Codex Eyckensis

[1] Since the eighth century it has been kept and preserved on the territory of the present-day municipality of Maaseik, in Belgium (hence the name "Eyckensis").

It consists of five folios, opening with a full-page Evangelist portrait (presumably depicting Saint Matthew), followed by an incomplete set of eight Canon Tables.

The second manuscript (Codex B) contains a full set of twelve Canon Tables and all four Gospel texts in Latin.

The Gospel texts are written in a rounded form of the insular minuscule, which was characteristic of British and Irish manuscripts from the seventh and eighth centuries, but was also used in mainland Europe.

The Gospel text is a version of the Vulgate, mostly as translated by Saint Jerome (Hieronymus of Stridon, 347–420 CE), with a number of additions and transpositions.

The Merovingian nobles Adelard, Lord of Denain, and his wife Grinuara founded this abbey for their daughters Harlindis and Relindis in “a small and useless wood"[2] near the river Meuse.

Both evangelistaries that now constitute the Codex Eyckensis were presumably brought from the Abbey of Echternach to Aldeneik by Saint Willibrord.

From the middle of the tenth century, the Benedictine nuns had been replaced by a collegiate chapter of male canons.

For centuries, people were convinced the Codex Eyckensis had been written by Harlindis and Relindis, the first abbesses of the abbey of Aldeneik, who were later canonized.

In the course of the ninth century the cult of the relics of the saintly sisters became increasingly important and included the veneration of the Codex Eyckensis, which inspired deep reverence as a work produced by Harlindis and Relindis themselves.

In a new extensive restoration effort between 1987 and 1993 the Mipofolie lamination was meticulously removed by a team of the Belgian Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, led by the chemist Dr Jan Wouters.

[12] In 2015, the Codex Eyckensis was digitised[13] on site in Saint Catherine's church by the Imaging Lab and Illuminare[14] – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art | KU Leuven.