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Book-Making in Early Christian IrelandAuthor(s): Timothy O'NeillSource: Archaeology Ireland, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 96-100Published by: Wordwell Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20558296Accessed: 29/06/2010 07:40

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BOOK-MAKING IN EARLYCHRISTIAN IRELAND

Timothy O'Neill

Before the invention of printing in the fifteenthcentury every book was handwritten. If one needed abook one copied it or employed a scribe to do thejob. Writing was a valued skill and the ability towrite clearly and beautifully on a well designed pagewas a highly prized craft.The scriptorium was a vital part of everyimportant monastery in Early Christian Ireland asbooks were needed for the school, for the library andfor worship. Individuals had their cherishedpersonal books which they copied or inherited. Oneecclesiastic wrote a beautiful poem in praise of hispsalm-book which he called Crinog. One verse inFrank O'Connor's translation runs:

You are a token and a signTo men of what all men must heed;Each day your lovers learn anewGod's praise is all the skill they need.Other churchmen so jealously guarded theirmanuscripts that the making of an unauthorisedcopy once led to a full-scale battle? at C?l Dreimnein AD 560 (10 years before the birth of

Mohammed).Learning to write:All young scholars coming to a monastic schoolwould have had to learn writing. Since paper was notin use and vellum and parchment were so expensive,the first lessons would have been with chalk andslate. Later the scholars would progress to using ametal stylus or some such sharply pointed object on

Fig. 1?Detail from the Book of Keils, f.8, showing ayoung student with what appear to be waxed writingtablets (photograph courtesy of the Board, TrinityCollege, Dublin).

the slates. Inscribed slates of this sort survive fromthe late medieval site at Smarmore, Co. Louth.From the slates the novice scribe would havegraduated to using a stylus on waxed tablets. Waxedwriting tablets and stylus were the ancient equivalentof ballpoint pen and jotter and were in use all overthe western world for note-taking and letter-writing.The tablets were made by hollowing out a rectanglefrom the front and back of a wooden slab. Thesehollows were filled with wax which was easilyinscribed with a sharp stylus. Several tablets couldbe linked together by thongs, making a sort ofwooden book. The writing was erased by rubbingthe surface with the smooth end of thestylus?making the tablet ready for use again.A reasonable proficiency inmaking outline lettersand in training the hand muscles to control a writing

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Fig. 2?Seventh-century waxed tablet from Springmount Bog, Co. Antrim, inscribed with psalmverses (photograph courtesy of theNational Museum of Ireland).

instrument would have been necessary beforeproceeding to the complexities of pens which neededink. These could have been made from reeds butmost commonly were cut from quills, the flightfeathers of large birds. The feathers had to be curedor seasoned, i.e. the barrels had to be clear and hardbefore cutting. Nowadays scribes use a processwhich involves soaking the tips in water andplunging them for a few seconds into heated sand.

When cured, the quills were cut with a penknife togive a nib of the size required. The nib invariably hada chisel top and this broad tip is the key tounderstanding how different scripts were written.When writing the scribes held the pens at aconstant angle. For broad round majuscule forms,such as are used in the Book of Kells, the

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Parchment and vellumPapyrus as a writing material had gone out offashion long before books were introduced intoIreland. The material used for all the manuscriptswas parchment or vellum. Parchment is the namegiven to an animal skin which has been treated withlime to remove the hair, fat and other solubleproteins. Vellum is calfskin so treated and was themost common writing material. Depending on theage of the animal the skin was light or thick, theyoungest animals giving the finest and whitest skins.Scribes would have been familiar with thepreparation of skins and itmust have been part ofevery apprenticeship to learn how to soak the skin,stretch it and scrape it very carefully with around-bladed knife, removing all the hair from theouter side and the fatty tissue from the inside. Thesmallest nick or cut would result in an oval holewhen the skin was stretched and dried. The skin wasgently rubbed with pumice or cuttlefish to make itsmooth and all traces of grease were treated withchalk. The margins of medieval Irish manuscriptsabound in complaints about the bad quality ofvellum ?next to cold and cramp itwas the scribe'sgreatest affliction. 'New vellum, bad ink...Oh I saynothing more' was a comment penned in Irish in aLatin grammar c. AD 850.Before a book could be copied, enough vellumhad to be selected and double-spread pages cut fromthe skin. For personal psalm-books such as theCathach of St Columcille and pocket gospel-bookssuch as the Books of Dumma and Mulling, fourleaves making eight pages could be obtained from an

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

Fig. 3?St Matthew the Evangelist from the Book ofMulling (f.12).Note the characteristic curved quill in his right handand the spiked inkhorn below (photograph courtesy ofthe Board, TrinityCollege, Dublin).more elaborate manuscripts would have needed twoleaves from a skin?hence the Book of Kellsrequired about 175 skins.The scribe would arrange his vellum leaves ingatherings, usually of five leaves, and if he wascareful he would match the darker and lightercolours of the hair and flesh sides so that the pages ofeach opening of the book would be a uniformcolour. When he had numbered the pages thetedious task of ruling the writing lines wouldcommence. A needle-sharp point would be used topick through the thickness of the five leaves,

marking the ends of the lines so that the ruling wouldbe uniform on each page. Next, lines would bescored on each leaf with a pointed object, perhapsthe tip of a knife, making a little furrow on one sideand a slight ridge on the page behind.

Colours and ornamentAt this point, before beginning to write, somethought would be given to ornamentation,

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? *v nuerm^inqrooeoxijeiliTVQCfimh?ti?n? ^?iXXl?CIl?oefral^0?^?icouobis donee

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Fzg. 4?A page of text from the Book of Durrow(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 tocopy exactly each page from his exemplar. If a smallgospel-book was being written the scribe wouldperhaps want four evangelist portraits, one to begineach section, and perhaps a number of 'carpet pages'of ornament to show his skill in the use of interlaceand spirals. It would also be possible that he wouldleave these pages blank for a more artisticcompanion to draw and paint later when the maintext was finished. In the case of younger orapprentice scribes in a large monastery such matterswould be decided well in advance by the master ofthe scriptorium.

The colours used in manuscripts were naturalpigments and dyes. They were produced fromminerals either directly or by simple chemicalprocesses. Yellow was from the mineral orpiment(arsenic trisulphide), green from verdigris, the greenrust of copper, white was white lead or leadcarbonate, and red was red lead formed by heatingwhite lead. Some of these minerals occur in Irelandand native sources could have been utilised. Leadcarbonate occurs at Glendalough and greenverdigris in small quantities in old Bronze Agecopper workings. The orpiment was almost certainlyimported along with more exotic colours such askermes red and lapis lazuli blue, although the latteris very close in colour to azurite which does occur onthe 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 andfrom varieties of whelks, found along the coast. Allpigments were in powder form and were mixed withsome kind of binding agent such as a resin gum orglair made from egg white. Water was added tomake a paint which would adhere to the page.

How long did it take?The drawing and painting always associated withbook production made a welcome change from thetedium, cramp and silence accompanying writing.When writing a formal script or bookhand it isdifficult to write for much longer than an hour or sowithout a short break. The frequent prayer timesthroughout the day in a monastery would be awelcome relief The experiences of modern-dayscribes using exactly the same materials as theirpredecessors in earlier days ?quill and vellum arestill unsurpassed writing materials ?can give someidea of the time taken over the writing of an average

manuscript. These observations, along with notesand colophons in later medieval manuscripts,indicate that 180-200 words per hour would berepresentative of the output of a proficient penman.

Anything over six hours scripting ?i.e. writing aformal hand? would be difficult even under idealconditions of brightness, warmth and quiet.

Accordingly a scribe working six hours a day couldcomplete the black writing text of the Book ofDurrow's 485 pages in about sixty working days.The illumination of the 11 fully decorated pages inthiting text of the Book of Durrow's 485 pages inabout sixty working days. The illumination of the 11fully decorated pages in a manuscript couldprobably be completed within the same timespan ifartist and scribe worked side by side. Otherwise the99

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Fig. 5?Interior of a library of Ethiopian monks livinginEgypt, as seen by Robert Curzon in 1837. Note thebook satchels hanging on the walls. He describes howmanuscripts were written, painted and bound in

wooden boards. The parallel with an early Irishscriptorium is remarkable (engraving from CurzonsVisits to monasteries in the Levant, ("London,1849)).

whole task could be finished by one talentedindividual well within eight months, which was thetime allotted for writing the four gospels in theimperial scriptorium of Ethiopia as decreed by theMinister of Pen as recently as 1919

Completed manuscripts were bound, usually inwooden boards using complex stitching and cording,as recent studies of the binding of the Book ofArmagh have shown. Saints' lives and other sourcesindicate that manuscripts were kept in leather

satchels which hung from pegs on the walls of cells.This method of storage protected the books from theravages of damp and rodents. It also made themeasily transportable when necessary and so ensuredthe survival of many to the present day.

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

Emerald Isle Books a.b.a.ANTIQUARIAN OOKSELLERS

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