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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You would think the most important manuscript in Britain, and one of the most important in the world, would have its provenance inspected from time to time. You'll see why it isn't...
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Page Thirteen of Forgeries
850 AD
A woman gives some agricultural produce to these monks in exchange for the monks singing Psalm XX every day on her behalf. This agreement was recorded by means unknown
850 – 950
Book continues to be carefully preserved by the Canterbury monks
950
The monks decide to deface their most treasured possession in order to record a transaction concerning agricultural produce and psalm singing made a hundred years before and which can have no significance now the woman is long gone but it does en passant confirm St Augustine's Abbey is the legal owner of some property at Brabourne in Kent. Should anyone ask.
Ninth century, tenth century, what does it matter? But speaking of defacement, the first few pages of the treasured book are missing. Not quite treasured enough. As Dr de Hamel tells us
| The manuscript opens mid-word in the capitula list preceding the Gospel of St Matthew [Meetings, p.19] |
Although de Hamel and his colleagues treat missing opening pages as just normal wear and tear for ancient manuscripts, this runs foul of another of our golden rules: “Opening out, forgers about.”
The reason is that text is easy to reproduce but introductions are not. Anyone can turn out a Gospel of St Matthew but title pages, frontispieces, notes regarding who/ where/ when/ why the book was made, the original owner's scribbled name on the flyleaf, are all potential pitfalls for the forger.
So forgers do their best to ensure opening pages are missing whenever possible. This stratagem never arouses suspicion because the authenticators of ancient manuscripts always treat missing pages as just normal wear and tear.
These are not the only pages that have gone dubiously walkabout. Most early gospel books were profusely illustrated and the Gospels of St Augustine is no different. However, few of the original pictures in the book have ‘come down to us’, as the phrase has it, but those that have survived are useful for establishing its true provenance. Dr de Hamel for one finds them helpful
| The inclusion of integral pictures, even if only two now survive, is of importance too in assigning the manuscript to an origin under the patronage of Gregory the Great, since Gregory himself made a famous defence of the value of religious illustrations [Meetings, p.39] |
and who are we to disagree since one of the illustrations is a blatant smoking gun left by the forgers. Twelfth century forgers were highly professional craftsmen but not trained in art history. Like all art forgers, they could reproduce pictures of any period so long as they had the originals to work from.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This was my debut as art forgery expert extraordinaire which proved to be so fecund a field of enquiry
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Page Fourteen of Forgeries
As there were no illustrated gospel books from the sixth century – or at least they didn't have access to any of them – they simply used twelfth century styles and made them coarser, more rustic, less polished, to reflect that artists of five hundred years earlier would, in all probability, be like them but not as advanced as them.
This simple ruse has fooled generations of modern scholars who are trained in art history but think there is nothing unusual in styles hanging around for half a millennium. If they do come across glaring anachronisms of this sort they have no difficulty explaining them away. Here is de Hamel’s caption for one of the St Augustine illustrations
| The picture of the Last Supper in the Gospels of Saint Augustine was copied nearly five hundred years later into the Bayeux Tapestry, where it was adapted to become the scene of Odo of Bayeux feasting with his nobles [Meetings, p.48] |
It would appear the dear ladies embroidering the Bayeux Tapestry had a conversation something along these lines:
"What’s next on the list, Doris?"
"Odo feast scene, Marge. What do you reckon?"
"Dunno, how about a Last Supper type of treatment. You know, with Odo taking the place of Christ?"
"That's pushing it a bit, isn't it?"
"His lot are paying."
"Fair point. What have we got for Last Suppers?"
"There's that one in the Augustinian Gospels. We could use that."
"Leave it out, dear, that's five hundred years old!"
"Form is temporary, Doris, class is permanent."
Bayeux might seem a long way from Canterbury but as it happens – and it says a lot about the opacity of medieval history – nobody knows where the Bayeux Tapestry was in fact made, though Dr de Hamel has a theory
| The Gospel Book of Saint Augustine therefore has a part to play in the argument that the Bayeux Tapestry was actually made in Canterbury [Meetings, p.47] |
* * *
We turn next to the ‘marginalia’. The official line is we are dealing with a standard early gospel book consisting of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with some accompanying lists and commentaries, all written in Latin in Italy during the sixth century.
After it arrived in England, English hands got to work on it. In the seventh century some minor erasures and alterations to the text were made (in Latin) for reasons that are obscure, but in the tenth century the monks of St Augustine’s Abbey, founded by the great man himself, started using blank
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Page Fifteen of Forgeries
pages in his gospel book to record documents of importance to their abbey. These additions, mainly in Anglo-Saxon, consist of eleven land charters and one list of relics held by the abbey. Land holdings and relics could be thought strange bedfellows but most medieval monastic foundations relied on two income streams: rents from land and offerings from pilgrims come to see the relics.
Before Becketomania took over in the thirteenth century, the abbey’s relics were the main draw in Canterbury, England's premier visitor destination. St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, and Canterbury Cathedral were something of a joint operation. Quite why the abbey thought it necessary to list their relics in the Gospels of St Augustine is baffling but the relics themselves provide an insight into Canterbury’s attitude to authenticity in general.
Most of them are routine – crumbs of the true cross, pieces of the Virgin Mary’s cloak, hair of St Cecilia – but very appropriately they also had a finger of Pope Gregory, presumably included in a later package from Rome than the parcel of books he sent over.
There was an arm of St Bartholomew but, not wishing to be unkind, apostles' arms are two a penny in the pilgrimage trade; the abbey's real pride and joy was the head of the beheaded (in 316 AD) St Blaise. St Blaise has always been one of the most popular of all the patron saints – sore throats, wild animals, the wool trade – so getting the head was a coup. Everybody else had to make do with the off-cuts. Come to think of it, the relics probably do merit their place in the Augustine Gospels.
Ironically the relationship between medieval pilgrims and their relics is mirrored by the relationship between modern historians and Anglo-Saxon land charters. They want to believe in them, they demand evidence as to why they should believe in them, they proceed on the basis they do believe in them ... but there are always those nagging doubts.
Which may not always be shared with the lay audience so here’s a fun quiz you can try at home. Study this passage from an accredited authority
| Over a thousand Anglo-Saxon charters are extant today, as a result of being maintained in the archives of religious houses. These preserved their charters so as to record their right to land. Some surviving charters are later copies |
Obviously the original charters are historical gold, being contemporary witness to what was actually going on in Anglo-Saxon England. The copies, less so. What you have to do is consider the phrase ‘some surviving charters’ in the above passage and estimate the kind of number the writer is trying to convey. Is it
A. half-a-dozen, a dozen, maybe a few more?
B. fifty or thereabouts?
C. could it be a hundred, even two hundred?
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