Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

Gospels of St Cuthbert.One of the most beautiful existing examples of the Lindisfarne branch of the Irish school of miniature work is the famous "Book of the Gospels of Saint Cuthbert[^[67]]" as it is called, now in the British Museum (Cotton manuscripts, Nero, D. IV). The history of this manuscript is a very curious one; it was written some years after Saint Cuthbert's death in 688, not during his lifetime as was formerly believed. Eadfrith, a monk of Lindisfarne in Saint Cuthbert's time, and subsequently eighth Bishop of Lindisfarne (698 to 721), was the writer of these Gospels, "in honour of God and of Saint Cuthbert," as he records in a note. The illuminations were added by the monk Aethelwold, afterwards ninth Bishop of Lindisfarne, and the elaborate gold, gem-studded cover of this magnificent textus was the work of a third monk of the same Abbey named Bilfrith.

Viking piracy. Travels of the Gospels.

Viking piracy.In the ninth century the Viking pirates were constantly harrying the shores of Northumbria; more than once the Abbey of Lindisfarne was plundered and many of the monks were slain, till at last, in the year 878, the small remnant who had escaped the cruelty of the Northmen decided to leave Lindisfarne and seek a new settlement in the original home of the founders of Lindisfarne, the eastern coast of Ireland. Travels of the Gospels.In 878 the survivors set off, carrying with them the body of Saint Cuthbert, and the magnificent manuscript of the Gospels, which was the chief treasure of their Abbey, and which had been successfully hidden in Saint Cuthbert's grave at the time of the invasion of the Northmen. The monks crossed to the western shore of Northumbria, and there took ship for Ireland. A great storm, however, arose; their boat shipped a heavy sea which washed overboard the precious Gospels of Saint Cuthbert, which had been carefully packed in a wooden box. Eventually the little ship was driven back, and finally was stranded on the Northumbrian shore. Soon after reaching the land the fugitive monks, wandering sadly along the beach, found, to their great joy, the lost box with its precious manuscript thrown up by the waves and lying on dry land. According to the chronicle of Symeon[^[68]] (chapter xxvii.), the brilliant illuminations were quite uninjured by the sea-water; this is not literally the case; some of the pages are a good deal stained, but wonderfully little injured considering what the book has gone through.

Minster of Durham.

Minster of Durham.When after many wanderings the successors of the exiles from Lindisfarne found, in 995, a final resting-place for the body of Saint Cuthbert in the Minster which they founded at Durham, the manuscript of the Gospels was laid on the coffin of the Saint. There it remained till 1104, when Saint Cuthbert's body was exhumed, and soon after it was sent back to Lindisfarne, where a Benedictine monastery had been founded in 1093 by some monks from Durham on the site of Saint Cuthbert's ruined Abbey.

There it was safely preserved till the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. The gold covers were then stripped off and melted, but the still more precious manuscript escaped destruction; it was subsequently acquired by Sir Robert Cotton, and is now one of the chief manuscript treasures of the British Museum.

Anglo-Celtic school.

Anglo-Celtic school.In point of style the "Gospels of Saint Cuthbert" are a characteristic example of the Irish school of illumination, modified by transplantation to English soil. The intermediate stage in Iona and other monasteries of western Scotland seems to have introduced no change of style into the primitive Irish method of ornament. Whether produced in eastern Ireland or in western Scotland the manuscripts were the work of the same Celtic race, the Scots, who, at first inhabiting the north-east of Ireland, passed over to the not very distant shores of northern Britain to which these Irish settlers gave the name Scotland.

Improved drawing.

Improved drawing.When however the Irish monks passed from Iona to Northumbria the case was different; they were surrounded with a new set of artistic influences mainly owing to the introduction into Northumbria of fine Byzantine and Italian manuscripts. The result of this was that though the Lindisfarne manuscripts continued to be decorated with exactly the same class of patterns that had been used in the Book of Kells and other Irish manuscripts for initials, borders and the like, yet in the treatment of the human figure a very distinct advance was made. Thus in Saint Cuthbert's Gospels the seated figures of the Evangelists are drawn with much dignity of form and with some attempt at truth in the pose, the proportions and in the disposition of the folds of the drapery. The monk Aethelwold who painted these miniatures must have had before him some fine manuscripts of the Gospels probably both of Byzantine and Italian style.