The books that Benedict Biscop (and others like him) imported from Rome
contained not only new texts but also illustrations that relied, at least distantly, on
ancient Roman artistic traditions (see Plates 1.1– 4 ). English artists soon combined
their native decorative impulses with that classical interest in human forms. The result
was perfectly suited to flat pages. Consider the Lindisfarne Gospels, which were
probably made at the monastery of Lindisfarne in the first third of the eighth century.
(The Gospels are the four canonical accounts of Christ’s life and death in the New
Testament.) The artist of this sumptuous book was clearly uniting Anglo-Saxon, Irish,
and Roman artistic traditions when he introduced each Gospel with three full-page
illustrations: first, a portrait of the “author” (the evangelist); then an entirely
ornamental “carpet” page; finally, the beginning words of the Gospel text. Plates 2.5
to 2.7 illustrate the sequence for the Gospel of Luke. The figure of Luke (see Plate
2.5), though clearly human, floats in space. His “throne” is a square of ribbons, his
drapery a series of looping lines. The artist captures the essence of an otherworldly
saint without the distraction of three-dimensionality. The carpet page (see Plate 2.6),
with its interlace panels, has some of the features of the Sutton Hoo brooch as well
as Irish interlace patterns. It is more than decorative, however: the design clearly
evokes a cross. The next page (see Plate 2.7) begins with a great letter, Q (for the
first word, “quoniam”), as richly decorated as the cross of the carpet page; gradually,
in the course of the next few words, the ornamentation diminishes. In this way, after
the fanfare of author and carpet pages, the reader is ushered into the Gospel text
itself.
