Reims Gospel ( French: ''Texte du Sacre'' which means "coronation text"; also referred to in some

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...

sources as the ''Emmaus Evangelie'' or ''Remešský kodex'') is an

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...

of Slavonic (Slavic) origin which became part of the

Reims Cathedral , image = Reims Kathedrale.jpg , imagealt = Facade, looking northeast , caption = Façade of the cathedral, looking northeast , pushpin map = France , pushpin map alt = Location within France , ...

treasury. According to a refuted legend, Henry III of France and several of his successors including

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Versa ...

took their oath on it.František Bílý: ''Od kolébky našeho obrození'', Prague 1904, pp. 7–12 In the time of Charles IV, who gave it to the just-founded

Emmaus monastery The Emmaus Monastery ( cs, Emauzy or ''Emauzský klášter''), called Na Slovanech in the Middle Ages, is an abbey established in 1347 in Prague. It was the only Benedictine monastery of the Kingdom of Bohemia and all Slavic Europe. In the 1360 ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, the text was believed to have been written by the hand of St. Procopius.

Description

Out of a total of 47 double-sided sheets, 16 sheets are written in

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

(as a fragment) and 31 sheets in the

Glagolitic alphabet The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzan ...

.Jacques-Paul Migne
''Dictionnaire d'épigraphie Chrétienne''
Paris 1852 The book used to have a

treasure binding A treasure binding or jewelled bookbinding is a luxurious book cover using metalwork in gold or silver, jewels, or ivory, perhaps in addition to more usual bookbinding material for book-covers such as leather, velvet, or other cloth. The actua ...

, richly decorated and embellished with gold, precious stones, and relics, among them a fragment of the

True Cross The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...

. The precious stones and the relics probably disappeared from the book cover during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. It features six

historiated initial A historiated initial is an initial, an enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, that contains a picture. Strictly speaking, a historiated initial depicts an identifiable figure or a specific scene, while an inh ...

s in the Glagolitic part and several ornamental capitals at the start of sections.

Content

The Cyrillic part includes a

pericope A pericope (; Greek , "a cutting-out") in rhetoric is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought, suitable for public reading from a text, now usually of sacred scripture. Also can be used as a way to identify certain themes in a cha ...

from to following the Greek Catholic rite. The Glagolitic part covers pericopes from

Palm Sunday Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy ...

to the

Feast of the Annunciation The Feast of the Annunciation, in Greek, Ο Ευαγγελισμός της Θεοτόκου, contemporarily the Solemnity of the Annunciation, and also called Lady Day, the Feast of the Incarnation ('), or Conceptio Christi ('), commemorates the ...

() following the Roman Catholic rite. In a special postscript a

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

n monk noted: "''The Year of Our Lord 1395. These Gospels and Epistles were written in the Slavic language ... the other part was written by the hand of St. Procopius, abbot, and this text was offered by Charles IV, Emperor of the Romans, to the Slavic monastery, in honor of

Saint Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is comm ...

and Saint Procopius, God, please give him eternal rest. Amen.''"

History

The origin of the manuscript is not certain. The older part was probably written in calligraphy on the island of

Krk Krk (; it, Veglia; ruo, Krk; dlm, label= Vegliot Dalmatian, Vikla; la, Curicta; grc-gre, Κύρικον, Kyrikon) is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of Primorje-Gorski Kot ...

, or in a monastery in Serbia, Bulgaria,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, or Russia. It was first recorded in the last half of the 14th century, in the time of Charles IV, who gave it to the just-founded

( cz, Emauzský klášter, Na Slovanech, Emauzy), where the Slavonic liturgy was to be celebrated (the church of the monastery was dedicated to

Saints Cyril and Methodius Cyril (born Constantine, 826–869) and Methodius (815–885) were two brothers and Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. For their work evangelizing the Slavs, they are known as the "Apostles to the Slavs". They are credited wit ...

, St. Vojtěch, St. Procopius, and

St. Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is comm ...

, who was considered to have translated the Gospels from Greek to the Old Slavonic language). The text was believed to have been written by the hand of St. Procopius, abbot of

Sázava Monastery Sázava Monastery is a former Benedictine abbey and a monastery in Bohemia (Czech Republic), established by Bretislaus I, Duke of Bohemia around 1032. It is situated some 30 km southeast of Prague, on the right bank of the eponymous Sázava ...

. It was probably lost from Prague in the time of the

Hussite Wars The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, European monarchs loyal to the Cat ...

; after some time (1451Auguste Vallet De Viriville
''Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes''
Volume 15, 1854, pp.192–194 ) it appeared in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, where the books by St. Jerome were said to be kept. In 1574, it was bought by

Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine Charles de Lorraine (c. 1525 – 26 December 1574), Duke of Chevreuse, was a French Cardinal, a member of the powerful House of Guise. He was known at first as the Cardinal of Guise, and then as the second Cardinal of Lorraine, after the death o ...

(from the

Patriarch of Constantinople The ecumenical patriarch ( el, Οἰκουμενικός Πατριάρχης, translit=Oikoumenikós Patriárchēs) is the archbishop of Constantinople (Istanbul), New Rome and '' primus inter pares'' (first among equals) among the heads of th ...

, whom he knew from the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento, Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italian Peninsula, Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation ...

), and donated to

. Because the book was nicely decorated and it was believed it had been scribed by St. Jerome, the manuscript began to be used in the coronation ceremony of French kings, who took the oath of the

Order of the Holy Spirit The Order of the Holy Spirit (french: Ordre du Saint-Esprit; sometimes translated into English as the Order of the Holy Ghost), is a French order of chivalry founded by Henry III of France in 1578. Today, it is a dynastic order under the House of ...

by touching the book. In 1717,

Russian Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...

visited

Reims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...

and, upon seeing the manuscript, noticed the Cyrillic alphabet. During the

the manuscript disappeared and was not found until the 1830s, when it was discovered in the Reims library by the city librarian, Louis Paris, after a request by a Slovene

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Jernej Bartol Kopitar who was an administrator at the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Court Library at that time. Mr. Paris asked a Russian counsellor and

archeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...

Sergey Stroieff (or Turgenev?) for help with recognizing the text. It was found with neither the gold nor the precious stones in the cover. The discovery brought a revival of interest, especially in Slavic countries. The first

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, Old master print, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from ...

was created by Reims librarian Louis Paris and it was analyzed in detail by Polish

paleographer Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...

Korwin Jan Jastrzębski (1805–1852). Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy made a lithographic copy of the manuscript and gave it to Russian Tsar Nicholas I. Nicholas then financed another using

intaglio printing Intaglio ( ; ) is the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the direct opposite of a relief print where the parts of the matrix that m ...

(1843) and let Jernej Kopitar write his comment arguing that all of the manuscript comes from 14th century. In 1846

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

Václav Hanka Václav Hanka (also written as ''Wenceslaus Hanka'') (10 June 1791 – 12 January 1861) was a Czech philologist. Biography Hanka was born at Hořiněves near Hradec Králové. He was sent in 1807 to school at Hradec Králové, to escape the ...

made his edition, which was available to the general public, and received for that act of merit the cross of the

Order of St. Anna The Imperial Order of Saint Anna (russian: Орден Святой Анны; also "Order of Saint Anne" or "Order of Saint Ann") was a Holstein ducal and then Russian imperial order of chivalry. It was established by Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holst ...

from the Tsar and a brilliant ring from Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I.

Gallery

File:Reimski_evanđelistar.1.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.02.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.03.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.04.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.05.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.06.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.07.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.08.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.09.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.10.jpg File:Reimski evanđelistar.11.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.12.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.13.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.14.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.15.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.16.jpg File:Reimski evanđelistar.17.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.18.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.19.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.20.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.21.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.22.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.23.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.24.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.25.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.27.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.28.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.29.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.30.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.31.jpg File:Reimski_evanđelistar.32.jpg

References

{{Reflist Church Slavonic manuscripts Gospel Books Old Church Slavonic literature Cyrillo-Methodian studies

Description

Content

History

Gallery

See also

References