In point of style the "Gospels of Saint Cuthbert" are a characteristic example of the Irish school of illumination, modified by transplantation to English soil. The intermediate stage in Iona and other monasteries of western Scotland seems to have introduced no change of style into the primitive Irish method of ornament. Whether produced in eastern Ireland or in western Scotland the manuscripts were the work of the same Celtic race, the Scots, who, at first inhabiting the north-east of Ireland, passed over to the not very distant shores of northern Britain to which these Irish settlers gave the name Scotland. _Improved drawing._ When however the Irish monks passed from Iona to Northumbria the case was different; they were surrounded with a new set of artistic influences mainly owing to the introduction into Northumbria of fine Byzantine and Italian manuscripts. The result of this was that though the Lindisfarne manuscripts continued to be decorated with exactly the same class of patterns that had been used in the _Book of Kells_ and other Irish manuscripts for initials, borders and the like, yet in the treatment of the human figure a very distinct advance was made. Thus in Saint Cuthbert's _Gospels_ the seated figures of the Evangelists are drawn with much dignity of form and with some attempt at truth in the pose, the proportions and in the disposition of the folds of the drapery. The monk Aethelwold who painted these miniatures must have had before him some fine manuscripts of the Gospels probably both of Byzantine and Italian style. _Use of metal leaf._ The whole result is a very splendid one, the _Gospels_ of Saint Cuthbert in richness of invention and minute intricacy of pattern almost equal the _Book of Kells_; while the figure subjects, instead of being grotesque masses of ornament, are paintings with much beauty of line as well as extreme splendour of colour. Another modification is the introduction of gold and silver leaf, which are wholly wanting in the _Book of Kells_ and the other finest purely Irish manuscripts. _MS. of Bede._ _Italian influence._