the book of deer

a search for understanding
The Gaelic chapters in the manuscript are of great interest as they underline the Gaelic cultural dimensions of the N.E. of Scotland.

The Book of Deer & its Importance in Scottish Literary History

The Book of Deer is one of Scotland’s most important manuscripts. It is a small (54mm x 107mm) Gospel Book, now housed in Cambridge University Library. Before c. 1100 it was apparently in the possession of the early Columban monastery at Old Deer in north-east Aberdeenshire. This monastery has otherwise left no trace of its existence. A Cistercian Abbey was founded nearby in 1219. The Book of Deer came into the ownership of Cambridge University Library in 1715, when the library of the Bishop of Ely and Norwich was presented to the former by George I. Before that, the Book of Deer may have been in the possession of Dr Gale, High master of St Paul’s School (1672-97). The stages by which it moved from the North East of Scotland to the South of England are by no means clear. Even Cambridge University Library was unaware of its significance until it was ‘discovered’ in 1860 by the then librarian, Henry Bradshaw.

The Gospel Texts
The Gaelic Texts
The Value of The Gaelic Entries
The Ilumination of the Manuscript
The Importance of The Book to North East Scotland
View The Folio

The Gospel Texts
The book contains, in Latin, the opening parts of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, followed by a complete text of John. Between Mark and Luke is the final section of an Office for the Visitation of the Sick, and the manuscript concludes with the Apostles' Creed, the whole being rounded off with a colophon in Old Irish. The principal writings are apparently in a single hand of ninth-century date. The texts of the Gospels are derived from the Old Latin text of the Vulgate. It is not clear where the manuscript was originally compiled: it could have been created anywhere in Scotland or Ireland. Its association with Deer is indicated only by the Gaelic notes inserted later in some of its margins.

The Gaelic Texts
The manuscript is best known for six Gaelic entries, and one Latin charter of David I, written in the blank spaces around the main items, and involving perhaps as many as five separate hands. These were probably drawn up and inserted towards the middle of the twelfth century.
Because of their undeniably Scottish provenance and early date, and their unequivocal connection with the North-east of Scotland, the Gaelic entries are of great significance. The first item provides an origin-legend for a monastery at Aberdour and for the older monastery at Deer, said to have been given to Drostan by Columba, who received it from a land-holder called Bede. The following five entries record later grants of land to the monastery, and the sixth concerns the 'quenching' or extinguishing (by the landowner) of dues on certain lands received by it. Such writing demonstrates the value attached by Gaelic-speaking clerics to formal Gaelic deeds confirming (c. 1100-50) their land-grants and immunities. The final, Latin deed of David I bestows on the monks of Deer a general immunity from 'all lay service and improper exaction', the latter phrase perhaps explaining their main concern at this time.

The Value of the Gaelic Entries
As the Gaelic entries come from a part of Scotland which was once under Pictish sway, the customs of land-holding and social convention reflected in them have both Pictish and early Gaelic associations. Place-names, legal terms and ecclesiastical and land-holding designations are recorded in forms which are of special interest to place-name scholars, linguists and social historians. The language of the entries is particularly important in showing the sporadic influence of spoken Scottish Gaelic on Middle Irish written in Scotland.

The Illumination of the Manuscript
The Book of Deer contains illustrations which are of immense importance in studying the development of art in early Medieval Scotland. There is lively debate about the quality, significance and source-models of the artistry and illumination in the manuscript. The illumination includes decorated initials, arabesques and full-page drawings of what have been taken to be the Evangelists. Kathleen Hughes (Celtic Britain in the Early Middle Ages, ed. D. Dumville, Woodbridge, 1980, 22-37) regarded the art-work as degenerative, comparing unfavourably with Irish and other possible exemplars and suggesting that the artist was working from poor sketch-books. More recently, Isobel Henderson (in D.E. Evans et al. (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Celtic Studies, Oxford, 1986, 278) has claimed that the imagery is 'evidently modelled on a full-scale Gospel Book of some sophistication' and that the 'drastic reduction' of its forms conceals their skill and complexity.


Importance of the Book of Deer to North East Scotland
The Book of Deer is of immense value in demonstrating different aspects of the cultural heritage of the North-east. It is of local, national and international significance.

  • The Gaelic charters in the manuscript form the longest piece of Gaelic writing to have survived from early Medieval Scotland. This is of great interest, since it underlines the Gaelic cultural dimensions of the North-east.

  • The evidence of early Medieval conventions of landholding contained in the charters contributes substantially to our understanding of legal and ecclesiastical practices in the North-east in the Middle Ages.

  • The art and illumination of the manuscript are of enduring importance, and link the North-east of Scotland with the wider world of artistic endeavour in Ireland and beyond.

The manuscript thus provides a window of the greatest importance on the Medieval inheritance of the North-east of Scotland.

For further information, please contact:

  • Kenneth Jackson,
    The Gaelic Notes in the Book of Deer
    (Cambridge, 1972).

  • Donald E. Meek
    Professor of Celtic, University of Aberdeen