Echternach Gospels

The Echternach Gospels (Paris, Bib. N., MS. lat. 9389) were produced, presumably, at Lindisfarne Abbey in Northumbria around the year 690.^[1] This location was very significant for the production of Insular manuscripts, such as the Durham Gospels (ms. A.II.17) and the Lindisfarne Gospels (ms. Cotton Nero D. IV). The scribe of the Durham Gospels is believed to have created the Echternach Gospels as well.^[2] The Echternach Gospels are now in the collection of France's Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

This manuscript, and other such Hiberno-Saxon codices, were highly important instructional devices used in the Early Middle Ages primarily for conversion. The Echternach Gospels were probably taken by Willibrord, a Northumbrian missionary, to his newly founded Abbey of Echternach, now in Luxembourg, from which they are named.^[2] It is significant that this early Hiberno-Saxon manuscript should have been brought here because, with Willibrord as Abbot, the scriptoria at Echternach would then become the most influential centre for Hiberno-Saxon style manuscript production in continental Europe.^[3]