Cross Carpet Pages are a characteristic feature of Insular illuminated manuscripts. They are pages of mainly geometrical ornamentation, which may include repeated animal forms, typically placed at the beginning of each of the four Gospels in Gospel Books.Carpet pages are wholly devoted to ornamentation with brilliant colors, active lines, and complex patterns of interlace. Some art historians find their origin in Coptic decorative book pages, and they also clearly borrow from contemporary metalwork decoration. Oriental carpets, or other textiles, may themselves have been influences. The stamped and tooled leather book binding of the Stonyhurst Gospel represents simple carpet pages in another medium, and the few surviving metalwork book covers or book shrines from the same period are also close parallels. The Hebrew Codex Cairensis, from 9th century Galilee, also contains a similar type of page, but stylistically very different.
The earliest surviving example is from the early 7th century Bobbio Orosius, and relates more closely to Late Antique decoration. There are notable carpet pages in the Book of Kells, Lindisfarne Gospels, Book of Durrow, and other manuscripts.
