Incipit to Matthew

The story

The words that open the Gospel of Matthew — Liber generationis Jesu Christi filii David filii Abraham, "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" — swell into a page-dominating illuminated initial, the letters themselves becoming a field of interlace, spiral, and tiny interlocking birds. This is the incipit page proper, distinct from (and following) the cross-carpet page that precedes it: together the two form a one-two rhythm repeated at the opening of each Gospel throughout the manuscript. Later, a tenth-century Old English gloss was added directly between the Latin lines by the priest Aldred — meaning this single page carries, in one glance, both the oldest surviving translation of the Gospels into any form of English and one of the supreme achievements of Insular decorative art layered directly above it.