The manuscript Essen Cathedral Treasury Hs. 1, often referred to as the Great Carolingian Gospels or Altfrid Gospels, is a parchment manuscript from the Essen Cathedral Treasury. It was created around the year 800 and has possibly been in Essen since the foundation of the Essen convent around 850. The Gospels contain over a thousand glosses in Latin, Old Saxon, and Old High German.
Description The manuscript measures 32.5 cm high and 23.0 cm wide and has been bound between wooden covers covered with grey suede and decorated with stamp embossing since the last restoration in 1987. It is completely preserved and comprises 188 folios of vellum in 28 sections, with a small-format (17 × 23 cm) homiliary fragment bound in. The sections are mostly quaternions, consisting of four folded and interleaved sheets of parchment, which make up eight folios (= 16 pages).Das Lagenschema nach Bodarwé: Sanctimoniales litteratae. 2004, lautet I (2) + IV (10) + (I+1) (13) + (IV+1) (22) + I (24) + II (28) + 3 IV (52) + (IV+1) (61) + IV (69) + III (75) + 2 IV (91) + III (97) + (IV-1) (104) + IV (112) + (IV-1) (119) + 2 IV (135) + II (139) + 3 IV (163) + IV (170+Vorsatzblatt) + 2 IV (186) + 2 (188). Gerds gibt I + (III+1) + I + (V+1) + III + III + I + 2 IV + (IV+1+1) + III + I + III + 2 IV + III + (III+1) + IV + (III+1) + 2 IV + 2 III + 2 IV + I + III + 2 IV + I an.(For an explanation of the formula see here). The writing space of the gospel book measures 26.5 cm in height and 16 cm in width. The text has 38 lines up to fol. 12v, the end of the list of pericope, and 30 lines thereafter. It was provided with numerous glosses in Latin, Old Saxon and Old High German in the 10th century.
Some folios have been trimmed at the margins, resulting in the loss of parts of individual glosses. Glosses were also damaged by the use of chemicals intended to improve legibility. During a restoration in 1958, individual folios were rebounded incorrectly: The double-leaf 48v/49r was folded in the wrong direction and the double-leaf 143v/144r was bound into the 21st instead of the 22nd quire.
The manuscript contains a list of pericopes, Jerome's letter Novum opus to Pope Damasus I in Latin, Jerome's preface plures fuisse to the Gospels, the four prefaces to the individual Gospels and the text of the Gospels, as well as 14 canon tables and an incomplete Ordo lectorum by the same hand that added most of the glosses. The bound homiliary contains extracts from various texts by Beda Venerabilis. The text of the Gospels was written by three different scribes in brown ink; the script is an early version of the Carolingian minuscule. A capitalis quadrata was used to emphasise the different sections. The uncial was only used in the Gospel of Matthew for the beginnings of chapters, the genealogy of Christ and the Lord's Prayer. The headings are coloured in yellow, red and green. The book decoration is polychrome and includes decorative pages, canon tables, incipit and initial pages as well as initials of different designs and sizes. The colours used are red and copper green, the yellow colour has not yet been investigated.
Book illumination
Georg Humann wrote in 1904 in his work on the treasures of Essen Minster:Although most of these drawings are of very low aesthetic quality, they are nevertheless of art-historical value, as they offer very characteristic examples of pre-Carolingian book illumination.The manuscript's illumination was also later described as having a "barbaric taste" or "barbaric splendour".
The manuscript's book decoration is extraordinarily varied and interspersed with influences from several cultures. The decorative letters, parts of which have been replaced by dog and bird-like figures, are striking. These decorative letters can be traced back to the fish-bird letters of Merovingian book art of the 7th and 8th centuries. The initials, on the other hand, often feature braided band ornaments derived from Irish Anglo-Saxon motifs. These ornaments in the Essen manuscript are identical in form to the so-called Psalter of Charlemagne (Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. lat. 13159), which can be dated between 795 and 800. The use of different decorative forms in one manuscript was not unusual in Carolingian book illumination. The ornamental character of the depiction is untouched by the Carolingian Renaissance, which included a return to ancient models and gave more space to the depiction of man.
The illuminator designed the manuscript's canon panels differently: arcades are formed with round arches or pediments made of ribbon strips or ribbon interlacing, which are decorated with borders of leaf patterns. One of the canon tables has an identical ornament as a pillar filling to the Gundohinus Gospels (Autun, Bibliothèque Municipale. Ms 3), to which there are also similarities in the design of the round arches. Among the decorative sides, the depiction of the cross with the bust of Christ at the intersection of the arms of the cross and the symbols of the Evangelists between the arms of the cross is particularly striking. This miniature shows particularly clear Irish influences in the faces. The low foreheads, the eyebrows drawn in line with the nose, the wide-open eyes and the mouths are similar to the 8th-century ribbon crucifix on p. 266 of Codex Sangallensis 51 in the Abbey Library of St. Gall. The design of the cross in Hs. 1 with coloured rectangles suggests precious stones, so the basic idea of the depiction is a "crux gemmata" The depiction therefore does not refer to the crucifixion as an event, but to Christ, who "entered into his glory" through the cross.
The glosses
The total of 453 Old Saxon glosses in the Gospels date from the 10th century. They provide over 1050 individual vernacular words of the time, making the Evangeliary the second most comprehensive glossing of Old Saxon. Most glosses were written by one hand with a strongly varying style, sometimes marginally in the outer margin, sometimes between the lines (interlinear). If there was not enough space, the scribe also used the inner margin. In terms of content, the glossing follows an unknown, lost model, to which the glossing of a Lindau Gospel Book (Baron M. Lochner von Hüttenbach, Codex L, present-day whereabouts unknown), which also originated in the Essen scriptorium, can be traced back. The glosses are distributed unevenly across all four Gospels: 109 interlinear and 78 marginal glosses explain the Gospel of Matthew, whereas the Gospel of Mark is only provided with 15 interlinear and 12 marginal glosses. Of the 148 glosses in the Gospel of Luke, 87 are interlinear and 61 marginal, while the Gospel according to John is supplemented by 34 interlinear and 57 marginal glosses.
The Latin glosses are mostly scholia and consist of linguistically simplified extracts from Carolingian and pre-Carolingian commentaries on the Gospels, especially from the writings of Beda. The annotated passages of the Gospel text were labelled with uncial letters, which recur in the glosses and thus ensure that the annotation is assigned to the annotated passage. As soon as the letters of the alphabet are used up, the next annotation is labelled "A" again. At the same time as the Latin glosses were entered, individual German words were entered after rarely used words. In a second editing phase, the Latin glosses were corrected and partially supplemented, and further German additions were made to the scholia. In this editing section, the Latin glosses were also supplemented at their end. These glosses refer to the end of the Latin gloss; in many cases, they are complete German half-sentences that paraphrase and continue the end of the Latin gloss. Hellgardt comes to the impression of a pre-form of a German-Latin mixed language, as it occurs as a clerical sociolect in Notker the German or Williram.
History
According to the art-historical classification, the Gospel Book was written around 800, but where is uncertain. The scriptorium in which the manuscript was created has not yet been identified. Based on the typeface and the coincidence of continental and insular influences in the book decoration, the place of origin is assumed to be in northwestern Germany or northeastern France. It is also unknown how and when the manuscript came to Essen. Due to the localization of the manuscript in areas where St. Altfrid, the later founder of Essen Abbey, was trained, the high quality of the manuscript both textually and artistically, and the fact that an Evangeliary was part of the basic liturgical equipment of a church, it is assumed that the Carolingian Gospel of Altfrid himself was left to its foundation. Katrinette Bodarwé pointed out, however, that the manuscript does not contain an entry in the manuscript of the 10th century. "A", which was active in Essen, may not have come to Essen as a founding gift after all.
A letter at the top of fol. 143r entry "Iuntram prb" ("Guntram presbiter") could have come from a former owner. The synopsis "PLENARIVM" on fol. 2r the so-called librarian's hand "B" was registered in Essen around 1200, perhaps not until the first half of the 13th century. Before that, there is no direct proof of ownership of the manuscript.
The glosses of the Gospel Book have characteristic features in the typeface that are typical of the scriptorium of the Essen convent. The scribe also contributed to the sacramentary Main State Archive Düsseldorf Essen D2, which was created in Essen in the last third of the 10th century, so the presence of the manuscript Hs. 1 in Essen is certain as early as the late 10th century. It was around this period that the Gospel Book was rebound for the first time, Georg Humann discovered in 1904 that the penultimate layer was incorrectly sorted and that a narrow strip of parchment with notes in the handwriting of the glosses had been included as sheet 60.
It is possible that the Gospel Book was no longer in use as a liturgical book as early as 946 when the collegiate church of Essen burned down but already served as a schoolbook for the instruction of the sanctimonialus. While all current liturgical writings had to be recreated by the Essen scriptorium after the abbey fire, some books such as the Gospel Book (if it did not come to Essen after the fire) or the sacramental manuscript Hauptstaatsarchiv Düsseldorf D1, which was no longer in liturgical use, were preserved. The reason for this was presumably that they were kept separately from the manuscripts in use. The use as a schoolbook is also evidenced by the pen tests that were made in particularly large numbers on the end paper, where there are lines and hatchings as well as the beginnings of verses such as "Scribere qui nescit, nullum putat esse laborem." ("If you don't know writing, you don't believe it's work") and individual words like "Proba" ("test"). It is discussed that the Gospel Book was also in liturgical use in addition to this use. The Theophanu Gospel Book (Essen Cathedral Treasury Hs. 3), which Abbess Theophanu presumably donated around 1040 for the magnificent staging of the Easter liturgy, has almost identical dimensions to the Carolingian Gospels. Gass therefore assumes that the Theophanu Gospel has replaced the Carolingian Gospel as the pompous Gospel in the monastery liturgy.