INTRODUCTION

The Thorney Gospels had a long working life and was subjected to a series of interventions that began shortly after its arrival in England in the first half of the tenth century. The most sustained and substantial of these was the liber vitae of Thorney Abbey. The purpose of the present section is to outline what can be perceived about the planning, execution and diachronistic development of this supplement. By setting out the principal phases of the work in approximate chronological order, this chapter justifies, and provides a context for, the bald listing and dating of the scribal stints presented within the edition itself.

While the latest entries to ThLV were made some 200 years after the document had been started, the main phase of activity lasted for about a century. It was the work of a large number of scribes. The circumstance that many of the hands are similar in aspect and close in date means that stratifying contributions on palaeographical grounds alone is highly problematic: codicological evidence and an appreciation of how the general approach of the scribes evolved are crucial to understanding the development of the document. Inevitably, much of the discussion that follows is concerned with minutiae; however, there is no other way to explore and explain the stratification of the text. Sub-headings, indicating the leaf or page that is under consideration at a given point, are designed to facilitate cross-reference both to the edition and to the relevant facsimile plate, consultation of which is essential for comprehension of the material.

One factor that contributes to the complexity of the situation must be acknowledged straight away – namely that, with the restraints imposed by the present binding, it is impossible to reach a definitive understanding of the structure of the first quire of the manuscript, that to which ThLV was added. Manifestly irregular, this first gathering was presumably reworked or augmented at some point; yet how exactly this was done is currently obscure. All that can be ascertained for certain is as follows.