Book of Armagh

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Text page from the Book of Armagh

The Book of Armagh or Codex Ardmachanus , also known as the Patrick Canon or Liber Ar (d) machanus, is a 9th century Irish manuscript. It is largely written in Latin.

Armagh's Book is in the Trinity College Library in Dublin (MS 52). The manuscript is important because it contains early texts on Saint Patrick and some of the oldest surviving passages in the Old Irish language . It is also one of the first manuscripts written in the British Isles to contain an almost complete version of the New Testament.

According to a legend, the book should have belonged to Saint Patrick himself and was written by him. However, research suggests that the oldest part of the manuscript was written by a copyist named Ferdomnach of Armagh, who died around 845 or 846. According to this, Ferdomnach created the book around 807 or 808.

content

The Book of Armagh consists of three parts: a collection of texts on Saint Patrick, the New Testament and a collection of texts on Saint Martin.

Texts on Saint Patrick

Latin New Testament

The manuscript contains an almost complete Latin New Testament based on the Vulgate , but it also contains readings from the Vetus Latina . Also included are the Eusebian Canon , a foreword to the New Testament and comments on individual books by Pelagius . Also included is the letter to the Laodiceans , which, however , is called spurious with Jerome's warning .

Texts on Saint Martin

Dating the Book of Armagh

Most of the texts in the Book of Armagh were copied by Ferdomnach , scribe of Armagh , around 807 . In the Middle Ages, it was rumored by Armagh that the Book of Armagh goes back to Patrick himself. For this reason some colophons were deleted which contained information about the real writer and client. The dating of the book was therefore uncertain until the 19th century. In the middle of the 19th century, Rev. Charles Graves examined the book and used chemical tools for the first time to make deleted passages in the manuscript visible again. He identified the name of the scribe, Ferdomnach, and the client, Bishop Torbach. According to the annals of the four masters , Torbach was bishop for only one year (consecrated 807) and died in 808. The book has been dated around 807 since then.

literature

  • Edward Gwynn (Ed.): Book of Armagh: The Patrician Documents (=  Facsimiles in collotype of Irish manuscripts . No. 3 ). Stationery Office, Dublin 1937.
  • John Gwynn (Ed.): Liber Ardmachanus = The Book of Armagh . Published for the Royal Irish Academy by Hodges Figgis, Dublin 1913 ( archive.org ).
  • Hugh Jackson Lawlor: The Book of Armagh . In: The Irish Church Quarterly . tape 7 , no. July 27 , 1914, ISSN  2009-1664 , p. 181-201 , doi : 10.2307 / 30067494 , JSTOR : 30067494 .
  • Richard Sharpe: Palaeographical considerations in the study of the Patrician documents in the Book of Armagh (Dublin, Trinity College MS 52) . In: Scriptorium. International Review of Manuscript Studies . tape 36 , no. 1 , 1982, pp. 3–28 , doi : 10.3406 / scrip.1982.1240 .
  • The Patrician texts in the Book of Armagh . with a contribution by Fergus Kelly. In: Ludwig Bieler (Ed.): Scriptores Latini Hiberniae . tape X . Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1979 (English, persee.fr ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Sharpe: Palaeographical Considerations in the Study of the Patrician Documents in the Book of Armagh . In: Scriptorium: International Review of Manuscript Studies . 36, 1982, pp. 3-28.