Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Add MS 40618
- Record Id:
- 032-002092419
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002092419
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000051.0x000325
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 40618
- Title:
-
Gospel-book ('The Irish Pocket Gospel-book')
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
The four Gospels (the Vulgate version, in the Irish textual family), imperfect:
ff. 1r-7v: Gospel of Matthew, 21:32-28:11, incipit: 'Venit enim ad vos Ioannes', explicit: 'venerunt in cuita-' (an estimated 18 folios are missing at the beginning and 2 folios are missing after f. 7);
ff. 8r-22v: Gospel of Mark, 2:4-end, incipit, '...cum non possent';
ff. 23r-49r: Gospel of Luke, complete;
f. 50r-66r: Gospel of John, complete, with the final folio missing and the text from 21:16, 'Ait illi...' copied in the 10th century;
f. 66r: 10th-century colophon in rustic capitals, 'Qui legat orat (sic) pro scriptore Eaduuardo'.
Decoration:
Original 8th/9th century decoration: Framed full-page miniature of Luke as an author, standing and holding a book, in colours with zoomorphic decoration, (f. 21v), related stylistically to the Book of Mulling (Trinity College, Dublin MS 60). Initials with zoomorphic decoration at the beginning of Luke and John, erased and overpainted (ff. 23r, 50r).
Additions of the 2nd quarter of the 10th century:
2 framed full-page miniatures of the Evangelists, Luke (f. 22v) and John (f. 49v) in colours with gold on inserted leaves. There are underdrawings relating to this or an earlier campaign and to the added St Luke miniature (f. 22v). Initials repainted in colours with gold with foliate decoration (f. 23r) or zoomorphic and interlace decoration (f. 50r). Initials in gold added in the margin, filling an original omission which indicates that the first campaign of work was unfinished and that a system of placing all initials in the margin, even when the sentence began in mid-line, was intended.
One cover, formerly part of the binding, missing.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002092419", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 40618: Gospel-book ('The Irish Pocket Gospel-book')" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002092419
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002092419
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex, 66 folios
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_40618 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0750
- End Date:
- 0950
- Date Range:
- 750-950
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to use this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: parchment.
Dimensions: 130 x 105mm (100 x 75mm in two columns)
Foliation: ff. 66 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end). The first and last leaves show signs of being used as outer covers.
Script: Insular pointed minuscule (Irish minuscule), with additions in a tenth-century Anglo-Saxon minuscule with Caroline features and the colophon in rustic capitals.
Scribe: Three original scribes of the 8th/9th century, one of whom wrote only part of f. 51. Edward the Deacon, who copied the final leaf, was English and was working at a time when Caroline minuscule features were being introduced in English script, from c. 930 onwards.
Binding: Post-1600.
Former binding: A box containing an oak board from a medieval binding (mislaid) [formerly Add MS 40618A], and a parchment chemise, taken from another book and used as a wrapper from the 17th century [formerly Add MS 40618B], is now kept separately as Add MS 40618/1.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Ireland (S.E.?)
Provenance:
?St Augustine's Canterbury (see Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (1976), p. 43) or Winchester (see Wormald, Winchester School (1971), pp. 309-10) in the mid-10th century (N.B. the manuscript is not included under either Canterbury and Winchester in N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd edn (1964) or Andrew G. Watson, Supplement (1987)). The initials (ff. 23r and 50r) were repainted and Evangelist portraits (ff. 22v and 49v) added or 'modernised' and supplemented at this time in southern England. A replacement final leaf of text (f. 66r) was probably added at the same time in Anglo-Saxon minuscule with Caroline features, with the scribal colophon in rustic capitals 'Qui legat orat pro scriptore Eaduuardo diacone'. There are stylistic and technical links with other material supplemented for Athelstan, such as the Athelstan Psalter (Cotton MS Galba A.XVIII) and the zoomorphic decoration is Anglo-Saxon.
Partially erased 13th or 14th-century inscription 'Iste est liber…me liquis mun…' (f. 66v).
William Newman, his name and the date of 1539 inscribed on f.66v.
Robert Lancaster (perhaps the non-conformist publisher, b. 1603/4), his name and the date of 1662 inscribed on f.66v.
E. Mitchel Crosse of Glen Andred, Groombridge, his sale, Sotheby's, London, 28 March, 1922, lot 439. Bought by Quaritch on behalf of the British Museum for £115. (A note on f. [ii] gives the purchase date as 1 April, 1922).
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
- Publications:
-
New Palaeographical Society, Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, etc., Series II, ed. by Edward Maunde Thompson and others (London, 1903-1934), pl. 140, 141.
[Eric G. Millar], British Museum Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 4 (London: British Museum, 1928), pl. 2.
G.L. Micheli, L’enluminure du haut moyen age et les influences irlandaises (Brussels: Editions de la connaissance, 1939), p. 190.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1921-1925 (London: British Museum, 1950), pp. 95-96.
Françoise Henry, 'An Irish Manuscript in the British Museum', Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 87 (1957), 147-66, pls 23-29, figs 1-3.
René Crozet, 'Les représentations anthropo-zoomorphiques des évangelistes dans l'enluminure et dans la peinture murale aux époques carolingienne et romane', Cahiers de civilization médiévale, 1 (1958), 182-91 (p. 187).
D. Talbot Rice, English Art 871-1100 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 194.
Codices Latini Antiquiores, ed. by E.A. Lowe, 11 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934-1966), II: Great Britain and Ireland (1935), no. 179.
Francis Wormald, 'The 'Winchester School before King Aethelwold' in England before the Conquest, ed. by Peter Clemoes and Katherine Hughes (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 305-13.
Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 15; pp. 70, 83, 111-12.
Jonathan J.G. Alexander, Insular Manuscripts: 6th to the 9th Century, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 1 (London: Harvey Miller, 1978), no. 46.
Robert Deshman, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian Art: An Annotated Bibliography (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1984), pp. 12-13, 18, nos. IV.28 and IV.53.
Simon Keynes, 'King Athelstan's Books', in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. by Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge, 1985) pp. 143-201.
Bonifatius Fischer, Die Lateinischen Evangelien bis zum 10. Jahrhundert, 4 vols (Freiburg: Herder, 1988-1991), I: Varianten zu Matthäus, Vetus Latina die Reste der Altlateinischen Bible: Aus der Geschichte der Lateinischen Bibel, 13, p. 17 (as 'Ha').
Michelle Brown, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (London: British Library, 1991), pl. 69.
Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 168 n. 34.
Robert Deshman, The Benedictional of Æthelwold, Studies in Manuscript Illumination, 9 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 109-110, fig. 101.
Carol A. Farr, The Book of Kells: Its Function and Audience (London: British Library, 1997), p. 82 [with additional bibliography].
Robert Deshman, 'Anglo-Saxon Art: So What's New?', in Preservation and Transmission of Anglo-Saxon Culture: Selected Papers from the 1991 Meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, ed. by Paul E. Szarmach and Joel T. Rosenthal, Studies in Medieval Culture, 40 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), pp. 243-69 (pp. 246, 253, fig. 1), repr. in Eye and Mind: Collected Essays in Anglo-Saxon and Early Medieval Art by Robert Deshman, ed. by Adam S. Cohen (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010), pp. 3-11 (p. 5).
Richard Marsden, 'Ask What I am Called: The Anglo-Saxons and Their Bibles', in The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition, ed. by John L. Sharpe III and Kimberly Van Kampen (London: British Library, 1998), pp. 145-76 (p. 172).
Patrick McGurk, Gospel Books and Early Latin Manuscripts (Aldershot: Variorum, 1998), art. I, pp. 250, 261; art. II, pp. 165-66, 173-74; art. XII, p. 14 and art. XIV, p. 45.
Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 299.
Michelle P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London: British Library, 2003), p. 281.
K. L. Brown and R. J. Clark, ‘The Lindisfarne Gospels and two other 8th century Anglo-Saxon/Insular manuscripts: pigment identification by Raman microscopy’, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, 35 (2004), 4-12.
Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), pp. 11 and 28, fig. 15.
Sacred: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and their Sacred Texts (London: British Library, 2007), p. 184 [exhibition catalogue].
Carol A. Farr, 'Irish Pocket Gospels in Anglo-Saxon England', in Anglo-Saxon Traces, ed. by Jane Roberts and Leslie Webster, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 405 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011), pp. 87-100 (pp. 87-89, 92, 94-100).
Richard Gameson, 'The material fabric of early British Books', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987-2012), I: c.400-1100, ed. by Richard Gameson (2012), pp. 13-93 (pp. 22, n. 32, 26, 41).
Richard Gameson, 'Anglo-Saxon scribes and scriptoria', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987-2012), I: c. 400-1100, ed. by Richard Gameson (2012), pp. 94-120 (p. 96).
Helen McKee, 'England and the Celtic realms', in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987-2012), I: c. 400-1100, ed. by Richard Gameson (2012), pp. 338-43 (p. 342).
The St Cuthbert Gospel: Studies on the Insular Manuscript of the Gospel of John, ed. by Claire Breay and Bernard Meehan (London: British Library, 2015), pp. 83-84, 89, 97, 101 n. 9, 166-67, fig. 4.13.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)