To hold infinity in the palm of your hand: the Insular pocket gospel books re-evaluated

While the small-sized early medieval manuscripts known as the “pocket gospel books” are well known to scholars of Insular culture, the definition and interpretation of this codicological group are far from secure. This study provides a reassessment of these manuscripts, questioning the nature of their grouping, reappraising their individual uniqueness and theorising their common features. As such, it focusses on distinctive aspects of their physical structure, scripts and imagery to provide an interdisciplinary account, including broader points about the group and detailed case studies of specific features of individual manuscripts. More than this however, it takes these manuscripts as the starting point for an exploration of early medieval scribal and monastic culture, resituating them in a cultural world in which manuscripts, and especially gospel books, were central to personal piety, intellectual study and institutional identity alike.