1st Edition

Gospel Books and Early Latin Manuscripts

By Patrick McGurk Copyright 1998
    358 Pages
    by Routledge

    Gospel books are the most numerous and important of surviving early medieval Latin manuscripts, and these essays represent stages in an examination of their structure, arrangement, contents, and texts. New details and aspects of the books, links between Gospel texts of different regions and scriptoria, and much new information has been uncovered, starting with the preliminary survey of 1949, and including now classic studies of the Irish pocket Gospel book, and of the Book of Kells. The chronological scope also includes Anglo-Saxon Gospels of the 10th and 11th centuries, and the only survey of these books, hitherto accessible in an expensive facsimile edition, is made available here. The subject matter of these essays has been widened by including a preliminary examination of citation marks in early Latin manuscripts, and a review of the oldest Biblical manuscripts.

    Contents: The Irish pocket Gospel book; The Gospel book in Celtic lands before A.D.850: contents and arrangement; The canon tables in the Book of Lindisfarne and in the Codex Fuldensis of St Victor of Capua; Two notes on the Book of Kells and its relation to other insular Gospel books; Citation marks in early Latin manuscripts; Introduction to Latin Gospel books from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800; An Anglo-Saxon Bible fragment of the late 8th century, Royal 1.E.VI; The Ghent Livinus Gospels and the scriptorium of St Amand; An edition of the abbreviated and selective set of Hebrew names found in the Book of Kells; Des receuils d'interprétations de noms Hébreux; The disposition of numbers in Latin Eusebian canon tables; The oldest manuscripts of the Latin Bible; Theodore’s Bible: the Gospels; Text from The York Gospels; The Anglo-Saxon Gospel books of Judith, Countess of Flanders: their text, make-up and function; Supplementary bibliography; Index of manuscripts; Index of subjects, people and places.

    Biography

    Patrick McGurk

    '...it is important to be reminded of McGurk’s meticulous work in this field and to have his articles to hand between one set of covers....' Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1 'It is a fitting recognition of McGurk’s seminal contribution to the study of these early manuscripts of the Latin Bible and will be a definitive starting-point for researchers in the future...a coherent and very valuable body of research....' Parergon, Vol. 17, No. 1 'This volume brings together fifteen of the most important of [his] studies, putting at our fingertips a treasure chest of specialized knowledge and detailed information...' Libraries and Culture