Abstract
The Lindisfarne Gospels exemplify traditional Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts from the late seventh and early eighth centuries in the use of interlace to form abstract designs and animal patterns, in addition to Christian iconography throughout. This unique style demonstrates how medieval artists were able to seamlessly integrate new Christian imagery with the more established animal-interlace designs of the Scottish and British Isles; the famous cross-carpet pages and the portraits of the Four Evangelists best show this technique. Furthermore, the Lindisfarne Gospels represent the emergence of a singular English “identity” in the illuminated manuscripts of early Christianity, reflecting both the historical and religious contexts that shaped it.
Exploring Meaning – The Lindisfarne Gospels
The region known as Northumbria lies along the northwestern coast of Britain and Scotland, adjacent to the North Sea. Christian missionaries began converting the Celtic people of Ireland as early as the fifth century, and early Irish monks were among the first to spread Christianity to Britain and Scotland. Saint Columba established a monastery on the Scottish isle of Iona in 563, where he converted the Picts; these monks would later establish the monastery of Lindisfarne (Kleiner 288). Located on a “…small outcrop of land, now known as Holy Island” (Backhouse 7), Lindisfarne monastery quickly grew into a core of Christian learning. Both Lindisfarne and Iona would become “…the most important centers of artistic production of the early medieval period in northern Europe” (Kleiner 288). The location of production, Northumbria, more specifically Lindisfarne, undoubtedly influenced the manner in which illuminated manuscripts were made. Within British and Irish monasteries, a style of art referred to as Hiberno-Saxon developed, so named because “…Hibernia was the Roman name of Ireland”, although this style has also been referred to as “…Insular, to denote the Irish-English islands where it was produced” (Kleiner 288-9).This unique style would lead to an extraordinary book called the Lindisfarne Gospels, which not only represent one of the finest examples of Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts, but also show how medieval artists were able to seamlessly integrate new Christian imagery with the more established animal-interlace designs of Northumbria.
Traditional Hiberno-Saxon art is primarily characterized by a technique called interlace. In general terms, interlace is the formation of complex geometric patterns using bands that are braided, looped, or twisted around one another. Both abstract geometric designs and animal shapes were created using interlace, which was “…primarily a filler ornament” (Nordenfalk 14) during the earliest stages of Hiberno-Saxon manuscript production. Interlace itself is thought to have “…been imported directly from Egypt” (Nordenfalk 14), although there are also limited examples of its use in Italian and Byzantine artwork. As Insular artwork evolved, interlace became more and more integral to the overall design of an illuminated manuscript. The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the best examples of this evolution, where, as Robert G. Calkins notes, “Decoration has become text and text has become decoration” (64).
Although the illuminator of the Lindisfarne Gospels is officially undetermined, it is widely accepted that they were written by “…Eadfrith either just before 698, when he became bishop and abbot of Lindisfarne, or between 698 and 721, the date of his death, while he occupied those offices” (Calkins 63). This information is gleaned from an addition at the Gospels’ end called a colophon, where the author and those who have made subsequent corrections are identified. The Lindisfarne colophon was written by a priest named Aldred about 250 years after the Gospels’ production, during the time that he was translating the Latin text into the vernacular Anglo-Saxon (Backhouse 7). The colophon also states that—prior to Aldred’s translation—another bishop, Ethelwald, had “…pressed it on the outside and covered it”, while Billfrith the anchorite had “…adorned it with gold and with gems and also with gilded-over silver” (Backhouse, 7). The colophon’s basic information has rarely been questioned; rather, the precise date of production is held under the greatest scrutiny. However, recent examinations of the Gospels have shown that “…the Venerable Bede, author of the first English history book, is now thought likely to have been involved in producing the masterpiece” (Ezard 3), which would place date of production at the later end of the time range. Regardless, production took many years, probably several decades, as the Lindisfarne Gospels were produced completely by hand. The entire manuscript “…contains 258 leaves” (Backhouse 27), of which “There are 15 elaborate fully decorated pages” and 16 other decorated pages (Backhouse 33). These pages are what separate the Gospels from its predecessors.
The design of the Lindisfarne Gospels follows the same basic formula as the Book of Durrow, one of its nearest forerunners. The innovations that the Book of Durrow brought to Insular illuminated manuscript production—namely large, decorated initial letters and ‘carpet’ pages made purely for ornamentation—can be found within the Lindisfarne Gospels, especially “…in the greater elaboration and complexity of decorations” (Calkins 63). A carpet page is a full-color page, usually highly decorated, which precedes a section of a Gospel book, facing an image of one of the Four Evangelists and their symbols. The carpet pages are so named because they resembled the intricate carpets and tapestries produced during the same time period throughout Western Europe. The First Cross Page is folio 26 verso; it, and really all five cross pages, is representative of the seamless melding of Insular artwork and Christian themes. The cross is the most obvious of the Christian imagery within the Lindisfarne Gospels, and is masterfully utilized to break up the page. Of the artist, it is evident that “…he conceives of the larger forms as the sums of many smaller units” (Guilmain, “Composition” 535), which adds to the overall symmetry and intricacy of the design. Throughout the Gospels, Christian ideology is “…elaborated through and surrounded by a labyrinth of convoluted paths, knots, and creatures” (Guilmain, “Composition” 547).
The degree of interlaced decoration on the First Cross page is exceptional, and relies heavily on the combination of the large, transverse cross with animal interlace. Kleiner writes:
Serpentine interlacements of fantastic animals devour each other, curling over and returning on their writhing, elastic shapes. The rhythm of expanding and contracting forms produces a most vivid effect of motion and change, but the painter held it in check by the regularity of the design and by the dominating motif of the inscribed cross. The cross—the all-important symbol of the imported religion—stabilizes the rhythm of the serpentines and, perhaps by contrast with its heavy immobility, seems to heighten the effect of motion (291).
Therefore, it is evident that Eadfrith, the presumed illuminator, masterfully balanced the composition of the First Cross page. But how was he able to achieve such precision for such a complex design? The answer can be found on the back on several of the carpet pages, as well as several of the larger illuminated initials pages. Apparently, the design of each page was carefully plotted out in a substance that can roughly be equated to the modern pencil prior to painting, since these are visible under magnification of the reverse side of the great illuminations. Although the painting itself was done in freehand, “The markings are evidence of the procedures actually followed in executing the designs” (Guilmain, “Geometry” 22). On folio 138 verso these guidelines form a diagonal grid that creates “…the structural basis for the large designs as well as such ornamental motifs as key patterns “ (Guilmain, “Layout” 13). It is also important to note that the animal interlace throughout most pages, “…for all its complexity, consists primarily of two repeated units, along with a few transitional forms” (Guilmain, “Geometry” 23). Even the animal-like forms are a repetition of the same basic formula, with their axes shifted either upward or downward from the plotted pattern (Guilmain, “Layout” 16). Unusually, Eadfrith left several carpet pages and major initial pages unfinished, apparently deliberately. Although the reasons for this are varied, it is most likely that he was “…practising [sic] the humility of avoiding absolute perfection” (Backhouse 55) in a work intended to glorify not his own skill, but the perfection of God’s words.
The cross carpet pages are not the sole examples of Christian iconography in the Lindisfarne Gospels. Additional religious imagery can be found in the pictures of each of the Four Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the writers of the original Gospel books. Each Evangelist is accompanied by his symbol—the man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle, respectively—and shown to be relatively naturalized in form. However, the depictions of the Evangelists in the Lindisfarne Gospels “…are very different from representations of the human figure in other insular [sic] Gospel books” (Backhouse 44). Primarily, it is their naturalism that sets them apart; they appear to actually be wearing their clothes as opposed to merely being covered by them. Yet the naturalistic human figure is, interestingly, reduced to “…a very strong linear pattern but without losing their essential realism” (Backhouse 44), an approach that is unique among Hiberno-Saxon illuminated manuscripts. Another distinctive trait used more in the Lindisfarne Gospels than all other illuminated manuscripts is “…the technique of applying tiny drops of red lead to the page, forming backgrounds, outlines or patterns” (Backhouse 51).
Historically, the Lindisfarne Gospels represent the emergence of a singular English ‘identity’ in the illuminated manuscripts of early Christianity. Eadfrith had originally designed his script like the ones employed by the Church in Rome, yet his final manuscript demonstrates a fusion of Roman letters with “…Anglo-Saxon runic letters, some of them only seen before on pagan inscriptions” (Ezard 3). This is a conscious attempt to integrate established Hiberno-Saxon artistic styles with new Christian teachings, “…in order to make its seamless statement concerning the Christian ecumen [sic] (the relationship and communion between the different churches) and the relationship between past, present and future” (Brown 5). Likewise, the use of animal-interlace designs throughout the manuscript represents an effort to bring a degree of visual familiarity to a largely illiterate culture, one where the visible impressiveness of the manuscript would add to the impact of the Christian teachings it contained. “Manuscripts are like people: they are all unique and yet reflect the social and historical environments that shaped them” (Brown 4); therefore, the Lindisfarne Gospels can be seen as an accurate portrayal of two traditions, Insular and Christian, that have come together in one work. I chose to research these particular Gospels because they are the intermediary between the first truly Insular manuscripts, like the Book of Durrow, and the perhaps the greatest achievement of Insular manuscript production, the Book of Kells.
Works Cited
Backhouse, Janet. The Lindisfarne Gospels. Oxford: Phaidon Press Ltd, 1981. Print.
Brown, Michelle P. “Exhibiting the Lindisfarne Gospels”. History Today 53.5 (May 2003): 4-6.
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Calkins, Robert G. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages. New York: Cornell University Press, 1983. Print.
Ezard, John. “Revealed: hidden art behind the gospel truth; Drawings throw new light on a Prime
sourcebook of English Christianity and the Venerable Bede’s role in it”. The Guardian (20 May 2000): 3. LexisNexis. Web. 21 Nov. 2010.
Guilmain, Jacques. “The Composition of the First Cross Page of the Lindisfarne Gospels: ‘Square Schematism’ and the Hiberno-Saxon Aesthetic”. The Art Bulletin 67.4 (Dec. 1985): 535-547. JSTOR. Web. 21 Nov. 2010.
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Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner’s Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Vol. 1. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
Nordenfalk, Carl. Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Painting: Book Illumination in the British Isles 600-800. New York: George Braziller, Inc, 1977. Print.