Peopling Insular Art

Practice, Performance, Perception

Cynthia Thickpenny, Katherine Forsyth, Jane Geddes, Kate Matthis

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781789254556
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

The International Conference on Insular Art (IIAC) is the leading forum for scholars of the visual and material culture of early medieval Ireland and Britain, including manuscript illumination, sculpture, metalwork, and textiles, and encompassing the work of Anglo-Saxon-, Celtic- and Norse-speaking artists. The present volume contains a selection of papers presented at the eighth IIAC, which took place in Glasgow 11-14 July 2017. The theme of IIAC8 - Peopling Insular Art: Practice, Performance, Perception - was intended to focus attention on those who commissioned, created, and engaged with Insular art objects, and how they conceptualised, fashioned, and experienced them (with 'engagement' covering not only contemporary audiences, but later medieval and modern ones too). The twenty-one articles gathered here reflect the diverse ways in which this theme has been interpreted. They demonstrate the intellectual vibrancy of Insular art studies, its international outlook, its interdiscplinarity, and its openness to innovative technologies and approaches, while at the same time demonstrating the strength and enduring value of established methodologies and research practices. The studies collected here focus not only on made objects, but on the creative processes and intellectual decisions which informed their making. This volume brings Insular makers – the illuminators, pattern-makers, rubricators, carvers, and casters – to the fore.

Section 1: Practice

1

Red-handed in the Barberini Gospels: The rubricator did it1

Carol A. Farr

The Barberini Gospels is a splendidly decorated, large-format manuscript, kept since 1902 in the Biblioteca Apostolica of the Vatican (Barberini Lat. 570).2 Its features mark it as a late eighth-century Insular manuscript, but give no absolute evidence of its local origins. It has been attributed to Northumbria, southern England, and Mercia. Michelle Brown has argued convincingly for its origin at Peterborough, and has brought increased attention to Barberini as a ‘Tiberius Group’ manuscript (1991, 195‒6, 197‒202, 205‒20; 1994; 1996, 162‒78; 2001; 2007; cf. Alexander 1992; Lowe 1934). Brown locates Barberini’s origins in the English midlands on the evidence of charter scripts and, as have others, on the classicising but often fanciful style presented in stone sculpture at Breedon, Peterborough, and Castor (2007, 93‒101, 115‒16; cf. Bailey 2000; Farr 2000; Webster 2000; Jewell 1982, 119–20; 1986).An important manuscript that has received relatively little scholarly attention, other than that by Brown, the Barberini Gospels is a manuscript of complex origins. Although Brown has published brief accounts of her palaeographic analysis, much remains to be understood concerning the number of scribes and artists and their working relationships. In this preliminary analysis of the markings and decoration in red, focusing on the numerous run-over marks and line-fillers, I shall attempt to gain some insight into the apparently fluid working methods and relationships of the scribes and artists who produced the remarkable gospel manuscript now known as the Barberini Gospels.

Please note: Images of the Barberini Gospels and other manuscripts discussed may be accessed in full-colour digital facsimiles via the urls provided in the endnotes.

The Barberini Gospels: script and art

Professor Brown has published an analysis of the showy ‘calligraphic script style’ that is a conspicuous earmark of the Tiberius group. She has argued convincingly that the calligraphic script style had a definite political significance in the time of Offa’s ambitious kingdom-building in the late eighth century, and that it was influential on contemporary Irish manuscripts, notably the Books of Armagh and Kells (1991, 195‒6; 1994; 1996, 16‒18, 162‒84; 2001, 286‒90; 2007, 99‒101, 116).

The art of the ‘Tiberius Group’ represents artistic developments of the second half of the eighth century, a departure in Anglo-Saxon England from the earlier style seen in the Durham (Durham Cathedral Library, MS A.II.17)3 and Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.iv).4 Its classicism marks it as a participant in the artistic developments best known from Continental works of the time of Charlemagne’s reign, the Carolingian period (Hawkes 2001, 244‒5; Jewell 2001). The evangelist portraits in the Barberini Gospels provide perhaps the clearest examples of this late eighth-century Insular classicism. The figures’ modelled forms have a consistent illusionistic solidity not seen in the surviving examples of evangelist portraits associated with Northumbria, including the Ezra portrait in the Codex Amiatinus (early eighth century).

Alongside the gravitas of the monumental classicising portraits, flamboyant decorative elements animate both major and minor initials. Consistent with the ‘calligraphic’ script style, the flashy style of decoration is a constant feature of illuminated Tiberius group manuscripts. Moreover, the manuscripts’ art displays a special zoomorphic style that is more naturalistic than the abstracted animal interlace of earlier Insular art, but is as inventive and imaginative in its design. The zoomorphic forms often have human features, and letters may have animal or human heads, often with expressive faces. The modern eye sees them as whimsical and humorous, while the decoration’s overall effect is lavish.

As an object, the Barberini Gospels was made to impress. In scale, it is similar to the Book of Kells, having an average text area of 251 × 194 mm, compared with Kells at c. 260 × c. 180 mm. In its present, trimmed, state, the manuscript measures 340 × 258 mm (cf. Kells, 330 × 250 mm). Although Barberini’s decoration has a more limited palette of colours, it almost approaches the extent of that in Kells. In addition to the monumental evangelist portraits, and heavily decorated full-page incipits with display capitals, it has many decorated litterae notabiliores.

Scribes and artist(s)

The Barberini Gospels is a complex manuscript, eclectic in its scripts and decoration. More than one scribe wrote it, but the question of the number of hands remains unresolved. While E.A. Lowe sees ‘many hands’ (1934, 20), Michelle Brown sees four, designated Scribes A, B, C, and D, in the order in which they appear in the manuscript (1996, 167‒8; 2001, 283; 2007, 91‒5 ; cf. Longo 2000, 179‒80). Two of the scribes, A and C, write an Insular half-uncial (majuscule) script related to that of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Brown suggests that Scribes A and C were of southern English origin, but influenced heavily by Northumbrian script styles. They were, she believes, the senior members of the group, C being the ‘mastermind’ who may be identified as the ‘UUigbald’ (Wigbald) of the manuscript’s colophon. Furthermore, she suggests that Wigbald is the priest mentioned in a charter of 786 × 796 in which Abbot Beonna of Medeshamstede (Peterborough) granted land in Lincolnshire to Cuthbert, princeps (2007, 97‒8). Although Brown speculates that Barberini’s second hand, B, may write an unusual script of Mercian context, Scribe B’s origins and status are less well defined, his half-uncial script ‘idiosyncratic but extremely elegant’ (Brown 1996, 167‒8). Yet another variant of Insular half-uncial came from the pen of Scribe D, characterized by ‘hybrid forms and calligraphic mannerisms’, with imaginative zoo- and anthropomorphic line-fillers and letter terminals. This fourth scribe, subordinate and the least skilled but most imaginative, is most clearly Mercian, writing a script with features echoed in other Tiberius group manuscripts, and so closely resembling those in a charter of Offa (BL Add Charter 19790 (S139), 793 × 796) that Brown identifies him as its scribe (1996, 206, fig. 2). The ‘Mercian’, she believes, drew clever, inventive line-fillers in the sections he wrote. As for the number of artists, Brown sees one, a highly sophisticated artist who apparently was not one of the scribal hands, but, she suggests, all four scribes also contributed ‘some artwork within their sections, of varying degrees of artistic aptitude’ (2007, 91, 115).

Marginalia in the Barberini Gospels include still unedited and unpublished liturgical notes, some of which may be invisible due to its tight binding (Bishop 2004, 134‒6; Farr 2017, 140‒2, 144, 146‒7). The notes were probably written at different times, and the dates of individual ones are uncertain. Moreover, the division of scribal hands is not entirely clear: Brown has yet to publish her complete analysis of the manuscript (cf. Bishop 2004, 142‒60). For these reasons, my questions will focus on the relationships of the run-over marks, line-fillers, and decoration drawn at least in part with red pigment, and also on the stylistic relationships of the run-over signs to the major decoration. How many artists were there, and what were their working relationships with the scribes? Were the idiosyncratic line-fillers and run-over marks all the work of Scribe D? How are the various marks in red related to the line-fillers and run-over marks that also have elements in red? Scribe D is key to this discussion of relationships between scribes and artist(s). While the connections of the scribes with the late-eighth-century Mercian charters are cogent and extremely valuable, this study of small additions in red may complement or even modify some of Brown’s findings on the manuscript’s grander features and her analysis of scribal and artistic relationships. Where Professor Brown sees collaboration of ‘the Artist’ with Scribe C (the master scribe, Wigbald), I see close working relationships between Scribe D, the Artist, and the rubricator, or potentially more than one rubricating hand. As will be seen, determining exactly how many persons these terms may represent proves difficult.

As will be seen, moreover, the hand that added some of the embellishments in red in the Barberini Gospels is of special interest with respect to working relationships between the scribes and artist(s). ‘The rubricator’ seems to have worked in relation to both scribe and artist, although he alone may not have wielded the red. The Barberini Gospels has several kinds of additions in red pigment, a relatively large number of which were made alongside additions in black ink. The pigment is red lead (minium), but organic reds were also used in the illuminations (Clarke 2004, 232 n. 1; Bishop 2004, 28, 151). The red additions include:

• Decoration in margins of incipit pages rendered in red dots or pale red lines, usually zoomorphic and interlace;
• Dotted contours around minor initials;
• Interior line decoration of some minor initials;
• Cloud-like frames around most Eusebian section numbers;
• Elongated scrolls in the margins of nearly every folio of text;
• Vine scrolls and other touches on evangelists’ portraits;
• Zoomorphic and vegetal run-over marks, line-fillers, and additions to black run-over marks.

The following analysis of styles and working methods will focus on the run-over marks and line-fillers, but will begin with a few points that may be inferred about the sequences of work relative to the red additions. First, the relationship of the frames around the Eusebian section numbers and the marginal scrolls to the red dotted contours around the minor initials is clear. The frames and scrolls were done at the same time, but separately from the dotted contours. For example, on folio 68r, the scroll ‘disappears’ behind the frame.5 Furthermore, on folio 105r, the Eusebian section initial at the mid line has an outer contour line of dark red dots, and the brighter orange-red frame lines touch the dotted contour, showing that the cloud frame and scroll were added after the dotted contour.6 The red interior contour lines of some minor initials were painted after the section numbers were inscribed, as may be seen on folio 46r, where, at the end of column b, the interior lines of the half uncial d avoid the section numbers that extend into its bow.7 Based on these and numerous other examples, one may deduce the sequence of the marginal scrolls and red additions to the litterae notabiliores. After the Eusebian section numbers were written – perhaps as they were being written – the external dotted contours were made. At some point afterwards, a ‘rubricator’, probably in a single campaign, worked through lengthy sections of the manuscript as they became available, adding the marginal scrolls, section number frames, and red decoration in the bows of certain letters.

The run-over marks

In contrast to the consistent working relationships that touched the small initials with red and drew the marginal scrolls, the persons and processes that created the runover marks and line-fillers are numerous and complex. Determining their sequence of addition is much more difficult. Many of the run-over marks are drawn in black, with red over-drawing or touches, while some of the line-fillers are drawings in two or more colours. Most of the run-over marks are small and begin in quire 6, which Brown attributes to Scribe D (1996, 120‒21). The first clearly zoomorphic run-over mark in the manuscript, at folio 38v,8 is in black, and supplies an omitted word (occiderunt). The supplied word is written in a script that differs from that of the main text, but with features which Brown associates with the ‘Mercian’: varying sizes of letters, an ER ligature, and a zoomorphic sign (1986, 134; 1994, 336‒37; 1996, 167‒68;2001, 283; Bishop 2004, 146‒47). In the preceding folios of quires 5 and 6, starting about folio 30v (...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Section 1: Practice
• Section 2: Performance
• Section 3: Perception
• Plate section