by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
New York D.Appleton and Company 1901
The books of the Middle Ages are a special subject in themselves, since they include all the illuminated
manuscripts of Ireland, England and the Continent. We can therefore do little more than indicate their
historical place in the story of books. We have only to look at a medieval illuminated manuscript to
understand how books were regarded in those days, and with what lavish expenditure of time and skill
the quaint characters were traced and the ornaments designed and executed. And having looked, we
gather that books, being rare, were appreciated; and being sacred, were reverenced; and that it was
deemed a worthy thing to make a good book and to make it beautiful. Sometimes the monkish artist's
handiwork had a result not foreseen by him, for we read that when St. Boniface, the Saxon missionary
who gave his life to the conversion of Germany, wrote to ask the Abbess Eadburga for a missal, he
desired that the colors might be gay and bright, "even as a glittering lamp and an illumination for the
hearts of the Gentiles." It is easy to imagine how the brilliant pages would attract the color-loving
barbarians, and prepare the way for friendly advances.
It is probable that the custom of ornamenting books with drawings was derived from the Egyptians by
the Greeks and from the Greeks by the Romans, among whom decorated books were common, although
they are known to us chiefly by means of copies preserved in Byzantine and Italian manuscripts of a more
recent period. These, and a few examples dating from the time of Constantine, exhibit a style evidently
derived from classical models.
long and glorious line stretching, chronologically, from the seventh century of our era to the fifteenth.
Although it is not known where the art was born to which these wonderful productions of Celtic pen-craft
owe their origin, it is Ireland, nevertheless, which has provided us with the earliest and finest examples of
this work, the marvels of skill and beauty which, summed up, as it were, in the Book of Kells, the Book of
Durrow, and others, set the Irish manuscripts beyond imitation or rivalry.
Most of these books are Psalters, or Gospels, in Latin, while the remainder consist of missals and other
religious compilations, and of them all the Book of Kells is the most famous. It was written in the seventh
century, and probably indicates the highest point of skill reached by the Irish artist scribes, or as regards
its own particular style of ornamentation, by any artist-scribes whatever. It is a book of the Gospels
written (in Latin) on vellum, and the size of the volume, of the writing, and of the initial letters is
unusually large. The leaves measure 13 ½ X 9 ½ inches. The illustrations represent various incidents in
the life of Christ, and portraits of the Evangelists, accompanied by formal designs. Ornamentation is
largely introduced into the text, and the first few words of each Gospel are so lavishly decorated and
have initial letters of such size that in each case they occupy the whole of a page.
The book just described was preserved at Kells until the early part of the seventeenth century. It then
passed into Archbishop Ussher's possession, and finally into the library of Trinity College, Dublin, where it
is now treasured. Of course it is impossible to give here a reproduction of a page of this marvelous book
in its proper size and colors. Our illustrations, however, may convey a little idea of the accuracy and
minuteness of the work, which, it is hardly necessary to say, was done entirely by hand, and will serve as
a text for a brief summary of the chief features of Irish book art.
The design here shown is composed of a diagonal cross set in a rectangular frame, having in each angle a
symbol of one of the four Evangelists. The colours in this design, as reproduced by Professor Westwood
in his Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts, principally consist of red, dark
and light mauve, green, yellow, and blue-grey. The animals depicted are quaint, but not ridiculous, and
the figure of St. Matthew, in the upper angle of the cross, though stiff and ungraceful, is less peculiar
than other figures in the book. The Irish artist was always more successful in designing and executing
geometrical systems of ornamentation than in representing living figures.
The interlacing, which forms a large part of the design under consideration, is a characteristic of Celtic
work. The regularity with which the bands pass under and over, even in the most complicated patterns, is
very remarkable, and errors are rarely to be detected. The spirals which occupy the four panels at the
ends and sides, of the frame are also typical of this school of art. The firmness and accuracy of their
drawing testify to the excellent eyesight as well as to the steady hand and technical skill of the artist.
The prevailing feature of Celtic ornament as shown in illuminated manuscripts is the geometrical nature of
the designs. The human figure when introduced into the native Irish books is absurdly grotesque, for its
delineation seems to have been beyond the artist's skill, or, more correctly, to have lain in another
category, and to have belonged to a style distinct from that in which he excelled. At a later period, figure
drawing became a marked characteristic of English decorated manuscripts, and English artists attained to
a high degree of skill in this branch of their art.