Part 1

The Book of Kells

John Doyle

LIBR 280-12 

Spring 2012

San Jose State University

The Chi Rho page: Folio 34r

• Introduction

The Book of Kells is widely held as the greatest extant example of the western medieval illuminated manuscript. It has been described as both “the work of angels” and “The product of cold-blooded hallucination (Meehan, 1994, p. 9)” but is, in-fact, a beautifully, although unfinished, illustrated manuscript of the four gospels of the Christian Bible, based primarily on the Vulgate. While the debate over the exact date and location of its production will be covered below, it is generally accepted that the book was produced around the turn of the ninth century by the monks of the Columban paruchia.

Its history is well documented. It is believed that the book arrived in Kells no later than 878 when the Annals of Ulster note the removal of all-important relics from the island of Iona (Simpson, 2010). It can be shown through marginalia that the book was in Kells in the late tenth century (Meehan, 1994). It was removed from Kells during the Cromwell period and donated to Trinity College Dublin in the 1660’s by Henry Jones, the Bishop of Meath, where it has remained ever since.

Peter Brown (1980) notes that the manuscript is unique in the elements that make up its illumination. There are many other manuscripts that exhibit similar artistic expressions. It is, rather, the presence of all the varied motifs, combined with the high levels of artistic achievement that have marked the book as the high point of insular art and a historic treasure of both Ireland and the world.

• Context (set the manuscript into its period and provide some background information)

It is believed that the Book of Kells was produced around the turn of the ninth century; however, the story of the manuscript begins more than 200 years earlier with the establishment of a monastic community on the island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland.  Chief among these evangelists was St. Colum Cille, with whom the manuscript would be chiefly associated with for the next 800 to 1,000 years (Meehan, 1994). Colum Cille developed an extremely influential figure, both politically and religiously, in Scotland and England. His travels and respect allowed him to develop a confederation (or paruchia) of monasteries that in time grew to include locations throughout the British Isles. While the monastery at Lindisfarne was the most prominent location, it was from the island of Iona that the paruchia was run.

Iona is a small island, but the available natural resources were enough to accommodate a substantial monastic presence, including both monks and the livestock required to support its scriptorium. The problem with living on an island off of Scotland in the early ninth century was vulnerability to attacks by marauding Vikings, which happened at least three times between 795 and 806. In response to the last attack, the surviving monks decided to establish a sister community in the heart of the Irish mainland at the site of a former royal hill fort, Kells. The stone settlement at Kells was completed in 814, at which time the monastery at Kells took on the role of the greater of the two sites.

• Losses, Additions, Modifications and Marginalia.

It is estimated that approximately thirty folios, or sixty pages, are missing from the Book of Kells. This estimate, which includes both text pages, as well as paintings, is based on both the design and layout of the book as well as examinations of other Vulgate manuscripts. Sullivan (1986) counted 204 verses missing from the gospel of St. John, with an additional twelve missing from the gospel of St. Luke. By his calculations, that leaves 24 folios missing in the text section alone. The remaining missing pages are thought to be made up of painted pages, theories of which will be gone into under the Decoration, Illuminations and Paintings section. However, it is not only the pages of the manuscript that have been lost to time.

It is believed that the book would have had some form or portable ornamental shrine or carrying case. Examples of these have survived, but the one designed and built for the Book of Kells did not. There is a belief among some scholars that the shrine, along with an opulent cover, was taken from the book at the time of its theft in 1006. This belief is based on a translation of the Annals of Ulster detailing the theft of “The Great Gospel of Columkille (Sullivan, 1986, p4).” The reference is widely attributed to the manuscript; some authors, Sullivan included, have gone so far as to speculate that it was at this time that the missing pages were removed as well.

Folio 7r

               In the late eleventh and early twelfth century blank pages of the Book of Kells were used as a place to notate land grants from the royal crown to the monastery at Kells (7r). These grants are significant because they firmly place the manuscript in Kells at the beginning of the eleventh century.
               There are three well-known signers of the manuscript. The earliest is a man named is Geralde Plunket (Meehan, 1994) who made various notations around the year 1508. His bits of his annotation can be found thought out the book, as can his signature or initials. On page 76 V he drew a spear shaped addition to the tail of an animal. The second and third signers of record are Queen Victoria and Price Albert who were permitted to sign their names during a royal visit in 1849. They were however misinformed at the time of signing, believing that they were signing a section of the original document. They were in fact signing the modern fly leaves which were removed when the book was last restored and rebound in 1953.

Face above the portrait of St John. Folio 291v

The Book of Kells has seen changes to its form in the past 200 years as well. The most horrendous of these were carried out during a Victorian era rebinding of the manuscript (Stanley, 1994). Undertaken in 1821 by George Mullen, the ill-advised actions included the addition of gilt edges and flattening the vellum. The actions taken would do irreparable damage to the manuscript. The process for gilding the edges included cropping up to a half an inch from the pages. However, proper care was not taken and portions of some of the paintings were destroyed. In order to flatten the vellum the pages were wetted. The problem with this is that pigments do not seep into vellum; they sit on top of it. By wetting the pages Mullen reduced the colors visible on the page. This carelessness would lead to trepidation on the part of Trinity College when there was need to rebind the manuscript again in the twentieth century (Stalley, 1994).