An Experiment in Comparative Paratextology: Verses and Colophons in Greek and Armenian Gospel Books

Van Elverdinghe, Emmanuel [UCL]

A common thread across the different cultures that made up the medieval Christian world was the gradual enrichment of Gospel books over time by a number of paratextual and artistic features. Some features hint at a history of contacts and parallel evolutions, while others tend to be more specific to a given culture or milieu. This paper focuses on two paratextual genres – book epigrams and scribal colophons – naturally given to variation and creativity to explore the ways in which the Gospels were framed in Byzantine and Armenian book culture.