Although the existence of 12 Armenian manuscripts in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies has been known to scholars for some time and partial listings of their contents have appeared, they have not as yet been the subject of any more detailed publication. The collection features only one gospelbook which, in consequence of losing its original binding, also lacks its final colophon which would inform us precisely on such matters as date, provenance and, where appropriate, patron.
From other data the copyist can be identified as Movsēs. Moreover, since he describes himself simply as scribe (grič‘), we may deduce that he occupied only one of the minor clerical orders. He refers to assistance he received in lining the manuscript, which probably explains the awkwardness of the openings of two of the gospels where, despite the page being arranged as usual for two columns of writing, the scribe has elected to ignore the divisions and treat it as one. Similarly, his reference to his teacher confirms the impression left by his employment of the diminutive grč‘ak at one point that he was still under instruction in the art at a monastery. This is further compatible with the comparatively low level of technical excellence exhibited by the illuminations. Paleographically, the codex might be assigned to the seventeenth century, a date supported by some of the later grammatical forms which appear in the surviving colophons.