Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Recutting the Cross: The Anglo-Saxon Baptismal Font at Wilne
- 2 The Fountain Sealed Up in the Garden Enclosed: A Vine Scroll at Kells
- 3 The Art of the Church in Ninth-Century Anglo- Saxon England: The Case of the Newent Cross
- 4 ‘The Stones of the Wall Will Cry Out’: Lithic Emissaries and Marble Messengers in Andreas
- 5 Conversion, Ritual, and Landscape: Streoneshalh (Whitby), Osingadun, and the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Street House, North Yorkshire
- 6 Outside the Box: Relics and Reliquaries at the Shrine of St Cuthbert in the Later Middle Ages
- 7 An Unusual Hell Mouth in an Old Testament Illustration: Understanding the Numbers Initial in the Twelfth-Century Laud Bible
- 8 The Problem of Man: Carved from the Same Stone
- 9 Glass Beads: Production and Decorative Motifs
- 10 Unmasking Meaning: Faces Hidden and Revealed in Early Anglo-Saxon England
- 11 Alcuin, Mathematics and the Rational Mind
- 12 Looking Down from the Rothbury Cross: (Re)Viewing the Place of Anglo-Saxon Art
- Bibliography of Jane Hawkes’ Writings
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
- ALREADY PUBLISHED
7 - An Unusual Hell Mouth in an Old Testament Illustration: Understanding the Numbers Initial in the Twelfth-Century Laud Bible
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Recutting the Cross: The Anglo-Saxon Baptismal Font at Wilne
- 2 The Fountain Sealed Up in the Garden Enclosed: A Vine Scroll at Kells
- 3 The Art of the Church in Ninth-Century Anglo- Saxon England: The Case of the Newent Cross
- 4 ‘The Stones of the Wall Will Cry Out’: Lithic Emissaries and Marble Messengers in Andreas
- 5 Conversion, Ritual, and Landscape: Streoneshalh (Whitby), Osingadun, and the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Street House, North Yorkshire
- 6 Outside the Box: Relics and Reliquaries at the Shrine of St Cuthbert in the Later Middle Ages
- 7 An Unusual Hell Mouth in an Old Testament Illustration: Understanding the Numbers Initial in the Twelfth-Century Laud Bible
- 8 The Problem of Man: Carved from the Same Stone
- 9 Glass Beads: Production and Decorative Motifs
- 10 Unmasking Meaning: Faces Hidden and Revealed in Early Anglo-Saxon England
- 11 Alcuin, Mathematics and the Rational Mind
- 12 Looking Down from the Rothbury Cross: (Re)Viewing the Place of Anglo-Saxon Art
- Bibliography of Jane Hawkes’ Writings
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
- ALREADY PUBLISHED
Summary
THE INITIAL
The Laud Bible, a giant single-volume codex now held in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was probably designed and written in France during the middle years of the twelfth century, and bound in a French scriptorium around 1200. At the beginning of each Old Testament book is a large historiated initial containing an illustration based on some part of the accompanying text. The only exception is the very short book of Ruth, which has an ornamental initial formed from a grotesque creature. Some of the subjects illustrated in the Bible are very rare, including that in the initial to the book of Numbers, which is the subject of this essay (Pl. VIII). It illustrates an episode from the revolt of the priest Korah, and the destruction of his followers Dathan and Abiron by Moses. Even more unusually, it depicts a hell mouth devouring the two troublesome men while they are still alive.
The initial is formed by the capital ‘L’ of Locutusque est Dominus ad Mosen (‘and the Lord spoke to Moses’), the first words of the book, but the subject of the illustration is derived from the text of chapter 16, deep within the book, which describes how Korah, a rich and influential Levite relative of Moses and Aaron, accused Moses of favouritism in the selection of the high priests of the tabernacle. Moses declared that it was God who selected Aaron and his sons, and suggested that Korah accept the decision. Dathan and Abiron were not of the priestly Levite clan, but were ambitious in their support of Korah, and became involved in the revolt against Moses and Aaron. They refused to attend a meeting with Moses, who, after consultation with God, destroyed the two men and their followers in a very dramatic way, as shown in the illustration. In the initial Moses stands to the left and gestures while speaking to the people, and holds a scroll inscribed by the master scribe recedite a tabernaculis impiorum (‘stand back from the tabernacles of the impious’), warning them to move away to avoid being destroyed.
- Type
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- Information
- Insular IconographiesEssays in Honour of Jane Hawkes, pp. 123 - 142Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019