User:Jackhoal/Cutbercht Gospels

The Cutbercht Gospels (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex 1224) is an 8th-century illustrated Latin gospel book bound as a codex. It contains the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as well as canon tables. It was copied and illustrated by an Englishman named Cutbercht (Cuthbert) at Saint Peter's Abbey in Salzburg. This Gospel was quite unique for its small size measuring in at 138 by 92 millimeters or (5.4 × 3.6 in), Perfect for traveling with. This is one of many reasons why this Gospel sticks out much more than many others. There are a lot of people that would argue that this exterior design of the Cutbercht pocket sized Gospel is what makes it stand out the most compared to other Gospels. All the Cutbercht Gospels were created and copied by Cutbercht himself. Sense he creates all of his gospels by himself, this makes his Gospels so special and unique. All the creations and copies of the Gospel happened at Saint Peter's Abbey in Salzburg.

The Cutbercht Gospels contain a prologue (from Jerome's Commentary on Matthew) which, with the first seventeen verses of Matthew 1, is derived from a different source text than the rest of the gospels. Matthew 1:1–17 is set off from the rest of the gospel and labelled praefatio (preface). The canon tables and the portrait of the evangelist are inserted before verse 18. The text and portraits of the canon tables are based on Italian models, while the overall structure of "arcades" is from a northern model, perhaps from Canterbury. Joseph Cincik detects "Slovak–Avar" or "Alpine–Danubian" influence in the decorative elements and even argues for Islamic influence via the Danubian cultures. People have also said that all the different materials that were used to create this Gospel is what makes it so special to have. This Gospel is rare and fascinating because of how it was designed. There is a lot of evidence that show Gutbercht used two different styles to create this Gospel. The first example comes from the text that is written in the Italian model. All the lettering and style of the writings on the scripts are a pure example that the text had a lot of Italian influence. The Cutbercht Canon tables also is a huge indicator of two different examples being used to create these Gospels. With having the Italian Texts and the evangelists portraits that are painted onto the pages. This Gospel has specific ornaments and arcade structures that are painted onto the pages that indicate Canterbury Origin as well as having Insular as a writing style.

Each gospel is introduced with a portrait of the evangelist. The iconography of the evangelists can be traced back to 6th-century Ravenna, but the symbols included with two of them are from a different source. Matthew's pose and the color scheme of the portraits has been compared to the contemporary frescoes in the church of Sant Miquel in Terrassa. The ornamentation of the text is in the Insular style with some motifs also found in Coptic textiles. These Textiles all came from a combination of late antique forms which all happen to all be Coptic Textiles. This Gospel has an even distribution of all these forms that happen throughout the entire Gospel. All the Gospels created by Cutbercht were written from a direct copy in a certain way that is only used for textile designs. Cutbercht made use of a pattern book designed for textiles. Now not every page had a picture that was painted onto a page, but there were a lot of paintings. Every single picture as well had its own story and message to it. The pictures painted into the pages would be a reflected story from one of the four canonical gospels. The artist would put a lot of detail into the pictures that were painted onto the pages. The paintings would be of one of the four canon tables of Mark, Mathew, Luke or John/ The pictures captured what each of them was doing in that part of the Canonical Gospel. There were very many different types of colors used for these paintings. Expensive colors such as Gold, Silver and Blue were being used in the creations of these paintings. There were also cheaper materials used in the paintings such as red ,brown, black and green because these colors came from fruit materials. All the pages in Cutbercht Gospels were made from a material called Vellum. The material of Vellum comes from the skin off of a calf, that is then dried and used for the material in all gospels during this time period. All the decorations created by Cutbercht had no real significant evidence at all that was leading to the Salzburg area where they were all created for his Gospels.

The gospel book was produced in Salzburg, although older scholarship sometimes located it in Mercia or Northumbria. Cutbercht made use of several Insular scripts. He was working at Salzburg during the 780s or 790s, during the pontificate of Virgil (died 784) or his successor, Arn. Cincik would date it to after 796, when Avar capital was sacked during the Avar Wars, allowing eastern motifs—such as pear-shaped leaves, of ultimately Persian origin—to be brought westward in the form of booty. Cutbercht may be the scribe responsible for a now fragmentary manuscript of the prophetic books from Kremsmünster (Stiftsbibliothek, Fragm.I/1). He is not named in the Salzburger Verbrüderungsbuch [de], indicating that he probably did not die at Salzburg. He may have been an itinerant monk. Because of his skills in being able to create and copy Gospels so well for so long he could have also very easily been a monk that created scribes as well as being an extremely talented artist. His Insular style of writing textile that is used through out the entire Gospel he created was not followed by any others at Salzburg. Cutbercht was the first and only one during that entire time period living in Salzburg to write Gospels in Insular which makes people think he was actually perhaps originally from Canterbury.