The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe. By Michelle P. Brown. The British Library Studies in Medieval Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Pp. xvi + 479. $85.00 (cloth); $45 (paper).

The Lindisfarne Gospels have long attracted attention because of their exuberant beauty, their enigmatic past, and their close connection to St. Cuthbert. Michelle Brown offers a new "commentary volume" to accompany the latest facsimile, and she hopes "to make as much information available to as wide an audience as possible" (p. 5). Her chapters certainly provide in-depth information into the time of its genesis (chapter 1), the history of the manuscript (chapter 2), the text of the gospels (chapter 3), the codicology of the manuscript (chapter 4), and its decoration (chapter 5). A brief conclusion (pp. 395–408) rounds off the discussion proper and is followed by a bibliography and an appendix, which contains an analysis of the pigments used in the gospels. The book ends with an index of manuscripts cited and a general index, and it is accompanied by a compact disc
that contains "The Contents of the Lindisfarne Gospels" (i.e., a table showing the textual arrangement of the Lindisfarne Gospels).


Gernot Wieland
The University of British Columbia