The Yuriev Gospel

The Yuriev Gospel is one of five dated Russian books of the 12th century. It was commissioned by Kiryak, hegumen of the princely Yuriev Monastery in Novgorod, and the monastery steward Savva, so the manuscript is dated to the years of Kiryak’s office, 1119–1128. It was probably the ceremonial altar Gospel for the Cathedral of St George, founded when Prince Mstislav the Great established the monastery.

The text was copied by Fyodor, nicknamed Ugrinets, “the Hungarian”: the nickname more likely points to ties with Hungary than to his origin. The scribe’s note mentions Novgorod, but the text has no Novgorod dialect features, and the museum’s specialists consider the book workshops of Kiev the likely place of its creation.

The book is called an “encyclopedia of Old Russian ornament”. On the reverse of the first leaf is a cinnabar frontispiece in the form of a church decorated with patterns and birds, and the text contains many large, non-repeating initials and headpieces. The manuscript is written in uncial script on 231 parchment leaves. Patriarch Nikon gave it to the New Jerusalem Monastery; in 1906 it went to the Synodal Library, and in 1920, together with the Synodal collection, to the Historical Museum.