Gospels give up their 1,300-year-old secret

Date: 2000-05-31, Publication: The Journal

CAMPAIGNERS for the return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to the North last night welcomed news that 60 previously undetected drawings have been discovered.

The find, made by a senior British Library scholar using a high-magnification binocular microscope, was disclosed at the weekend in a lecture to experts at Bede's 7th Century church at Jarrow.

They reveal the intriguing likelihood that the Venerable Bede, author of the first English history book, was also involved in producing the masterpiece.

Richard Berg-Rust, chairman of the Northumbrian Association which is campaigning for the priceless Gospels to be transferred from the British Library to Durham Cathedral, said: "I would like to congratulate the scholar on her discovery, which reinforces the Gospels' connections with the region, not only with our patron saint Cuthbert, but also with the Venerable Bede."

Michelle Brown, curator of illuminated manuscripts at the British Library, used the microscope to discover the formerly undetected drawings on the back of calf hide parchment.

Her research has shown that the dating of the Gospels - one of the prime sourcebooks of English Christianity - should be moved forward from AD 698 to about AD 720, linking them to Bede.

The gospels were written and illuminated in honour of St Cuthbert by his successor as Bishop of Lindisfarne, Eadfrith.

In her lecture Ms Brown said they proclaimed to Rome that the young English Church was "no provincial outpost but vibrant and integrated." She added: "A prime motivation was to define what it meant to be Northumbrian, to be English and to be a part of the wider Christian Church."

Her argument for re-dating the manuscript is based on evidence about its style and technical production. Bede, a monk at Jarrow, which had close links with Lindisfarne, was 47 in 720. His Ecclesiastical History of the English People was finished in 732.

Ms Brown said: "I think Bede would have been consulted about the thinking behind the production of the Gospels. One of the figures in the volume's painting of St Matthew relates to a theological issue he raised."

The Northumbrian Association is campaigning to have the Gospels returned to Durham Cathedral, after they were removed during Henry VIII's Reformation in 1537.

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