Marissa Cook

Professor Connolly
Art 342
23 November 2014

Cook 1

Bursting with Life: The Insular Characteristics of the Drogo Sacramentary

A majuscule D and smaller S decorates the opening of the Easter Sunday mass in the
Drogo Sacramentary (Fig. 1), commissioned by the Archbishop Drogo of Metz between 844
and 855 and one of the most sumptuously decorated manuscripts of the Carolingian period.
At the center of the D entwines an elaborate scrolling leaf that encircles the S within. The
two letters, with an abbreviating dash above the S, stand for the word Deus, and the text that
follows the letter and continues on the verso addresses God in praise of Christs victory over
death. Nestled in the lower portion of the interior of the D, a group of figures represents the
Easter morning scene of the three women at the tomb. In the outer curve of the D, similar
miniature scenes appear: the two Marys are greeted by the risen Christ and, beneath that,
Christ appears to Mary Magdalen. These figures remain separated from the naturalistic
foliage and are faintly modeled with color, echoes of classical clarity. Similarly, a classically
derived script of pale green and imperial gold characterize the lettering, and even the
architecture of the tomb resembles late antique designs. In the initial D, however, the
elaborate leaf scrolling engulfs the S, filling the entirety of the Ds interior until it crowds the
figures at the bottom and wraps around the frame of the letter as though a living plant. In an
anti-classical manner, this motif obscures the letter and, consequently, the meaning of the
text. These vines, in fact, connect to the figures, such as the edge of the rightmost Marys
dress; while the three Marys, the tomb and angel, and the Roman soldiers connect, whether in
overlapping shape or tendrils of line, as though growing out of each other. The gold
patterning above the tombs columns likewise flourish out into parallel swirls of foliage.
Although some attempt at illusionism is present, the figures appear generally flat, shown on a

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shallow plane with a blank background. Meanwhile, the smaller scenes of the appearances of
Christ float in the undefined space between the gold lines of the letter, bending with the curve
of the D like a substituted portion of the scroll motif. On the whole, this dominating initial,
animated with inhabitants, recalls the similarly swirling movement of Insular illumination
that transferred to the continent during the Merovingian era. In looking more closely at this
initial and others like it, our modern eyes see that, while Classical appearance drew
connections to imperial Rome, the court school also maintained aspects of Insular tradition. I
will argue that through initials inhabited with figures, plants, and color to create an enlivened
reading experience; zoomorphism and obfuscating qualities in the letters; and the use of
divinely complex interlace, the relationship created between the reader and the image in the
Drogo Sacramentary was used to create a sense of spiritual life and divine power in the
illuminated text.
The Historical Context of the Drogo Sacramentary
Many scholars easily note the mixing of traditions apparent in Carolingian art. During
his rule, Charlemagne orchestrated a revival of classical culture, instituting reforms that
emphasized learning, order, and uniformity, particularly through the means of books
(Mutherich and Gaehde 9). At the same time and similarly noted upon, monks from Insular
monasteries had previously travelled to the continent disseminating manuscript copies
(Brown 17). Charlemagne even had one such monk in his court, the influential Alcuin of
York, whom he later appointed abbot of Saint Martin at Tours. Alcuin worked to perfect the
art of copying manuscripts, and his influence could easily have imparted Insular-based values
on the courtly work associated with Charlemagne (Romagosa 144). Likewise, few will
contradict the clear presence of Insular interlace and hints of zoomorphism dotted across

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Carolingian and pre-Carolingian illumination. Manuscripts often cited as examples of this
Insular influence interwoven into continental styles include Merovingian works like the
Gellone Sacramentary. One image from that manuscript, the opening of the Mass of
Christmas (Fig. 2), shows a flattened, patterned figure suggestive of Insular figural depiction.
In this example, however, the grand initial I of the beginning words, In nomine Domini,
substitutes a figure of Mary for the shape of the letter, a figure that relates directly to the
content of the vigil (Alexander 47). In this pre-Carolingian manuscript, initials take on the
same prevalence as found in Insular manuscripts, and the beginning of the development of
zoomorphic interlace and head-terminated letters into what later becomes the inhabited initial
can be seen. Inhabited initials progress further in the Corbie Psalter, another Merovingian
manuscript which was heavily influenced by Insular tradition and which contains sixty of
these animated initials (Pulliam 97). Created around 800, just prior to the beginning of
Charlemagnes rule, the Psalters initials do not merely substitute figures for letters but, with
much of the metamorphic qualities of Insular examples, picture humans and animals perched
on, supported by, or twisted out the letter frames (Mitchell). Modeling these Insular
elements, an inhabited initial begins the hymn Gloria in excelsis, showing the psalmist
carried in the lower loop of the G and Christ in Majesty standing in the curve of the letter
above (Fig. 3). The flat, patterned illustration and the interlace work at the end of the G
likewise point to these Insular motifs (Pulliam 107). As one of the earliest examples of true
inhabited initials, just the rule of Charlemagne began to develop, the Corbie Psalter illustrates
the clear preponderance of Insular styles on the continent. This influence, even under
Charlemagnes classicizing patronage, can still be found in works like the Drogo
Sacramentary.

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Thus, Insular influences had clearly percolated to the continent and were present in
artistic tradition at the time of Charlemagnes renovatio. Due to this presence, Insular motifs
may well have contained traditional connotation as well. That is to say, motifs of Insular
origin may well have appeared to Carolingians as the norm of artistic production, whereas
the classical fostered by Charlemagne presented a very exotic, clearly Roman look. However,
this does not mean that the Insular motifs that continue in Carolingian illumination can be
discounted as mere decoration, which many scholars seem to do. There exists a general trend
in the scholarship regarding Carolingian painting that chooses to center scholarly attention on
an interpretation of the Carolingian world as marked by unity rather than a more realistic
cultural plurality (Sullivan 288). Religiously, on the other hand, it can be accepted that the
Carolingian court emphasized a theocratic, universalized, and Christian worldview to impress
the concept of a unified community onto a diverse empire (274). Charlemagne clearly
utilized Christianity as a means of unification, as seen in his vehemence to convert all
remnants of paganism within the empire, violently forcing conversion upon the Saxons
(Romagosa 142). Given this emphasis on unity and a unifying Christianity, it seems unlikely
that artistic styles of the Carolingian court would maintain traditional, Insular-based design if
it held no purpose that would serve to advance Charlemagnes cultural aims. It rather appears
that, for the sake of the unified, Christian community sought by Charlemagne, whose
authority was derived from the church as the Holy Roman Emperor, the holy texts created
throughout the empire needed to possess ostensible power, enlivened and active in the
present day.
Representative of these courtly influences, under which it is often grouped
(Mutherich and Gaehde 26), the Drogo Sacramentary itself seems to reflect the classicizing

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and imperial element Drogo may have seen in his early life in Aachen. As a style revived
specifically to connote Charlemagnes orchestrated Renaissance, one can easily rationalize
the Drogo Sacramentarys heavy touch of the classical style as a move to communicate his
support of the concept of the Carolingian empire (15). Perhaps for this easily drawn
interpretation, scholars often choose to focus on the classical elements of the manuscript. The
Drogo Sacramentary, though often commented upon, rarely receives detailed analysis, and
hardly ever in regard to Insular stylistic ties. JJG Alexanders discussion of Carolingian
painting, for instance, chooses to emphasize the classical preference of Charlemange that
curtailed metamorphic lettering and demanded clarity of letter form. He discusses the large
initials in terms of Imperial Roman inscriptions, ignoring that the same motif occurs
prominently in Insular design. While he, like many others, accepts the continued influence of
the Insular in Carolingian art, it is treated as mere traditional decoration, void of intention
and meaning in the text it decorates (Alexander 11). However, as Laura Hendrick argues,
tracing the development of inhabited initials through history, the complex decoration of
manuscripts represents not simply a desire for embellishment but a means by which to make
the script present through pictorial means, to give it life (Hendrick 35). I agree with this
interpretation, but the scope of Hendricks research overlooks a wide span of history. Her
arguments focus on Insular manuscripts when they could also apply to the use of elaborate
decoration of Insular origin in the Carolingian period. Ostensibly classicizing Carolingian
manuscripts like the Drogo Sacramentary enliven the reading experience with figures and
color, incorporate metamorphic and obfuscating qualities, and utilize hints of interlace
derived from Insular art in order to give spiritual life and divine power to the illuminated
text.

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The Image in the Text
The use of figures, plants, and brilliant color in the Drogo Sacramentary enlivens the
readers experience with the text. Much like insular manuscripts, the Sacramentary fills the
text with living vignettes, as in the scenes of women and Christ in the aforementioned Deus
page. Here, the flourishing burst of foliage is especially appropriate at the opening of the
Easter Mass, on which day the Church celebrates the Resurrection of Christ. In deciphering
the text through the image, the reader engages with representations, in the form of living
beings, of the very events alluded to in the text. For instance, the discovery of Christs
Resurrection by the women at the tomb, placed in the bottom of the D, displays in an
immediate, pictorial form the significance of the Mass that the images decorate. The reader
sees the text played out in front of their eyes as though sprouting from the words themselves.
These miniature scenes of the morning celebrated in the Mass can be compared to the
vignettes of the famous Book of Kells, c. 800, in which a great number of common Insular
elements appear together in one text (Brown 83). Its well-known Chi Rho page (Fig. 4)
includes small images of cats stalking mice and angels bordering the edges of letters (Fig. 5,
6). The Deus page, although considerably more clarified, portrays to the reader a similarly
animated letter that teems with life.
Another example from the Drogo Sacramentary, the Te igitur page that opens the
Canon of the Mass, elaborately decorates a majuscule T and the following letters in enlacing
foliage (Fig. 7). The T, with its long arms and the hand of God balancing the lower vertical
portion of the letter, forms a shape reminiscent of a cross. Within the T stand figures like
Melchizedek, the eternal priest who prefigures Christ and shown celebrating the Eucharist at
the altar. Abel appears on the left of the cross of the T and Abraham to the right, both

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offering lambs and gazing upward to the hand of God above, while two bulls stand in the
lowest portion of the T, each a reference to the sacrifice of Christ (Muherich 92). The
monumental, cross-like symmetry of the T and the associated typological and symbolic
figures remind the reader of Christs earthly life and sacrifice, precisely the theme of the
Mass that follows. Further, in the interwoven nature of the text and typological imagery, the
illuminations restate the identity of Christ as the Word made flesh (Kendrick 79). The spirit
of Christ, consequently, is always present in the Holy Scripture. Just as Gregory the Great
referred to the scripture as a body and the spirit within the text as the soul that gives life to
the body, the decorated manuscripts fill the text with that a visual manifestation of the spirit
that resides in the sacred words (67). In the life bursting forth from the initials of the Drogo
Sacramentary, the figures and the twisting leaves, the letter becomes visually infused with
that divine spirit of Christ, thus cementing the strength of Christianity, the faith that the
words validate.
Color plays a similar role in the effect of the majuscule initials from both the Drogo
Sacramentary and the Book of Kells, as well as other manuscripts from the same traditions.
Both use a wide array of rich colors, although the Drogo Sacramentary does use a more
limited palette and makes use of gold, which rarely occurs in Insular illumination (Brown
91). The use of gold, made common in royal manuscripts of the Carolingian period, draws a
connection between the majesty of Rome and Charlemagnes revitalized court.
Simultaneously, however, the use of gold works to the same purposes intended by Insular
scirbes, vividly reflecting light and the surrounding colors in much the same way that the
varied palette in the Book of Kells used a profusion of colors to vivify the text. Gold,
according to some, represents wealth and likewise represents a wealth of meaning in the

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scripture that the complex palette of Insular manuscripts similarly sought to emphasize
(Kendrick 75). This ornate decoration, from its Insular origin to the Drogo Sacramentary,
serves to distance the letter from less sacred sources, the brilliance of shimmering color
making the life depicted within the letter all the more vibrant. The colored words of these
manuscripts become animate in the readers eyesthat is, the living word of God.
Insular Metamorphism
The metamorphic qualities of Insular illumination likewise appears in the Drogo
Sacramentary, for the same purpose of enlivening the text as the reader encounters it. In the
Te igitur page as well as the Deus page, these vines reach out to connect to figures and other
letters, as with the T of Te igitur to the E of the same word as though the E grew from the
dominating T. In the Te igitur page, the figures feet and garments also break the frames of
the text, flourishing out as though a portion of the leaves that climb over the letters. In much
the same way, the smaller images in the curve of the Deus pages D twist around the letter,
making the same curve as the climbing vines. In these examples, the foliage and the figure
blur together. This metamorphic quality commonly appears among Insular manuscripts,
including, of course, the Book of Kells. The carpet page with the eight-circled cross (Fig 8),
for instance, illustrates a similar zoomorphic quality within its seemingly symmetrical and
controlled composition. Looking closely at the interlace, animal and human heads on twisted
bodies begin to appear, presenting again a text filled with life to the extent that it seems to
burst out of the lines on the page (Fig. 9). On the Chi Rho page as well, the Rho ends in a
mans head that some scholars have identified as the head of Christ, who appears in human
form out of the original Word, Logos, in the text that follows (Kendrick 53). The synthesis of
life with letter alludes to the Incarnation of the Word, Christ, and thus the spirit present

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within the Holy Scripture. Consequently, this association between a letter filled with life and
allusions to Christ creates a sense of an ever-shifting, living text filled with power
specifically, the divine power of Christ (Luttikhuizen 146). Celia Chazelle discusses this
element of the divine in sacred images of Carolingian art, as found in the text that outlines
the opinion of the Carolingian court on the nature of images, the Libri carolini: Their
[sacred arts] existence was ordained and blessed by God, a blessing that endowed them with
invisible, spiritual qualities and powers. As opposed to the utter materiality of ordinary
artistic productions, these objects are places in which it is possible to achieve, in a very
immediate sense, contact with the holy (qtd. in Kendrick 42). Images of life in the form of
inhabited initials would emphasize in an immediate, visual fom this element of the power of
the blessed text. These images spring from the letter, even forming before the viewers eyes
the images that would be formed by the text in the readers mind. The Carolingian
manuscript, the Drogo Sacramentary, through derivations of Insular motifs, utilizes elements
like a subtle zoomorphism to fill the scripture with life and a sense of power in a holy book
that was used in part to unify the state.
Divinely Inspired Interlace
Further assurance of the divine working within the text appears in the use of the
energetic motion of complex interlace (Kendrick 69). As Gerald of Wales said of the Gospel
book of Kildare, the ornate knots appear full of intricacies so delicate and subtle, so exact
and compact, so full of knots and links, with colors so fresh and vivid, that you might say
that all this was the work of an angel, and not of a man (qtd. in Kendrick 68). The complex
appearance, seemingly impossible to complete through human means, leaves the viewer with
a sense of awe at intricacies that seem as though they could only have been caused by the

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divine. Similarly, many scholars trace the beginnings of interlace back to secular belt buckles
and sword hilts, where they were used to convey status on the owner (Luttikhuizen 139).
Others argue further that the use of zoomorphic knots signified control over the depicted
creatures and therefore power and security (Kendrick 92). These concepts, then, were taken
and laid over Holy Scripture in the Insular tradition as a means of honoring the sacred words,
imparting to them power and authority.
Accordingly, mesmerizing and minute interlace covers Insular illuminations like the
Chi Rho page. Meanwhile, the Drogo Sacramentary displays a variation on the same motif in
the twisting foliage that entwines its initials. Although clearly more orderly than the
exuberant Kells carpet pages, shapes that mirror Insular swirls and the crosses that occur
within knots can be found within the D of Deus and the swirling flourishes and crossings of
the T and E in Te igitur, particularly a small knot in upper portion of the E. Much like the
Insular, these designs animate the letters with a churning sense of movement as the lines
course around the spaces and frames formed by the letters (Alexander 10). Meanwhile, the
minute complexity and lack of clarity, as twisting vines obscure initials, leads the viewer to a
deeper contemplation of the letters themselves, prompting them out of necessity to look more
closely at the image. As a powerful, shifting, and holy text, the reader must take time to
contemplate the partially obfuscated layers of meaning (Kendrick 89).
These interlace-related scrolls of the Drogo Sacramentary actually obscure the text in
a manner that seems to directly contradict claims of pristine classicism stressed by the court
school. Instead, the initials of the Drogo Sacramentary show aspects of originally Insular
motifs, using it to create movement over fixity and confusion instead of clarity in a complex
and constantly shifting text, made into a living and divine document.

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Conclusion
Thus, the Drogo Sacramentary, in ways largely similar to Insular manuscripts, utilizes
inhabited initials in order to impart to the text a sense of presence and vitality as the reader
engages with it. Whereas scholarly work has emphasized the classical in Carolinian
illumination and especially the Drogo Sacramentary, a great deal of Insular undertones exist
as well. Charlemagne, of course, supported the church that in turn supported his rule, and for
that purpose of unity placed great importance on the scriptural texts that supported
Christianity. Like manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, the Drogo Sacramentary similarly
uses colorful, inhabited initials to create a sense of presence and life that display pictorially
what the reader unlocks in reading the text and of the flourishing spirit of Christ in the text, a
power that seems to sprout from the very letters. The illuminations likewise display
metamorphic qualities that convey honor and power on the Word and the complex,
incomprehensible work of the divine in Insular interlace and variations on that motif. In the
Drogo Scramentary, as in many other manuscripts of Carolingian origin, the text seems to
burst with animation lent by what many have only called mere decoration; the illuminated
letters possess the spark of life.

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Fig. 1
Deus. Initial D with Easter Scenes
Drogo Sacramentary
Metz, between 844 and 855
Image source: Slideshare

Fig. 2
In nomine Domini. Mass of Christmas
Eve
The Gellone Sacrametary
c. 780
Image source: Europeana Regia

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Fig. 3
Initials for Hymn Gloria in excelsis
Corbie Psalter
Corbie, France, c.800
Image source: The Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Fig. 4
Chi-Rho Carpet Page
Book of Kells
c. 800
Image source: Wikipedia

Fig. 5
Detail of Chi-Rho: Vignette of cats and
mice
Book of Kells
Image source: SUNY Oneonta

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Fig. 6
Detail of Chi-Rho: Angels
Book of Kells
Image source: Wikipedia

Fig. 7
Te igitur. Opening to the canon of the
Mass
Drogo Sacramentary
Metz, between 844 and 855
Image source: Wikipedia

Fig. 8
Carpet Page with Eight-circled Cross
Book of Kells
Image source: Wikipedia

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Fig. 9
Zoomorphic interlace detail
Carpet Page with Eight-circled Cross

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