Henry the Lion Gospel Book

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Heinrich the Lion Gospel Book, fol. 19r: Heinrich the lion and his wife Mathilde are brought to the enthroned Mary by St. Blaise and Aegidius; Heinrich offers Mary the Gospels. Next to Mary John the Baptist and St. Bartholomew
Heinrich the Lion Gospel Book, fol 171v: Coronation of Heinrich the Lion and Mathildes
Heinrich the Lion Gospels: Evangelist Mark

The Gospel Book of Henry the Lion and Mathilde of England is a gospel book intended by Duke Heinrich the Lion and his wife, Duchess Mathilde of England as a foundation for the Marien Altar of the Collegiate Church of St. Blaise in Braunschweig . It is considered the main work of Romanesque book illumination of the 12th century in northern Germany . The Gospel is now in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel (signature Cod. Guelf. 105 Noviss. 2 ° ).

Emergence

The Gospels were created in the Benedictine Abbey of Helmarshausen . The Braunschweig church was built in 1173, and its Marien Altar was consecrated in 1188. Some scholars believe that it was made around 1173–1175, but the majority assume that the work was not written until around 1188.

description

The manuscript comprises 226 sheets with 50 full-page miniatures , 17 canon tables , four pictures of the evangelists , nine decorative pages and 20 pictures. The entire text contains around 1,500 smaller, 77 larger and seven large, richly decorated initials . The dimensions are 34.2 cm high × 25.3 cm wide. The Gospels contain the four Gospels , mostly shortened in banners , and the salvation history of Christianity in miniatures. One of the creators of the work immortalized himself in the book at the beginning: liber labor est Herimanni (monk Hermann wrote this book).

History of manuscript

At an unknown date, but no later than 1593 the manuscript came into the possession of the Metropolitan Chapter of Prague St. Vitus Cathedral . In 1861 King George V of Hanover acquired the manuscript for ten thousand thalers from the Prague Metropolitan Chapter for the “Royal Welfenmuseum” founded by him and opened in 1862, in which the Welfenschatz , the reliquary of St. Blasius Church in Braunschweig, was exhibited. After his abdication in 1866, Georg V took the manuscript with him as a private property of the Guelphs to his exile in Gmunden in the Salzkammergut . There it was later kept at Cumberland Castle. After 1932/33 the storage location is unknown. It is certain that the book was in the possession of the Guelphs until 1945.

In August 1983 the manuscript was offered to the London auction house Sotheby’s by owners who are officially unknown to this day. The book was finally on December 6, 1983 to 32.5 million Deutschmark by Hermann Josef Abs sold for Germany. Until Bill Gates acquired a manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci (“ Codex Leicester ”), the Gospel was the most expensive book in the world.

The purchase price was paid by the German government , the federal states of Lower Saxony and Bavaria , the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and private donors (mainly from Braunschweig) as part of a joint effort to secure national cultural assets . The manuscript is therefore the joint property of the states of Lower Saxony and Bavaria, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Federal Republic of Germany.

storage

The Gospel Book is in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel under the signature Codex Guelf. 105 Noviss. 2 ° kept and for conservation reasons only issued every two years. The first exhibition of the original after the auction was in 1985 in Dankwarderode Castle (with police protection). Individual facsimile pages or the entire facsimile of this precious manuscript are shown in exhibitions at several locations (edition from 1989, including in Braunschweig Cathedral, in Helmarshausen / North Hesse, Herzberg / Harz).

Handwriting

  • Henry the Lion Gospel Book. Authorized full facsimile of the Codex Guelf. 105 Noviss. 2 ° the Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel and at the same time CLM 30055 of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. Parchment manuscript from the 12th century . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988.

literature

  • Martin Gosebruch : EST HERIMANNI LABORATORY. To the Gospel Book of Henry the Lion. In: Treatises of the Braunschweigische Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft. 35, 1983, pp. 135-161 ( digitized version ).
  • Hansgeorg Loebel (Red.), Karl Jordan , Dietrich Kötzsche , Werner Knopp : The Gospel Book of Heinrich the Lion. Ed .: Lower Saxony State Center for Political Education, Hanover, 1984
  • Horst Fuhrmann , Florentine Mütherich : The Gospel Book of Henry the Lion and the medieval image of the ruler . Prestel, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7913-0752-5 .
  • Frank Neidhart Steigerwald : The Gospel Book of Henry the Lion. His cycle of pictures and his use for the Marien Altar of the Brunswick Cathedral in 1188 . Burckhardthaus-Laetare-Verlag, Offenbach u. a. 1986, ISBN 978-3-7664-9213-5 .
  • Georg Schnath : History of ownership of the Helmarshausen Gospel Heinrichs the Lion (1188–1935) . In: Wolfenbütteler Contributions , Vol. 7 (1987), pp. 177-265.
  • Elisabeth Klemm : The Gospel Book of Heinrichs des Löwen , Insel Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 1988, ISBN 978-3-458-32821-6 .
  • Wolfenbütteler Cimelia. The Gospels of Henry the Lion in the Herzog August Library . VCH, Acta Humaniora, Weinheim 1989, ISBN 3-527-17819-8 .
  • Dietrich Kötzsche (Ed.): Evangeliarium Heinrici Leonis. The Gospel Book of Henry the Lion. Commentary on the facsimile. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 1989, ISBN 978-3-458-16045-8 .
  • Ursula Nilgen : Theological concept and image organization in the Gospels of Heinrich the Lion . In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 52, 1989, pp. 301–333.
  • Martin Gosebruch, Frank Neidhart Steigerwald (ed.): Helmarshausen and the Gospel Book of Heinrich the Lion. Report on a scientific symposium in Braunschweig and Helmarshausen from October 9 to October 11, 1985 . Goltze, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 978-3-88452-257-8 .
  • Bernd Schneidmüller , Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck : The Gospel Book of Henry the Lion and Mathildes of England. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2018, ISBN 978-3-534-26995-2 .
  • Ulrike Gleixner : Building tradition as a productive practice. How Mathilde of England got lost in the Gospel and how she could find her way back. In: Annette Kreutziger-Herr, Nina Noeske, Nicole K. Strohmann, Antje Tumat, Stefan Weiss (eds.): Paths. Festschrift for Susanne Rode-Breymann. Olms, Hildesheim u. a. 2018, ISBN 978-3-487-15677-4 , pp. 57-64.

Web links

Commons : Heinrichs des Löwen Gospels  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Insel Verlag (ed.): The Facsimile - Gospel Book of Heinrichs des Löwen - authorized edition in Insel Verlag . Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1988, p. 32.
  2. ↑ Owner's note on fol.73r.
  3. ↑ See the report of the then Lower Saxony Minister for Science and Art Johann-Tönjes Cassens on the auction of the manuscript: Rescue of two cultural treasures from the Guelph holdings .
  4. ↑ Bitter pride . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1983, pp. 194-195 ( online ).
  5. ↑ At the same time it bears the signature Clm 30055 of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich .
  6. ↑ Herzog August Bibliothek exhibits the Gospels of Heinrich the Lion , press release of the Herzog August Bibliothek dated May 20, 2010.
  7. ↑ http://www.braunschweig.de/kultur/veranstaltungen/index.html?mode=details&event_id=114799