Page 6 - Priorities #31 2005-July

Woodside Priory School’s faculty
enjoyed a slide presentation
and lecture with Father Eric as
part of their annual Benedictine
Benedictine Letter
This illuminated, original manuscript combines ancient technique with contemporary scholarship and imagery.
During the Middle Ages, books were rare and hard to come by. Producing a new copy of the Bible by hand meant a laborious process of several years. For centuries, Benedictine monks kept the manuscript tradition alive. Writing in special rooms known as scriptoria, they produced beautiful, elaborate handwritten texts. There were writings of church fathers and copies of the Rule, and among the most meaningful and lasting were the beautiful illuminated Bibles.
retreat last spring.
6
With the invention of the printing press,
the monastic manuscript tradition all but died.
Yet today, over five hundred years later, the Benedictine community of Saint John’s Abbey and University in Minnesota is reviving that ancient tradition. With the help of Donald Jackson, one of the world’s most highly acclaimed calligraphers, Saint John’s is bringing to life a handwritten, hand- illuminated Bible for the new millennium.
Acclaimed Calligrapher’s Dream
Jackson, whose previous calligraphic work has included royal documents for Queen Elizabeth II, calls The Saint John’s Bible “the thing I have been preparing for all my life.” It was he who first suggested The Saint John’s Bible project in 1996
to Fr. Eric Hollas, OSB, who at the time was the director of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library
at Saint John’s. (Fr. Hollas is also a member of the Woodside Priory Board of Trustees, and he lived
on the campus a few years ago while on sabbatical). After much discussion, the community of Saint John’s agreed to sponsor the production of the new Bible. After four years of planning, Jackson and a
Calligrapher Donald Jackson shows the book’s size, two feet by three feet when open.
handpicked team of assistants began work in 2000 at a newly renovated scriptorium in Monmouth, Wales.
By the time it is finished, the Saint John’s Bible will be a seven-volume work encompassing more than a 1,100 pages. It will have taken seven years to produce and will have cost upwards of four million dollars. It will be big—measuring two feet tall by three feet wide when opened. Above all, it will
be beautiful, with 160 separate illuminations, each one the product of both theological discussion and artistic inspiration.