ABSTRACT
The book was produced during Ceolfrith’s abbacy of Wearmouth-Jarrow. The pandect which Ceolfrith took on his final pilgrimage to St Peter offered an expansive vision of what romanitas meant in the monastic culture of Wearmouth-Jarrow. Similarly, the dedication inscribed in the Codex Amiatinus, from Ceolfridus Anglorum extremis de finibus abbas, acted as a rhetorical foil to the self-evident romanitas of the great uncial codex it prefaces. Through the sign of the studied romanitas of its buildings and art, liturgy and relics, library and script, the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow made Petrine Rome present at the ends of the earth; by implication the universal Church of Christ was being built up in that place. Multiple signs of the Cross in the listings of the biblical books in the opening quire recall the presence of Christ throughout the Old and New Testaments.
