Manuscript written on purple-dyed parchment. Almost always combined with the use of gold or silver script (see CHRYSOGRAPHY), such books were particularly prevalent in the Byzantine East in the 5th and 6th centuries AD and in the West from the 8th to the 11th centuries in Carolingian, Ottonian and (rarely) Insular works. The use of purple, especially the costly Tyrian purple, had been considered a symbol of social, economic or official status since the first half of the 14th century BC. By the 4th century AD the use of purple became increasingly associated with the person of the Roman emperor and his court. By the end of the 4th century and beginning of the 5th, purple was being used for sacred vessels and vestments, and in art Roman Imperial costume was transferred to representations of Christ, the Virgin and angels, as can be seen later in the mosaics (c. 545) of S Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. Thus the connotation of luxury and status had become transformed into a sacerdotal symbol of the Church and of Christ.
See the Abbreviations for further details.
