Beschreibung:

Leaf from a notably large and early copy of the Gospel of Matthew, in Armenian, on parchment [Armenia, tenth or perhaps eleventh century] Large single leaf, with double column, 22 lines of erkatgir (iron script, compare that of an eleventh-century Gospel book, Freer Gallery of Art 33.5: S. der Nersessian, Armenian Manuscripts, 1963, figs. 1 and 7, as well as that in Quaritch, cat. 1036, Bookhands of the Middle Ages, 1984, no. 54) with Matthew 22:4 (the parable of the wedding banquet), capitals in majuscule, a number of smaller contemporary marginal additions and corrections, remains of a large red and blue floral cartouche in margin on reverse (somewhat scuffed), some stains (especially to upper and lower corners), reverse scuffed and hard to read in places, but overall fair and presentable and on heavy and good quality Romanesque parchment, 285 by 228mm. This large and handsome leaf is a testament to austere beauty of early Armenian Gospel Books. Due to the Armenian community’s devout respect for sacred texts, large codices of the early Middle Ages were revered as relic-like items in themselves. They were often carried into war by Armenian rulers, and particular copies of the Gospels were often given sacred names and were believed to have individual miraculous powers. Due perhaps to Arab oppression in the seventh century, few Armenian manuscripts predate the present example. A handful of manuscripts survive for the later ninth and the tenth, but they are not common until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Alfred Chester Beatty, whose Armenian manuscripts are the subject of a two volume work by S. Der Nessessian published in 1958, did not own one as old as the present example. Accordingly, any fragment of the Bible in this early translation has a place of some importance in future scholarship.