Godescalc Evangelistary
acquisitions nouvelles lat.1203) is an illuminated manuscript in Latin made by the Frankish scribe Godescalc and today kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
[2] The manuscript was intended to commemorate Charlemagne's march to Italy, his meeting with Pope Adrian I, and the baptism of his son Pepin.
[5] The Godescalc Evangelistary outlines prayer services and contains selections from the Gospels designed to be read at Mass through the liturgical year.
[7] There was a movement to correct Psalters, Gospel books, and other works to provide easier understanding of texts that had become unclear over time.
The round face and the large eyes of the youthful Christ recall the image of the Virgin in the Mount Sinai icon.
Thus, St. John seated on a throne facing the image of Jesus Christ is a display of imperial authority presiding over Church.
Earlier examples come from Eastern manuscripts, where the fons vitae was a symbol of the Gospels as “the font of eternal life”.
[18] The meaning was modified in the Evangelistary and because of its placement and heading; the miniature refers to Christ's birth as the Fountain of Life.
[19] The Fountain of Life takes up a full page in the Evangelistary and is significantly located on the verso with Christ in a garden.
The shrine's circular form with a conical roof is a reference to the Holy Sepulcher from the Crucifixion miniature in the Rabula Gospels.
[22] The heavenly image of the birds and plants employs the fountain “as the source of the four rivers of paradise”,[23] which evokes the four Gospels.
The waterfowls are identified in Eastern theological commentaries as “symbols of the apostles—“fishers of men”— who look back at the cocks symbolizing the Old Testament prophets in whose sayings the coming of Christ was foretold.”[24] The deer is a hart, an animal traditionally linked to the baptismal ritual from the passage in Psalm 42:1 (quoted below from the King James Version).
Precious materials like gold were believed to be gifts of God in the Middle Ages[29] and Godescalc uses golden letters in his poem to emulate eternal life.
The manuscript was a preliminary attempt to standardize language in the Carolingian kingdom and this cultural achievement of replacing the Merovingian script was lasting.
The Evangelistary offered not only a new alternative for illuminators and scribes of the Carolingian era, but a form of writing that would be adopted and stay in effect until today.
