Viewing the exquisite craftsmanship of the Four Gospels of Kells
Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruptions in March 2010 caused all air traffic in the vicinity to be delayed, including my own flight back from Dublin to Salt Lake City. That delay allowed me three glorious extra days to explore the Irish capital’s cultural landscape, including Trinity College (Coláiste na Trionóide in Irish Gaelic), where I could examine some world-famous ancient Christian manuscripts. These illuminated manuscripts, now bound into books, attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every year because they represent an exquisite pinnacle of artistic calligraphy and illustration.
The Book of Kells, each page measuring 10 inches tall and 13 inches wide, was written in iron gall ink, purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from vegetable sources. The “paper” was vellum, a specially prepared calfskin (scholars speculate it would have taken around 185 calves), in 340 leaves or folios and 680 pages. These were all trimmed and bound into four books in 1953.
Before they were bound, the “books” were technically the illuminated manuscripts of Kells, and, we might say more precisely, the Books of Kells. Thirty folios have been lost, though there’s always hope someone might find some or all of them in some remote peat bog. The books rotate for display in a glass case in the college’s Treasury, a specially darkened shrine at the east end of the library.
Scholars believe that at least four different artist-monks wrote and illustrated the New Testament’s gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in Latin. The Hiberno (Irish)-Saxon decorative style first appeared in the seventh century, blending curvilinear motifs and elaborated initials of the Irish-Celtic tradition and Anglo-Saxon representation of animal forms and gods of animal form. The style is characterized by geometric designs, large areas of color, and complicated, interlaced patterns. So, with all these amazing illustrations, is it a book or is it an art object? Some scholars say the transcription of the Gospels is uneven, missing words here and there, and it does seem that the illustrations are the star attraction. However, it was likely its cover that started the back-and-forth of its history.
The cover, or so-called “treasure binding,” encrusted with jewels and decorated with gold leaf, was separated and stolen by “raiders,” so you won’t see the originals at Trinity. The manuscripts may also have been kept in a cumbach or decorated wood box (a replica is shown at left). Thieves apparently ran off with the cover and discarded the manuscripts. Trinity visitors will see the bound manuscripts. After several trimming and binding efforts over the centuries,
Only in 1953 did English conservation bookbinder Roger Powell, working in Trinity’s Old Library along with assistant Pamela Fowler, bind the folios into the present four books.
From the Kells’ handwritten and painted project which began in 740 AD on Iona, fast forward to 1436, when Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith began working in secret on a wooden press in Strassburg, Germany (now Strasbourg, France). Paper was pressed onto inked moveable metal type, making it possible to mass-produce books relatively inexpensively. After printing, decorations still had to be done by hand. Gutenberg’s press could manufacture large numbers of bibles for relatively little cost for the first time, greatly contributing to the spread of literacy throughout Europe.
The Gutenberg Bible (a page is shown at left) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced moveable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the “Gutenberg Revolution” and the age of printed books in the West. Printing technology was adopted around the world by the end of the 19th century, displacing manuscript and block printing. But this tale only describes the Western path to literacy. Printing manuscripts and books has a much longer history.
In China, five hundred years before Gutenberg (and around the time of production of the Book of Kells), printing techniques involved chiseling entire pages of text backwards into a woodblock, applying ink, and pressing paper against the block. A Chinese artisan, engineer, and inventor Pi Sheng developed a system of individual character types made from backed clay and glue. Later, in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty, metal moveable type was used to create the “Jikji,” a collection of Zen Buddhist teachings, was published in 1377.
European handwritten books and illuminated manuscripts such as the Kells Gospels could only be made one at a time, taking countless hours in studios lit by the sun or candles, tallow and beeswax being common candle material. The most famous ancient handmade book in the Western world is the Book of Kells.
In 563 CE, St. Columba and 12 companions founded the monastery on the tiny island of Iona, a part of the Inner Hebrides on the west coast of Scotland. Iona is a half-mile wide at its narrowest and 3 ½ miles long. The Iona Abbey’s monastic school of learning helped spread Christianity throughout much of Scotland and northern England. It was here, scholars believe, that the Book of Kells was begun. Columba himself died on the island in 597 AD. Some speculate that work on the manuscripts began as a memorial to the 200th anniversary of his death.
Unrelenting Viking raids and the slaughter of 68 Iona monks at the abbey in 806 AD forced the remaining monks to flee to Kells, County Meath. A bay on Iona, Martyrs’ Bay, commemorates the slaughter. The White Strand of the Monks may be a renaming of the same bay. The Catholic Church’s feast day (an annual religious celebration, not a particular meal) for the monks is January 12.
At the height of the English Reformation in 1654, when the Church of England broke away from the Catholic Church and the pope’s authority, Oliver Cromwell’s occupying cavalry “the Ironsides” was stationed at the Kells Abbey. An alarmed Catholic Church smuggled the manuscripts to Dublin and then on to Trinity College for safekeeping in 1661. The books remain one of the most spectacular pieces of Insular [Island] Art ever created: an elaborate fusion of Celtic and Christian cultures.
The National Trust for Scotland now works with Iona’s tenant farmers who raise oats, potatoes, and barley with largely traditional methods. Taking the 10-minute ferry ride from Fionnphort, Mull, visitors can enjoy Iona’s several hotels and restaurants, including Martyrs’ Bay Rooms B&B.
The room at Trinity College was cramped with tourists, slowly shuffling around various display cases, but that one special little book was the star, dimly lit, unpretentious. But, knowing the Book of Kells history and recognizing its painstaking artistic process, it was glorious.
Note: Gaelic is a Celtic language divided into Manx, Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge nah Eireann), and Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig). Manx and Scottish/Scots Gaelic are offshoots of Irish Gaelic, brought in the 400 and 500s across the Irish Sea by merchants and monks. Irish Gaelic, “Irish” in Ireland, is Ireland’s official language and is taught in all its government-funded schools. In Scotland, English is the official language. Gaelic being recognized as its founding language of Scotland but is officially a minor language. The official language of the Isle of Man is English, though sometimes it’s called a Manx dialect of English. (See also “So, the Isle of Man is a British isle, but it’s not in the United Kingdom?” in the Appendices.
There are thought to be sixteen Celtic languages throughout history, but only six are still spoken today: Irish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic, Breton, Cornish, and Welsh. Many Nova Scotians also speak a form of Scottish Gaelic in addition to English and French. I heard French when I lived in the Halifax area (1995–1997), but I don’t remember hearing Gaelic. Gaelic culture, however, was everywhere, from the céiligh (KAY-lee, which means “visit”) to tartans, crafts, food, and music, especially from fiddlers Ashley MacIsaac and Natalie MacMaster.
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