Gospel Lectionary

A scribe copied this large Byzantine Gospel lectionary on parchment in the third quarter of the eleventh century. Another scribe replaced the text for the first 49 folios on paper in the middle of the sixteenth century. At about the same time, someone added a full-page miniature of the evangelist Matthew. The original parchment leaves contain Gospel readings according to the Orthodox liturgical calendar written in a fine minuscule hand (Perlschrift or pearl script). The original manuscript contains ecphonetic notation, red signs above certain syllables that indicate a change in pitch when chanted in Orthodox liturgies. Throughout the text are many decorated initials and headbands.

Created ca. 1050–1080, likely in Constantinople.[1] Folios 1r–48v and the miniature on 49r added ca. 1543.[2] Used in a Greek church or monastery in the mid-nineteenth century.[3] Acquired before 2011 by Martin Schøyen, bookseller, Norway;[4] Acquired by 2011 by Les Enluminures;[5] Purchased in 2012 by Green Collection, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Donated in 2014 to Museum of the Bible, Washington, DC.

Notes: [1] Georgi Parpulov studied the manuscript in 2011 and dated the original text based on close parallels for the script and ornamentation with known dates from the 1050s to the 1070s. Since the list of church feasts closely resembles that found in the Jaharis Lectionary at the Metropolitan Museum, it is likely they both were made in Constantinople. The prominence of the feast of St. Theodore the Great Martyr (or St. Theodore the Recruit) suggests the manuscript may have been intended for a church dedicated to him. [2] Parpulov noted that the oxhead watermarks on the paper were identical to Piccard number 64825, dated to 1543 (see https://www.piccard-online.de/detailansicht.php?klassi=002.002.001&ordnr=64285&sprache=). Because the paper of the miniature appears to be identical to the paper used for folios 1–48, he dated the miniature to this time. He thought it likely the current cover dates to this time as well. Parpulov also drew attention to the name he tentatively deciphered as “Gabriel (metropolitan) of Sardeis,” whose signature appears below the text on f. 327v and on the wood of the inside back cover. If the binding is of sixteenth century date, then the reading of the name is problematic but not impossible. After Tamerlane destroyed Sardeis in 1402, ecclesiastical authority transferred to nearby Philadelphia. See Michael le Quien, Oriens Christianus, in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, v. 1 (Paris: Typographia Regia, 1740), columns 859–860, 865–866; https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435031445182&view=1up&seq=447&q1=Sardes. Le Quien did list two people called bishop of Sardis after its destruction—Dionysius of Sardis (1437) and Nicolaus of Sardis (1450). [3] Inscriptions on the wood of the inside of the front cover and the verso of the last flyleaf record information about the activities of a certain Fr. Andreas, from an unknown Greek church or monastery, whose death in 1858 is also recorded. [4] The Schøyen Collection MS 1982 label inside the front cover. [5] It appears in Sandra Hindman and Laura Light, Textmanuscripts 2: Before the King James Bible (Les Enluminures: Chicago, 2012), Lot 29, pp. 80–81. Parpulov’s description of the manuscript for Les Enluminures is dated 2011. He did not connect the manuscript to Hagia Sophia as it appears in the catalog, but to a church of St. Theodore. He did compare the script to that of the Jaharis Lectionary, which is associated with Hagia Sophia.

Published References:

Sandra Hindman and Laura Light, Textmanuscripts 2: Before the King James Bible (Les Enluminures: Chicago, 2012), Lot 29, pp. 80–81.

Illuminated Manuscripts