A public lecture by Sarah Foot, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Oxford
The return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to Newcastle this autumn invites reflection on the circumstances that led to the production of that spectacular manuscript by the monks of the Irish missionary community on Holy Island. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History provides the fullest account of the conversion of the pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. His narrative, modelled on that of the biblical book of Acts, portrays the various missionary endeavours as fulfilling Christ’s injunction to his disciples to take the gospel to ‘the ends of the earth’. The creation of the magnificent gospel book at Lindisfarne illustrates how Irish and Anglo-Saxon culture was fused with motifs from the Roman and Mediterranean worlds to create a new Christian identity for the English