Vita Annonis Minor

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The miniature on the flyleaf (fol.1v) of the Vita Annonis Minor shows the standing Saint Anno II in episcopal vestments with casula and pallium, surrounded by the foundations of the church: in his hands the collegiate churches of St. Maria ad Gradus (1057) and St. Georg (1067) in Cologne, at the feet the Benedictine abbeys Saalfeld in Thuringia (1063) and Grafschaft im Sauerland (1073), at the head the Benedictine abbey Siegburg (1064).

The Vita Annonis Minor is a biography of Saint Anno (Archbishop of Cologne), in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (BHL) the number 509. The only high medieval manuscript was created in the Siegburg Monastery around 1180. Today it is in the University and State Library Darmstadt under the signature Hs. 945.

History and whereabouts

Later it came into the possession of the Grafschaft monastery . The timing is controversial. Some authors assume it was 1186, others think it more likely that the manuscript did not come to Grafschaft until 1374, together with the remains of Saint Anno. The script was first mentioned in a document in the middle of the 17th century by the Cologne pastor and historian Aegidius Gelenius in a list of the manuscripts available in the county. After secularization and the transition of the Duchy of Westphalia to Hessen-Darmstadt , the Vita Annonis came to the court library of Ludwig X in Darmstadt in 1804 .

description

The manuscript is made of parchment and is 19 × 14 cm in size. It comprises 68 sheets. The back of the first sheet contains a portrait of St. Anno with the inscription Sanctus Anno episcopus coloniensis . The bishop is surrounded by five pictures of churches. These are probably the monasteries and monasteries founded or established by Anno: St. Maria ad Gradus in Cologne, St. Georg in Cologne, Grafschaft im Sauerland, Saalfeld an der Saale and Siegburg .

content

The Vita Annonis Minor is the younger of two extensive high mediaeval biographies of Annos. With their help, the canonization of Annos (died 1075) should be promoted, and it should be used as evidence in the canonical process. The so-called Bamberg supplement was added to the actual description, in which an attempt was made to refute arguments against the canonization, as well as a report written in 1381 on the transfer of relics to the county in 1374.

In the 15th century, further legends of saints were added to blank pages of the manuscript, namely by saints who were venerated in the Grafschaft monastery: Saint Felicitas and her sons , Vitus , Modestus and Crescentia .

literature

  • Géza Jászai (Ed.): Monastic Westphalia. Monasteries and monasteries 800–1800 . 5th improved edition. Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Münster 1982, ISBN 3-88789-054-X , p. 570f.
  • Mauritius Mittler: Vita Annonis Minor = The Younger Annovita . Latin-German. Respublica-Verlag, Siegburg, 1975, ISBN 3-87710-066-X ( Siegburger Studies 10).

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