Edited by Elizabeth Mullins and Diarmuid Scully

Jennifer O’Reilly (1943–2016) devoted her scholarly career to exploring the ways in which the medieval Irish and Anglo-Saxon understanding of scripture was expressed in word and image. Her contribution to Insular studies is characterised by both erudition and subtlety. Her ability to illumine the spiritual implications of images, both textual and visual, is evident in the wide range of her publications which deal variously with the twelfth-century life of Thomas Becket, the iconography of the virtues and vices, the full-page illustrations in the Book of Kells and Durham Gospels, Adomnán’s Life of Columba and the works of the Venerable Bede.

The contributions in this volume, published in 2011, revisit many of the works which Jennifer has commented on. They also reflect the influence of her approach applied to a range of new works. This interdisciplinary collection sets the cultural transformation of early medieval Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England in the context of its inheritance from Late Antiquity and engagement with the wider Medieval world. The volume brings together new research on a range of patristic and medieval texts and visual materials. It testifies to the imaginative ways in which scholars and artists in these islands assimilated and creatively re-interpreted the Christian and Mediterranean culture they encountered through the coming of Christianity.