£1m Auction Estimate for 10th Century Gospel Written by German Canonesses
The Latin Gospels manuscript
A 1,000-year-old Latin Gospel manuscript believed to have been written by a community of women at Essen Abbey in Germany around the year 900 will come to auction next month at Christie's.
The manuscript on vellum is one of fewer than ten 10th-century Latin Gospels to appear at auction - none with links to a female scriptorium - and has an estimate of £700,000–£1m. It will be offered in the Valuable Books, Manuscripts and Photographs sale on December 10.
According to medieval historian Professor Rosamond McKitterick from the University of Cambridge the manuscript was probably produced in the North-Rhine region of Germany at the turn of the 9th century, and the text may indicate that it was produced at a female house or even for use in one. A strong candidate is Essen Abbey which was established c. 845 by Altfrid, a Saxon noble who later became Bishop of Hildesheim.
The abbey played a significant role in Carolingian women’s literary culture as home to a highly productive scriptorium and an extensive library which included several Gospel books, Missals and Sacramentaries, two memorial books, the statutes and constitutions of the community, and works by Augustine, Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus, Bernard of Clairveaux, Gregory the Great, Hugh of St Victor, and Ludolph of Saxony. Around 50 fragments and codices from this library survive today - after the dissolution of the abbey in 1803 the vast majority of the manuscripts ended up in German institutions.
Nail-holes running along the edges of the first flyleaf suggest that the original binding may have been metalwork. Its format and size may also indicated personal rather than institutional use and perhaps linked to one of the two early abbesses of Essen Abbey, Wicburg (c. 896-906) and Mathilde I (907-910, though her existence is disputed).
The most recent Latin Gospels of the 10th century or earlier sold in the last 100 years was the 9th century Gospels of Queen Theutberga, sold at Christie’s in 2015 for £1,986,500 after an estimate of £1m-£1.5m.
