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(gentle piano music)

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- [Dr. Steven] Two days ago,

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we went to see the Book of Kells

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in the magnificent library
at Trinity College.

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Then we drove to the town of Kells itself

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to look at the monastic community

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where this important book
was housed for 800 years.

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- [Dr. Lauren] The Book of
Kells is one of the most

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exceptional books from
the early Middle Ages.

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When we were standing
in front of the book,

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you noticed how many folios
formed the book itself.

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- [Dr. Steven] The book is
made out of fine vellum,

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and the skin of more than 100 young calves

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were used to produce this book.

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- [Dr. Lauren] So many of those pages

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are filled with full page illustrations.

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They're not only vibrantly colored,

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but there is so much intricacy

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and delicate details to each drawing.

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It's impressive to think of the time

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that it would've taken to
complete even just a single page.

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- [Dr. Steven] It would've been produced

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in a building that is
known as a scriptorium.

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We can imagine scribes sitting at desks

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for long hours writing and painting.

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- [Dr. Lauren] So the Book
of Kells is a gospel book

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that includes the writings
of each of the four

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gospel authors: Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John.

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- [Dr. Steven] And there are
both author portrait pages

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and pages that show the symbols

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associated with each
of the gospel authors.

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Books of this era are
not structured the way

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that modern books are with
title pages, et cetera,

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but there are efforts to help the reader,

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and one of the mechanisms
that books of this era

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often include is a canon table,

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that is a kind of
concordance that allows you

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to find the passages that
you're interested in.

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But in this case, the canon tables

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are extraordinarily
elaborate in their decoration

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and are almost architectural

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with colonnades and Roman arches.

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- [Dr. Lauren] And shortly
after the canon table pages,

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we find, by some accounts,

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the earliest representation
of the Virgin and Child

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in a manuscript within Western Europe.

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And it reminds me of imagery
of the Virgin and Child

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that you might find in
Byzantium and even Ethiopia.

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- [Dr. Steven] What's
common to these images

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is the frontal nature of the Virgin Mary,

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and the schematic rendering of the face

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and elaboration of the
clothing that she wears,

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of the wealth of those textiles.

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- [Dr. Lauren] Other stunning
pages in the Book of Kells

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include things like the carpet page.

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- [Dr. Steven] And there
we see a cross so elaborate

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that it almost ceases to be a cross,

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because it's got two cross
beams and these delicate circles

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with intricate interlacing
in each of them.

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But the circles are so large

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that they almost overwhelm
the cross itself.

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- [Dr. Lauren] And carpet pages

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are not unique to the Book of Kells.

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We see them in other books
like the Lindisfarne Gospels.

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It's likely that the Book
of Kells was started,

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if not completed, in Iona,
in what is today's Scotland.

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- [Dr. Steven] Iona was
a monastic community

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that had been founded by a
very important Irish saint,

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a man named Columba.

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- [Dr. Lauren] Now in
Irish, Columba is Colmcille,

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and he is one of the most
important saints and figures

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in the early Christian period in Ireland.

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- [Dr. Steven] The
illumination that is best known

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from the Book of Kells
is the Chi Rho page.

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It is dense with decoration.

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- [Dr. Lauren] The Chi Rho

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is the first letters in
Christ's name in Greek.

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You see it frequently
in early Christian art

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as a way of marking Christ's presence.

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And here, what looks
like an X for the Chi,

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stretches in this swooping
diagonal from right to left,

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taking up a good portion of the page,

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but really what grabs your attention

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is the very intricate
interlacing and spirals

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and what looks like
filigree work that we find

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in metalworking of this era in Ireland.

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What I'm always struck by when
I look at the Chi Rho page

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is how incredibly difficult
it is to make out the forms.

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Every time I look, I see something new.

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There are human heads, there are angels.

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We see animals, birds, some of them

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as part of the interlace or
these interwoven designs.

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Some of them very clearly articulated,

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such as my favorite
detail, which is two cats

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that have caught mice who are
biting a eucharistic host,

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the wafer that miraculously
trans substantiates

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into the body of Christ during mass.

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- [Dr. Steven] And so it seems miraculous

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that a scribe was able to
define such intricate details

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at such a minute scale,
and to do it so precisely,

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knowing that the parchment
itself was precious,

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that the materials were precious,

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and that there was little room for error.

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- [Dr. Lauren] To create a page like this

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would have required the utmost focus.

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We could think of it
as an act of devotion.

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- [Dr. Steven] But on
the day that we visited

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the Book of Kells, it was open
to another magnificent page.

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Every few days, the
pages have to be changed.

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And it has a typically elaborate border,

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which is defining a serpent or a dragon

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who's biting its own tail.

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- [Dr. Lauren] And in that
border, we see the characteristic

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interlace with beasts and
birds, all intertwined together.

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And then within the decorative border,

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we see four angels
surrounding the word una,

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and we even see interlaced
birds that have been described

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as peacocks inside the middle of the U.

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- [Dr. Steven] Look at
that beautiful teal blue,

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which was used by mixing
a white with lapis lazuli,

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a color that was imported
all the way from Afghanistan.

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- [Dr. Lauren] The use of lavish materials

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added to the importance of this book.

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The text on this page,
as well as the pages

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that are primarily
filled solely with text,

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is using a Irish form of writing
called insular majuscule.

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- [Dr. Steven] Insular refers to something

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that was made in the British Isles,

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and majuscule refers to
the use of capital letters,

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but there is this distinctly
beautiful rounded form

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and regularization of those letter forms.

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- [Dr. Lauren] This is an era
where manuscript production

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is so vital to early Christianity
and its spread in Ireland.

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- [Dr. Steven] If it was made in Iona,

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one of the reasons that it
would've been transported

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all the way to Kells is to protect it.

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- [Dr. Lauren] So in 793, Iona
is attacked by the Vikings.

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And so that's when monks
at Iona would have brought

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the Book of Kells to Kells
Abbey for safe keeping,

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or possibly have finished it there.

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(gentle piano music)