Coronation Gospels
Encyclopedia
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,...

, Cotton MS Tiberius A. ii
is a late 9th or early 10th-century Ottonian
Ottonian art
In pre-romanesque Germany, the prevailing style was what has come to be known as Ottonian art. With Ottonian architecture, it is a key component of the Ottonian Renaissance named for the emperors Otto I, Otto II, and Otto III...

 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
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...

, which entered England as a gift to King Athelstan
Athelstan of England
Athelstan , called the Glorious, was the King of England from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder, grandson of Alfred the Great and nephew of Æthelflæd of Mercia...

, who in turn offered it to Christ Church, Canterbury. It is also referred to as the Coronation Gospels
Coronation Gospels
British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius A. ii is a late 9th or early 10th-century Ottonian illuminated Gospel book, which entered England as a gift to King Athelstan, who in turn offered it to Christ Church, Canterbury...

(as are other manuscripts) on account of an early modern tradition that it had been used as an oath-book at English coronation
Coronation
A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...

s.

The page size is 235 x 180mm. The manuscript "is a concrete example of the type of Continental illuminated manuscript, imported into England in the early tenth century, which was available to the artists who laid the foundations of the Winchester school" of illumination.

Early history

The Gospel book was probably written on the Continent, possibly at Lobbes Abbey
Lobbes Abbey
Lobbes Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Lobbes in Hainaut, Belgium. The abbey played an important role in the religious, political and religious life of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, especially around the year 1000.-Foundation:...

 (Belgium), in the late 9th or early 10th century. A few inscriptions entered into the manuscript reveal something of its subsequent history.

It was presented by King Athelstan to Christ Church Priory, Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

, in the early 10th century, as a lengthy inscription on f. 15v records. The language and style of the inscription recall some of the king's charters
Anglo-Saxon Charters
Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in Britain which typically make a grant of land or record a privilege. The earliest surviving charters were drawn up in the 670s; the oldest surviving charters granted land to the Church, but from the eighth century surviving...

 and as in some of these charters, Athelstan is styled "ruler of the English [Anglorum basyleos] and ruler of the whole of Britain [curagulus totius Bryttanie]", associating the king with "an imperial past and the glories of the heirs of Rome".

Athelstan, in turn, may have received the book from his brother-in-law Otto the Great, who was king of Germany, and Otto's mother, Matilda
Matilda of Ringelheim
Saint Mathilda was the wife of King Henry I of Germany, the first ruler of the Saxon Ottonian dynasty, thereby Duchess consort of Saxony from 912 and German Queen from 919 until 936. Their eldest son Otto succeeded his father as German King and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 962...

 (d. 968). Their names ( and ) are written, probably by an Englishman, on the back of the picture of Saint Matthew (f. 24r), here shown to the right. A third inscription, which occurs now on f. 15r but may originally have come before f. 3r, presents the Latin poem Rex pius Æðelstan ("Devout King Athelstan"), written by a continental scribe in Caroline minuscule.

In the middle of the 10th century, the manuscript's portrait of St Matthew served as an exemplar for an Anglo-Saxon artist, who copied it into in a manuscript which is classified today as Oxford, St John's College, MS 194.

During the 11th and 12th century, blank spaces in the manuscript were used to record a number of texts in Old English and Latin bearing on the properties of Christ Church, Canterbury. According to Neil Ker, the documents covered 11 blank leaves which Robert Cotton (d. 1631) removed from the manuscript in order to rebind them in two manuscripts, Cotton MS Claudius A. iii and MS Faustina B. vi.

Robert Cotton

In the early 17th century, the manuscript was acquired by Sir Robert Cotton, who reused a late medieval manuscript leaf to add a title page (f. 1r) with a gold-lettered Latin poem written on it. Written as though uttered by the book itself, the poem was probably specially composed for the title page and possibly by Cotton himself. It puts forward the spurious claim that Athelstan had intended the gospel book to be "sacred to kings, whenever they were contemplating the initial responsibilities of rule", apparently since Cotton assumed that kings were to swear their coronation oaths on it. A letter of his time reveals that in 1626 Cotton had presented the book to Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

 precisely for such purposes. Although it seems that Cotton's hopes were not fulfilled, it is possible that the manuscript had served its imagined purpose at the coronation of James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

in 1685.
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