Early Insular Art at the Crossroads

Volume 1: Metalwork, Manuscripts and Other Media

Edited by David Petts, Heidi Stoner, John Carson and Christina Smith

Imprint: Oxbow Books

304 Pages, 120 B/W and colour illustrations

Paperback
9798888571064
August 2025
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Description
Contents
Authors

Brings together the latest scholarship on early medieval (AD 400–1100) art in Britain, Ireland and beyond.

This volume comprises published papers from the Ninth International Insular Art Conference held in Durham in 2022. It brings together the latest scholarship on early medieval (AD 400–1100) art in Britain, Ireland and beyond. Perspectives taken include classical art historical analysis of form, style and design, but also a close attention to the materials used and the complex process of production and artisan skill required to create these objects. This volume focuses on manuscripts, metalwork and other media, with research on stone sculpture appearing in Volume 2.

1. Introduction
David Petts, Heidi Stone, Christina Smith and John Carson
2. “Insular Blues”
Richard Gameson
3. Culture at a Crossroads: impact, influence, and endurance
Melisa Hermann
4. Petersen Type O Sword Hilts
Caroline Patterson
5. The Context of the Derrynaflan Paten
Michael Ryan
6. False Friends? Pictish beast-headed penannular brooches in a viking-age context
Adrian Maldonado
7. Irish Metalwork of the 11th and 12th Centuries – Dublin and Ottonian Europe
Raghnall Ó Floinn
8. Recent Discoveries of Insular Metalwork in Wales: aspects of craft, context and connections
Mark Redknap
9. The Figures of St Manchan’s Shrine: setting the record straight
Griffin Murray
10. Early Insular Vessels
Maeve Sikora
11. Insular, Enamelled Metalwork from Viking-Age Norway: a new review
Zanette T. Glørstad
12. The Art of Play: insular board games and beyond
Katherine Forsyth
13. Coming and Going at the Cross Road: hanging bowls and the problem of labels
Susan Youngs
14. Fame for a Pot of Ale: representation, reciprocity and drinking horns
Carol Neuman de Vegvar
15. Carving Brooch Moulds with Coherent Geometry
Stephen Walker
16. Bearing Crosses: interpretations in English and Frankish adornment
Rachael Vause
17. Looking for Something Different? Sameness and unsameness in insular art
Michael Brennan
18. An Insular Manuscript Wander into Virtual Reality: Oh My!
Bill Endres
19. The Lozenge in the Insular Illumination
Dominique Barbet-Massin
20. The Initials in the Book of Kells: revealing the ‘calligraphic imagination’ of its great scribe
Donncha MacGabhann
21. New Light on the Turin Gospels (Torino, Biblioteca nazionale, MS O.IV.20) and Related Manuscripts
Bernard Meehan
22. Use and Reuses of an Insular Gospel Fragment in the Roudnice Lobkowicz Library
Jiří Vnouček and Nancy Netzer
23. Making a Pictish Manuscript
Thomas Keyes

David Petts is Associate Professor of Archaeology at Durham University, He is a specialist in the archaeology of early medieval Christianity in Britain and north-west Europe. He leads excavation on the early medieval monastic site of Lindisfarne.

Heidi Stoner is Senior Lecturer in the Medieval Archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University. Her research is primarily focused on early medieval material culture of the Insular world. She is particularly interested in iconography, historiography, monumental art and its use in the early Christian landscape.

John Carson is an independent scholar and has recently completed a PhD at Durham University on society and economy in early medieval Northumbria.

Christina Smith is an independent scholar and has recently completed a PhD at Durham University on early medieval high crosses. She has a wider interest in sculpture and carving in the Insular world.