t elaborate manner.
He also displayed great skill by illuminating the large capital letters
at the commencement of each gospel.[156] Doubtless, the hermit Bilfrid
was an eminent artist in his day. Aldred, the Glossator, a priest of
Durham, about the year 950, still more enriched this precious volume by
interlining it with a Saxon Gloss, or version of the Latin text of St.
Jerome, of which the original manuscript is a copy.[157] It is
therefore, one of the most venerable of those early attempts to render
the holy scriptures into the vernacular tongue, and is on that account an
interesting relic to the Christian reader, and, no doubt, formed the
choicest volume in the library of Lindesfarne.[158]

But imperfectly, indeed, have I described the splendid manuscript which
is now lying, in all its charms, before me. And as I mark its fine old
illuminations, so bright in color, and so chaste in execution, the
accuracy of its transcription, and the uniform beauty of its calligraphy,
my imagination carries me back to the quiet cloister of the old Saxon
scribe who wrote it, and I can see in Egfrith, a bibliomaniac, of no mean
pretensions, and in Bilfrid, a monkish illuminator, well initiated in the
mysteries of his art. The manuscript contains 258 double columned folio
pages, and the paintings of the Evangelists each occupy an entire page.
We learn the history of its production from a very long note at the end
of the manuscript, written by the hand of the glossator.[159]

But sad misfortunes were in store for the holy monks, for about 793, or a
little earlier, when Highbald was abbot, the Danes burnt down the
monastery and murdered the ecclesiastics; "most dreadful lightnings and
other prodigies," says Simeon of Durham, "are said to have portended the
impending ruin of this place; on the 7th of June they came to the church
of Lindesfarne, miserably plundered all places, overthrew the altars, and
carried away all the treasures of the church, some of the monks they
slew, some they carried away captives, some they drowned in the sea, and
others much afflicted and abused they turned away naked."[160]
Fortunately some of the poor monks escaped, and after a short time
returned to their old spot, and with religious zeal set about repairing
the damage which the sacred edifice had sustained; after its restoration
they continued comparatively quiet till the time of Eardulfus, when the
Danes in the year 875, again invaded England and burned