the Irish-English islands where it was produced, flourished within
the monasteries of the British Isles. Its most distinctive products
were the illuminated manuscripts of the Christian Church (see
“Medieval Books,” above). Books were the primary vehicles in the ef-
fort to Christianize the British Isles. They literally brought the Word
of God to a predominantly illiterate population who regarded the
monks’ sumptuous volumes with awe. Books were scarce and jeal-
ously guarded treasures of the libraries and scriptoria (writing stu-
dios) of monasteries and major churches. Illuminated books are the
most important extant monuments of the brilliant artistic culture
that flourished in Ireland and Northumbria during the seventh and
eighth centuries.
BOOK OF DURROW Among the earliest Hiberno-Saxon illu-
minated manuscripts is the Book of Durrow,a Gospel book that may
have been written and decorated in the monastic scriptorium at
Iona, although its provenance is not documented. In the late Middle
Ages it was in the monastery in Durrow, Ireland—hence its modern
name. The Durrow Gospels already display one of the most character-
istic features of Insular book illumination: full pages devoted neither
to text nor to illustration but to pure embellishment. The Hiberno-
Saxon painters must have felt that such ornament lent prestige to
books just as ornamental jewelry lent status to those who wore it.
Interspersed between the Durrow text pages are so-called carpet
pages,resembling textiles, made up of decorative panels of abstract
and zoomorphic forms (compare FIG. 16-1). The Book of DurrowT
he central role books played in the medieval Christian Church
led to the development of a large number of specialized types
for priests, monks and nuns, and laypersons.
The primary sacred text came to be called the Bible (“the
Book”), consisting of the Old Testament of the Jews, originally writ-
ten in Hebrew, and the Christian New Testament, written in Greek.
In the late fourth century, Saint Jerome produced the canonical
Latin, or Vulgate (vulgar, or common tongue), version of the Bible,
which incorporates 46 Old and 27 New Testament books. Before the
invention of the printing press in the 15th century, all books were
written by hand (“manuscripts,” from the Latin manu scriptus).
Bibles were extremely difficult to produce, and few early medieval
monasteries possessed a complete Bible. Instead, scribes often gath-
ered several biblical books in separate volumes.
The Pentateuch contains the first five books of the Old Testament,
beginning with the Creation of Adam and Eve (Genesis). The Gospels
(“good news”) are the New Testament works of Saints Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John (see “The Four Evangelists,” page 412) and tell the
story of the life of Christ (see “The Life of Jesus in Art,” Chapter 11,
pages 296 –297). Medieval Gospel books often contained canon
tables—a concordance, or matching, of the corresponding passages of
the four Gospels that Eusebius of Caesarea compiled in the fourth
century.Psalterscontained the 150 psalms of King David, written in
Hebrew and translated into both Greek and Latin.
The Church also frequently employed other types of books. The
lectionary contains passages from the Gospels reordered to appear in
the sequence that priests read them during the celebration of Mass
throughout the year.Breviaries include the texts required for the
monks’ daily recitations.Sacramentaries incorporate the prayers
priests recite during Mass.Benedictionals contain bishops’ blessings.
In the later Middle Ages, scribes developed books for the private de-
votions of the laity, patterned after monks’ readers. The most popu-
lar was the Book of Hours,so called because it contains the prayers to
be read at specified times of the day.
Scribes produced many other types of books in the Middle
Ages—theological treatises, secular texts on history and science, and
even some classics of Greco-Roman literature—but these contained
illustrations less frequently than the various sacred texts.Medieval Books
ART AND SOCIETY16-5Wooden portal of the stave church at Urnes, Norway,
ca. 1050–1070.
By the 11th century, Scandinavia had become mostly Christian,
but Viking artistic traditions persisted, as seen in the intertwining
animal-and-plant decoration of the portal of this Norwegian church.Christian Art: Scandinavia, British Isles, Spain 411