St Augustine Gospels

Last updated

The evangelist portrait of Luke under the inscription Iura sacerdotii Lucas tenet ore iuuenci from Carmen paschale by Coelius Sedulius. Gospels of Saint Augustine, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Ms. 286, fol. 129v Gospels of Saint Augustine, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 286, fol. 129v.jpg
The evangelist portrait of Luke under the inscription Iura sacerdotii Lucas tenet ore iuuenci from Carmen paschale by Coelius Sedulius. Gospels of Saint Augustine, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Ms. 286, fol. 129v

The St Augustine Gospels (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Lib. MS. 286) is an illuminated Gospel Book which dates from the 6th century and has been in the Parker Library in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge since 1575. It was made in Italy and has been in England since fairly soon after its creation; by the 16th century it had probably already been at Canterbury for almost a thousand years. It has 265 leaves measuring about 252 x 196 mm, [1] and is not entirely complete, in particular missing pages with miniatures.

Contents

This manuscript is the oldest surviving illustrated Latin (rather than Greek or Syriac) Gospel Book, [2] and one of the oldest European books in existence. Although the only surviving illuminations are two full-page miniatures, these are of great significance in art history as so few comparable images have survived.

The Church of England calls the book the Canterbury Gospels, though to scholars this name usually refers to another book, an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon gospel book written at Canterbury, now with one portion in the British Library as Royal MS 1 E VI, and another in the Library of Canterbury Cathedral.

History

The manuscript is traditionally, and plausibly, considered to be either a volume brought by St Augustine to England with the Gregorian mission in 597, or one of a number of books recorded as being sent to him in 601 by Pope Gregory the Great – like other scholars, Kurt Weitzmann sees "no reason to doubt" the tradition. [3] The main text is written in an Italian uncial hand which is widely accepted as dating to the 6th century – Rome or Monte Cassino have been suggested as the place of creation. [4] It was certainly in England by the late 7th or early 8th century when corrections and additions were made to the text in an insular hand. The additions included tituli or captions to the scenes around the portrait of Luke, not all of which may reflect the intentions of the original artist. [5]

The book was certainly at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury in the 10th century, when the first of several documents concerning the Abbey were copied into it. [6] In the late Middle Ages it was "kept not in the Library at Canterbury but actually lay on the altar; it belonged in other words, like a reliquary or the Cross, to Church ceremonial". [7] The manuscript was given to the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge as part of the collection donated by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1575, some decades after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was traditionally used for the swearing of the oath in the enthronements of new Archbishops of Canterbury, and the tradition has been restored since 1945; the book is taken to Canterbury Cathedral by the Parker librarian of Corpus for each ceremony. [8] The Augustine Gospels have also been taken to Canterbury for other major occasions: the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982, [9] and the celebrations in 1997 for the 1,400th anniversary of the Gregorian mission. [10] In 2023 the Gospels were carried in the procession at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla. As far as is known it is the first time they have been used in a coronation. [11] The book was open at the page with the portrait of Saint Luke.

The manuscript was rebound at the British Museum in 1948–49 with plain oak boards and a spine of cream alum-tawed goatskin. [12]

Text

The manuscript is "more or less the oldest substantially complete copy" of Jerome's translation of the Gospels. His late-4th-century Vulgate gradually replaced the earlier Vetus Latina ("Old Latin") text used by Christians in the Roman Empire. A 1933 analysis of the St Augustine Gospels by Hermann Glunz documented around 700 variants from the standard Vulgate: most are minor differences of spelling or word order, but in some cases the scribe chooses readings from the Vetus Latina. This supports the St Augustine connection, as Gregory the Great, the supposed donor, wrote in his Moralia that he was using the more fluent Vulgate, except for certain passages where he found the Old Latin more suitable, and his Forty Homilies on the Gospels opts for the older translation in the same places as the St Augustine Gospels. [13]

Miniatures

The left-hand scenes on the portrait of Luke Augsutineleft.jpg
The left-hand scenes on the portrait of Luke

The manuscript once contained evangelist portraits for all four Evangelists, preceding their gospel, a usual feature of illuminated Gospel books, and at least three further pages of narrative scenes, one following each portrait page. [14] Only the two pages preceding Luke have survived. However the surviving total of twenty-four small scenes from the Life of Christ are very rare survivals and of great interest in the history of Christian iconography, especially as they come from the old Western Empire – the only comparable narrative Gospel cycles from manuscripts in the period are Greek, notably the Rossano Gospels, [15] and Sinope Gospels, or the Syriac Rabbula Gospels. The equivalent Old Testament cycles are more varied however, including the Greek Vienna Genesis and Cotton Genesis, the Latin Ashburnham Pentateuch, the Quedlinburg Itala fragment, and some others.

The miniatures have moved further from classical style than those in the Greek manuscripts, with "a linear style which not only flattens the figure, but begins to develop a rhythmic quality in the linear design which must be seen as the beginning of a process of intentional abstraction". [16] For another historian, the figures in the small scenes have "a linear form which we immediately perceive to be medieval" and "are no longer paintings, but tinted drawings. The same tendency is exhibited in the treatment of the architecture and ornament; the naturalistic polychrome accessories of a manuscript like the Vienna Dioscurides are flattened and attenuated into a calligraphic pattern." [17]

The subject of the influence of the miniatures on later Anglo-Saxon art has often been raised, though in view of most of the presumed picture pages of this manuscript now being lost, and the lack of knowledge as to what other models were available to form the Continental post-classical aspects of the Insular style that developed from the 7th century onwards (with Canterbury as a major centre), all comments by art historians have necessarily been speculative. It is clear from the variety of styles of evangelist portraits found in early Insular manuscripts, echoing examples known from the Continent, that other models were available, and there is a record of an illuminated and imported Bible of St Gregory at Canterbury in the 7th century. [18] Later works mentioned as probably influenced by the Augustine Gospels include the Stockholm Codex Aureus and the St Gall Gospel Book. [19] In general, though evangelist portraits became a common feature of Insular and Anglo-Saxon Gospel books, the large number of small scenes in the Augustine Gospels were not seen again until much later works like the Eadwine Psalter, made in the 12th century in Canterbury, which has prefatory pages with small narrative images in grids in a similar style to the Augustine Gospels. [20]

Evangelist portrait of Luke

Of the four portrait pages, only that for Luke survives (Folio 129v). He is shown sitting on a marble throne, with a cushion, in an elaborate architectural setting, probably based on the scaenae frons of a Roman theatre – a common convention for Late Antique miniatures, coins and Imperial portraiture. The pose with the chin resting on a hand suggests an origin in classical author portraits of philosophers – more often evangelists are shown writing. Above a cornice sits the winged ox, Luke's evangelist's symbol. The pediment has an inscription with a hexameter from the Carmen Paschale by the 5th-century Christian poet Coelius Sedulius (Book 1, line 357): [21] "Iura sacerdotii Lucas tenet ore iuvenci" – "Luke holds the laws of priesthood in the mouth of the young bull" (iuvencus meaning also "young man"). [22]

Right-hand scenes Augustine right.jpg
Right-hand scenes

More unusually, twelve small scenes drawn from Luke, mostly of the Works of Christ (who can be identified as the only figure with a halo), are set between columns in the architectural frame to the portrait. This particular arrangement is unique in surviving early evangelist portraits, though similar strips of scenes are found in ivory book-covers from the same period. [23] The scenes themselves probably drew from a now-destroyed fresco cycle of the Life of Christ in Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome. [24]

The scenes, many of which were rarely depicted in art from later medieval periods, [25] include:

The captions in the margins, added later, probably in the 8th century from the handwriting, [28] name the scenes or are quotations or near-quotations from the Vulgate text of Luke identifying them. [31] For example, the top right caption reads: "legis peritus surrexit temptans illum" or "[a] lawyer stood up, tempting him", from Luke 10, 25. The caption two below this one may misidentify the scene depicted, according to Carol Lewine. Even those, like Francis Wormold, who support the caption, admit the scene could not be so identified without it. The caption reads:"Ih[esu]s dixit vulpes fossa habent", a paraphrase of the start of Luke 9, 58 (and Matthew 8, 20): "et ait illi Iesus vulpes foveas habent et volucres caeli nidos Filius autem hominis non habet ubi caput reclinet" – "Jesus said to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." The image shows Jesus blessing a bent figure, which could match the quotation, or a miracle. [32]

Passion scenes

Folio 125r contains 12 scenes from the Passion Gospels of Saint Augustine, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 286, fol. 125r.jpg
Folio 125r contains 12 scenes from the Passion

A full-page miniature on folio 125r prior to Luke contains twelve narrative scenes from the Life of Christ , all from the Passion except the Raising of Lazarus . This was included because, following John 11.46 ff. it was considered the immediate cause of the Sanhedrin's decision to move against Christ. As in the few other surviving cycles of the Life from the 6th century, the Crucifixion itself is not shown, the sequence ending with Christ carrying the Cross. [33] However at least two further such pages once existed, at the start of other Gospels. [34] Luke is the third gospel, so a panel preceding the Gospel of John might well have completed the Passion and Resurrection story, and two others covered the earlier life of Christ. The scenes around Luke's portrait notably avoid the major episodes in Christ's life such as his Nativity, Baptism and Temptation, probably reserving these scenes for other grid pages.

Compared to other cycles of the time, such as that in mosaic at the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, the Passion scenes show an emphasis on the suffering of Christ that was probably influenced by the art of the Eastern Empire and shows the direction Western depictions were to follow in subsequent centuries. [4]

From top left the twelve scenes shown, some of which have captions, are: [35]

In contrast to the scenes around the portrait, all of these scenes except Christ led from Pilate were to remain very common in large narrative cycles throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. [38] The difficulty of identifying many of the episodes of the Works from Luke demonstrates one of the reasons why scenes from the period of Christ's ministry became increasingly less common in medieval art. Another reason for this was the lack of feast-days celebrating them. The two scenes at the top of the central column on the Passion page, in contrast, feature in the gospel reading set for Maundy Thursday, and most of the scenes on this page are easily identified. The Raising of Lazarus, with the body in its white winding-cloth, was one miracle that was easily recognised in images, and remained in the usual repertoire of artists. The Hand of God in the Agony in the Garden is the earliest surviving example of the motif in this scene. [39]

Notes

  1. ↑ The manuscripts of Sedulius, Carl P. E. Springer Google books
  2. ↑ , Lewine, 489
  3. ↑ Weitzmann, 22. There is another, unillustrated, possible survivor of the group in the Bodleian Library, the oldest copy of the Rule of St Benedict.
  4. 1 2 Schiller, II 14
  5. ↑ See Lewine, 487
  6. ↑ De Hamel (2016), p.18 The first abbey-related entry is in a tenth-century Old English hand – the ninth-century bequest of Ealhburg, who, in exchange for the monks' daily singing of psalm 20 on behalf of her husband, granted the abbey various products from her estate at Bradbourne, Kent. Among other documents pertaining to the abbey are a land charter in the name of Wulfric, abbot of St Augustine's (989–1005) and a twelfth-century list of holy relics kept in the abbey which include fragments of the Virgin Mary's cloak and the True Cross, the hair of St. Cecilia, and a finger of St. Gregory the Great.
  7. ↑ Pacht, 11. In the same way the Book of Kells was stolen from the sacristy, not the library, at Kells in the 11th century.
  8. ↑ Archbishop of Canterbury official website Archived 2009-12-03 at the Wayback Machine .
  9. ↑ John Paul II: reflections from The Tablet, p. 36, Catherine Pepinster, John Wilkins, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005, ISBN   0-86012-404-5, ISBN   978-0-86012-404-7
  10. ↑ Independent, 1997
  11. ↑ "Fit for a King". Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Retrieved 29 April 2023.
  12. ↑ De Hamel (2016), p.18
  13. ↑ De Hamel (2016), p.33-6
  14. ↑ Weitzmann, 18–19, Beckwith, 143. Other writers think the full complement of two pages, a portrait and a grid of scenes from the gospel, preceded each gospel.
  15. ↑ These were created in Byzantine Italy in a Byzantine style. Beckwith, 143 mentions comparable ivories.
  16. ↑ Weitzmann, 22
  17. ↑ Hinks, 69. See also Beckwith, 143
  18. ↑ Wilson, 94
  19. ↑ Alexander, J. J. G., Insular Manuscripts, 6th to the 9th Century, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 1 (London, 1978) – see comments on Parker Library Bibliography below.
  20. ↑ Page from the Morgan Library Archived 2009-02-19 at the Wayback Machine . These leaves are dispersed, though most of the manuscript, one of the copies of the Utrecht Psalter, is at Trinity College, Cambridge. See Parker Bibliography, comments, passim.
  21. ↑ Springer, same page and link
  22. ↑ Translation by Peter McBrine Archived 2011-07-15 at the Wayback Machine
  23. ↑ Hinks, 69–70
  24. 1 2 Schiller, I 155
  25. ↑ See Schiller, and The Eadwine psalter: text, image, and monastic culture in twelfth-century Canterbury, p. 29, Margaret T. Gibson, T. A. Heslop, Richard William Pfaff, Penn State Press, 1992, ISBN   0-947623-46-9, ISBN   978-0-947623-46-3. There is a slightly different list in Google books Francis Wormold in The Cambridge History of the Bible, Peter R. Ackroyd and others, Cambridge University Press, 1975, ISBN   0-521-29017-1, ISBN   978-0-521-29017-3
  26. ↑ Google books, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Leslie Brubaker, p. 84, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN   0-521-62153-4, ISBN   978-0-521-62153-3
  27. ↑ Unambiguously labelled with the text, though once the accuracy of the tituli is doubted, the scene might be the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes (Luke 9, 10–17). Similar round loaves piled on an apostle appear in the depiction of this scene in the Rossano Gospels (Schiller, Vol 1, fig. 479.
  28. 1 2 Lewine, 489
  29. ↑ According to Wormald in the Cambridge History cited above, the "parable of the fig tree" (Luke 13, 6–9), which precedes the miracle of the bent woman (Luke 13, 11–13).
  30. ↑ Schiller, I 156. Brubaker, 383, says this is the earliest known example of this as a separate image.
  31. ↑ Vulgate Latin/English side by side text of Luke.
  32. ↑ The meaning of the image is the subject of Lewine's article
  33. ↑ Schiller,I 183, II 14
  34. ↑ Weitzmann, 18–19, see also Grove
  35. ↑ Schiller, II 14, 64–5 & passim
  36. ↑ Schiller, II 33
  37. ↑ Schiller, II 64-5
  38. ↑ For a comparable "extra" scene around the meeting with Pilate, see the 4th-century Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.
  39. ↑ Schiller, II, 49

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lindisfarne Gospels</span> Illuminated manuscript gospel book

The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the British Library in London. The manuscript is one of the finest works in the unique style of Hiberno-Saxon or Insular art, combining Mediterranean, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book of Kells</span> 8th-century illuminated manuscript Gospel book, held in Trinity College, Dublin

The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created in a Columban monastery in either Ireland, Scotland or England, and may have had contributions from various Columban institutions from each of these areas. It is believed to have been created c. 800 AD. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is regarded as a masterwork of Western calligraphy and the pinnacle of Insular illumination. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, County Meath, which was its home for centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rossano Gospels</span> New Testament manuscript

The Rossano Gospels, designated by 042 or Σ, ε 18 (Soden), held at the cathedral of Rossano in Italy, is a 6th-century illuminated manuscript Gospel Book written following the reconquest of the Italian peninsula by the Byzantine Empire. Also known as Codex purpureus Rossanensis due to the reddish-purple appearance of its pages, the codex is one of the oldest surviving illuminated manuscripts of the New Testament. The manuscript is famous for its prefatory cycle of miniatures of subjects from the Life of Christ, arranged in two tiers on the page, sometimes with small Old Testament prophet portraits below, prefiguring and pointing up to events described in the New Testament scene above.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book of Cerne</span> Anglo-Saxon prayer book

The Book of Cerne is an early ninth-century Insular or Anglo-Saxon Latin personal prayer book with Old English components. It belongs to a group of four such early prayer books, the others being the Royal Prayerbook, the Harleian prayerbook, and the Book of Nunnaminster. It is now commonly believed to have been produced sometime between ca. 820 and 840 AD in the Southumbrian/Mercian region of England. The original book contains a collection of several different texts, including New Testament Gospel excerpts, a selection of prayers and hymns with a version of the Lorica of Laidcenn, an abbreviated or Breviate Psalter, and a text of the Harrowing of Hell liturgical drama, which were combined to provide a source used for private devotion and contemplation. Based on stylistic and palaeographical features, the Book of Cerne has been included within the Canterbury or Tiberius group of manuscripts that were manufactured in southern England in the 8th and 9th centuries AD associated with the Mercian hegemony in Anglo-Saxon England. This Anglo-Saxon manuscript is considered to be the most sophisticated and elaborate of this group. The Book of Cerne exhibits various Irish/Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Continental, and Mediterranean influences in its texts, ornamentation, and embellishment.

<i>Book of Deer</i> Gospel book

The Book of Deer is a 10th-century Latin Gospel Book with early 12th-century additions in Latin, Old Irish and Scottish Gaelic. It contains the earliest surviving Gaelic writing from Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tetramorph</span> Symbolic arrangement of four differing elements

A tetramorph is a symbolic arrangement of four differing elements, or the combination of four disparate elements in one unit. The term is derived from the Greek tetra, meaning four, and morph, shape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Four Evangelists</span> Authors of the Gospels in the New Testament

In Christian tradition, the Four Evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four canonical Gospel accounts. In the New Testament, they bear the following titles: the Gospel of Matthew; the Gospel of Mark; the Gospel of Luke; and the Gospel of John. These names were assigned to the works by the early church fathers in the 2nd century AD; none of the writers signed their work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Gospels of St. Gall</span>

The Irish Gospels of St. Gall or Codex Sangallensis 51 is an 8th-century Insular Gospel Book, written either in Ireland or by Irish monks in the Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland, where it is now in the Abbey library of St. Gallen as MS 51. It has 134 folios. Amongst its eleven illustrated pages are a Crucifixion, a Last Judgement, a Chi Rho monogram page, a carpet page, and Evangelist portraits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel Book (British Library, Add MS 40618)</span>

British Library, Add MS 40618 is a late 8th century illuminated Irish Gospel Book with 10th century Anglo-Saxon additions. The manuscript contains a portion of the Gospel of Matthew, the majority of the Gospel of Mark and the entirety of the Gospels of Luke and John. There are three surviving Evangelist portraits, one original and two 10th century replacements, along with 10th century decorated initials. It is catalogued as number 40618 in the Additional manuscripts collection at the British Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evangelist portrait</span>

Evangelist portraits are a specific type of miniature included in ancient and mediaeval illuminated manuscript Gospel Books, and later in Bibles and other books, as well as other media. Each Gospel of the Four Evangelists, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, may be prefaced by a portrait of the Evangelist, usually occupying a full page. Their symbols may be shown with them, or separately. Often they are the only figurative illumination in the manuscript. They are a common feature in larger Gospel Books from the earliest examples in the 6th century until the decline of that format for illustrated books in the High Middle Ages, by which time their conventions were being used for portraits of other authors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otho-Corpus Gospels</span> Manuscript in the British Library

The Otho-Corpus Gospels is a badly damaged and fragmentary 8th century illuminated manuscript. It was part of the Cotton library and was mostly burnt in the 1731 fire at Ashburnham House. The manuscript now survives as charred fragments in the British Library. Thirty six pages of the manuscript were not in the Cotton collection and survived the fire. They are now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breton Gospel Book (British Library, MS Egerton 609)</span>

British Library, Egerton MS 609 is a Breton Gospel Book from the late or third quarter of the ninth century. It was created in France, though the exact location is unknown. The large decorative letters which form the beginning of each Gospel are similar to the letters found in Carolingian manuscripts, but the decoration of these letters is closer to that found in insular manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. However, the decoration in the Breton Gospel Book is simpler and more geometric in form than that found in the Insular manuscripts. The manuscript contains the Latin text of St Jerome's letter to Pope Damasus, St. Jerome's commentary on Matthew, and the four Gospels, along with prefatory material and canon tables. This manuscript is part of the Egerton Collection in the British Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Utrecht Psalter</span> Ninth-century illuminated psalter

The Utrecht Psalter is a ninth-century illuminated psalter which is a key masterpiece of Carolingian art; it is probably the most valuable manuscript in the Netherlands. It is famous for its 166 lively pen illustrations, with one accompanying each psalm and the other texts in the manuscript. The precise purpose of these illustrations, and the extent of their dependence on earlier models, have been matters of art-historical controversy. The psalter spent the period between about 1000 to 1640 in England, where it had a profound influence on Anglo-Saxon art, giving rise to what is known as the "Utrecht style". It was copied at least three times in the Middle Ages. A complete facsimile edition of the psalter was made in 1875, and another in 1984 (Graz).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Titulus (inscription)</span> Label

Titulus is a term used for the labels or captions naming figures or subjects in art, which were commonly added in classical and medieval art, and remain conventional in Eastern Orthodox icons. In particular the term describes the conventional inscriptions on stone that listed the honours of an individual or that identified boundaries in the Roman Empire. A titulus pictus is a merchant's mark or other commercial inscription.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insular art</span> Post-Roman British and Irish style of art

Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe. Art historians usually group Insular art as part of the Migration Period art movement as well as Early Medieval Western art, and it is the combination of these two traditions that gives the style its special character.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Aureus of Echternach</span> 11th-century illuminated Gospel Book

The Codex Aureus of Echternach is an illuminated Gospel Book, created in the approximate period 1030–1050, with a re-used front cover from around the 980s. It is now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life of Christ in art</span> Set of subjects in art

The life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects showing events from the life of Jesus on Earth. They are distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of Christ, such as Christ in Majesty, and also many types of portrait or devotional subjects without a narrative element.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eadwine Psalter</span> 12th-century manuscript in Trinity College, Cambridge

The Eadwine Psalter or Eadwin Psalter is a heavily illuminated 12th-century psalter named after the scribe Eadwine, a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, who was perhaps the "project manager" for the large and exceptional book. The manuscript belongs to Trinity College, Cambridge and is kept in the Wren Library. It contains the Book of Psalms in three languages: three versions in Latin, with Old English and Anglo-Norman translations, and has been called the most ambitious manuscript produced in England in the twelfth century. As far as the images are concerned, most of the book is an adapted copy, using a more contemporary style, of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, which was at Canterbury for a period in the Middle Ages. There is also a very famous full-page miniature showing Eadwine at work, which is highly unusual and possibly a self-portrait.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mac Durnan Gospels</span>

The Mac Durnan Gospels or Book of Mac Durnan is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book made in Ireland in the 9th or 10th century, a rather late example of Insular art. Unusually, it was in Anglo-Saxon England soon after it was written, and is now in the collection of Lambeth Palace Library in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gundohinus Gospels</span>

The Gundohinus Gospels is an illuminated Gospel Book of 754–755 named after its scribe Gundohinus. It contains one of the earliest figures in a Frankish manuscript and is now in the town library in Autun. It is often held as an example of the new Frankish-papal alliance's opposition to Byzantine iconoclasm.

References

Bibliography

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.