You may well ask, but no, I’ve not become ecclesiastically inclined, rather I’m doing research. This pontification began with a link that Thatch sent me for the Lindisfarne Gospels in the British Library. So rather than do my homework, I have a weblog to write and an excuse to procrastinate.

First, before I forget, a little about the Lindisfarne Gospels. An illuminated manuscript of the four gospels written in the monastry on Holy Island - Lindisfarne, around the early 8th century. Go visit the website and see it for yourself. The monastry is in ruins now but the rose coloured masonary testifies to a magnificence set amid the soft greys and vibrant greens of North West England. We spent a day exploring the island between tides because the causeway to the island is only accessible, except by boat, when the tide is out. We had arrived the previous afternoon but the causeway was already flooded. After attempting to walk on water, we ended up staying in a B&B overlooking the distant island waiting for the next ebb. There are more pictures at the PUGfest website.

The British Library provides a Shockwave animated tour of the Gospel pages, but it took forever to load. Once loaded those of us who have played a computer game called ‘Myst’ (a family of games that wallpapers my mind) will feel right at home. There is a too brief text description of each page, an audio version of the same thing and a magnifying glass to check out the detail. I’ve already made some sketches from it, but more about that later. Precious little information is given on this website at all about this or any of the other manuscripts available to be viewed. They include a hand written version of Alice’s Adventures Underground by Lewis Carroll which is quite readable although frustrating as you need to manouver the magnifying glass around every few lines.

So, why am I playing in the worldwide sandbox called the Internet again? It’s a cornucopia and since the course I am doing requires us to keep a visual diary … and expects us to visit and comment on websites daily, I really have no choice, do I? It’s no big stretch for me to keep a visual diary, I’ve been doing that on and off since the early 80’s. I have this rather fanciful notion that I would like to draw my own alphabet and eventually turn it into yet another font to join the tens of thousands already available.

I’d like to make it have a fanciful and a medieval feel, so I need to plunder the manuscripts of yore to see how it is done. Thus the research aspect of the day.

Lindisfarne led me back to the Book of Kells. An Irish version of the gospels dating variously from the time of St Columba who died in 597AD or the late 7th or early 8th centuries. In any case it doesn’t matter. What does, is that this book suvived albiet somewhat mutilated. It is the only manuscript, illumniated or otherwise that I have seen in the flesh (so to speak).

Thatch and I stayed on campus at Trinity College and while there we visited the Book of Kells. Nothing could prepare me for the awe this collection of decorated animal skin was able to inspire in me. The jewel bright colours seemed to hover above the age darkened vellum. That quickening that I was fired with that day and every day that followed has led me to my font project. It’s a long term project mind, because my drawing skills are rudimentary at best.

If , like me you are excited by the visual nirvana that illustrations of this ilk provoke - here are some more links I must share:

The Book of Durrow
Early Manuscripts at Oxford University
The Burnet Psalter
The St Albans Psalter
Aberdeen Bestiary

Now I am way, way behind on my homework, logging off,
Jools