The Gospels of Lothair ( BNF Lat. 266) is an

evangeliary The Evangeliary or Book of the Gospels is a liturgical book containing only those portions of the four gospels which are read during Mass or in other public offices of the Church. The corresponding terms in Latin are and . The Evangeliary develo ...

made for

Lothair I Lothair I (9th. C. Frankish: ''Ludher'' and Medieval Latin: ''Lodharius''; Dutch and Medieval Latin: ''Lotharius''; German: ''Lothar''; French: ''Lothaire''; Italian: ''Lotario''; 795 – 29 September 855) was a 9th-century emperor of the ...

in Saint-Martin de Tours during 849 to 851. Representing the peak of the Carolingian Tours workshop, the manuscript has 221 parchment leaves written in gold ink, with six miniatures, nine incipit pages, twelve

altar cards Altar cards are three cards placed on the altar during the Tridentine Mass. They contain certain prayers that the priest must say during the Mass, and their only purpose is as a memory aid, although they are usually very beautifully decorated. Hi ...

, 18 index pages and five initials. A different Carolingian evangeliary, the so-called Cleves Evangeliary (Berlin Staatsbibliothek Ms. theol. Lat. 260) was completed before 852, likely in a workshop at Lothair's court in

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

. It consists of 241 parchment leaves, written in gold ink. This manuscript was given by Lothair to

Prüm Abbey Prüm Abbey is a former Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine abbey in Prüm, now in the diocese of Trier (Germany), founded by the Franks, Frankish widow Bertrada of Prüm, Bertrada the elder and her son Caribert of Laon, Charibert, Count of Laon, ...

. It was acquired by the BNF in 1802 (following the dissolution of the Abbey following the French annexation in 1794) and returned to Germany in 1819. In the course of the negotiations for the manuscript's return, it became mixed up with an unrelated evangeliary of

Cleves Kleve (; traditional ; ; ; ; ; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Cleves was capital of a county and later a duchy ...

, and there is a note in the hand of

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

attached to fol. 1r calling it the ''Evangeliar aus Kleve''. The current name of this manuscript is based on this misidentification, but it has been kept because the alternative name "Lothair Evangeliary" would lead to confusion with BNF Lat. 266).''Zimelien. Ausstellungskatalog der Staatsbibliothek Berlin'', Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden 1975, 35–36.

References

{{reflist *Florentine Mütherich, Joachim E. Gaehde, ''Karolingische Buchmalerei'', 1979, 82-87. *Ingo F. Walther, Norbert Wolf, ''Meisterwerke der Buchmalere'', 2005, p. 460. Carolingian illuminated manuscripts Bibliothèque nationale de France collections

See also

References