The Book of Kells

One illustration from the 680 pages of The Book of Kells

This illustration shows Jesus Christ on a throne. He holds a book containing the word of God. His hair is curlier and lighter than we usually see him portrayed. This illustration is from an old Bible and appears at Matthew 1:18 where that Jesus shown in heaven was about to be born as a mortal on Earth.

The book this illustration appears in a 1200-year-old book of gospels known as the Book of Kells that was made in a time around 800 known to us as the Dark Ages. 

The Roman empire had fallen. Europe was a mess. Christianity was past its peak and while the Vikings were having their way with others paganism was making a comeback. \

Education, scholarship even literacy was not doing well. But there was a group of rather scholarly Irish monks who wanted to preserve civilized civilization and the word of God.

The Book of Kells was written by hand on more than 600 pages of vellum (made from calfskin). They wrote in Latin and ornamented the words with full-page illustrations to create an illuminated manuscript. 

There was a very violent interruption to their work in 806. Vikings pillaged the monastery and killed 68 monks. The monks who survived escaped to the Abbey of Kells and did finish their Bible.

Christianity made a comeback and other monasteries created more copies. They were not as beautiful but quantity became a bit more important than quality. Jump to 1455 and Johann Gutenberg's printing press allows mass production. The monks didn't have to write by hand, but something was lost in the process.