Created around 720, the Lindisfarne Gospels—an illuminated manuscript depicting four Christian gospels—took 10 years and 150 calfskins to make. Called “the most spectacular manuscript to survive from Anglo-Saxon England,” the artifact has remained miraculously undamaged. The manuscript will be on view at Laing Art Gallery, along with other early medieval objects as well as several contemporary works that it inspired. Among the newer pieces is a film by the artist Jeremy Deller, a Turner Prize winner, which considers the impact of the Lindisfarne Gospels on 21st-century Christians. —Jensen Davis