Gospel Books and Early Latin Manuscripts

Areas covered in this work include: the gospel book in Celtic lands before AD850; the Book of Kells and its relation to other insular gospel books; citation marks in early Latin manuscripts; and the Ghent Livinus gospels and the Scriptorium of St Amand.

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.