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Irish Book-Satchels or Budgets

Irish Book-Satchels or Budgets

Waterer, John W.

Medieval Archaeology vol. 12, (1968)

Abstract

D.R.A.T. Lucas states that the making of Irish shoes of the early Christian period called for superlative professional skill, and adds:> ‘In the Early Christian Period, therefore, it is evident that there were highly specialized leather workers whose accomplishments compared very favourably with those of their fellow craftsmen in metal although only a few decayed scraps of their handiwork survive.’ This view is reinforced by a critical examination of other surviving examples of leather-work from this and even earlier times, and particularly of the three remaining specimens of Irish book-satchels or budgets (tiaga), namely those now associated with the Breac Moedoic reliquarys and the Book of Armagh,» and the one containing an Irish missal which belongs to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The first and last of these I believe to date from the early Christian period; the other is somewhat later but nevertheless provides evidence of well-established skills.

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