Research has revealed the intriguing likelihood that two of the greatest masterpieces of the medieval world, the Lindisfarne Gospels and Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, were written not only at the same time but by monks sitting next to each other.
The disclosure, based on close examination of the Lindisfarne manuscript, comes as the gospels go on show at a new exhibition later this week at the British Library in London.
It means that the dating of the gospels, inscribed by a single monk, in all probability Eadfrith, the bishop of Lindisfarne, will be changed by a quarter of a century from the 690s to about the year 720 - the time the Venerable Bede was compiling the first coherent history of the English peoples in his cell at the monastery on the Northumbrian coast.
The discovery has been confirmed by Michelle Brown, the library's curator of illuminated manuscripts, organiser of the exhibition and the world's greatest expert on the Lindisfarne Gospels. The book's glowing allure seized her imagination when she was taken to see it as a child of four . She said: "The gospels are a visual statement of what makes the world tick ...
"Imagine working in a freezing cold monastery on the edge of the North Sea, breaking off eight times a day for prayer, administering a diocese stretching from York to Edinburgh while serving as a reproach to the king and his worldly ways, and still producing this manuscript."
It is her research - analysing the dating of religious festivals mentioned in the text, which are known only to have been introduced in 716 - which conclusively identifies the date at which the gospels were inscribed, and also who was likely to have written them.
Eadfrith, who died in 721 with the manuscript all but complete, was responsible not only for writing and illuminating the 518 pages of the gospels, inscribed on vellum, but for other innovations only now coming to be appreciated.
He may have invented the lead pencil - traces can be detected under the illuminations. He must have pioneered the medieval equivalent of the light box to secure the details in his illustrations, and he was something of a chemist too, developing new colours by introducing acids to plant dyes.