This gospel, believed to have been created in Polotsk (present-day Belarus) in the second half of the 13th century, is one of the oldest monuments of the Cyrillic Slavonic alphabet and one of the most ancient decorated Belarusian manuscripts. It contains two multicolor miniatures with gilding portraying the evangelists Luke (folio 42 verso) and Matthew (folio 123 verso).

The Apostle Lectionary, written on parchment in the second half of the 13th century, is one of the important linguistic sources delimiting the early (Preslav) from the later (Athonite) redaction of this liturgical book. The lectionary contains the portions of scripture, the lessons, to be read at divine service on particular days of the church calendar. This manuscript is remarkable for the completeness of the readings from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, and for its detailed menologion, a monthly calendar indicating the feast days of saints that was very important for mediaeval Bulgarian religious culture and history.

The Book of Boril or Boril Synodic (Bulgarian: Борилов синодик) is a medieval Bulgarian book from the beginning of the 13th century. It is an important source for the history of the Bulgarian Empire. The book was written in conjunction with the council of tsar Boril against the Bogomils in 1211. Later additions and editions were made, dated at the end of XIV c.

Buslaevskaya Psalter is a handwritten Psalter, created in the last quarter of the 15th century. It is distinguished by a high level of calligraphy and design. The manuscript includes 284 pages, written by five anonymous scribes, two of which are basic.

The Ostromir Gospels is the oldest dated East Slavic book. (Archeologists have dated the Novgorod Codex, a wax writing tablet with excerpts from the Psalms, discovered in 2000, to an earlier time range, but unlike the Ostromir Gospels it does not contain an explicit date.). The Ostromir Gospels was created by deacon Gregory for his patron, Posadnik Ostromir of Novgorod, in 1056 or 1057 (the year 6564, in his dating system), probably as a gift for a monastery.

The Enina Apostle or Enina Apostolos (scholarly abbreviation Enin) is an 11th-century Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic manuscript. Discovered in a poor condition in 1960 during restoration work in the central Bulgarian village of Enina, the partially preserved parchment manuscript is housed in the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia. It is the oldest Cyrillic manuscript currently held by any Bulgarian collection.

The Codex Suprasliensis is a 10th-century Cyrillic literary monument, the largest extant Old Church Slavonic canon manuscript and the oldest Slavic literary work in Poland. As of September 20, 2007, it is on UNESCO’s Memory of the World list. The codex, written at the end or even in the middle of the 10th century, contains a menaion for the month of March, intersecting with the movable cycle of Easter. It also contains 24 lives of saints, 23 homilies and one prayer, most of which were written by or are attributed to John Chrysostom. The 284-folio (or 285-folio, according to some sources) codex was “discovered” in 1823 by Canon Michał Bobrowski in the Uniate Basilian monastery in Supraśl.

This parchment manuscript of the Menaion for June–August with synaxarion (a collection of brief biographies of the saints) can be dated to the second half of the 13th century. It is important as the earliest known manuscript to include the service of Saint Ioakim Osogovski (Joachim of Osogovo), hermit and founder of the monastery known as Sarandapor. His memory, celebrated on August 16, was popular in Bulgaria and elsewhere in the Balkans during the Middle Ages and in the period of the Bulgarian National Revival of the 18th and 19th centuries. The manuscript most likely originated in the monastery of Saint Ioakim Osogovski-Sarandapor (located in the present-day Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). The beginning and the end of the codex are missing.

The Banitsa Gospel, written on parchment in Church Slavonic in the late 13th century, is one of the manuscripts testifying to the end of the anonymity of Bulgarian men of letters at around this time. The colophon indicates that the scribe who made the manuscript was the priest Ioann at Saint Nicholas Church in the village of Banitsa (presumably in the Vratsa region of present-day northwestern Bulgaria). The characteristic script and the ornamental illumination, elaborated in black, red, and yellow ink, reflect a local manuscript tradition. The menologion (calendar) includes the holidays of Bulgarian saints Petka Turnovska (Paraskeva of Turnovo), Ioann Rilski (Ivan of Rila), Tsar Peter, and Cyril and Methodius.

The Archangelsk Gospel is a lectionary in Old Church Slavonic dated to 1092. It is the fourth oldest Eastern Slavic manuscript. The book is stored in the collection of the Russian State Library. UNESCO added the Arkhangelsk Gospel to the international register Memory of the World Programme in 1997.

XII century. 109 sheet. Bulgarian semi-uncial letters. On the parchment. In the 4th share of the sheet. The first 8 notebooks and the end of the Gospel are lost.

Dobreyshovo gospel is a Bulgarian monument of the early 13th century. The manuscript is ink and illumination on a total of 175 parchment leaves. It is located at the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library, Bulgaria. The Gospel was written, according to a much later note added to it, before 1221, according to the scholars Wolf and Stresa. It is decorated with colorful ornamentation and images of the Evangelists Luke and John. The latter appears with a small kneeling figure, accompanied by the caption “pray to St. John”; the figure is believed to represent the priest Dobreysho (or Dobreisho), who probably paid for the parchment and either commissioned or made a copy of the book.

The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander, Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander, Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander, or Four Gospels of Ivan Alexander is an illuminated manuscript Gospel Book, written and illustrated in 1355–1356 for Tsar Ivan Alexander of the Second Bulgarian Empire. The manuscript is regarded as one of the most important manuscripts of medieval Bulgarian culture, and has been described as “the most celebrated work of art produced in Bulgaria before it fell to the Turks in 1393”.

Constantine Manasses Chronicle | Excerpts

Description

Constantine Manasses (Greek: Κωνσταντῖνος Μανασσῆς; c. 1130 – c. 1187) was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180). He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates (1081), sponsored by Irene Komnene, the emperor’s sister-in-law. It consists of about 7000 lines in political verse. It obtained great popularity and appeared in a free prose translation; it was also translated into Bulgarian and Roman Slavic in the 14th century.

Manasses also wrote the poetical romance Loves of Aristander and Callithea, also in political verse. It is only known from the fragments preserved in the rose-garden of Macarius Chrysocephalus (14th century). Manasses also wrote a short biography of Oppian, and some descriptive pieces (all except one unpublished) on artistic and other subjects.

Source: Wikipedia