Book-Making in Early Christian Ireland Author(s): Timothy O'Neill Source: Archaeology Ireland, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp.

96-100 Published by: Wordwell Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20558296 Accessed: 29/06/2010 07:40
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BOOK-MAKING CHRISTIAN

IN EARLY

IRELAND

Timothy O'Neill

in the fifteenth of printing invention was If one needed a handwritten. book century every book one copied it or employed a scribe to do the was a valued skill and the ability to job. Writing write clearly and beautifully on a well designed page was a highly prized craft. was a vital part of every The scriptorium Ireland as in Early Christian important monastery books were needed for the school, for the library and had their cherished Individuals for worship. personal books which they copied or inherited. One ecclesiastic wrote a beautiful poem in praise of his which he called Crinog. One verse in psalm-book translation runs: Frank O'Connor's Before the You are a token and a sign To men of what all men must heed; Each day your lovers learn anew God's praise is all the skill they need. so jealously their churchmen guarded an of unauthorised that the making manuscripts at C?l Dreimne copy once led to a full-scale battle? of in AD the birth 560 before (10 years Other Mohammed). Learning to write: to a monastic All young scholars coming school would have had to learn writing. Since paper was not in use and vellum and parchment were so expensive, the first lessons would have been with chalk and to using a slate. Later the scholars would progress metal stylus or some such sharply pointed object on 96

Fig. 1?Detail from the Book of Keils, f.8, showing a young student with what appear to be waxed writing tablets (photograph courtesy of the Board, Trinity College, Dublin).

the slates. Inscribed slates of this sort survive from the late medieval Co. Louth. site at Smarmore, From the slates the novice scribe would have graduated to using a stylus on waxed tablets. Waxed writing tablets and stylus were the ancient equivalent of ballpoint pen and jotter and were in use all over the western world for note-taking and letter-writing. out a rectangle The tablets were made by hollowing from the front and back of a wooden slab. These were filled with wax which was easily hollows inscribed with a sharp stylus. Several tablets could a sort of be linked together by thongs, making wooden book. The writing was erased by rubbing the with the end of the smooth surface the tablet ready for use again. stylus?making A reasonable proficiency inmaking outline letters to control a writing and in training the hand muscles

^^^^p

2?Seventh-century Fig. verses (photograph courtesy

waxed tablet from of the National Museum

Springmount of Ireland).

Bog, Co. Antrim,

inscribed with psalm

would have been before necessary to the which needed of pens proceeding complexities ink. These could have been made from reeds but were cut from quills, most the flight commonly feathers of large birds. The feathers had to be cured or seasoned, i.e. the barrels had to be clear and hard before scribes use a process cutting. Nowadays which involves the tips in water and soaking a them for few seconds into heated sand. plunging to When cured, the quills were cut with a penknife give a nib of the size required. The nib invariably had a chisel top and this broad tip is the key to how different understanding scripts were written. When the scribes held the pens at a writing constant angle. For broad round majuscule forms, such as are used in the Book the of Kells,

instrument

ones. In the Book of Armagh horizontal the scribe, who died in AD 850, used a much Ferdomnach, thinner nib which he held at an angle of about 45sos to the writing lines, resulting in a more compressed and angular script. This style came to be known as Irish minuscule and became the characteristic hand for writing in Irish for the next 1000 years, until the

1960s!

l>en

tbu>ritin? O hne5 broad-nibbed quill was held almost parallel to the lines, giving thick vertical strokes and thin writing
tb lines

heia \ x dtkS0

/"\

pm

'

'

hel?pAr<?lel

were two kinds of inks used in early Irish One was made from manuscripts. lamp black or soot) and the other carbon from (basically are growths crushed oak galls which caused by insects on oak trees. Both the intensely black carbon ink and the slightly brownish gall ink were used in the Book of Kells. For writing purposes the ink was kept in an inkhorn which was sometimes the pointed end of a cow's horn fixed to the side of a writing desk. Frequently the manuscripts depict a scribe an a inkhorn with using long spike. This feature enabled the inkhorn to be fitted into a hole in the desk or pushed into an earthen floor or into the ground if writing was being done in the open air. 97

Ink There

and vellum as a writing material had gone out of Papyrus were introduced fashion before into books long used for all the manuscripts Ireland. The material was parchment or vellum. Parchment is the name an to skin with animal which has been treated given lime to remove the hair, fat and other soluble is calfskin so treated and was the proteins. Vellum on the most common writing material. Depending was or skin of the animal the thick, the age light youngest animals giving the finest and whitest skins. with been familiar the Scribes would have of skins and it must have been part of preparation to learn how to soak the skin, every apprenticeship a with it very carefully stretch it and scrape round-bladed knife, removing all the hair from the outer side and the fatty tissue from the inside. The result in an oval hole smallest nick or cut would when the skin was stretched and dried. The skin was to make it gently rubbed with pumice or cuttlefish smooth and all traces of grease were treated with Irish manuscripts chalk. The margins of medieval in complaints the bad quality of abound about to cold and cramp it was the scribe's vellum ?next affliction. 'New vellum, bad ink...Oh I say greatest a comment penned in Irish in a was more' nothing Latin grammar c. AD 850. Before a book could be copied, enough vellum had to be selected and double-spread pages cut from such as the the skin. For personal psalm-books Cathach of St Columcille and pocket gospel-books four such as the Books of Dumma and Mulling, leaves making eight pages could be obtained from an

Parchment

the Evangelist from the Book of Fig. 3?St Matthew Mulling (f.12). the characteristic curved quill in his right hand Note and the spiked inkhorn below (photograph courtesy of the Board, Trinity College, Dublin). more elaborate manuscripts would have needed two leaves from a skin?hence the Book of Kells required about 175 skins. The scribe would leaves in arrange his vellum gatherings, usually of five leaves, and if he was careful he would match the darker and lighter colours of the hair and flesh sides so that the pages of of the book would each opening be a uniform colour. When he had numbered the pages the task of ruling the writing tedious lines would commence. A needle-sharp point would be used to the thickness of the five leaves, pick through the ends of the lines so that the ruling would marking be uniform on each page. Next, lines would be scored on each leaf with a pointed object, perhaps the tip of a knife, making a little furrow on one side and a slight ridge on the page behind. Colours and ornament At this point, before would be thought

than twenty average young calfskin and not more skins would be needed for any one book. Larger and 98

beginning to given

some to write, ornamentation,

~''~ '" "i^oewtnjI^?jiiraitj

? *v

nuerm^inqrooeoxijeiliTVQCfimh?ti?n? ?iXXl?CIl?oefral^<x?3?^ otromb *^*

?i|ei%Aitn {^nkaoeft?eftr-.

were natural colours used in manuscripts were and from produced dyes. They pigments or by simple chemical minerals either directly processes. Yellow was from the mineral orpiment (arsenic trisulphide), green from verdigris, the green rust of copper, white was white lead or lead carbonate, and red was red lead formed by heating white lead. Some of these minerals occur in Ireland and native sources could have been utilised. Lead occurs at Glendalough carbonate and green in in Bronze small old quantities Age verdigris copper workings. The orpiment was almost certainly imported along with more exotic colours such as the latter kermes red and lapis lazuli blue, although is very close in colour to azurite which does occur on the surface near the old copper mines at Allihies, Co. Cork. A range of purples and blues were made from woad, which was grown in Ireland at one time and from varieties of whelks, found along the coast. All pigments were in powder form and were mixed with some kind of binding agent such as a resin gum or from egg white. Water was added to glair made make a paint which would adhere to the page. The

inqi>0?^?icouobis

donee
How long did it take? The drawing and painting always associated with book production made a welcome change from the tedium, cramp and silence accompanying writing. a formal script or bookhand When it is writing difficult to write for much longer than an hour or so a short break. The frequent prayer times without be a the day in a monastery would throughout of welcome relief! The modern-day experiences as their scribes using exactly the same materials in earlier days ?quill and vellum are predecessors still unsurpassed writing materials ?can give some idea of the time taken over the writing of an average These observations, manuscript. along with notes in later medieval and colophons manuscripts, indicate that 180-200 words per hour would be a the of of output representative proficient penman. over six hours scripting ?i.e. writing a Anything formal hand? would be difficult even under ideal of brightness, warmth conditions and quiet. a a scribe six hours working day could Accordingly text of the Book of the black writing complete 485 pages in about sixty working Durrow's days. The illumination of the 11 fully decorated pages in 485 pages in thiting text of the Book of Durrow's about sixty working days. The illumination of the 11 in a manuscript could pages fully decorated be within the same timespan if probably completed artist and scribe worked side by side. Otherwise the 99

[81 e^?

*to?iOTrunii?tfDenA

the Book of Durrow page of text from Fzg. 4 ?A (f.28v) which probably took about 30 minutes to write (photograph courtesy of the Board, Trinity College, Dublin).

depending on the type of text that was being written. This task would be made simple if the scribe were to copy exactly each page from his exemplar. If a small was being written the scribe would gospel-book perhaps want four evangelist portraits, one to begin each section, and perhaps a number of 'carpet pages' to show his skill in the use of interlace of ornament and spirals. It would also be possible that he would for a more leave these pages blank artistic to and when draw later the main companion paint or text was In the case of younger finished. such matters apprentice scribes in a large monastery would be decided well in advance by the master of the scriptorium.

-'-

fell

lfa^;^?W

ftssi

Fig. 5?Interior of a library of Ethiopian monks living in Egypt, as seen by Robert Curzon in 1837. Note the book satchels hanging on the walls. He describes how were written, painted in and bound manuscripts whole task could be finished talented by one individual well within eight months, which was the time allotted for writing the four gospels in the as of decreed imperial scriptorium Ethiopia by the Minister of Pen as recently as 1919! were bound, usually in Completed manuscripts wooden boards using complex stitching and cording, as recent studies of the binding of the Book of Armagh have shown. Saints' lives and other sources were kept that manuscripts indicate in leather

wooden

boards. The parallel with an early Irish is remarkable (engraving from Curzons scriptorium to monasteries Visits in the Levant, ("London,

1849)).
satchels which hung from pegs on the walls of cells. This method of storage protected the books from the It also made them ravages of damp and rodents. so when and ensured necessary easily transportable the survival of many to the present day.

is a historian and calligrapher. He Timothy O'Neill is the author of The Irish hand (1984) and Merchants in medieval Ireland (1987). and mariners

a.b.a. Isle Books Emerald BOOKSELLERS ANTIQUARIAN

TO IRELAND SPECIALISTS INBOOKS RELATING AND LIBRARIES PURCHASED COLLECTIONS FREEON APPLICATION AVAILABLE CATALOGUES
539 ANTRIM ROAD, BELFAST BT15 3BU, N. IRELAND "ALDUS" Belfast Belfast Cables: (0232) 370798 Telephone: Directors: John A. Gamble, F.R.G.S., J. E. Gamble

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