The Cost of the Codex Amiatinus

Northumbria in the West: Considering Interaction Through Monumentality

“…It could be argued that this is simply reading too much into what are essentially incomplete bodies of evidence. However, both the sculpture and the place-names of these regions have been subject to comprehensive study (Watson 1926;Bailey and Cramp 1988;Craig 1991;1992;Nicolaisen 2001), which would suggest that the discrepancy is real and provides significant information about Northumbria's activities in the west. In one area, Northumbrian investment is represented in the landscape by widespread monuments, likely to represent major ecclesiastical centres such as those which have been investigated archaeologically at Dacre and Hoddom.…”

Gift-giving and books in the letters of St Boniface and Lul

“…86 Yet, as Richard Gameson has observed, even the production of such extravagant books as the Codex Amiatinus, written in the late-seventh century at Wearmouth-Jarrow along with two companion volumes, need not have strained the material resources of a large, well-endowed monastery; just as great a challenge would have been the long-term organisation of these resources, and the economic and administrative competence that this demanded. 87 Furthermore, when we look at more conventional gifts, we see that even munuscula could be extremely costly d the three-and-a-half pound silver gilt cup sent by King AEthelbert to Boniface, for example, or the silver and gold which Boniface sent to Pope Zacharias, or the 50 solidi donated by Bugga, or the towel of roughened silk sent to Daniel of Winchester d and, of course, we cannot be sure that the numerous decorated vestments referred to were quite as humble as the giver tended to profess. 88 Between them, members of the church elite had access to immense material wealth, fragments of which we see circulating in the letters of Boniface.…”