http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/lindisfarne/tour.html (Links to an external site.)
The external link above will take you to The British Library's online educational resource pages for the
Lindisfarne Gospels. At this site, you will be guided through five different sessions (Intro, The Book, Its
Creation, The Gospels' World, Its Meaning) and introduced to the Lindisfarne Gospels in some detail. The
sessions will examine the historical context of early Christianity in Britian, the making of the Gospels, its
author, Eadfrith, and the most recent arguments regarding the dating of the book in order to better
understand the meaning of the illuminations.
After completing these four sections, click on the interactive "Turning the Pages" to view 40 illuminated
pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels. Clicking on "Turning the Pages" will open an introduction to this feature;
you will need to click again on the link "Choose a book from our Turning the Pages library." To start the
interactive virtual text, you will need to select view all texts, then scroll to the bottom of the list of texts
available and select the last virtual text, "The Pinnacle of Anglo-Saxon Art," the Lindisfarne Gospels.
After reading/viewing the material on the Lindisfarne Gospels through the web link above, please respond
to the following questions.
Questions:
- When and where was this illuminated manuscript created? Who do they believe was the artist?
- What is a gospel? What is the content of the Lindisfarne Gospels?
- What is a "carpet-cross" page? What purpose would they have served other than a decorative one?
- Discuss the meaning and value of the Lindisfarne Gospels:
To the monk who copied the text and created the illuminated pages
To the Church who commissioned these types of Christian works
5. What is meant by Hiberno-Saxon style? How does the style reflect the diversity of Anglo-Saxon artistic traditions? (your text discusses this stylistic term and will be a valuable resource in answering this
Sample Solution