WEBVTT

00:00:00.163 --> 00:00:03.246
(gentle piano music)

00:00:05.190 --> 00:00:06.023
- [Dr. Steven] Two days ago,

00:00:06.023 --> 00:00:07.800
we went to see the Book of Kells

00:00:07.800 --> 00:00:11.010
in the magnificent library
at Trinity College.

00:00:11.010 --> 00:00:13.830
Then we drove to the town of Kells itself

00:00:13.830 --> 00:00:15.870
to look at the monastic community

00:00:15.870 --> 00:00:19.830
where this important book
was housed for 800 years.

00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:21.510
- [Dr. Lauren] The Book of
Kells is one of the most

00:00:21.510 --> 00:00:24.810
exceptional books from
the early Middle Ages.

00:00:24.810 --> 00:00:26.940
When we were standing
in front of the book,

00:00:26.940 --> 00:00:30.960
you noticed how many folios
formed the book itself.

00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:33.270
- [Dr. Steven] The book is
made out of fine vellum,

00:00:33.270 --> 00:00:35.520
and the skin of more than 100 young calves

00:00:35.520 --> 00:00:37.410
were used to produce this book.

00:00:37.410 --> 00:00:38.730
- [Dr. Lauren] So many of those pages

00:00:38.730 --> 00:00:41.610
are filled with full page illustrations.

00:00:41.610 --> 00:00:43.710
They're not only vibrantly colored,

00:00:43.710 --> 00:00:45.840
but there is so much intricacy

00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.510
and delicate details to each drawing.

00:00:48.510 --> 00:00:50.670
It's impressive to think of the time

00:00:50.670 --> 00:00:54.690
that it would've taken to
complete even just a single page.

00:00:54.690 --> 00:00:55.920
- [Dr. Steven] It would've been produced

00:00:55.920 --> 00:00:58.290
in a building that is
known as a scriptorium.

00:00:58.290 --> 00:01:01.080
We can imagine scribes sitting at desks

00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:04.440
for long hours writing and painting.

00:01:04.440 --> 00:01:06.870
- [Dr. Lauren] So the Book
of Kells is a gospel book

00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:10.050
that includes the writings
of each of the four

00:01:10.050 --> 00:01:13.560
gospel authors: Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John.

00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.200
- [Dr. Steven] And there are
both author portrait pages

00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:18.210
and pages that show the symbols

00:01:18.210 --> 00:01:21.060
associated with each
of the gospel authors.

00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:23.580
Books of this era are
not structured the way

00:01:23.580 --> 00:01:26.520
that modern books are with
title pages, et cetera,

00:01:26.520 --> 00:01:28.650
but there are efforts to help the reader,

00:01:28.650 --> 00:01:31.080
and one of the mechanisms
that books of this era

00:01:31.080 --> 00:01:32.940
often include is a canon table,

00:01:32.940 --> 00:01:34.980
that is a kind of
concordance that allows you

00:01:34.980 --> 00:01:37.200
to find the passages that
you're interested in.

00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:39.090
But in this case, the canon tables

00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:41.760
are extraordinarily
elaborate in their decoration

00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:43.290
and are almost architectural

00:01:43.290 --> 00:01:46.200
with colonnades and Roman arches.

00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:49.410
- [Dr. Lauren] And shortly
after the canon table pages,

00:01:49.410 --> 00:01:50.910
we find, by some accounts,

00:01:50.910 --> 00:01:53.880
the earliest representation
of the Virgin and Child

00:01:53.880 --> 00:01:56.010
in a manuscript within Western Europe.

00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:59.790
And it reminds me of imagery
of the Virgin and Child

00:01:59.790 --> 00:02:03.870
that you might find in
Byzantium and even Ethiopia.

00:02:03.870 --> 00:02:05.370
- [Dr. Steven] What's
common to these images

00:02:05.370 --> 00:02:07.530
is the frontal nature of the Virgin Mary,

00:02:07.530 --> 00:02:10.290
and the schematic rendering of the face

00:02:10.290 --> 00:02:12.930
and elaboration of the
clothing that she wears,

00:02:12.930 --> 00:02:15.060
of the wealth of those textiles.

00:02:15.060 --> 00:02:17.460
- [Dr. Lauren] Other stunning
pages in the Book of Kells

00:02:17.460 --> 00:02:20.070
include things like the carpet page.

00:02:20.070 --> 00:02:23.070
- [Dr. Steven] And there
we see a cross so elaborate

00:02:23.070 --> 00:02:25.290
that it almost ceases to be a cross,

00:02:25.290 --> 00:02:29.010
because it's got two cross
beams and these delicate circles

00:02:29.010 --> 00:02:31.260
with intricate interlacing
in each of them.

00:02:31.260 --> 00:02:33.180
But the circles are so large

00:02:33.180 --> 00:02:36.630
that they almost overwhelm
the cross itself.

00:02:36.630 --> 00:02:37.560
- [Dr. Lauren] And carpet pages

00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:39.270
are not unique to the Book of Kells.

00:02:39.270 --> 00:02:42.420
We see them in other books
like the Lindisfarne Gospels.

00:02:42.420 --> 00:02:44.610
It's likely that the Book
of Kells was started,

00:02:44.610 --> 00:02:48.810
if not completed, in Iona,
in what is today's Scotland.

00:02:48.810 --> 00:02:50.640
- [Dr. Steven] Iona was
a monastic community

00:02:50.640 --> 00:02:53.460
that had been founded by a
very important Irish saint,

00:02:53.460 --> 00:02:55.080
a man named Columba.

00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:57.690
- [Dr. Lauren] Now in
Irish, Columba is Colmcille,

00:02:57.690 --> 00:03:01.590
and he is one of the most
important saints and figures

00:03:01.590 --> 00:03:04.380
in the early Christian period in Ireland.

00:03:04.380 --> 00:03:06.300
- [Dr. Steven] The
illumination that is best known

00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:08.730
from the Book of Kells
is the Chi Rho page.

00:03:08.730 --> 00:03:11.100
It is dense with decoration.

00:03:11.100 --> 00:03:12.180
- [Dr. Lauren] The Chi Rho

00:03:12.180 --> 00:03:15.390
is the first letters in
Christ's name in Greek.

00:03:15.390 --> 00:03:18.270
You see it frequently
in early Christian art

00:03:18.270 --> 00:03:20.820
as a way of marking Christ's presence.

00:03:20.820 --> 00:03:23.730
And here, what looks
like an X for the Chi,

00:03:23.730 --> 00:03:27.600
stretches in this swooping
diagonal from right to left,

00:03:27.600 --> 00:03:30.120
taking up a good portion of the page,

00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:32.190
but really what grabs your attention

00:03:32.190 --> 00:03:36.660
is the very intricate
interlacing and spirals

00:03:36.660 --> 00:03:39.630
and what looks like
filigree work that we find

00:03:39.630 --> 00:03:42.930
in metalworking of this era in Ireland.

00:03:42.930 --> 00:03:46.080
What I'm always struck by when
I look at the Chi Rho page

00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:50.070
is how incredibly difficult
it is to make out the forms.

00:03:50.070 --> 00:03:52.710
Every time I look, I see something new.

00:03:52.710 --> 00:03:56.220
There are human heads, there are angels.

00:03:56.220 --> 00:03:59.340
We see animals, birds, some of them

00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:02.640
as part of the interlace or
these interwoven designs.

00:04:02.640 --> 00:04:04.890
Some of them very clearly articulated,

00:04:04.890 --> 00:04:07.950
such as my favorite
detail, which is two cats

00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:12.390
that have caught mice who are
biting a eucharistic host,

00:04:12.390 --> 00:04:16.140
the wafer that miraculously
trans substantiates

00:04:16.140 --> 00:04:18.630
into the body of Christ during mass.

00:04:18.630 --> 00:04:20.490
- [Dr. Steven] And so it seems miraculous

00:04:20.490 --> 00:04:24.090
that a scribe was able to
define such intricate details

00:04:24.090 --> 00:04:27.930
at such a minute scale,
and to do it so precisely,

00:04:27.930 --> 00:04:30.990
knowing that the parchment
itself was precious,

00:04:30.990 --> 00:04:32.910
that the materials were precious,

00:04:32.910 --> 00:04:35.460
and that there was little room for error.

00:04:35.460 --> 00:04:37.020
- [Dr. Lauren] To create a page like this

00:04:37.020 --> 00:04:40.200
would have required the utmost focus.

00:04:40.200 --> 00:04:42.750
We could think of it
as an act of devotion.

00:04:42.750 --> 00:04:44.370
- [Dr. Steven] But on
the day that we visited

00:04:44.370 --> 00:04:48.090
the Book of Kells, it was open
to another magnificent page.

00:04:48.090 --> 00:04:51.090
Every few days, the
pages have to be changed.

00:04:51.090 --> 00:04:54.030
And it has a typically elaborate border,

00:04:54.030 --> 00:04:57.120
which is defining a serpent or a dragon

00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.190
who's biting its own tail.

00:04:59.190 --> 00:05:01.470
- [Dr. Lauren] And in that
border, we see the characteristic

00:05:01.470 --> 00:05:05.460
interlace with beasts and
birds, all intertwined together.

00:05:05.460 --> 00:05:07.740
And then within the decorative border,

00:05:07.740 --> 00:05:11.460
we see four angels
surrounding the word una,

00:05:11.460 --> 00:05:14.970
and we even see interlaced
birds that have been described

00:05:14.970 --> 00:05:18.420
as peacocks inside the middle of the U.

00:05:18.420 --> 00:05:20.790
- [Dr. Steven] Look at
that beautiful teal blue,

00:05:20.790 --> 00:05:23.940
which was used by mixing
a white with lapis lazuli,

00:05:23.940 --> 00:05:27.270
a color that was imported
all the way from Afghanistan.

00:05:27.270 --> 00:05:29.100
- [Dr. Lauren] The use of lavish materials

00:05:29.100 --> 00:05:31.830
added to the importance of this book.

00:05:31.830 --> 00:05:34.890
The text on this page,
as well as the pages

00:05:34.890 --> 00:05:37.110
that are primarily
filled solely with text,

00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:41.400
is using a Irish form of writing
called insular majuscule.

00:05:41.400 --> 00:05:43.230
- [Dr. Steven] Insular refers to something

00:05:43.230 --> 00:05:45.480
that was made in the British Isles,

00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:48.870
and majuscule refers to
the use of capital letters,

00:05:48.870 --> 00:05:52.710
but there is this distinctly
beautiful rounded form

00:05:52.710 --> 00:05:55.950
and regularization of those letter forms.

00:05:55.950 --> 00:05:58.740
- [Dr. Lauren] This is an era
where manuscript production

00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:03.740
is so vital to early Christianity
and its spread in Ireland.

00:06:04.050 --> 00:06:05.700
- [Dr. Steven] If it was made in Iona,

00:06:05.700 --> 00:06:08.400
one of the reasons that it
would've been transported

00:06:08.400 --> 00:06:11.010
all the way to Kells is to protect it.

00:06:11.010 --> 00:06:14.790
- [Dr. Lauren] So in 793, Iona
is attacked by the Vikings.

00:06:14.790 --> 00:06:18.060
And so that's when monks
at Iona would have brought

00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:22.050
the Book of Kells to Kells
Abbey for safe keeping,

00:06:22.050 --> 00:06:24.366
or possibly have finished it there.

00:06:24.366 --> 00:06:27.449
(gentle piano music)