Today’s word of the day, thanks to Dictionary.com, is felonious. In a general sense, something that is felonious is wicked or villainous. According to Etymonline.com, the word first appears in English in the “mid-15c., ‘wicked, criminal’ (implied in feloniously), from felony + -ous. Replaced felonous (mid-14c.) by c. 1600. Felonly (c. 1300) was another variation” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=felonious).

Of course, the -ous is a “word-forming element making adjectives from nouns, meaning ‘having, full of, having to do with, doing, inclined to,’ from Old French -ous, -eux, from Latin -osus (compare -ose)” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/-ous). That leaves us with the word felony.

Etymonline says that felony entered the language “c. 1300, … from Old French felonie (12c.) ‘wickedness, evil, treachery, perfidy, crime, cruelty, sin,’ from Gallo-Roman *fellonia, from fellonem “evil-doer” (see felon).

“As a class of crime in common law, also from c. 1300, from Anglo-French. The exact definition changed over time and place, and even the distinction from misdemeanor or trespass is not always observed. In old use often a crime involving forfeiture of lands, goods, or a fee or a crime punishable by death” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=felony).

On this date In 1057, “the oldest [dated] surviving Russian manuscript is recorded completed by its scribe Deacon Grigory” (https://www.onthisday.com/events/may/12), called the Ostromir Gospels. The book is a lectionary, which means that it has designated readings for different days; in the case of the Ostromir Gospels, these days are feast days and Sundays rather than every day. It was commissioned by the posadnik or governor of Novgorod, “the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veliky_Novgorod). Novgorod was the second most important city in early Russia, known as the Kievan Rus’, the first East Slavic state, and between the 9^th and 14^th centuries, it was often ruled by the eldest son of the ruler in Kiev. But when the ruler had no son, he would appoint a posadnik (посадник “mayor”), such as Ostromir.

The work is generally credited to one Deacon Grigory because “In an lengthy codicil on the last page of the book the scribe, Deacon Grigory, records that he worked on it from 21 October 1056 to 12 May 1057” (https://nlr.ru/eng_old/exib/Gospel/ostr/index.html). But in its description of the page, the National Library of Russia says that “Written in a [sic] uncial script by three hands,” meaning three different people worked on the manuscript.

Nicholas Kotar is a student of Russian literature and a writer of fantasy based on Russian fairy tales, according to his About page (https://nicholaskotar.com/about-me/). As, I suppose, of scion of the Russian Orthodox tradition, he has a page devoted to the Ostromir Gospels. He says that “According to ancient tradition, any praise for the creation must always go to God. The focus must always be put on the words of the Gospels, not the person who transcribed them” (https://nicholaskotar.com/2017/01/23/interesting-facts-ostromir-gospels/). That may explain why there are three different scribes but only one name, and it is even then surprising that we have the one name.

Kotar also says that “The Ostromir Gospels was the main lectionary used in the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Great Novgorod. Ostromir himself intended the book ‘for the great consolation of the souls of the peasants.’ In other words, he commissioned it to be used in the main cathedral of his city.” So Ostromir commissioned the lectionary and then donated it to the cathedral for use. Today having someone make a copy of the Gospels and then donating that copy to a church would seem like no big deal, but the fact that it took the scribes seven months to complete the work tells us how significant a donation it was.

Kotar then says, “Interestingly, its calendar of saints’ days (mesiatseslov)  includes both Western and Eastern saints. After all, the manuscripts was [sic] commissioned not that long after the so-called ‘Great Schism’ between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, which, historically speaking, was not a notable political event. Its ramifications only became apparent later.” The Great Schism, which was years in the making, manifested in 1054 when the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other. You can read more about what led up to the Great Schism here: https://www.theopedia.com/great-schism.

“The Ostromir Gospel was held at St Sophia’s Cathedral in Novgorod, then at the Resurrection Church in the Moscow Kremlin. In 1720, Peter the Great ordered it to be taken to St. Petersburg. In 1805, it was discovered by Ja. Druzhinin, the private secretary Catherine II, among the late Empress’ belongings. In 1806 Emperor Alexander I gave orders for the Ostromir Gospel to be passed to the Manuscript Department of the Public Library where it has been kept to the present day” (https://nlr.ru/eng_old/exib/Gospel/ostr/descript.html). Back in 2005, the National Library of Russia had an exhibition of medieval manuscripts and artwork to celebrate the 950^th anniversary of the creation of the Ostromir Gospels, with the Gospels being the center of the exhibit. It has been an object of both veneration and study for almost 200 years.

The language of the Ostromir Gospels is Church Slavonic, the liturgical language of much of the Eastern Orthodox Church, except that there are peculiarities that are attributed to local variations in spelling and pronunciation.

One more interesting factoid: According to the wiki, “In 1932, the gem-studded book-cover induced a plumber to break into a case, remove and steal the binding, and hide the parchments behind a bookcase. Although the book was quickly recovered, no replacement binding has been provided to date” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostromir_Gospels). An organization called South and East Slavs: Diversity and Interaction of Written Cultures 11th‐20th c. (SESDiva) echoes the story of the “vandal plumber” (https://sesdiva.eu/en/virtual-rooms/medieval-written-heritage/item/128-ostromir-gospels-en); “After the mutilated manuscript was discovered, it was decided not to rebind it, and it was placed for preservation in an oak casket.” It’s interesting that the sources somehow know the thief was a plumber but nothing else. Nevertheless, we can conclude that the plumber’s action was felonious.

Igor I. Kaliganov concludes his article on the Ostromir Gospels with this: “The only thing that is not in doubt is the great importance of the Ostromir Gospel to the history of earliest writing among the Eastern and Southern Slavs. It is no coincidence that in 2011, UNESCO included the Ostromir Gospel in the list ‘Memory of the World’ — a register that usually includes the most significant documents of the world’s cultural heritage” (https://inslav.ru/sites/default/files/2020_kaligangl_ostromirovo.pdf).

Today’s image is from the UNESCO Memory of the World page (https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/ostromir-gospel-1056-1057).