Concerning the Cotton Genesis and Other Illustrated Manuscripts of Genesis

Abstract

This article seeks to open up discussion of the Cotton Genesis by questioning its use as a paradigm for narrative illustration in the early period. The approach is not via the usual iconographic connections, but through consideration of the other essential characteristic of the manuscript: the isolation within a single volume of the text of Genesis alone. A survey of Byzantine and Western material--notably the Vienna Genesis, Bodl. Junius 11, the "Millstatt Genesis," Vienna 2721, and the "Egerton Genesis"--emphasizes the un-usual nature of the Cotton Genesis. No evidence is found that special Genesis manuscripts (with or without illustration) other than the Cotton Genesis and the Vienna Genesis were produced in East or West during the early medieval period, or later. Referring to the Western vernacular paraphrases as "Genesis manuscripts" is inaccurate and tendentious. Both the Cotton Genesis and the Vienna Genesis find a context in the special interest in Genesis characteristic of late antiquity. The Cotton manuscript is best considered a remarkable experiment with the possibilities of book illustration, not as normative. A new reconstruction of a single opening of the Cotton Genesis (Appendix) seeks to clarify the precise relationship between the surviving fragments and the original appearance of the book.