As we know, art, objects, and architecture can be primary sources, as well as written texts. For your next primary source commentary, you will examine a visual source or musical instrument. You must answer the ‘who, what, when, where, how’ questions, as with the previous primary source commentary. Additionally, you must explain how this artwork is evidence for the economies in which the creators and/or patrons lived. For example, you could think about what this source tells us about trade routes. What materials was the source made from? Why did someone invest in creating it? What does this source reveal about who had wealth to invest in creating such an object? This is to make the point that visual sources can tell us more about society than just which artistic styles were popular or which artists were talented.
Please write an approximately 1000-word commentary about ONE of the following sources to analyse:
The Book of Durrow (Links to an external site.) (Trinity College Dublin, MS 57)
The Book of Kells (Links to an external site.) (Trinity College Dublin, MS 58)
You can focus on one page from the Book of Kells if you like (but do make it clear if you are doing that!)
The River Erne Horn (Links to an external site.)
Tara Brooch (Links to an external site.)
Balinderry Brooch (Links to an external site.)
Ardagh Chalice (Links to an external site.)
Moylough Belt Shrine (Links to an external site.)
Rinnagan Crucifixion Plaque (Links to an external site.)
Monsterboice High Cross (Links to an external site.)
The MacDurnan Gospels (Lambeth Palace Library MS 1370 (Links to an external site.))
Breach Maodhóg (Links to an external site.)
Carved Crook (Links to an external site.) from Dublin
Clonmacnoise Crozier (Links to an external site.)
Cross of Cong (Links to an external site.)
Bell shrine (Links to an external site.) donated by Domhnall Ua Lochlainn
Gospels of Máel Brigte (Links to an external site.) (full manuscript visible here (Links to an external site.))
Corpus Irish Gospels (Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 122 (Links to an external site.))
King John’s Castle (Links to an external site.), Limerick
Carrickfergus Castle
Bear in mind that the commentary most focus on the medieval parts of the primary sources. (For example, the 17th-century Lady Chapel in St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin does not help us understand medieval contexts.) The links lead to visuals for each source. Let me know if you need help finding further scholarly articles and analyses of these sources.
Files can be uploaded for whichever source you choose. You can provide more than 1 source but 1 source is necessary
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