SCRIPTORIASCRIPTORIA
Every medieval monastery needed a stock of working
copies of bibles, Psalters, and missals for the liturgical
life of the community; they also needed copies of the
Rule, penitentials, and, indeed, secular documents
such as deeds and letters in their dealings with the
world. For religious study multiple copies of commen-
taries on the scriptures, lives of the saints, and the
writings of the early Church Fathers were made. The
monastery library and school needed texts and schol-
arly glosses. Psalters were the primers for the novices.
Copies had to be handwritten in the scriptorium or
medieval monastic secretariat. The first call on the
scribes in the scriptorium, usually situated adjacent to
the library, was the reproduction of books for the ser-
vices in choir and the readings in the refectory. Some
scriptoria (like that at Armagh—which, according to
the Annals of Tigernach, escaped destruction in the
great fire of 1020) acquired a reputation for excellent
calligraphy and beautiful illuminations and royal
patrons paid handsomely for de luxe products.
The work of scribes, copisti, and illuminators to
produce legible and correct copies required not only a
scholarly mastery of reading and interpreting of the
texts called exemplars (borrowed from neighbouring
monasteries) but also great skills in the art and craft
of writing in the distinctive insular majuscule and
minuscule Irish hands. Animal skins for vellum and
parchment were expensive in the seventh and eighth
centuries, hence the use of minuscule to get more
writing onto a page and likewise the use of palimp-
sests, that is, previously used parchments, showing
over-writing, marginal notes, and the interlinear
glosses much favoured by Irish scribes. Scraping, cur-
ing, and dyeing of vellum was an important activity in
the preparation of writing materials in the scriptorium,
as was the making of inks—mainly black, red, yellow,
and purple; this last, procured from a particular sea-
shell. So too was the cutting of quills sliced off in a
chisel edge to produce the distinctive thick down
strokes and thin horizontal line of insular minuscule
script. Perhaps the finest early example of this script
in Irish is that of Ferdomnach who penned the Book
of Armagh (807). The development of minusculeor
lower case letterforms was arguably the most impor-
tant Irish contribution to written language in Western
Europe. Until the rise of the university stationers in
the thirteenth century monastic scriptoria had a
monopoly of book production.
Often a copyist, pure and simple, made errors and
copied errors of syntax and grammar and of fact—but
a scribe with better latin and sounder scholarship cor-
rected copy. Irish trained scribes are to be found not
just in Northumbrian scriptoria but also in those of
Scotland, Anglo-Saxon England, and naturally in the
original Columban monasteries of Europe. The tech-
nicalities of distinguishing Northumbrian, Anglo-
Saxon, and Irish scripts are complex and have led to
much controversy, for example, over the date, place,
and origin of the celebrated Book of Kells. While the
majority of monastic scribes could copy texts and
documents for practical usage, few could have been
skilled enough artists to execute the illuminated art
treasures which the Irish monasteries gave the world
in such plenitude of artistry as in the Books of Durrow,
Kells, Armagh, and Lindisfarne, and indeed, the Latin
Gospel Books of Echternach, (in the Bibliotheque
Nationale in Paris-latin Ms 9389), Durham, and
Lichfield, all of which display a marriage of calligra-
phy and illumination reaching its full maturity in the
case of Kells.
After the twelfth-century manuscripts were no
longer produced solely for monastic usage, books were
executed for lay patrons by secular professional scribes
from the learned families. The “Golden Age” of the
Gospel manuscripts, the illuminated service books and
the book shrines of the Celtic saints, was largely the
product of Irish monastic scriptoria, ensuring them a
unique place in the history of western European civi-
lization.
J. J. N. MCGURKReferences and Further Reading
Bieler, Ludwig. Ireland, Harbinger of the Middle Ages (1963).
Flower, Robin. The Irish Tradition. (Oxford, 1947).
Henry, Francoise. Irish Art in the Early Christian Period (to
A.D. 800) (1957).
Henry, Francoise, and M. Marsh. “A century of Irish illumina-
tion, 1070–1170.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy,
62C (1962), 101.
Kenney, J. F. The Sources for the Early History of Ireland. I,
Ecclesiastical, (NewYork: Columbia Univesity Press, 1929;
reprint Dublin 1966).
McGurk, J. J. N. “The Origins of our letters.” History Today,
xviii no.10 (1968).
McGurk, Patrick. “The Irish Pocket Gospel Book.” Sacris
Erudiri no. 8 (1956), 249-.
Moody,T. W., F. X. Martin, and F. J. Byrne, editors. New History
of Ireland: Medieval Ireland. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1987).
Ó Cuív, Brian, editor. Seven Centuries of Irish Learning.
(Dublin, 1961).
O’Neill, Timothy. “Script.” Encyclopaedia of Ireland. Edited by
B. Lalor (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2003).
The Ordnance Survey Map of Monastic Ireland. (Dublin 1964).
Ryan, John. Irish Monasticism: Origins and Early Develop-
ment. (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1931).
Thompson, E. M. “Calligraphy in the middle ages.” Biblio-
graphica, iii. (1897).
See also Armagh; Armagh, Book of;
Manuscript Illumination