Cumhdachs were also used in Scotland, but no Scottish examples have survived. The oldest cumhdach now existing is one in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, which was made for the MS. known as Molaise's Gospels, at the beginning of the eleventh century. It is of bronze, and ornamented with silver plates bearing gilt patterns. Another book-shrine, made for the Stowe Missal a little later, is of oak, covered with silver plates, and decorated with a large oval crystal in the middle of one side. The Book of Kells once had a golden cumhdach, we are told, or, more correctly, perhaps, a cumhdach covered with gold plates; but when the book was stolen from the church of Kells in 1006 it was despoiled of its costly case, with which the robbers made off, leaving the most precious part of their booty, the book itself, lying on the ground hidden by a sod.
One of the earliest bookbinders in this country was a bishop, Ethilwold of Lindisfarne, who bound the great Book of the Gospels that his predecessor Eadfrid had written. For the same book Billfrið the anchorite made a beautiful metal cover, gilded and bejewelled. The Lindisfarne Gospels still exists, but the cover which now contains it, though costly, is quite new. Like most ancient book covers the original one has been lost, or destroyed for the sake of its valuable material.
Among the earlier mediæval bindings those of the Byzantine school of art rank very high. They were exceedingly splendid, for gold was their prevailing feature, and jewels and enamel were also lavished upon them.
The ordinary books of the middle ages were usually bound in substantial oak boards covered with leather, and often having clasps, corners, and protecting bosses of metal. In the twelfth century the English leather bindings produced at London, Winchester, Durham and other centres, were pre-eminent. Miss Prideaux instances some books which were bound for Bishop Pudsey, and which are now in the cathedral library of Durham, as “perhaps the finest monuments of this class of work in existence.” The sides of these volumes are blind-tooled; that is, the designs are impressed by means of dies or tools with various patterns and representations of men and of fabulous creatures, but not gilded.
Certain volumes, however, were treated with particular honour, either at the expense of a wealthy and book-loving owner, or for the purpose of presentation to some great personage, and for these sumptuous bindings the materials employed were various and costly. A Latin psalter which was written for Melissenda, wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou and King of Jerusalem, has a very wonderful French binding. The covers are of wood, and each bears a series of delicate ivory carvings of Byzantine work. The upper cover shows incidents in the life of David, and symbolical figures, and the lower cover scenes representing the works of Mercy, with figures of birds and animals. Rubies and turquoises dotted here and there help to beautify the ivory. This book is in the British Museum.
UPPER COVER OF MELISSENDA'S PSALTER (reduced).
Another specimen in the same collection may be taken as an example of the use of enamel as a decoration for bindings. This is a Latin manuscript of the Gospels of SS. Luke and John, which is enclosed in wooden boards bound in red leather. In the upper cover is a sunk panel of Limoges enamel on copper gilt, representing Christ in glory. The work is of the thirteenth century. These enamelled bindings were often additionally decorated with gold and jewels.
A curious little modification of the ordinary leather binding was sometimes made in the case of small devotional works. The leather of the back and sides was continued at the bottom in a long tapering slip, at the end of which was a kind of button, so that the book might be fastened to the dress or girdle. Slender chains were often used for the same purpose.