ACTIVITY

LEARN TO DRAW SHEET

ALCUIN AND THE CAROLINGIAN RENAISSANCE

A TEACHING RESOURCE
CELTIC KNOTWORK 9

Alcuin and Charlemagne believed it On the right is an example of Celtic

was important to preserve and knotwork from the Lindisfarne
disseminate ancient learning. They Gospels. A whole page of decoration
encouraged monks to copy many like this is known as a ‘carpet page’.
manuscripts. One of the most Alcuin would probably have been
important monasteries where this familiar with this type of decoration.
took place was St Gall, in modern-
day Switzerland. Today St Gall Although this example is quite
houses one of the most important complicated, it is not very difficult to
medieval libraries in Europe. The draw simple knotwork patterns. You
monastery of St Gall was established can learn how to do this by using
by Irish monks, and the manuscripts templates 1, 2 and 3 on the NCEM
they produced were often decorated website and by following the
by artwork influenced by Celtic instructions below, step by step.
styles. Carpet page from the Lindisfarne Gospels,
British Library, reproduced with
permission.
STEP 1 STEP 3
Begin by joining the lines in the top left- When you have finished, your know should
hand corner of each square to the lines look like example 4.
at the bottom right-hand corner. Try to
keep the pairs of lines the same distance If you wish, you can go around the lines
apart, and the curves as smooth as you have drawn in black ink. Now colour
possible. Example 1 shows a few lines your knot. Start by colouring the loop,
Example 1
drawn in red to show you what to do. and then do the background. When it is
At this stage, join only the lines on the finished, your knot will look something like
top left to the lines on the bottom right. this.
Work your way through square by
square. Draw the lines in pencil so that if
you make a mistake you can rub it out
and draw it again.

Check that you have joined the lines in

Example 2
each square. When you have finished,
your knotwork should look like example
2.

STEP 2
Now you need to join the lines in the
top right-hand corner of each square
to the lines at the bottom left-hand
corner. Every time you are about to
cross a line that you have already
drawn, stop and start again on the
other side of the line. This will make it
look as if the line goes underneath the
one you have already drawn, as in
example 3.
Example 4
Example 3
In this design, the knot makes one
continuous loop. This is not always
the case. Different designs produce
different numbers of loops. Template
2 contains more than one loop.
Complete the design and colour it in
to see how many loops it makes.

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 ACTIVITY
LEARN TO DRAW SHEET

ALCUIN AND THE CAROLINGIAN RENAISSANCE

A TEACHING RESOURCE
CELTIC KNOTWORK 9

Now use template 3 and try designing your own knot. There are 531,441 different
knots you can make with this template, so it is very likely that your knot will be unique.

There are four rules to follow:

RULE 1
Where the squares meet, the pairs of lines must both be vertical or horizontal or
diagonal:

or or

RULE 2
At the top and bottom of the knot, the lines must all be horizontal

RULE 3
The diagonal lines must look like this: And not like this:

RULE 4
When joining the lines, always begin by drawing all the lines from top left to bottom
right before drawing the lines from top right to bottom left.

Thanks to Andy Sloss for help in the production of this activity sheet. For more information on Celtic
knotwork, see Sloss, A., How to Draw Keltic Knotwork, a practical handbook, 1996, Brockhampton Press.,
London.

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