The York Gospels : A Facsimile with Introductory Essays by Jonathan Alexander, Patrick McGurk, Simon Keynes, & Bernard Barr; edited by Nicolas Barker by Wulfstan, Archbishop of York ; Alexander, J. ; Barker, N - 1986

Printed for presentation to the members of the Roxburghe Club, London, first edition, 1986. The edition was limited to about 50 copies for members and 200 for sale, this being one of the latter. Cloth, top edge gilt, gilt spine-title, folio,. 135 pp, 167 folios of facsimile plates, many in colour. A complete facsimile of this major Anglo-Saxon manuscript with a full codicological description, history and bibliography. The manuscript was probably written and illuminated in one or other of the two great monasteries in Canterbury. but (apart from a brief period during the civil war) has been at York since it was acquired by Archbishop Wulfstan in 1020. It is still used as the text of holy writ on which oaths of admission to Minster Offices are sworn and the Archbishops installed.Contents: Preface; The Contents of the Gospels; Bibliography and Abbreviations; Palaeography by P. McGurk; Text by P. McGurk; The Illumination of the Gospels by J. J. G. Alexander; The Additions in Old English by Simon Keynes; The History of the Volume by Bernard Barr; A Note on the Missing Portrait of St John by Bernard Barr; Excursus by Bernard Barr: I Inventory of Treasures at York Minster 1500-10, II The Return of the Gospels 1678, III The York Gospels: A Note on the Successive Bindings, IV Oaths; Previous Facsimiles; Exhibitions; The Facsimile. Fine.