Gospels

Title

Gospels

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 194

Place of origin

? Brittany

Date

s. ix ex.

Language

Latin

Ancient Greek (to 1453)

Old English (ca. 450-1100)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (HSOS/HFFH).

Physical extent

Fols. iii + 3 (numbered fols. 1–3) + 64 (numbered fols. 4–65, but unnumbered leaves after 20 and 31) + vii (numbered iii bis–ix).

Hands

Written in caroline (frequent use of insular a, occasionally insular g and s). Punctuation by point only.

Decoration

Headings in text ink in uncial.

Initials at major divisions, the same size as those within text, usually marginally and in scribal ink.

Unusually, at the head of John, a 14-line high capital in text ink, outlined by and with simple interlace inside (a space left for a second on the page is unfilled).

Running titles to identify the Gospel in uncial, rustic capitals, occasionally (e.g. fols. 41v–2) in Greek.

Illustrations: on fol. 1 v, in ink, with green, brown, and flesh-coloured wash for highlights, under a canopy John holding a pen and a copy of his Gospel, with a cross-bearing angel leaning down towards him. Francis Wormald, English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1952), 23, 77 (no. 52), first identified this drawing as copied from BL, MS Cotton Tiberius A.ii (where it depicts Matthew), a Gospel book made at Lobbes and presented by Otto I to Athelstan, who is believed to have donated it to Christ Church, Canterbury.

On fol. 2 (probably s. xv): a crowned and robed king, perhaps Edward the Confessor, gesturing toward the ‘Ego’ of the inscription.

A few further drawings in the lower margins, e.g. a dog’s head (fol. 42v) or a simple floral interlace pattern (fol. 15v).

There are also the faint remains of drawings on fols. 20vband 31vb.

See AT, no. 1 (3), for fol. 1vonly, dated c.950and Christ Church?, and plate i ( fol. 1v, the evangelist identified as Matthew, not John); and AT, no. 508 (50) for fol. 2, dated s. xv med., an added drawing.

The drawings have often been reproduced; see ASIllum 7 and plate 5; Wormald, plate 40b (fol. 1v); Temple, no. 12 (41–2), and fig. 47 (fol. 1v). See Plate 7.

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on two thongs, but probably originally others at the top and foot, suggesting an s. xii binding; three thongs showed on the spine (now damaged). At the front, a marbled paper leaf and two modern paper flyleaves; at the rear, three vellum flyleaves, two modern paper flyleaves, and another marbled paper leaf (iii bis–ix).

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegij Sancti Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex Legato Henrici PriceSacrae Theologiae Bachalaurei et hujus Collegij olim Socij qui obijt 20 Februarij Anno 1600’ ( fol. 3, upper margin).

Provenance

The illustration and the two deeds suggest Christ Church, Canterbury , as do the two pressmarks ‘GL’ (fol. 2, s. xi; fol. 4, s. xii); see further James, AL, Appendix D (527). Tentatively accepted as a Christ Church book by Ker, MLGB39 .

‘Ob prophetum multum crimen pertransit multum’ ( fol. 65v, s. xv).

‘Nunc lege nunc ora nunc cum feruore labora | Sic erit hora breuis labor ille leuis’ ( WIC 12951; fol. iii; s. xv, secretary).

The old cancelled shelfmark ‘Abac: ij. N. 40.’ (fol. 1v).