Meaning of cumdach | Babel Free

Definitions

An elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics.

Examples

“The following is a list of the Irish cumdachs of which anything is known, from which it is evident that the custom of making these cumdachs prevailed in Ireland from the ninth to the sixteenth century.”

“Three MSS. still in existence are known, from historical evidence, to have had cumdachs, although they have been lost.”

“Other cumdachs are those in the Royal Irish Academy, for Molaise’s Gospels (c. 1001-25), for Columba’s Psalter (1084), and those in Trinity College, Dublin, for Dimma’s book (1150), and for the Book of St. Moling. There are also the cumdachs for Cairnech’s Calendar and of Caillen; the library of St. Gall possesses still one more silver cumdach, which is probably Irish.”

“There were noteworthy exceptions to the Irish plain bindings, but there have been identified only a very few Celtic bookbinders who ornamented their bindings in something of the styles they used in decorating their cumdachs.”

CEFR level