The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
This manuscript was created in southern Germany or northern Austria in the second half of the twelfth century. It is remarkable for having retained its original binding, made of stamped deerskin on wood. The text contains three exegetical works by Honorius Augustodunensis, a monastic scholar active in the first half of the twelfth century. The main text, an exposition of the Song of Songs, is accompanied by a striking series of images that depict the four “brides” who form the basic organizing principle of the interpretation. It is possible that Honorius himself devised these images to accompany his text (see Curschmann, “Imagined Exegesis,” 153f and Cohen, “Synagoga Conversa,” 321). Five other extant late twelfth-century manuscripts, all from the same geographical region, contain these texts, and the illustrations in each are remarkably uniform in their representation of the brides (see, e.g., Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 4550). This manuscript, written in the same region and around the same time as Honorius’s composition, offers a rare glimpse into what must have been a vibrant and complex culture of reading, writing, and illustration. Due to the fragile nature of the binding, the book could not be opened for imaging.
Written in a strong, even miniscule, very carefully executed; employs a number of abbreviations
Cataloger: Kauffman, Nicholas
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Holter, Kurt. "Initialen aus einer Lambacher Handschrift des 12. Jahrhunderts." Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 46-47 (1993-1994): pp. 255-265.
Haussher, Reiner, ed. Die Zeit der Staufer: Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur. Katalog der Ausstellung. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: Württembergisches Landesmuseum, 1977. pp. 565-566. no. 740.
Bibliotheca Medii Aevi Manuscripta: Pars Altera. Einhundert Handschriften des Mittelalters vom zehnten bis zum fünfzehnten Jahrhundert. 90. Munich: Jacques Rosenthal, 1928, pp. 48-50, no. 99.
Matter, E. Ann. The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
Hoffmann, Konrad. The Year 1200: A Centennial Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970, pp. 286-287, no. 280.
Evans, M. W. Medieval Drawings. London: Paul Hamlyn, 1969, p. 26, no. 37.
Schmidt-Künsemüller, Friedrich Adolf. Die Abendländischen Romanischen Blindstempeleinbände. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann Verlag, 1985, p. 164, no. 112.
Cohen, Jeremy. "Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and Christianity's 'Eschatological Jew.'" Speculum 79 (2004): pp. 309-340.
Curschmann, Michael. "Imagined Exegesis: Text and Picture in the Exegetical Works of Rupert of Deutz, Honorius Augustodunensis, and Gerhoch of Reichersberg." Traditio 44 (1988): pp. 145-169.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 821. no. 387. Also Vol. 2, p. 2292.
Davis, Lisa Fagin. The Gottschalk Antiphonary: Music and Liturgy in Twelfth-Century Lambach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 25.
Walters Art Gallery. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baltimore: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1949, pp. 12-13, no. 27.
Walters Art Gallery. The History of Bookbinding, 525-1950 A.D. Baltimore: The Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1957, p. 47, no. 109.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Southern Germany or northern Austria
Second half of the 12th century CE
book
Original Binding
Original twelfth-century binding, consisting of light to medium brown deerskin over wooden (beech) boards; leather stamped with eleven different nonfigural designs, several of which (e.g., a Greek meander) recall older, Mediterranean patterns; stamps arranged in panels; front and back panels not identical; like other German and Austrian bindings, far less elaborate in its decoration than contemporary bindings from France and England
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Created ca. 1150-1200 in southern Germany or northern Austria, perhaps Lambach or Salzburg
Formerly Lambach Ms. 94; old labels on spine
Jacques Rosenthal, Munich, sale of 1928, catalog 90, no. 144
Léon Gruel, Paris, probably acquired from Rosenthal sale in 1928; Gruel no. 1369, bookplate on front pastedown
Henry Walters, Baltimore, acquired from Gruel before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
Southern Germany or northern Austria
Second half of the 12th century CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Created ca. 1150-1200 in southern Germany or northern Austria, perhaps Lambach or Salzburg
Formerly Lambach Ms. 94; old labels on spine
Jacques Rosenthal, Munich, sale of 1928, catalog 90, no. 144
Léon Gruel, Paris, probably acquired from Rosenthal sale in 1928; Gruel no. 1369, bookplate on front pastedown
Henry Walters, Baltimore, acquired from Gruel before 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
This manuscript was created in southern Germany or northern Austria in the second half of the twelfth century. It is remarkable for having retained its original binding, made of stamped deerskin on wood. The text contains three exegetical works by Honorius Augustodunensis, a monastic scholar active in the first half of the twelfth century. The main text, an exposition of the Song of Songs, is accompanied by a striking series of images that depict the four “brides” who form the basic organizing principle of the interpretation. It is possible that Honorius himself devised these images to accompany his text (see Curschmann, “Imagined Exegesis,” 153f and Cohen, “Synagoga Conversa,” 321). Five other extant late twelfth-century manuscripts, all from the same geographical region, contain these texts, and the illustrations in each are remarkably uniform in their representation of the brides (see, e.g., Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 4550). This manuscript, written in the same region and around the same time as Honorius’s composition, offers a rare glimpse into what must have been a vibrant and complex culture of reading, writing, and illustration. Due to the fragile nature of the binding, the book could not be opened for imaging.
Written in a strong, even miniscule, very carefully executed; employs a number of abbreviations
Cataloger: Kauffman, Nicholas
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Holter, Kurt. "Initialen aus einer Lambacher Handschrift des 12. Jahrhunderts." Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 46-47 (1993-1994): pp. 255-265.
Haussher, Reiner, ed. Die Zeit der Staufer: Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur. Katalog der Ausstellung. Vol. 1. Stuttgart: Württembergisches Landesmuseum, 1977. pp. 565-566. no. 740.
Bibliotheca Medii Aevi Manuscripta: Pars Altera. Einhundert Handschriften des Mittelalters vom zehnten bis zum fünfzehnten Jahrhundert. 90. Munich: Jacques Rosenthal, 1928, pp. 48-50, no. 99.
Matter, E. Ann. The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.
Hoffmann, Konrad. The Year 1200: A Centennial Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970, pp. 286-287, no. 280.
Evans, M. W. Medieval Drawings. London: Paul Hamlyn, 1969, p. 26, no. 37.
Schmidt-Künsemüller, Friedrich Adolf. Die Abendländischen Romanischen Blindstempeleinbände. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann Verlag, 1985, p. 164, no. 112.
Cohen, Jeremy. "Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and Christianity's 'Eschatological Jew.'" Speculum 79 (2004): pp. 309-340.
Curschmann, Michael. "Imagined Exegesis: Text and Picture in the Exegetical Works of Rupert of Deutz, Honorius Augustodunensis, and Gerhoch of Reichersberg." Traditio 44 (1988): pp. 145-169.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 821. no. 387. Also Vol. 2, p. 2292.
Davis, Lisa Fagin. The Gottschalk Antiphonary: Music and Liturgy in Twelfth-Century Lambach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 25.
Walters Art Gallery. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baltimore: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1949, pp. 12-13, no. 27.
Walters Art Gallery. The History of Bookbinding, 525-1950 A.D. Baltimore: The Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery, 1957, p. 47, no. 109.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Clear All