Question

The elaborate ornamentation of early medieval illuminated manuscripts, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, has provoked ongoing scholarly debate regarding its primary function. Nineteenth-century antiquarians largely categorized these intricate designs as purely aesthetic achievements, characterizing them as expressions of monastic devotion through decorative excess that were otherwise devoid of structural purpose. By contrast, mid-twentieth-century paleographers argued that the ornamentation was strictly utilitarian; they contended that the enlarged, heavily decorated initials and interlaced borders served primarily as essential navigational aids for clerics reading aloud during complex liturgical services. More recently, socio-historical scholars have posited that the extravagant decoration was fundamentally an assertion of political authority. In this view, by commissioning such resource-intensive works, ruling patrons overtly signaled their wealth and divine right to govern.

While the socio-historical interpretation correctly identifies the secular utility of these manuscripts, it underestimates the extent to which that political utility relied upon the very aesthetic awe prioritized by the antiquarians. The manuscripts functioned effectively as instruments of political power precisely because their staggering decorative complexity evoked a sense of transcendent authority that merely functional navigational texts could never command.

Based on the passage, match each theoretical claim about manuscript ornamentation to the group or individual to whom the passage attributes it.