The Book of Kells - a rock star of manuscripts

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The Book of Kells

Commentary by Bernard Meehan

Perennially long queues at Trinity College, Dublin, clearly indicate the treasure within the Library.  This rock star of mediaeval Latin manuscripts, the Book of Kells, dates from around 800 AD and offers some of the most intricate interlace designs ever formulated to adorn its text of the four Gospels.  While its origins and precise date remain uncertain, since no colophon survives, the volume probably stems from the monastery of Iona off the west coast of Scotland, and it certainly climaxes the Hiberno-Saxon heritage of manuscript illumination.  Its unexpected name comes from the Irish town in County Meath where it was located in another monastery for eight centuries, before it was acquired by Trinity College in 1661.

This lovely publication with lush colour reproductions, including exquisite details, offers yet another sterling example of Thames and Hudson's dedication to quality publication of major books (their 1999 anniversary edition of Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili – originally published in Venice in 1499 – with woodcuts and layout of translation was another landmark).  Fully 84 images are reproduced at full size, and additional enlarged details permit close inspection of both design and calligraphy. 

The Book of Kells has been handsomely published before; a generation ago Alfred A. Knopf reproduced its pages with an introduction by Françoise Henry, then Head of Department of the History of Painting at University College, Dublin.  Thames and Hudson must have enormous powers of persuasion, since obtaining photographs of the manuscript from Trinity College has proved massively difficult for art history scholars in recent years.

Yet this publication offers far more than a sumptuous coffee table book.  Like the sacred verbal contents of the Book of Kells itself, commentary here elucidates its imagery.  For this edition features an extensive analysis by Bernard Meehan, Head of Research Collections and Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College Library, who writes from his privileged vantage point of three decades as curator of this very book (as well as earlier Hiberno-Saxon masterpieces in the collection, such as the Book of Durrow). 

Meehan's study will remain definitive, even for the most exacting of scholars.  With special care in an appendix he attends to the structure of the book by gatherings, noting the different flesh and hair sides of the vellum and noting the prayers on each major folio.  Separate chapters treat the history of the book, including later additions, as well as its physical elements: bindings, vellum, pigments and inks.  Close attention is given to its original components and images.  Techniques of application of script and attention to the four different scribes shows the meticulous codicology of Meehan, who of course also explicates the imagery and its sources in considerable detail.   Minutiae of decoration are scrutinized for symbolic content, including animal motifs and even hidden Gospel narratives.

In sum, this volume – sumptuously produced at full size, fully explicated with impeccable scholarship, yet affordably priced – is a gift, a permanent record of one of Christendom's greatest manuscript productions.

The Book of Kells,  commentary by Bernard Meehan, is published by Thames and Hudson 2012. 256 pp. 230 colour and 20 mono illus, €60; €75 slipcased. ISBN 978-0-500-23894-3