The Lindisfarne Gospels : A Living Manuscript

This article questions how current and previous owners have marked the Lindisfarne Gospels, created 1,300 years ago. Their edits, which would be frowned upon today, are useful for historians to understand how the Gospels have been valued by previous owners and thus why they are so treasured today. 

The Lindisfarne Gospels are on display in the treasures gallery of the British Library.The eighthcentury Insular manuscript is opened and accompanied by a short caption with information about the work.i It is presented as a 1,300-year-old masterpiece, which has survived to the present day against the odds of time.The average visitor will overlook even the most pervasive changes that can be observed in the manuscript.With modern science and ever improving conservation technologies, we are quick to judge those who "desecrate" items from the past, but we are far less critical if that physical change was made two centuries ago.The display of the Lindisfarne Gospels should prompt viewers to question how what they see today is not the original but rather a manuscript that has lived among many communities and bears marks from them.It is difficult to criticise edits made long ago, though, especially when they harm only the aesthetics of the book.The changes made to the Lindisfarne Gospels have only affected how the manuscript is viewed; it remains a book of the Holy Scriptures.
When studied with historical empathy, the edits are beneficial for enabling an understanding of this book as a sacred text, a work of art, and a window into British curatorial practices.
Physical changes to the Lindisfarne Gospels denote how their symbolic significance has changed over time.The book was created within a monastic community and kept by the church until Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries.In this capacity, it was both a sacred text and a relic of St.
Columba.However, the seventeenth-century collector of manuscripts, Sir Robert Cotton, likely bought the book because he recognised its scholarly value and artistic richness.Once the Gospels came into the national collection at the British Library they became a link to the past and a relic of Britain's national identity.Yet all of the book's curators have left a mark, whether within the text or as an addition to the original manuscript.These marks take many forms, internal and external, but almost all were motivated by recognition that this was an uncommonly beautiful and historically significant manuscript.
Most likely, a single artist-scribe, Eadfrith, created the Lindisfarne Gospels.He was a monk of the cult of St. Columba and bishop from AD 698-721, at the time likely on the Holy Isle now known as Lindisfarne.Eadfrith's script is in Latin and he also created portraits of the four evangelists and crosscarpet pages to begin each gospel.The manuscript is on vellum, written and decorated with a vast array of local pigments (Brown,Painted 280).It travelled with the relics of the monastic community in the 9th century, and is not listed in Durham's library lists, denoting that it could have been

FORUM | SPECIAL ISSUE 03
Walker 2 considered a relic rather than a book (Bruce-Mitford 100).This book was for worship and religious ceremonies rather than personal use and study.Yet, laymen of the community likely would have seen the pages; the images and illumination would have made the scriptures more understandable to an illiterate audience (Kendric 30).In further support of the theory that it was not entirely inaccessible, there are several gospel books made shortly after the Lindisfarne gospels that are believed to be linked, if not direct descendants of the manuscript.These include the portrait pages of the Copenhagen gospels and parts of the Rushworth Gospels and BL Stowe MS 1061 (Stanton 52;Brown,Painted 141).
The most comprehensive and significant alteration made to the Lindisfarne Gospels is a gloss and colophon completed around AD 950 by Aldred, priest and later provost for the community of St.
Cuthbert.The colophon is written at the end of the original manuscript, beginning below the final word of the original.It is not an external addition, but imposed upon Eadfrith's manuscript.Though it detracts from the beautiful illuminated script of the final page, it is only from Aldred's inscription that we presume Eadfrith created the manuscript and another monk, Billfrith, its original binding.
Aldred's interlinear gloss consists of scratchy-looking Anglo-Saxon translations sitting above and in contrast to the crafted Latin script of nearly every page.Glossing was a common monastic pedagogical tool in tenth century North Britain.It was one of many techniques of scholarly interpretation and one way to integrate the new Latin church with the existing Celtic church.Glossing, both for translation and commentary, can serve to cement the authority of a text by implying that it needs an intermediary -the gloss -in order to be fully understood (Stanton 11).Thus, in its time, Aldred's edit signified the holiness of this particular gospel book.Robert Stanton argues that Anglo-Saxon glossing is instructive for later scholars as a window into monastic culture.This comprehensive edit reflects the need to learn Latin as a second language, ways that churches and communities used both languages actively, and suggests that the vernacular was valid for biblical interpretation (13).In one particular quadruple gloss, Aldred offers four equivalent English words for the one Latin: desponsata.Stanton concludes from this that the gloss has been a tool for expanding language both in contemporary cultural pursuits like poetry and in aiding later linguists (Stanton 52).
Today it is unthinkable to write in a two-hundred-year-old text, much less one of such beauty and sanctity, but Aldred took part in a practice that was relatively common in tenth-century monastic communities.Glossing was very rare before the tenth century, but by Aldred's time it was becoming a popular practice (Nees 363;Stanton 34).This addition may have been a career move; he mentions an amount paid by him in the colophon, suggesting that, as we might read it today, he bought his way into the community.The payment also signifies that the community leaders desired that this change be made to their holy relic.Aldred's edit was a sign of reverence in his day.His information for the colophon likely came from a number of sources, including oral tradition.He also may have found much of it in the Corpus Christi College 183 manuscript, likely with the community of St. Cuthbert by AD 939 .For these reasons, the originality of the colophon's content should be considered with a grain of salt, but we cannot discount the historical and linguistic value of Aldred's

FORUM | SPECIAL ISSUE 03
Walker 3 additions for later generations.Around this time, there was a shift wherein the written word began to hold the authority of cultural memory instead of the spoken word; the choice to put the book's history in writing belongs in this larger context (Kendric 29).
The gloss detracts from the manuscript's beauty, but it did not cause physical harm.Eight artistically rich pages, those with cross carpets and evangelist portraits, had no words for glossing and remain unchanged.The gloss and colophon were a tenth-century form of preservation, cementing the book's relic status by putting its early history in writing within its own pages.In fact, the stark contrast between Eadfrith's original illuminated script and Aldred's cumbersome notes suggests that the religious value of the book weighed much more heavily than the artistic value for its tenth century curators.It was a living manuscript for the community, and the physical changes allowed its usefulness and purpose to also be adjusted.The fact that Aldred glossed the Latin into Anglo-Saxon shows that there was a concern similar to the Reformation's that the Holy Scriptures should be accessible in the vernacular.Furthermore, by doing so in such a high-profile manuscript, Aldred raised the status of the vernacular itself (Stanton 53).
After the tenth century glossing, there is little certainty about the life of the Lindisfarne Gospels.Symeon of Durham wrote about them in his 12th century histories, denoting that they were alive in the memory of Scottish monastic communities.He describes a book, most likely the Lindisfarne Gospels, "jumping" overboard and washing up on the shores of the Solway Firth.Hunred -a monk of the community -was led there by a dream and found the book unscathed.Apparently such miraculous water survivals of precious manuscripts were common in the collective memory of the time (Brown,.Regardless of the extent to which this is true, Symeon's account shows another way that the book was accorded relic status.Although his hands did not alter it, his story illustrates that preservation from physical damage and loss was a regular concern. In 1605 the book surfaced again in the possession of Robert Bowyer, who sold it to Sir Robert Cotton by 1621 (Brown,Painted 136).During this time, Lawrence Nowell used the gloss for scholarly research while compiling an Anglo-Saxon dictionary (Brown,Painted 132).Nowell made some chapter notations in the margins of the manuscript.Most were probably trimmed away with a later binding, but eleven are still visible in an orange-red script (Tite 137).These markings are now incorporated into the text.When Nowell made the chapter notations, though, he acted alone to write in a five-hundred-year-old text.This edit was the act of an individual, not the decision of a community.Nowell's marks inform our knowledge of scholarly practices in the seventeenth century and attitudes towards the care and maintenance of ancient manuscripts.However, unlike the gloss, they were not made in order to help preserve or revere the manuscript.
Cotton was a notable collector of manuscripts and donated his library to the nation.It was one of the few fundamental collections for the British Museum and now the British Library.An edit almost as pervasive as Aldred's gloss is the "British Museum" stamp that appears consistently in the manuscript.A different stamp "Museum Brittanicum" is on several folios as well; these likely pre-date

FORUM | SPECIAL ISSUE 03
Walker 4 the ones with the image of the crown (Brown,Painted 128).We can therefore conclude that this practice, too, continued over a span of years.The ink of the stamps appear to do no physical harm to the vellum, but it is shocking to realise that nineteenth-century caretakers of the manuscript, so close to the modern day, made such a consistent alteration to the body of the original text.When the librarians stamped the Lindisfarne Gospels, the book was nearly one thousand years old.Adding stamps was a collective decision, but should the Museum have done this?
Stamping was a standard practice in the Department of Manuscripts and appears in most of their holdings.These small, red marks are a constant visual reminder of who owns and cares for the manuscript.It seems today that the only harm done by these stamps is aesthetic.They are interspersed anachronisms that edit the look of the manuscript but not what it says.We should question why the Museum did this; an edit made one thousand years later should raise a (literal) red flag for viewers.Ultimately, though, this ink visually signifies an important transition in the ownership, status, and life of the Lindisfarne Gospels.The stamps inform our knowledge of the manuscript's history and also the early collecting practices of museums.Should the Lindisfarne Gospels or other manuscripts change hands again centuries from now, the stamps might be as informative for future owners as Aldred's colophon has been for us.
Physical changes take the form of external additions, too, which with time are considered integral to the work.Aldred's colophon is the only source of information about the Lindisfarne Gospels' original binding.He wrote: "And AEthelwald, bishop of the Lindisfarne-islanders, impressed it on the outside and covered it -as he well knew how to do.And Billfrith, the anchorite, forged the ornaments which are on it on the outside and adorned it with gold and with gems and also with gilded-over silver -pure metal" (Nees's translation, 341).Aldred's description first elucidates the high status of the Lindisfarne Gospels in the time of their creation.Billfrith enshrined the manuscript with precious materials to express the worth of the book itself as a relic.Such book shrines were known of at the time and certainly in later centuries.Examples of similar cumdachs, such as the Soiscel Molaise in the National Museum of Ireland and the Sion Book Cover at the Victoria & Albert Museum, survive to the present day to provide clues about how the original cover-shrine may have looked.
Billfrith likely also had access to more portable forms of metalwork, such as jewelry, when designing the original cover.The Hunterston Brooch and a silver ring from the Victoria & Albert Museum are both roughly contemporary to the Lindisfarne Gospels; they show interlace common to Insular art and seen throughout the leaves of the manuscript ("Ring" and Blackwell 27).There is no record of the disappearance or dismantlement of the original binding, but we can deduce that the very physical wealth that served to enhance the spiritual wealth of the manuscript is what made it vulnerable for future generations who valued it for different reasons.The jewels and precious metals were likely removed during the dissolution of the monasteries.Away from the hands of its monastic curators, the book was no longer a sacred object, much less a relic.Fortunately, Robert Bowyer obtained the manuscript by 1605, likely recognizing it for its religious value and artistic richness.

FORUM | SPECIAL ISSUE 03 Walker 5
Michelle Brown speculates that the original binding could have included an inscription that Aldred referenced when writing the colophon (Painted 93-4).Her argument lacks substantial evidence, but she does highlight the efforts of subsequent generations to add their own mark on a treasured, often holy, object.A number of other fine early medieval objects have such alterations from later generations, suggesting that this was an accepted form of editing from the tenth to fifteenth centuries.Contemporary to the time surrounding the Lindisfarne Gospels' creation and colophon, it was acceptable -kingly in fact -to make additions to holy objects or recycle old pieces into new ones.This practice cemented the authority of secular transactions and it often meant physical alterations or additions to the objects.A Scottish example of this is the Book of Deer, which has later land charters written into its margins (Foster and Jones 13).Similarly, the Royal AEthelstan Gospels, written in the eighth century, contain an inscription recording King AEthelstan's manumission of slaves in AD 924 (Brown,"Book" 58).
Later inscriptions of ownership or dedication appear on metalwork objects, too.The Hunterston brooch is a particularly well-preserved example of celtic metalwork created around AD 700.Generations after its original production, the owner inscribed her name -Mael Brigte -in tenthcentury runic script (Clarke 124).Scholars still debate whether the Hunterston brooch and others like it were secular or religious objects.If the community, especially by the tenth century, was largely Christian then the two spheres may not have been as separate as we see them today.The Hunterston Brooch, even if owned in the secular community, is similar to other examples of later inscriptions especially because of its highly portable nature and likely visibility as a symbol of status in Insular Scotland.
Beyond written or carved inscriptions, the medieval church often layered saints' relics with precious materials.Two apt examples of this practice are the Kells Crosier and the Crosier of St.
Fillan.The wooden Kells Crosier was covered with bronze plates in the late ninth or tenth century and furthermore with silver in the eleventh century (Blackwell 32).Similarly, the Crosier of St. Fillan today encases its namesake relic, the wooden crook that belonged to the eighth century saint.From the late eleventh up until the fifteenth century, various people added precious metalwork and decoration to it, recycling pieces of earlier decoration in the later ones (Clarke 125).Since decorative additions have been layered over time, the original wood of the crook may have had decoration as well (Clarke 125).Communities added bullion worth to precious objects and relics in order to keep them relevant to their time.This was a standard practice of reverence and preservation for several centuries.
These items -books, crosiers, and brooches -would have been highly portable and possibly seen by a large number of people.They illustrate Insular culture's view on the validity, indeed the importance, of conscious changes to highly valued secular and religious objects.Embellishments and inscriptions provided a way for individuals to make an object their own years after its creation, and sometimes even held an apotropaic property for the owner.ii In the case of the two crosiers, later curators added monetary value to enhance the spiritual value of these objects.The original binding on