The Lindisfarne Gospels Highlights (Facsimile Edition)

For this facsimile edition each page of the original manuscript (now held at the British Library) has been meticulously photographed in full colour to the most exacting of standards.

The Lindisfarne Gospels is one of the most magnificent manuscripts of the early Middle Ages. It was almost 400 years old when the Domesday Book was compiled, 500 years old when Magna Carta was witnessed, and over 700 years old when Gutenberg invented movable type.

It was written and decorated at the end of the 7th century by the monk Eadfrith, who became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 698 and died in 721. Its original leather binding, long since lost, was made by Ethelwald, who succeeded Eadfrith as bishop, and was decorated with jewels and precious metals later in the 8th century by Billfrith the Anchorite.

The Latin text of the Gospels is translated word by word in an Old English gloss, the earliest surviving example of the Gospel text in any form of the English language, it was added between the lines in the mid 10th century by Aldred, Provost of Chester-le-Street. Today the manuscript is once again bound in silver and jewels, in covers made in 1852 at the expense of Edward Maltby, Bishop of Durham. The design is based on motifs drawn from the decoration of the manuscript itself.

This is an eBookTreasures edition which includes 39 pages from the manuscript and interpretation on all openings.