I just finished reading “How the Irish Saved Civilization” again.  I’ve now read it three times.  It is so interesting.  While Rome was crumbling from within and being raided by Huns, Irish monks worked in solitary--copying manuscripts by hand, embellishing them with curly-Q designs.  Hand written books were all they had.  We wouldn’t have the books we have today if not for those men.  How time-intensive that was before we had the press. And the size of our books today was determined by the size of a sheep-skin back,(parchment) cut into a rectangle, and folded down the middle. 

I had seen their work when I went through museums in Europe, but didn’t know “why” they were so embellished with jewels, fancy lettering, etc.  They had time, and they created beautiful works of art on the first page you saw.  After libraries were burned in the dark ages, Irish books remained in small isolated Irish hands.  Some are still being found that were buried when Ireland was ransacked.  I love old things done by hand.