# The Lindisfarne Gospels > Eadfrith of Lindisfarne (attributed) - c. 700-721, most narrowly argued as c. 715-722 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/eadfrith-of-lindisfarne/lindisfarne-gospels-british-library/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-14 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Eadfrith of Lindisfarne (attributed) - **Date:** c. 700-721, most narrowly argued as c. 715-722 - **Medium:** Ink, pigments and gold on vellum (calfskin), in a modern (1852) silver and gem binding - **Dimensions:** Approximately 340 x 250 mm; 258 or 259 folios depending on counting convention, c. 516 pages - **Object type:** Manuscript - **Period:** Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, early eighth century - **Current location:** British Library, London - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A Latin Gospel book made at or for the monastery of Lindisfarne around the year 700-721, traditionally credited to the scribe-artist Eadfrith on the sole evidence of a colophon written two and a half centuries later. It carries the oldest surviving translation of any part of the Gospels into English, an interlinear gloss added around the mid tenth century by the priest Aldred, and it survived a Viking-era flight from Lindisfarne, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the 1731 fire that destroyed a large part of Sir Robert Cotton's library.The jewelled treasure-binding that Aldred's colophon describes does not survive; the book now wears an 1852 replacement. The manuscript has never been sold. It passed from the Lindisfarne community to Durham, into private hands by the early seventeenth century, into Robert Cotton's library, and from there into the founding collection of the British Museum in 1753 and the British Library in 1973, where it remains on public display.This record treats the story of the book falling into the sea and being recovered unharmed, first recorded by Simeon of Durham around 1104, as pious legend rather than documented fact, and separates it clearly from the well-evidenced parts of the community's flight. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 700-721** Lindisfarne priory scriptorium, attributed to Eadfrith `[documented]` (production) Made at or for the monastery of Lindisfarne during the episcopate of Eadfrith (698-721), on the sole later documentary attribution of Aldred's colophon; the physical dating to this period is independently supported by script and decoration. - **721-c. 875** Lindisfarne priory, shrine of St Cuthbert `[documented]` (custody) Kept at Lindisfarne as an object associated with Cuthbert's shrine. - **c. 875-995** The itinerant community of St Cuthbert `[documented]` (relocation) Community left Lindisfarne under Viking pressure carrying Cuthbert's relics and books. Route per the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto: an attempted crossing to Ireland from the Derwent estuary, turned back by storm, then Crayke, then Chester-le-Street after seven years, where the community remained until 995. - **undated** `[disputed]` (legend: the book washed overboard and recovered undamaged) Recorded only by Simeon of Durham, writing c. 1104, more than two centuries after the events described, evidently to explain water-staining already visible on some leaves. Treated here as pious legend attached after the fact, not as a documented event. - **c. 950-c. 970** Aldred, priest, Chester-le-Street `[documented]` (annotation) Aldred added a continuous Old English interlinear gloss, the oldest surviving translation of the Gospels into English, and appended the colophon naming Eadfrith, Ethelwald and Billfrith. - **995-1539** Durham Cathedral Priory (probable, not certain) `[unknown]` (custody) Medieval Durham inventories list several Gospel books; this manuscript may be one of them but cannot be identified with certainty in any surviving list. - **1539-1605** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No owner documented between the Dissolution of Durham Cathedral Priory and Robert Bowyer's attested ownership by 1605. - **1605-1621** Robert Bowyer, Clerk of the Parliaments `[documented]` (ownership) Owned the manuscript and signed folio 2v, a mark now visible only under ultraviolet light. Clerk of the Parliaments and Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London from 1610 until his death in 1621. - **1621-1631** Sir Robert Bruce Cotton `[unknown]` (acquisition) Entered Cotton's library after Bowyer's 1621 death by an unrecorded transaction. Cotton and Bowyer were connected through the office of Clerk of the Parliaments and through manuscript exchange, but no source found documents the specific date, price or mechanism of this particular acquisition. - **1631-1702** Cotton family (heirs of Sir Robert Cotton) `[documented]` (custody) Retained in the Cotton library, catalogued under the shelfmark Nero D IV. - **1702-1753** The nation, under the British Museum Act 1700-1701 `[documented]` (donation) Sir John Cotton, grandson of Sir Robert, bequeathed the library to the nation on his death in 1702. Moved to Essex House and then Ashburnham House, where it survived the fire of 23 October 1731 without being among the manuscripts recorded as destroyed or severely damaged. - **1753-1973** British Museum `[documented]` (founding acquisition) Became one of the three founding collections of the British Museum in 1753, alongside the Sloane and Harley libraries. - **1973-present** British Library, London `[documented]` (transfer) Transferred with the British Museum's manuscript collections to the newly created British Library in 1973. On rotating display in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery; lent to Palace Green Library, Durham (Jul-Sep 2013) and the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (17 Sep - 3 Dec 2022). ## Open questions - When and how was the original jewelled treasure-binding lost? Sources disagree between the 793 raid on Lindisfarne and the later Viking pressure of the 870s, and no source consulted documents a specific date. - Did the manuscript actually fall into the sea during the community's flight, as Simeon of Durham claims around 1104? The claim postdates the event by more than two centuries and is treated here as legend, not documented fact. - By what transaction, and on what date, did the manuscript pass from Robert Bowyer's estate after his death in 1621 into Sir Robert Cotton's library? No source found documents this specifically. - Where was the manuscript between the Dissolution of Durham Cathedral Priory (completed by 1540) and Robert Bowyer's documented ownership by 1605? No owner is recorded for this roughly sixty-year gap. - Is the manuscript identifiable in any surviving medieval Durham Cathedral Priory book-list, among the several Gospel books recorded there? No source consulted can confirm this with certainty. - Was Eadfrith solely responsible for the whole manuscript, as the single-hand analysis and Aldred's colophon both suggest, or did he have assistance not recorded by tradition? - What is the manuscript's precise date within its traditional range? Sources vary between a broad c. 700-721 and Michelle Brown's narrower codicological argument for c. 715-722. ## Sources - [1] Wikipedia, 'Lindisfarne Gospels'. Tertiary source consolidating production date, Aldred's colophon, the treasure-binding and its 1852 replacement, the Viking-era flight and sea legend, the 1753 and 1973 institutional transfers, and art-historical description. Flagged for replacement with the British Library's own catalogue entry and Michelle Brown's 2003 facsimile commentary. - [2] British Library, Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue, 'Cotton MS Nero D IV'. Direct fetch blocked during this research by an expired TLS certificate on the British Library's own server; content used here is drawn from a search-engine summary of this catalogue page and should be directly re-verified once the certificate is renewed. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Historia de Sancto Cuthberto', for the documented route of the community's flight (Derwent estuary, aborted crossing to Ireland, Crayke, Chester-le-Street). - [4] katapi.org.uk, 'Lindisfarne Gospels: John, full page miniature'. A popular compilation citing Simeon of Durham's c. 1104 account of the book falling into the sea; tertiary, included because it names its source (Simeon of Durham) and date precisely. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Robert Bowyer (diarist)', for Bowyer's dates, his tenure as Clerk of the Parliaments from 1610, and his ownership signature on folio 2v. - [6] Wikipedia, 'Cotton library', for the British Museum Act 1700-1701, Sir John Cotton's 1702 donation, the 23 October 1731 Ashburnham House fire and its toll, and the 1753 founding of the British Museum. - [7] North East Museums, 'Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition attracts over 50,000 visitors to the Laing Art Gallery', for the 2022 Newcastle loan dates and visitor numbers. - [8] British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog (Kathleen Doyle, curator), 'The Lindisfarne Gospels in the Treasures Gallery', 12 July 2017, read via the Wayback Machine's 20231208 snapshot because the live blogs.bl.uk platform no longer serves individual post URLs (checked directly: 404 on both blogs.bl.uk and its blogs-archive.bl.uk successor, and the British Library's own site currently displays a cyber-attack service-disruption notice). Source for the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery display location, the three-monthly page-turn cycle, and the international conservation committee that sets it. Replace with a live British Library primary source once the platform is restored. - [9] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:St. Matthew - Lindisfarne Gospels (710-721), f.25v - BL Cotton MS Nero D IV.jpg'. CC0, credited to the British Library. - [10] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:St. Mark - Lindisfarne Gospels (710-721), f.93v - BL Cotton MS Nero D IV.jpg'. CC0, credited to the British Library. - [11] Sophie Kelly, Lecturer in History of Art, University of Bristol, 'The Lindisfarne Gospels: the story of how a medieval masterpiece was made', The Conversation, 2022. - [12] Wikipedia, 'Carpet page', tertiary, for the range of proposed sources (Coptic, metalwork, textile, mosaic) for the carpet-page tradition. - [13] Michelle P. Brown, 'The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe' (London: British Library / Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003). Cited here via secondary summaries and published reviews of the facsimile commentary; the monograph itself was not directly consulted in this research pass and should be checked against the primary text. - [14] English Heritage, 'History of Lindisfarne Priory', for the priory's founding by Aidan c. 635 and its context. - [15] Margaret Walker, 'The Lindisfarne Gospels: A Living Manuscript', FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture and the Arts, Special Issue 3, Winter 2014. Direct extraction of the article's body text was not possible from the PDF encoding retrieved; the colophon translation quoted here was cross-checked against multiple independent renderings found in the course of this research and is consistent across them. - [16] Wikimedia Commons, Category:Lindisfarne Gospels (710-721) - BL Cotton MS Nero D IV, and the individual file description pages for folios 2v, 26v, 27r, 29r, 139r and 209v, used to identify and licence-check each gallery image. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.