What Are the Lindisfarne Gospels?

The Lindisfarne Gospels are an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels, written in Latin in the Insular half-uncial script and decorated with elaborate ornament and figurative imagery. They were produced around 700 CE at the monastery of Lindisfarne, the great Northumbrian monastery founded by St. Aidan in 635, and are now housed in the British Library in London. The manuscript is one of the masterpieces of the Insular tradition and one of the most important surviving manuscripts of the early Middle Ages.

The argument below links to the related treatment of the Book of Kells, to the broader treatment of the Insular and Anglo-Saxon art, and to the monastic culture of the British Isles.

The Origin and History of the Manuscript

The Lindisfarne Gospels were produced at the monastery of Lindisfarne (also called Holy Island) off the coast of Northumbria, the great Northumbrian monastery founded by the Irish monk St. Aidan in 635. The community at Lindisfarne was the most important center of the Irish missionary tradition in Northumbria, and the scriptorium was a major center of manuscript production. The manuscript is traditionally associated with Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721, who is credited in a tenth-century colophon with the work of writing, illuminating, and binding the manuscript. The colophon is now known to be a later addition, but the attribution to Eadfrith is widely accepted by modern scholars.

The manuscript is a copy of the Vulgate version of the four Gospels, with prefatory matter including canon tables, breviaries, and a list of chapter divisions. The text is written in the Insular half-uncial script, with a high degree of legibility, and is decorated with elaborate ornament and figurative imagery. The manuscript was kept at Lindisfarne through the Viking raids of the late eighth and ninth centuries, was moved to Chester-le-Street in 883, and was finally moved to Durham in the late tenth century. The manuscript has been in the British Library (and its predecessor, the British Museum) since the seventeenth century, and it is one of the most famous manuscripts in the world.

The Contents and Decoration

The Lindisfarne Gospels contains the four Gospels in the Latin Vulgate, with prefatory matter. The decoration is among the most elaborate of the surviving Insular manuscripts. The manuscript contains five major carpet pages — full pages of pure ornament with no text — one at the beginning of each Gospel and one at the beginning of the preliminary matter. The famous carpet pages include the Liber generationis page (folio 3r), the In principio pages (folios 4r, 4v, 5r, 5v), and the Matheus page (folio 27r). The cross-carpet page at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew (folio 218r) is one of the most reproduced images in the history of Insular art.

The decoration also includes five major evangelist portraits (folios 25r, 93r, 137r, 188r, 209r), each placed at the beginning of the corresponding Gospel, and a number of major initials. The iconography of the evangelist portraits, showing the four gospel writers in various poses with their symbols, is closely related to the late Roman and Coptic iconographic traditions. The pigments include red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, and white, and the gold and silver leaf is applied in small areas. The ornament is closely related to the metalwork tradition, with the interlace, spirals, key patterns, and zoomorphic forms of the period all represented in the manuscript.

Eadfrith and the Lindisfarne Scriptorium

Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne from 698 to 721, is traditionally credited with the production of the Lindisfarne Gospels. The attribution is recorded in a tenth-century colophon added to the manuscript at Chester-le-Street, which states: “Eadfrith, bishop of the church of Lindisfarne, originally wrote this book, by the hand of Eadfrith, for God and for St. Cuthbert, and the community of St. Cuthbert.” The attribution has been widely accepted by modern scholars, although the precise role of Eadfrith — whether he was the scribe, the illuminator, or simply the patron who commissioned the work — is debated.

The scriptorium of Lindisfarne was one of the most important in the Insular world. The community, founded by St. Aidan from Iona in 635, was a major center of the Irish missionary tradition in Northumbria. The scriptorium produced a number of other manuscripts, of which the Durham Gospels and the fragments of other early Northumbrian books are the most important surviving examples. The Lindisfarne Gospels was the masterpiece of the scriptorium, and it set the standard for the production of the great Northumbrian gospel books of the eighth and ninth centuries.

The Significance of the Manuscript

The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the most famous manuscripts in the world and one of the most studied. It is a key monument of the Insular tradition, the earliest surviving fully decorated Insular gospel book (the Book of Durrow is somewhat earlier but less elaborate), and a major source for the study of early medieval art, script, and theology. The manuscript is also a major tourist attraction in London, and a high-quality facsimile is available for study and exhibition. The manuscript has been the subject of major exhibitions at the British Library and at the major libraries and museums of the world, and it is one of the most reproduced and most familiar manuscripts in the world.

The influence of the Lindisfarne Gospels on the subsequent development of Western art has been substantial. The great Insular gospel books of the late eighth and ninth centuries, of which the Book of Kells is the most famous, drew on the Lindisfarne tradition. The Carolingian and Ottomanian manuscript traditions of the ninth to eleventh centuries incorporated Insular elements drawn from the Lindisfarne model. The Celtic Revival, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the modern interest in non-naturalistic visual languages have all drawn on the Lindisfarne tradition.

The Monk Aldred and the Old English Gloss

The Lindisfarne Gospels is the earliest surviving manuscript of the Old English gloss on the Gospels. The gloss, the interlinear translation of the Latin text into Old English, was added to the manuscript in the tenth century by the priest Aldred, who served the community of St. Cuthbert at Chester-le-Street. The gloss is of major importance for the study of the Old English language and for the study of the Northumbrian dialect in particular. The gloss is one of the major sources for the study of Old English, and the manuscript is one of the most important documents of the Anglo-Saxon and Insular Christian tradition.