Sydney
7 September 2003
Home
Archive
Subscribe
Links
Contact
Tasmania accused
on same-sex adoption and ‘marriage’
Refugee
kids freed, but for how long?
Matter
of perspective
Archbishop
honours Year 12 students
Treasured
Gospels from Holy Island
Own
faith is vital to dialogue – cardinal
Marist
laity unity move
$50,000
for Susan’s pilgrimage
Good
Shepherds find green pastures
Upgraded
Bulls go into bat against their demons
Editorial:
A parallel universe?
Letters:
Age of consent
Conversation:
Prof Friedhelm Mennekes, parish priest and art lecturer - Space for art in a sacred
space
Why
the world is the way it is
1500
reasons to be proud of his school
Brothers
died on mission to save their leader
‘Don’t
forget your people back home’
Pius
XII – Hitler, the Holocaust and ‘Canossa’
On
‘going to Canossa’
Laity,
clergy share the pastoral load
Pell
embraces Cardinal's vision for Sydney Synod
Kylie
on line to help kids
Engadine
sisters in Columban art show
Treasured Gospels from Holy Island
By Chris Lindsay
The Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the treasures of the Catholic Church, would in the eighth Century have sat on the high altar of a church off the north east coast of England as an icon, as literally “the Word of God”.
Since then the book’s intricate and richly decorated pages have survived Viking attacks and the ravages of 13 centuries.
A perfect facsimile copy of the Gospels has now been purchased by the University of Sydney Library and is available for research.
The manuscript was written and illuminated about 698 in honour of St Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who died in 687.
The work was executed at the Monastery of Lindisfarne, on Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland. Scholars say the production of the Gospels was probably connected with the Translation of St Cuthbert, which is recorded as having taken place on March 20, 698.
“The Lindisfarne Gospels were written at the centre of the Dark Ages,” says Sydney University rare books librarian Neil Boness.
“England and Ireland were the great bastions of manuscript illumination at the time, and the Lindisfarne Gospels are an important part of that development.
“The Book of Kells was one of the other famous manuscripts of that period. At the time in England there was a crusade to convert the Germans, the northern Europeans, to Christianity.”
Why would a monastery have expended so much time and resources to produce such a book when most of the population was illiterate?
“There has been a lot of discussion about this,” says Mr Boness. “Such a book would certainly have been iconic.
“It would have been seen on the high altar as a holy object, as literally the word of God.
“It was a fairly exact translation, and could have been used in services if placed on a lectern as a type of bible. It certainly could not have been taken back to the cells for study by the monks.
“There was a lot of effort made in its production. It was very expensive.
“The vellum used would have needed to have come from several hundred animals – whether these were all raised by the monastery or there was an arrangement with other monasteries to provide some is not known.
“And it was reasonably high quality vellum, while the pigments and materials used would also have been quite expensive, though real gold was not used in the illustrations – as was done later. It would have taken three or four months to produce.”
(Vellum is made from calf skin. One way of producing it was placing the skins in running water for several weeks, then soaking in an alum solution, then stretching the skins on racks and scraping them, and then repeating the process.)
The facsimile was made by a Swiss company.
Each page was photographed four or five times to get the colour match exactly right, and then carefully printed on special acid-free paper.
The quality of reproduction is such that every flaw in the vellum, every hole and every stitch is accurately reproduced.
The Gospels, according to information compiled by Mr Boness, remained at Lindisfarne until 875.
When they fled from the Vikings, the monks of Lindisfarne took their Gospels with them. The Lindisfarne community remained at Chester-le-Street, near Durham, from 883 to 995, finally settling at Durham itself in in 995.
During the period at Chester-le-Street, probably between 950 and 970, the Latin text of the Gospels was translated into a form of old English in a literal manner, word by word, with the translation in-serted as a gloss between the lines of the original. It thus represents the earliest known translation of the Gospels into any form of the English language.
The translator was Aldred, Provost of Chester-le-Street, and almost everything that it is known concerning the origins of the manuscript is derived from a note in Anglo-Saxon inserted by him.
This note, in modern translation, reads: “Eadfrith, Bishop of the Church of Lindisfarne, originally wrote this book in honour of God and St Cuthbert and the whole company of saints whose relics are on the island.
“And AEthelwald, Bishop of the Lindisfarne islanders, bound it on the outside and covered it, as he knew well how to do.
“And Billfrith, the anchorite, wrought the ornaments on the outside and adorned it with gold and with gems and gilded silver, unalloyed metal.
“And Aldred, unworthy and most miserable priest, glossed it in English with the help of God and St Cuthbert ...”
The manuscript probably lost its original binding at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. The present cover, with a binding of silver and jewels, was provided in 1852 by Edward Maltby, Bishop of Durham.
Early in the 17th century the book was acquired by Sir Robert Cotton from Robert Bowyer, Clerk of the Parliaments. Cotton’s collection was acquired by the British Library, then the British Museum, where it remains today.
This new facsimile edition – the facsimile volume and two volumes of expert commentary – cost the library $17,000 (compared with $30,000 for its Book of Kells facsimile, because it is much more heavily decorated).
The book is available in the rare books section of the Fisher Library for use in such areas as Celtic studies and the history of religion and art. People interested in calligraphy or designing jewellery can also use it.