The Golden Codex of Echternach - A Gospel Book of the 11th Century (Part 2)

Following up on the first part of this article about the Golden Codex of Echternach (Codex Aureus Epternacensis), here are the images related to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark; Luke and John will be in the third and final part. This manuscript, which was made at the abbey of Echternach circa 1030-50, has many things in common with other illuminated gospel books of the period, but also one rather unusual characteristic. The pictures of stories from the Gospel are not spread through the book, placed with the corresponding text, but grouped together in four sets of four pages each, one set before each Gospel, and arranged in bands. These images run in the chronological order of Our Lord’s life (roughly), and are taken from all four Gospels simultaneously, and are one of its most interesting features. The manuscript is now kept at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, and may be viewed in full at the following link: https://dlib.gnm.de/item/Hs156142.

The beginning of a prologue to the Gospel of Matthew.

The beginning of the list of its chapters, according to the system of the Eusebian canons (described in the previous article of this series.)

Each Gospel is also preceded by a pair of pages decorated with a reproduction of an extremely high quality textile of some sort.

The four pages of events of the life of Christ, before the text of the Gospel of Matthew itself. From top to bottom: the Annunciation and Visitation; the birth of Christ and the adoration of the shepherds; the Magi before King Herod.

Second page: the adoration of the Magi; the Magi are warned in a dream to return to their own country, and do so; the Presentation. Note that in the latter, the prophetess Anna is absent, and Simeon is not shown as an old man.

Third page: the dream of Joseph and the flight into Egypt; the Massacre of the Innocents; Christ in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4, 14  sqq.) and His baptism.

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The Golden Codex of Echternach - A Gospel Book of the 11th Century (Part 1)

The Golden Codex of Echternach (Codex Aureus Epternacensis) is an illuminated gospel book made at the abbey of Echternach circa 1030-50. (The abbey is now located at the extreme east of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, barely a third of a mile from the German border; for a sense of historical perspective, it was founded in 700, more than two-and-a-half centuries before the fort that eventually became the duchy.) The word “golden” in its name refers not just to the extremely high quality of the decorations and images, but also, and indeed primarily, to the fact that the text is written out in gold ink. It is now kept at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, and may be viewed at the following link in full: https://dlib.gnm.de/item/Hs156142

Usually, when I write about manuscripts of this sort, I give a selection of the images, but this one is so rich and beautiful that I am going to be much more comprehensive, and consequently, divide it into three posts; the first will cover all the prefatory materials, the second, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, and the third, Luke and John. The cover was made about 50 years before the codex for a different manuscript, and has an ivory image of the Crucifixion mounted into the center of it, of uncertain age and origin. It is now displayed separate from the manuscript.

The first image in the manuscript is of Christ in majesty, surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists, and the four major prophets. The style here is very characteristic of the Ottonian period, which turned away to a large degree from the Carolingian interest in naturalistic art; the figures are stylized and essentially weightless.

A dedicatory inscription held up on a plaque by two angels, with representations of the four cardinal virtues in the middle of each side of the border.

The title page for St Jerome’s first preface to the Gospels...

and the opening words, “Beato Papae Damaso Hieronymus” (Jerome to the blessed Pope Damasus).

A second preface commonly included in Gospel manuscripts, and falsely attributed to Jerome.

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The Vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist

Truly it is worthy and just, right and profitable to salvation, that we should give Thee thanks always and everywhere, o Lord, holy Father, almighty and everlasting God, holding the solemn fast, by which we anticipate the birth of blessed John the Baptist. Whose father, when he doubted the message of God’s word that he was to be born, was deprived of the use of his voice, and received it back when he was born; who grew silent when he did not believe the Angel’s promise, but at the birth of the glorious herald, gained his speech and became a prophet. And likewise his mother, being sterile and worn by old age, did not only become fruitful in childbearing, but was also filled with the Holy Spirit, so that she might receive the fruit of the Blessed Mary with a blessing with eager voice. And himself that was begotten, as the one who shows the way to heaven, urged that the way of the Lord be prepared, and being lately conceived and brought forth in the last age of his parents, proclaimed that the Redeemer of the human race would be born in the last times. (An ancient preface for the vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, first attested in the oldest surviving collection of Roman liturgical texts, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary.)

The Annunciation to Zachariah, 1300-10, by the Italian painter Deodato Orlandi, 1265-1330 ca. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, public domain or CC BY 3.0) 

VD: exhibentes sollemne jejunium, quo beati Johannis baptistae natalicia praevenimus. Cujus genitor et verbi Dei nuntium dubitans nasciturum vocis est privatus officio, et eodem recepit nascente sermonem; quique Angelo promittente dum non credit obmutuit, magnifici praeconis exortu et loquens factus est et profeta: materque pariter sterilis aevoque confecta non solum puerperio fecunda processit, sed etiam, quo beatae Mariae fructum sedula voce benedictione susciperet, spiritu divinitatis impleta est; ipseque progenitus, utpote viae caelestis adsertor, viam domino monuit praeparari, seraque in suprema parentum aetate concretus et editus, procreandum novissimis temporibus humani generis disseruit redemptorem.

The panel shown above is one of six images of the life of St John the Baptist, by a painter called Deodato Orlandi, who was active in the area of Pisa and Lucca, between 1284 and his death in roughly 1330; almost nothing is known of his life. The panels are now in the Gemäldegallerie in Berlin. As is the case with most Italian painters of his era and region, his work is heavily influenced by the style of Byzantine icons; this is especially noticeable in the gold striations in the robes, and the gold backgrounds. It will be his contemporary Giotto (1267-1337) whose style will create a strong impetus to move away from this to a more naturalistic style, in which the sense of space is created by, e.g., variations in the shades of color within the robes, and the use of blue backgrounds to represent the sky.

The Visitation

The Birth of the Baptist

The imposition of the name John.

John preaching to the crowds in the desert.

The Last Judgment; the classic medieval arrangement of this motif puts the Virgin Mary to Christ’s right (our left) as the greatest of all the Saints, and John the Baptist on the opposite side, as the second greatest, him of whom the Lord said, “Greater man hath not been born of woman.”

An Illuminated Psalter of the 13th Century

Here is another wonderful discovery from the website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, an illuminated psalter from the beginning of the 13th century. (Département des manuscrits. NAL 1392) The manuscript begins with 13 pages of images of the life of Christ, each within a circular medallion, two per page, enclosed in a rectangular decorative border; these cover all the major feasts of the Church year, starting with Christmas (the birth of Christ and the annunciation to the shepherds.) Each such image also has two prophets with banderoles in their hands between the circles, but nothing written on them to identify them specifically.

Epiphany: the Magi before Herod, and with the Madonna and Child. St Matthew does not say how long it was between the actual birth of Christ and the arrival of the Magi, and this image is based on a type common in early Christian art, in which Jesus is a toddler, not a newborn.

The Wedding at Cana and the Baptism of the Lord.

The Temptation of Christ and the Transfiguration, the Gospels of the first two Sundays of Lent.

The parable of the Good Samaritan, and Christ with Mary Magdalene in the house of Simon the Pharisee.

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An Illuminated Manuscript of St John’s Apocalypse

In honor of the feast of St John at the Latin Gate, here is a very beautiful illuminated manuscript which I stumbled across on the website of the Bibliothèque national de France (Département des Manuscrits, Néerlandais 3), made around the year 1400. It contains the book of the Apocalypse in a Flemish translation, with an elaborately decorated page before each chapter; these illustrations were done by two different anonymous artists.  

The first decorated page shows episodes from the apocryphal acts of St John: he preaches outside a church; the baptism of a follower named Drusiana; his trial before a Roman proconsul; his martyrdom by being thrown in a pot of boiling oil, the event which is commemorated in today’s feast; and his deportation to the Greek island of Patmos, where he receives the visions recorded in the Apocalypse.

At the lower left, St John, now on the island, begins writing at the angel’s instruction; the visions of chapter one of the Son of Man amid the seven candlesticks, and the seven churches with their respective angels standing in their doorways.

Chapter 2, the letters to the churches of Ephesus (upper left), Smyrna (lower left), Pergamon (upper right) and Thyatira (lower right). The figures near each church refer to the specific content of each letter, as for example the figure in red in the middle left, who represents the leader of the “Nicolaites”, whom Ephesus is praised for rejecting.

Chapter 3, the letters to Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicia.

Chapter 4, the vision of God the Father on His throne; in this and the following image, the figures of the twenty-four elders are merged into the blue background.

Chapter 5, the Lamb before the throne, with the symbolic animals that represent the four Evangelists.

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The First Bible of Charles the Bald (9th-Century)

On Sunday, I illustrated an excerpt from Durandus with an image taken from a decorated Bible produced in the mid-ninth century, commonly known as the First Bible of Charles the Bald, who received it as a gift from one Vivien, count of Tours; it is also known as the Vivian Bible. (In French, ‘Vivien’, from Latin ‘Vivianus’ or ‘Bibianus’, is a man’s name, the female equivalent being ‘Vivienne.’ There is a Second Bible named for Charles, which has almost no decoration in it.)  It was produced in 845-46 in the scriptorium of the abbey of St Martin in Tours; Count Vivien was also the lay abbot of this famous institution, in keeping with an abuse which was very common in that era. The bible was presented to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald (born 823; reigned 843-77), partly as a way of thanking him for certain privileges which he conferred upon the abbey, as is mentioned in the last of the three dedication poems included within it. Here are pictures of all of the illustrated folios, and a sample of the other decorative elements, which are not very many. This is actually the very first item in the catalog of Latin manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

This folio decorated with gold letters on a purple background, which would have been incredibly expensive to produce, is the first dedicatory poem.

Only a handful of pages are illustrated like this one found near the beginning of the codex, in a style which is deliberately modeled after images found in ancient Roman manuscripts. The upper band shows St Jerome leaving Rome for the Holy Land on the left; on the right, he is sitting down with a rabbi whom he is paying to teach him Hebrew. In the middle band, Jerome works on his great project of translating the Hebrew Bible into Latin, in the company of his scribes; note the presence of several women on the left, among whom would be St Paula and her daughter Eustochium, friends from Rome who helped him a great deal. On the bottom, Jerome hands out copies of his translations.

Medieval Bibles normally include a fair amount of prefatory material of various kinds; here, two sheets are dedicated to one of Jerome’s letters, written to a priest friend named Paulinus, about his translation work.

The beginning of Jerome’s own preface to the book of Genesis, with the sun, the moon, and the signs of the zodiac worked into the large letter P.

The chapter and verse system which we currently use for Bibles was not invented until the 13th century; here we see a list of the chapters of Genesis according to a different system which has 82, rather than the modern 50. Genesis is the only book of the Old Testament for which the chapters are listed within an elaborate framework like this.

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A 14th-Century Illuminated Psalter

Here is something I stumbled across recently from the website of the Bibliothèque national de France (Fr. 13091), a psalter made at the end of the 14th century (ca. 1386-1400) for Jean, the Duke of Berry (1340-1416), the third son of the French King Jean II. He is better known as the patron who commissioned one of the most richly and beautifully illuminated manuscripts of all time, the famous Très Riches Heures (very rich Hours).

The most notable thing about this manuscript is the amount of space it gives to a legend which was widely known in the Middle Ages and beyond, concerning the Apostles’ Creed. This legend has it that the Creed was composed by the Apostles as a common rule of Faith before they decided to scatter throughout the world to preach the Gospel, each of the twelve contributing one section. Here, each individual Apostle is preceded by a Prophet of the Old Testament, with a prophecy relevant to the section of the Creed which he composed. Some of these prophecies, such as the first one, are broad paraphrases of the Biblical text; where this is the case, I give no exactly citation. The texts are given below each seated figure in Latin and French. These images are placed in one group at the beginning of the book; the borders of the pages are all pretty much the same, so I have given the first two as an example, and then cropped and joined the rest.

St Peter: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”

King David: “The Lord said to me, Thou art my son.” (Psalm 2, 7) - St Andrew: “And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.”

Isaiah: “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son.” (7, 14) - St James the Greater: “Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.”

Zachariah: “They shall look upon me their God whom they have pierced.” (12, 10; the words in italics are not in the Bible) - St John: “Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.”

Hosea: “O death, I shall be thy death; I shall be thy sting, o hell, I shall be thy bite.” (13, 10) - St Thomas: “Descended into hell; on the third day He rose from the dead.”

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St Anthony the Abbot in the Isenheim Altarpiece

One of the most famous late medieval depictions of the Crucifixion is the central panel of the Isenheim altarpiece, painted by the German artist Matthias Grünewald (1470 ca. - 1528) between 1512-16. I call this work “late medieval” despite its date, because Grünewald completely ignores the elegant stylizations of his Italian Renaissance contemporaries, and shows us the reality of Our Lord’s sufferings very starkly indeed: the dislocation of His shoulders, the twisting of his Hands, the contortion of His face, the discoloration of His skin, etc. Marks of the flagellation cover His whole body, and the artist seems to have imagined that the scourging was done with briars, rather than a corded whip, leaving several pieces of wood still lodged in His flesh.

The altarpiece was commissioned for a monastery and hospital in Isenheim, a town about 57 miles to the south south-east of Strasbourg (now part of France, and generally spelled Issenheim). This institution belonged to an order of hospitalers founded in Vienne, France, at the end of the 11th century, and named after St Anthony the Abbot, whose feast is today. The order’s special duty was to care for those who suffered from the painful condition which in that era was called St Anthony’s fire, but is now called ergotism, since it results from long term ingestion of a fungus called ergot which was commonly found in rye and other cereals. As my colleague David Clayton has previously noted, Christ’s disfigurement here reflects those of the patients in the hospital, and is intended to encourage them to bear with their sufferings with patience and fortitude.

In the museum where it is now kept, the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, the altarpiece has been dismantled so that all of its sections can be seen. In its original placement in the monastery, this is how it was displayed most of the time.

St Anthony is depicted on the right wing, with a demon raging at him through the window next to his head, since Anthony spent a lot of time in combat with demonic forces. Notice how he is depicted standing on a pedestal, almost as if he were a colored statue.
 

On the opposite side is Saint Sebastian, who is generally invoked as a patron against contagious diseases such as the black plague. Ergotism is not contagious, but it can do horrible things to the skin, very much as the plague can.  

At the bottom is the Deposition and Burial of Christ; patients with advanced ergotism rarely recovered, and with the reality of impending death upon them, this image would, of course, encourage them to think of their own sufferings in union with Christ, leading to the Resurrection.

On major feast days, the panels of the front would be pulled back to reveal this second set of images.

On the left, the Annunciation, with the prophet Isaiah at the upper left; the words of his prophecy of the Virgin that shall conceive are written on the book which Mary is reading. (By the early 16th century, the Italian convention had long been to have the angel Gabriel kneel before the Virgin so that his head would lower than Mary’s, to indicate Her higher dignity.)

The central panels, which in the original arrangement could be pulled open to reveal the sculptures seen below, show the Virgin holding the infant Christ as they are serenaded by a group of angels with musical instruments. (In German, the left section bears the charming name of “Engelskonzert - the angelic concert.”) On the building above the angels are small images of Moses and the four major prophets.

To the right side, the Resurrection. Christ displays His wounds as a sign of hope to the patients in the hospital that their sufferings will also lead to their transfiguration in the final resurrection. (It may be a fair gauge of how little this style is to modern tastes that when this slide was shown in my college freshman art history class, many of the students laughed out loud, to the deep annoyance of our German art history teacher.)

The panels shown above could then be opened to show this configuration. It is generally assumed that this was done for the feast days of the Saints depicted here: St Anthony, his friend St Paul the First Hermit, St Augustine and St Jerome. There may well have been various other such occasions.

The two painted panels on the side show the assaults made upon Anthony by various demons, and his meeting with Paul. The former are described at length in St Athanasius’ biography of Anthony, and have given many artists an opportunity to indulge their strangest conceits, among them, Hieronymus Bosch and Salvador Dalí, but also the young Michelangelo, in his very first painting. The latter episode occupies the largest part of St Jerome’s biography of St Paul.

The sculptures in the center of the altarpiece are the work of an artist named Nicholas from the town of Hagenau, about 19 miles to the north of Strasbourg.

In the middle, St Anthony is depicted as an abbot with a crook. Pigs belonging to the Order of St Anthony were generally allowed to graze on common land, which is why they are often shown in his company. On the right is St Jerome, who wrote the biography of St Paul the First Hermit; on the left, with the donor kneeling in front of him, St Augustine, by whose rule the Order lived. 

At the bottom, a stylized representation of Christ with the Apostles at the Last Supper.