From the

of the

NORTH Early Medieval Art in Ireland and Britain Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Insular Art

held in the Ulster Museum, Belfast, 7-11 April 1994

EDITED BY CORMAC BOURKE

BELFAST : HMSO

Acknowledgements Permission to reproduce photographs and drawings (other than those of the individual authors) is gratefully acknowledged as follows: 1. Charles Thomas Figs 1,2 Carl Thorpe; 2. Howard Kilbride-Jones Figs 3,6 Trustees of the British Museum, Fig 7 Ulster Museum, Fig 8 National Museum of Ireland; 3. Conor Newman Fig la Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Figs 2,5b National Museum of Ireland, Fig 6 Ulster Museum; 4. Michael Ryan Figs 1-8 Ursula Mattenberger; 5. Susan Youngs Fig 1 Board of Trinity College Dublin, Fig 2 Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral, Figs 3a, 3f, 4b, 4c Trustees of the British Museum, Fig 3b-d National Museum of Ireland, Fig 3e Norfolk Museums Service, Fig 5 lames Farrant, Lisa Reardon; 6. Judith Carroll Fig lb Leo Swan, Figs 2b, 3a, 3b, 5b, 6 National Museum of Ireland, Figs 2a, 2f, 5a Trustees of the British Museum, Figs Id, 2e Ulster Museum, Fig 2c National Museum of Wales, Fig 2d Scunthorpe Museum; 7. Mark Redknap Figs 1, 3e (left), 3g (right), 4a (right), 4c (right), 4d, 5a-h Tony Daly, Jacqueline Chadwick, Mary Anne Constance, Figs 2a-e, 3a, c, d, 3e (extreme right), 3f, 3g (left), 4a (extreme left), 4b, 4c (extreme left) National Museum of Wales, Fig 3b Dyfed Museums Service; 8. Leo Swan Figs 1,2 Deirdre White, Fig 3 National Museum of Ireland / Office of Public Works, Dublin, Fig 4 Trustees of the British Museum; 9. Carol Neuman de Vegvar Fig 1 Museum of Archaeology, Stavanger, Fig 2 Ulster Museum; 10. Niamh Whitfield Figs la, 3a, 4a, 8a, 8b, 13a, 14a Darwin Dolinka-Korda, Figs 2a, 2b, 6f, 7b, 7d, 7e, 10b, 11a Nick Griffiths, Fig 4d Jim Lang, Figs 4e, 12a, 12b Trustees of the British Museum, Fig 6d Oldsaksamlingen, Universitetet i Oslo, Fig 6b Pamela Dowson, Figs 7a, 10a Judy Longcrane, Fig 9a Eva Wilson, Fig 16a, 16b, 16d, 16e Board of Trinity College Dublin, Fig 16c Stiftsbibliothek, St Gall; 12. James Cronin Fig 1 Bibliotheque Nationale de France Fig 2 Domschatz, Trier, Fig 3 Stiftsbibliothek, St Gall, Fig 4 Board of Trinity College Dublin; 13. Nancy Netzer Figs 1, 2, 4 Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart; 14. Daibhi 6 Croinin Figs 1-4 Staatsbibliothek Ber­lin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Helga Lengenfelder Verlag, Munich; 15. Carol Farr Figs 1, 4-6 Board of Trinity College Dublin, Fig 2 Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Archive, Fig 3 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; 16. Nancy Edwards Figs la, lb , 2 Board of Trinity College Dublin, Fig lc-e Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Fig 3a Bodleian Library, Oxford, Fig 3b, 3c Edinburgh University Library, Fig 3d British Library; 18. Douglas Mac Lean Fig 2 Trustees of the British Museum, Fig 3 Dept of Archaeology, University of Durham (T Middlemass), Figs 4,5 Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland; 19. Hilary Richardson Fig 1 E Wiltshire, Figs 12,14,16 Georgian Museum of Fine Arts, Fig 13 P Donabedian; 20. Ann Hamlin Figs 3, 4, 7, 8 Crown Copyright; 21. Dorothy Kelly Fig 2 Deborah O'Sullivan, Figs 4, 5 Ursula Mattenberger, Fig 6 Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; 22. Catherine Karkov Fig 1 Office of Public Works, Dublin; 23. Jane Hawkes Fig 5 Victoria and Albert Museum; 24. Jill Harden Fig 2a Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Figs 2b, 3-5 Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland, Figs 6,7 R Bloss; 25. John Higgitt Figs 1-10 Trustees of the British Museum; 26. Katherine Forsyth Figs 2,3 Trustees of the National Museums of Scotland; 30. Peter Harbison Fig lc Edelgard Harbison-Soergel, Fig 2 Moira Concannon, Fig 3 Foto Marburg, Figs 6,7 Office of Public Works, Dublin, Fig 8 Con Manning, Fig 9 Paul Caponigro, Fig 10 Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

Editorial Note Illustrations are not to scale except where scales are shown or given in captions. Biblical quotations have not been harmonised.

x

15

HISTORY AND MNEMONIC IN INSULAR GOSPEL BOOK DECORATION

Carol Farr

To the Christian, the gospel book represents the word and truth of God. It becomes a tangible, authoritative sign of the Word. In the early middle ages, as in other times, the spiritual elite of Christianity ruminated the gospels in search of revelation of truth. They presented the book and its text publicly in liturgical proclama­tion of its truth and authority. This significance and function provide to modern scholarship accepted rea­sons for the production of luxury gospel books in In­sular scriptoria. Answering the question of function as it applies to individual manuscripts has proved more complex.

Some scholars, such as O'Reilly (1988; 1993; 1994), view the decoration of the Book of Kells and Durham A.II.17 as foci of contemplation, isolated from public presentation and removed from contexts of power. 6 Carragain (1994) sees the Book of Kells as a presence in its community, a book never read from but resonat­ing by means of its visual images with the sights, words, and significance of liturgical ceremonies. As a liturgi­cal book, it served as a mnemonic aid for the integra­tion of sacred texts into communal life.

Some of the decoration, however, may have served revelation and memory in a way more specific to the society in which gospel books functioned. Perhaps decoration functioned mnemonically not only in the sense of recalling particular texts or mystical connec­tions of words and events but also in the 'epic' sense described by Bakhtin. In ancient and medieval socie­ties, according to Bakhtin, literary creativity is founded upon memory or the memorialization of the past, as opposed to knowledge, creativity's source in societies where there has arisen polyglossia, or recognition of multiple points of view and a relativity of past to present. The resulting absolute, inaccessibly distanced past gives primacy to 'firsts and bests': creation, found­ers, peaks, and fathers. This absolute world of memory is created by the poet for 'descendents', serving 'the future memory of a past' (Bakhtin 1981,13-19).

Visual references to native mythic past within an impressive copy of the gospels may have served to legitimise Insular pre-Christian cultural heritage and

to include it within the prestigious international system of Christianity, much as some scholars of early Irish literature see indigenous themes functioning within Latin and vernacular literature (Carney 1969; Carey 1989; McCone 1990). This theory is based primarily upon the decoration of the Book of Kells, but hints can be found in other large-format gospel books, such as the Turin Gospels. Illustrations and decoration in the Book of Kells and concepts and imagery in Latin and vernacular Insular literature present three relevant coinciding themes: (i) a multivalent historical sense comprising history and cosmology; (ii) depictions of and references to the clergy and their pastoral mission within this history; and (iii) depictions of indigenous figures, but in connection with sacred history.

The picture of the Temptation of Christ in the Book of Kells (Fig 1) can be understood as a multivalent cosmographic diagram, its layers shaped as signs of salvation history (Farr 1989, 32-117, 192-213; 1991, 131-5). In the picture, the Temple with its three-level division, as described in 3 Kings 6.8, forms the body of Christ, believers depicted as rows of figures em­panelled in its lowermost level, the whole subjected to temptation, but also it becomes the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. The building's middle regis­ter is patterned with the colours - blue, scarlet, and purple - of the twice-dyed and embroidered ten hang­ings of the Tabernacle, and it has along its upper edge ten 'hyacinth blue' loops, resembling the hangings God instructs Moses to make for the Tabernacle (Exod 26.1-6). The two angels over Christ's head refer to the cherubim of the Ark within the Tabernacle (Exod 25.18-22), facing each other with wings outspread to form a canopy over the head of Christ.

Cosmographic interpretations and simultaneous depictions of the Temple and Tabernacle have a lengthy history rooted in Jewish images and interpre­tation. For example, the building depicted over the torah shrine of the synagogue at Dura Europus, Syria (Fig 2), creates multivalence by associative historic symbolism. It is placed in the west wall of the syna-

137

Carol Farr

History and Mnemonic in Insular Gospel Book Decoration

Fig 2 Dura Europos, Syria, synagogue: upper panel of the Torah shrine. gogue, the wall nearest Jerusalem, within a cycle of historical images, including depictions of Aaron in the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant during its jour­ney from Beth Dagon via Beth-Shemesh to Jerusa­lem, and the Temple of Solomon. The building resem­bles other depictions, such as those on 2nd-century coins of the Bar Kochba revolt and the 6th-century Beth Alpha synagogue pavement in Galilee, showing an ambiguously generalized, columned structure that refers to Ark, Tabernacle, and Temple, a conflation signifying Jerusalem (Kiihnel 1987a, 147-50; Revel-Neher 1982; Kitzinger 1965, 9). The sacrifice of Isaac is depicted to the left of the building over the Dura shrine, to the right the seven-branched menorah, one of the ritual objects of the Temple. Between the menorah and the building are two other objects, pos­sibly representing the palm frond of the lulav and the citron or etrog, two of the objects brought by pilgrims to the Temple during the feast of tabernacles (sukkot), which commemorates the desert wandering of the Hebrews (Ackerman & Braunstein 1982,122-3,126-7). Thus the panel creates a complex meaning by as­sociating references to the history of God among the chosen people (Grabar 1980,24-6) and to Jerusalem's

place at the centre of the world. This meaning is fur­ther amplified by the west wall's historical scenes. Within the context of these associated images, the building's meaning becomes multivalent, signifying the past dwelling of God on earth and an expression of hope for its rebuilding. The cosmic dimension of the representations is sometimes indicated by inclusion of a star over the building or of the veil, the associa­tion of the two probably invoking an interpretation similar to that given by Philo and Josephus, who inter­pret the Temple and its veil as figures of the cosmos (Kiihnel 1987a, 147-50; Farr 1989, 34-40, 45-7). Kuhnel (1987a; 1987b) has argued for the widespread distribution, by the 7th century, of the figure of the simultaneously existing Tabernacle and Temple and its association with Jerusalem, the cosmic centre and archetypal site of salvation history.

Kuhnel bases her argument in part on the promi­nence of the Tabernacle in the 6th century Christian Topography. The Topography's cosmological theme is that of a double-compartment universe: in the lower is the 'transient and perishable', the upper the 'eter­nal and perfect'. Merged with this figure is the histori­cal theme of passage from the lower state to the up-

139

Carol Farr

per, for example the ascension of men from the first to the second Tabernacle. This universe with its super­imposed compartments is revealed in the shape of the Tabernacle, the mobile desert tent of Moses specifi­cally corresponding to the earthly condition (Kuhnel 1987a, 162; 1987b, 152-6.). The author of the Topog­raphy argues against a spherical universe, labelling it a pagan denial of resurrection of the dead and their ascension (Ainalov 1961, 37-8). He asserts a four-sided, rectangular universe, the shape revealed in the Tabernacle, a structure made by the wise Moses ac­cording to the true cosmic shape indicated in God's directions and described in Exodus. Illustrations of this universe appear in Byzantine copies of the Topogra­phy as rectangular diagrams (Fig 3) which refer to the form of the Tabernacle by their architectural struc­ture (Kuhnel 1987a, 162; 1987b, 152-4) drawn either as ground plans or elevations (Ainalov 1961, 36).

A direct influence of these diagrams upon Insular

art can not be proposed on the basis of known evi­dence. Much more important than the possibility of the transmission of iconographic types is the presence, in Insular exegesis and other writings, of the idea of the shape of the Tabernacle signifying the square world and coextending with the shape of the heavenly Tem­ple. Such Insular texts present verbal imagery which may have some connection with the depiction of the Temptation of Christ in the Book of Kells and dia­gram images in other Insular gospel books. The To­pography is helpful because it clearly expresses con­cepts which may aid understanding of the Insular material. Whether or not the Topography was known to particular Insular writers is not the issue. The im­portant point is their understanding of this square fig­ure of the world and its relationship to Temple, Taber­nacle, and Church.

Bede knew of the idea of the square world-shape and its significance. Using the image of the four-part

>

Fig 3 ChristianTopography ofCosmas Indicopleustes (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica MS Gr 699. folio 39v), perspective dia­gram of the universe.

140

History and Mnemonic in Insular Gospel Book Decoration

world in a kind of transcendent mathematics, he in­terprets the forty days and nights of Christ's Tempta­tion as the whole age of the Church, the time in which Christ's body, the Church, is tempted by the devil. The ten commandments with which the believer battles the enemy multiplied by the four parts of the world equal the forty days and nights of Temptation, which in turn figure the time of the Church of the present, the Church on earth (In Marci Evangelium Expositio: CCSL 220. 444; Farr 1989, 99). Moreover, in De Templo, he mentions the square earth multiplied by the ten 'rules whose observation will lead to life' to explain the forty cubits in front of the sanctuary as a type of the Church of the present (CCSL 119A. 172-3; Farr 1989, 199-202). Bede equates the two struc­tures of the Temple and Tabernacle in De Templo and De Tabernaculo. They share the same shape but are distinguished by the stages of history they signify. The Tabernacle represents the time of the Synagogue as well as the suffering and wandering Church of the present; the Temple figures the elect born after Christ, and also the souls joined together as the living stones of the heavenly Temple (CCSL 119A. 42-3, 147-8; Holder 1994,45-6; Farr 1989,53-5). He visualizes them as a diagram or even a kind of map, comparable to those in the Codex Amiatinus and the Book of Ar­magh, or to the building depicted in the Book of Kells. Bede points to the details distinguishing the two in a mnemonic and contemplative exercise, his stated pur­pose in writing the interpretations (CCSL 119A. 43; Holder 1994,46-7; Farr 1989,55-6). Moreover, in Ire­land, interpretation of the Temple and Tabernacle pro­vided the conceptual framework for descriptions of the monastic civitas, especially the cities of refuge, for example in the Collectio Canonum Hibernensis (Doherty 1985; 6 Corrain et al 1984, 394; 6 Corrain 1987,296-9). The rectangular Church on earth is com­pared with the Tabernacle or Ark in the Catechesis Celtica and a verse (Versiculi Familiae Benchuir) in the Antiphonary of Bangor, in which the evangelists are seen supporting the earthly Church and the mon­astery of Bangor just as the golden wheels or rings supported the Ark (6 Laoghaire 1987,152-3).

The illustration of the Temptation of Christ may be understood to present further historic polysemy, if one allows some likeness between it and the ideas Augus­tine expresses in his Enarratio on Psalm 90 (Farr 1989, 74-117; 1991,132-3). In both gospel accounts in Mat­thew and Luke of the Temptation on the Temple roof, the devil tempts Christ to fling himself from the pin­nacle by quoting from verses 11 and 12 of Psalm 90:

In fact it has been written that he has commanded his angels concerning you, that they keep you safe, for in their hands they will raise you up, lest you accidentally strike your foot against a stone (Luke 4.10-11).

Interpreting Psalm 90 in terms of the Temptation of Christ by using the figure of Christ the head and his body the Church, Augustine draws images of spiritual

history. His whole interpretation is about temptation on different levels: the Temptation of Christ as a fig­ure of temptation of the believer, of temptation of the martyrs, of the continuing temptation of the Church of the present, and of the future, final temptation of all creation, the apocalypse. He begins his exegesis of Psalm 90 by explaining that it is 'the psalm from which the devil dared to tempt our lord Jesus Christ', and at the beginning of the second part of the sermon he states that 'Christ was tempted so that the Christian would not be overcome by the tempter' (Enarrationes in Psalmos: CCSL 39. 1254,1265). Both gospel story and psalm serve to guide the believer to follow Christ's example in the temptation. Augustine says:

He who would thus imitate Christ so that he may lift up all the troubles of this world, let his hope be in God; (he who would imitate Christ) so that he is neither cap­tivated by the seductive nor broken up by fear, this man is he who dwells in the help of the Most High, and stays in the protection of the God of Heaven (Ps 90.1) (CCSL 39.1256).

Throughout his interpretation, Augustine fits verses into this structure of a multivalent body and head ex­isting simultaneously in past, present, and future of salvation history. In interpreting verse 7, 'two thou­sand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand', he envisions the Last Judgement, the verse being an admonition of those who fall from the body of Christ because of temptation (CCSL 39. 1261-2; Farr 1989, 84). From verse 10: 'and the scourge will not come near your tabernacle', the Tabernacle be­comes the flesh, the body of Christ during the Passion and the Church on earth enduring the Passion but the head existing simultaneously in heavenly refuge (CCSL 39.1270-1; Farr 1989, 90-2; 1991,133). From verses 11-12: 'for he has given his angels charge of you, . . . in their hands they will lift you up lest you strike your foot against a stone', he envisions the as­cension of Christ in the hands of angels (CCSL 39. 1274-5; Farr 1989, 92-5). The picture in the Book of Kells shows Christ the head being lifted up by angels while his body protects his feet, the believers depicted below in the Temple's lowest register. In the picture, the Tabernacle of the body on earth deflects the scourge of Satan's temptation with the protecting shield of Christ's truth, as in Psalm 90.5, 'his truth will surround you like a shield'. The shield held by one of the onlookers to the juncture between the Temple roof and Christ's body perhaps serves as one of several details in the picture evoking an interpretation drawn after the multivalent image of the Temple or Church (Farr 1989, 68-71, 84-5; 1991,132). Furthermore, the Temple's lowest register may evoke depictions of the Last Judgement, such as the later examples carved on Irish crosses at Clonmacnoise, Co Offaly (the Cross of the Scriptures) and Monasterboice, Co Louth (Muiredach's cross), in which Christ stands as Judge holding two sceptres or staffs in the same manner as the figure in the centre of the lowest register of the

141

Carol Farr

Temple in the Book of Kells and likewise stands in the centre of two panels presenting rows of figures (Henry 1974,189). Perhaps the lowest register of the Temple in the Book of Kells presents an earlier ver­sion of the scenes on the crosses in which saved and damned are distinguished from each other by their turning toward or away from Christ. At Clonmacnoise, and also at Durrow, Co Offaly, Christ the Judge stands upon snakes, almost certainly an incorporation of Psalm 90's most well known triumphal image, the vic­tor trampling beasts (verse 13).

The multi-levelled historical sense presented in the Temptation scene in the Book of Kells may be con­ceptually related to the diagrammatic depictions of the Last Judgement in the St Gall Gospels (Alexan­der 1978, ill 23), and the Second Coming in the Turin Gospels (Deshman 1972,182-83; Alexander 1978, ill 280), as well as the depiction of the Ascension from the Turin fragments (Alexander 1978, ill 279). In these diagrams, figures are packed into rectangular spaces, arranged in rows, like the levels of men and angels in the cosmograms of Byzantine Topography manu­scripts and like the idea of the living stones of the heav­enly Jerusalem or the apostle-boards of the Tabernacle, as interpreted by Bede (De Tabernaculo: CCSL 119A. 60-2; Holder 1994,66-8), as well as the lowest level of the diagrammatic Temple in the Book of Kells (Farr 1989,40-5, 55-9). Perhaps they all were formed after the image of the cosmological diagram of Christian history.

The Temptation picture can also be related to Insu­lar ideas of priesthood and monastic community. O'Reilly (1994, 382^1; see also Farr 1989, 56-60) has pointed out the connections of the figure holding two crossed rods in the lowest register of the image with some of the attributes of Aaron, the Old Testament priest, and the Aaronic priesthood. The cult of the Tabernacle and Temple provided material for inter­pretation in terms of Christian priesthood and monasticism in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England. Bede takes up the themes of ministry, priesthood, and symbolism of vestments and furnishings in his books on the Tabernacle, the Temple, and Esdras and Nehemiah (CCSL 119A. 93-139, 192-234, 241-392; Holder 1994,106-63). In the last work, he speaks di­rectly of deacons as Levites and their role as ministers of the Word, their role as servants of the cult who de­liver the word of God to the people (CCSL 119A. 277; Mayr-Harting 1991, 219). Irish allegorical interpreta­tions in legal texts base the idea of the monastic city upon the cities of the Levites with their cult servants (ie monks and ecclesiastics) and the celestial model of the City of God (6 Corrain et al 1984, 394-417; Doherty 1985, 57; 6 Corrain 1987, 292-3, 296-307; McCone 1990, 88-91).

In view of these interpretations, the manuscript's depictions of figures holding books may serve to em­phasize the special significance of a gospel manuscript for clergy. The figures presenting books may repre­

sent the upper ranks of contemporary clergy -bishops or abbots, priests and deacons - the spiritual elite charged with administration of the sacraments and delivery of the word of God, of which the Book of Kells was itself an impressive, tangible sign. They resemble the description of clergy and their vestments given in an 8th-century Insular florilegium, the Collectanea, wrongly attributed to Bede by Migne (Farr 1989, 342-5). The Collectanea describes the casula or chasuble worn by priests and deacons:

Whenever the deacon reads the gospel he has been wrapped in the chasuble, so that he can be ready to approach the gospel book, or to prepare the table of the Lord. The chasuble is open on the right side from where the arm emerges because the author of the gos­pel, whom the deacon should imitate was pierced through on the right side. (Pseudo-Bede, Excerptiones Patrum, Collectanea: PL 94. 555A).

The Collectanea includes a discussion of the seven grades of the clergy in which each office is related to its Old Testament type. Deacons, the caretakers of the altar, are equated with Levites, the Old Testament serv­ants ministering to the cult of the Tabernacle. Priests and bishops are prefigured by Moses' priest, Aaron (PL 94.553D-554B). The Old Testament typology em­phasizes the historical sense presented in the depic­tion of the Temple in the Temptation scene in the Book of Kells.

The figure of Aaron in the Temple and the figures of priests or deacons at key points such as gospel incipits may relate to a major theme of Hiberno-Saxon exegesis and literature: the sacred history of God's presence on earth and its revelation to what 8th- or 9th-century Irish and Anglo-Saxons would have con­sidered the church of the present, that is themselves. Mayr-Harting (1976, 12-13) has pointed out the sig­nificance of Bede's possible simultaneous writing of the Historia and De Templo. Bede placed the construc­tion of the church of the Anglo-Saxons within the building of the universal Church or the Temple, which included all gentes, where the Tabernacle included only the Jews.

Figures in indigenous lay costume appear in mar­gins and between lines of text in the Book of Kells, but rarely is their significance or function immediately clear. For example, in the genealogy according to Luke, a warrior wearing native breeches and tunic holds a spear and shield at the lower corner of the text (Fig 4). Some, such as an interlinear dancing warrior, alert the reader to complexities of layout like run over lines, for example, on folio 45r in the text of the Lord's Prayer (Henry 1974, pi 31). Meehan has shown that some, although certainly not all, of these were added after the words were written (1990,251,253,255), in a way that could be thought of as a graphic gloss. Many of the human figures in native lay costume twist into interlace, for example a back-bending human whose torso is held in the jaws of a beast (folio 255v) (Fig 5). Werckmeister (1967, 154-7) has written about inter-

142

History and Mnemonic in Insular Gospel Book Decoration

Fig 4 Book of Kells, warrior in Lucan genealogy of Christ (folio 200r).

laced human figures appearing in four-part designs in the Book of Kells, such as those in the central lozenge of the chi-rho monogram. He believes them to repre­sent the antipodes, underworld men associated with the cardinal points of cosmographic diagrams. Thus, they participate in the cosmographic imagery of the whole range of creation presented in the quadripar­tite designs.

Depictions of contemporary secular figures are known to survive in other media in Insular art, par­ticularly sculpture. For example, the Pictish carved stone from Hilton of Cadboll, Easter Ross, dated c 800, shows a Pictish queen or noblewoman on horse­back watching a hunt. As suggested by Alcock (1993, 231-2), such images probably represent statements of social position, wealth and power of the aristocracy, who also were the class of the literati in control of monastic culture.

The interests of this indigenous aristocracy were merged with those of the monasteries. Monasteries were the major sites of cultural production. Thus, the writing of exegesis, Latin and vernacular literature, and legal texts were not compartmentalized. Their themes, concepts and methods conflated and blurred with each other as needed, as 6 Corrain (1987), McKone (1990) and Carey (1989) have shown. The inclusion of lay fig­ures in an impressive, luxurious gospel manuscript may, like those on the Pictish carved stones, represent some kind of expression of native aristocratic pres­tige and power.

The antipodal schemes seen by Werckmeister in the

Fig 5 Book of Kells, 'Antipode' (folio 255v). chi-rho and the manuscript's single surviving carpet page (folio 33r) may connect in general significance with the human interlace initial and in more specific ways with, for example, the interlinear and marginal figures in the genealogies. The warrior figure in the Lucan genealogy may indicate the contiguity of Insu­lar pre-Christian heroes with Old Testament ones. This typological significance is expressed at a later point in the genealogy where a figure dressed in Mediterra­nean garb and holding a cup sits upon the names Abraham and Isaac, Old Testament figures of eucharist and priesthood. This historical sense of priesthood is emphasized by the figure of an ox or a calf, the animal of sacrifice as well as the sign of priesthood and sym­bol of the gospel of Luke, which begins with the story of the priest Zacharias. The gospel genealogies receive decorative emphasis in Insular manuscripts perhaps because they memorialize absolutely the divinity of Christ, the fulfilment of prophecy, in a way parallel to Insular genealogies' memorialization of the aristoc­racy, sealing the legitimacy of their social position with immutable history. The genealogy in the gospel in the Book of Kells seems to be likened to Insular genealogies by the depiction of the warrior's genitals, a reference to generation.

If the lay figures in the Book of Kells signify the revelation of spiritual truth to the native gens through pre-Christian and Christian history, this may explain the strange scenes within the incipit of the gospel of Luke (Fig 6). Henry (1974, 203^1) interpreted this as a scene of limbo, but Henderson (1987, 165-8) has suggested that it may represent an apocalyptic scene, pointing out the two recumbent figures whose heads are held in the jaws of beasts. The two. Henderson

143

Carol Farr

Fig 6 Book of Kells, incipit of Luke (folio 188r): detail.

says, may represent the two witness-warrior-martyrs in Revelation whom the Antichrist kills, and who are interpreted in exegesis and apocrypha as Enoch and Elias, the Old Testament heroes taken bodily to heaven (Farr 1989,241-69; 1994). The pair appear in Insular Latin and vernacular literature, waiting in paradise during the present. In Middle Irish literature, the two witnesses provide a Christian type for pre-Patrician heroes, who are expected to return from an immanent, otherworld-like paradise (McNamara 1975,24-7; 1987, 99; 6 Corrain 1987, 293-4; Herbert & McNamara 1989, 76-7, 86,147,150; McCone 1990, 75-6; Wright 1993,77-8). I suggest that the scene depicts a version of pre-Christian history, its significance indicated by the two Old Testament and Apocalyptic hero-martyrs as well as by the two figures at the other end of this panel. They are engaged in a banquet: one holds a wine cup while the other holds over it a ladle, reminiscent of contemporary metalwork examples. Like the Old Testament Levites and priests, as well as the types of the priesthood, this could represent an Insular version of pre-Christian priesthood, of the revelation of truth in the time of natural law, when, according to the Irish

Reference Bible and the Stowe Missal tract on the mass, the law and Christ were revealed to all good men (McCone, 1990,92-102).

Historical interpretations were part of the agenda of the Insular elite to maintain their dominant posi­tion in a society undergoing Christianization. A con­siderable process of accommodation and adjustment between native and foreign was necessary. The nego­tiation of this process took place in literary produc­tion, sited at monasteries. This was the context in which the Book of Kells was created. Placing its major im­ages and marginal decoration in this context suggests an expression of the revelation of the truth of Christ­ian salvation to the clerical elite in charge of this im­pressive, prestigious object. Moreover depiction of native figures on its pages links this truth and its attendant power with the memory of aristocratic tradition. Acknowledgements 1 am grateful to the Humanities Center and Research Institute of the University of Alabama in Huntsville for research and travel funds which have enabled me to conduct research on early gospel books and to present this paper.

References ACKERMAN, A & BRAUNSTEIN, S 1981 Israel in Antiquity, From David to Herod, the Jewish Museum, New York. New York. AINALOV, D 1961 The Hellenistic Origins of Byzan­tine Art. New Brunswick. ALCOCK, L 1993 Image and icon in Pictish sculp­ture. In Spearman & Higgitt, 230-6. ALEXANDER, J J G 1978 Insular Manuscripts 6th to the 9th Century, A Survey of Manuscripts Illumin­ated in the British Isles, vol 1. London. BAKHTIN, M 1981 Epic and novel: toward a meth­odology for the study of the novel. In Holquist, M (ed), Holquist, M & Emerson, C (trans) The Dialogic Im­agination: Four Essays, 3^4-0. Austin. CAREY, J 1989 Ireland and the antipodes: the het­erodoxy of Virgil of Salzburg. Speculum, 64 (1989), 1-10. CARNEY, J 1969 The deeper level of early Irish lit­erature. Capuchin Annual, 36 (1969), 160-71. CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 1953-. Turnhout. DESHMAN, R1972 Anglo-Saxon art after Alfred. Art Bulletin, 56 (1972), 176-200. DOHERTY, C 1985 The monastic town in early me­dieval Ireland. In Clarke, H B & Simms, A (eds) The Comparative History of Urban Origins in Non-Roman Europe: Ireland, Wales, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Russia From the Ninth to the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols (= BAR Internat Ser 255), 45-75. Oxford. FARR, C 1989 Lection and Interpretation: the Litur­gical and Exegetical Background of the Illustrations in

144

Carol Farr

Fig 6 Book of Kells, incipit of Luke (folio 188r): detail.

says, may represent the two witness-warrior-martyrs in Revelation whom the Antichrist kills, and who are interpreted in exegesis and apocrypha as Enoch and Elias, the Old Testament heroes taken bodily to heaven (Farr 1989,241-69; 1994). The pair appear in Insular Latin and vernacular literature, waiting in paradise during the present. In Middle Irish literature, the two witnesses provide a Christian type for pre-Patrician heroes, who are expected to return from an immanent, otherworld-like paradise (McNamara 1975,24-7; 1987, 99; 6 Corrain 1987, 293-4; Herbert & McNamara 1989, 76-7, 86,147,150; McCone 1990, 75-6; Wright 1993,77-8). I suggest that the scene depicts a version of pre-Christian history, its significance indicated by the two Old Testament and Apocalyptic hero-martyrs as well as by the two figures at the other end of this panel. They are engaged in a banquet: one holds a wine cup while the other holds over it a ladle, reminiscent of contemporary metalwork examples. Like the Old Testament Levites and priests, as well as the types of the priesthood, this could represent an Insular version of pre-Christian priesthood, of the revelation of truth in the time of natural law, when, according to the Irish

Reference Bible and the Stowe Missal tract on the mass, the law and Christ were revealed to all good men (McCone, 1990,92-102).

Historical interpretations were part of the agenda of the Insular elite to maintain their dominant posi­tion in a society undergoing Christianization. A con­siderable process of accommodation and adjustment between native and foreign was necessary. The nego­tiation of this process took place in literary produc­tion, sited at monasteries. This was the context in which the Book of Kells was created. Placing its major im­ages and marginal decoration in this context suggests an expression of the revelation of the truth of Christ­ian salvation to the clerical elite in charge of this im­pressive, prestigious object. Moreover depiction of native figures on its pages links this truth and its attendant power with the memory of aristocratic tradition. Acknowledgements 1 am grateful to the Humanities Center and Research Institute of the University of Alabama in Huntsville for research and travel funds which have enabled me to conduct research on early gospel books and to present this paper.

References ACKERMAN, A & BRAUNSTEIN, S 1981 Israel in Antiquity, From David to Herod, the Jewish Museum, New York. New York. AINALOV, D 1961 The Hellenistic Origins of Byzan­tine Art. New Brunswick. ALCOCK, L 1993 Image and icon in Pictish sculp­ture. In Spearman & Higgitt, 230-6. ALEXANDER, J J G 1978 Insular Manuscripts 6th to the 9th Century, A Survey of Manuscripts Illumin­ated in the British Isles, vol 1. London. BAKHTIN, M 1981 Epic and novel: toward a meth­odology for the study of the novel. In Holquist, M (ed), Holquist, M & Emerson, C (trans) The Dialogic Im­agination: Four Essays, 3-40. Austin. CAREY, J 1989 Ireland and the antipodes: the het­erodoxy of Virgil of Salzburg. Speculum, 64 (1989), 1-10. CARNEY, J 1969 The deeper level of early Irish lit­erature. Capuchin Annual, 36 (1969), 160-71. CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 1953-. Turnhout. DESHMAN, R1972 Anglo-Saxon art after Alfred. Art Bulletin, 56 (1972), 176-200. DOHERTY, C 1985 The monastic town in early me­dieval Ireland. In Clarke, H B & Simms, A (eds) The Comparative History of Urban Origins in Non-Roman Europe: Ireland, Wales, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Russia From the Ninth to the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols (= BAR Internat Ser 255), 45-75. Oxford. FARR, C 1989 Lection and Interpretation: the Litur­gical and Exegetical Background of the Illustrations in

144

History and Mnemonic in Insular Gospel Book Decoration

the Book of Kells. Unpublished PhD thesis, Univer­sity of Texas. Austin. FARR, C 1991 Liturgical influences on the decor­ation of the Book of Kells. In Karkov, C & Farrell, R (eds) Studies in Insular Art and Archaeology (= American Early Medieval Stud 1), 127-41. Oxford, Ohio. FARR, C 1994 Textual structure, decoration, and in­terpretive images in the Book of Kells. In O'Mahony, 437^9. GRAB AR, A1980 Christian Iconography, A Study of its Origins. London. HENDERSON, G 1987 From Durrow to Kells, The Insular Gospel-books 650-800. London. HENRY, F 1974 The Book of Kells, Reproductions from the Manuscript in Trinity College Dublin. Lon­don / New York. HERBERT, M & MCNAMARA, M (eds) 1989 Irish Biblical Apocrypha: Selected Texts in Translation. Edinburgh. HOLDER, A1994 Bede: On the Tabernacle (= Trans­lated Texts for Historians 18). Liverpool. KITZINGER, E 1965 Israeli Mosaics of the Byzan­tine Period. Milan. KUHNEL, B 1987a Jewish symbolism of the Temple and Tabernacle and Christian symbolism of the Holy Sepulchre and Heavenly Tabernacle: A study of their relationship in late antique and early medieval art and thought. J Jewish Art, 12-13 (1986-87), 147-68. KUHNEL, B 1987b From the Earthly to the Heavenly Jerusalem: Representations of the Holy City in Chris­tian Art of the First Millennium (= Romische Quartalschrift fur Christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 42). Rome. MCCONE, K 1990 Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature (= Maynooth Monographs 3). Maynooth. MCNAMARA, M 1975 The Apocrypha in the Irish Church. Dublin. MCNAMARA, M 1987 Plan and source analysis of Das Bibelwerk, Old Testament. In Ni Chatham & Richter, 84-112. MAYR-HARTING, H 1976 The Venerable Bede, the Rule of St. Benedict, and Social Class. Jarrow (Jarrow Lecture).

MAYR-HARTING, H 1991 The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (3rd edn). Uni­versity Park, Pennsylvania. MEEHAN, B1990 The script. In Fox, P (ed) The Book of Kells, Ms 58, Trinity College Library Dublin: Com­mentary, 245-56. Luzern. NI CHATHAlN, P & RICHTER, M (eds) 1987 Irland und die Christenheit: Bibelstudien und Mission. Stutt­gart. 6 CARRAGAIN, E1994 'Traditio evangeliorum' and isustentatio,\e relevance of liturgical ceremonies to the Book of Kells. In O'Mahony, 398-436. 6 CORRAlN, D 1987 Irish vernacular law and the Old Testament. In Ni Chatham & Richter, 284-307. 6 CORRAlN, D, BREATHNACH, L & BREEN, A 1984 The laws of the Irish. Peritia, 3 (1984), 382^138. 6 L A O G H A I R E , D 1987 Irish elements in the Catechesis celtica. In Ni Chatham & Richter, 146-64. O'MAHONY, F (ed) 1994 The Book of Kells, Pro­ceedings of a Conference at Trinity College Dublin, 6-9 September 1992. Aldershot. O'REILLY, J1988 Early medieval text and image: the wounded and exalted Christ. Peritia, 6-7 (1987-88), 72-118. O'REILLY, J 1993 The Book of Kells, folio 114r: a mystery revealed yet concealed. In Spearman & Higgitt, 106-14. O'REILLY, J 1994 Exegesis and the Book of Kells: the Lucan genealogy. In O'Mahony, 344-97. PL = Migne, J-P (ed) 1844-64 Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, 221 vols. Paris. REVEL-NEHER, E 1982 La double page du Codex Amiatinus et ses rapports avec les plans du Tabernacle dans l'art juif et dans l'art byzantin. / Jewish Art, 9 (1982), 6-17. SPEARMAN, R M & HIGGITT, J (eds) 1993 The Age of Migrating Ideas, Early Medieval Art in North­ern Britain and Ireland. Edinburgh / Stroud. WERCKMEISTER, O-K1967 Irisch-northumbrische Buchmalerei des 8. Jahrhunderts und monastische Spiritualitat. Berlin. WRIGHT, C 1993 The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature. Cambridge (= Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 6). Cambridge.

145