Introduction

The Book of Kells is a masterpiece of Celtic art, unrivalled for the exquisite quality of its decoration, intricate designs and visionary concept. It is regarded as one of the world’s greatest illuminated manuscripts with decoration so stunning and lavish that it was thought to be the work of angels. It consists of the four gospels of the New Testament, which tell the story of Christ’s life.

History

The Book of Kells is surrounded by wonder and mystery. No one is sure exactly when or where it was written; this is because the all-important final page inscribed with details of authorship and location was lost. However, it is widely believed to date from around 800 AD and begun at a monastery founded by St Columba (Columcille) on the Scottish island of Iona, a tiny windswept island between Britain and Ireland. The monastery became a centre of learning and cultivation and it was highly influential in spreading Christianity in all directions. Unfortunately, the island’s exposed position made it easy prey, and when the Viking raiders came in their longboats in 806 AD, the Columban monks fled to take refuge in a new monastery at Kells.

Throughout the tenth century, Kells was plundered repeatedly by Danish and Norwegian Viking invaders, but the manuscript somehow survived; it is thought that the monks must have made hiding places for it in the monastery’s thick stone walls. In 1007, the manuscript was stolen and then recovered a few months later, buried under a sod of earth. Its gold and jewel adorned cover had been torn off and was never seen again.

The manuscript remained in Kells until 1654, the year that the English ruler Cromwell and his cavalry took up quarters there, so the governor of the town thought it best to send the Book of Kells to Dublin for safekeeping. In 1820, it suffered another indignity, this time, at the hands an incompetent bookbinder who trimmed away the edges of the decoration on many pages. Still, the Book of Kells has only lost around thirty folios (60 pages) of its 370 folios (780 pages) - an extraordinary outcome, considering all it’s been through and the ravages of time. The manuscript has been on display in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin since 1840.

Materials

The Book of Kells is written on vellum leaves, make from prepared calf-skin. Around 185 calves would have been needed to produce such a magnificent book and several monasteries may have shared their calf-skins. Geese provided eggs to bind the pigments; goose feathers were used to make quills; and ink pots were made from cow horns.

Earlier manuscripts tended toward a narrow palette of colours - the Book of Durrow, for example, uses only four colours. Illustrations in the Book of Kells, on the other hand, feature a broad range of colours, with purple, lilac, red, pink, green, and yellow being the colours most often used. Inks and pigments were all naturally occurring; some were very difficult to obtain. The brown ink was derived from an iron compound ground together with crushed oak apples. Soot was used to produce the jet black ink. The green ink was produced from copper. The yellow ink was derived from a mineral found in Irish soil (yellow arsenic sulphide). Red lead was used for bright reds, and the dark red (known as ‘kermes’) was obtained from the pregnant body of a Mediterranean insect. Several types of blue were produced from plants of Northern Europe, and a rare brilliant blue colour was obtained from a precious stone, which at the time was only found in the mountains of Afghanistan. Surprisingly perhaps, gold was rarely used.

Inside the Manuscript

The manuscript is written in Latin, in a script known as ‘insular majuscule’, on pages of about 13½ by 9½ inches in size. The pages are enlivened with ornate motifs, Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colours. The elaborate knot work, interweaving swirling spiral forms and maze patterns have many parallels in the metalwork and stone carving of the period. Scattered through the text are decorated initials, figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, often twisted and tied into complicated knots. We see life celebrated everywhere here: birds, beasts, fish, snakes, insects, reptiles and humans, running between the lines of text, or slipping into the exhuberant decoration, often in humorous and beguiling poses. Such drawings help ground the otherworldliness of the Book of Kells in everyday life.

Illuminators and Scribes

The Book of Kells was a joint effort. Studies have revealed that at least four master illuminators contributed to the manuscript and at least four scribes; it is not clear whether the scribes were the same people as the artists or not. These monks would have worked in the scriptorium - the part of the monastery reserved for writing - and they would have been helped by several apprentices who carried out the less difficult tasks. Working conditions for the scribes and illuminators would sometimes have been very difficult: eye strain from the murky light, numbed fingers from the bitter cold of the northern winters, exhausted bodies from the rigors of monastic duties, not forgetting the ever present threat that there might be another Viking raid.

The manuscript is incomplete, although this was not unusual at the time; early Christian artists, inspired by the sanctity of their task, would deliberately leave parts of their work unfinished to demonstrate their reverence and humility for the supreme perfection of God. Of course, we cannot know for sure if this is why it was never completed; it may be that the illuminators simply died of old age or were killed in a raid and unable to pass on their skills to their successors.

The Book of Kells remains, nonetheless, a crowning achievement of early Christian art and a lasting symbol of Irish creativity.