Books, book satchels, and shrines in the Book of Deer (Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.6.32)
Date
2010
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The Book of Deer (Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.6.32), a small
gospel book usually dated to the late ninth or early tenth century CE and attributed to
present-day Scotland, has inspired heightened scholarly interest in recent decades,
although art historical inquiries remain relatively underexplored. Among the many
questions posed by Deer’s idiosyncratic art is the identity of the four full-page figures
prefacing the gospel texts, whose inconsistencies with early medieval evangelist
iconography have invited a host of alternate explanations. Amid these debates, the
prominent house-shaped form resting over the mid-section of three of the four figures
has received little critical scholarly attention aside from its identification as a book
satchel or a house-shaped shrine. My thesis contends that this motif, far from being a
mere attribute, was a locus for multiple meanings that, when considered alongside the
possible function(s) of the Book of Deer, contributes crucial perspectives on the
interpretation and function of its figural imagery.
After reviewing the art historical research to date on the Book of Deer, I
employ a range of artistic, material, textual, and exegetical evidence to support my
central claim that the Deer motif operated as a multivalent sign for both a houseshaped
shrine and a book satchel for the gospels. I argue that the many levels of form,
function, and symbolism upon which gospel books, book satchels, and house-shaped
shrines were linked in the early medieval Insular world imbued the conflation of these
forms in Deer with expansive yet circumscribed meanings that facilitated the book’s
performance of multiple, overlapping roles. My findings further support a reading of the figures as different versions of Christ, a theory first proposed by Dominic Marner
in a 2002 essay.