Hatton Gospels is the name now given to a manuscript produced in the late 12th century or early 13th century. It contains a translation of the four gospels into the West Saxon dialect of Old English. It is a nearly complete gospel book, missing only a small part of the Gospel of Luke. It is now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as MS Hatton 38.[1] The fullest description of the manuscript is by Takako Kato, in Treharne, et al., eds., Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1020-1220.[2]
The manuscript has decorated initials. They are large, and appear alternately in red or blue with pen ornament of the other color. The large initials are twenty percent into the margins. The text is indented around the large initials. At the beginning of each gospel, the large initial is green.
The manuscript was probably produced at Canterbury. It contains paleographic evidence of such an origin. The scribes worked from another manuscript[3] (which is extant) that is itself a copy of a manuscript[4] that in turn is a translation of the Vulgate, the Latin Bible that was the standard Biblical text of Western Christianity.
The manuscript was produced contemporaneously by three scribes. All text is by one hand except for three folios: folio 119 recto which supplies Matthew 25:24 and marginal text on folios 13 verso and 70 verso.
The provenance of the manuscript for its first 400 years is unknown. The first sure knowledge of provenance is the signature of John Parker (d. 1618), on the verso of folio i. Parker was the son of Archbishop Matthew Parker. Next there is a signature of Christopher Hatton, 1st Baron Hatton (d. 1670), on the recto of folio ii. This manuscript was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1671 from Robert Scot, a London bookseller who had bought part of the library of Baron Hatton shortly after he died.
The manuscript is missing Luke 16:12 through 17:1. Folio 62 is a replacement for the missing text, and shows clear evidence of being supplied by Parker, who perhaps paid a scribe to produce it.
