Codex Eberhardi

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Dedication picture from the Codex Eberhardi, Marburg, Hessisches Staatsarchiv, K426, fol. 6r

The two-volume Codex Eberhardi (Marburg, Hessische Staatsarchiv , K425 and K426) is a cartular summary of the numerous goods and income of the Imperial Monastery of Fulda with 178 sheets (vol. 1) and 196 sheets (vol. 2) from the second half 12th century.

Origin and content

Between about 1150 and 1160 the monk (or converse ) Eberhard, who probably came from a Thuringian ministerial family, made copies of the deeds of ownership collected in the monastery from earlier times. According to the rank of the exhibitor, he divided the material into sections, usually introduced with their own preface: 1. privilegia apostolicorum (popes), 2. praecepta regum (emperors and kings), 3. tradiciones fidelium (certificates of tradition), 4. descriptiones (individual donations), 5. concambia (exchange documents), 6. reditus prediorum (list of income, land records), 7. familiae (servants and rear residents), 8. monasteria (secondary monasteries), 9. beneficia (fiefdoms), 10. oblationes fratrum (soul devices), 11. bona infirmorum (hospital goods), 12. gesta Marcvardi (biography Abbot Markwards)

Abbot Markward I (1150-65), who found the Benedictine abbey in the middle of the 12th century in an economically desolate state , commissioned the creation of a copy book of archived documents and registers . The suggestion and the necessary parchment came from the Cellerar Duto.

As a copyist, he set himself the goal of regaining as much lost monastery property as possible and also resorted to falsifications and forgeries . The legal titles created in this way were intended to prove Fulda ownership rights to goods, some of which had never been bequeathed to the monastery founded in 744. The attempt to improve the economic situation by recording properties and claiming them from fiefdoms or ministerials was partially successful. In addition to the original documents still available, Eberhard's sources were the Carolingian cartulars from the time of Abbot Hrabanus Maurus , of which only one of the original eight volumes still exists today (Marburg, Hessisches Staatsarchiv, K424).

reception

The judgment of research has evolved from a radical criticism of the 19th century, which did not stop at the basis of moral, character and even legal categories, to a more differentiated approach that took into account the circumstances of the time and Eberhard's intentions. While the sharp criticism of the diplomats still echoes with Thomas Vogtherr, who describes the Codex Eberhardi as "one of the largest forgery campaigns that ever took place in a single workshop in the Middle Ages." (Vogtherr, p. 47), Edmund E. Stengel already judged, the editor of the Fulda documents up to 802, much more differentiated: "The Codex Eberhardi is by far the most comprehensive form of transmission of the older Fulda documents" (Stengel, XXX) and "This collection has always been the convenient reference work in the Fulda Abbey itself and stayed for centuries in which all his legal titles were believed to be safe, as in Abraham's bosom ”(Stengel, XXX). Large parts of the collection are absolutely free of serious interpolations and forgeries. The forgeries that the monk Eberhard has assumed in previous research have been revised so that the forgeries are primarily related to the imperial and royal documents as well as those of the popes. Meyer zu Ermgassen also states that the copyist "hardly reproduced any of the documents he used faithfully, quite a few invented [...] himself," judges Eberhard's forgeries following Otto Roller, but "as purely formal, as regards content rather than insignificant. ”An example of today's consideration of Eberhard is also offered by Stefan Alles's dissertation. The monk or converse Eberhard saw his forgeries from a different point of view than modern lawyers, historians and diplomats: "What this monk did was not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the convention to which he belonged." (Vogtherr, p. 49 ). Heinrich Meyer zu Ermgassen, who was the first to systematically examine Eberhard's self-testimonies, sums up: “After Eberhard's numerous statements, his codex is not meant by him as a copy in the strict sense: not primarily as an internal reference work, but rather based on external impact. He subordinated his material to his agitational purpose. Diplomatic accuracy did not matter to him. His work is a trend font. As in other comparable manuscripts, it is [...] about the ›correction‹ of a supposedly historical mistake, about the restoration of an original condition. ”The tapes of the dedication picture support this interpretation. They identify the foundations as the property of Christ, who in turn acknowledges having been nourished by them. The two house saints and patrons, Bonifatius and Sturmi , are presented in the surrounding frame inscription : Fulda per egregios hos est suffulta patronos. Ecce Bonifatius sacer et Sturmis pater almus. (Fulda was supported by this excellent patron: See, St. Boniface and the loving father Sturmi!). Their work is described in the verse of the scroll that separates the heavenly from the earthly sphere: Hi domino celi iungunt nos ore fideli. (These unite us with the ruler of heaven by their faithful word.). The writing tape from the initiator of the foundation of the Bloster, the holy Archbishop Bonifatius, on the right-hand ribbon running through Christ bears the inscription: Accipe dona deus nobis collata rogamus. (Accept the gifts, God, that have been given to us.). The scroll leading from the left of Christ to the founder abbot, the Holy Sturmi, bears the inscription: Me lactaverunt, sua qui vobis tribuerunt. (They gave me milk to drink, which their belongings assigned to you.) The tape accompanying Eberhard lying at his feet in humble Proskynesis bears the inscription: Fratris Eberhardi miserere, pater Bonifaci. (Have mercy on brother Eberhard, Boniface.).

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

An abundance of detailed information in the manuscript allows historians to assess the beginnings of settlements and places up to the time of the Frankish kings .

Book decorations

Since the Codex Eberhardi served not only practical but also representative purposes and was not a copy in the usual sense, but aimed at external impact, it was furnished with extremely rich and high-quality book decorations, including the dedication image for the second volume (fol.6r) shown here, Numerous historicized figure initials with depictions of popes , kings and emperors as well as inhabited initials with people, animals, mythical creatures and monsters, floral tendril initials, drolery initials, lombards, calligraphically designed decorative text pages, arcades as architectural frames and monograms . In this regard, no other handwriting with comparable content can be placed alongside him.

literature

  • Pistorius Niddanus : Rerum Germanicarum veteres jam primum publicati scriptores… , (first printing of all existing documents and diplomas), Frankfurt 1583/1607.
  • Johann Friedrich Schannat : Corpus traditionum Fuldensium ... , Leipzig 1724.
  • Ernst Friedrich Johann Dronke, Codex diplomaticus Fuldensis . Fischer, Kassel 1850.
  • Edmund Ernst Stengel : Document book of the Fulda Monastery , Marburg 1953/1958.
  • Heinrich Meyer zu Ermgassen (editor): The Codex Eberhardi of the Fulda Monastery , Volume 1 (1995), Volume 2 (1996), Volume 3 (2007) and Volume 4: The book decorations of the Codex Eberhardi (2009), Marburg. ISBN 3770810449 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-3-7708-1059-8 (Vol. 2), ISBN 978-3-7708-1313-1 (Vol. 3), ISBN 978-3-86354-137-8 (Vol. 4)
  • Thomas Vogtherr in: Fulda in the Old Kingdom , ed. by Berthold Jäger (publications of the Fuldaer Geschichtsverein 59), Fulda 1996, ISBN 978-3-7900-0275-1
  • Roman-like reappraisal of Eberhard's life: Günter Ruch : Gottes Fälscher , Munich: Knaur-Taschenbuch-Verl., 2009
  • Enno Bünz, Monastic manor in Hessen: Economic conditions of monastic life in the early and high Middle Ages using the example of the Benedictine Abbey of Fulda, in: Sebastian Zwies (ed.), The Fulda Monastery and its documents. Modern archive indexing and its perspectives for historical research . Conference to conclude the project "Online indexing of the inventory of documents of the Reichsabtei Fulda (751 - 837)" (Fuldaer Studien 19). Herder, Freiburg et al. 2014, pp. 185-219. ISBN 978-3-451-30695-2

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the history of research and the judgments of diplomats cf. Heinrich Meyer zu Ermgassen, Der Buchschmuck des Codex Eberhardi (see literature below) pp. 26–28. "He played a number of bad pranks on the dipolomatics," criticized Karl Foltz, Eberhard von Fulda and the monastery's imperial charter, in: Forschungsungen zur deutschen Geschichte 18, 1878, pp. 491–515, here p. 496; Eduard Heydenreich criticizes his “carelessness” and “arbitrariness”, the oldest Fulda cartular in the Marburg State Archives. The most extensive monument in Anglo-Saxon script on German soil. A contribution to palaeography and diplomacy, as well as to the history of the Fulda Monastery. Teubner, Leipzig 1899, p. 13; P. 16f .; his "unreliability" Michael Tangl, The Fuldaer Privilegienfrage, in: Ders., The Middle Ages in Source Studies and Diplomatics. Selected writings , Vol. 1. Akademieverlag, Berlin 1966, pp. 489-539, here p. 519 (original 1899), cf. ibid. p. 506, note 78; P. 523f .; Ernst Bernheim, textbook on historical method and the philosophy of history, speaks of "quirky character formation". With evidence of the most important sources and aids for studying history. Duncker and Humblot, 8th ed. Leipzig 1908, p. 521; "Lack of conscientiousness and thoroughness" are "almost the least thing you can blame him for," says Johannes Bauermann, Kleine diplomatische Funde 1. A document from Veßra (1132/33) and the Codex Eberhardi, in: Saxony and Anhalt. Yearbook of the Historical Commission for the Province of Saxony and for Anhalt 7 , 1931, pp. 474–482, here p. 482, note 33.
  2. ↑ "Falsification and Fraud" stated Harry Breslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre für Deutschland und Italien, Vol. 1. De Gruyter, 2nd ed. 1902, p. 97.
  3. ^ Otto K. Roller, Eberhard von Fulda and his documents, Diss. Marburg 1900 ( Journal of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies New Series, Supplement 13, 1901) pp. 75f.
  4. ↑ Meyer to Ermgassen: Codex Eberhardi. Vol. 1, p. IXf.
  5. ^ Stefan Alles, Lampert von Hersfeld and Eberhard von Fulda. Two learned monks as critical representatives of their neighboring imperial abbeys in the upheavals of the 11th and 12th centuries. A comparative appraisal of the environment, work and importance from a regional historical perspective. Marburg 2011, here especially pp. 128–209.
  6. ↑ the Latin text is edited by Heinrich Meyer zu Ermgassen, Der Codex Eberhardi (see literature below) Vol. 2, p. 9, the translation is from me, Brun Candidus.
  7. ↑ See Heinrich Meyer zu Ermgassen, Der Buchschmuck des Codex Eberhardi (see below literature) pp. 24–26, the other, Der Codex Eberhardi (see below literature) Vol. 1, pp. XII-XIV.
  8. ↑ See Heinrich Meyer zu Ermgassen, Der Buchschmuck des Codex Eberhardi (see literature below) pp. 33–100.

Web links

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