No other
MS. of its time is to be found in any continental scriptorium to be
compared with it. It is not a collection of clumsy inartistic attempts
at ornamental writing, but high-class, effective work, which should be
seen and studied by every student of illumination.
From its style of execution, its details of portraiture, and other
features, it may be looked on as one of the earliest links between the
two extremes of Oriental and Occidental Art.
Another MS. in the British Museum (Vesp. A. 1), which combines the Roman
method of painting as in the Vergils with the penwork of these
Anglo-Celtic Gospel-books, may also repay careful examination.
It is very possible that the celebrated _scriptoria_ of York and Jarrow
may have been furnished with both MSS. and copyists from Rome, yet there
can be little doubt that the intercourse with Durham would be quite as
active. Nor is it less probable that similar intercourse would keep them
_en rapport_ with Oxford, St. Alban's, Westminster, Glastonbury, and
other _scriptoria_, so that in the eighth century England stood with
respect to art second to no other country in the Christian world.
During the ninth century active intercourse with the Frankish Empire
enriched English churches and religious houses, especially Winchester,
with examples of Byzantine and Roman models, which Charlemagne had
introduced into his own palatine schools.
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