The Book of Mulling or less commonly, Book of Moling (Dublin,

Trinity College Library The Library of Trinity College Dublin () serves Trinity College and the University of Dublin. It is a legal deposit or "copyright library", under which, publishers in Ireland must deposit a copy of all their publications there, without charge ...

MS 60 (A. I. 15)), is an Irish pocket

Gospel Book A Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels (Greek: , ''Evangélion'') is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament – normally all four – centering on the life of Jesus of Nazar ...

from the late 8th or early 9th century. The text collection includes the four Gospels, a liturgical service which includes the "

Apostles' Creed The Apostles' Creed (Latin: ''Symbolum Apostolorum'' or ''Symbolum Apostolicum''), sometimes titled the Apostolic Creed or the Symbol of the Apostles, is a Christian creed or "symbol of faith". The creed most likely originated in 5th-century Ga ...

", and in the colophon, a supposed plan of St. Moling's monastery enclosed by two concentric circles. The name derives from a former notion that the scribe was the Leinster saint St. Moling (d. 697), founder of Tech-Moling ( St. Mullins, Co. Carlow), whose subscription occurs in the colophon at the end of St John's Gospel: '' men scriptoris Mulling dicitur''. However, the manuscript is younger and the script reveals that three scribes were involved: one for the prefaces, another for the

synoptic gospels The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical ...

(Matthew, Mark and Luke) and a third for

St John's Gospel The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

. It remains possible that the manuscript was copied from an autograph manuscript of St Moling. The script is written in Irish

minuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

. This is in fact one of the latest surviving documents to use the high style in

illuminated manuscripts An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

. The decoration includes illuminated initials and three surviving

Evangelist portrait Evangelist portraits are a specific type of miniature included in ancient and mediaeval illuminated manuscript Gospel Books, and later in Bibles and other books, as well as other media. Each Gospel of the Four Evangelists, the books of Matthew, ...

s: those of Matthew, Mark and John. Its jewelled shrine or

cumdach A (, in Irish "cover"Joynt (1917), p. 186) or book shrine is an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics. They are typically later than the book they contain, often by several c ...

is also preserved at Trinity College. The

pocket gospel book Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from ''insula'', the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style dif ...

is a distinctively Insular format, of which the Book of Mulling is a leading example.

The Portrait of John

The Evangelist John is shown in a fully frontal pose. He holds a book or tablet of some kind, with his hand over it and his heart. This could be a reference to his position as the scribe of one of the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

. He has blond hair and blue eyes, and his robes are in shades of rich blue and red. The robes flow around him, forming interlaced, almost geometric shapes, echoing those around the border. There is a border surrounding the portrait. In this case, John's halo, a marker of his holy status, breaks the frame created by the border. The border is relatively sparse above and below the Evangelist, however on the left and the right elaborate designs have been created within the border.

Interlaced Interlaced video (also known as interlaced scan) is a technique for doubling the perceived frame rate of a video display without consuming extra bandwidth. The interlaced signal contains two fields of a video frame captured consecutively. This ...

line-work fills squares in all four corners, two panels on the left and the right feature interlocking animal shapes, elongated and interlaced to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. Both of these patterns call to mind the style of metalwork also popular in this period. The colors are faded, but the richness of this image is evident by the use of gold and the immense attention to detail, making this one of the leading examples of illuminated manuscript art from this period.

Early Irish Manuscript Project

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

has recently launched a major initiative, called the Early Irish Manuscripts Project, to conserve, research, and digitize the manuscripts in their collection. These manuscripts include the Book of Mulling,

Book of Dimma The Book of Dimma (Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity College, MS.A.IV.23) is an 8th-century Irish art, Irish pocket Gospel Book originally from the Abbey of Roscrea, founded by Crónán of Roscrea, St. Crónán in County Tipperary, Irelan ...

Garland of Howth The Garland of Howth, also known as the Codex Usserianus Secundus, designated by r2 or 28 (in the Beuron system), is a fragmentary 8th to 10th century Latin Gospel Book now in Trinity College Dublin as MS. 56 (A. IV. 6). The text, written on ve ...

, and

Codex Usserianus Primus Codex Usserianus Primus (Dublin, Trinity College Library, 55) is an early 7th-century Old Latin Gospel Book. It is dated palaeographically to the 6th or 7th century. It is designated by r (traditional system). Description The manuscript is damag ...

. This project has encouraged new research on these manuscripts, as well as greater access to them, as they are available online. The goal of the Early Irish Manuscript Project is to encourage and facilitate new research on the manuscripts in the collection of Trinity College Dublin. Non-destructive pigment analysis was used in the research.

Notes

Bibliography

*Doyle, Peter. "The Text of Saint Luke's Gospel in the Book of Mulling." ''Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy'' 73 C 6, 1973 *Henry, Franciose. Irish Art in the Early Christian Period. London: Methuen & Co., 1940 *Henry, Francoise and Genevieve Marsh-Micheli, Studies in Early Christian and Medieval Irish Art, Vol. II. Manuscript Illumination. London: The Pindar Press, 1984 *Lawlor, Hugh Jackson. ''Chapters on the Book of Mulling''. Edinburgh, 1897
Available from Internet Archive
*Nees, Lawrence. "The Colophon Drawing in the Book of Mulling. A Supposed Irish Monastery Plan and the Tradition of Terminal Illustration in Early Medieval Manuscripts." ''

Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies ''Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies'' is a bi-annual academic journal of Celtic studies, which appears in summer and winter. The journal was founded as ''Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies'' in 1981 by Patrick Sims-Williams, who has remained the jour ...

'' 5 (1983) * O'Neill, Timothy. ''The Irish Hand: Scribes and Their Manuscripts From the Earliest Times''. Cork: Cork University Press, 2014. *Sterick, Robert D. "The plan of the evangelist portrait pages in the 'Book of Mulling'." ''Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland'' 121 (1991)

External links

Early Irish Manuscripts Project, Trinity College Dublin

More information at Earlier Latin Manuscripts

Trinity College, Dublin - Early Irish Manuscripts Project
{{Authority control 8th-century illuminated manuscripts 8th century in Ireland Gospel Books Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts Irish manuscripts Vetus Latina New Testament manuscripts Library of Trinity College Dublin