Two conjoined leaves, each leaf 172 x 130 mm, each with single column of 16 lines of a high grade late gothic bookhand, with pronounced ornamental fishtailing to some ascenders, capitals touched in pale yellow wash, rubric in liquid gold, one-line initials in liquid gold on blue or burgundy grounds heightened with white penwork, line-fillers in same in foliate designs, one 2-line illuminated initial on blue and burgundy grounds, every text page with decorative borders of gold bars and acanthus and more realistic foliage, recto of first leaf with full border in same, enclosing a drollery creature with a stylised red human face and a bird's body, the same leaf with a 6-line miniature of Mark seated at a medieval reading desk with a small mobile lectern on an apparently moveable post, looking at an open book there while copying his Gospel into an open codex on his lap, as his attribute the lion looks on, all within a medieval room with green tiles on the floor and liquid gold scrolls on a blue back wall, trimmed at vertical edges (only affecting extremities of border decoration accompanying miniature), a few spots and stains, else good condition
"Much about the script, decoration and size of these leaves suggests that the parent manuscript was French. However, the spelling ""ewangelium"" with a 'w' and the scrolling liquid gold penstrokes highlighting the background of the initial argue strongly against this assumption. The border of north-eastern France and Flanders, crisscrossed by numerous trade routes, was a highway of artistic exchanges during the Middle Ages, and the parent manuscript of these leaves was most probably a product of this environment"
