Early Medieval Art

St. Matthew, Lindisfarne Gospels, Hiberno-Saxon, c. 715–25 CE

Cross Carpet Page, Lindisfarne Gospels, Hiberno-Saxon, c. 715–25 CE

Chi Rho Iota Page, Book of Kells, Hiberno-Saxon, late eighth  or early ninth century CE

Palatine Chapel, Aachen, Carolingian, 792–805 CE

Manuscript

From the Latin phrase manu scriptus or “written by hand,” a book written and produced by hand. During the Middle Ages, before the advent of printing in the fifteenth century, all books were manuscripts.

Folio

A piece of paper or vellum; a single page in a book. When detached from a book, often called a leaf. In pre-modern practice folios are often only numbered on one side; modern page numbering would thus result in twice as many pages as folios in the same book

Carpet Page

a full page in an illuminated manuscript containing intricate, non-figurative, patterned designs. They are a characteristic feature of Insular manuscripts, and typically placed at the beginning of a Gospel Book

Incipit

Latin for “here begins.” Refers to the opening word or words of a medieval Western manuscript or early printed book.

Golden Buckle, from Sutton Hoo burial, Anglo-Saxon, c. 600–50 CE

Jelling stone raised by King Bluetooth circa 986

Urnes Stave Church, c. 1132, wood, Ornes, Norway

Barbarian

term used by ancient Greek and Romans to refer to foreign peoples

Anglo-Saxon

a cultural group who spoke traced their origins to Germanic settlers  and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxon period in Britain is considered to have started by about 450 and ended in 1066, with the Norman Conquest.

Runestone

a raised stone with a runic inscription; the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock

Stave

one of a number of narrow strips of wood, or narrow iron plates, placed edge to edge to form the sides, covering, or lining of a vessel or structure

Animal Style

used to describe the “zoomorphic” or animal-based design motifs popular among Anglo-Saxon artisans during the medieval period. abstract animal motifs merge with geometric and organic motifs, creating a lively and intricate pattern, especially in metalwork.