Gospel of John (St. Cuthbert)

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Gospel of St. Cuthbert, London, British Library, Additional MS 89000, fol. 1r

The Gospel of St. Cuthbert (London British Library, Additional MS 89000, earlier ibid., Loan 74) is a manuscript from the early 8th century in England . It contains the full text of the Gospel of John in Latin on 94 sheets . The text is written in uncial script and has no decorations or illustrations. The book is the oldest surviving book in Europe in the original, Coptic stitching and in the original goatskin cover. It is only 138 × 92 mm in size and belongs to the group of so-called Anglo-Saxon pocket evangelists. It is therefore one of the smallest known codices of Anglo-Saxon origin . The earliest original Anglo-Saxon book cover is made of goatskin over a birch wood panel. On the front cover there is a relief ornament made of chalice and vine tendrils, surrounded by an incised braided ribbon frame.

The manuscript was probably created in the first decades of the 8th century in Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey in Northumbria . It was in 1104 in the coffin of St. Cuthbert discovered that from its original location in the cathedral of Lindisfarne Danish due to the risk of invasions over the stations Melrose and Ripon in the cathedral of Durham had come. It was therefore long regarded as his personal copy. However, more recent palaeographic research has shown a later date of origin. It is unclear when the book got into the coffin. At an unknown date (after 1531) the book came into the possession of the Stonyhurst Jesuit College in Lancashire . In 2012 the British Library in London bought it for £ 9 million , where it had been on loan since 1979.

literature

  • Claire Breay / Bernard Meehan (eds.): The Cuthbert Gospel: Studies un the Insular Manuscript of the Gospel of John (BL, Additional 89000) . The British Library, London 2015. ISBN 978-0-7123-5765-4
  • JA Szirmai, The Archeology of Medieval Bookbinding . Rootlege, London New York 1999, pp. 95f. ISBN 978-0-85967-904-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Nicholas Pickwoad, Binding, in: Claire Breay / Bernard Meehan (eds.): The Cuthbert Gospel (see literature below) pp. 41–63; Leslie Webster, Decoration of Binding, in: ibid. Pp. 65–82.