The Book of Dimma (

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

, MS.A.IV.23) is an 8th-century

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

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 Nazareth ...

originally from the Abbey of

Roscrea Roscrea () is a market town in County Tipperary, Ireland, which in 2016 had a population of 5,446. Roscrea is one of the oldest towns in Ireland, having developed around the 7th century monastery of Saint Crónán of Roscrea, parts of which rem ...

, founded by St. Crónán in

County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after t ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. In addition to the Gospels of Luke and

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, it has an order for the Unction and Communion of the Sick. The surviving illumination of the manuscript contains a number of illuminated initials, three

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, Ma ...

pages, and one page with an Evangelist's symbol. 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 Stowe Missal and

Book of Mulling The Book of Mulling or less commonly, Book of Moling (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 60 (A. I. 15)), is an Irish pocket Gospel Book from the late 8th or early 9th century. The text collection includes the four Gospels, a liturgical servic ...

are other leading examples. The gospels other than John are "written for the most part in a rapid cursive script", while John is "by a different scribe, in neat

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 ...

bookhand". It was signed by its scribe, Dimma MacNathi, at the end of each of the Gospels. This Dimma has been traditionally identified with a bishop who was later Bishop of Connor, mentioned by

Pope John IV Pope John IV ( la, Ioannes IV; died 12 October 642) was the bishop of Rome from 24 December 640 to his death. His election followed a four-month vacancy. He wrote to the clergy of Ireland and Scotland to tell them of the mistakes they were maki ...

in a letter on

Pelagianism Pelagianism is a Christian theological position that holds that the original sin did not taint human nature and that humans by divine grace have free will to achieve human perfection. Pelagius ( – AD), an ascetic and philosopher from t ...

in 640. This identification, however, cannot be sustained.

History

A well-known legend relates that Crónán asked a monk named Dimma to copy the book, but that it had to be done in one day. Dimma set to work on this impossible task and copied continuously without a break for any meals. All the while he worked the sun never set. When Dimma finished, he thought that it had only taken him one day, when in reality it had taken forty. This miracle was attributed to Crónán.

Cumdach (book-shrine)

In the 12th century the manuscript was encased in a richly worked

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 ...

or reliquary case, which remains with it at Trinity. On one face it has panels of openwork decoration in Viking Viking art#Ringerike Style, Ringerike style over the wood case. There is a good reproduction of 1908 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is not on display there, but has good illustrations available online, unlike the original piece.Bought with the Jacob S. Rogers, Rogers Fund in 1908
New York reproduction
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Provenance

Among the later owners, it belonged to William Meagher, a Catholic priest in

, then to his descendant Philip Meagher, a priest in Nenagh.Meagher lent it to Dr Thomas Harrison, who sold it without permission to Henry Monck Mason, a librarian at the King's Inns society in Dublin, some time before 1816. He was presented to the Royal Irish Academy on 24 May 1819. It was purchased by Sir William Betham before 1826 and he himself attempted to auction it on 4 July 1830. He finally ceded the manuscript to

on 29 March 1836.

References

Sources

* Rachel Moss (art historian), Moss, Rachel. ''Medieval c. 400—c. 1600: Art and Architecture of Ireland''. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014. * Moss, Rachel. ''The Book of Durrow''. Dublin Trinity College Library; Thames and Hudson, 2018. * O'Neill, Timothy. ''The Irish Hand: Scribes and Their Manuscripts From the Earliest Times''. Cork: Cork University Press, 2014.

External links

Treasures of early Irish art, 1500 B.C. to 1500 A.D.
an exhibition catalogue from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on the Book of Dimma (cat. no. 35,65)
Portal to digitised manuscriptMore information at Earlier Latin ManuscriptsReproduction of Shrine case in New York, The Met
{{Insular art 8th-century Christian texts 8th-century illuminated manuscripts Cumdachs Gospel Books Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts Irish manuscripts Library of Trinity College Dublin