This selection of published and unpublished papers by one of the most eminent palaeographers of our generation provides penetrating insights into the study of script, parchment and illumination, as well as into the wider contexts of early medival history and art. The papers reveal the many facets of Julian Brown's work which have had such an influence on recent palaeography, as well as on the study of Insular and Early English manuscripts. He clearly understood and expressed the sense of continuity from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages and sought particularly to demonstrate that a study of manuscripts could bring about a broader understanding of the state of scholarship in Northumbria, Ireland and the land of the Picts in the early Christian centuries. The papers in this publication reveal the many facets of Julian Brown's work which have had such an influence on recent palaeography, as well as on the study of Insular and Early English manuscripts.