The Otho-Corpus Gospels is a badly damaged and fragmentary 8th century
illuminated manuscript. It was part of the
Cotton library
The Cotton or Cottonian library is a collection of manuscripts once owned by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP (1571–1631), an antiquarian and bibliophile. It later became the basis of what is now the British Library, which still holds the collection. ...
and was mostly burnt in the 1731 fire at
Ashburnham House
Ashburnham House is an extended seventeenth-century house on Little Dean's Yard in Westminster, London, United Kingdom, which since 1882 has been part of Westminster School. It is occasionally open to the public, when its staircase and first f ...
. The manuscript now survives as charred fragments in the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
(MS
Cotton Otho
This is an incomplete list of some of the manuscripts from the Cotton library that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library. Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, and a few are kept in othe ...
C V). Thirty six pages of the manuscript were not in the Cotton collection and survived the fire. They are now in the library of
Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge becam ...
(MS 197B).
Original manuscript
The manuscript, before the fire, was a major
insular Gospel Book with close ties to the
Lindisfarne Gospels
The Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D.IV) is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, which is now in the ...
, the
Book of Kells
The Book of Kells ( la, Codex Cenannensis; ga, Leabhar Cheanannais; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. 8 sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New ...
and the
Durham Cathedral Library, MS A. II. 10., the
Echternach Gospels
The Echternach Gospels (Paris, Bib. N., MS. lat. 9389) were produced, presumably, at Lindisfarne Abbey in Northumbria around the year 690. This location was very significant for the production of Insular manuscripts, such as the Durham Gospel ...
, and other insular manuscripts, with both textual and decorative similarities. Although it is not known where or when this manuscript was made, the similarities to the manuscripts noted above make it likely that it was made in one of the monasteries in the network of monasteries founded by
St. Columba
Columba or Colmcille; gd, Calum Cille; gv, Colum Keeilley; non, Kolban or at least partly reinterpreted as (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is tod ...
.
Surviving fragments
The extant fragments show that the manuscript was decorated in much the same style as other Insular Gospel Books. The incipit pages of the Gospels had large decorated initials, which dominated the page similar to those in the Lindifarne Gospels, the
Book of Durrow
The Book of Durrow is an illuminated manuscript dated to c. 700 that consists of text from the four Gospels gospel books, written in an Irish adaption of Vulgate Latin, and illustrated in the Insular script style.Moss (2014), p. 229
Its origi ...
, the Book of Kells and other Insular Gospel Books. For example, folio 28 recto in the British Library contains the remnant of the incipit page to the
Gospel of Mark. All that is still legible is a portion of the word "Initium". (In the
Vulgate
The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels us ...
, Mark begins "Initium evangelii Iesu Christi".) The letters "INI" are formed into a large monogram decorated with red and yellow knotwork. This page was so damaged and shrunk by the fire that the vellum has become translucent and the text on the verso side is visible on the recto side.
In many of the insular gospels, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Book of Kells, each Gospel has an
Evangelist portrait
Evangelist portraits are a specific type of miniature included in ancient and mediaeval illuminated manuscript Gospel Books, and later in Bibles and other books, as well as other media. Each Gospel of the Four Evangelists, the books of Matthew, M ...
before the Gospel. In many other insular gospels, such as the Book of Durrow and the Echternach Gospels the portrait is replaced by a full page miniature of the Evangelist's symbol. Folio 27 recto (see illustration at left) in the British Library, which is one of the best preserved pages of this manuscript, contains the image of the lion of Mark. This page bears a remarkable stylistic similarity to the corresponding page in the Echternach Gospels, (see
here
Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to:
Software
* Here Technologies, a mapping company
* Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here
Television
* Here TV (formerly "here!"), a ...
) and gives a hint as to the quality of the manuscript before the fire.
Astle's copy
A copy of a page of the prefatory material for Mark was made in 1725 for the
Earl of Oxford, and used by
Thomas Astle
Thomas Astle FRS FRSE FSA (22 December 1735 – 1 December 1803) was an English antiquary and palaeographer. He became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society.
Life
Astle was born on 22 December 1735 at Yoxall on the b ...
for his book ''The Origin and Progress of Writing'', which was published in 1784.
British Library
/ref> The letters at the top of the page were display capitals, which were used to begin major sections of text. Farther down the page there is a second set of capitals in a different style which are surrounded by a block of small red dots. At the bottom of the page the scribe of the copy included a "sampler" of letter forms found in the manuscript which was not found on the original page. Astle's manuscript containing the copy is also in the British Library (MS Stowe 1061, fol. 36r).
Image:CottonCorpusGospelFragFol25vFacsimile.jpg, Astle's copy of the prefatory material of Mark.
Image:CottonCorpusGospelFragFol25v.jpg, The surviving fragment of the original page.
References
{{reflist
Gospel Books
Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts
8th-century biblical manuscripts
Cotton Library
Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge