Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

V monogram on sweatshirt loosely based on lettering from The Book of Kells (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

A much indulged tendency towards curlicues in my embroidery means it’s easy to be drawn towards the complex interlacings found on every page of The Book of Kells, that singular manuscript of the 4 Gospels dating from about 800 AD which is attributed to the Iona Scriptoium, whether at Iona in Scotland or Kells in Ireland, or both, after Viking raids forced the monks’ relocation.  Of course the big full page illustrations are undeniably stunning in design, virtuosity and detail but it’s the small illustrations in the text and the large initial letters that really take my fancy.

Sweatshirt with V monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Four major scribes can be identified which my Thames and Husdon Official Guide to the Book of Kells says somewhat coyly operated at different levels of expertise, although all had the same training. Each also combined script and ornament in their own individual way which seems not to be dependent on a house style. This is the wonderful thing about manuscripts, their production is so labour intensive that little idiosyncrasies of the man behind the writing can’t help but seep through and declare his personality. Scribe A is described as sober and conservative and his style is very like that of the C8th Durham Gospels. He didn’t usually decorate his own work but left spaces for another scribe to add initial letters and their decoration. Sometimes he forgot to leave a space and the ornamented capital letters then had to be added in the margin. Scribe B had something of  the overseer about him (possibly self appointed) for he seems to have gone over parts of the MS completing the text and adding decoration and even making additions to pages that the original scribe would have considered complete. My guidebook is clear,  “he comes across as a supremely talented but restless personality, who was active when the scribes who had gone before him were not in any position to offer guidance or restraint.” Sometimes, he changes ink up to 3 times on the page – perhaps he was bored. On another page where the text has been repeated, he has added little fancy Latin crosses in his characteristic red ink in and around the text as a sort of sanctified cancelling. Scribe’s C script is described as ‘steady and practised’ with a particular skill in including animal and human forms in nearby initials. Scribe D goes in for darker ink and he likes to elongate letters or the ends of words at the end of verses or where space permits; sometimes he too includes parts of nearby letters in his images.  (Whether the scribes also produced the manuscripts large painted pages or whether these are the work of others is not known for sure.)

Official Guide to the Book of Kells by Bernard Meehan (T & H 2019)

The Book of Kells:the first page of John’s Breves Causae in the hand of Scribe B

There are few capital letter Vs in the text and anyway in classical latin there’s no distinction between V and U (on inscriptions Venus would appear VENVS), so I took elements of design from here and there.

Above is a favourite page  from the MS in Scribe B’s hand. I particularly enjoy the decorated Ps and flowing decoration within the text.

Below are four examples of  the word ‘et’ found at the beginning of lines of text. The scribes seem to enjoy decorating this tiny word so that it’s different every time it appears and each is a small masterpiece in invention and design. Sadly, I have no information as to which scribe did any of these.

A decorated ‘Et’ from The Book of Kells

A second decorated ‘Et’ from The Book of Kells

Third decorated ‘Et’ from The Book of Kells

Fourth decorated ‘Et’ from The Book of Kells

Embroidered X monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Missing my country bus journeys with spring greenery and floral awakening, I was overjoyed to  find a wonderful green grocer in Cirencester selling trays of early bulbs  – especially those little Tête á Tête daffodils and tiny narcissi, both of which are ideal for a small garden like ours. Two days running I bought as many as I could carry and now I have 2 tubs planted up waiting for a bit of spring sun to speed them on their way upwards. Then yesterday, our local florist had some little pink tulips, so what could be nicer? Now, please, no snow! (which is a temptation for the weather as Cheltenham Racing Festival is now only a week away).

Sweatshirt with embroidered X monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Perusing the map of my journey to Cirencester and doing a bit of googling, I discovered the family home of an old, dear and now dead friend, Nick Robinson, who was the Robinson bit of Robinson Constable Books. Gorgeous in lots of senses of the word, Nick was tall and handsome with masses of thick, dark wavy hair, pale skin and blue eyes and was ever ready to financially support friends who he knew were interesting enough to write books  – even if in at least one case no book was ever forthcoming.  He was a rare creature, an aesthete with not only a canny business sense but also a beating heart. I first met him in the 1970s on the boat train to Paris one new year’s eve and then, though a Cambridge man himself, he would appear at our house on the Thames near Folly Bridge in Oxford from time to time  – it being about half way from Cambridge to Cirencester. He published my daughter’s first book Muhajababes which told the story of her travels and described social life and customs she encountered in the Near East in the early years of the century (including in Syria when Syria was moderately accessible, very beautiful and undamaged by subsequent civil war). Nick’s death in 2013 came far too soon. As the second son of three, Nick knew he would have to make his own way in life and chose a career in publishing, starting with Apollo Magazine, then moving to Chatto and Windus before starting his own imprint which he later merged with Constable, Britain’s oldest independent publisher. His elder brother Henry inherited the family house and land, Moor Wood  Farm, near North Cerney through which my bus has been passing every day, and now I discover Henry and his wife Susie have made Moor Wood home to The National Collection of Rambling Roses, which brings me nicely round to connecting pictures and text! Talking of which, this sweatshirt is one of the last of the 2021 Christmas presents – a decorated X for my granddaughter in the style of an ornamented manuscript.

(Apparently there is a difference between rambling and climbing roses, though it’s not easy for the lay man to tell, especially in purely visual terms. Flowering time is the thing to note – if it repeat flowers through most of the summer, it’s a climbing rose, if it just flowers once, usually in June, its rambling.)

Detail: Sweatshirt with embroidered X monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Sadly our local independent coffee serving bookshop, Suffolk Anthology, closed down at the beginning of the year. Helene Hewett started the business up in 2015 having retired from her previous job as a GP and her shop was a terrific focus for those of us with literary inclinations, including putting on its very own literary festival in the year before lockdown.  Then, the other day on our walk into town we saw something that brought joy to our hearts – a shop refit that promised to be neither coffee shop, nor estate agent nor beauty parlour, but a bookshop! And, though in the opposite direction to where the  Suffolk Anthology was  it’s still only 10 minutes from our house. Joy!

Sketch for sweatshirt with embroidered X monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)