Words on the wave: Tracing Continental connections in early medieval Ireland

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 424

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The early medieval period in Ireland is often described as a ‘golden age’, when the rise of monasticism sparked an astonishing output of religious art and literature, including elaborately decorated manuscripts, and people, ideas, and objects flowed freely across the Irish Sea and beyond. These journeys, and the cultural connections that they forged, form the focus of a recently opened major exhibition hosted by the Archaeology branch of the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. At the heart of Words on the Wave (see ‘Further information’ below) are 18 manuscripts that have been loaned by the Abbey Library (Stiftsbibliothek) at Sankt Gallen, Switzerland: a Benedictine monastery with strong links to early medieval Ireland. It is said to have been founded c.AD 615 by an Irishman, Gall or Gallus (of whom, more below), and over subsequent centuries the saint’s tomb attracted numerous pilgrims from his homeland, some of whom contributed to the collection of Irish manuscripts housed in the monastery’s famous Baroque library, which today is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The manuscripts that have been loaned for the exhibition all have Irish connections – they were either written in Ireland or by Irish scribes on the Continent, or contain material relating to Ireland – and several are beautifully illuminated, representing some of the most-celebrated examples of Insular book decoration. None have been displayed in Ireland before, and for some their journey to the National Museum represents their first visit to their country of origin in over 1,000 years. Together, they offer fascinating insights into how early medieval exchanges of knowledge and ideas shaped distinctive artistic styles and forms of writing – and, occasionally, we can catch glimpses of the personalities and interests of the monks who created them.

Complementing these written sources are over 100 artefacts from the National Museum, which help to establish the Irish ecclesiastical context from which the Sankt Gallen manuscripts were born, and provide parallels in metal and stone for their decorative motifs. Some of these objects are on show for the first time, too, including an ornate bronze brooch-pin, dating to the 8th or 9th century, which was found last year during excavations ahead of construction work on the N21 Adare bypass near Ardshanbally, Co. Limerick. Measuring 12cm (4.7 inches) long, it survives in excellent condition, allowing us to admire its intricate decorations, combining interlace and animal imagery – motifs that also appear on many of the manuscripts displayed nearby – as well as studs of red and blue glass. Another highlight is a 9th-century book-shrine that was found in a water-logged context in Lough Kinale, Co. Longford, in 1986, which we will discuss in more detail later in this article. It, too, is being shown for the first time since the completion of its painstaking restoration.

Many of the journeys reflected in Words on the Wave were inspired by scholarly interests, and in the spirit of these endeavours, and in keeping with the long-standing association between Sankt Gallen and Ireland, a collaboration involving students from the secondary school housed at the Swiss monastery and pupils at a number of Irish schools was fostered by the National Museum’s education department in preparation for the exhibition, and videos and artwork emanating from the project also feature in Words on the Wave. The exhibition also incorporates an audio-visual display detailing the results of scientific analysis into some of the Irish manuscripts from Sankt Gallen, revealing new information about the inks and vellum used in their creation. You can read more about this work in the box on p.22 – for now, let’s begin our own journey by encountering the individual after whom the monastery and its manuscripts are named.

Ireland and Sankt Gallen

According to the earliest surviving accounts of the life of St Gall, he was a companion of St Columbanus, an Irish monk who left Bangor, Co. Down, for the Continent c.AD 590. Columbanus is the most famous of the Irish peregrini pro Christo, ‘exiles for Christ’, who left their homes and travelled to mainland Europe out of religious fervour. He founded monasteries at Luxeuil in Burgundy and Bobbio in north-west Italy – for which he wrote notoriously strict rule-texts governing daily life within these communities – and between these two events, Jonas of Bobbio writes in his c.640 Life of Columbanus, he carried out missionary work around Lake Constance in Switzerland. The earliest Lives of Gall include him among the men accompanying Columbanus on this mission, but report that he stayed behind when Columbanus left for Italy, and established his own hermitage on the River Steinach, south of the lake. Over a century later, in around 719, the abbey of Sankt Gallen was founded on the site of Gall’s church; this would develop into one of the most prominent monasteries in early medieval Europe, and a noted centre of learning.

Though the textual basis for Gall’s Irish origins is not wholly convincing, there is no doubt that the hagiographical narrative led to him being accepted as an Irish saint, and from around AD 800 Irish pilgrims and religious exiles began to visit his tomb in Switzerland. While most of these visits would have been short and unrecorded, perhaps a stopover on the way to or from Rome, some Irishmen decided to become monks in Sankt Gallen, and their names appear in the monastery necrology (book of the dead) or in narrative accounts. Perhaps the best-known of these individuals are Móengal and his uncle Bishop Marcus, who reportedly paused at Sankt Gallen on their return from Rome in the mid-9th century, and decided to join its monastic community. Móengal (also known as Marcellus) became a celebrated teacher at the abbey school and also worked as a scribe, producing charters between 853/854 and 860. Marcus, meanwhile, is said to have donated books to the monastery, some of which may be among the 18 manuscripts on display in Words on the Wave.

Irish manuscripts had clearly become a noteworthy proportion of the monastery’s collections as early as the mid-9th century as, around 865, a catalogue of the library at Sankt Gallen was compiled and includes a list of the ‘Books in Irish script’ (Libri scottice scripti) among its holdings. The ‘Irish script’ mentioned here refers to the distinctive ‘Insular’ half-uncial/majuscule and minuscule forms of lettering that were used in early medieval Ireland and Britain, and were considerably different in style to the Carolingian minuscule that became standard within the Frankish or Carolingian Empire from c.800 onwards. This list, the surviving Irish and Irish-related manuscripts in the library, the recorded visits of peregrini, and the legend of the Irish founding saint ensure that Sankt Gallen’s historical connection with Ireland is stronger than for any other Continental centre in the early medieval period.

New scientific analysis of the manuscripts

As part of preparations for the Words on the Wave exhibition, the Abbey Library in Sankt Gallen facilitated the scientific analysis of some of the manuscripts on display, with intriguing results. Pádraig Ó Macháin and the team of the Inks & Skins project based at University College Cork studied the inks and vellum used in manuscripts of both Irish and Continental provenance. They found that the standard brownish-black ink employed in the Irish manuscripts from Sankt Gallen was iron-gall, produced by mixing tree-bark or oak-galls with iron compounds. Other discoveries included that the Irish manuscripts from Sankt Gallen used a similar palette to other surviving early medieval Irish manuscripts in their coloured illumination, with yellow and red dominant and blue, green, and purple featuring to a lesser extent. Yellow was nearly always made from orpiment (a toxic mix of arsenic and sulphur), while red came from red lead or the mercury-based vermillion. When these texts were compared to manuscripts at Sankt Gallen that are known to be of Continental origin, the team found a strong overlap in the ingredients of the inks and in the processing of the vellum, suggesting that the Irish manuscripts would not have looked out of place in a Continental library.

In order to identify the geographical source of the parchments that had been used, Dan Bradley of the Department of Genetics in Trinity College Dublin also led DNA analysis of a small selection of manuscripts. The team harvested DNA samples from two manuscripts (Cod. Sang. 51 & 60) and two fragments (Cod. Sang. 1395, pp 419 and 427) using a non-invasive process that involves gently applying an eraser to the parchment and collecting the rubbings. While all four manuscripts are believed to be the work of Irish scribes and illustrators, the possibility that they were, like Cod. Sang. 48, produced in a Continental scriptorium could not be ruled out – and so the cattle DNA processed from these samples was compared with a reference set of early medieval cattle breeds that is based on finds from archaeological investigations. Using a technique called Principal Component Analysis, the genome samples from each of the four manuscripts were found to fall within the range of bones recovered from Irish archaeological excavations, rather than those from British or Continental contexts. The analysis therefore points to all four manuscripts being of Irish origin. This study shows the potential of DNA analysis to establish the origin of particular manuscripts, and, as the reference set is expanded, it should be possible to narrow the geographical range down even further.

Illuminating manuscripts

What of the magnificent manuscripts held by the monastery? The examples from the exhibition most likely to catch the eye of visitors are the exquisitely illuminated Gospel books – chief among them the ‘Irish Gospels of St Gall’, in which the opening of each of the four Gospels is marked by a decorated double-page featuring a portrait of the relevant Evangelist and an elaborate text incipit (opening words). This manuscript is likely to have been produced in the Irish midlands in the mid-8th century, and was later taken to Sankt Gallen by an Irish visitor to the monastery. Another particularly characterful image is found on a fragment surviving from another Gospel book thought to date to c.800. It shows St Matthew seated in the act of writing, surrounded by scholarly accoutrements including an inkwell, pen, scraper, and vellum: a rare early medieval depiction of a scribe at work. One more fragment, this time of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, belongs to the 7th century and is both the oldest surviving witness to this popular encyclopaedic work – which was circulated widely throughout the medieval period – and one of the earliest manuscripts in Insular script.

Another testament to Irish scholarship in the period is Cod. Sang. 48, which contains the four Gospels in Greek, written in a Western majuscule script with a Latin translation using Insular minuscule neatly inserted between its lines. This manuscript was created by Irish scribes on the Continent, perhaps at Bobbio, in the second half of the 9th century, and is one of several examples surviving in Continental libraries that speak to the existence of a circle of Irish scholars within Carolingian Europe who are particularly noteworthy for their rare knowledge and use of Greek.

These texts are not only relics of scholarly and artistic achievements, however. One of the most interesting manuscripts on display is Cod. Sang. 904, which contains a copy of the Latin grammar book (Institutiones grammaticae) of Priscian of Caesarea. Priscian was a teacher of Latin who was based in Constantinople in c.500, and this copy was probably written in Bangor or Nendrum in Co. Down in the mid-9th century, before being brought to the Continent shortly afterwards. The work of six different scribes can be identified within its text – which is written in Insular minuscule script and features elaborately decorated initials – and they were not only copying the text but also left over 10,000 notes or glosses in Latin and Old Irish, both between the lines and in the manuscript’s margins. Some of these offer rare insights into the experiences of the scribes themselves, including complaints about the cold or their writing materials (‘New parchment, bad ink… I say nothing more,’ one note grumbles), as well as a painedly laconic single word, latheirt, indicating that its author had been suffering from the after-effects of drinking too much ale. There are also two poems: one describes the pleasures of writing in the greenwood while blackbirds sing and cuckoos call, while the other takes a rather darker theme, expressing gratitude for the bitter wind and rough sea that the scribe hopes will deter Viking raiders, at least for that night.

Contextual clues

Setting the scene for the displays of manuscripts, more than 100 objects from the National Museum’s collections are also included in the exhibition to help illustrate the context in which the Sankt Gallen texts were produced and later brought to the Continent in the satchels of the early medieval Irish peregrini. These artefacts speak of contacts between Ireland and the Late Roman Empire, the emergence of literacy in the country, artistic parallels for some of the manuscripts’ decoration, and the ever-present Viking threat that loomed over Irish monasteries from the end of the 8th century and may have prompted some of their occupants to seek refuge on the Continent.

Some of the items relating to the Late Roman era include finds from the coastal promontory fort at Drumanagh, Co. Dublin. This site, whose imposing earthworks enclose an area of c.46 acres, may have been occupied by a Romano-British community who were busily engaged in trade and raw material-extraction for some of this period. Illicit metal-detecting and subsequent licensed excavations at the site have produced an eclectic array of Roman-style artefacts, some of which may have been manufactured locally (see CA 317), as well as evidence of ‘exotic’ foodstuffs that would have been acquired through trade with the Roman world. Recent investigations by the Digging Drumanagh project have recovered quantities of spelt wheat, a cereal that was rare in prehistoric Ireland but was a staple of Romano-British cuisine, as well as the charred remains of a fig: the first such fruit ever found in an archaeological context in Ireland (CA 419). Artefacts from this site that are included in Words on the Wave include a copper-alloy ingot and a lozenge-shaped copper-alloy seal-box, its lid colourfully decorated with a grid pattern of red and blue enamel; it would have been used to secure important documents.

It was through contacts with the Roman world that literacy first arrived in Ireland. Writing first manifested itself in stone, in the ogham script that is found carved on nearly 400 pillars across the country, mainly in the south. This system of linear strokes and notches, etched on to the edges of stones, invariably records the name of an individual, often in the form ‘X son of Y’. The earliest surviving inscriptions may date to the late 4th century, and the script was probably created under the influence of the Latin alphabet. Meanwhile, Christianity is thought to have arrived in Ireland c.400. An entry for the year 431, in the chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, records the sending of Palladius as first bishop to ‘the Irish believing in Christ’, while St Patrick is thought to have landed in Ireland as a missionary in the 5th century.

Christianity was a religion of the book, and from c.600 onwards we have surviving manuscripts that emanated from the many monasteries that began to spring up across Ireland. These early texts are not only preserved in parchment: the Springmount Wax Tablets, which were found in a bog in Co. Antrim in 1914, also offer important evidence of the spread of literacy in a Christian context. Dating to the late 6th or early 7th century, these six sheets of yew wood are covered in wax into which the words of Psalms 30-32 have been carefully carved, and are thought to represent the earliest surviving example of Irish writing in the Latin script. In Words on the Wave, they are complemented by four styli, writing tools that each have a pointed end which would have been used to inscribe letters on tablets like these, and a flattened spatula-like end that could be used to erase writing from the wax surfaces.

The Insular style of ornamentation that is found on many of the Sankt Gallen manuscripts finds expression in stone and metal as well during the early medieval period. Insular art was a hybrid style marked by the fusion of spiral and curvilinear elements from Iron Age La Tène art, Germanic animal elements, and Classical interlace, fret, and meander patterns. In the exhibition, many of these motifs can be seen on an early 9th-century cross-shaft from Banagher, Co. Offaly, each of whose four panels is intricately carved. Intriguingly, one of its panels, which features an interlace pattern incorporating four human figures, bears striking similarities to a decoration on one of the pages of the engagingly annotated Sankt Gallen Priscian described above – there, it is used to ornament a capital P.

Animals and birds also appear in the decoration of several other items in the displays, including in an openwork plaque of 8th- or 9th-century date from Templehouse Lake in Co. Sligo, while exquisite examples of the ‘Ultimate’ La Tène style of the early medieval period can be seen on artefacts including the early 8th-century Donore Discs – finely engraved tinned-bronze circles that were found within a hoard of nine objects at Moynalty in Co. Meath – as well as an 8th- or 9th-century Crucifixion plaque from Rinnagan in Co. Roscommon, where Jesus is shown with an enigmatically mask-like face.

Uniting all of these themes, one of the most notable items in the exhibition is the Lough Kinale Book-Shrine, which we mentioned at the start of this article. This ornate box, formed from oak boards covered with tinned-bronze sheets, was recovered from an artificial island or crannóg on Lough Kinale, Co. Longford, in 1986, and would originally have encased a manuscript associated with a particular saint. Dating to the 8th century and measuring 34.5cm long by 28cm wide (13.6in by 11in), it is the earliest and largest known example of these objects, and its ornamentation represents a diverse mix of styles. A large cross with cusped arms and five bosses decorates the front of the shrine, with circular medallions in each of the quadrants. These elements and an outer border are adorned with Ultimate La Tène motifs, as well as animal and abstract art.

The book-shrine is being exhibited for the first time since the completion of its restoration, together with other discoveries made at Lough Kinale in the 1980s. The finds include a 10th-century hoard of Viking hack-silver, and other items of metalwork associated with Viking activity in Ireland, such as a probably 9th-century sword that was recently found in the River Shannon at Corbally, Co. Limerick, and is also being exhibited for the first time. Objects like these reflect a fearsome threat that may have prompted some of the Irish peregrini to leave the island; other such journeys will have been inspired by religious devotion or a love of learning. The range of items on display in Words on the Wave give a sense of the Ireland that these early medieval pilgrims and exiles left behind, and are fitting accompaniments to the Sankt Gallen manuscripts that are such evocative reminders of the journeys that these intrepid individuals made more than 1,000 years ago.

Further information:
Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe runs at the National Museum of Ireland until 24 October 2025, and is a partnership with the Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen. The exhibition catalogue is available through the National Museum shop. Admission is free. See http://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Archaeology/Exhibitions/Words-on-the-Wave-Ireland-and-St-Gallen-in-Early-M for more details.

All images: Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen, unless otherwise stated