The Book of Kells and eastern Pictland, revisited

Abstract

There are numerous elements in the art of the Book of Kells which resonate closely with Pictish sculpture. These have been catalogued and analysed most carefully by Isabel Henderson (1982), while Julian Brown explored the possibility of a Pictish origin for the manuscript on more palaeographical grounds (1972). While Iona has become generally accepted as the Book's birthplace in the scholarly narrative, the evidence supporting this hypothesis is tenuous, and the manuscript's 'Pictishness' demands acknowledgement. This paper re-evaluates the evidence in the aftermath of the recent excavations at Portmahomack on the Tarbat peninsula. It also examines some of those 'Pictish' instances in the light of convincing new theories about the creation of the Book of Kells (MacGabhann 2015), and it asks how those instances fit into the modus operandi of the manuscript as a whole. Given the mobility of scribes and books, as well as the fact that Iona was part of 'Greater Pictland' during the probable period of the Book of Kells' creation, it is impossible to draw firm conclusions about the manuscript's origin. It is, however, possible to ask why and how the artists chose to work in such a Pictish idiom.