![St Cuthbert Gospel - f](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/St_Cuthbert_Gospel_-_f.1.jpg)
The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket
gospel book
A Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels (Greek: , ''Evangélion'') is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament – normally all four – centering on the life of Jesus of Nazareth ...
, written in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western
bookbinding to survive, and both the 94
vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...
folios
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only , the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the
Gospel of John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.
The book takes its name from
Saint Cuthbert
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne ( – 20 March 687) was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of ...
of
Lindisfarne,
North East England, in whose tomb it was placed, probably a few years after his death in 687. Although it was long regarded as Cuthbert's personal copy of the Gospel, to which there are early references, and so a
relic of the saint, the book is now thought to date from shortly after Cuthbert's death. It was probably a gift from
Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey
The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, known simply as Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey ( la, Monasterii Wirimutham-Gyruum), was a Benedictine double monastery in the Kingdom of Northumbria, England.
Its first hou ...
, where it was written, intended to be placed in
St Cuthbert's coffin in the few decades after this was placed behind the altar at Lindisfarne in 698. It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at
Durham Cathedral. The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral. It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks. It is thought that after the
Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by
Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors. It was eventually given to
Stonyhurst College, the
Jesuit school in
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
.
From 1979 it was on long-term loan from the British province of the Jesuit order to the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
, catalogued as Loan 74. On 14 July 2011 the British Library launched a fundraising campaign to buy the book for £9 million, and on 17 April 2012 announced that the purchase had been completed and the book was now British Library
Add MS 89000.
The library plans to display the Gospel for equal amounts of time in London and
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
*County Durham, an English county
* Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
. It describes the manuscript as "the earliest surviving intact European book and one of the world's most significant books".
[British Library press release]
"British Library announces £9m campaign to acquire the St Cuthbert Gospel – the earliest intact European book", 13 July 2011, with good photos of the cover, and a video. Accessed 8 March 2012 The Cuthbert Gospel returned to Durham to feature in exhibitions in 2013 and 2014, and was in the British Library's Anglo-Saxon exhibition in 2018/19; it also spends periods "resting" off display. A new book on the gospel was published in 2015, incorporating the results of research since the purchase; among other things this pushed the likely date from the late 7th century to between around 700 and 730.
Description
![Meister des Codex Amiatus 001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Meister_des_Codex_Amiatus_001.jpg)
The St Cuthbert Gospel is a pocket-sized book, 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 × 3.6 in), of the
Gospel of St John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
written in
uncial script
Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, p. 494. script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th ...
on 94 vellum folios. It is bound in wooden cover boards, covered with tooled red leather.
Context
The St Cuthbert Gospel is significant both intrinsically as the earliest surviving European book complete with its original binding and by association with the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon saint
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne
Cuthbert of Lindisfarne ( – 20 March 687) was an Anglo-Saxon saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of ...
.
[ A miniature in the ]Codex Amiatinus
The Codex Amiatinus (also known as the Jarrow Codex) is considered the best-preserved manuscript of the Latin Vulgate versionBruce M. Metzger, ''The Text of the New Testament'' (Oxford University Press 2005), p. 106. of the Christian Bible. It w ...
, of the Prophet Ezra
Ezra (; he, עֶזְרָא, '; fl. 480–440 BCE), also called Ezra the Scribe (, ') and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe ('' sofer'') and priest (''kohen''). In Greco-Latin Ezra is called Esdras ( grc-gre, Ἔσδρα ...
writing in his library, shows several books similarly bound in red decorated with geometric designs. This miniature was probably based on an original in the Codex Grandior
The ''Codex Grandior'' ("Larger Codex") was a large single-volume copy of the Bible in an Old Latin translation that was made for or by Cassiodorus. It was one of a number of works held at his monastic foundation Vivarium, near Squillace, Italy.
...
, a lost imported Italian Bible at Jarrow, which showed Cassiodorus
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' ...
and the nine volumes he wrote of commentary on the Bible. Whether the bindings depicted, which were presumably of leather, included raised elements cannot be detected, but the books are stored singly flat in a cupboard, which would reduce the wear on any raised patterns.
Early medieval 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 act ...
s with a structure in precious metal, and often containing gems, carved ivory panels or metal reliefs, are perhaps better known today than leather bindings, but these were for books used in church services or as "book-icons" rather than for use in libraries. Of treasure bindings from this period, only the lower cover of the Lindau Gospels
The Lindau Gospels is an illuminated manuscript in the Morgan Library in New York, which is important for its illuminated text, but still more so for its treasure binding, or metalwork covers, which are of different periods. The oldest ele ...
(750–800, Morgan Library
The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...
) now survives complete, though there are several references to them, most famously to that of the Book of Kells, which was lost after a theft in 1007. Various metal fragments of what were probably book-mounts have survived, usually adapted as jewellery by Vikings
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and ...
. In the context of the cult of Cuthbert, the lavishly illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) 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 B ...
were made at Lindisfarne, probably shortly after the St Cuthbert Gospel, with covers involving metalwork, perhaps entirely made in it, which are also now lost. Plainer, very early bindings in leather are almost as rare as treasure bindings, as the bindings of books in libraries usually wore out and needed to be renewed, and earlier collectors did not consider most historical bindings worth retaining.
Text
The text is a very good and careful copy of the single Gospel of John from what has been called the "Italo-Northumbrian" family of texts, other well-known examples of which are several manuscripts from Wearmouth–Jarrow, including the Codex Amiatinus
The Codex Amiatinus (also known as the Jarrow Codex) is considered the best-preserved manuscript of the Latin Vulgate versionBruce M. Metzger, ''The Text of the New Testament'' (Oxford University Press 2005), p. 106. of the Christian Bible. It w ...
, and in the British Library the Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) 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 B ...
and the Gospel Book MS Royal 1. B. VII. This family is presumed to have derived from a hypothetical "Neapolitan Gospelbook" brought to England by Adrian of Canterbury
Adrian, also spelled Hadrian (born before 637, died 710), was a North African scholar in Anglo-Saxon England and the abbot of Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's in Canterbury. He was a noted teacher and commentator of the Bible. Adrian was born betw ...
, a companion of Theodore of Tarsus
Theodore of Tarsus ( gr, Θεόδωρος Ταρσοῦ; 60219 September 690) was Archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690. Theodore grew up in Tarsus, but fled to Constantinople after the Persian Empire conquered Tarsus and other cities. Afte ...
who Bede says had been abbot of Nisida
Nisida is a volcanic islet of the Flegrean Islands archipelago, in southern Italy. It lies at a very short distance from Cape Posillipo, just north of Naples; it is now connected to the mainland by a stone bridge. The islet is almost circular, wi ...
, an equally hypothetical monastery near Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
. In the rubric
A rubric is a word or section of text that is traditionally written or printed in red ink for emphasis. The word derives from the la, rubrica, meaning red ochre or red chalk, and originates in Medieval illuminated manuscripts from the 13th cen ...
s of the Lindisfarne Gospels are several that are "specifically Neapolitan", including festivals which were celebrated only in Naples such as The Nativity of St. Januarius
Januarius ( ; la, Ianuarius; Neapolitan and it, Gennaro), also known as , was Bishop of Benevento and is a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. While no contemporary sources on his life are preserved, later ...
and the Dedication of the Basilica of Stephen. The Neapolitan manuscript was probably at Wearmouth–Jarrow.
Apart from enlarged and sometimes slightly elaborated initials opening the Ammonian Sections (the contemporary equivalent of the modern division into verses), and others in red at the start of chapters, the text has no illumination or decoration, but Sir David Wilson, historian of Anglo-Saxon art and Director of the British Museum, used it as his example in writing "some manuscripts are so beautifully written that illumination would seem only to spoil them". Julian Brown wrote that "the capitular uncial of the Stonyhurst Gospel owes its beauty to simple design and perfect execution. The decorative elements in the script never interfere with the basic structure of the letter-forms; they arise naturally from the slanted angle at which the pen was held".
The pages with the text have been ruled with a blind stylus or similar tool, leaving just an impression in the vellum. It can be shown that this was done for each gathering with just two sets of lines, ruled on the outermost and innermost pages, requiring a very firm impression to carry the marks through to the sheets behind. Impressed lines mark the vertical edges of the text area, and there is an outer pair of lines. Each line of text is ruled, only as far as the inner vertical lines, and there are prick marks where the horizontal lines meet the verticals. The book begins with 19 lines on a page, but at folio
The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...
42 changes to 20 lines per page, requiring the re-ruling of some pages. This change was evidently a departure from the original plan, and may have been caused by a shortage of the very fine vellum, as two different sorts are used, though the change does not coincide exactly with the change in the number of lines.
Four passages are marked in the margin
Margin may refer to:
Physical or graphical edges
*Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page
*Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust
*Leaf ...
, which correspond to those used as readings in Masses for the Dead in the Roman lectionary of the mid-7th century. This seems to have been done hastily, as most left offset marks on the opposite pages from the book being closed before the ink was dry. This seems to indicate that the book was used at least once as the gospel book for a Mass for the Dead, perhaps on the occasion of Cuthbert's elevation in 698. In the example illustrated at left, the start of the reading at line 10 is marked with a cross, and ''de mortuorum'' ("for the dead") written beside. The reading ends on the next page, which is also marked.
Binding
The original tooled red goatskin binding is the earliest surviving intact Western binding, and the virtually unique survivor of decorated Insular leatherwork. The decoration of the front cover includes colour, and the main motif is raised, which is unique among the few surviving Early Medieval bindings. The panels of geometrical decoration with two-stranded interlace closely relate to Insular illuminated manuscripts, and can be compared to the carpet page
A carpet page is a full page in an illuminated manuscript containing intricate, non-figurative, patterned designs.Moss, 57 They are a characteristic feature of Insular manuscripts, and typically placed at the beginning of a Gospel Book. Carpet p ...
s found in these. Elements of the design also relate to Anglo-Saxon metalwork in the case of the general origin of interlace in manuscripts, and Coptic and other East Mediterranean designs.
The decoration of the covers includes three pigments filling lines engraved with a sharp pointed instrument, which now appear as two shades of yellow, one bright and the other pale, and a dark colour that now appears as blue-grey, but was recorded as blue in the earliest descriptions. The front cover includes all three colours, but the pale yellow is not used on the back cover. The pigments have been analysed for the first time, as one benefit of the purchase of the manuscript by the British Library, and identified by Raman spectroscopy as orpiment
Orpiment is a deep-colored, orange-yellow arsenic sulfide mineral with formula . It is found in volcanic fumaroles, low-temperature hydrothermal veins, and hot springs and is formed both by sublimation and as a byproduct of the decay of anothe ...
(yellow) and indigo
Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', m ...
(grey-blue). The balance of the designs on both covers is now affected by what appears to be the greater fading of the dark blue-grey pigment. The bookbinder Roger Powell speculated that the "pale lemon-yellow ... may once have been green", giving an original colour scheme of blue, green and yellow on the red background, although the recent testing suggests this was not the case.
Given the lack of surviving objects, we cannot know how common the techniques employed were, but the quality of the execution suggests that the binder was experienced in them. At the same time, an analysis by Robert Stevick suggests that the designs for both covers were intended to follow a sophisticated geometric scheme of compass and straightedge constructions using the "two true measures of geometry", the ratio between Pythagoras' constant and one, and the golden section
In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0,
where the Greek letter phi ...
. However slips in the complicated process of production, some detailed below, mean that the finished covers do not quite exhibit the intended proportions, and are both slightly out of true in some respects.
Although it seems clear from the style of the script that the text was written at Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, it is possible that the binding was then added at Lindisfarne; the form of the plant scrolls can be compared to those on the portable altar also found in Cuthbert's coffin, presumed to have been made there, though also to other works of the period, such as the shaft of an Anglo-Saxon cross from Penrith and the Vespasian Psalter
The Vespasian Psalter (London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian A I) is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated psalter decorated in a partly Insular style produced in the second or third quarter of the 8th century. It contains an interlinear gloss in Old E ...
. Small holes in the folds of each gathering seem to represent a "temporary sewing" together of the pages, one explanation of which is a journey made by the unbound pages.
Front cover
The decoration of the front cover is divided into fields bordered by raised lines. The central field contains a plant motif representing a stylised chalice
A chalice (from Latin 'mug', borrowed from Ancient Greek () 'cup') or goblet is a footed cup intended to hold a drink. In religious practice, a chalice is often used for drinking during a ceremony or may carry a certain symbolic meaning.
R ...
in the centre with a bud and scrolling vine
A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners themsel ...
stems leading from it, fruit and several small leaves. Above and below the central motif are fields containing interlace ornament in finely incised lines. The three motifs are enclosed within a border containing further interlacing.
Continuous vine scrolls
A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing.
Structure
A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papy ...
in a great variety of designs of the same general type as the central motif, with few leaves and round fruits, were very common in slightly later religious Anglo-Saxon art, and are often combined with interlace in the same work, especially on Anglo-Saxon cross
Anglo-Saxon art covers art produced within the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, beginning with the Migration period style that the Anglo-Saxons brought with them from the continent in the 5th century, and ending in 1066 with the Norman ...
es, for example the Bewcastle Cross
The Bewcastle Cross is an Anglo-Saxon cross which is still in its original position within the churchyard of St Cuthbert's church at Bewcastle, in the English county of Cumbria. The cross, which probably dates from the 7th or early 8th century, ...
and the Easby Cross
The Easby Cross is an Anglo-Saxon sandstone standing cross from 800–820, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It originally came from Easby near Richmond in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, where a plaster replica i ...
now in the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
. One face of the fragmentary silver cover of the portable altar also recovered from Cuthbert's coffin has a similar combination of elements, with both areas of interlace and, in the four corners, a simple plant motif with a central bud or leaf and a spiral shoot on either side. The combination of different types of ornament within a panelled framework is highly typical of Northumbrian art, above all the Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) 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 B ...
. Interlace may well have still been believed to have some quasi-magical protective power, which seems to have been its function in pre-Christian Germanic art. The vine motif here differs from the common continuous scroll type in that the stems cross over each other twice on each side, but crossing stems are also seen on the upper north face of the Bewcastle Cross and a cross in the church at Hexham.[Wright, 154] Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...
compares the motif with one in an initial in the later Book of Kells. It was suggested by Berthe van Regemorter that in the St Cuthbert Gospel this design represents Christ (as the central bud) and the Four Evangelists as the grapes, following , "I am the vine, ye are the branches", but this idea has been treated with caution by other scholars.
The two panels of interlace use the same design, of what David H. Wright describes as the "alternating pair thin-line type" which he calls "perhaps the most sophisticated of Insular interlace types". The panels are symmetrical about a vertical axis, except for the left end of the upper panel, which is different. Whereas the other ends of the pattern finish in a flat line parallel with the vertical framing line, part of a shape like an incomplete D, the top left finishes in two ellipses pointing into the corners. The lines forming the interlace patterns are coloured in the dark blue/black and the bright yellow, but differently. In the lower panel the yellow colours the left half of the design, but the upper panel begins at the (deviant) left in the dark colour, then switches to yellow once the pattern changes to that used for the rest of the panels. It continues in yellow until the central point, then changes to the dark colour for the right hand side of the design.
The transition between the top left, perhaps where the artist began, and the standard pattern, is somewhat awkward, leaving a rather bald spot (for an interlace pattern) to the left of the first curving yellow vertical. The change in pattern pushes the halfway point of the upper panel rather off-centre to the right, whereas in the lower panel it falls slightly to the left of dead centre. These vagaries in the design suggest that it was done freehand, without marking-out the pattern using compasses for example. The lowest horizontal raised line is not straight, being higher at the left, probably because of an error in the marking or drilling of the holes in the cover board through which the ends of the cord run. The simple twist or chain border in yellow between the two raised frames resembles an element in an initial in the Durham Gospel Book Fragment, an important earlier manuscript from Lindisfarne.
Back cover
The back cover is decorated more simply, with no raised elements and purely geometric decoration of engraved lines, which are filled in with two pigments which now appear as the bright yellow and the dark colour, once apparently blue. Within several framing lines making rectangles of similar proportions to the cover itself, a central rectangular panel is marked with pricks to make a grid of 3mm squares, 21 tall and 10 wide. Lines on the grid are engraved and coloured in yellow to form two stepped "crosses", or squares standing on one corner, with additional stepped elements in the four corners and halfway up the vertical sides, between the two "crosses". The vertical axial line down the grid and the two horizontal axes through the crosses are also coloured in the yellow pigment right to the edges of the grid. The remaining lines on the grid and all the lines along the edges of the grid are coloured in the dark colour. This is a simple version of the sort of design found on Insular carpet pages, as well as in Coptic manuscript decoration and textiles, and small stepped crosses decorate the main panels of the famous Sutton Hoo shoulder-clasps. The alignment of the various outer framing lines with the innermost frame and the panel with the grid is noticeably imperfect, as the top framing line was extended too far to the left. Traces of an uncoloured first attempt at this line can be seen on the right hand side, above the coloured line.
Construction
Although the binding had never been taken apart for examination before it was bought by the British Library, a considerable amount can be said about its construction. A combination of looseness through wear and tear, damage in certain places, and the failure of the paste that glued the pages to the inside of the covers, now allow non-intrusive inspection of much of the binding construction, including the rear of the actual wooden front cover board, and some of the holes made through it.
The raised framing lines can be seen from the rear of the front cover to have been produced by gluing cord to the board and tooling the leather over it, in a technique of Coptic origin, of which few early examples survive – one of the closest is a 9th- or 10th-century Islamic binding found in the Mosque of Uqba
The Great Mosque of Kairouan ( ar, جامع القيروان الأكبر), also known as the Mosque of Uqba (), is a mosque situated in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Kairouan, Tunisia and is one of the most impressive and largest Islamic mo ...
in Kairouan
Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( ar, ٱلْقَيْرَوَان, al-Qayrawān , aeb, script=Latn, Qeirwān ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by t ...
, Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
. There are holes in the board in which the cut-off ends can be seen from behind.
The chalice and plant motif on the front, of which there is no trace from behind, has been built up using some clay-like material underneath the leather, as shown by CT-scans since the purchase. In the 2015 book, Nicholas Pickwoad suggests that this raised decoration was formed using a matrix which was pressed into the damp leather over the clay-like substance and the wooden board. Previous authors had suggested that the material under the relief decoration might have been built up in gesso
Gesso (; "chalk", from the la, gypsum, from el, γύψος) is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these. It is used in painting as a preparation for any number of substrates suc ...
as well as cord and leather scraps before applying the cover leather. A broadly similar plant motif in similar technique is found on a later Middle Eastern pouch in the Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
in Baltimore.
The boards of the covers, previously assumed to be limewood
''Tilia'' is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they ...
, are now thought to be birch
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains ...
, an unusual wood in later bindings, but one easily available in northern England. Both have four holes where the binding threads were laced through; the two threads were run round the inner edges of the cover and knotted back at the holes. The front cover has an additional 12 holes where the ends of the cords for the raised framing lines went through, at the four corners of the two main frames, and the ends of the horizontal bars between the interlace panels and the central vine motif.
The stitching of the binding uses " Coptic sewing", that is "flexible unsupported sewing (produced by two needles and thread looping round one another in a figure-of-eight sewing pattern)" Coptic sewing uses small threads both to attach the leaves together and, knotted together, to attach the pages to the cover boards. Normal Western binding uses thread for the former and thicker cord running across the spine of the book for the latter, with the thread knotted onto the cords. Coptic sewing is also found in the earliest surviving leather bookbindings, which are from Coptic libraries in Egypt from the 7th and 8th centuries; in particular the design of the cover of one in the Morgan Library (MS M.569) has been compared to the St Cuthbert Gospel. In the techniques used in the binding, apart from the raised decoration, the closest resemblance is to an even smaller Irish pocket gospel book
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 dif ...
from some 50 years later, the Cadmug Gospels at Fulda, which is believed to have belonged to Saint Boniface
Boniface, OSB ( la, Bonifatius; 675 – 5 June 754) was an English Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of the Frankish Empire during the eighth century. He organised significant foundations o ...
. This is also in red goatskin, with coloured incised lines, and uses a similar unsupported or cordless stitching technique. The first appearance of the cords or supports that these "unsupported" bindings lack is found in two other books at Fulda, and they soon became universal in, and characteristic of, Western bookbinding until the arrival of modern machine techniques. The cords run horizontally across the spine, and are thicker than the threads that hold the pages together. They are attached, typically by lacing through holes or glue, to the two boards of the cover, and the threads holding the gatherings are knotted to them, resulting in a stronger binding.
Dating
The manuscript itself carries no date but a rather precise dating has been given to it, based mainly on its palaeography
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 ...
or handwriting, and also the known facts of Cuthbert's burial. The dating was revised after the acquisition by the British Library, who added to their online catalogue entry:
Previously dated to the end of the 7th century (The Stonyhurst Gospel, ed. T. J. Brown (1969), pp. 12–13), R. Gameson dates the script to c. 710–c. 730 and L. Webster dates the decoration on the covers to c. 700–c. 730 (The St Cuthbert Gospel, eds C. Breay and B. Meehan (2015), pp. 33, 80).
The script is the "capitular" form of uncial
Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, p. 494. script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to ...
, with just a few emphasized letters at the start of sections in "text" uncial. Close analysis of the changing style of details of the forms of letters allows the manuscript to be placed with some confidence within a chronological sequence of the few other manuscripts thought to have been produced at Wearmouth-Jarrow. The Northumbrian scribes "imitate very closely the best Italian manuscripts of about the sixth century", but introduced small elements that gave their script a distinct style, which has always been greatly admired. However, there were several scribes, seven different ones working on the Codex Amiatinus, whose scripts may not all have developed at the same pace.
Key to this sequence is the Codex Amiatinus
The Codex Amiatinus (also known as the Jarrow Codex) is considered the best-preserved manuscript of the Latin Vulgate versionBruce M. Metzger, ''The Text of the New Testament'' (Oxford University Press 2005), p. 106. of the Christian Bible. It w ...
, an almost complete Bible for which we have a very precise ''terminus ante quem
''Terminus post quem'' ("limit after which", sometimes abbreviated to TPQ) and ''terminus ante quem'' ("limit before which", abbreviated to TAQ) specify the known limits of dating for events or items..
A ''terminus post quem'' is the earliest da ...
'', and within which, because of its size, developments in style can be seen in a single manuscript. The Codex Amiatinus can be precisely located as leaving Wearmouth-Jarrow with a party led by Abbot Ceolfrith
Saint Ceolfrid (or Ceolfrith, ; c. 642 – 716) was an Anglo-Saxon Christian abbot and saint. He is best known as the warden of Bede from the age of seven until his death in 716. He was the Abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, and a major co ...
on 4 June 716, bound for Rome. The codex was to be presented to Pope Gregory II
Pope Gregory II ( la, Gregorius II; 669 – 11 February 731) was the bishop of Rome from 19 May 715 to his death. , a decision only announced by Ceolfrith very shortly before the departure, allowing the dedication page to be dated with confidence to around May 716, though the rest of the manuscript was probably already some years old, but only begun after Ceolfrith succeeded as abbot in 689. The script of the dedication page differs slightly from that of the main text, but is by the same hand and in the same "elaborated text uncial" style as some pages at Durham (MS A II 17, part ii, ff 103-11). At the end of the sequence, it may be possible to date the Saint Petersburg Bede
The Saint Petersburg Bede (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, lat. Q. v. I. 18), formerly known as the Leningrad Bede, is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript, a near-contemporary version of Bede's 8th century history, the '' His ...
to 746 at the earliest, from references in ''memoranda'' in the text, although this remains a matter of controversy.
There survive parts of a gospel book, by coincidence now bound up with the famous Utrecht Psalter
The Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I Nr 32.) 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 ...
, which are identifiable as by the same scribe as the Cuthbert Gospel, and where "the capitular uncial of the two manuscripts is indistinguishable in style or quality, so they may well be very close to each other in date". Since the Utrecht pages also use Rustic capital
Rustic capitals ( la, littera capitalis rustica) is an ancient Roman calligraphic script. Because the term is negatively connoted supposing an opposition to the more 'civilized' form of the Roman square capitals, Bernhard Bischoff prefers to ca ...
script, which the Cuthbert Gospel does not, it allows another basis for comparison with further manuscripts in the sequence.
From the palaeographical evidence, T. Julian Brown concluded that the Cuthbert manuscript was written after the main text of the Codex Amiatinus, which was finished after 688, perhaps by 695, though it might be later. Turning to the historical evidence for Cuthbert's burial, this placed it after his original burial in 687 but possibly before his elevation to the high altar in 698. If this is correct, the book was never a personal possession of Cuthbert, as has sometimes been thought, but was possibly created specifically to be placed in his coffin, whether for the occasion of his elevation in 698 or at another date. The less precise hints about dating that can be derived from the style of the binding compared to other works did not conflict with these conclusions, though in the new 2015 study, Leslie Webster now dates the cover to "c. 700–c. 730", and Richard Gameson "dates the script to c. 710–c. 730", as quoted above.
History
Background
Cuthbert was an Anglo-Saxon, perhaps of a noble family, born in the Kingdom of Northumbria
la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria
, common_name = Northumbria
, status = State
, status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
in the mid-630s, some ten years after the conversion of King Edwin to Christianity in 627, which was slowly followed by that of the rest of his people. The politics of the kingdom were violent, and there were later episodes of pagan rule, while spreading understanding of Christianity through the kingdom was a task that lasted throughout Cuthbert's lifetime. Edwin had been baptised by Paulinus of York
Paulinus (died 10 October 644) was a Roman missionary and the first Bishop of York. A member of the Gregorian mission sent in 601 by Pope Gregory I to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, Paulinus arrived in ...
, an Italian who had come with the Gregorian mission from Rome, but his successor Oswald Oswald may refer to:
People
*Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name
*Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name
Fictional characters
*Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbur ...
also invited Irish monks from Iona to found the monastery at Lindisfarne where Cuthbert was to spend much of his life. This was around 635, about the time Cuthbert was born.
The tension between the Roman and Irish traditions, often exacerbated by Cuthbert's near-contemporary Saint Wilfrid
Wilfrid ( – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and ...
, an intransigent and quarrelsome supporter of Roman ways, was to be a major feature of Cuthbert's lifetime. Cuthbert himself, though educated in the Irish tradition, followed his mentor Eata
Eata (died 26 October 686), also known as Eata of Lindisfarne, was Bishop of Hexham from 678 until 681,Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 217 and of then Bishop of Lindisfarne from before 681 until 685.Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of ...
in accepting the Roman forms without apparent difficulty after the Synod of Whitby
In the Synod of Whitby in 664, King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome rather than the customs practiced by Irish monks at Iona and its satellite ins ...
in 664. The earliest biographies concentrate on the many miracles
A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divin ...
that accompanied even his early life, but he was evidently indefatigable as a travelling priest spreading the Christian message to remote villages, and also well able to impress royalty and nobility. Unlike Wilfrid, his style of life was austere, and when he was able he lived the life of a hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
Description
In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...
, though still receiving many visitors.
He grew up near the new Melrose Abbey
St Mary's Abbey, Melrose is a partly ruined monastery of the Cistercian order in Melrose, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders. It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I of Scotland and was the chief house of th ...
, an offshoot from Lindisfarne which is today in Scotland, but was then in Northumbria. He had decided to become a monk after seeing a vision on the night in 651 that St Aidan, the founder of Lindisfarne, died, but seems to have seen some military service first. He was quickly made guest-master at the new monastery at Ripon
Ripon () is a cathedral city in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city ...
, soon after 655, but had to return with Eata to Melrose when Wilfrid was given the monastery instead. About 662 he was made prior at Melrose, and around 665 went as prior to Lindisfarne. In 684 he was made Bishop of Lindisfarne
The Bishop of Durham is the Church of England, Anglican bishop responsible for the Diocese of Durham in the Province of York. The diocese is one of the oldest in England and its bishop is a member of the House of Lords. Paul Butler (bishop), Pau ...
, but by late 686 he resigned and returned to his hermitage as he felt he was about to die, although he was probably still only in his early 50s. After a few weeks of illness he died on the island on 20 March 687, and his body was carried back to Lindisfarne and buried there the same day.
Lindisfarne
Although first documented in 1104, the book is presumed to have been buried with Cuthbert at Lindisfarne, and to have stayed with the body during the wanderings forced by the Viking invasions two centuries later. Bede's ''Life'' recounts that Cuthbert was initially buried in a stone sarcophagus to the right of the altar in the church at Lindisfarne; he had wanted to be buried at the hermitage on Inner Farne Island where he died, but before his death was persuaded to allow his burial at the main monastery. His burial was first disturbed eleven years after his death, when his remains were moved to behind the altar to reflect his recognition, in the days before a formal process of canonisation
Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of s ...
, as a saint. The sarcophagus was opened and his body was said to have been found perfectly preserved or incorrupt
Incorruptibility is a Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox belief that divine intervention allows some human bodies (specifically saints and beati) to completely or partially avoid the normal process of decomposition after death as a sign of their ...
. This apparent miracle led to the steady growth of Cuthbert's posthumous cult, to the point where he became the most popular saint of Northern England.
Numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession and to intercessory prayer
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified ...
near his remains. In particular, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex
This is a list of monarchs of Wessex until AD 886. For later monarchs, see the List of English monarchs. While the details of the later monarchs are confirmed by a number of sources, the earlier ones are in many cases obscure.
The names are give ...
, was inspired and encouraged in his struggle against the Danes by a vision or dream he had of Cuthbert. Thereafter, the royal house of Wessex
The House of Wessex, also known as the Cerdicings and the West Saxon dynasty, refers to the family, traditionally founded by Cerdic, that ruled Wessex in Southern England from the early 6th century. The house became dominant in southern England aft ...
, who became the kings of England, made a point of devotion to Cuthbert, which also had a useful political message, as they came from opposite ends of the united English kingdom. Cuthbert was "a figure of reconciliation and a rallying point for the reformed identity of Northumbria and England" after the absorption of the Danish populations into Anglo-Saxon society, according to Michelle Brown
Michelle Margaret Freda Brown (born 30 December 1969) is a British politician who was a Member of the Senedd (MS) for North Wales from 2016 to 2021. In March 2019 she resigned from the UK Independence Party (UKIP) to become an independent.
Edu ...
. The 8th-century historian Bede wrote both a verse and a prose life of St Cuthbert around 720. He has been described as "perhaps the most popular saint in England prior to the death of Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then ...
in 1170." In 698, Cuthbert was reburied in the decorated oak coffin now usually meant by St Cuthbert's coffin, though he was to have many more coffins. The book was believed to have been produced for this occasion and perhaps placed in his coffin at this time, but according to the new dating it was only created up to 30 years after 698.
Fleeing the Danes
In 793 Lindisfarne was devastated by the first serious Viking raid in England, but Cuthbert's shrine seems to have escaped damage. In 875 the Danish leader Halfdene (Halfdan Ragnarsson), who shared with his brother Ivar the Boneless
Ivar the Boneless ( non, Ívarr hinn Beinlausi ; died c. 873), also known as Ivar Ragnarsson, was a Viking leader who invaded England and Ireland. According to the ''Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok'', he was the son of Ragnar Loðbrok and his wife Asl ...
the leadership of the Great Heathen Army
The Great Heathen Army,; da, Store Hedenske Hær also known as the Viking Great Army,Hadley. "The Winter Camp of the Viking Great Army, AD 872–3, Torksey, Lincolnshire", ''Antiquaries Journal''. 96, pp. 23–67 was a coalition of Scandin ...
that had conquered much of the south of England, moved north to spend the winter there, as a prelude to settlement and further conquest. Eardulf, the Bishop of Lindisfarne, decided the monastery must be abandoned, and orderly preparations were made for the whole community, including lay people and children, to evacuate.
It was possibly at this point that a shelf or inner cover was inserted some way under the lid of Cuthbert's coffin, supported on three wooden bars across the width, and probably with two iron rings fixed to it for lifting it off. Eardulf had decided to take the most important remains and possessions of the community with them, and whether new or old, the shelf in Cuthbert's coffin was probably loaded with the St Cuthbert Gospel, which was found there in 1104. It may also have held the Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) 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 B ...
, now also in the British Library, and other books from Lindisfarne that were, and in several cases still are, at Durham Cathedral. Other bones taken by the party were those remains of St Aidan (d. 651), the founder of the community, that had not been sent to Melrose, and the head of the king and saint Oswald of Northumbria, who had converted the kingdom and encouraged the founding of Lindisfarne. These and other relics were reverently packaged in cloth and labelled, as more recent relics are. The community also took a stone Anglo-Saxon cross, and although they had a ''vehiculum'' of some sort, probably a cart or simple wagon, Cuthbert's coffin was carried by seven young men who had grown up in the community.
They set off inland and spent the first months at an unknown location in west Cumberland, near the River Derwent, probably in the modern Lake District, and according to Symeon of Durham
__NOTOC__
Symeon (or Simeon) of Durham (died after 1129) was an English chronicler and a monk of Durham Priory.
Biography
Symeon entered the Benedictine monastery at Jarrow as a youth. It moved to Durham in 1074, and he was professed in 1085 or ...
's '' Libellus de exordio'', the main source for this period, Eardulf tried to hire a ship on the west coast to take them to Ireland. Then they left the more remote west side of the country and returned to the east, finding a resting-place at Craike near Easingwold
Easingwold is a market town, electoral ward and civil parish in the Hambleton District in North Yorkshire, England. Historically, part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, it had a population of 4,233 at the 2001 census, increasing to 4,627 at t ...
, close to the coast, well south of Lindisfarne, but also sufficiently far north of the new Viking kingdom being established at York.
Over the next century the Vikings of York and the north became gradually Christianized, and Cuthbert's shrine became a focus of devotion among them also. The community established close relations with Guthred
Guthred Hardacnutsson (Old Norse: ''Guðrøðr''; la, Guthfridus; born c.844 – died 24 August 895 AD) was the Christian king of Viking Northumbria from circa 883 until his death.
Life
Kings of Northumbria in the Norse era
The first known ...
(d. 895), Halfdene's successor as king, and received land from him at Chester-le-Street
Chester-le-Street (), also known as Chester, is a market town and civil parish in County Durham, England, around north of Durham and also close to Sunderland and Newcastle upon Tyne. It is located on the River Wear, which runs out to sea at ...
. In 883 they moved the few miles there, where they stayed over a century, building St Cuthbert's Church, where Cuthbert's shrine was placed. In 995 a new Danish invasion led the community to flee some 50 miles south to Ripon, again taking the coffin with them. After three or four months it was felt safe to return, and the party had nearly reached Chester-le-Street when their wagon became definitively stuck close to Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
*County Durham, an English county
* Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
, then a place with cultivated fields, but hardly a settlement, perhaps just an isolated farm. It was thought that Cuthbert was expressing a wish to settle where he was, and the community obeyed. A new stone church—the so-called White Church—was built, the predecessor of the present Durham Cathedral.
Durham Cathedral
In 1104, early in the bishopric of Ranulf Flambard
Ranulf Flambard ( c. 1060 – 5 September 1128) was a medieval Norman Bishop of Durham and an influential government minister of King William Rufus of England. Ranulf was the son of a priest of Bayeux, Normandy, and his nickname Flambard ...
, Cuthbert's tomb was opened again and his relics translated to a new shrine
A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...
behind the main altar
An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...
of the half-built Norman cathedral. According to the earlier of the two accounts of the event that survive, known as "Miracles 18–20" or the "anonymous account", written by a monk of the cathedral, when the monks opened the decorated inner coffin, which was for the first time in living memory, they saw "a book of the Gospels lying at the head of the board", that is on the shelf or inner lid. The account in "Miracle 20" adds that Bishop Flambard, during his sermon on the day the new shrine received Cuthbert's body, showed the congregation "a Gospel of Saint John in miraculously perfect condition, which had a satchel-like container of red leather with a badly frayed sling made of silken threads". In addition the book itself has an inscription on folio 1r "written in a modest book-hand apparently of the later twelfth century" recording that it was found in the translation.
As far as is known the book remained at Durham for the remainder of the Middle Ages, until the Dissolution, kept as a relic in three bags of red leather, normally resting in a reliquary, and there are various records of it being shown to visitors, the more distinguished of which were allowed to hang it round their neck for a while. According to Reginald of Durham (d. c 1190) "anyone approaching it should wash, fast and dress in an alb
The alb (from the Latin ''albus'', meaning ''white''), one of the liturgical vestments of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Reformed and Congregational churches, is an ample white garment coming down to the ank ...
before touching it", and he recorded that a scribe called John who failed to do this during a visit by the Archbishop of York in 1153–54, and "held it with unwashed hands after eating was struck down with a chill". Books treated as relics are especially characteristic of Celtic Christianity; several of the surviving Irish book-shrines were worn in this way.
Another recorded copy of the Gospel of John has also been associated with Cuthbert, and sometimes thought to be the St Cuthbert Gospel. Saint Boisil (d. 664) of Melrose Abbey was Cuthbert's teacher. Bede's prose life of Cuthbert records that during Boisil's last illness, he and Cuthbert read daily one of the seven gatherings or quaternions of Boisil's manuscript of the Gospel of John. The sermon in ''Miracle 20'' identifies this manuscript with the one at Durham, and says that both saints had worn it round their necks, ignoring that it has twelve gatherings rather than seven. There are further references from Durham to Boisil's book, such as a list of relics in the cathedral in 1389, and some modern scholars were attracted to the idea that they were the same, but Brown's palaeographical evidence seems to remove the possibility of Boisil's book being the St Cuthbert Gospel. In the 11th century Boisil's remains had also been brought to Durham, and enshrined next to those of Cuthbert. Around the same time Bede's own remains were stolen from Monkwearmouth–Jarrow for Durham, by a "notably underhand trick", and placed in Cuthbert's coffin, where they remained until 1104.
After the Reformation
It is thought likely that the book remained at Durham until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, although the various late medieval records of books and relics held there do not allow it to be identified with certainty. Durham Cathedral Priory closed in 1540, and some decades later the book was recorded by Archbishop Ussher in the library of the Oxford scholar, antiquary and astrologer Thomas Allen (1542–1632) of Gloucester Hall
Gloucester College, Oxford, was a Benedictine institution of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, from the late 13th century until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. It was never a typical college of the Universit ...
(now Worcester College, Oxford). However it is not in a catalogue of Allen's library of 1622, and was not in the collection of Allen's manuscripts that was presented to the Bodleian Library by Sir Kenelm Digby
Sir Kenelm Digby (11 July 1603 – 11 June 1665) was an English courtier and diplomat. He was also a highly reputed natural philosopher, astrologer and known as a leading Roman Catholic intellectual and Blackloist. For his versatility, he is d ...
in 1634. Nothing is then known of its whereabouts for a century or so.
According to an 18th-century Latin inscription pasted to the inside cover of the manuscript, the St Cuthbert Gospel was given by the 3rd Earl of Lichfield (1718–1772) to the Jesuit priest Thomas Phillips S.J. (1708–1774) who donated it to the English Jesuit College at Liège on 20 June 1769. Lichfield was an Anglican, but knew Phillips as the latter was chaplain to his neighbour in Oxfordshire, the recusant
Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.
The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...
George Talbot, 14th Earl of Shrewsbury
Earl of Shrewsbury () is a hereditary title of nobility created twice in the Peerage of England. The second earldom dates to 1442. The holder of the Earldom of Shrewsbury also holds the title of Earl of Waterford (1446) in the Peerage of Ireland ...
(1719–1787). The manuscript was owned between 1769 and 2012 by the British Province of the Society of Jesus
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
, and for most of this period was in the library of Stonyhurst College, Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
, successor to the Liège college.
The manuscript was first published when in 1806 it was taken to London and displayed when a letter on it by the Rev. J. Milner, presumably Bishop John Milner
John Milner (14 October 1752 – 19 April 1826) was an English Roman Catholic bishop and controversialist who served as the Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District from 1803 to 1826.
Early life
At the age of twelve he was sent to Sedgley Par ...
, Catholic Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District
The Apostolic Vicariate of the Midland District (later of the Central District) was an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. It was led by an apostolic vicar (or vicar apostolic) who was a titular bishop. Th ...
, was read to a meeting of the London Society of Antiquaries, which was subsequently printed in their journal '' Archaeologia''. Milner followed the medieval note in relating the book to Cuthbert, and compared its script to that of the Lindisfarne Gospels, by then in the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, examining the two side by side. However he thought that "the binding seems to be of the time of Queen Elizabeth"! After the lecture it took some years to return to Stonyhurst as an intermediary forgot to forward it. That the binding was original, and the earliest European example, was realised during the 19th century, and when exhibited in 1862 it was described in the catalogue as "In unique coeval (?) binding". The whole appearance and feel of the book, and the accuracy of the text and beauty of the script was highly praised by scholars such as Bishop Christopher Wordsworth
Christopher Wordsworth (30 October 180720 March 1885) was an English intellectual and a bishop of the Anglican Church.
Life
Wordsworth was born in London, the youngest son of Christopher Wordsworth, Master of Trinity, who was the youngest b ...
(1807–1885), nephew of the poet and an important New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...
textual scholar, who described the book as "surpassing in delicate simplicity of neatness every manuscript that I have seen".
From 1950
From 1950 onwards the binding was examined several times, but not altered, at Stonyhurst and the British Museum by Roger Powell, "the leading bookbinder of his day", who had rebound both the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is an illuminated manuscript dated to c. 700 that consists of text from the four Gospels gospel books, written in an Irish adaption of Vulgate Latin, and illustrated in the Insular script style.Moss (2014), p. 229
Its origin ...
, and also fully photographed by Peter Walters. Powell contributed chapters on the binding to the two major works covering the book, the first being ''The Relics of St Cuthbert'' in 1956, a large work with chapters on Cuthbert's coffin and each of the objects recovered from it. The main chapter on the St Cuthbert Gospel was by Sir Roger Mynors, and Powell's chapter incorporated unpublished observations by the leading bindings expert Geoffrey Hobson. The second came in 1969, when T.J. (Julian) Brown, Professor of Palaeography at King's College, London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King G ...
, published a monograph on the St Cuthbert Gospel with another chapter by Powell, who had altered his views in minor respects. Brown set out arguments for the dating of the manuscript to close to 698, which has been generally accepted. The book was placed on loan to the British Library in 1979 where it was very regularly on display, first in the British Museum building, and from 1999 in the Ritblat Gallery at the new St Pancras site of the Library, usually displaying the front cover. Despite minor damages, some of which appear to have occurred during the 20th century, the book is in extremely good condition for its age.
In 2011 an agreement was reached with the Jesuit British Province for the British Library to buy the book for £9 million. This required the purchase money to be raised by 31 March 2012, and a public appeal was launched. In the early stages the emphasis was on raising large individual donations, which included £4,500,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund
The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) was set up in 1980 to save the most outstanding parts of the British national heritage, in memory of those who have given their lives for the UK. It replaced the National Land Fund which had fulfilled the ...
, which distributes some of the money from the profits of the National Lottery, £250,000 pledged by the Art Fund, and "a similar sum" by The Garfield Weston
Willard Garfield Weston (26 February 189822 October 1978) was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist who was a member of the prominent Weston family. He led George Weston Limited and its various subsidiaries and associated companies, includin ...
Foundation, and a large gift from the Foyle Foundation. By early March 2012 the British Library reported that there was "only £1.5M left to raise", and on 17 April announced that the purchase had been completed, after their largest ever public appeal. The purchase "involved a formal partnership between the Library, Durham University and Durham Cathedral and an agreement that the book will be displayed to the public equally in London and the North East." There was a special display at the British Library until June 2012, and after coming off display for detailed investigation the book went on display in Durham in July 2013 in Durham University's Palace Green Library. Subsequently it has been on display in both London and Durham, but with periods "resting" off display. All the pages are accessible on the British Library website.
The Gospel of John as an amulet
There was a long and somewhat controversial tradition of using manuscripts of the Gospel of John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
, or extracts such as the opening verse, as a protective or healing amulet or charm, which was especially strong in early medieval Britain and Ireland. Manuscripts containing the text of one gospel only are very rare, except for those with lengthy explanatory glosses
A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal one or an interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different.
A collection of glosses is a ''g ...
, and all the examples known to Julian Brown were of John. Disapproving references to such uses can be found in the writings of Saints 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 co ...
and Eligius Eligius may refer to:
* Saint Eligius
Saint Eligius (also Eloy, Eloi or Loye; french: Éloi; 11 June 588 – 1 December 660 AD) is the patron saint of goldsmiths, other metalworkers, and coin collectors. He is also the patron saint of veteri ...
, and Alcuin
Alcuin of York (; la, Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus; 735 – 19 May 804) – also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin – was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student o ...
, but they are accepted by John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Χρυσόστομος; 14 September 407) was an important Early Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of ...
, Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North A ...
, who "expresses qualified approval" of using manuscripts as a cure for headaches, and Gregory the Great
Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregoria ...
, who sent one to Queen Theodelinda
Theodelinda also spelled ''Theudelinde'' ( 570–628 AD), was a queen of the Lombards by marriage to two consecutive Lombard rulers, Autari and then Agilulf, and regent of Lombardia during the minority of her son Adaloald, and co-regent when he ...
for her son. Bede's prose ''Life'' mentions that Cuthbert combated the use of amulets and charms in the villages around Melrose. However, like many other leading figures of the church, he may have distinguished between amulets based on Christian texts and symbols and other types.
The size of the Cuthbert Gospel places it within the Insular tradition of the "pocket gospels", of which eight Irish examples survive, including the Book of Dimma
The Book of Dimma (Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity College, MS.A.IV.23) is an 8th-century Irish art, Irish pocket Gospel Book originally from the Abbey of Roscrea, founded by Crónán of Roscrea, St. Crónán in County Tipperary, Irelan ...
, Book of Mulling
The Book of Mulling or less commonly, Book of Moling (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 60 (A. I. 15)), is an Irish pocket Gospel Book from the late 8th or early 9th century. The text collection includes the four Gospels, a liturgical servic ...
, and Book of Deer, although all the others are or were originally texts of all four gospels, with the possible exception of a few pages from the Gospel of John enshrined with the Stowe Missal in its cumdach
A (, in Irish "cover"Joynt (1917), p. 186) or book shrine is an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics. They are typically later than the book they contain, often by several ...
or book-reliquary. There was a tradition of even smaller books, whose use seems to have been often amuletic, and a manuscript of John alone, with a page size of 72 x 56 mm, was found in a reliquary at Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly con ...
in 1712. It is probably Italian from the 5th or 6th century, and the label it carried in 1712 saying it was a relic of St Leobinus
Saint Leobinus (french: Lubin) (died 14 March 557)
was a hermit, abbot, and bishop. Born in a peasant family, he became a hermit and a monk of Micy Abbey before being ordained a priest. He was then elected abbot of Brou and in 544, became Bishop ...
, a bishop of Chartes who died in about 556, may be correct. The other examples are mostly in Greek or the Coptic language and contain a variety of biblical texts, especially psalters. Julian Brown concludes that the three Latin manuscripts of John "seem to attest an early medieval practice of placing a complete Gospel of St. John in a shrine, as a protective amulet; and it seems reasonable to conclude that our manuscript was placed in St. Cuthbert's coffin to protect it".
Exhibitions
Apart from being usually on display at the British Museum and British Library (see above), the book has been in the following exhibitions ( * denotes that there was a detailed published catalogue):
*1862, Victoria & Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, ''Loan Exhibition''
*1930, Victoria & Albert Museum, ''Medieval English Art'' *
*1987, Durham Cathedral Treasury, ''An exhibition of manuscripts brought together at Durham to celebrate the saint's 1300th anniversary and the work of his early community''
*1991, British Museum, ''The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900'' *
*1996, Laing Art Gallery
The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is located on New Bridge Street West. The gallery was designed in the Baroque style with Art Nouveau elements by architects Cackett & Burns Dick and is now a Grade II listed building. It ...
, Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
, ''Treasures from the Lost Kingdom of Northumbria''
*1997, British Museum, ''The Heirs of Rome: The Shaping of Britain AD 400–900'', part of the series ''The Transformation of the Roman World Ad 400–900'' *
*2003, British Library, ''Painted Labyrinth: The World of the Lindisfarne Gospels'' *
*2007, British Library, ''Sacred: Discover What We Share''
*2013 Palace Green Library, Durham University, in an exhibition which also included the Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) 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 B ...
, items from the Staffordshire Hoard, the Yates Thompson 26 ''Life of Cuthbert'' (from which several illustrations here are taken), and the gold Taplow belt buckle.
*2014, Palace Green Library, Durham, ''Book binding from the Middle Ages to the modern day''.
*2018/19 British Library, ''Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War'' *BL blog, 20 May 2020, "Remembering Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War"
by Claire Breay
Claire Breay, MBE (born 18 October 1968) is an English manuscript curator and medieval historian. She is the Head of Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts at the British Library, where she specializes in Western medieval manuscripts in ...
*2022, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, ''The Lindisfarne Gospels''
A digital version
of the manuscript was produced to run on an
Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
iPad
The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...
,
which was exhibited in April 2012 at the British Library.
See also
*
List of most expensive books and manuscripts
This is a list of printed books, manuscripts, letters, music scores, comic books, maps and other documents which have sold for more than US$1 million. The dates of composition of the books range from the 7th-century Quran leaf palimpsest and the ...
Notes
References
* Avrin, Leila, ''Scribes, Script, and Books'', revised edn. 2010 (1st edn. 1991), ALA Editions, ,
google books* Battiscombe, C. F. (ed), ''The Relics of Saint Cuthbert'', Oxford University Press, 1956, including R. A. B. Mynors and R. Powell on 'The Stonyhurst Gospel'
*
Bede, ''Prose Life of Saint Cuthbert'', written c. 721
online English text from Fordham University* Bloxham, Jim & Rose, Kristine
''St. Cuthbert Gospel of St. John, Formerly Known as the Stonyhurst Gospel'' a summary of a lecture by two specialist bookbinders from Cambridge University given to the Guild of Bookworkers, New York Chapter in 2009, accessed 8 March 2012 (see also external links section below)
* Bonner, Gerald, Rollason, David & Stancliffe, Clare, eds., ''St. Cuthbert, his Cult and his Community to AD 1200'', 1989, Boydell and Brewer,
* Brown (1969); Brown, T. J. (Julian), et al., ''The Stonyhurst Gospel of Saint John'', 1969, Oxford University Press, printed for the
Roxburghe Club
The Roxburghe Club is a bibliophilic and publishing society based in the United Kingdom.
Origins
The spur to the Club's foundation was the sale of the enormous library of the Duke of Roxburghe (who had died in 1804), which took place over 46 day ...
(reproduces all pages)
* Brown (2003),
Brown, Michelle P., ''The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe'', 2003, British Library,
* Brown (2007); Brown, Michelle P., ''Manuscripts from the Anglo-Saxon Age'', 2007, British Library,
* Calkins, Robert G. ''Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages'', 1983, Cornell University Press,
* Cronyn, J. M., Horie, Charles Velson, ''St. Cuthbert's coffin: the history, technology & conservation'', 1985, Dean and Chapter, Durham Cathedral, ,
* Farmer, David Hugh, ''Benedict's Disciples'', 1995, Gracewing Publishing, ,
google books* Jones, Dalu, Michell, George, (eds); ''The Arts of Islam'', 1976,
Arts Council of Great Britain,
* Marks, P. J. M., ''Beautiful Bookbindings, A Thousand Years of the Bookbinder's Art'', 2011, British Library,
* Marner, Dominic, ''St. Cuthbert: His Life and Cult in Medieval Durham'', 2000, University of Toronto Press,
* Meehan, Bernard, ''The Book of Durrow: A Medieval Masterpiece at Trinity College Dublin'', 1996, Town House Dublin,
*
Milner, John, "Account of an Ancient Manuscript of the St John's Gospel", in ''
Archaeologia'', Volume xvi (1812), pages 17–2
online text accessed 3 March 2012
* Needham, Paul, ''Twelve Centuries of Bookbindings 400–1600'', 1979, Pierpont Morgan Library/Oxford University Press,
*
Schapiro, Meyer, ''Selected Papers, volume 3, Late Antique, Early Christian and Mediaeval Art'', 1980, Chatto & Windus,
* Regemorter, Berthe van, ''Binding Structures in the Middle Ages'', (translated by J. Greenfield), 1992, Bibliotheca Wittockiana, Brussels
* Skemer, Don C., ''Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages'',
Penn State Press
The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, was established in 1956 and is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. It is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State Uni ...
, 2006, ,
Google books*Stevick, Robert D., "The St. Cuthbert Gospel Binding and Insular Design", ''Artibus et Historiae'', Vol. 8, No. 15 (1987)
JSTOR* Szirmai, J. A., ''The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding'', 1999, Ashgate,
*
Weale, W. H. J., ''Bookbindings and Rubbings of Bindings in the National Art Library South Kensington'', 1898, Eyre and Spottiswoode for
HMSO
The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the U ...
*
Wilson, David M., ''Anglo-Saxon Art: From The Seventh Century To The Norman Conquest'', 1984, Thames and Hudson (US edn. Overlook Press)
* Wright, David H., review of Battiscombe (1956), ''
The Art Bulletin
The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...
'', Vol. 43, No. 2 (June 1961), pp. 141–160
JSTOR
Further reading
* Breay, Clare and Meehan, Bernard (eds), ''The St Cuthbert Gospel: Studies on the Insular Manuscript of the Gospel of John'', 2015, British Library, , "scholarly pieces on Cuthbert in his historical context; the codicology, text, script and medieval history of the manuscript; the structure and decoration of the binding; the other relics found in Cuthbert's coffin; and the post-medieval ownership of the book".
External links
British Library Digitized manuscripts site with images of all pages
by Clare Breay, covering recent testing results
British Library appeal campaign video 4.55 minutes, with good views of the manuscript
A shorter BBC video 1.22 minutes, with the curator
BBC Radio 4: 3 January 2012 episodeof
''In Our Time'' with
Melvyn Bragg and guests including Claire Breay of the British Library. The St Cuthbert Gospel is discussed between 8:40 and 14:10 of a 30-minute recording.
British Library press release on the work and its background and acquisition by Claire Breay
More information at Earlier Latin Manuscripts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Cuthbert Gospel
8th-century biblical manuscripts
Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts
Bookbinding
Gospel Books
British Library additional manuscripts
Stonyhurst College
Durham University