Codex aureus of St. Emmeram

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The elaborate binding of the Codex
Presentation of Charles the Bald with various allegorical and symbolic motifs, including written with gold ink text on purple color (page from the Codex aureus, folio 5 v )

The Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram is a Carolingian illuminated manuscript that was created around 870 in the court school of Charles the Bald .

history

The Codex Aureus was written by the monks Liuthard and Beringer. It is not known where the manuscript was created, as it is not known where the court school moved to after the destruction of the St. Martin monastery in 853; it was probably located in St. Denis near Paris .

According to sources from the 11th century, the manuscript was donated by Emperor Arnulf in 893 to the St. Emmeram monastery in Regensburg under Abbot Bishop Tuto . In the course of secularization it came to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich in 1811 (Clm 14000).

content

The gospel book contains 126 parchment sheets , its size is 420 × 330 mm. The texts of the four Gospels in Latin are written in golden uncials , each page is framed. Seven full-page miniatures show the four evangelists , a throne image of Charles the Bald , the Adoration of the Lamb and a Maiestas Domini . In addition, the book decoration consists of twelve canon tables , ten decorated initial and incipit pages and numerous initials.

cover

The codex is still in its original cover, which was described in detail in the 11th century in a miracle report about St. Emmeram by the monk Arnold von St. Emmeram in Regensburg: “One of these books (which are adorned with gold and gems ) is a handwriting, a yard long. Its craftsmanship, value and weight make it so that it is not easy to find a signature that is equivalent to it. On the recto side of this (i.e. on the front of the lid) there are hundreds of precious stones. Some of these stand out so much because of their size that four of them are each carried by four goblets. They are arranged in a cross shape and around each of these stones there are four more (pearls). The inner frame has 32 goblets that carry smaller stones. A frame on the outside corresponds to these, on which the larger stones are arranged in the form of a castle, the pearls in the form of bulwarks. ”(Free translation of the Latin text). The passage in the text with this description, today in the manuscript Clm 14870 of the Bavarian State Library in Munich, shows that there have been only marginal changes on the cover over the centuries. The number of the chalice-shaped gemstone and pearl settings still corresponds to the information from the 11th century.

Decision of the Imperial Court "Codex Aureus"

In a judgment of November 5, 1930, the First Civil Senate of the Reichsgericht dealt with the copyright law of quotation using the example of the removal of a picture (Charles the Bald on the throne) from a photographic facsimile of the Codex Aureus in a specialist book. The admissibility of the removal was denied, as it does not sufficiently serve to explain the content: "The connection between writing and image must be an internal one that supports the presentation and teaching purpose of the word text." Today the premise of the decision is that the underlying reproduction photograph protected is controversial.

gallery

  • Apocalypse, adoration of the Lamb

  • Portrait of the Abbot Ramwoldus

literature

  • Otto Karl Werckmeister : The cover of the Codex aureus from St. Emmeram: Ein Goldschmiedewerk d. 9th century . With 72 illustrations on 26 plates; Dissertation 1958. Baden-Baden, Strasbourg 1963.
  • Florentine Mütherich , Joachim E. Gaehde: Carolingian book painting . Prestel, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7913-0395-3 , pp. 66-67.
  • 400 years of the Bavarian State Library. Exhibition catalog of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich 1958
  • Catalog of the Latin manuscripts of the Bavarian State Library in Munich. The manuscripts from St. Emmeram in Regensburg. Vol. 1: Clm 14000-14130, newly described by Elisabeth Wunderle, Wiesbaden 1995
  • Thesaurus librorum. 425 years of the Bavarian State Library. Exhibition catalog of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Wiesbaden 1983
  • Magnificent bindings 870 - 1685. Treasures from the holdings of the Bavarian State Library. Exhibition catalog of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich 2001
  • Living book heritage. Secularization, mediatization and the Bavarian State Library. Exhibition catalog of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich 2003
  • Karl-Georg Pfändtner: The Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram (Clm 14000) . In: Karl-Georg Pfändtner, Carolin Schreiber: The DFG project "Development and digitization of magnificent bindings as independent art objects at the BSB Munich" - an interim report . In: Binding Research . Information sheet of the working group for the recording, indexing and preservation of historical book covers (AEB), issue 39 (2016). Berlin 2016, ISSN 1437-8167, pp. 6–25, here pp. 13–15.

Web links

Commons : Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Reichsgericht _ – _ Codex_aureus  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Georg Pfändtner: First art-historical findings of the binding project . In: Karl-Georg Pfändtner, Carolin Schreiber (Eds.): The DFG project "Development and digitization of magnificent bindings as independent art objects at the BSB Munich". An interim report . tape 39 . Berlin 2016, p. 14-15 .
  2. ↑ Pfändtner 2016, p. 14f.
  3. ↑ RGZ 130, 196