Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin (review)

Éamonn Ó Carragáin's contribution to the understanding of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon art, liturgy, and literature has been enormous. In particular, his investigations of the Ruthwell Cross, early medieval liturgical practice, and The Dream of the Rood have not only developed our understanding of the ways in which these phenomena are intertwined, but also advanced the methodology to be employed when studying the art and literature of the early Middle Ages. The twenty-six essays in this volume mark his retirement from University College Cork, and present intersections with, and inspiration from, his own monumental scholarship.

The essays are grouped into three sections. The first of these offers a range of studies which looks at the various influences—especially the Roman—on Anglo-Saxon art and representation. Jennifer O'Reilly explores Bede's treatment of the city of Rome, which curiously he refrains from describing in physical detail, despite the obvious availability of pilgrim accounts. For Bede, Rome, like Jerusalem, could be a metaphorical city, emblematic of the mystical desire to see "the God of gods in Zion." Alan Thacker describes one aspect of the Eternal City in close detail—the location of its culted martyr churches, an important influence on the development of the Western liturgy. Malcolm Parkes describes and discusses those manuscripts with early English provenance that provide evidence of the importation of Italian books into England. Three more essays on Insular manuscripts follow: Michelle Brown's essay on the generally neglected Barberini Gospels persuasively argues for an origin at Peterborough; Carol Farr discusses the "Virgin and Child with Angels" illumination in the Book of Kells against the background of Marian devotion and liturgical practice at Iona in the late seventh century; and Catherine Karkov explores the relationship between prayer and image in the missal in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 422, produced around the middle of the eleventh century, probably at Sherborne. Anna Maria Luiselli Fadda studies the Insular literary preoccupation with the relationship between living souls and dead bodies in the context of beliefs concerning the general resurrection of the dead, and artistic representations of the moment of Christ's resurrection. Given Éamonn Ó Carragáin's emphasis on the importance re-visualizing aspects Anglo-Saxon life for an understanding of their art and literature, Charles D. Wright's explication of the iconography of "Sight" on the Alfred Jewel and the Fuller Brooch is as apt as it is persuasive. "Sight," he argues, carries flowers because of the apocryphal tradition that eyes were created from a pound of flowers. Elizabeth Coatsworth's survey of embroidered inscriptions surviving from the early Middle Ages will serve as a defining study in this field, offering a new synthesis, discussing who made these objects, and for whom. It will surprise some that the production of inscribed tapestries is associated with both men and women. Diarmuid Scully's discussion of Cormac Ua Liatháin's third voyage into the Ocean in Adomnán's Vita Columbae presents a fascinating synthesis of Classical geographic understanding with the meaning of the journey as a spiritual quest that extends Christ's kingdom.

The second group of essays presents readings and interpretations of early medieval texts—in Latin, Old English, and Old Norse-Icelandic. George Hardin Brown analyzes Bede's style in his commentary on I Samuel; the study reveals Bede the teacher in full command of the rhetorical skills he sought to impart to others, and Bede the commentator finding his own mature voice as a servant and heir of the patristic tradition. Elaine Treharne's essay on the structure and uses of the Vercelli Book should lead to further discussion of a manuscript which Éamonn Ó Carragáin himself has studied in detail. She adduces analogues to its structure from later Anglo-Saxon manuscript anthologies owned by senior prelates, and provocatively raises the name of Dunstan...