We are pleased to announce that all four of the Gospel books that are part of the Early Irish Manuscripts Project will be on display for a short period on Friday, 6 May. Delegates of The Wandering Word conference will have the rare opportunity to see Codex Ussherianus Primus, the Book of Dimma, the Book of Mulling, and the Garland of Howth.
To view the full conference programme, please visit our website. Booking is essential. Online booking is available via our registration page.
Early Insular Gospel Books are typically named either after the saint with whom they are associated (as the Books of Dimma and Mulling), or the place where they are thought to have been made (as the Books of Durrow, Kells and Armagh). In a number of cases colophons (dedicatory inscriptions) can assist in tracing the ultimate origins or authorship of a book, while in others, the addition of material such as the eleventh- and twelfth-century legal transcriptions in the Book of Kells can help to establish if not where a book was made, at least where it was at a certain point in the distant past.
We have called together a community of scholars to present research relevant to our Early Irish Manuscript Project. The event will take place at the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute from Thursday, 5 May to Friday 6 May.
Join us for exciting talks about on several key topics. These include scientific analysis and conservation of medieval manuscripts, history of art, paleography and more! You can see the full program here.
On Saturday, 7 May we will venture into the field to look at sites relevant to the Gospel books in our project. In addition to visits to St. Mullins, Castledermot and Moone, we will have lunch at the Step House Hotel. Lunch is included in the cost of the field trip. Book your place now!
The conference organisers wish to thank the following sponsors for their generous support:
Parchment is one of the oldest writing supports in history, and was already in use some centuries before the birth of Christ. Parchment generally refers to mammal skin, treated with lime, de-haired, scraped and dried under tension.
Fig. 1 The parchment maker is scraping a hide stretched in a wooden frame. From J. Amman, The book of trades, 1568. [Membranarius. Der Bermenter. (The Parchment Maker) / Panoplia omnium illiberalium mechanicarum … (Book of Trades)]. Source
Fig. 2a Monk scraping parchment on a frame. From: Ms. Patr. 5, folio 1r, around 1150. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek. Source.
In 1926, after having the rare pleasure of examining the Book of Dimma, Dr. Richard Best, Celticist at the National Library of Ireland wrote, ‘Lastly, it is to be hoped that this precious volume…of so great importance to palaeographers [sic], may before long be published in facsimile.’1 It may have taken 90 years, but Dr. Best’s wish is our command. The digital Book of Dimma is now available online. This is the third of four Insular Gospel books to be digitized through our Early Irish Manuscripts project. You can see all the images here.
Numerous accounts of Christ’s life were written in the centuries following his death, yet only four became accepted as canonical, or authentic, by the institution of the Christian Church. 1 These Gospels were identified first by the second century Gallic Bishop Irenaeus.2
Nature confirmed that the number four was appropriate because, as Irenaeus observed, the Earth had four zones where people lived and there were also four winds. Irenaeus thus identified the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as the four pillars of the Church, the four authors of the true Gospels.
Irenaeus went on to compare the Evangelists with the mystical creatures who appeared at the beginning of John’s vision of the apocalypse. The book of Revelation (4.7) records that surrounding Christ’s throne in heaven were beings that resembled a man, a lion, a calf, and an eagle (fig. 1). John’s ‘living creatures’ were in turn a reference to the four cherubim holding aloft the throne of God in the vision of the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel (1.4-11). The beings in Ezekiel’s vision had the features of all four creatures and four wings each as well.
The primacy of the Gospel texts by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John was solidified in the next few centuries after Irenaeus at various synods where their authenticity was agreed. When Jerome made his significant translation of the Bible into Latin in the late fourth century, the Vulgate firmly established the texts of the four Evangelists as canonical. It was also Jerome who gave the order in which the texts should appear. In his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Jerome associated each Evangelist with one of the living creatures: Matthew is the Man; Mark is the Lion; Luke is the Calf and John is the Eagle.
Fig. 2c Luke, f. 137v, Lindisfarne Gospels, British Library MS Cotton Nero D IV. Source.
Fig. 2d John, f. 209v, Lindisfarne Gospels, British Library MS Cotton Nero D IV. Source.
[Lindisfarne Gospels, Cotton MS Nero D IV, British Library. Source.]
Insular Gospel manuscripts introduce each account with representations of their authors. This may be a portrait of the Evangelist, as we see in the Book of Mulling (fig. 2a), the mystical symbol of the Evangelist, as used in the Book of Durrow (fig.2b), or a combination of author and symbol as found in the Lindisfarne Gospels (figs.2c-d).
Pocket Gospels like our Book of Mulling and Book of Dimma were more likely to use an author portrait than an Evangelist symbol. A notable exception is the image of an eagle in the preface to John’s Gospel in the Book of Dimma (fig. 3). A more subtle reference to an Evangelist symbol may be found in the Garland of Howth on the folio with the opening words to Mark’s Gospel. The heads of two lions, Mark’s symbol, are embedded in the ornament of the page (figs. 4a-b).
How important are shoes? Ask Dorothy – or Cinderella! Footwear had significance for medieval Christians, too. Looking closely at the figures in our early medieval Irish manuscripts, we see that some figures wear shoes and others do not. It is possible to identify many of these figures as portraits of the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Before they wrote their Gospels, these men were disciples of Christ.
Two Gospels record specific instructions that Christ gave his followers about shoes. The guidelines were given to the apostles as they were sent out on missions to preach. In Matthew’s Gospel (10.8-10), Christ advises the apostles to travel without money or a change of clothes and that they should not take shoes, either. Mark’s Gospel (6.9) gives similar instructions about travelling light, but recommends the wearing of sandals.
During the central Middle Ages, a few hundred years after our manuscripts were produced, new currents of thought about monastic practice sought to reconnect with early Christian practices. Monks were especially interested in imitating the apostles and their devotion was measured in austerity. Monastic leaders like Peter Damian (11th century) told their monks that they should not wear shoes or even cover their legs as a sign of their commitment to Christ. The link in the minds of these later medieval monks between early Christian behaviour and the renunciation of even the smallest luxury likely led to the iconographic convention of rendering the apostles barefoot.1 We see barefoot figures in the images for Matthew and Mark in the Book of Mulling and the evangelist on the left in the Garland of Howth (figs. 1a-b, 3a). Their lack of shoes, however, may not reflect their sanctity.
In the early Middle Ages, when our early Irish manuscripts were made, shoes were prescribed for monks. John Cassian (5th century), whose records of early Christian desert ascetics were so influential in the West, regarded sandals as appropriate footgear for hermits. Benedict (6th century), one of the earliest abbots in the West to write down guidelines of behaviour for monks, recommended that either shoes or sandals were worn. John in the Book of Mulling, Matthew, Mark and Luke in the Book of Dimma and the evangelist on the right in the Garland of Howth all wear shoes (figs. 1c, 2a-c, 3b).
Fig. 4 On the right, leather shoe found at Iona, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. Source.
Although medieval shoes have survived to this century, they are often in a fragmentary state. Shoes were made from leather and like other organic materials, they broke into pieces over the centuries. It may also be that the shoes were discarded only when they wore out and so have been mere fragments since the Middle Ages.2 Leather uppers from three styles of shoes were recovered in excavations at Iona, site of an important early medieval monastery. A reconstruction of one shoe type (fig. 4) proposes that it would have looked very much like the ankle boots worn by St. John in the Book of Mulling (fig. 1c).3
The slippers worn by St. Mark in the Book of Dimma (fig. 2b) better resemble an early medieval shoe found in an Irish bog in Co. Leitrim (fig. 5). The majority of our Evangelists are equipped with the same footwear as the monks who made and used the Gospel books.
One of the most intriguing features of the Book of Mulling is the well-known circular device drawn on its last page (TCD MS 60, f. 94v; fig. 1). Approximately contemporary with the rest of the manuscript, it consists of two concentric circles accompanied by crosses with captions and indications of directions in Irish including the four cardinal points.1
The eight crosses around the outer circle are arranged in four pairs, each combining the name of an evangelist with the name of a prophet: from the top, clockwise, ‘cross of Mark’, ‘cross of Jeremiah’, ‘Matthew’ and ‘Daniel’, ‘cross of John’ and ‘Ezechiel’, and ‘cross of Luke’ and ‘cross of [Isaiah]’ (see figs. 2a-b). The inscriptions accompanying the four crosses contained inside the circles are partly illegible but one can still read, from top to bottom, ‘cross of the Holy Spirit’, ‘… with gifts’, ‘…with angels from above’ and ‘Christ with his apostles’.2
Fig. 2a From H. J. Lawlor, ‘Notes on Some Non-Biblical matter in the Book of Mulling’, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1895), p. 37.
Strong green copper staining particularly apparent on the first leaves of the volume indicates that the manuscript was kept for a long time in direct contact with its enclosing shrine (see previous post) without the protection of a binding. This explains why this last leaf (f. 94) is so discoloured and damaged: it got torn in various places and some parts of it were sewn back together (fig. 1). The poor state of the leaf makes the interpretation of the circular device even more arduous.
Hugh Lawlor, in 1895, saw it as a ‘map or plan of some sort’, pointing out the presence of cardinal points.3 He proposed, on the suggestion of Thomas Olden, that the diagram could actually represent the ecclesiastical site of St Mullins (Co. Carlow), with the crosses marking the location of monastic buildings or crosses, while the circles could ‘represent the Rath of St Molling [sic], within which were his ecclesiastical buildings; the concentric circles perhaps indicating a double or even triple rampart’.4 A few years later, he attempted to superimpose the diagram with a plan of the actual site, but he admitted that this was inconclusive: ‘It leaves Mr Olden’s suggestion nearly as it was before – a hypothesis highly plausible in itself, not indeed altogether free from difficulties […], but by no means improbable – yet still only a hypothesis: a theory which is not, perhaps cannot be, either proved or disproved.’5
Fig. 2b From L. Nees, ‘The Colophon Drawing in the Book of Mulling: a Supposed Irish Monastery Plan and the Tradition of Terminal Illustration in Early Medieval Manuscripts’, in Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies (CMCS) 5 (Summer 1983), p. 69.
In 1983, Larry Nees, while not rejecting entirely the plan hypothesis, added another layer of interpretation, arguing that it probably functioned closely with the preceding liturgical text (on the same page).6 He stressed that the pairing of evangelists and prophets had its roots in Carolingian art (see fig. 3) and that the scribe must have had at his disposal a Carolingian model when designing the circular device, which he considered as closer in function to a ‘colophon drawing’.
Fig. 4 Maiestas Domini, Vivian Bible, Tours, c. 845-846. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS Lat. 1, f. 329v. Source.
The hypothesis of a Carolingian model would mean that this part of the manuscript could date to as late as the mid-9th century.
The Book of Mulling (TCD MS 60) is traditionally associated with the ecclesiastical site of St Mullin’s in Co. Carlow, located on the picturesque banks of the river Barrow (fig. 1). This was a strategic location, overlooking the border between the ancient territories of Leinster and Ossory, and at a crossing point of the river. The river provided easy access to the coast, a benefit in some ways, but one that left it prone to Viking attack in 824/5, 888, 915 and again in 951.
St Mullin’s was renowned as a place of pilgrimage, possibly stretching back to pre-Christian times and the festival of Lughnasa. Continue reading St Mullin’s→
There is no doubt that 19th-century antiquarians played an essential role in the appreciation and preservation of medieval artefacts which, in some cases, would not have come down to us if it were not for them. Their enthusiasm however sometimes proved to be quite destructive…
![Fig. 1 The parchment maker is scraping a hide stretched in a wooden frame. From J. Amman, The book of trades, 1568. [Membranarius. Der Bermenter. (The Parchment Maker) / Panoplia omnium illiberalium mechanicarum ... (Book of Trades)]. Source](https://i0.wp.com/www.tcd.ie/Library/early-irish-mss/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Parchment-Maker-crop-AN01127453_001_l.jpg?resize=184%2C241)
