Codex Guta-Sintram

The Guta Sintram Codex, dedication image : Sintram (left) and Guta (right) in adoration of Mary (fol.9r)

The Guta-Sintram- Codex is one of the most precious medieval manuscripts of Alsace , which because of their age, their extraordinary Romanesque book decoration count as cultural heritage of European importance and its content.

Origin, content, use

It was written around 1154 by the Augustinian choirwoman Guta von Schwarzenthann and the Augustinian canon Sintram von Marbach in the Marbach monasteries near Obermorschwihr and Schwarzenthann near Wintzfelden in Alsace.

The writing comes from the hand of Guta, while Sintram carried out the book decoration with full-page pictures and countless large and small initials . Together they completed the work in 1154 and consecrated it to the Virgin Mary .

This “ prayer book ” gathers many other texts in addition to prayers; it also served the ladies in the Schwarzenthann monastery as a reference work for daily life, for using the calendar, calculating the date of Easter, and for health and medicine . In the calendar it contains a list of saints ( martyrology ) and a necrology , that is a list of the deceased members and benefactors of the two monasteries (continued into the late Middle Ages) . In addition, one of the texts in the Codex is the Augustinian rule, according to which the two monasteries lived, together with the commentary on this rule by Hugo von St. Viktor . This order of life is supplemented by the site-specific rules of life of the monastery called Consuetudines . Copies of important documents with the privileges of the monastery can also be found.

The Codex Guta-Sintram was preserved over the centuries, in contrast to the other important Alsatian manuscript, the " Hortus Deliciarum " , which was burned in 1870 .

The Codex Guta-Sintram is now in the Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire in Strasbourg and bears the signature Ms 37 .

expenditure

• Béatrice Weis (ed.): Le "Codex Guta-Sintram". Manuscript 37 de la Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire de Strasbourg. 2 volumes, Éditions Facsimilés, Lucerne; Editions Coprur, Strasbourg, ISBN 3-85672-023-5 : Facsimile , 1982; Commentary Volume, 1983.

Further literature

• Elsanne Gilomen-Schenkel: The Guta Sintram Codex as evidence of a double monastery. In: Women - Monastery - Art. New research on the cultural history of the Middle Ages. Contributions to the International Colloquium from May 13th to 16th, 2005 on the occasion of the exhibition “Crown and Veil”. Edited by Jeffrey F. Hamburger . Brepols, Turnhout 2007, ISBN 978-2-503-52357-6 , pp. 395-402 (Contribution partly in German, partly in English, partly in French).
• The necrology of the Marbach monastery in the repertory "Historical Sources of the German Middle Ages". In: geschichtsquellen.de, accessed on June 27, 2016 (with references).

Web links

Commons : Guta-Sintram-Codex  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Facsimile publisher website. In: faksimile.de (on history and edition; with some images)
• La bibliothèque ancienne du Grand Séminaire. In: gdsemstrasbourg.blogspot.de, accessed on June 27, 2016 (on the storage location; French).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For the necrology of the Marbach monastery, see the section on further literature .