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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Two Manuscripts from the Sainte-Chapelle

To mark the feast of St Louis IX, king of France (1214-70; r. 1226), here is a look at two very different manuscripts from the collection formerly housed at the Sainte-Chapelle, the great chapel which he built to house the relic of Our Lord’s Crown of Thorns. The first is a missale festivum, a missal which was made to be used only a very limited number of major feast days. (Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 8890) This was produced in the first years of the 16th century during the reign of King Louis XII (1498-1515), and the images very much reflect the French interest in Italian art and culture. (Louis XII and his father Charles VIII were both deeply embroiled in invasions of the various Italian states.) Note, however, that the lettering throughout is the more traditional fraktur font typically used in liturgical books of the period.

The frontispiece, with the royal arms of Louis XII; at the bottom, the words “Louis, king of the French” (with the word Francorum misspelled as Frencorum.)

The Mass of Christmas day. Following a convention of Italian painters, the stable in Bethlehem is shown as a ruined building, symbolizing the condition of the fallen world as it waits for renewal with the coming of the Savior. The floral backgrounds are typical of high quality French books of Hours.

Most of the pages look like this, with various kinds of decorative letters at the beginnings of the prayers, or, as here, at the beginning of the proper part of the preface of Christmas.

The Mass of Easter Sunday.

The dedication of the church.

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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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Repertorium Project Unearths 4,000 “Lost” Chants

A medieval chant manuscript in a digitized negative for scanning

In one of the better uses of technology (and EU funding), the Repertorium project is an effort to utilize “a set of AI-based tools to automate the digitalisation and cataloguing of historical mediaeval and classical music manuscripts.” In their own description:

REPERTORIUM is an ambitious European project with the primary goal of preserving and disseminating Europe’s historical musical heritage. Five Spanish organisations are participating in this initiative: the Higher Polytechnic School of Linares at the University of Jaén, the Complutense Institute of Musical Sciences, Complutense University, the University of Alicante, and the Hispanic Association for the Study of Gregorian Chant. This project, involving a total of 13 institutions and companies from eight countries, is creating a system based on open-source Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to facilitate the digitisation and cataloguing of historical musical archives.

They are laying claim to some remarkable fruits of this endeavor already:

Thanks to the system developed by the REPERTORIUM project, around 4,000 pieces of Gregorian chant have been recovered, pieces that had not been transcribed, studied, catalogued, or sung for over 1,000 years. These pieces have been digitised and catalogued, making them accessible to researchers and the general public through digital libraries.

There is not let a place online where the rediscovered chants may be viewed or downloaded, but their availability is part of the overall project, as can be found on page 24 of their vision document:

The database of mediaeval works being developed will find its home in DIAMM, the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music. Additionally, it will be indexed within the MMMO, also known as the Medieval Music Manuscripts Online database. DIAMM will inherit the metadata added via MMMO via API. These platforms will serve as the designated spaces for hosting and cataloguing the valuable collection of mediaeval musical works.

       The mediaeval data will be publicly accessible, allowing researchers and enthusiasts to explore and utilise it. The metadata associated with this data will include essential information linked to the Cantus ID. The Cantus ID will be the unique identifier for data access, enabling users to locate and retrieve the desired information effectively. Lastly, the extensive collection of around 2,000 hours of audio recordings, which captures the entire liturgical cycle of traditional Latin chants from the Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine (Task 2.3), will be allocated individual Cantus IDs as they are added to the Neumz app. This identification system guarantees that each recording is distinctly identified within the database.

On January 25, 2025, a concert was performed at the Cathedral of Salamanca utilizing at least some of these rediscovered chants:

To read more about the concert, visit this link.