Part 2

• Author(s) or creator. What could you find out about them?

The manuscript is a monastic production, undertaken in the scriptorium of one of the Columban paruchia.  While current consensus is solidifying around the idea that the manuscript was produced either entirely on Iona, or begun at Iona and finished at Kells, other theories have been set forward over the years. Brown (1980, p. 81) compiles a partial list of suggested monasteries including “an Irish monastery (perhaps Kells), The Columban monastery at Iona, a Northumbrian monastery (perhaps Lindisfarne) or…a Columban monastery in Pictland.” Given the age of the manuscript and the scarcity of the verifiable evidence, it is unlikely that a definitive solution will ever be reached.

• Title(s)

The first known instance of the manuscript being referred to as the Book of Kells comes from the early scholarly work of James Ussher “sometime after 1621 (Meehan, 1994, p. 4).” Prior to this, titles for the book included, The Scriptures of St. Colum Cille and Great Gospel book of Colum Cille. As noted above, the connection with the saint was one of the manuscripts defining characteristics for much of it history.

• Incipit

The Book of Kells does not have a traditional Incipit insomuch as the first page of the book does not provide a specific reference to the work contained within.

• Explicit / Colophon:

It is possible that the manuscript had an explicit or a colophon on its final page; unfortunately the final six folios were lost sometime prior to its gifting to Trinity college in the 1660s (Sullivan, 1986).

• Size

The current size of the Book of Kells is 13” by 9.5”. However, the book was possibly an inch larger when it was produced. The reduction in size is due to it being cropped in 1821. This topic is covered in greater detail in the section above on Losses, Additions,Modifications and Marginalia.

• Binding

The manuscript has been rebound at least five times (Stalley, 94). The current binding of the Book of Kells is both modern and artistically unremarkable. It dates from the last restoration in 1953 by Roger Powel. Stalley points out that there were “Tense negotiations” preceding this rebinding and that the manuscript was divided into for volumes, each containing one gospel for “conservation reasons.”

Portrait of St. John Folio 291v

It is been suggested (Simpson, 2010), that the original binding would have resembled the book held by the apostle John in the portrait page preceding the gospel bearing his name (291v). This claim is impossible to substantiate, but it makes for interesting conjecture.

• Material written on (parchment or paper)

Ireland and Scotland, being a based society (Simpson, 2010), had access to large quantities of availability of calfskin with which to produce vellum. As such, this was the preferred material for the production of manuscripts in the British Isles for most the middle ages. It is interesting to note that studies of the vellum used in the Book of Kells have been employed by scholars to approximate both the size and wealth of the monastic community(s) that created it. Bernard Meehan (1994) has put forward a hypothesis based on the visibility of the spine ridge on the vellum that the production of the manuscript would have required the skins of approximately 185. This in turn would have required a herd of roughly 1,200 animals.

Meehan (1994) points to two additional aspects of the vellum that make the Book of Kells unique. The first is that a number of the pages were placed with spine ridges running vertically in relation to the spine of the book. This is uncommon in insular manuscripts. The second is that these vertical pages tend to be from older calves, slaughtered between two and three month old. This produced thicker vellum which was preferred by the artists for major full page illustration pages.

Folio 246r

There are a number of condition issues with the vellum that are believed to have existed from the time of production (Simpson, 2010). The most noticeable of these is the existence of large holes on a number of the pages. It is known that these existed at the time of production because they were either written around or patched and written over. Other smaller holes found thought the pages are believed to have been caused though putrefaction during the production of the vellum.

• Collation and how was it put together: rulings, page, or leaf layout

Meehan (1994) notes that the construction of the Book of Kells is fairly standard for insular manuscripts produced during this time. Vellum was “ruled for text with a wooden or bone instrument, following the guidance of pricking’s made on either side of the page with a stylus or the point of a knife.” The pages were cut in bifolia and assembled into quire. There are two quires that contain a number of single page folios. These single page folios were commonly produced using the thicker vellum describe above.

While the script used throughout the book is fairly consistent, the lines per page varies thought with some having as few as 16 and other having as many as 18; regardless of the number of lines, the space covered in roughly ten by seven inches.

• Script(s) or type of writing

Section of page illustrating Insular Majuscule script.  Folio 88v

The dominant script in the Book of Kells is Insular Majuscule developed by Irish monks and missionaries (Sullivan, 1986). The script, which was developed more than 200 years prior to the production of the manuscript, was spread throughout the British Isles as well as Mainland Europe. Examples of it can be found in works produced in Luxeuil France, Bobbio Itily and St Gall in Switzerland It is also the scrip used in the Lindisfarne Gospels.
The script is written using clearly defined word spaces as well as a triplet of square dots to denote the end of verses.