brown’s study conclusively moved the accepted origin of the innovations in the Lindisfarne Gospels to Northumbria and identified a single hand for the Insular script, that of Eadfrith. He, along with Bruce-Mitford, furthermore identified a “Durham-Echternach Calligrapher” working at Lindisfarne, thus attaching two other important early gospel manuscripts (Durham, Cathedral Library MS A.II.17 and the Echternach Gospels) to Holy Island. In Brown 1993, he took his conclusions further, locating the basis of the style and technique of the Book of Kells at “Eadfrith’s Lindisfarne scriptorium.” Brown further elaborates on the Durham-Echternach Calligrapher in Verey, et al. 1980. His student, Michelle P. Brown at first followed his theories (Brown 1989) but later developed her own conclusions (Brown 2003a). Brown 2003b gives a detailed account of the younger scholar’s paleographic analysis of the Lindisfarne Gospels with some of its implications and represents the most developed paleographic view of the manuscript. T. Julian Brown’s theories, and consequently some of Michelle P. Brown’s, have been heavily criticized, in particular from Irish manuscripts scholars; see, for example, O’Sullivan 1994. Moreover, Dumville 1999–2007 demonstrates that little goes unquestioned in the world of Insular paleography.
  340.  
  341. Brown, T. Julian. “The Lindisfarne Scriptorium.” In Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis. Vol. 2, Commentariorum libri duo, quorum unus de textu evangeliorum Latino et codicis ornatione, alter de glossa Anglo-Saxonica. Edited by Thomas D. Kendrick, T. Julian Brown, Rupert L. S. Bruce-Mitford, et al., Book 1, 89–110. Olten, Switzerland: Urs Graf, 1960.
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  343. Influential paleographic analysis concluding that the entire manuscript was written by one scribe, dating it 696–698, before Eadfrith became bishop of Lindisfarne. Argued that the Echternach Gospels and Durham A.II.17 gospel fragment were written by one scribe at Lindisfarne. The basis of many later paleographic studies (e.g., Michelle P. Brown, Verey).
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  345. Brown, Michelle P. “The Lindisfarne Scriptorium from the Late Seventh Century to the Early Ninth Century.” In St Cuthbert, his Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Edited by Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe, 151–164. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1989.
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  347. On relationships of scripts with that of the Lindisfarne Gospels as presented by a selection of Insular manuscripts. Brown, who had been asked to speak in place of her recently deceased teacher, T. Julian Brown, accepted the Durham-Echternach Calligrapher theory although she later changed her position. Excellent paleographic overview.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Brown, T. Julian. “Northumbria and the Book of Kells.” In A Palaeographer’s View: The Selected Writings of Julian Brown. Edited by Janet Bately, Michelle P. Brown, and Jane Roberts, 97–124. London: Miller, 1993.
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  351. Previously published by T. Julian Brown and Christopher D. Verey, Anglo-Saxon England 1 (1972): 219–246, available online for purchase or by subscription. Groundbreaking and highly controversial argument relating the Book of Kells closely with Northumbria. The Lindisfarne Gospels play an important evidential role. Appendix (pp. 121–122) presenting Christopher D. Verey’s identification of the Lindisfarne Gospels’ correcting hand as identical to that of Durham MS A.II.17.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Brown, Michelle P. “House Style in the Scriptorium, Scribal Reality, and Scholarly Myth.” In Anglo-Saxon Styles. Edited by Catherine E. Karkov and George Hardin Brown, 131–150. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003a.
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  355. Beginning with the paleographical analyses of the Lindisfarne Gospels and Durham A.II.17 by T. Julian Brown, Bruce-Mitford and Verey, Michelle P. Brown explores the idea of house style, its illusions, shortcomings, and successes in Insular paleography. A useful critical study.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Brown, Michelle P. “Sacred Codicology: The Physical Preparation, Writing and Binding of the Lindisfarne Gospels.” In The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. By Michelle P. Brown, 200–271. London: British Library, 2003b.
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  359. The most detailed paleographic study of the Lindisfarne Gospels since Brown 1960. Presents the foremost scholar’s most developed views on all aspects of the scripts.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Dumville, David N. A Palaeographer’s Review: The Insular System of Scripts in the Early Middle Ages. 2 vols. Osaka, Japan: Kansai University Press, 1999–2007.
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  363. A lengthy review or overview of Insular scripts and their study. Instead of simply questioning the existence of the Durham-Echternach Calligrapher at Lindisfarne, Dumville argues the possibility that it had no scriptorium at all and that no manuscripts were made there. A controversial paleographic challenge to current theories.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. O’Sullivan, William. “The Lindisfarne Scriptorium: For and Against.” Peritia 8 (1994): 80–94.
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  367. Questions the existence of the scriptorium at Lindisfarne and the Durham-Echternach Calligrapher put forth in the theories of T. Julian Brown and Bruce-Mitford. Gives emphasis to Irish and continental elements in counterargument and argues mainly on evidence other than the scripts.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Verey, Christopher D., T. Julian Brown, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Roger Powell, eds. The Durham Gospels, Together with Fragments of a Gospel Book in Uncial: Durham Cathedral Library, MS A.II.17. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1980.
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  371. T. Julian Brown’s paleographical introduction analyzes the scripts of the two Latin gospel books in Durham MS A.II.17, concluding a late 7th-century Lindisfarne origin for the Insular half-uncial gospel fragment. Presents more detail for the paleographic argument defining a Lindisfarne scriptorium and house style, a putative context of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
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  373. Illumination and Decoration
  374.  
  375. The Lindisfarne Gospels represents one of the monuments of Insular art because of its splendid decoration and its status as a firmly dated and placed work. Aside from the discussions given in the works listed in Facsimiles, Exhibitions, and General Overviews, a rich, specialized art historical bibliography continues to grow. Art historical studies usually address the types of decoration found in the book: evangelist portraits, carpet pages, and decorated initials. A varied sampling of scholarship is given here grouped by those types. See also Canon Tables and Layout of Text Pages and Punctuation.
  376.  
  377. Evangelist Portraits and Symbols
  378.  
  379. The evangelist portraits with their symbols represent the extent of figural decoration in the manuscript and thus, due to the slant of art historical methodology and domination of iconographic studies, have received the most attention. The earliest studies (Bruce-Mitford 1960; Kitzinger 1956; Nordenfalk 1942) were concerned with iconographic sources of the portraits and symbols with the relationship to those in the Codex Amiatinus being a focus, but more recent studies (Alexander 1999; Henderson 1993) question the relationships to figures in the Codex Amiatinus and attempt to refine understanding of the portraits’ creation beyond iconographic sources. Still other scholars have sought to understand the portraits as visual interpretation, using exegetical texts (Brown 2000; Brown 2003), and theories of audience and reception (Farr 2011) to understand them as specifically early medieval images.
  380.  
  381. Alexander, Shirley M. “The Matthew Portrait in the Lindisfarne Gospels.” In The Materials, Technology, and Art of Conservation Studies in Honor of Lawrence J. Majewski on the Occasion of His 80th birthday, February 10, 1999. Edited by Rebecca Anne Rushfield and Mary W. Ballard, 95–103. New York: Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1999.
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  383. Questions the Cassiodoran model for the portrait of Matthew. Based on a detailed analytic comparison of the painting techniques of the Lindisfarne Matthew and Codex Amiatinus Ezra, argues that the Matthew was based on a Western Neapolitan model while Ezra’s was Byzantine, both with chrysography.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Brown, Michelle P. “In the Beginning Was the Word”: Books and Faith in the Age of Bede. Jarrow Lecture 2000. Jarrow, UK: St Paul’s, 2000.
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  387. Presents a detailed interpretation of the Matthew portrait and symbol, elaborating on Lindisfarne’s relationship with Wearmouth-Jarrow. Also see Technical Studies: Pigments, Vellum, and Parchment.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Brown, Michelle P. “The Art of the Lindisfarne Gospels.” In The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. By Michelle P. Brown, 272–394. London: British Library, 2003.
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  391. In particular, see “The Evangelist Miniatures,” pp. 346–370. A thorough overview of the iconography and style of the miniatures, the exegetical background, and theories and issues in scholarship, with her own interpretative contributions. A convenient source as well for good color images of the miniatures. Also see Decorated Initials and Display Script.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Bruce-Mitford, Rupert L. S. “Decoration and Miniatures.” In Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis. Vol. 2, Commentariorum Libri Duo, Quorum Unus de Textu Evangeliorum Latino et Codicis Ornatione, Alter de Glossa Anglo-Saxonica. Edited by Thomas D. Kendrick, T. Julian Brown, Rupert L. S. Bruce-Mitford, et al., Book 1, 109–260. Olten, Switzerland: Urs Graf, 1960.
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  395. Proposes (pp. 126–173) that the portrait of Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the portrait of Ezra in the Codex Amiatinus share the same model, which Bruce-Mitford postulates to have been an Ezra portrait in Cassiodorus’s novem codices (“Bible in Nine Volumes”). Influential, but sometimes disputed. Also see Decorated Initials and Display Script.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Farr, Carol. “Vox Ecclesiae: Performance and Insular Manuscript Art.” In Insular and Anglo-Saxon: Art and Thought in the Early Medieval Period. Edited by Colum Hourihane, 219–228. Princeton, NJ: Index of Christian Art, 2011.
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  399. Relates the iconography of the portrait and symbol of Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels to concepts of performance and the performative, in a discussion of the liturgical and public (monastic, ecclesiastic and lay) dimensions of Insular manuscript art.
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  401. Henderson, George. “Cassiodorus and Eadfrith Once Again.” In The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland; Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Insular Art Held in the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh, 3–6 January 1991. Edited by R. Michael Spearman and John Higgitt, 82–91. Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, 1993.
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  403. Brings the Late Antique decorative medium opus sectile (patterns or pictures created with colored marble inlay) into the discussion of the evangelist portraits’ models. Attributes the stylistic differences between the Lindisfarne evangelist depictions and the Codex Amiatinus Ezra portrait to a desire to imitate this luxury, prestigious medium.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Kitzinger, Ernst. “The Coffin Reliquary.” In The Relics of Saint Cuthbert. Edited by Christopher F. Battiscombe, 202–304. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.
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  407. Kitzinger was first to notice the iconographic similarities between the evangelist symbols on the coffin made for the translation of St Cuthbert’s relics in 698 and those in the evangelist portraits of the Lindisfarne Gospels, further linking the manuscript to Lindisfarne.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Nordenfalk, Carl A. J. “Eastern Style Elements in the Book of Lindisfarne.” Acta Archaeologica 13 (1942): 157–169.
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  411. Compares the manuscript’s evangelist portraits with examples from the Byzantine “St Mark group” of ivories, suggesting that the ivories present the style of the works that the Lindisfarne artist used as models. For revisions of the date of the ivories, see Neuman de Vegvar 1987 (cited under General Overviews).
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Decorated Initials and Display Script
  414.  
  415. The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the Insular manuscripts that represent the transformation of the incipit (beginning letters) into an image from which may spring a world of pattern and figural decoration. Its spectacularly beautiful initials expand to the height of the page or dance across it, their powerful curving contours only emphasized by the new panels of border-like elements that surround the beginning text. Rich worlds of ornament inhabit them, and the letter forms themselves can mimic runes and Greek letters. They represent an early phase of a long development leading to the densely ornamented initials in the Book of Kells and Barberini Gospels. While they appear often in general audience publications, they have increasingly become the objects of specialized study. Older studies (Bruce-Mitford 1960) mainly approach them from a paleographic point of view. Their relationships to letter forms in other manuscripts is still important (Higgitt 1994). Brown 2003 surveys them paleographically but also, as other recent scholarship, makes sense of them as images with associations and references to the gospels and to the world in which the Lindisfarne Gospels was a significant object. O’Reilly 1998 is a seminal presentation of patristic and Insular exegetical texts on the gospels and ancestry of Christ that considerably deepen understanding of the Insular decorative emphasis on the name of Christ at the end of the list of ancestors in Matthew. Farr 2009 and Tilghman 2011 explore the interpretative function of the decorated full-page initials, seeing them as fusion of letter and image.
  416.  
  417. Brown, Michelle P. “The Art of the Lindisfarne Gospels.” In The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. By Michelle P. Brown, 372–394. London: British Library, 2003.
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  419. Provides detailed discussion of the decoration of incipit pages. Also see Evangelist Portraits and Symbols.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Bruce-Mitford, Rupert L. S. “Carpet Pages, Elaborate Ornamental Text Pages and Initials.” In Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Lindisfarnensis. Vol. 2, Commentariorum Libri Duo, Quorum Unus de Textu Evangeliorum Latino et Codicis Ornatione, Alter de Glossa Anglo-Saxonica. Edited by Thomas D. Kendrick, T. Julian Brown, Rupert L. S. Bruce-Mitford, et al. Book 1, 232–243. Olten, Switzerland: Urs Graf, 1960.
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  423. Fundamental analysis of the decorated capitals (display script) in the Lindisfarne Gospels (pp. 237–243). See also T. Julian Brown, “Initials and Decorative Capitals,” pp. 75–78. Key discussions. Also see Evangelist Portraits and Symbols.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Farr, Carol A. “The Sign at the Cross-Roads: The Matthean Nomen Sacrum in Anglo-Saxon Gospel Books Before Alfred the Great.” In Form and Order in the Anglo-Saxon World, AD 600–1100. Edited by Sally Crawford and Helena Hamerow, 79–88. Oxford: Oxford University School of Archaeology, 2009.
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  427. Originally a paper presented in 2001, exploring a characteristic feature of Insular gospel books, the conspicuously enlarged and decorated χρι, as a proclamation of orthodoxy using a rich and sophisticated semiosis. Places the monogram in the Lindisfarne Gospels within textual and liturgical contexts.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Higgitt, John. “The Display Script of the Book of Kells and the Tradition of Insular Decorative Capitals.” In The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College, Dublin, 6–9 September 1992. Edited by Felicity O’Mahony, 209–233. Aldershot, UK: Scolar Press, 1994.
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  431. Provides a survey of display script styles in Insular manuscripts, often citing those in the Lindisfarne Gospels. Has appendix giving an analysis of individual letter forms in the Book of Kells and comparisons with Insular examples; Lindisfarne Gospels appear frequently.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. O’Reilly, Jennifer. “Gospel Harmony and the Names of Christ: Insular Images of a Patristic Theme.” In The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition. Edited by John L. Sharpe III, and Kimberly van Kampen, 73–88. London: British Library, 1998.
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  435. A detailed discussion of the patristic and Insular exegesis that forms the interpretative background to the enlarged and decorated nomina sacra at Matthew 1:18 in Insular gospel manuscripts. Focuses on the Book of Kells but discusses the Lindisfarne Gospels. Much of the material (including Bede’s exegeses) is relevant to Northumbria.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Tilghman, Benjamin C. “Writing in Tongues: Mixed Scripts and Style in Insular Art.” In Insular and Anglo-Saxon Art and Thought in the Early Medieval Period. Edited by Colum Hourihane, 93–108. Index of Christian Art Occasional Papers 13. Princeton, NJ: Index of Christian Art, 2011.
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  439. Focuses on the variants letter forms incorporated into the incipit pages of the Book of Kells, but begins with those in the initial pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels. A fresh look at the semiotic use of letter forms in Insular manuscript design and discussion of its potential for significance.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Carpet Pages and Ornament
  442.  
  443. The five extraordinary carpet pages and intricate animal ornament represent some of the most awesome decoration in the Lindisfarne Gospels. Their abstract, patterned nature has attracted scholars who attempt to discover the methods by which they were created (Guilmain 1987; Stevick 1994) and sometimes confirming the hand of an individual artist (Eadfrith; Marx 1995; Stevick 1986) or finding more than one artist—undermining the attribution to Eadfrith (Gilbert 1991). Coatsworth 1989 presents further important links between the relics of St Cuthbert and the manuscript. Recent scholarship on Insular manuscripts has recognized that abstract patterns were created in the designs to convey meaning, often in a revelatory way (Pirotte 2001).
  444.  
  445. Coatsworth, Elizabeth. “The Pectoral Cross and Portable Altar from the Tomb of St Cuthbert.” In St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Edited by Gerald Bonner, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe, 287–302. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1989.
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  447. Based on a geometric analysis of the designs, a comparison with the gold and garnet cross from the tomb of St Cuthbert with the central motif of the cross carpet page of Mark shows that the same layout was used for both.
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  449. Gilbert, J. E. P. “The Lindisfarne Gospels—How Many Artists?” Durham University Journal 83 (1991): 153–160.
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  451. Argues that at least three artists were involved in the design of the cross-carpet pages, against the traditional view that Eadfrith was sole artist as well as scribe. Gilbert contends that Aldred’s colophon is not reliable evidence. See also Aldred’s Colophon and Gloss.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Guilmain, Jacques. “The Geometry of the Cross-Carpet Pages in the Lindisfarne Gospels.” Speculum 62.1 (1987): 21–52.
  454. DOI: 10.2307/2852565Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. An analysis of the geometric design techniques, uncovering layers of complexity and techniques for integrating forms into a larger whole. Concludes that the Lindisfarne carpet pages represent a new application of existing skills and technologies. A detailed study of the mathematics but allows for symbolism of numbers and shapes. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Marx, Suzanne. “The Miserable Beasts: Animal Art in the Gospels of Lindisfarne, Lichfield and St Gallen 51.” Peritia 9 (1995): 234–245.
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  459. Analytic comparisons of zoomorphic ornament in three gospel manuscripts, finding a high degree of uniformity of types but identifiable individual artistic styles. Has diagrams and tables of the animal types.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Pirotte, Emmanuelle. “Hidden Order, Order Revealed: New Light on Carpet Pages.” In Pattern and Purpose in Insular Art: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Insular Art Held at the National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff, 3–6 September 1998. Edited by Mark Redknap, Nancy Edwards, Susan Youngs, Alan Lane, and Jeremy Knight, pp. 203–208. Oxford: Oxbow, 2001.
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  463. Uses innovative method employing Gestalt theory to see into the nonverbal significance of carpet page design and reveal the ways in which the designs exploit ambiguity to integrate meaning with pattern.
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  465. Stevick, Robert D. “The 4 x 3 Crosses in the Lindisfarne and Lichfield Gospels.” Gesta 25.2 (1986): 171–184.
  466. DOI: 10.2307/766979Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. Addresses the aesthetic question of how artists created visual harmony. Analyzes geometric structures of carpet pages from the Lindisfarne and Lichfield Gospels. Concludes that artists could use their individual methods to solve design problems even when attempting to imitate the style of a model.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Stevick, Robert D. The Earliest Irish and English Bookarts: Visual and Poetic Forms Before AD 1000. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.
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  471. Finds that numeric proportions (“commensurability”) structure much Insular visual art and later Anglo-Saxon metric literature. Sees self-contained deep structure of perfect ratios as basis for the culture’s art. The carpet pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels found to be the apex of the development.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Technical Studies: Pigments, Vellum, and Parchment
  474.  
  475. The Lindisfarne Gospels, thanks to its status of British national treasure, monument of Bible and book history and nearly pristine survivor of the early Anglo-Saxon period, has been the object of several technical studies. Most of these have focused on the pigments used to create its opulent decoration, but a few have studied other elements of the manuscript’s physical make-up. The report on the pigments in the Urs Graf facsimile (Kendrick, et al. 1956–1960, cited under Complete Facsimiles) is now quite outdated. Instead Brown, et al. 2003 and Brown and Clark 2004 should be consulted for the most authoritative pigment identifications available. Brown 2000 and Brown 2003 (cited under General Overviews) give details and illustrations relating to drawing and design techniques as well as pigments and the author’s interpretations, some of which are not accepted by all scholars. Brown 1993, an informal discussion, remains a standard introductory reference on Insular vellum and parchment.
  476.  
  477. Brown, Katherine L., Michelle P. Brown, and David Jacobs. “Appendix 1: Analysis of the Pigments Used in the Lindisfarne Gospels.” In The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe. By Michelle P. Brown, 430–451. London: British Library, 2003.
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  479. A complete, detailed report on the method of examination and its results. Gives illustrations showing at exactly which points the illuminations were analyzed with a table of pigments and spectrum diagrams for each folio examined. A groundbreaking discovery was the absence of any imported pigments.
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  481. Brown, Katherine L., and Robin J. H. Clark. “The Lindisfarne Gospels and Two Other 8th-Century Anglo-Saxon/Insular Manuscripts: Pigment Identification by Raman Microscopy.” Journal of Raman Spectroscopy 35.1 (2004): 4–12.
  482. DOI: 10.1002/jrs.1110Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. Technical report on the Raman spectroscopy, giving a summary of the results. Presents results of two related manuscripts alongside those from the examination of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Brown, Michelle P. “In the Beginning Was the Word”: Books and Faith in the Age of Bede. Jarrow Lecture 2000. Jarrow, UK: St Paul’s, 2000.
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  487. Lively, condensed version of some ground-breaking points made in the longer facsimile commentary volume, Brown 2003 (cited under General Overviews). Proposes that the complex designs in the manuscript were laid out in pencil on the verso and then viewed from the other side with aid of a light table for painting, a controversial theory. Also see Evangelist Portraits and Symbols.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Brown, T. Julian. “The Distribution and Significance of Membrane Prepared in the Insular Manner.” In A Palaeographer’s View: Selected Writings of Julian Brown. Edited by Janet Bately, Michelle Brown, and Jane Roberts, 125–139. London: Miller, 1993.
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  491. Previously published in La Paléographie Hébraïque Médiévale: Paris, 11–13 septembre 1972 (Actes du Colloque International sur la “Paleographie Hébraïque Médiévale”). (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1974), edited by Centre national de la recherche scientifique, pp. 127–135. An informal talk on vellum, a good resource for students even though its content is specialized. Records the discussion afterward with international manuscripts scholars. Partly in French; has resumé in French.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. St Cuthbert and His Cult
  494.  
  495. Cuthbert, an anchoritic monk of Melrose, was ordained bishop of Lindisfarne in 685 and died 687. His tomb at Lindisfarne became the focus of an intense cult in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Fleeing the Viking invasion of 875, the monks of Lindisfarne transported his relics on their journey seeking refuge, stopping at last at Durham, where his tomb still lies today in the cathedral. Cuthbert’s pan-regional cult had high-level political connections and a rich array of furnishings and relics, distinguishing it from the typically local and modestly memorialized contemporary cults. Some of Cuthbert’s relics survive, including the St Cuthbert Gospel of John (Additional MS 89000, cited under Primary Sources) found in his coffin in 1105. The Lindisfarne Gospels was almost certainly one of the great treasures among these relics, as witnessed by its 10th-century colophon (see Aldred’s Colophon and Gloss), which states that Bishop Eadfrith wrote it “For God and St Cuthbert.” St Cuthbert and his cult represent the immediate and probably most important components of the manuscript’s medieval contexts. Key references are divided below as Primary Sources and Secondary Studies.
  496.  
  497. Primary Sources
  498.  
  499. The saint’s cult was promoted by multiple accounts of his life, the first written anonymously at Lindisfarne, followed in the 8th-century by Bede’s metric and prose lives. The two prose lives are conveniently published in one volume in Colgrave 1940, providing authoritative editions and English translations of the most studied primary documents of St Cuthbert and the spiritual ideals promoted in association with his cult. These ideals are vital to the context and significance of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Bede’s metric life of Cuthbert has no English translation, although it is highly important as an interpretative text. The authoritative Latin edition is Jaager 1935, which also has extensive commentary. Moreover, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (Colgrave and Mynors 1969) provides an account of the saint and miracles after his death as part of the Christian history of the Anglo-Saxons, a history in which the Lindisfarne Gospels, Cuthbert’s book, was intended to occupy a prominent place. Promotion continued in later centuries by works such as the 11th-century Historia de Sancto Cuthberto (South 2002). The other manuscript relic, the St Cuthbert Gospel of John (Additional MS 89000) can be studied online in digital facsimile.
  500.  
  501. Additional MS 89000. Digitised Manuscripts, British Library, London.
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  503. Complete digital facsimile of the Cuthbert Gospel (formerly Stonyhurst Gospel), the late 7th-century Gospel of St. John found in the coffin of Cuthbert. An important witness to the context of the Lindisfarne Gospels, it was probably made at Wearmouth Jarrow. The introductory window gives description, history, and full bibliography.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Colgrave, Bertram, ed. Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert: A Life by an Anonymous Monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s Prose Life. Translated by Betram Colgrave. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1940.
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  507. A one-volume edition of the two most important primary sources on Cuthbert’s life and hermetic practices, presenting Colgrave’s authoritative English translation in parallel format with his edition of the original Latin. With introduction (including complete catalog of the manuscript sources), concordance, and extensive notes by Colgrave.
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  509. Colgrave, Bertram, and R. A. B. Mynors, eds. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969.
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  511. A nearly contemporary account (c. 735), among the most important primary sources for the history of Lindisfarne and life of Cuthbert. The Colgrave and Mynors edition stands as the authoritative English translation with edition of the original Latin text, published in parallel format with notes.
  512. Find this resource:
  513. Jaager, Werner, ed. Bedas Metrische vita sancti Cuthberti. Leipzig: Mayer and Müller, 1935.
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  515. Reliable edition of Bede’s verse life of Cuthbert, written as a meditative poem to be read alongside his prose life. In Latin, with notes on the poetic context. Jaager’s introduction presents one of a very few extended discussions of Bede’s poetic technique. See also Michael Lapidge, “Bede’s Metrical Vita S. Cuthberti,” pp. 72–94, in Bonner, et al. 1989 (cited under St Cuthbert and His Cult: Secondary Sources).
  516. Find this resource:
  517. South, Ted Johnson, ed. Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: A History of St Cuthbert and a Record of His Patrimony. Cambridge, UK: Brewer, 2002.
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  519. An edition of the 11th-century life of Cuthbert based on the three existing manuscripts of the text, with English translation, detailed commentary, maps, and appendices. Important for later history of the cult and Lindisfarne Gospels.
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  521. Secondary Sources
  522.  
  523. Studies on the Cuthbertine cult present contextual evidence and arguments crucial to understanding the Lindisfarne Gospels’ production, significance, and later history. The most detailed discussions of St Cuthbert, his relics, and their relationship of the Lindisfarne Gospels are given by the essays in Battiscombe 1956 and Bonner, et al. 1989. Cox 1995 presents a detailed argument that the manuscript was made for political promotion of Cuthbert and was reused politically in the 10th century. Werner 2011 expands the discussion of manuscripts as relics, exploring the significance of the binding of the Cuthbert Gospel of John. Rollason 1989 remains the most complete survey of Anglo-Saxon saints’ cults. Post-10th-century history of the cult and its context at Durham is detailed in Marner 2000; see Piper 1978 for related manuscripts. Crumplin 2005 is a contextual study of the rich hagiographic material produced after the 9th century. See also Jolly 2012, cited under Aldred’s Colophon and Gloss: Historical Studies, for discussion of the 10th-century cult.
  524.  
  525. Battiscombe, Christopher F., ed. The Relics of Saint Cuthbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.
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  527. Detailed studies of the objects associated with the cult of Cuthbert and their relationships to the Lindisfarne Gospels. A key source for the Lindisfarne Gospels’ artistic contexts.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Bonner, Gerald, David Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe, eds. St Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1989.
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  531. Proceedings of 1987 St Cuthbert conference held at Durham University. Many of the essays are key for history of the saint’s cult and questions relating to the Lindisfarne Gospels. Has a section of essays titled “Lindisfarne and Its Scriptorium.”
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Cox, Bonita Mae. “Book as Relic: The Lindisfarne Gospels and the Politics of Sainthood.” PhD diss., Stanford University, 1995.
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  535. The Lindisfarne Gospels’ role in promotion of Cuthbert’s cult during the late 7th-and early 8th-century formation and reuse in the saint’s 10th-century “remaking.” Argues the political significance of its decoration, text, and the colophon. Forerunner of Michelle P. Brown’s interpretations but dates the manuscript 698.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Crumplin, Sally. “Rewriting History in the Cult of St Cuthbert From the Ninth to the Twelfth Centuries.” PhD diss., University of St Andrews, 2005.
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  539. Study of later Cuthbertine texts, beginning with Historia de Sancto Cuthberto through Symeon of Durham’s Libellus de exordio and miracle stories produced at Durham and the Scottish borders. Traces the elaboration of Cuthbert’s identity and his cult’s geographic spread through the 12th century in northern England and southern Scotland.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Marner, Dominic. St Cuthbert, His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham. London: British Library, 2000.
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  543. The cult in the Romanesque period, when St Cuthbert had to compete with Thomas à Becket on the national level. Marner surveys the resulting promotion centered in Durham, expressed in manuscripts and visual art.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Piper, Alan J. “Libraries of the Monks of Durham.” In Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays Presented to N. R. Ker. Edited by Malcolm B. Parkes and Andrew G. Watson, 213–249. London: Scolar Press, 1978.
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  547. Provides essential information on the later context at Durham. Important for study of the provenance of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Rollason, David. Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
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  551. Survey of the context of saints’ cults and relics in Anglo-Saxon England, dealing with the Cuthbertine cult in some detail.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Werner, Martin. “The Binding of the Stonyhurst Gospel of St. John and St. John.” In Insular and Anglo-Saxon Art and Thought in the Early Medieval Period. Edited by Colum Hourihane, 287–311. Princeton, NJ: Index of Christian Art, 2011.
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  555. Presents an extended iconographic analysis of the decoration of the binding of the St Cuthbert Gospel of John and its significance, placing it in relation to the Lindisfarne Gospel’s carpet pages and evangelist portraits.
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