This book demands that we revise our simplistic notion of this period as a primitive, barbaric ‘Dark Age’.Ī book such as this can only be written by a scholar who has devoted her life to pioneering scholarship of the period and especially its manuscripts. This gives us insights into the life and mind of a passionate artist-scribe as he creates a complex masterpiece against the backdrop of an often turbulent and violent period. Our historical knowledge of the era is limited and almost nothing is known of Eadfrith but the author succeeds in penning a very credible portrait. She is the youthful amour of our hero and their tender love story flows through the narrative adding a very human dimension to his character. Among these is Osgyth, a character inspired by a contemporary burial slab with her name inscribed in both Runic and Latin script. Where necessary characters and events are invented to fill in the many gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the period. The momentous events, the monuments, ruins, relics, facts and artefacts of the period are interwoven with the lives of the various characters, many of whom were themselves historical individuals. However, a more significant achievement is that she leads us inside this pioneering early medieval artist’s mind, navigating channels of knowledge, theology and imaginative vision as he assimilates the disparate patterns, motifs and styles, blending them coherently as he forges a new art form for a dawning age. The author convincingly leads us through the routes by which these influences may have reached the shores of Northumbria. Influences from as far afield as The Holy Land, Coptic Egypt and Ethiopia somehow reached a scribe-artist on tiny Holy Island at the turn of the eighth century. This book does give us insights into this era and does entertain, in a profound way, but these achievements are incidental to its primary purpose - unravelling the complex multi-cultural strands that have influenced the creation of the art of Lindisfarne. This literary ‘faction’ is not light entertainment, neither does it set out to give us a simplified evocation of the period, some sort of leisurely ‘time-travelogue’ or period soap-opera.

“This is the story of the extraordinary making of one of the greatest, most beautiful books the world has ever known.” Thus begins the prologue to ‘Eadfrith – Scribe of Lindisfarne’ and this book ‘does exactly what it says on the tin.’ The Lindisfarne Gospels is not just one of the world’s greatest and most beautiful books, it is also an incredibly complex work of art and telling its story is an equally complex challenge.

Eadfrith by Michelle Treeve