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The Heroic AgeIssue 4Winter 2001 |
In this paper I discuss
the role of the book in a nascent Christian culture and focus
in upon its value as a cult object, with particular reference
to the cult of St. Cuthbert and the Lindisfarne Gospels.
By reappraising some of the underlying physical and theological
considerations which shaped the production of the Lindisfarne
Gospels, I reconsider its historical context, cultural affiliations,
dating and intent. By asking what it might actually have meant
to make this remarkable book, and also the Cuthbert Gospel, the
early lives of St. Cuthbert and the Ceolfrith Bibles, I consider
some of the complex and influential ways in which the Insular
world, and Bede's Northumbria in particular, moulded western perceptions
of the book and of how it might serve as an instrument and channel
of faith.
The practice of portraying
the Godhead by means of abstract or symbolic substitution was
reinforced within the Christian tradition from an early date.
The Crux Gemmata and the Gospelbook serve as the embodiment
of Christ in the mosaics of Ravenna, they are enshrined with Christ's
faithful minister, St. Cuthbert, and they combine in an electrifying
symbiosis in the magnificent diptychs of cross-carpet page and
decorated incipit in the Lindisfarne Gospels, where, I
would suggest, the crosses and adorned words are elevated to iconic
status and we are presented with the physical embodiment of the
Word made word.
How did the cult of
St. Cuthbert feature in such attempts to locate and integrate
England within the early Christian world view? An assessment of
the political situation in Northumbria can help to answer this
question. From the time of the 'Anonymous' life of Cuthbert onwards
it is possible to detect a trend towards promoting Cuthbert as
a figure of reconciliation and a rallying point for the 'reformed'
identity of Northumbria and of England, in the formulation of
which Bede participated and which culminated ideologically in
his Historia Ecclesiastica.
The translation of Cuthbert's
relics in 698 has been seen as the chronological focus for activity
surrounding the cult and the production of associated works. I
would suggest, however, that the later period coinciding with
Eadfrith's time as bishop of Lindisfarne (698-721) was equally
defining and merits consideration in this respect. Following Wilfrid's
death, around 710, a purple codex penned in gold and silver and
enshrined in a jewelled case, was apparently the focus of attempts
to establish a cult of St. Wilfrid at Ripon. Perhaps it was at
this time that the need for a similar adornment of the shrine
of St. Cuthbert was commissioned, in the form of the Lindisfarne
Gospels.
What might it actually
have meant to those who dedicated their lives to God's service
to be entrusted with the transmission of the Word, as preachers
and as scribes? I would propose the extension of the well-known
metaphor of the scholar-priest to that of the scribe-priest. Bede
pursues this theme in relation to Ezra the Scribe, who fulfilled
the Law by restoring / writing its destroyed books. The act of
writing is presented as an essential personal act for the scribe
/ preacher / teacher, as well as a fundamental act of transmission
and evangelisation.
Such scriptural resonances
have a bearing upon the circumstances of production of the Lindisfarne
Gospels. This amazingly complex and elegant book is the work
of a single artist-scribe. Modern scribes estimate that at least
two years of full-time work - with optimum physical conditions
of heat and light and no distractions - would be required to produce
such a work. A basic time and motion assessment of the time needed
to undertake such a task alongside the other monastic duties of
the Divine Office, prayer, study and manual labour, would suggest
something more like a decade of an individual's time would actually
have been required. The act of copying and transmitting the Gospels
was to glimpse the Divine and to place oneself in its apostolic
service and this may, on occasion, have been seen as a solitary
undertaking on behalf of the community, rather than a communal
collaboration, as with many aspects of Celtic eremitic monasticism.
As such these books are portals of prayer, during the acts of
both making and using.
Bedan exegesis of the
early eighth century and the Ezra miniature of the Codex Amiatinus
(known to have been completed by the time of Ceolfrith's departure
for Rome in 716) are discussed in relation to the Lindisfarne
Gospels' Matthew miniature. This is interpreted as a multivalent
image: depicting the author of the Gospel; exploring the symbolic
witness of this Gospel; and emphasising, at the opening of a Gospelbook,
the harmony of the Old and New Testaments. It is suggested that
this miniature fulfils for the Lindisfarne Gospels something
of the function of the quire of figurae which introduces the Codex
Amiatinus. It reacts to the complex theological and iconographic
preoccupations contained therein and adapts them to the needs
of a Gospelbook. This is no mere copy of or garbled reaction to
a Cassiodoran or Wearmouth / Jarrow exemplar, but an active response
to shared agendas. Such a context would again suggest a somewhat
later date that the traditional '698' for production of the Lindisfarne
Gospels.
Technical features of
manufacture, iconographical, palaeographical and textual arguments
are adduced in favour of a reaffirmation of a link with the Durham
and Echternach Gospels, but it is proposed that Lindisfarne is
the latest of the three to have been made and that the most appropriate
date for its production lies within the second decade of the eighth
century. The nature of a connection with the Wearmouth / Jarrow
scriptorium is discussed, as is the contextual evidence for production
at Lindisfarne itself (as well as that of the later colophon),
including material remains: the Coffin of St. Cuthbert, his pectoral
cross and a number of inscribed name-stones.
In this context the
design process underlying the ornament and display scripts of
the Lindisfarne Gospels is discussed and the discovery
announced of numerous preliminary drawings (in addition to those
formerly noted on the back of the carpet-pages), revealing the
innovative way in which the artist worked (Figure 1 shows 
one such preliminary
drawing). This is the first western manuscript to feature lead-point
drawings. The use of this medium seems to have occurred to the
artist-scribe whilst ruling the text with a hard-point containing
lead or silver trace elements. Almost every decorative element
is drawn first on the other side of the leaf. This implies that
the designs were worked out on the reverse and traced through
with the aid of prickings and back-lighting. The rear of the leaf
served as a motif-piece for the painted designs. Once the detailing
was established in principle it was replicated elsewhere in the
design without the detailed back-drawing and the penwork executed
freehand with remarkable confidence and skill. The designs also
show important signs of being devised in situ, rather than
copied directly from exemplars, for they sometimes diverge from
what was actually painted. This is creative work-in-progress of
an advanced order. It is unfinished in places and gives the impression
of being interrupted in the final stages. It is unlikely that
its maker would not have completed it if humanly possible (despite
claims of an overt statement of human fallibility, which might
account for some, but not all of the ommissions). A possibility
is that illness or death intervened. If Eadfrith were indeed the
maker of the book, as the later colophon states, his death in
721 would accord with the dating suggested here.
The Lindisfarne tradition
of combining text (with distinctive scripts) and image, seen on
Cuthbert's coffin and portable altar, on the name-stones and in
the Lindisfarne Gospels' evangelist miniatures is also discussed
and further newly observed drawings noted. Sections of display
script written in the distinctive angular, rune-like capitals
are accompanied by layout under-drawings in hard-point - not primarily
in the display script but in enlarged half-uncials of the sort
used for the main text. The display script was not being copied
from an exemplar but was being intentionally composed. The style
of lettering was important. It needed to 'ring bells' in the audience's
mind of both 'romanitas' and 'englishness'. Such cultural
integration may also have motivated the designers of Cuthbert's
coffin to have parallel Latin and runic inscriptions carved for
display to those visiting the shrine.
For the overwhelming
visual impression that the Lindisfarne Gospels still convey
is not only one of sublime artistry but of combined ethnicity.
I would suggest that here, as in the development of the cult of
St. Cuthbert and in Bede's History of the English Church and
People, a prime motivation was to define (if only intellectually)
what it meant to be Northumbrian, to be English, and to be part
of the Christian ecumen, encompassing the Italian, Byzantine,
Coptic, Frankish, English, British, Pictish and Irish components
of the universal Church to produce a new identity expressed in
what I would term the aesthetics of reconciliation.
To summarise, I would
suggest that the Lindisfarne Gospels represents the fusion
of the earlier traditions of the Lindisfarne scriptorium, with
its Irish components, as represented by the Durham and Echternach
Gospels, with the subsequent importation thence of enhanced Italian
stimuli via Wearmouth / Jarrow in the service of a recognisable
agenda, in the formulation of which it is likely that Eadfrith
and Bede participated. These developments could have been protracted
and grouping of the manuscripts around the fixed point of the
translation of 698 has been misleading. The context for cultural
fusion seems to lie best within the period of formalisation of
the cult in the first quarter of the eighth century (and the second
decade in particular), with Bede's commission to rewrite the first
Life of St. Cuthbert in accordance with the needs of this
agenda (at the behest of Bishop Eadfrith, probable maker of the
Lindisfarne Gospels), his commentaries and his composition
of the Historia Ecclesiastica. The three communities -
Lindisfarne, Jarrow and Wearmouth - may thus be seen as working
together to establish a new identity for Northumbria, and thereby
for England in the post-Whitby, Wilfrid-dominated period. This
identity acknowledged the components which had established its
Christian culture but was intrinsically orientated towards displaying
cultural synthesis and reconciliation within the Rome-orientated
Catholic ecumen. The apostolic mission had embraced the far ends
of the earth and the material and literary culture of these extremities
proclaims that they were no provincial outpost, but a vibrant,
integrated part of that universal, eternal communion.
The full text of this lecture was published at the end of September 2000 as part of the Jarrow Lecture Series, obtainable from: The Lecture Secretary, 28 Kitchener Terrace, Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, NE32 5PU, UK.
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