Cumdachs and Polaires

Medieval Irish Book Shrines and Book Satchels

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Most countries of the world that have produced the codex-form book have had a few highly valued, special examples, often holy books of saints or royal books of kings. These prized volumes have received protective coverings created by skilled craftsmen and decorated with elaborate artwork. Almost all countries apply this attention to the book itself, the paper and the binding; all save one. Ireland seems to be the only country to have used book shrines extensively; a few shrines have been found in other countries, mostly of Irish workmanship during the middle ages when the shrines were popular in Ireland, and but a very few that pre-date this period and have no Irish connection. Specialists in the book arts who wish to study Irish work have been known to lament the lack of specimens that directly compare with continental practice; witness the despair of one writer who doesn't know quite what to make of those medieval Irish bookmakers: "But though a number of box-form book-shrines such as the Cathach and the Soiscel Molaise survive, and some few leather book-satchels such as that of the Corpus Christi Missal and that associated with the Book of Armagh, we have no real knowledge of what an early Irish binding was like" (Craig 1976:2). This paper is a brief overview of what the Irish did do with their books.

It doesn't seem to be quite true that we have no knowledge of binding on the island, for some of the books that the shrines contained still exist or were described. Some eighty years before the above complaint was made, another writer had remarked that Irish books of the middle ages were bound in rough leather or wooden boards, quite plain; "but when a volume was intended for a man in great repute, or had belonged to a saint, no ornament was too elaborate to be lavished upon it" (Brassington 1894:76). It seems that if the book were being made as a tribute or for display, it would have elaborate ornaments on the pages inside, as in the Book of Kells, and could also have a shrine made for it. If the book was a simple one that had been penned by or used by a saint for utilitarian purposes and achieved greatness through association, then the decoration would go on a cumdach created for the holy artifact, and the book would be left in its original condition. The Irish saw no benefit in taking the book apart and rebinding it in a fancy cover, as might be done in other countries; they preferred in general to leave the book just as the saint used it and instead create a magnificent shrine to house it.

There appear to be two main periods when book shrines were particularly fashionable after their initial wide-spread use; these were the eleventh to the twelfth centuries, and again in the fourteenth century (Raftery 1941:56). During these times the old cumdachs were overhauled with new, more modern designs. There is evidence of subsequent work as well, particularly of a reconstructive nature on those that were damaged in Viking raids or by being exposed to the elements. In fact all surviving book shrines show evidence of repair, remodeling, and redecoration (Lucas 1973:127).

Three of the earliest cumdachs of which anything is known no longer survive, but we have dates for when they were constructed from other records; these are the shrines of the Book of Durrow (877-914 AD), the Book of Armagh (938 AD), and the Book of Kells (1007 AD). The shrines that remain include those of Lough Kinale (probably eighth century), St. Molaise's Gospels (1001-1025), the Stowe Missal (1023), St. Columba's Psalter, known as the Cathach (1084), Dimma's Book (1150), St. Patrick's Gospels, called the Domnach Airgid (n.d.), Cairnech's Calendar or the Misach (n.d.), and St. Caillen (n.d.) (Stokes 1972). The materials of which the shrines were made include wood and several types of metals; we have descriptions of the missing Durrow cumdach as having been plated silver, and that of Kells as being gold plated (Stokes 1972:77). The existing ones consist of the following materials: St. Molaise is bronze plated with silver, the Cathach and Dimma's are both of brass plated with silver, the Domnach Airgid has a yew wood foundation, and the Stowe Missal is of oak covered with plates of silver (Stokes 1972:77-81).

It was the usual practice that, when a book was in too delicate a condition to be used for its original purpose any longer, it was sealed inside its shrine and given to a prominent family who would act as guardians and keepers of the holy object. Since the guardians usually had no use for literacy, they had no reason to break open the cumdachs and disturb the worn-out contents; and the shrines themselves came to have a certain utility, as we shall see. The families associated with the different cumdachs are: the Cathach - O'Donnell/ Magroarty; St. Caillen - O'Rourke; St. Mulling - Kavanagh; Dimma - O'Carroll Eli; Domnach Airgid - Maguire; Stowe Missal - O'Kennedy; the Misach - O'Morison; and the Soiscel Molaise - O'Meehan (Kelly 1994:286). In spite of the peripatetic nature of the Irish, many of these shrines are shown by their inscriptions to have remained at or near the places where they were made. An exception is the Cathach, which was kept for centuries in County Donegal though its inscription shows it was refurbished in Kells (O Floinn 1987:180).

Written records containing information about one of the earliest known cumdachs place it in the reign of Flann Sinna, King of Ireland between 877 and 916 AD, who had it made for the Book of Durrow. Though the shrine is now lost, it was seen in 1677 by Roderic O'Flaherty, who apparently copied the case's inscription onto the fly-leaf of the book (which is still extant): "Columb Cille's prayer and blessing for Fland, son of Maelsechnaill, for the King of Ireland, by whom this case was made" (Stokes 1972:7 6-77).

We also know the name of the person who commissioned the next recorded cumdach, that of the Book of Armagh, called in its time the Canon of Patrick. A historical set of records known as the "Annals of Four Masters" has the following notation: "A.D. 937. Canoin Phadraig [Irish for Canon of Patrick] was covered by Donchadh, son of Flann, King of Ireland" (Stokes 1972:77). It seems that they were a royal family of bibliophiles. The Annals of Four Masters also alludes to a cumdach for the Book of Kells: "A.D. 1006. The Great Gospel of Columb Cille was stolen at night from the western erdomh of the Great Church of Ceannanus. This was the principal relic of the western world, on account of its singular cover; and it was found after twenty nights and two months, its gold having been stolen off it, and a sod over it" (Stokes 1972:77).

The second oldest existing cumdach, that of the Soiscel Molaise or St. Molaise's Gospels, has an inscription that allows us to date it within 24 years (1001-1025). Stokes gives a good deal of historical information about Saint Molaise and the cumdach associated with his gospel, which I can not go into here (1871). A description of the box in 1973 noted that "one narrow side is missing and openwork silver plates are riveted to the remaining sides. That on the front contains a series of small panels forming an equal-armed ringed cross. Between the arms are four large panels depicting the symbols of the evangelists and around the edge there is a row of narrow panels" (Lucas 1973:127).

The Stowe Missal shrine also features a large metal cross on the lid, with jewels set at the ends of the cross arms, as do many of the cumdachs. "The silver-gilt background of the cross is decorated with engraved figures of saints, and around the edge of the cover are Irish inscriptions. On the base of the box the jewels and enamels have been destroyed, but the ornamentation of silver openwork design over gilt still remains" (Diehl 1980: 172). These Irish inscriptions allow us to know the name of the maker of the shrine, given as Donnchadh Ua Tacain, who made it between 1045 and 1052 AD (O Floinn 1987:179). This cumdach, as several of the others, has had different books associated with it; traditionally it was known as the Shrine of St. Maelruain's Gospel, but the common name of Stowe Missal has currently won favor (Lucas 1973:128). It was a victim of fashion in the fourteenth century, when the old front was replaced with a new one that "shows the total submergence of the native tradition by a generalized European style. The sides, mutilated though they be, preserve some very interesting features. On one side is a delightful group formed by two clerics in cloaks and tunics, one holding a crozier of typical Irish form, the other a typical bell, and, between them, a small seated man playing a harp, with a winged angel above him" (Lucas 1973:128).

The next cumdach, the Cathach, has an interesting history that we know a little about. The name of the maker, Sitric, son of the goldsmith Mac Aedha who is mentioned in the charters in the Book of Kells, is inscribed upon it (O Floinn 1987:179). The Cathach was hermetically sealed, and the belief grew that if it were opened, some calamity would befall. No such thing happened when it was finally opened, though; the extremely worn condition of the book inside seemed to be the original reason for the injunction (Stokes 1972:76). The family that cared for the shrine, the O'Donnells, apparently inclined towards rather military pursuits and used the Cathach to insure success in those ventures. In a Life of St. Columba, the saint who penned the manuscript contained in the cumdach, Magnus O'Donnell wrote that "if carried three times to the right around the army of the Cenel Conaill at going to battle, it was certain that they would return victorious; and that it was upon the breast of an hereditary lay successor of a priest without mortal sin (as far as he could help) it was proper the Cathach should be carried around that army" (Raftery 1941:51). Therefore one of the O'Donnells, presumably one meeting the above requirements, would wear the shrine into battle as a breastplate. This is part of the reason for its common name, which means "battle reliquary" or "battling, warlike" in Irish.

The shrine of Dimma's book is another with a fairly well-known, and curious, history. It was made in 1150 AD for a chieftain, Tatheus O'Carroll, to enshrine a copy of the gospels written out by a scribe named Dimma in 634 AD. It was kept in a monastery that eventually was disbanded, at which time the book and shrine disappeared. They were found in 1789 by some boys who were out hunting rabbits on Devil's Bit Mountain in Tipperary, down among the rocks. It seems that the boys stripped off the silver plate and the lapis-lazuli before handing it along to the next of a long line of owners. Eventually it was given to Trinity College, Dublin (Brassington 1894:80).

Another cumdach that suffered many exchanges of hands is the Misach, (Misach - view of back) which has a long history of acquisition and presentation as a gift. Each owner would have the case repaired or refashioned so as to be a more suitable offering to the intended recipient; little now remains of its original parts (Armstrong 1922:108). An inscription around the edges tells of an early repair job: "Brian son of Brian O Muirgiussan covered me Anno Domini 1534." For a time it was believed that this was the date of original creation, but historical evidence shows that Brian son of Brian merely repaired an existing shrine (Armstrong 1922:107,110). The work that has been done on the Misach has not always been of the highest quality; in its current state, the decorative plates on the Misach "appear to have been made by beating thin silver plates into moulds" for a patterned, uninteresting design (Armstrong 1922:106). The front plate has had the following appraisal given of it: "This barbarously executed front is of considerable interest. It shows no trace of renaissance feeling. The delineation of the figures is contemptible. If this is a fair sample of early sixteenth century Irish ecclesiastical art, it shows how completely bereft was Ireland at that period of the splendid artistic impulse which, radiating from Italy, was making itself felt throughout Europe" (Armstrong 1922:107). This is a far cry from the usual honor accorded old Irish workmanship, but in the case of such a patchwork of repair it is likely accurate.

It was not until 1986 that the remains of the earliest and largest of the surviving cumdachs were discovered in the lake known as Lough Kinale, which has given its name to the shrine. Like most of the others, the Lough Kinale cumdach was made of wood covered in metal; it was found smashed into pieces, but most of its parts were recovered, allowing full reconstruction. "Like many of the other surviving Irish book shrines it consists of a wooden box to which metal plates were nailed, the whole being bound with tubular strips along the sides and corners" (Kelly 1994:280). This construction technique was designed not to allow the shrine to be opened without disassembling it; "the point should be stressed that the object is not simply a box in which to store a valuable manuscript. It is a reliquary which contained a sacred relic which was not meant to be accessible for reading" (Kelly 1994:280). It was kept in a crannog by the lake that may have belonged to an ecclesiastical order or to a guardian family; in any case it is recorded that Vikings raided Lough Kinale across the frozen surface of the lake in 853 AD. "One hundred and twenty persons were slain and it is tempting to suggest that it was in the course of this raid that the book shrine was stolen and subsequently lost" (Kelly 1994:288).

Unfortunately little work has been published detailing studies into the social and cultural aspects of cumdachs, so that we know a little about the history of some of them, but not why they were created or what role they played in society. We know a bit more about book satchels because of their utilitarian function and the life styles of those who used them, but these have received only cursory mention in the literature as well. What follows is a brief outline of what I have found.

The typical use of these book satchels was to carry books in as one traveled from place to place, and also as a way to store books when they were not in use; the polaires, with the books inside, would be suspended from pegs in the walls, usually three or four on a peg. These were the coverings for the manuscripts that were in daily use, and it is likely that when a saint passed on, his favorite copy of the gospels would be taken out of its polaire and covered in a cumdach. Literary evidence shows that there were hundreds of book satchels in use in their day, but because of the nature of the leather materials out of which they were made, only three are known to have survived.

Book satchels show up often in early writings about Irish missionaries, and appear in depictions of saints. For instance, the sarcophagus of St. Columbanus in Bobio has a bas-relief of the saint carrying a satchel while commanding a bear to be yoked with a bullock, one of the miracles attributed to him (Buckley 1915:306). In fact the polaire seems to have been a symbol used in art to show that the figure being represented was an Irish cleric, saint, bishop, or monk. On such objects as monumental stones, "in nearly all the cases we can see that the person shown carries the crosier (or staff) with the round head which is so characteristic of the Keltic Church . . . and as a rule we see a square box-shaped object hanging around his neck by a strap. This object no doubt is a book container, and we thus learn how the holy book as an object of daily use or of saintly character is stylistically connected with the representation of the ecclesiastic in Keltic art generally" (Raftery 1941:51).

St. Patrick himself is usually described as carrying a book satchel on his back, and in a passage from Whitley Stokes' Lives of the Saints we read that "(the guardian angel) brought Colum, son of Crimhthan, with his book-satchel (to St Findian of Clonard on his death bed)" [Colum refers to St. Columcille] (Buckley 1915:308). In an early Life of St. Columcille (in the Speckled Book, or Leabhar Breac), the saint is said to have at one point blessed "one hundred polaires, noble, one coloured" and it also notes "for it was a practice with him to make crosses, and book satchels, and ecclesiastical implements." The same book also refers to an exchange between St. Patrick and St. Fiacc, bishop of Sletty: "Patrick gave a cumtach to Fiacc containing, to wit, a bell, and reliquary, and a crozier, and a book satchel" (Stokes 1972:44).

The three polaires that have survived are those associated with the Book of Armagh, with St. Maedoc's Reliquary, and with an ancient Irish missal now at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; they all have been speculatively dated to the eleventh century (Hobson 1929:26). Although St. Maedoc's Reliquary, known as the Breac Moedoig, is not a book but a metal shrine for one of the saint's relics, the design of the satchel is the same as the others and it is written of as a polaire; also, judging by the fit of the reliquary, it appears that the satchel was not originally made to contain it, but rather some other object, now lost (Buckley 1915:301).

The elaborate ornamentation that covers the polaires is the cause of some speculation as to workmanship. Hobson declares that "it is not easy to see how the ornament of these objects was produced; small metal stamps, large panels, the knife and the graver all seem equally impossible" (Hobson 1929:27). However, others have decided that it must be possible, and have proposed solutions: "Mr. Alfred de Burgh, one of the librarians of Trinity College, Dublin, and an authority on Irish book satchels, came to the conclusion that the cowhide leather used for the Irish polaires was first soaked, after the pattern had been traced on it with a pointed or flat bone instrument, and that the background was then pressed down by wooden or bone implements so that the design was left in relief. He suggests that pressure was also probably applied from the underside of the leather" (Diehl 1980:174).

Each satchel was constructed out of a single oblong piece of leather, folded and stitched into a wallet-shaped receptacle. That of the Book of Armagh measures about twelve inches high by thirteen inches wide by two and a half inches thick; like the St. Maedoc polaire, it was apparently made for a different occupant than that now associated with it, as the Book of Armagh itself measures only about eight inches by six inches, though it is thicker than the satchel (Buckley 1915:300-301). The Corpus Christi College satchel does fit exactly to the missal, and shows that at least sometimes the polaire was made for a specific book (Buckley 1915:302).

The purpose of this paper is not to draw any conclusions about the subjects presented herein, but rather to draw attention to an unusual and fascinating, but often overlooked, segment of the history of the book as it intersects with the history of Christian art and culture in Ireland. The differences between the Irish culture of the book and that in the rest of Europe reveal an alternate paradigm that should be further explored and fit into the bigger picture of Celtic culture in the middle ages.

Armstrong, E.C.R.; Crawford, H.S.; Lawlor, H.J. 1922. "The Reliquary Known as the Misach." Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland vol. 52, part 2. 105-112.

Brassington, W. Salt. 1894. A History of the Art of Bookbinding. London: Elliot Stock.

Buckley, J.J. 1915. "Some Early Ornamented Leatherwork." Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland vol. 45, part 4. 300-309.

Craig, Maurice. 1976. Irish Bookbindings. The Irish Heritage Series: 6. Dublin, Ireland: Eason & Son.

Diehl, Edith. 1980. Bookbinding: Its Background and Technique vol. 1. Originally published in 1946 in 2 vols. by Rinehart & Co. New York: Dover Publications.

Hobson, G.D. 1929. English Binding Before 1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kelly, Eamonn P. 1994. "The Lough Kinale Book Shrine: The Implications for the Manuscripts." In: Felicity O'Mahony, editor. The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at Trinity College Dublin 6-9 September 1992. Hants, England: Scolar Press. 280-289.

Kelly, Eamonn P. 1993. "The Lough Kinale Book-Shrine." In: Spearman, R. Michael; Higgitt, John, editors. The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland. Dover, New Hampshire: Alan Sutton Publishing. 168-174.

Lucas, A.T. 1973. Treasures of Ireland: Irish Pagan and Early Christian Art. Dublin, Ireland: Gill and Macmillan.

O Floinn, Raghnall. 1989. "The Soiscel Molaise." Clogher Record 13(2). 51-63.

O Floinn, Raghnall. 1987. "Schools of Metalworking in Eleventh- and Twelfth- Century Ireland." In: Ryan, Michael, editor. Ireland and Insular Art A.D. 500-1200. Dublin, Ireland: Royal Irish Academy. 179-187.

O Floinn, Raghnall. 1982. "The Shrine of the Book of Dimma." Eile 1. 25-39.

Raftery, Joseph. 1941. Christian Art in Ancient Ireland vol. 2. Dublin, Ireland: Stationary Office of Ireland.

Stokes, Margaret. 1972. Early Christian Art in Ireland. First published 1887, revised by G.N. Count Plunkett 1911. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press.

Stokes, Margaret. 1871. "Observations on Two Ancient Irish Works of Art Known as the Breac Moedog, or Shrine of St. Moedoc of Ferns, and the Soiscel Molaise, or Gospel of St. Molaise of Devenish." Archaeologia 43, part 1. 131-150.

Harry Miller
hmiller@eskimo.com

Last Updated June 1, 1996