York Gospels
Date:
Late tenth or early eleventh century
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
United Kingdom
Medium:
Parchment
Dimensions:
25.6 × 21 cm
Description:
The York Gospels, written and illustrated in Canterbury in the eleventh century, includes biblical texts as well as homilies, land records, oaths, and charters. In the evangelist portrait reproduced here, the hand of God gestures from the clouds towards Mark, who holds a quill and rests his other hand on a copy of his own book. Around 1020, the manuscript may have been given to Wulfstan, the archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023, by the Anglo-Scandinavian Cnut (r. 1016–1035), king of Denmark, England, and Norway, and his wife, Emma. The book is also notable because a group of archaeologists and geneticists studied DNA from the people who swore oaths on it, and from the cows and sheep whose skins were used to make the parchment.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
6
Repository and Online Resources:
• The manuscript now belongs to York Minster.
• Read about the non-destructive analysis techniques used at the University of York to study the DNA.
• See the published study.
