In Our Time - The Lindisfarne Gospels

Episode Date: February 20, 2003

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Lindisfarne Gospels. In 597 Pope Gregory the Great ordered that a mission of monks be sent from Rome to convert Britain to its own brand of Christianity - lest it be submerged by the pagan beliefs of the Anglo-Saxon overlords. Just over 100 years later, the Lindisfarne Gospels were produced - lavish and ornate manuscripts, central to the story of how Britain came to be unified by the flag of the Roman Church – and they came to embody a set of beliefs and ideas that dominated Britain for a thousand years. Was the Rome mission in the 6th century the only strand of Christianity to sweep through Britain? Why did Northumbria become a key battleground for ideological dispute? How successful were the Lindisfarne Gospels in unifying the different strands of Christianity? To what extent did they serve as a founding statement of Christian identity in Britain?With Dr Michelle Brown, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Library and author of A Guide to Western Historical Scripts: From Antiquity to 1600; Dr Richard Gameson, Reader in Medieval History at Kent University and editor of St Augustine and the Conversion of England; Professor Clare Lees, Professor of Medieval Literature at King's College London and author of Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England.

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. In 597, Pope Gregory the Great ordered that a mission of monks be sent from Rome to reconvert Britain to its own brand of Christianity and to rescue it from the pagan beliefs of the Anglo-Saxon overlords. Then from my owner, the Celtic Christians came to Northumbria, Just over 100 years later, the Lindisfarne Gospels were produced, lavish and ornate manuscripts central to the story of how Britain came to be unified by the flag of the Roman Church. They came to embody a set of beliefs and ideas that dominated Britain for a thousand years.

Why did Northumbria become so rich in culture, and then a key battleground for ideological dispute between Rome and Lindisfarne? How successful were the Lindisfarne Gospels in unifying the different strands of Christianity? and to what extent did they serve as a founding statement of Christian identity in Britain? With me a Professor Claire Lees, Professor of Medieval Literature at King's College London, Dr Michelle Brown, curator of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library, and Dr Richard Gameson, reader in medieval history at Kent University. Richard Gamson, let's go to the background first.

What kind of country was Britain at the time of the evangelising mission from Rome at the end of the 6th century? It was a very complicated country, and in fact it's probably more, realistic to talk about it as countries in the sense that the British community that had been left by the Romans in 410, 411 have been systematically overrun by invaders from Frisier, from northern Germany and from southern Scandinavia. And different patterns of settlement, different compositions were gradually forming up into a series of independent kingdoms in the 5th and 6th century. and by the time good documentary sources are giving us a clear view of this, we can see seven clear kingdoms emerging.

But even at that stage in the 7th century, some of these kingdoms are swallowing up smaller kingdoms. The dominant kingdoms included Northumbria in the north, and in the 7th century we can still see that there are two kingdoms within that, Benicia at the north of Northumbria and Deira at the south. Mercia, the central kingdom, that's also swallowing up some of its little things. kingdoms like the middle angles or the Whicker.

And although these are all Anglo-Saxons, we should think about them as fiercely independent units. A bit like modern Europe, we might all be part of the EU, but we would not be very keen on being completely dominated or considered just as Europeans. In the same way, these kingdoms within England were fiercely independent, fought with each other, and were trying to establish their own political identities. And I know this is a huge generalisation to ask you, Richard, but was Britain completely overrun by paganism at the end of the 6th century?

I mean, I'm asking a question to which I partly know the answer. But just briskly tell us what bits of Christianity were left and how deeply had paganism bitten in? Yes. In theory, before the departure of the Romans, Britain had been officially Christian. But of course the Anglo-Saxons who are coming in are, pagan and the areas that are most subject for their influence become predominantly pagan, the areas further from their influence remain Christian. So if we're talking about the British

Isles, the West Wales, Cornwall, Bits of Devon and bits of Cumbria. And bits of Cumbria. Yes indeed. Remain Christian. Though we have very little documentary evidence. We have some inscribed slabs. We have passing references to the nature of their culture. The further east we go, the stronger the presence of the Anglo-Saxons, the stronger the nature of the pagan culture. This presumably, Michelle Brown, was one of the reasons that Pope Gregory the Great thought that he needed to reconvert them because it was pagan, whether any other reasons that he sent his mission to the British Is,

let's call it that, at the end of the 6th century. Yeah, a complex series of motives, I think. Bottom line, it's the extension of the apostolic mission to reach the farthest corners of the known world, which will then presage the second coming. Now, that has to be the biggest ambition of anybody who's dedicated their life to the work of their church and their God.

This was Gregory's stated ambition, his inherited ambition. Of course, Britain had been Christianised under the Roman Empire, and his other bigger gender, I think, was to actually re-institute that diocesan structure, which had for a while staggered on and been maintained even in the aftermath of the Roman withdrawals at the beginning of the 5th century. I think he's looking with Augustine

to actually re-establish some of that and the targeting of Canterbury and Kent as a focus, then moving on to London, very much part and parcel of that. And he was also worried about the Eastern patriarchs, wasn't he? Absolutely. He moving west was a territorial advantage he was trying to get. Absolutely. At that time,

It's by no means a done deal that the successor of St Peter is going to be top dog even within the West. He's one of a series of patriarchs based around the Mediterranean seaboard. And of course at a time when the Eastern patriarchs are engaged in a number of very, very important debates about schism, about heresy, etc. Gregory is very much looking towards the old Western Roman Empire to actually extend his power base. So he chooses Augustine and he aims for... Now, does he aim deliberately for Kent? Because he got a very good reception at Kent. You'll tell us why in a moment.

But did he set out saying, we're going there because there's something there for us? So did he go there because of the nearest landing point? Partly the topography, but no, as I said, linked through to the old traditional Roman power base and diocesan system, but also because he had the political entree. King Ethelbert of Kent had recently married a Frankish cruiser, Christian princess called Bertha, who'd been given the power to worship in an old Roman chapel which still survives in Canterbury at St. Martins and had brought her confessor with her.

And this entree into mixed-faith households is something that the Roman mission uses very effectively. Women are always a very good route in to court culture. So did Gregory know that we had a Christian princess there in a pagan, as it were, a largely pagan land? Absolutely. And I think the church had had a certain amount to play in actually negotiating the marriage contracts and the context for what was not only an entree for the church but also increased trade links and building

what had the potential to be a rogue series of states into a much broader European mainstream network. Clearly, is those, if I can describe it this way, which is a very simplified word, but it might be helped a sort of pincer movement. We've got Christianity coming from Rome through Kent and we've got Christianity coming, let us say, from Iona into the north there.

And not much later, can you say how that came in and how effectively it latched itself on to northumbria? Okay, well, to pick up on what Michelle was saying, I think the first thing that we would want to consider is the ways in which the mission to Canterbury and the marriage alliances formed between Kent and Northumbria provided another level of entry through the royal brides into Northumbria.

Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria, married Ethelburg, who was related to the royal family of Kent. So another entree, if you like, through the marriage politics. So the first sort of wave of the Christianisation of Northumbria is done from the south. At the same time, or very shortly after, however... But then when Edwin died, they reverted to pay. That's right. Start again, and this time he came from the North.

This time, Oswald, who had actually been in exile in Ireland, sent to Ireland, asking for missionary activity to help him convert, reconvert his people, re-establish his people as Christian. And he was sent Aden, who came from Iona, bringing the Columban Church with him, and established, through Oswald's assistance, established the monastery on Linda's Farn. Can you tell us why Northumbria give us some idea of the power of Northumbria at that time? We know about Kent and its trading links with France and so on, under port, canterbury, port and so forth. It seems a long switch for people to say, no, all of a sudden, it's way up north that becomes very important.

What's going on there? Well, I think it's way down south rather than way up north. You have to reverse your map a little bit. Exactly the same sorts of topographical conditions in Kent prevail in Northambray. You've got good ports in Bamberra. You've got a good natural harbour in Lindisfarne. This is a seafaring culture. Very good, fast connections with Ireland

and with the north across the north sea. So it's already a natural meeting ground and trading post. I think if we just think about going up by foot or by horse through the British Isles, we're thinking about it the wrong way. You've got to think about it in terms of ships. What was attractive off the coast of Northumbres, I'm sure what was ever... Every listener knows is the semi-island of Lindisfarne.

It seems a brilliant notion, obviously, to hit on giving Lindisfarne too. Did Aidan ask, did he want somewhere like Iona? There was water to the Celtic Christians as the desert were to the earlier. He isolated them and separated them. Yeah, isolated but also connected because you're visible from the coast. So it's a symbol of the living community of God that is both separate but connected to... And sort of faces the Royal City of Bamford, doesn't it? I think it's absolutely fascinating that, you know, whether you're looking at Lindisfar, if you're standing on Lindisfarne, you can see the Royal City of Bamberra, but you can also see where Cuthbert is going to retreat to on Farn Island. So you have this triangulation of power, triangulation of three different ways of thinking about culture and power and the Word of God. You've got the monastic settlement on Llanders Farn, you've got the Royal City of Bamberra. And then you've got the ascetic Irish, if you like, Christianity represented by Cuthbert on Inner Farn. It's a very, very interesting use of space.

space and geography. It's astounding. It's amazing, place, I think the whole thing. It's just wonderful. I think that's the most important part. You know, go up there, see it. And I think if you're standing in any one of those positions.

Let's just one more hopper will get there. Is it synod or sonnet? Sinard. I always say synod. You say signet. You say synod? I say synod. Okay.

Synod would be 664, a great dispute between the Celtic and the Roman Church. A simplified way of looking. Will you tell us, Richard? Yes, I think there are two key issues that beads account to the events, and that's the fullest account that we have. He focuses on two key issues. One, how you cut your hair,

the Roman tonsia as opposed to the Celtic tonsia, the counts shaved the front of their head. So if you imagine a line running from ear to ear, and the front being shaved, that's the Celtic tonsia, as opposed to the Roman tonsia that we're all familiar with. The second was the actual date of celebrating Easter. and without getting bogged down into the details, of course, as we're all aware, Easter is a movable feast,

and depending on which cycle or which series of tables you used to calculate this, you ended up with potentially different dates. And these were very important. I'm not going to get around the tail because how was the church represented. It was partly to do with how it looked because people wore their rank and their nationality even in their clothes and their jewellery at that time, men and women. And secondly, the dating of Easter was the good. the greatest thing in Christian faith, when was Christ reborn?

Am I doing it at the right time at the same time as Christ and such? So that's that. Now Cuthbert, and then we get to the Linus Farn. Michelle, just say a few words about Cuthbert and why he is important to the Synod of Whitby and then we get to Lindisfarne Gospan Gospon. Okay, Cuthbert's born of Middle Class, Northumbrian Stock. He comes in...

So the story about being a shepherdess mythologists? I think slightly. He arrives at the monastery on a horse, which is normally a pretty good sign of status. He borrowed it. He borrowed it. He borrowed it. Okay. And of course, there again is some suggestion of some Irish ancestry in his past as well.

So he's got an interesting background. He comes into a Columban monastery and trains subsequently at Rippon, then moves to Melrose where he studies with the famous master, Boissel. And of course, after the Synod of Whitby, how are you actually going to keep an important centre like Linda's Farn still on message? And the solution which seems to have been arrived at is that you actually put in somebody from a daughter house who actually has a predisposition to listen to both sides of the story.

And ITER of Melrose and his right-hand man Cuthbert are the two who are sent to take over authority at Lindisfarne. And of course, Lindisfarne is interestingly placed. It's an Irish monastery and its foundations. It's a very key area for Northumbrian royalty. And it's also going to have to take a lead in southern Scotland and northern Northumbria in actually bringing these different trends back together.

The Synod of Whitby hadn't been as simple, if you like, as we like to make out. It was an Irishman initially who proposed the fact that the Roman dating of Easter was the one to be preferred. Most of the Irish church, certainly in the South, already adopted the Roman dating of Easter. When we say Roman versus Celtic and Roman one,

what we're actually saying is Roman versus Columban tradition, which is very much looking to the authority of St. Columban, number itself. Cuthbert can actually reconcile that. And I think the reason that his cult is then built up is that he becomes this figure who can actually unify those different trends and represent their complexity. It was an enormous cult and Sainthood was almost pressed on him before he died. He was a great ascetic, as you said, the fine island supposed to have stood up to the seat his neck praying and so on and so forth. Now let's get to the in his fine gospels. Claire, they were, as I understand, the reason

that they were written was inspired by Cuthbert. Is that true? Well, let's go into that. You tell me, you unravel that, please. Well, I mean, the colophon, the inscription on the manuscripts written much later in the 10th century says that they were dedicated to God

and St. Cuthbert, so both come together. Probably written around the time of the enshrinement of Cuthbert, around 698. So the Gospels themselves, together with the elevation, of the saint come together as a tremendous statement of the power of the saint and the power of the Christian word,

both represented by the tomb, the enshriment and the Gospels themselves. So Cuthbert and the Gospels come together at that moment. Let's talk about the Gospels. Can I just get a fix on, Michelle, on what was involved materially? Then when you talk about it ideologically, then I want to talk about it artistically. So let's just bring to the conclusion of the materially business. Okay, 150 of the best yearling cattle skins, you discuss. card, everything that's got holes in it.

You line up your spine ridges so that when the book cockles, it does it at one place. You've discarded a tremendous amount. That must have been a lot of gift exchange from other monasteries, from royalty, from nobles, all wanted to be associated with the project. You then have a range of materials for the inks, the pigments, etc.

One of the things that's amazing about it is that the artist scribe was an incredible technical innovator. He invents the lead pencil, he invents the light box. He's able to totally replicate the Mediterranean palette using six local materials. And he must have been a very, very skilled chemist to be able to actually handle them successfully. So an incredible input of resources, but it's the human resource, which is the

most remarkable thing. Whoever made it, whether it was Bishop A. Adphreth or not, he's a monk, he has to attend church services eight times every day and night. He has to prove his monastic humility by manual labour, milking the beast, metalworking, whatever. He has to spend time in prayer and study. If it is a adphrith, he's effectively governing and certainly overseeing the humanitarian and spiritual needs of most of the north of England and southern Scotland. Now, to actually claw back the amount of time for work of this prestige, when other library books, etc., of the period, are made by five or six people generally taking turns within the scriptorium, this is one gifted person's work for God. It's their opus day.

And the act of making is a symbolic sacrifice on behalf of all humankind and all creation. This is, if you like, the book as the Scribel Desert. This is like St. Cuthbert doing battle with his demons on the rock of Inner Farn for the good of all creation. And it's an act of meditation in which if you're really blessed, you glimpse the divine. Can you give us some idea of the motives and designs where they came from, Claire, and what we're talking about that? That's always one of the hardest questions to answer,

because it used to be thought that you have the text itself, the Gospels itself, coming from, ultimately from Rome and a very pure version of the Gospels. And then you have the ornamentation, the illuminations that are a mixture of conventionally and rather short-handedly term, Celtic, Irish, Germanic.

But that's not really a very good way of thinking about the Gospels. Whoever put this book together is pulling on all the available resources and innovating all the available resources that are available to him in his culture and at the farthest

reaches of his culture. So I think we should think of this as an innovation, not drawing together of separate nationalistic strands. Nevertheless, it'll be used for our listeners to know what was being drawn on. We talked about Vine Scroses as a certain. How many things? Now, can you give us a view of that, Richard? Just how many

motives, designs from which parts of, let's call it Europe, were being drawn on? Just one step back before answering that question, which is, of course, we were talking earlier about the Synodd of Whitby in 6th. and of course the key thing is in the post-Sinot of Whitby world, we see an explosion in Northumbria as a whole with people going to roam fairly regularly, increasing contacts to the Mediterranean, that's right.

And in Lindisfarne itself, a greater openness to a broader range of cultures. Well, they brought lots of relics back there, originally, and that sort of stuff, yeah. And we know that there's an Italian gospel book that supplies the text, a gospel book or gospel books that supply the text. we know that they have access to Greek sources because in the inscriptions in the evangelist portraits,

Greek the Hoaggios is used rather than Sanctus and some of the iconography shows familiarity direct or indirect with Greek sources. We know that they have access to Irish materials in terms of some of the motif that they use and we know that they're also drawing on Germanic origin motifs as well. Michelle. Yeah.

I don't think any of that's incidental, I think there's a degree of conscious cultural appropriation there. It's not nationalistic. I think what's going on in this unique blend is actually making a statement about the Christian ecumen and about a multicultural assimilated society. People signify wealth status, as Melvin said earlier, by what they wear, what they look like.

You know a cop from an angle, a Saxon, a Jude, a pick, straight away. When anybody saw this book, even as a pilgrim, having spent weeks travelling to glimpse the mystically lit object, If you saw something in that ingredients mix that immediately signified your cultural background, you would know that it was an inclusive statement about the Christian present. And I think in that sense what we've got going on here, and I think they're probably planning the two things in tandem, is the idea of the Lindisfan Gospels as the visual equivalent

of Beads' ecclesiastical history of the English people, when you are citing it within that broader Christian worldview. Absolutely. It's interesting that you said that when people, went to visit and catch a glimpse of it in a low light because we're not talking about something that was passed around and read. We're talking about something that could be read by very, very, very, very few people indeed. But it could be like it was looked at.

It was, so can you take this there? I think the visual power of this is tremendously important. We still see that today. I mean, that's the first thing that hits you is the tremendous visual culture that this document represents. And if we step back and think about the society is a society that is largely illiterate, but very well informed about the power of the book as a symbol and the authority that is invested in that symbol

because it represents the living word of God, then I think you can start to understand why to look at the book and to have the book look back at you becomes a devotional act in itself. We shouldn't overlook the fact that whoever isn't going to see this book and it's difficult to draw up a list of those who did see it, God and St. Cuthbert are certainly going to see it. And this is a gesture for a text.

This is not just a book. It's making practical spirituality. In what sense could this be called, and I'm using the word, a political statement. Is there any sense in which that is a useful word in this context? It's a slightly inappropriate word. As I said before, it's not segregated out. It's implicit within what makes the world tick now and in eternity. And so therefore I think, yeah, it is significant because, as I say, Lindisfarne, isn't a marginal. area, it's actually the caput of the major administration of the whole of the north of Britain and southern Scotland. And they're actually having on the ground to win people's hearts and minds spiritually and politically. And so by making that inclusive statement, you're actually raising implications through every walk of life. Less than 100 years after they were written, the Lindisfarmer's raided by the Vikings, the first of many raids.

do we know, and they survived, which is extraordinary. Do we know, did they take special care to have them survive? Was it a fluke? How did they survive in a way? I know they, we've made the point that they were central to the spirituality. This was a spiritual act making these Gospels when the community eventually decides to evacuate, because of course they hit in 7-9-3,

they decide, they hold out with a brief blip for the best part of a century. And when they finally head off, they take their great. spiritual treasures with them, the body of St Cuthbert, the bones and relics of Oswald and a few other key characters, and of course the Lindisfar and Gospels. And originally they were going to head off to Ireland, but the Lindisfarne Gospels jumps ship. And Cuthbert appears in a vision telling them they should stay there. So the community wanders around Northumbria, first settling at Chester-Lastell Street and then finally in 9-95 at Durham. But the tale of the wanderings is a massly piece of political... revisionism, if you like. It's written down in the 12th century by Simeon of Daum, at a time when

they're actually reframing the cult of St. Cuthbert to actually serve the politics of Daum. And of course, I think the way in which it's couched, the idea of them wandering without a home, etc. Some of the new research again is showing that it's actually the most astute move. What they're doing in effect is actually saying that the power focus has shifted from Bamber, etc. It's further south. They don't want to be marginalised. There's good evidence that they retain Linda's farm. It doesn't just disappear. But they move the caput.

And by going on walkabout to all of the major communities that they've had dealings with in the past and displaying the relics on circuit, they're actually affirming Cuthbert's authority in those areas. Also, it's being couched in Old Testament terms. To me, what's going on with the wanderings is very much Moses, St. Cuthbert, and the Israelites,

looking in the wilderness for the promised land of Durham, ultimately. And then they stage the most incredible political coup. They actually managed to oust the Viking ruler and put in their own Danish candidate who then has a ready-made path of negotiations with Alfred of Wessex and the whole process of reunification starts there. And who is it in the north who actually represents the interest of a reunified England? It is, of course, the community of St. Cuthbert.

And when Audrey glosses in the English language, he's actually making a very powerful statement about that reunification. Let's come to that, because Aldred glosses the Gospers, and therefore we have the, and you say, Claire, I think it's you, who said that the, therefore, in 960s, about 960, English becomes a sacred language through the Lindisfan Gospels like Hebrew and Latin. Now, can you just develop that a bit? Well, Bede would, at the beginning of the history, the English church, and peoples mentions the five important languages and includes Anglo-Saxon amongst those languages. but by the 10th century, to pick up on what Michelle was saying, by the 10th century it's not only that the north is repositioning, but in the south, the West Saxon kings are seeing the power and importance of the cult of St. Cuthbert.

And that not only happens within the royal centres, but it also happens within the church itself. So not only do you have the interlinear gloss on the Gospels themselves, but you have writers such as Alphrich producing vernacular. English lives of St. Cuthbert towards the end of the 10th century for this first time. And in a very interesting way, Alphrich at the end of the 10th century is refashioning this great northern saint, and all he represents, as now the great saint of the unified England. As a final bit, how did the North be so careless as to allow the Lindisfan Gospels to end up in London?

Richard? It's one of the accidents of history. I mean, the... dissolution of the monasteries, the reformation through manuscripts to the winds, and many of them passed rapidly into private hands, the Lindisfarne Gospels emerges in the hands of a family called Boya, or Boja, and from there it passes into the hands of Robert Cotton. But actually, we shouldn't see it in isolation. This is a common pattern,

and although Durham very happily and remarkably has a lot of its manuscripts still in situ, many other places, Canterbury, for instance, one of the greatest, two of the greatest libraries in the Middle Ages, after the dissolution, they were in the hands of private collectors and moved to Oxford and Cambridge. This idea of it being stolen by Wicked King Henry VIII, that the dissolution may well be correct, but we can't prove it.

The fact that it turns up in London in 1605, which is the only firm reference we have to the book after Aldred's glossed it in around the 950s to 60s is that it turns up in the hands of a book collector, Robert Bowyer, who happens to have a flat in the Tower of London. The book didn't go into the Royal Collection, as one might have expected it to do. And indeed, if it was at Durham, as I think is likely throughout much of the Middle Ages, although Linda Svarn has another documentary claim,

it was probably still at Durham in the 1590s. Right. Thank you all very much. We've just about come the end of our time, and I dare to start another chapter because we'll run it to somebody else's time. So thank you all very much, Michelle Brown, Claire, Lee's and Richard Gamson, and we'll be back next week talking about the Aztecs, and thank you very much for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast.

You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com.ukh, forward slash radio 4.