Regarding the letter L as an index of time and style, first we may take the Irish L of the Book of Kells on p. 17, pt. 1, of Miss Stokes' Early Christian Art in Ireland. Note first the form of the letter, then the way it is filled up with ornament. Compare this, which dates from the seventh century, with a similar L in the Ada-Codex in the Town Library at Trèves, No. 22. A black and white copy of this is given in taf. 6 of Lamprecht Initial Ornamentik. This carries up the work to the second half of the eighth century. Next, say the L in the Town Archives at Cologne, No. 147. This belongs to the second half of the ninth century. The chief departure here is towards the knotted band work which figures so largely afterwards both in German and Italian book ornament, the form is still unchanged. But with the tenth century comes change of form as well as of mode of filling, as for example taf. 19 of Lamprecht, in which there is a complete alteration of treatment. The student may take for similar comparison also the I of “In principio” of St. John's Gospel, and the B of the first psalm in the Psalter, and carry the comparison on to the end of the fourteenth century, by referring to the MSS. in the British Museum and other public libraries, or in the numerous illustrated works to be found in those collections.
CHAPTER X
FIRST ENGLISH STYLES
Transition from Iona to Lindisfarne—Influence of Frankish art—The “Opus Anglicum”—The Winchester school and its characteristics—Whence obtained—Method of painting—Examples—Where found and described.
The succession of the school of Iona shows us in the first examples of English illumination the type exemplified in the Book of Kells, modified, but not very much, by its transference to Lindisfarne.
Whatever doubt may be felt as to the influence of Byzantine or Romanesque models on pure Irish work, such as the Book of Kells, there can be none as regards the Lindisfarne Gospels. In the first place we have gold both in the lettering and ornament. This MS., known also as the Durham Book (Brit. Mus., Nero D. iv.), was the work of Abbat Eadfrith, of Lindisfarne. It has been often described, as it is really a most precious example of eighth-century art in this country. No other MS. of its time is to be found in any continental scriptorium to be compared with it. It is not a collection of clumsy inartistic attempts at ornamental writing, but high-class, effective work, which should be seen and studied by every student of illumination.
From its style of execution, its details of portraiture, and other features, it may be looked on as one of the earliest links between the two extremes of Oriental and Occidental Art.
Another MS. in the British Museum (Vesp. A. 1), which combines the Roman method of painting as in the Vergils with the penwork of these Anglo-Celtic Gospel-books, may also repay careful examination.
It is very possible that the celebrated scriptoria of York and Jarrow may have been furnished with both MSS. and copyists from Rome, yet there can be little doubt that the intercourse with Durham would be quite as active. Nor is it less probable that similar intercourse would keep them en rapport with Oxford, St. Alban's, Westminster, Glastonbury, and other scriptoria, so that in the eighth century England stood with respect to art second to no other country in the Christian world.