The Lindisfarne Gospels : society, spirituality and the scribe

The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the world's greatest works of art in book form.

It is an eighth-century Latin Gospelbook, with a 10th-century gloss, which is the earliest surviving translation of the Gospels into the English language.

As such it is one of the great landmarks of human cultural achievement.

Its maker was one of the greatest artists of the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic worlds, receptive to new influences and prepared to experiment with new techniques.

This study seeks to take advantage of photographic and technical analysis as well as assessing previous work in the light of recent studies and archaeological finds.

The book sets the Lindisfarne Gospels within its socio-historical context, during one of the world's formative periods of transition - from the Graeco-Roman world to that of the early Middle Ages.

The melting-pot of the multi-ethnic British Isles is reflected in the pages of the Gospels, and in Northumbria the rallying point for this was the figure of St Cuthbert and the church of Lindisfarne. The questions of where and when the Lindisfarne Gospels were made are addressed, but just as importantly the "why" is explored, in the context of new research concerning the technical innovation of its maker, his spiritual motivation and the needs of the society in which he worked.