The Stockholm Codex Aureus (

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

National Library of Sweden The National Library of Sweden (, ''KB'', meaning "the Royal Library") is Sweden's national library. It collects and preserves all domestic printed and audio-visual materials in Swedish, as well as content with Swedish association published ab ...

, MS A. 135, also known as the Codex Aureus of Canterbury and Codex Aureus Holmiensis) is a

Gospel book A Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels ( Greek: , ) is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament – normally all four – centering on the life of Jesus of Nazareth and the roo ...

written in the mid-eighth century in

Southumbria The Southumbrians () were the Anglo-Saxon people occupying northern Mercia. The term might not have been used by the Mercians and was instead possibly coined by the Deiran or Bernician people as a territorial response to their own Kingdom of Nor ...

, probably in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

, whose decoration combines Insular and Italian elements. Southumbria produced a number of important illuminated manuscripts during the eighth and early ninth centuries, including the Vespasian Psalter, the Stockholm Codex Aureus, three Mercian prayer books (the Royal Prayer book, the

Book of Nunnaminster The Book of Nunnaminster (London, British Library, Harley MS 2965) is a 9th-century Anglo-Saxon prayerbook. It was written in the kingdom of Mercia, using an " insular" hand (as used in the British Isles), related to Carolingian minuscule. It was ...

and the Book of Cerne), the

Tiberius Bede British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C. II, or the Tiberius Bede, is an 8th-century illuminated manuscript of Bede's '' Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum''. It is one of only four surviving 8th-century manuscripts of Bede, another of which h ...

and the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

's Royal Bible.

Description

The manuscript has 193 surviving folios which measure . It contains the text of the four

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

s in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

written in an

uncial script Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. It is often distinguished from parchment, either by being made from calfskin (rather than the skin of other animals), or simply by being of a higher quality. Vellu ...

leaves that alternately are dyed purple and undyed. The purple-dyed leaves are written with gold, silver, and white pigment, the undyed ones with black ink and red pigment. On some folios, the differing colours of ink are arranged to form geometric patterns.

Purple parchment Purple parchment or purple vellum refers to parchment dyed purple; codex purpureus refers to manuscripts written entirely or mostly on such parchment. The lettering may be in gold or silver. Later the practice was revived for some especially gran ...

was, in the Roman and Byzantine Empires, reserved for Imperial manuscripts, and in the West reserved for the grandest commissions, and often only seen on a few pages. The illustration programme includes two surviving evangelist portraits, six canon tables and seven large decorated initials. The manuscript is the oldest surviving example of initials decorated with

gold leaf upA gold nugget of 5 mm (0.2 in) in diameter (bottom) can be expanded through hammering into a gold foil of about 0.5 m2 (5.4 sq ft). The Japan.html" ;"title="Toi gold mine museum, Japan">Toi gold mine museum, Japan. Gold leaf is gold that has ...

. The style is a blend of

Insular art Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the sub-Roman Britain, post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from ''insula'', the Latin language, Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland ...

, as in the

Chi-Rho The Chi Rho (☧, English pronunciation ; also known as ''chrismon'') is one of the earliest forms of the Christogram, formed by superimposing the first two (capital) letters—chi (letter), chi and rho (ΧΡ)—of the Greek (Romanization of ...

initial shown, and Mediterranean traditions, possibly including some from early

Carolingian art Carolingian art comes from the Frankish Empire in the period of roughly 120 years from about 780 to 900—during the reign of Charlemagne and his immediate heirs—popularly known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The art was produced by and for the ...

. In the opening shown at the start of Matthew the evangelist portrait to the left is in a consistent adaptation of Italian style, probably closely following some lost model, though adding interlace to the chair frame, while the text page to the right is mainly in Insular style, especially in the first line, with its vigorous Celtic spirals and interlace. The following lines revert to a quieter style more typical of

Frankish Frankish may refer to: * Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture ** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages, a group of Low Germanic languages also commonly referred to as "Frankish" varieties * Francia, a post-Roman ...

manuscripts of the period. Yet the same artist almost certainly produced both pages, and is very confident in both styles. The other surviving evangelist portrait of John includes roundels with Celtic spiral decoration probably drawn from the enamelled escutcheons of

hanging bowl Hanging bowls are a distinctive type of artefact of the period between the end of Roman rule in Britain in c. 410 AD and the emergence of the Christian Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms during the 7th century, continuing rather later. The survi ...

s. This is one of the so-called "Tiberius group" of manuscripts, which leant towards the Italian style, and appear to be associated with

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, or perhaps the kingdom of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

in the heyday of the

Mercian Supremacy The Mercian Supremacy was the period of Anglo-Saxon history between c. 716 and c. 825, when the kingdom of Mercia dominated the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy in England. Sir Frank Stenton apparently coined the phrase, arguing that Offa of Mercia, who ru ...

. It is, in the usual chronology, the last English manuscript in which "developed trumpet spiral patterns" are found.

History

An inscription asks for prayers for four individuals, one a goldsmith (Wulfhelm). The others are Ceolhard, Niclas and Ealhhun, who were presumably the monks responsible for creating the manuscript and the elaborate metalwork cover it no doubt originally possessed. In the late ninth century it was looted by a

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

army and

Ealdorman Ealdorman ( , )"ealdorman"
''Collins English Dictionary''. was an office in the Government ...

Aelfred (Alfred), ealdorman of

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, had to pay a

ransom Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word ...

to get it back. Above and below the

text of the Gospel of St. Matthew is an added inscription in

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

recording how the manuscript was ransomed from a Viking army who had stolen it on one of their raids in

by Alfred, and given to

Christ Church, Canterbury Canterbury Cathedral is the cathedral of the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Located in Canterbury, Kent, it is one of the oldest Christianity, Ch ...

. It reads: :"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I, Ealdorman Alfred and Wærburh my wife obtained these books from the heathen army with our pure money, that was with pure gold, and this we did for the love of God and for the benefit of our souls and because we did not wish these holy books to remain longer in heathen possession. And now they wish to give them to Christ Church to the praise and glory and honour of God..."Nordenfalk, 106; Dodwell, 9 has the full text In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, and in 1690 it was bought for the Swedish royal collection. It is now kept in the

Notes

References

* Complete facsimile fro
Wikimedia Commons
* Complete online facsimile on th
Internet Archive
* De Hamel, Christopher. ''A History of Illuminated Manuscripts''. Boston: David R. Godine, 1986. * Dodwell, C. R., ''Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective'', 1982, Manchester UP, {{ISBN, 0-7190-0926-X * Nordenfalk, Carl. ''Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Painting: Book illumination in the British Isles 600-800''. Chatto & Windus, London (New York: George Braziller), 1977. * Walther, Ingo F. and Norbert Wolf. ''Codices Illustres: The world's most famous illuminated manuscripts, 400 to 1600''. Köln, TASCHEN, 2005. * Wilson, David M.; ''Anglo-Saxon: Art From The Seventh Century To The Norman Conquest'', Thames and Hudson (US edn. Overlook Press), 1984.

External links

Whole Manuscript Digitized at World Digital LibraryNational Library of Sweden: Codex AureusDescription
Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries, Medieval Institute Library: Medieval Microfilms & Facsimiles Database, "Codex aureus: an eighth-century gospel book"
More information at Earlier Latin Manuscripts
History of Canterbury Gospel Books Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts Vetus Latina New Testament manuscripts 8th-century biblical manuscripts Purple parchment

Description

History

See also

Notes

References

External links