Beasts of the Desert: Marginalia in the Book of Deer

Abstract

THE BOOK OF DEER (Cambridge University Library, MS. Ii.6·32), an Insular manuscript usually dated to the first half of the 10th century, contains numerous marginal creatures that interact with the manuscript’s text and framed images. Among Insular gospel-books, only the Book of Kells contains comparable marginalia. An analysis of these decorative interruptions demonstrates that the creatures highlight specific passages of gospel text, emphasising that the death and sacrifice of Christ paves the way for the soul’s resurrection and union with God the Father. The creatures show a close association with the stone carvings of north-eastern Scotland both in terms of their thematic focus and the realistic yet abbreviated representation of animal behaviour. Other minor motifs within the Book of Deer’s decorative programme such as the saltire cross, cross and lozenge contribute to the marginalia’s central message. Together, these small decorative details enhance the intimacy and authenticity of the viewer’s experience and demonstrate the manuscript’s intended purpose as spiritual nourishment for the sick and the dying as they make their final journey to God through the witness of Christ.

Versions of this paper were given at the 2008 International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University and at the Cultural Icons of Medieval Scotland Conference, University of Aberdeen in 2009. I am grateful to the conference organisers and participants for their questions and suggestions. I would also like to thank the article’s editors and readers for their thorough and helpful comments.

Notes

1 Lecturer in History of Art, Department of the History of Art, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK. [email protected]

2 Geddes 1998; Marner 2002. Only the abstract of Henderson’s paper is available: Henderson 1986.

3 See Dominic Marner’s discussion of the work of Otto Werkmeister and Kathleen Hughes: Marner 2002, 3.

4 McGurk 1961; Alexander 1978.

5 Farr 1997.

6 See discussion below.

7 Fols 2v, 9r, 21r, 22v, 32r, 43r, 62v and 84r.

8 I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for directing me to these aspects of the marginal imagery on this page.

9 Rynne 1994; Alexander 1990, 285. An alternative perspective is suggested in O’Reilly 1994; Meehan 1994; Pulliam 2006; and Meehan 2012.

10 They are mentioned as early as 1868 in Westwood, 89–90. Stuart 1869 reproduces the marginalia in colour: pls 21–22.

11 Geddes 1998, 538.

12 Marner, 2002, 20–1; Henderson 2008, 56.

13 Henderson 2008, 56.

14 Fols 23r, 26r, 45v, 54v, 66v, 67r, 70v, 71v, 72v, 73r, 75v, 76r, 77r, 83v and 85r.

15 Fols 26r, 67r, 73r, 75v,76r, 83v and 85r.

16 Fols 26r, 43r and 51v.

17 Marner 2002; Henderson 2008.

18 Marner 2002.

19 Ibid.

20 Dumville 2007; Márkus 2008, 67.

21 Marner 2002, 21. John 2:19–22, ‘Jesus responded and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews said, ‘This temple has been built up over forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?’ Yet he was speaking about the Temple of his body. Therefore, when he had resurrected from the dead’. All biblical quotations in English are from the Douay Catholic translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible.

22 Henderson 2008, 56. The creatures appear directly beneath John 6:57.

23 John 6:55–7.

24 Márkus 2008, 80.

25 Pulliam 2006; Meehan 2012. See also Henderson 2008, 53.

26 John 12:19.

27 John 11:25.

28 Goldberg 2012, 154–5.

29 John 14:1–2.

30 The insertion of a disembodied hand, to the best of my knowledge, has no analogy elsewhere in Insular manu- scripts. Decorated initials in the Book of Kells and Corbie Psalter, however, do sometimes terminate in hands and feet, which Henry has compared to Byzantine initials: Henry 1974, 218–19.

31 John 15:9–10.

32 Henderson and Henderson 2004, 76–7, figs 83 and 96.

33 Allen and Anderson 1993, 2:69.

34 Meyer 2005, 242–57.

35 Meyer suggests, and later rejects in favour of the interpretation outlined above, a rather convincing visual comparison, fol 285r in the Book of Kells: 2005, 249–50, fig 16·6.

36 Henderson 1997, 31–2.

37 Cited by Meyer in relation to the quadruped under the right cross arm. For the Physiologus text and the Picts, see Henderson 1997, 2–13.

38 See, for example, the Last Judgement image on Muiredach’s Cross at Monasterboice, reproduced in Harbison 1992, vol 2, fig 473.

39 Specifically, stones from St Vigeans, Aldbar and Lethendy: Henderson and Henderson 2004, 143–4.

40 Henderson 2008, 53; Forsyth 2008, pl 17.

41 Meehan 1994, 68; Pulliam 2006, 99–100.

42 John 14:4–6.

43 See especially verses seven, fourteen and forty.

44 John 6:64.

45 John 13:34.

46 John 14:21.

47 John 15:7.

48 Márkus 2008, 69–70.

49 Fols 4v, 16v, 29v and 41v. See note 2.

50 McNally 1971; O’Reilly 1994; 1998; Brown 2003, 346–70.

51 Henderson 2008, 49–52.

52 Mark 1:3, ‘The voice of one crying out in the desert’.

53 Henderson 2008, 50.

54 John 1:4–5, ‘Life was in Him, and Life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it’.

55 See Jackson 1972; Constantinou 2010, esp 36–42.

56 These ideas were first presented in ‘Tasting, seeing, and knowing: openings, absence, and surface in Insular art’, an unpublished paper given at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan in 2008 and in ‘The Book of Deer and Pictish art’, an unpublished paper given at the Cultural Icons of Medieval Scotland Conference, University of Aberdeen in 2009. For a very thorough examination of this concept, see Constantinou 2010.

57 Constantinou 2010, 56.

58 See note 56.

59 Dumville 2007, 203.

60 Reproduced in Nordenfalk 1977, pl 107.

61 A ‘desert in the ocean’, see Adomnán 1·6, in Anderson and Anderson.

62 For a full overview and discussion of cross motifs in Insular art, see Stevenson 1981.

63 Marner 2002, 22.

64 Cambridge Digital Library 2012. The digitised manuscript recently was taken offline but will be available again by the end of 2012.

65 See for example, Lewis 1980; Farr 1997, 104–16; O’Reilly 1993.

66 For number symbolism in Insular art, see Richardson 1984.

67 See Richardson 1996; King 2012.

68 Richardson 1984.

69 See, for example, Acts 3:6 and 4:10.

70 In terms of visual examples, the Temptation page within the Book of Kells, which meditates upon the role of Word of God as a defence in the battle against Satan, shows a figure holding a shield (Farr 1997, 64).

71 Jackson 1972, 10.

72 Bede, De templo, 168.

73 2 Corinthians 3:2 3.

74 Márkus 2008, 68.

75 See the cross-slabs from Meigle, Papil and St Vigeans; a stone slab from Bressay and the Papil shrine panel in Meehan 2005.

76 Blackwell 2012, 38.

77 Herren 1974, 85.

78 See, for example, the visual and textual allusion to the verse on the Ruthwell Cross, discussed in Ó Carragáin 2005, 184–7, 201–8.

79 Márkus 2008, 68–9.

80 Henderson observes ‘on the grounds of its size it is probably that Deer was written and decorated for private and intimate pastoral use’ (Henderson 2008, 62).

81 Henderson 2008, 62.

82 Hughes 1980, 35–6.

83 See, for example, Camille 1992.

84 See, for example, the Reichenau ivory in Vienna and the Pericope of Henry II (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbib- liothek, Clm 4452, fol. 8v) both reproduced in Backes and Dölling 1987, 166 as well as the Gospel of Judith of Flanders, Perpont Morgan Library New York, MS. M. 709, fol 1v, which can be seen on the Pierpont Morgan Library Corsair website.

85 Fols 7v and 124; Temptation page, fol 202v. Reproduced in Henry 1974, pls 10, 47, 68; for discussion of the symbolism within the Temptation page, see Farr 1997, 51–75.

86 For number symbolism in Insular art, see Richardson 1984.

87 ‘et intra christiani nominis retia’, Augustine, Tract 1228, col 1962.