The Chi Rho page of the Book of Kells, the letters filled with knots, spirals and tiny animals
The Chi Rho page, Book of Kells, folio 34r, about 800
Marked Iona

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Monks and manuscripts

In monasteries in Ireland, Scotland and Northumbria, monks copied books by hand and decorated them with extraordinary art. The Book of Kells, made around 800, may have been begun on Iona.

Place
Iona · Kells · Lindisfarne · JarrowEurope
Laid out as
A theme across timeOne idea followed through the eras it crosses.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet
Image
Unknown scribes and artists, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IColumba and Iona
  2. IIA day in a scriptorium
  3. IIIVellum, ink and gold
  4. IVThe Lindisfarne Gospels
  5. VThe Book of Kells
  6. VIRaiders at the door

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Columba
  • Bede
  • Eadfrith

Objects

  • The Book of Kells
  • The Lindisfarne Gospels
  • The Codex Amiatinus

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

AD 563 to 1100. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?