Returning for the moment to the Irish school of Celtic art, it should be observed that richly illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in Ireland till the ninth and tenth centuries, but these later manuscripts, fine as they are, do not equal in beauty the _Book of Kells_ and other works of the seventh and eighth century. The Book of the _Gospels of MacDurnan_[69], who was Archbishop of Armagh from 885 to 927, is a good example of the later school of Irish art, in which the figures of the Evangelists are no less grotesque than those in the earlier manuscripts, while the interlaced and diapered patterns of the borders and initials are inferior in minute delicacy of execution to such masterpieces as the _Book of Kells_; see fig. 20. _Book of Deer._ Another still stronger proof of artistic decadence among the Celtic illuminators of this period is afforded by the _Book of Deer_[70] in the Cambridge University library. This is a small octavo copy of the _Latin Gospels_ after the Itala version[71]. In style it is a mere shadow of the glories of early Irish art, with comparatively coarse and feebly coloured decorative patterns. It appears to have been written in Scotland by an Irish scribe during the ninth century[72]. [Illustration: Fig. 20. Miniature from the _Gospels_ of MacDurnan of the ninth century.] _Gospels of MacRegol._ One of the finest of the manuscripts of the later Irish type is the Book of _the Gospels of MacRegol_ in the Bodleian library (D. 24. No. 3946) executed in the ninth century. The ornaments and the very conventional figures of the Evangelists are of the purely Irish type, unmodified by any imitation of the superior figure drawing in Byzantine and Italian miniatures[73]. _Gospels of St Chad._ The manuscript _Gospels of Saint Chad_ in the Chapter library of Lichfield Cathedral is another example of the Irish school and of the same date as the last-mentioned book. It is named after Ceadda or Chad who, in the seventh century, was the first Bishop of Lichfield, nearly two hundred years before the date of this manuscript of the _Gospels_[74]. _Celtic school on the Continent._