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The miraculously well-preserved St Cuthbert Gospel is Europe's oldest intact book.

The British Library acquired the 7th century manuscript for £9 million, the largest fundraising campaign in its history.

With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres, the St Cuthbert Gospel is also one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in the world.

The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.

The Gospel of John is the fourth of the four canonical gospels - it contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus.

Manuscripts containing the text of one gospel only are very rare.

The ancient and world-famous book takes its name from Saint Cuthbert, regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria.

The historic manuscript was placed in his coffin, probably a few years after his death in 687.

Although it was long regarded as Cuthbert's personal copy of the Gospel, to which there are early references, and so a relic of the saint, the book is now thought to date from shortly after Cuthbert's death.

It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at Durham Cathedral.

The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral.

It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks.

It is thought that after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors.

From 1979, it was on long-term loan from the British province of the Jesuit order to the British Library, catalogued as Loan 74.

On 14 July 2011, the British Library launched a fundraising campaign to buy the book for £9 million, and on 17 April 2012 announced that the purchase had been completed.

It describes the manuscript as "the earliest surviving intact European book and one of the world's most significant books".

The Cuthbert Gospel returned to Durham to feature in exhibitions in 2013 and 2014, and was in the British Library's Anglo-Saxon exhibition in 2018/19; it also spends periods "resting" off display.

The original tooled red goatskin binding on the book is the earliest surviving intact Western binding, and the virtually unique survivor of decorated insular leatherwork.

The decoration of the front cover includes colour, and the main motif is raised, which is unique among the few surviving Early Medieval bindings.

The panels of geometrical decoration with two-stranded interlace closely relate to Insular illuminated manuscripts, and can be compared to the carpet pages found in these.

Elements of the design also relate to Anglo-Saxon metalwork in the case of the general origin of interlace in manuscripts, and Coptic and other East Mediterranean designs.

The text is a very good and careful copy of the single Gospel of John from what has been called the "Italo-Northumbrian" family of texts.

Apart from enlarged and sometimes slightly elaborated initials opening the Ammonain Sections (the contemporary equivalent of the modern division into verses), and others in red at the start of chapters, the text has no illumination or decoration.

But Sir David Wilson, historian of Anglo-Saxon art, used it as his example in writing "some manuscripts are so beautifully written that illumination would seem only to spoil them".

Julian Brown wrote that "the capitular uncial of the Stonyhurst Gospel owes its beauty to simple design and perfect execution.

The decorative elements in the script never interfere with the basic structure of the letter-forms; they arise naturally from the slanted angle at which the pen was held".

The pages with the text have been ruled with a blind stylus or similar tool, leaving just an impression in the vellum.

It can be shown that this was done for each gathering with just two sets of lines, ruled on the outermost and innermost pages, requiring a very firm impression to carry the marks through to the sheets behind.

Interestingly, Four passages are marked in the margin, which correspond to those used as readings in Masses for the Dead in the Roman lectionary of the mid-7th century.

This seems to have been done hastily, as most left offset marks on the opposite pages from the book being closed before the ink was dry.

This seems to indicate that the book was used at least once as the gospel book for a Mass for the Dead, perhaps on the occasion of Cuthbert's elevation in 698.

Cuthbert grew up near the new Melrose Abbey, an offshoot from Lindisfarne, which is today in Scotland, but was then in Northumbria.

He had decided to become a monk after seeing a vision on the night in 651 that St Aidan, the founder of Lindisfarne, died, but seems to have seen some military service first.

He was quickly made guest-master at the new monastery at Ripon, soon after 655, but had to return with Eata to Melrose when Wilfrid was given the monastery instead.

About 662, he was made prior at Melrose, and around 665 went as prior to Lindisfarne.

In 684, he was made Bishop of Lindisfarne, but by late 686 he resigned and returned to his hermitage as he felt he was about to die, although he was probably still only in his early 50s.

After a few weeks of illness he died on the island on 20 March 687, and his body was carried back to Lindisfarne and buried there the same day.

If you’d like to learn more, or visit the book for yourself, it’s on display in British Museum, London.

It’s absolutely worth a look - a true hidden gem hidden almost thousands of other historic artefacts on show.

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