“Irish and Hiberno-Saxon Art”: The Later Durham Gospels

In the next reincarnation of this course, I will probably divide the Irish and Hiberno-Saxon material into two classes, and the point of separation will likely come just before the later Durham Gospels from Lindisfarne (Durham, Cathedral Library, MS A.II.17). 

Its obscurity could justify bypassing the manuscript, but a recent article with all the necessary textual material makes it hard to ignore its sole, but particularly fascinating miniature.  ‘”Know who and what he is’: the context and inscriptions of the Durham Gospels Crucifixion image,” by Jennifer O’Reilly in Making and Meaning in Insular Art fully translates the tituli and also identifies the Gospel chapter and verses on the preceding page.

The image of the Crucifixion on folio 38v compares nicely with same scene in the center panel on the interior of the painted lid of the reliquary of the Sancta Santorum, and finding the sponge and the tip of the spear will train the eye to find these objects in any Crucifixion scene. 

But the text around the frame and its direct address of the beholder make for a most interesting discussion of the devotional power of Crucifixion imagery, as well as the function of images more generally.

Wikimedia has a relatively clear image of Folio 38v.