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Cotton MS Tiberius A II, ff 3r–218v
- Record Id:
- 041-001102149
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001101582
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000001630.0x0000e4
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Cotton MS Tiberius A II, ff 3r–218v
- Title:
-
The four Gospels ('Athelstan' or 'Coronation' Gospels)
- Scope & Content:
-
The four Gospels with prefatory texts. The detailed contents are as follows:
1. Jerome, Epistula ad Damasum (ff. 3r-5v);
2. Prologue to the Gospels (ff. 5v-8r);
3. Letter from Eusebius to Carpianus (ff. 8r-9r);
4. Jerome, Epistula ad Damasum, II (ff. 9r-9v);
5. Argumentum Evangelii secundum Matthaeum (ff. 9v-10r);
6. Table of chapters entitled ‘Brevarium eiusdem evangelii’ (ff. 10r-13v);
7. Charter of Æthelstan dated 927 granting land at Folcestan (Folkstone) to Christ Church Canterbury (ff. 13v-14r);
8. Dedicatory verse to Æthelstan (f. 15r);
9. Æthelstan’s dedication of the current manuscript to Christ Church, Canterbury (f. 15v);
10. Eusebian canon tables (ff. 16r-23v);
11. Gospel of Matthew (ff. 24r-71r);
12. Gospel of Mark with prologue and table of chapters (ff. 71v-104v);
13. Gospel of Luke with prologue and table of chapters (ff. 106r-161r);
14. Gospel of John with prologue and table of chapters (ff. 161v-200v);
15. Capitulare evangeliorum, de nataliciis sanctorum and de diversus causus (ff. 201r-218v);
16. Scribal epithet of four lines (f. 218v).
Decoration:
Evangelist miniatures: Matthew (f. 24v), Mark (f. 74v), Luke (f. 112v), John (f. 164v); decorated initials: '[B]eatissimo' (f. 3r), '[LIB]er' (f. 25r), '[INI]tium' (f. 75r), '[Q]uoniam' (f. 113r ), '[I]n principio' (f. 165r); canon tables (ff. 16r-23v); text written in gold ink on a purple background (ff. 25v-26r); capitula written in alternate red and brown ink (ff. 201r-218v). One artist was responsible for the miniature of St Matthew, and a second for the remaining Evangelist miniatures and the decorated initials. The figure-types employed by both artists resemble the portrait of John in the Vienna Coronation Gospels (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Schatzkammer MS Inv. XIII 18) and the Evangelists in the Aachen Gospels (Aachen, Domschatzkammer MS Inv. 4) (according to Wormald 1952; Puhle 2001). The most likely intermediaries are Gospel-books produced at Reims in the middle of the 9th century.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Cotton Collection
Royal Manuscripts Digitisation Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001101582
040-001102147
041-001102149 - Is part of:
- Cotton MS : Cotton Manuscripts
Cotton MS Tiberius A II : The four Gospels ('Athelstan' or 'Coronation' Gospels)
Cotton MS Tiberius A II, ff 3r–218v : The four Gospels ('Athelstan' or 'Coronation' Gospels) - Hierarchy:
- 032-001101582[0431]/040-001102147[0002]/041-001102149
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Cotton MS
- Record Type (Level):
- Item
- Extent:
-
216 folios
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Tiberius_A_II (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0875
- End Date:
- 1124
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter 9th century-1st quarter 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Custodial History:
-
Origin (ff. 2-218v) : (?) Lobbes, Netherlands, S. (now in Belgium).
Provenance (f.2-218v):
Probably presented to King Athelstan of England (924–939) by Otto I, king of Germany (d. 973), or his father, Henry the Fowler, most likely on the occasion of Otto's marriage in 929 or 930 to Eadgyth, half-sister of Athelstan. On f. 24r are the contemporaneous inscriptions 'ODDA REX' and 'MIHTHILD', identifiable as Otto and his mother Matilda (d. 968).
Presented by King Athelstan in the 930s to Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury (inscriptions ff. 15r, 15v). Documents relating to Christ Church were added on previously blank pages and newly inserted leaves in the 11th and early 12th centuries.
Prince Henry of England (d. 1612), perhaps owned by him.
Sir Robert Cotton (d. 1631): for remaining provenance see main entry.
- Publications:
-
ff. 3r-218v:
Boutemy, André, 'Un manuscrit rémois peu connu du British Museum: Les Évangiles D’Eller', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 23 (1969), 1-12 (p. 2).
Brown, Michelle P., The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London, 2003), p. 198 n. 103.
Davis, G. R. C., Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain and Ireland, revised by C. Breay, J. Harrison and D.M. Smith (London, 2010), no. 178.
Gneuss, Helmut, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Tempe, AZ, 2001), no. 362.
Hoffmann, Hartmut, Buchkunst und Königtum im ottonischen und frühsalischen Reich , 2 vols, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 30 (Stuttgart, 1986) I, 9.
Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957; repr. 1990), no. 185.
Ker, N. R. (ed.), Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books (London, 2nd edn, 1964), p. 35.
Ker, Neil R., ‘Membra disiecta’, British Museum Quarterly, 12 (1937–38), pp. 130–31.
Keynes, Simon, ‘King Athelstan’s books’, in Michael Lapidge & Helmut Gneuss (eds.), Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 147–53.
Lapidge, Michael, 'Some Latin poems as evidence for the reign of Athelstan', Anglo-Saxon England, 9 (1981), 61–98.
Lasko, Peter, Ars Sacra 800-1200, 2nd edn (New Haven, 1994), p. 290 n. 76.
Marsden, Richard, '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, 1998), pp. 145-176 (p.175).
McKendrick, Scot, & Kathleen Doyle, Bible Manuscripts: 1400 Years of Scribes and Scripture (London, 2007), fig. 27.
Pfaff, Richard W., The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge, 2009), p. 69.
Puhle, Matthias (ed.), Otto der Grosse: Magdeburg und Europa, 2 vols (Mainz, 2001).
Reilly, Diane, ‘French Romanesque Giant Bibles’, Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relative aux manuscrits, 56 (2002), 294-311 (p. 294 n. 1).
Rickert, Margeret, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London, 1965), pp. 30-31, 221 n. 19.
Schaller, Dieter, & Ewald Könsgen, Initia carminum Latinorum saeculo undecimo antiquiorum: Bibliographisches Repertorium für die lateinische Dichtung der Antike und des früheren Mittelalters (Göttingen, 1977) [S/K].
Schapiro, Meyer, ‘Two Romanesque Drawings in Auxerre and Some Iconographic Problems’, in Studies in Art and Literature for Belle da Costa Greene, ed. by Dorothy Miner (Princeton, 1954), pp. 331-349 (p. 333 n. 10).
Springer, Carl P. E., The Manuscripts of Sedulius: A Provisional Handlist, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 85, part 5 (Philadelphia, PA, 1985), p. 145.
Swarzenski, Hans, 'The Role of Copies in the Formation of the Styles of the Eleventh Century', in Studies in Western Art: Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, 4 vols (Princeton, 1963), I: ~Romanesque and Gothic Art~, 7-18 (p. 11).
Temple, Elzbieta, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066 (London, 1976), pp. 12, 41, fig. 30.
Watson, Andrew G., Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts The British Library, 2 vols (London, 1979), no. 548.
Wormald, Francis, 'Coronation oath-books', in Oswald Goetz (ed.), Essays in Honor of Georg Swarzenski (Chicago, 1951), pp. 233–37.
Wormald, Francis, English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1952), pp. 22–23.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)