There are fine examples of the same school of Art in English Libraries, especially the Book of Lindisfarne, in the British Museum; the Book of St. Chad, in Lichfield, the writing in which is extremely like that in the Book of Kells; the Gospels of MacRegol, in the Bodleian; and the Gospels of MacDurnan, in Lambeth. Of these Irish and Hiberno-Saxon works Dr. Wangen says:—“The ornamental pages, borders, and initial letters exhibit such a rich variety of beautiful and peculiar designs, so admirable a taste in the arrangement of the colours, and such an uncommon perfection of finish, that one feels absolutely struck with amazement.” None of these, however, equals the Book of Kells in the number, the fulness, or the perfection of detail of the great pictorial pages, while the prodigality with which ornament is bestowed on every page and every paragraph is a feature peculiar to it.
There is nothing in the Book of Kells itself to indicate its date, the last leaf—which may have contained the name of the scribe—being lost. The Book of Lindisfarne contains a note (of the tenth century) naming the scribe and the illuminator, the former being Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne (died 721), and the latter his successor in the See, Aethelwald (died 737 or 740). MacRiagoil, scribe, and Abbot of Birr (King’s County), died in 820. The Gospels of MacDurnan appear from the character of the writing to be coeval with the Book of Armagh, which is known to have been written in 807. From a comparison of the Book of Kells with these MSS., it may be inferred that it belongs to the eighth century.
The volume was anciently enclosed in a golden cover, and the Annals of the Four Masters record, under the year 1006, that in that year it was stolen from the Church of Kells, and was found after twenty nights and two months with its gold stolen off and a sod over it. It is in that passage called the great Gospel of Columbkille—i.e., St. Columba. It owes that name, probably, to its connection with Columba’s Monastery at Kells, where, no doubt, it was written, and where it remained until the dissolution of the monasteries. From Richard Plunket, the last Abbot, it passed to one Gerald Plunket, and from him to Ussher.
A very interesting and important MS. is the Book of Armagh, containing the entire New Testament (in Latin), being the only complete copy which has come down to us from the ancient Irish Church. In it the Gospels are followed immediately by St. Paul’s Epistles, including the fictitious Epistle to the Laodiceans. It contains also memoirs of St. Patrick, with his Confession, and a Life of St. Martin of Tours, by Sulpicius Severus. The name of the scribe was written in several places, but in every instance has been more or less effectually erased. However, the Bishop of Limerick (Dr. Charles Graves) succeeded in deciphering it sufficiently to identify the name as Ferdomnach. But there were several scribes of that name, and how to decide which was the one in question? Dr. Graves found another note, only partly legible, and that with extreme difficulty, which appeared to have contained the name Ferdomnach, with the words, “dictante herede Patricii ——bach.” “Heres Patricii” was the title of the Archbishop of Armagh. The only one who satisfied the conditions of time, and whose name ended in “bach,” was Torbach, who only occupied the See for one year. In this way the actual year in which the MS. was written was determined—viz., A.D. 807.[124] Prof. Westwood thinks the same scribe wrote the Gospels of MacDurnan, now at Lambeth. There is a note of later date in the volume relating to certain privileges of the Church of Armagh, and written “in the presence of Brian, imperator Scotorum”—i.e., Brian Boru, who visited Armagh in 1004 and 1006, and died 1014. The writer of this note calls himself Calvus Perennis—a Latin rendering of his name, Maolsuthain.[125] He was Brian’s private confessor. The book was in high esteem, being regarded as the actual writing of St. Patrick, and called the Canon of Patrick. Oaths taken upon it were considered peculiarly obligatory, and the violation of such an oath brought on him the vengeance of the Saint, as well as extreme civil penalties. The book was entrusted to the care of a hereditary keeper, whose family derived their name, “Maor” or “Moyre,” from the office, to which, moreover, an endowment of land was attached. The book remained in the possession of this family until the end of the seventeenth century, when, having been pawned by the keeper, it came by purchase into the hands of Arthur Brownlow, from whose lineal representative it was bought, as above related, by Rev. Dr. Reeves.[126] An interesting object connected with the Book of Armagh is its leather satchel, finely embossed with figures of animals and interlaced work. It is formed of a single piece of leather, 36 in. long and 12½ broad, folded so as to make a flat-sided pouch, 12 in. high, 12¾ broad, and 2¼ deep. Part of it is doubled over to make a flap, in which are eight brass-bound slits, corresponding to as many brass loops projecting from the case, in which ran two rods, meeting in the middle, where they were secured by a lock. In early times, in Irish monastic libraries, books were kept in such satchels, which were suspended by straps from hooks in the wall. Thus it is related in an old legend that “on the night of Longaradh’s death all the book satchels in Ireland fell down.”
SATCHEL OF THE BOOK OF ARMAGH.
Few of these ancient satchels have come down to us. When Dr. Reeves wrote, he knew of only one other, namely, that now in Dublin, in the Franciscan Monastery, whither it has come from the Monastery of St. Isidore in Rome. A third, however, much ruder, is in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, enclosing an Irish Missal (illustrated in Gilbert’s Irish Historical MSS.); a fourth is described and illustrated by Miss Stokes in Archæologia, vol. xliii., No. xiv.; a fifth is at Milan, containing a Syro-hexaplar codex, and a full-size illustration of it is given in Dr. Ceriani’s reproduction of that codex. A similar satchel, containing an Ethiopic book, is in St. John’s College, Oxford. In Abyssinia, indeed, they are frequent; all the books in the Monastery of Suriani are so enclosed.[127] A figure of monks with their satchels, as represented on an ancient sculptured stone, is given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, New Series, vol. iii., 1881.
SHRINE OF BOOK OF DIMMA.