Representational Images of Christ

It was during the eighth century that Christ was first directly represented in Insular art, at a time when the Romanising factions within the Insular Church had gained ascendancy. Both the Romani in Ireland and the Anglo-Saxons in Northumbria had been working since the mid-seventh century to establish close ties with Rome in practice and theology. We have already noted the activity in southern Ireland of Cummian, ca 630, regarding the questions of the timing of Easter and the authority of Rome. About the middle of the seventh century, probably in Kildare, a cleric who called himself Cogitosus ua hA’ eda wrote a Life of St Brigit which strings together the legendary anecdotes relating miracles associated with that holy woman. In his section on the rebuilding of the monastic church at Kildare, Cogitosus includes a description of the ornate altar and the tombs in which the remains of Brigit and bishop Conla’eth had been laid to rest as being ‘adorned with a refined profusion of gold, silver, gems and precious stones, with gold and silver chandeliers hanging from above and different images presenting a variety of carvings and colours’. Interestingly, he also indicates that the main wooden partition which separated the chancel from the nave was ‘painted with pictures and covered with wall hangings’. Unfortunately, he does not expand his description to include details of what the images were like, or their meaning. It is interesting to note the possibility that in southern Ireland at least, by the middle of the seventh century there was a decided swerving away from the earlier restriction against sumptuous religious objects and simultaneously the beginning of the acceptance of religious imagery. Kildare was also close to the area where the two Ahenny crosses, with their figural bases, were erected, possibly within the same century. In Northumbria, John, the precentor of St Peter’s in Rome and abbot of the nearby monastery of St Martin, came to Wearmouth with Benedict Biscop upon the latter’s return from his fifth trip to Rome in 678–9. Sent by Pope Agatho, John’s task was very specific. In addition to investigating the beliefs of the English Church and reporting on any lingering taint of heresy, he was to teach the monks the Roman manner of singing and reading aloud during festal celebrations.

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