| The Irish Church. |
The Irish Church.The Christian Church in the east of Ireland dated from an earlier period than the establishment of Christianity in England[[56]]. It was founded about the year 430 A.D., and the monks of Ireland, owing to their remote position, were able for a long period to develope peacefully their artistic skill, undisturbed by such successive foreign invasions as those which for so many years kept Britain in a constant tumult of war and massacre.
| Celtic goldsmiths. Gold jewellery. |
Celtic goldsmiths.Thus it happened that by the middle or latter part of the seventh century the Celtic monks of Ireland had learned to produce goldsmiths' work and manuscript illuminations with such marvellous taste and skill as has never been surpassed by any age or country in the world[[57]]. Not even the finest Greek or Etruscan jewellery, enriched with enamels and studded with gems, Gold jewellery.can be said to surpass the amazing perfection shown in such a masterpiece of the goldsmith's art as the so-called "Tara brooch"[[58]] in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. As a rule the skill of these Irish goldsmiths was devoted to the service of the Church in the manufacture of such objects as croziers, morses (or cope-brooches), shrines, chalices, textus-covers, receptacles for Bishops' bells, and other pieces of ecclesiastical furniture.
| Technical processes. |
Technical processes.These precious objects are decorated by a variety of technical processes, such as applied filagree, repoussé or beaten reliefs, enamels, both champlevé and cloisonné, and inlay of precious stones, especially the carbuncle in minute slices, set in delicate gold cloisons and backed with shining gold-leaf. All these and other decorative processes were employed with unrivalled skill by the monastic goldsmiths of eastern Ireland, a fact which it is important to notice, since nearly all the methods and styles of ornament which occur in the Irish illuminated manuscripts of the same period are clearly derived from prototypes in gold jewelled work. It is in fact often possible to trace in a fine Irish manuscript of the class we are now concerned with, ornamental patterns of several quite distinct classes, one being derived from the patterns of spiral or plaited form produced by soldering delicate gold wire on to plain surfaces of gold, another being copied from gold champlevé enamels, and a third no less clearly derived from the inlaid rectangular bits of carbuncle framed in delicate gold strips or cloisons.
| Influence on illuminations. |
Influence on illuminations.This strongly marked influence of the technique of one art on the designs of another is due to the fact that the arts both of the goldsmith and the manuscript illuminator were carried on side by side in the same monastery or group of monastic dwellings[[59]], and in some cases we have written evidence that the scribe who wrote and illuminated an elaborate manuscript and the goldsmith who wrought and jewelled its gold cover were one and the same person[[60]].
| The Book of Kells. |
The Book of Kells.It was in the second half of the seventh century that the Celtic art of Eastern Ireland reached its highest point of perfection. To this period belongs the famous Book of Kells, now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, which was probably written between 680 and 700, and for many years was, with its jewelled gold covers, the principal treasure of the cathedral church at Kells[[61]]. This church had been founded by Saint Columba, and so in old times this marvellous manuscript was usually known as "the Great Gospels of Saint Columba."