Western Medieval Manuscripts : Gospel book

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript is a <i>Gospel book</i> written about 1500, which can be quite closely dated by the watermarks of the different paper types used. It was copied by several different hands, the simplicity of most of which suggests that it was a western European production, a probability reinforced by the presence of early annotations by hands using both Greek and Latin.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The main Gospel texts are supplemented by chapter lists and various prefatory hypotheses drawn from the range of such texts commonly found in Greek Gospel manuscripts, mostly regarding St Luke and the composition of his Gospel. Rather than preceding the Gospels to which they pertain, as would be usual, all of these texts are grouped together at the end of the manuscript, in a somewhat haphazard order. This suggests that their inclusion was something of an afterthought, and reinforces the impression that this manuscript originated outside the main Greek tradition of production, being produced for scholarly use in the Latin world.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Notes in Greek and Latin on <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);return false;'>f. 1r-1v</a> appear to identify an early owner as one Robert Poyntz. This was perhaps the man of that name, a devoutly Catholic member of a gentry family from Alderley, Gloucestershire, who left England early in the reign of Elizabeth I and settled in Louvain, centre of the English Catholic exile community and of efforts to support English Catholicism from abroad. In 1566 he published a tract defending the doctrine of transubstantiation, based on the works of both Latin and Greek Fathers of the Church.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>