This was the principal
relic of the western world, on account of its singular cover;
and it was found after twenty nights and two months, its gold
having been stolen off it, and a sod over it."[3] These cumdachs
are now lost; so also is the jewelled case of the Gospels
of St. Arnoul at Metz, and that belonging to the Book of Durrow.
[1] Mr. Allen, in his admirable volume on Celtic Art, p. 208, in
this series, says cumdachs were peculiar to Ireland. But they
were made and used elsewhere, and were variously known as capsae,
librorum coopertoria (e.g.... librorumque coopertoria; quaedam
horum nuda, quaedam vero alia auro atque argento gemmisque
pretiosis circumtecta.--Acta SS., Aug. iii. 659c), and thecae.
Some of these cases were no doubt as beautifully decorated as the
Irish cumdachs. William of Malmesbury asserts that twenty pounds
and sixty masks of gold were used to make the coopertoria
librorum Evangelii for King Ina's chapel. At the Abbey of St.
Riquier was an "Evangelium auro Scriptum unum, cum capsa argentea
gemmis et lapidibus fabricata. Aliae capsae evangeliorum duae ex
auro et argento paratae.
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