• Brittany (probably)
• Loire Valley (?)
• Fleury (?)

Bradfer-Lawrence Deposit, BL 1

• Gospel-book

• Capitulare euangeliorum anni circuli, incomplete (1r-12v)
• Fragment of Jerome's letter Novum opus addressed to Pope Damasus (13r-v)
• Blank folio (14)
• Depiction of Christ or St Jerome, surrounded by the four Evangelists (14v)
• Canon tables (15r-21v)
• Depiction of Saint Matthew (22r)
• Preface to Matthew's Gospel (22v-23r)
• Gospel of Matthew (23v-62r)
• Preface to Mark's Gospel (62v-63r)
• Depiction of Saint Mark (63v)
• Gospel of Mark (64r-86v)
• Depiction of the Betrayal and Arrest of Christ (83v)
• Preface to Luke's Gospel (86v-88r)
• Depiction of Saint Luke (87r)
• Gospel of Luke (88v-127v)
• Depiction of the Crucifixion (125r)
• Preface to John's Gospel (127v-129r)
• Depiction of Saint John (128r)
• Capitula of John's Gospel (129r-v)
• Gospel of John, incomplete (130r-154v).

• Probably written in or near Brittany

This is the famous illuminated Gospel from the Bradfer-Lawrence collection, which must have been in England since c. AD 1000, as shown by Latin and Old English glosses certainly added in an Anglo-Saxon centre. The tentative attribution to the area of Dol—mentioned by Bischoff (Kat. §821), Deuffic (PMSB 296; ILLB In9, p. 21), and other scholars—appears to be based on a guess by Francis Wormald, who suggested that this MS may have been one of the Breton books offered to King Athelstan, who 'was in correspondence with Radbodno, Prior of St Samson's at Dol' (EBGB 12; cf. also OHLP 256). However, there does not seem to be much evidence to support this claim. The generic attribution to a Breton scriptorium has better chances of being correct, in view of the iconographical links with other Breton MSS identified and discussed by Wormald and Alexander throughout EBGB; nonetheless, as Wormald himself pointed out, we cannot exclude that this MS was instead written in a centre of the Loire Valley in contact with Brittany, the abbey of Fleury being of course the most obvious alternative possibility (EBGB 11; cf. also Nordenfalk 1978 and Simpson (McKee) 1999: 283–4 for further details). It should also be mentioned that O'Reilly (1994: 217–22) drew attention to some interesting analogies between the iconography of this MS and the Book of Kells, concluding that 'the very rare survival of pictures within the Gospel text in Kells and the Bradfer-Lawrence book testifies to two independent adaptations of a shared inheritance of an Early Christian tradition of luxury book production, rather than suggesting that the continental artist took the concept of textual illustration from a peculiarly insular tradition' (O'Reilly 1994: 222).

ASM 123 (§119); EBGB, passim; Fleuriot 1983: 104; Guillotel 1985: 29–30; ILLB In9; Kitzinger 2013b: 29, 35–6; L&S §964; Lapidge 1992: 100, n. 24; McGurk 1987: 166, n. 2, 175, n. 46; Nordenfalk 1978; OHLP 256; O'Reilly 1994: 217–22; PMSB 296 (§18); Simpson (McKee) 1999: 283–4; Smith 1992: 170.