Otho-Corpus Gospels facts for kids
The Otho-Corpus Gospels is a very old and damaged book from the 8th century. It's a special kind of book called an illuminated manuscript, which means it has beautiful drawings and decorations. Sadly, most of this book was burned in a big fire in 1731.
Today, you can find the burnt pieces of the book in the British Library in London. But 36 pages were not with the main collection and survived the fire! These pages are now safe at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge.
Contents
What the Book Looked Like Before the Fire
Before the fire, this manuscript was a very important Gospel Book. A Gospel Book contains the four Gospels from the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This book was made in a style called Insular art, which was popular in Ireland and Britain long ago.
It was very similar to other famous books from that time, like the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells. We don't know exactly where or when it was made. But because it looks so much like these other books, it was probably created in a monastery. These monasteries were part of a network started by St. Columba.
Surviving Pieces and Their Art
The pieces of the book that still exist show us how beautiful it once was. Like other Insular Gospel Books, it had amazing decorations. The first page of each Gospel had big, fancy letters. These letters were so large they took up most of the page. You can see similar designs in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Durrow.
For example, one page in the British Library (folio 28 recto) shows part of the start of the Gospel of Mark. Even though it's damaged, you can still see parts of the word "Initium." The letters "INI" are big and decorated with red and yellow patterns. This page was so badly burned that the old animal skin it's written on (called vellum) became thin and see-through. You can even see the writing from the other side!
Many old Gospel books have a picture of the person who wrote the Gospel, called an Evangelist portrait. Other books might have a picture of that Evangelist's symbol instead. For Mark, the symbol is a lion. One of the best-preserved pages (folio 27 recto) shows the lion of Mark. This picture looks a lot like the one in the Echternach Gospels. It gives us a clue about how amazing the Otho-Corpus Gospels looked before the fire.
A Copy Made Before the Fire
In 1725, someone made a copy of one of the pages from the Otho-Corpus Gospels. This was before the big fire happened! The copy was made for the Earl of Oxford. Later, a person named Thomas Astle used this copy in his book about writing, published in 1784.
The copy shows special large letters at the top of the page. These were used to start important parts of the text. Further down, there were other fancy letters surrounded by tiny red dots. The person who made the copy even added a "sampler" of different writing styles at the bottom. This sampler wasn't on the original page. Astle's copy is also kept safe in the British Library today.
Images for kids
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Astle's copy of the prefatory material of Mark.
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The surviving fragment of the original page.
