It must have been close to the year 800 that the Book of Kells was written, although there is no way of knowing if the book was produced wholly at Iona or at Kells, or partially at each location. In 806, following a Viking raid on the island which left 68 of the community dead, the Columban monks took refuge in a new monastery at Kells, County Meath, and for many years the two monasteries were governed as a single community. A monastery founded around 561 by St Colum Cille on Iona, an island off Mull in western Scotland, became the principal house of a large monastic confederation. The majority academic opinion now tends to attribute it to the scriptorium of Iona (Argyllshire), but conflicting claims have located it in Northumbria or in Pictland in eastern Scotland. The date and place of origin of the Book of Kells have attracted a great deal of scholarly controversy. It contains 340 folios, now measuring approximately 330 x 255 mm they were severely trimmed, and their edges gilded, in the course of rebinding in the 19th century. The book is written on vellum (prepared calfskin) in a bold and expert version of the script known as 'insular majuscule'. The Gospel texts are prefaced by other texts, including 'canon tables', or concordances of Gospel passages common to two or more of the evangelists summaries of the gospel narratives (Breves causae) and prefaces characterizing the evangelists (Argumenta). The Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin MS 58) contains the four Gospels in Latin based on the Vulgate text which St Jerome completed in 384AD, intermixed with readings from the earlier Old Latin translation.

Book of kells