Savage, Ernest Albert, 1877-1966. . Old English Libraries; The Making, Collection and Use of Books During the Middle Ages
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§ IV

   Our account of the work accomplished by the Irish monks would be incomplete without reference to their writing, illuminating, and book-economy, the relics of which are so finely rare.

   The old Irish runes gave place slowly to the Roman alphabet, which came into use, as we have already observed, after St. Patrick's mission. This new writing was in two forms -- round and pointed -- but both were derived from the Roman half-uncial style. The clear and beautifully-shaped


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Irish round hand is closely akin to the half-uncial character of fifth and sixth century Latin writings found on the Continent. The Book of Kells, written probably at the end of the seventh century, is the finest example of the ornamental Irish round hand. St. Chad's Gospels, now at Lichfield, written about the same time, is a manuscript of like character, but not so good. A later manuscript, the Gospels of MacRegol, which dates from the beginning of the ninth century, shows marked deterioration in the writing.

   The Irish pointed style, used for quicker writing, is but a modified, pointed variety of the round hand, the letters being laterally compressed. This hand appears in some pages of the Book of Kells, but the best example is in the Book of Armagh.1.43

   Although the Roman alphabet was introduced by Augustine at the Canterbury school, it wholly failed to have any effect on the native hand from that source. On the other hand, when, in the seventh century, Northumbria





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was converted by Irish missionaries, the new Christians copied the Irish writing, so well, indeed, that the earliest specimens extant can hardly be distinguished from the beautiful penmanship of the Irish. The Book of Durham, generally called the Lindisfarne Gospels, of about 700, is an exquisite Northumbrian example of the Irish round hand, in the characteristic broad, heavy-stroke letters. Another good specimen of this style is the eighth century manuscript of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, in Cambridge University Library.

   Irish illumination is as characteristic as the writing. Pictures and drawings of the human figure are not so common as in the work of other schools, and when they do appear are not often good. Still, some of them, as the scenes from the life of Christ in the Book of Kells, are quite unlike the illuminations of any other school; while the


portraits of the Evangelists in the same book, in the Book of MacRegol, and in the Lindisfarne Gospels, are singularly interesting. Floral work is also rare. But in geometrical ornament, beautifully symmetrical -- diagonal patterns, zigzags, waves, lozenges, divergent spirals, intertwisted and interwoven ribbon and cord work -- and in grotesque zoological forms, -- lizards, snakes, hounds, birds, and dragons' heads, -- the Irish school attained their highest artistic development. Their art is striking, not for originality, not for its beauty, which is nevertheless great, but for painstaking. Knowing but one style of making a book beautiful, they lavished much time and loving care to achieve their end. The detail is extraordinarily minute and complicated.


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"I have counted," writes Professor Westwood, "[with a magnifying glass] in a small space scarcely three-quarters of an inch in length by less than half an inch in width, in the Book of Armagh, no less than 158 interlacements of a slender ribbon pattern formed of white lines edged with black ones." But, this intricacy notwithstanding, the designs as a whole are usually bold and effective. In the best kind of Irish illumination gold and silver are not used, but the colours are varied and brilliant, and are employed with taste and discretion; while the occasional staining of a leaf of vellum with a fine purple sometimes adds beauty and much distinction to an excellent design.

   Of intricate geometrical ornament and grotesque figures, the illumination representing the symbols of the Four Evangelists (fo. 290) of the Book of Kells is perhaps the best example. Of divergent spirals and interlaced ribbon work the frontispiece of St. Jerome's Epistle in the Book of Durrow affords notable examples. Two of the peculiar features of Irish decoration -- the rows of red dots round a design and the dragon's head -- appear in the earliest, or nearly the earliest, Irish manuscript extant, namely, the Cathach Psalter, now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. Whether the essential and peculiar features of this ornamentation are purely indigenous, as Professor Westwood contends, or whether they are of Gallo-Roman origin, as Fleury argues, is a moot point, calling for complicated discussion which would be out of place here.

   The amount of illumination in the existing manuscripts varies, but the pages chosen for illuminating are nearly always the same. In the Book of Kells the illuminations consist of three portraits of the Evangelists, three scenes from the life of Christ, three combined symbols of the four Evangelists, eight pages of the Eusebian canons, and many





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initials. The Book of Durham contains four portraits of the Evangelists, six initial pages, one ornamental page before each Gospel, and before St. Jerome's Epistle, and eight pages of the Eusebian canons. The Book of Durrow has sixteen illuminated pages: four of the symbols of the Evangelists, six pages of initials, one ornamental page at the frontispiece, one before the letter of St. Jerome, and one before each Gospel.

   The oldest Irish manuscript in existence is probably the Domnach Airgrid, or manuscript of the Silver Shrine, also called St. Patrick's Gospels. Dr. Petrie believed the Domnach to be the identical reliquary given by St. Patrick to St. Mac Cairthinn, when the latter was put in charge of the see of Clogher, in the fifth century. "As a manuscript copy of the Gospels apparently of that early age is found with it, there is every reason to believe it to be that identical one for which the box was originally made."1.44 But both case and manuscript are now held to be somewhat later in date. Another very early manuscript is the sixth century fragment of fifty-eight leaves of a Latin Psalter, styled the Cathach or "Battler." For centuries this fragment has been preserved in a beautiful case as a relic of Columba; as, indeed, the actual cause of the dispute between Columba and Finnian of Moville.