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The Book of Kells, the Book of
Durrow, the Lindisfarne Gospels and other Celtic manuscripts were written and decorated
entirely by natural daylight. According to Marc Drogin in "Medieval Calligraphy"
(Dover Books) the monasteries were so fearful of accidental fire that the use of candles
or oil lamps was forbidden inside the scriptoriums (writing rooms) and libraries. The
scribe worked from dawn till dusk, stopping only for prayer and meals or his turn at the
hoe, working in the fields alongside his brethren. |
The use of small red dots in
Celtic manuscripts does not (contrary to some modern interpretations) represent the
"universal life force", but was in fact a decorative device. The technique,
known to calligraphers as rubrication, was borrowed by the Celtic monks from Egyptian
Coptic Christian manuscripts brought to Ireland by missionaries in the 5th century. The
small red dots were used to outline large initials or to make a particular line of text
stand out from the page. In later years, Celtic artists elevated the humble red dot into a
high art form, creating complex webs of delicate knotwork and even animal interlace. |
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Before St. Patrick
introduced books along with Christianity to Ireland, the Irish had no useful written
language. Ogham, a primitive system of slashes and dots, was used to inscribe names on
gravesites and standing stones, but proved too cumbersome for everyday use. So when the
Roman alphabet was introduced in the fifth century, the Irish embraced it as their own,
and even adapted it for the Gaelic tongue to record their ancient myths and legends. |
| The production of a single copy
of the Four Gospels such as the Book of Kells required that the monks keep a herd of as
many as 1200 cattle, which also provided food and milk for the
monastery. It has been
estimated that the Book of Kells originally was written on the skins of about 185 animals.
Paper being then unknown, this parchment was their only source of writing material. |
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The monks who labored daily over
their writing tables, endlessly copying out page after page of text, some of which they
could barely translate, often grew fatigued and made errors. Just as modern calligraphers
do, the scribes occasionally repeated a word or line, made a spelling mistake, and did not
notice the error. In the Book of Kells there are numerous places where the red ink of the
editor made later corrections to the Latin text. After a day's work was done, the young scribes often penned short notes, prayers or poems
in tiny script in the margins. One later scribe finished copying out a text,
noting it
as: "...very long, very verbose, and very tedious for the scribe." |
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