Talk:St Cuthbert Gospel

St Cuthbert Gospel is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 17, 2012, and on April 30, 2017.

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More info[edit]

More information should be given about the text. I should imagine that it is the Vulgate, not the Old Latin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.36.65 (talk) 14:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Main header title change[edit]

The British Library suggests that the main header of this article should be changed to 'The St Cuthbert Gospel' with a redirect from 'Stonyhurst Gospel' (rather than vice-versa as it stands).

Although the manuscript has been known as the Stonyhurst Gospel in recent times, it is more accurate to call it 'The St Cuthbert Gospel'. This is because the manuscript is over 1300 years old and was intimately associated with St Cuthbert, having been preserved in his coffin for over 400 years until its discovery in 1104, and then kept at Durham Cathedral where St Cuthbert was reburied during the Middle Ages. The Society of Jesus has been the modern owner of the manuscript since 1769 but the title 'Stonyhurst Gospel' reflects only the location in which this 1300-year-old book was kept by the Society in modern times. When the Society of Jesus placed the Gospel on long-term loan to the Library in 1979, they referred to it as 'The St Cuthbert Gospel'.

In sum, the reasons for this request is that the name 'The St Cuthbert Gospel' is more accurate, current and neutral.Helical gear (talk) 11:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As discussed, the issue for us is that our article names are governed by WP:COMMONNAME, by which we should use the name most commonly used by English reliable sources. On a quick comparison of google book searches for "St Cuthbert Gospel" (292) and "Stonyhurst Gospel" (772), including many recent academic titles, it is not clear that the new title has yet caught on universally. But other comments would be welcome. Johnbod (talk) 11:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On reflection, I'm pursuaded by the arguments for a move & will move it soon (to St Cuthbert Gospel) unless anyone objects. Johnbod (talk) 17:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good move, I think the BL's thoughts on identity carry significant weight for us, even in the context of COMMONNAME. --Fæ (talk) 17:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to St Cuthbert Gospel. Favonian (talk) 11:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stonyhurst Gospel → St Cuthbert Gospel – Discussed above, where it is clear everybody commenting feels this has now become the WP:COMMONNAME, a view also expressed by the British Library. Johnbod (talk) 16:36, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Noting other views expressed above. Johnbod (talk) 16:36, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- Since it is in the possession of THE British Library, theri preferred titel should be used. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:48, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

I think they have reached the target of 9 million.[edit]

There is a story in The Economist that suggests they have secured the 9 million. Not much details, and suppose be nice to have a fuller story to give more accuracy and context to what they really have, pledges or money in hand, or did they already buy it from the Jesuits. -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well ahead of predicted time if so - they expected to be still appealing in March. I'll ask. Johnbod (talk) 22:35, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Book links[edit]

When?[edit]

"Cuthbert was reburied in the decorated oak coffin now usually meant by St Cuthbert's coffin, though he was to have many more coffins,[60] and it is thought likely that the book was produced for this occasion, and may well have been placed in his coffin at this point.[61]" When was this particular coffin used? Why aren't the many other coffins also known as St Cuthbert's coffin too? Is this coffin still in existence? I could guess these answers but it would be a guess the article isn't clear.

There's a link to St Cuthbert's coffin, which covers some of this. Yes it does survive, in about 6,000 pieces (including later ones too), but has been largely re-assembled. This coffin is of particular interest because of its carved decoration, and was (it is assumed) first used in 698, as the article says, & later ones were added around it, until the early 19th century, when it had crumbled & the bits were buried in or with the newer coffins. But that is centuries after the book was removed in 1104, so detail is not really needed here. Johnbod (talk) 16:16, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article featured on day that it is sold?[edit]

This article was featured on the main page on April 17th, the same day it was bought from the Jesuits. Did Wikipedia have prior knowledge of the move? Or did an administrator think quickly? Andrew Keenan Richardson (talk) 17:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, we were tipped off. I'm not sure when the sale actually happened legally speaking; it was announced today. This month certainly, & I think in the last few days. Johnbod (talk) 18:06, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well done![edit]

But I would like to suggest two changes.

The following sentence needs to be the second sentence in the introduction, in order to state clearly what the object is, before giving the potted history which marks ts significance.

With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 × 3.6 in) the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.

Likewise, although the Binding is of enormous historical significance, the nature of the text ought to be described first. The binding is merely the box that contains the treasure i.e. the book. The section on the Text is treated almost as an afterthought. If it was raised to first position in the body of the article, being relatively short, it will not distract.

Amandajm (talk) 22:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Moving pictures[edit]

Yesterday I moved the picture of the Anglo-Saxon vine scrolls down to another place where I think the image was discussed in finer detail and changed its caption. I also moved the front cover picture up to the top of the section. In reverting my changes, Johnbod said that the front cover picture was off the page when the text described it.

I've just moved the vine scrolls down again to the Front cover subsection but this time I left the front cover picture where it was. I also changed the rear cover from left to right. I think this fixes Johnbod's concerns while addressing mine. My main concern was that the first picture in the body along with its caption could be confused by amatuers (like me) with some aspect of the Cuthbert Gospel itself, like the book's spine. If you do revert, please change the vine scrolls caption to make it clear that this is not part of St Cuthbert Gospel itself. It took me half an hour to figure this out yesterday and I'm still not sure I've got it right. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 16:12, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well I don't think it is an improvement, but will see if I can live with it. I have restored the original caption on the small cross picture, as what is shown is precisely not "interlace", but 2 examples of: "Continuous vine scrolls in a great variety of designs of this general type, with few leaves and round fruits, were very common in slightly later religious Anglo-Saxon art, ....". Your caption also made it less clear these were a different work, surely? Unfortunately our articles on ornament, like Scrollwork (which has the same image) and Interlace (art) are not very good, but should be enough to make the difference clear. I've linked scrollwork in booth caption and text. Johnbod (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. This solves my main problem 'though how about "Two other examples of Anglo-Saxon vine scrolls on the Lowther Cross" for the caption? My difficulty is that the Lowther Cross looks so much like the St Cuthbert Gospel (reddish-brown with inlaid vines) that amatuers might still get confused. I know you're an expert but we have to deal with the newbies too. You might change the text too; for example "..especially on Anglo-Saxon crosses, for example the Bewcastle Cross and the Easby Cross now in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Lowther Cross shown to the left." It's up to you, though; I'm done making changes. :) --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 08:23, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Vines[edit]

Engraving of the Bewcastle Cross shows decorative elements present on the front binding: raised bands divide the surface into fields of scrolling vines, symmetrical motifs, interlacing, and, in this case, figures and text.

After sleeping on this, I decided that the words "representing a vine" had to go. The term "vines" applies in a general way to any plant of similar form, even a pumpkin, but most specifically to "grapevine". If one writes "representing a vine" then it has to represent grapevine rather than generic vine, otherwise it isn't really representing anything. It's just a scrolling plant and not "representational".

The scrolling plant plainly doesn't represent "vine" as in "grapevine". The leaves are wrong, the bud is wrong and the fruit is absolutely nothing like grapevine. So whatever it represents, it isn't "vine". This might sound like much ado about nothing, but these blinking vines haunted my dreams.

OK. Next. The picture of the sculpture of the coffin-bearers is just great, but it doesn't fit the article visually. It's a real distraction among the illuminations. I would tend to just omit it. I presume it's been used in the article on St Cuthbert. This is a purely aesthetic thing.

Amandajm (talk) 12:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That the plant is intended to represent a grape-vine is agreed by most of the sources. That, like most A-S vines, it is not botanically accurate, is or was covered in the article. The article is very thoroughly sourced indeed, and has been carefully reviewed by a BL curator. Please don't tinker with referenced text on gut-feel. It's only a month or so out of FAC also, which would have been the time to raise these issues. I've been away and have just quickly seen all these changes, which are hard to follow with the section moving. Johnbod (talk) 12:25, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll put it back. I don't think anything else has been deleted. A couple of descriptive bits have been somewhat differently phrased. Amandajm (talk) 01:21, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Can I suggest that this picture of the Bewcastle Cross is used instead of the present pic? Because it is a graphic, it indicates the type of decoration very clearly, including the division into fields and the application of several types of decoration on a single surface. Moreove, as it is not dull red and of similar proportion, it cannot be mistaken for the spine of the book. Basically, it tells the story better than the present pic, without distracting. Amandajm (talk) 01:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I'm sure you are right. I looked harder at the raised fruity things, and they seem to have little raised knobs, a bit more like blackberries than grapes, but it is possible that the artist had never seen a grapevine in Northumbria. Amandajm (talk) 01:32, 24 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They certainly thought they had wine in Northumbria, though I suspect berries might have been involved. The climate was probably even colder than today, & while you might be able to get grapes on Iona, I think it would be impossible on Lindisfarne, in the open air. I think the Bewcastle image is too big, or too hard to read if smaller, and the caption gets too complicated here. Obviously there are lots of similarities, as well as many differences, but I think explaining them without creating further confusion in what is already rather a dense section would need a good deal more space. Johnbod (talk) 02:32, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with you over the Bewcastle Cross. I prefer it, because it is clearly not part of the book, and it puts all the various elements clearly in to the broader context of the art of the period, displaying as it does, so many of the features. However, I wont weep tears of anguish over the change. Since there had been no response from those involved, I just went ahead.

As for the vines, what was the weather doing at that date? Amandajm (talk) 04:09, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See my List of periods and events in climate history; it was after the Roman and before the Medieval warm periods. And next to no glass! How they must have shivered. Johnbod (talk) 04:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They are indeed grapevines ("vines" is understood to mean grapevines). Very conventionally stylised ones. You can see similar conventions used in manuscript illustrations from that period up into the 1400s in Britain, the Netherlands, and even France.

The so-called "chalice", however, is pretty obviously a cut-back vine stem sprouting new growth rather than a chalice.

Any artist would say the same: the person who did such careful, fully-recognisable (if you know the convention) grapevines would not have had any trouble portraying a chalice in a way that could not be seen as anything else. (My bona-fides: I used to be a commercial artist. In my teens (1950s) I fell in love with the Book of Kells and the closely-related Lindisfarne Gospels, and soon with all illuminated manuscripts. Later, as a sideline to my commercial-art work, I made manuscript books and "scrolls" to order using 14th-century Anglo-French conventions (the late-13th /early-14th century period was the pinnacle of western manuscript illumination)) 98.118.20.201 (talk) 13:36, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The "so-called "chalice"" comes from the BL, and obviously fits the eucharistic significance. It is pretty small, made of gesso underpinning leather, and perhaps not so easy to form precisely as you suggest. Johnbod (talk) 17:52, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Provenance, ownership and making the lead a bit more of a hook[edit]

The history of ownership, purchase and any controversies seems interesting enough for the section on, say, Exhibitions to be renamed and expanded. Would it be appropriate to trim the lead back a little but expand these details into a sub section? Could or should the "earliest surviving European book" claim be a bit more prominent in the lead? At the moment I'm not sure the casual layman would read through the longish lead to read that bit; perhaps a formatted quote from some luminary might help? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:17, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Audio version?[edit]

Is there a way of getting this article prioritized for an audio reading by volunteers that love doing this sort of thing? It seems an appropriate candidate. --Fæ (talk) 09:27, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Yates Thompson pictures[edit]

I am very puzzled by the presence in this article of five pictures from Yates Thompson 26. In the first place, the presentation is confusing; I think I worked out what they are after scratching my head and clicking a few links. The reader may assume these images are from the St Cuthbert Gospel, given that that is the topic of the article. The captions for the five images have "Ch nn" for various numbers nn: that might mean ordinarily "chapter", but in this case I guess it's some obscure abbreviation meaning "page" or "image". There is a textblock titled "Illustrations from British Library MS Yates Thompson 26 ..." above the five pictures, which I guess is intended to be a caption for all five as a group, but as things stand there are six separate boxes. With a variable amount of text between each pair.

More fundamentally: what have any of the five pictures got to do with the St Cuthbert Gospel? None of them shows the gospel book. Ch 42 might conceivably show it in his coffin but I don't see it there. Assuming there is no page British Library MS Yates Thompson 26 the most plausible article to put these images in is St Cuthbert. jnestorius^(talk) 00:34, 1 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, it means chapter. The BL page link seems dead, or maybe it's just fallen over on a bank holiday. You clearly didn't get as far as this British Library page, which would have answered that. I think they work very well, illustrating various topics in the article from the life & cult of Cuthbert. Johnbod (talk) 15:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnbod: But the five images relate just to two subsections ("Background" and "Lindisfarne"), and none for many other sections: why not a picture of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey or Durham Cathedral or Stonyhurst College? And none of the images is in the correct section. They seem merely decorative rather than illustrative. The article does not mention a horse and spear. Do we need three images of miracles? jnestorius^(talk) 23:46, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, they are not images from the St Cuthbert Gospel itself? That is a bit misleading. They are good illustrations, but perhaps each the image caption could make that clearer - say "Ch.44, BL MS Yates Thompson 26"? Or a footnote? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.198.136 (talk) 07:24, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've redone as "(Ch 6, Life of Cuthbert)" and so on. It was all clear if the text was read.... Johnbod (talk) 03:47, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's still not clear that Life of Cuthbert is MS Yates Thompson 26 as opposed to some other edition of Bede's work. jnestorius^(talk) 23:46, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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refs[edit]

Sort order see schapiro.
Missing Backhouse 1981
♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]