Gospels of Mael Brigte - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gospels of Mael brigte (British Library, Harley MS 1802, also known as the Armagh Gospels and the Marelbrid Gospels) is an illuminated

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

Gospel Book

The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

, with glosses.

It was created in 1138 in Armagh

Armagh

Armagh is a large settlement in Northern Ireland, and the county town of County Armagh. It is a site of historical importance for both Celtic paganism and Christianity and is the seat, for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland, of the Archbishop of Armagh...

by a scribe named Mael Brigte Ua Mael Uanaig. The codex

Codex

A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...

includes the Latin text of the Gospels, along with gloss

Gloss

A gloss is a brief notation of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text, or in the reader's language if that is different....

es and prefatory material. There are also several inscriptions in Irish

Middle Irish language

Middle Irish is the name given by historical philologists to the Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man from the 10th to 12th centuries; it is therefore a contemporary of late Old English and early Middle English...

Composition

There are 156 vellum

Vellum

Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...

folios along with 2 parchment and 2 paper flyleaves which are not counted in the official foliation. The leaves are 165 mm by 120 mm. The text is contained in area of 120 mm by 70 mm. The text is written in an Irish minuscule hand. The binding of red leather with gilt tooling is post-medieval.

In addition to the text of the Gospels, the manuscript includes several pieces of prefatory material. Interestingly, the Genealogy of Jesus

Genealogy of Jesus

The genealogy of Jesus is described in two passages of the Gospels: Luke 3:23–38 and Matthew 1:1–17.* Matthew's genealogy commences with Abraham and then from King David's son Solomon follows the legal line of the kings through Jeconiah, the king whose descendants were cursed, to Joseph, legal...

found at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

(Matthew 1:1-17) is treated as a separate work than the rest of Matthew and is separated from the main text of Matthew.

The prefatory material includes: Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

's prologue to the Vulgate

Vulgate

The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...

translation of the Bible (folio 1r), the prologue to the Gospel of Matthew (folio 3r), the Genealogy of Jesus from Matthew (folio 4v), a list of interpretations of the Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

and Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

names found in the Gospels (folio 4v), a poem in Irish

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

on the Three Magi (folio 5v), the prologues to the Gospels of Mark

Gospel of Mark

The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...

(folio 6r), Luke

Gospel of Luke

The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

(folio 6v) and John

Gospel of John

The Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...

(folio 7v), a prologue to the four Gospels in which the evangelist are compared to other groupings of four such as the four seasons

Season

A season is a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight.Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution...

and the four elements

Four elements

Four elements may refer to:* Classical elements, such as air, fire, earth and water* 4 Elements, an album by Chronic Future* Group 4 element, one of the chemical elements in Group 4 of the periodic table...

, and a poem in Irish on the appearance and manner of death of Christ and the Twelve Apostles (folio 9v).

The gospel prologues do not precede each gospel, as in many other insular manuscripts, but are gathered together with other prefatory material. Following the prefatory material, the Gospel of Matthew starts at the beginning of the Nativity narrative at Matthew 1:18 (folio 10r), and is followed by the complete texts of the Gospels of Mark (folio 61r), Luke (folio 87r) and John (folio 128r).

At the end of each Gospel there are colophons

Colophon (publishing)

In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...

which identify the scribe and give some information about him. He is identified as Mael Brigte Ua Mael Uanaig and he was writing in Armagh

Armagh

in his twenty-eighth year. Mael Brigte alludes to various contemporary events, such as the killing of Cormac Mac Cárthaig

Cormac Mac Carthaig

-Origins:Since the 10th-century the kingship of Munster had been held by the Dál gCais at the expense of the original dynasty, the Eóganachta. In 1983, Henry Alan Jefferies stated:...

by Toirdelbach Ua Briain which allow the writing of the manuscript to be dated to 1138. Marginal and interlinear glosses and notes were added in the 13th century.

Style

The manuscript is decorated in Insular

Insular art

Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of Ireland and Great Britain. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe...

style. Although the high point of Insular style was centuries before the production of this manuscript, this manuscript is an example of the enduring appeal of the Insular style in Ireland. The decoration in the manuscript includes two full page miniatures

Miniature (illuminated manuscript)

The word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment...

of Evangelist symbols, the lion

Lion

The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...

of Mark

Mark the Evangelist

Mark the Evangelist is the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. He is one of the Seventy Disciples of Christ, and the founder of the Church of Alexandria, one of the original four main sees of Christianity....

(folio 60) and the ox

An ox , also known as a bullock in Australia, New Zealand and India, is a bovine trained as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle; castration makes the animals more tractable...

of Luke

Luke the Evangelist

Luke the Evangelist was an Early Christian writer whom Church Fathers such as Jerome and Eusebius said was the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles...

(folio 86). In both of the miniatures, the artist has solved the problem presented by placing horizontally oriented animals in the space of the vertically oriented page by turning the animals ninety degrees so that they seem to walk up the page. Both symbols are abstracted, placed against an abstract multi-colored background, and contained within a thick border made of decorated panels.

There are also four large zoomorphic initial

Initial

In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning...

s in the manuscript; at the beginning of the Nativity of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

(Matthew 1:18, folio 10r), and the beginning of the each of the other Gospels (folios 61r, 87r, and 128r). There are smaller initials at beginning of each section of the prefatory material, and at important texts within the Gospel, including the Pater Noster

Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...

in Matthew (folio 19r), the Magnificat

Magnificat

The Magnificat — also known as the Song of Mary or the Canticle of Mary — is a canticle frequently sung liturgically in Christian church services. It is one of the eight most ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn...

in the Luke

Gospel of Luke

(folio 88r), and the beginning of the Resurrection

Resurrection of Jesus

The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...

sequence in Luke. Other initials in the manuscript are highlighted in color. All of the decoration in the manuscript is done in green, red, brown, and yellow washes.

History

The manuscript was in the Bibliothèque du Roi in Paris by the early 18th century, when it was described as being part of library by Père Richard Simon

Richard Simon

Richard Simon was a French Oratorian, influential advanced biblical critic, orientalist, and controversialist.-Early years:...

in his Bibliothèque critique in 1708. It was stolen from the Bibliothèque du Roi in 1707, along with other manuscripts by Jean Aymon. Aymon took to Holland where it was purchased by Robert Harley

Robert Harley

Robert Harley may refer to:*Robert Harley , English statesman, Member of Parliament for Radnor and Herefordshire*Robert Harley , British Member of Parliament for Radnor...

. It remained part of the Harley Collection

Harley Collection

The Harleian Collection is one of main collections of the British Library, London, England.The manuscript collection of more than 7,000 volumes, more than 14,000 original legal documents, and 500 rolls, formed by Robert Harley , and his son Edward Harley...

, which was purchased in 1753 by Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

and became one of the foundational collections for the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

Additional reading

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 1802.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 5.
Facsimiles of Biblical Manuscripts in the British Museum, ed. by Frederic G. Kenyon (London: British Museum, 1900), no. XVIII.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 82.
Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum, II (London, 1926), pp. 428-32.
H. H. Glunz, History of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Roger Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), no. 23 [wrongly identified as Harley 1803].
Françoise Henry and G. I. Marsh-Micheli, 'A Century of Irish Illumination (1070-1170)', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 62 (1962), pp. 101-164 (pp. 102-3, 111, esp. 148-52, pls XXVI-XXVII).
Françoise Henry, Irish Art in the Romanesque Period-1020-1170 A.D. (London: Methuen, 1970), pp. 47-8, 64.
J. 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. 77 [with additional bibliography].
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 644.

Gallery

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Composition

Contents

Style

History

Additional reading

Gallery