March 2, 2015 • 30 mins
This massive medieval manuscript, nicknamed "The Devil's Bible," contains multiple lengthy entries, a few shorter pieces, and several illustrations. Written by a single scribe, the Codex Gigas is often sensationalized in stories about its creation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from hot
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and hey Tracy.
We have not done a historical manuscript episode in a while.
I know we haven't, uh. And the Voyage Manuscript episode
(00:23):
that we did was very, very popular, but part of
that is because it is mysterious and people are constantly
trying to decode and crack it. The one that we're
talking about today comes with a little bit of mystery,
but I would say less than the Voyage Manuscript. But
unlike the Voyage Manuscript, we do know what this one says. Uh.
And this episode is actually one that I started a
while back, and then I just got derailed and wanted
(00:45):
to work on something else for the podcast instead, and
so I put it in a file that's like things
that I have started but not finished, and then recently
our listener Chatelaine wrote in to suggest it, so I
felt like it was time to dig it out of
cold storage and give it another look. So we're going
to talk about uh, what's called the Codex Gigas, and
you'll hear different pronunciations Tracy and I kind of combed
(01:05):
the the internet looking for various pronunciations to find the
right one, and we got so many different ones that
it actually became downright comical, as we would sit here
and go, no, look, this dude says it this way.
So we're just gonna go with gigas. We'll leave it there.
So the name, uh codex g Gas gives do him
about one of the notable features of this book. It
means giant book, because this thing is truly enormous. Yeah,
(01:29):
it is eighty nine by forty nine centimeters. Uh so
for an alternate measurement, that's about thirty five by nineteen inches,
so about a yard long. It contains three parchment leaves
which may be calf skin, plus two paper and leaves. Uh.
It's sent to weigh about as much as an average human.
I've seen numbers like one eight so somewhere in there.
(01:52):
The pages are arranged in two columns. There are a
hundred and six lines in each column. There are numbers
on the page, but the probably were added later. On
the same hand that wrote out the foliation also included
the date of fifteen sixty one, which is way after
the book was written, and the codex is bound in
(02:13):
leather covered wood. The manuscript was rebound in eight nineteen,
and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but
based on the notes at the time, the current wooden
boards that are used in its binding are the originals.
Notations around that rebinding suggests that the cover board had
a split down the center which had to be repaired,
and that may have been the impetus to have it
(02:34):
rebound at that point. There are also metal pieces at
the corners of the cover and some of these appear
to be replacements of earlier adornments. And there are several
long sections of text in the Codex Gigus. The first
is the Old Testament, The next is the Antiquities, written
by Flavius Josephus of the first century. The third text,
(02:54):
which is also by Flavius Josephus, is the Jewish War.
Next is an Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, which was
written by Saint Isidore of Sevilla of Spain in the
sixth century, and after the encyclopedia is a section on
medical information, and then there is the New Testament. The
texts of the Old and New Testaments are what's known
(03:16):
as the Vulgate version, with two notable exceptions. The acts
of the apostles in the Book of Revelation are both
from an earlier biblical translation, the Vetis Latina. And the
last long section of the book is the Chronicle of Bohemia,
which is the first history of Bohemia that we have
on record, and this was written by Cosmas of Prague,
who lived from ten forty five to eleven twenty five approximately.
(03:40):
Because this is the first Bohemian history, it's a really
significant work. In addition to all of that other stuff,
there are several short pieces in the book as well.
One is written on penitence, one on exercising demons, and
there's a calendar that lists saints and famed Bohemians commemorated
on various Saints days. There was also at some point
(04:03):
a guide to monastic life in this big tone, called
the Rule of St. Benedict, but this portion has been removed.
The leaves have actually been cut out of the codex.
It's normal for medieval manuscripts to have illustrations all through,
and this is also two of the codex. One is
a simple portrait of the writer Josephus. There are also
(04:23):
pictures of Heaven and Earth contained within circular frames. At
the beginning of the Book of Genesis. There are fifty
seven initial letters in the text of the Codex that
are colorful and feature these vines spindling off of them,
and they appear at the beginning of each book of
the Bible, and also at the start of the Chronicle
of Bohemia, which was written, as we said, by Cosmos.
(04:44):
And this is important to note because it indicates the
pride and importance placed on this history of Bohemia. The
vines that are stylistically consistent throughout the illustrated letters appear
to be a canthus, and they are depicted as growing
in spirals round and in and out from the letters themselves.
On some of the letters, there are tiny animals, such
(05:05):
as birds that can be seen tucked in around the vines.
They're pretty these are pretty charming. The eye that opens
the Book of Esther features a squirrel on top of
it and it's eating a nut. It's so cute. I
almost feel slightly guilty referring to this, you know, important
medieval tome by going it's so cute. But the squirrels
(05:25):
very cute. The animals are darling. Yeah, there are a
lot of like medieval illuminations that that lend to themselves
to either cute or comical interpretations. There's some great blog
posts and tumblers and things floating around about various little charming, cute,
adorable segments of greater medieval illuminations. Yeah, all of these
(05:49):
little details are just they're super charming. Uh. One of
only two full page pictures in the book is a
depiction of Heavenly Jerusalem, and this features two tall towers
on either side of the page and a foundation wall
at their bases which appears to be made of stone,
And there are multiple smaller structures that are stacked in
(06:09):
this stylistic way to represent a dense city. And opposite
this illustration is what's perhaps become the most famous attribute
of the Codex Gigus, other than its massive size, which
is an illustration of the Devil. The portrait of the
devil is framed in exactly the same manner as the
image of Heavenly Jerusalem. Similar towers to the ones in
(06:30):
the Jerusalem painting are featured on either side of this
full body painting of the Devil. The devil is depicted
in what looks like a jumping position with his bent
legs tucked up partially underneath him. He has a greenish
blue face and spectacular red and yellow talents coming out
from his fingers and toes. And this image of the
(06:50):
devil is so eye catching that it has actually earned
the book the nickname the Devil's Bible. And as you
may suspect that this moniker has led to some sensation
analism around it. Yeah, when we were when we were
doing our looking into how to say the name, I
saw possibly the most sensationalized historical TV special I've ever seen,
and I'm not even gonna say what network it was from.
(07:12):
There have been a few, so it's not there's not
one one guilty party on that one. The vast majority
of the codex was written in a medieval script called
the Carolingian minuscule. The style came into being in the
ninth century, and it was popular through the twelfth century.
Then it kind of fell out of favor until it
was revived in the fifteenth century. And one of the
(07:35):
more fascinating aspects of this book is that researchers who
have studied it for many, many years have come to
the conclusion that one single scribe wrote an embellished the
entire book. And it appears that the person who wrote
out this text was very well trained, but had developed
a pretty unique style that makes the work distinctive. Uh.
And some of the pieces that I read, they've said, like,
(07:56):
we would know if we saw this work, this person's
work anywhere else. However, this is the only manuscript that's
known to have been the work of this person. This
this is pretty mysterious. Really, we have no evidence at
all of the works on which this scribe would have trained.
It's estimated that a medieval scribe would average roughly a
(08:16):
hundred lines a day, and so, factoring in the careful
ruling on each text page and the text itself, the
decoration pieces, all of that, it's um it's estimated that
this work would have taken between ten and twenty years
to complete. At an absolute minimum. Longer estimates suggests that
it could have been the work of a lifetime. Yeah,
(08:39):
you'll see different sort of breakdowns of how people estimate
how this would go. And they'll say, like you'll see
five years sometimes, but usually that is qualified as just
to write the text out. That doesn't include the marking
the pages with the ruling first and doing all the
other things and kind of designing it and pre planning
(09:00):
how it was all going to be laid out, because
this isn't haphazard at all. It really is a very
well designed and laid out book. Uh. The five years
is usually just for the writing, and then they add
in all the illustrations, and that's how they usually get.
Somewhere between ten and twenty years is the minimum amount.
Because of this single scribe fact and the nickname of
the Devil's Bible. As I said, there have been some
(09:21):
interesting theories around the codex and its creation, and there
have been some variations. One of the most popular involves
the idea that a monk sold his soul to the
devil to gain the time needed to complete the work.
But that's kind of a newer variation. Uh. One version
of that theme hints at a disgraced monk that's locked
away to do the work as a sort of penance.
(09:43):
Like he says he will do it in one night,
and according to this legend, he did so in a
single night, but he required the assistance of the devil
himself to do it. Uh, And so he kind of
made a deal with the devil that way. So that
he could achieve this ridiculously lofty goal he had set
and claimed he would achieve. That version actually traces all
the way back to medieval times. That's not a modern
(10:04):
invention around this book. That story has been going on
for hundreds of years, so very early in the book's life,
it had some crazy, uh drama attached to it. Yeah. Well,
it's it's a little odd to me that there is
this this drama because there were like some really ourd
expressions of religious piety in the in the medieval period,
(10:27):
like this is when there would be people who literally
walled themselves up into a tiny, tiny cloister in the
walls of a church. And so spending ten to twenty
years minimum of your life in a pious writing of
of a text does not strike me as that odd
in that context. So it's funny to me that there
(10:48):
are so many descriptions of what might have what might
have happened. Yeah, And I think a lot of that
kind of just comes from the the portrait of the
devil and sort of the largeness. I think it was
just sort of a really unique book from the get go,
and so people naturally kind of built up stories around it. Yeah,
One of these weird stories is that the manuscript is
(11:09):
written on the hide of a hundred and sixty donkeys,
and that they're Satanic images throughout. But this, similar to
the one about selling yourself to the devil, also pretty sensationalized. Yeah,
there are Again I didn't use it as one of
my sources. I watched a little bit of another kind
(11:29):
of very sensational documentary where they were saying, never in
any other Bible have there been images of demons and
talk of this sort of exorcism. And I'm like, it's
all one big religious Texas sort of you know, the
sort of exorcism stuff does not seem out of place
when you considered what this was, So it's kind of
(11:51):
you know, again, those are sensationalized. But before we get
to our next section, which is going to talk about
sort of the journey that this codex has been on
throughout its eight hundred year or so life, Uh, do
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com slash history. So uh to talk about sort of
the history of where this book has been and where
(14:19):
this manuscript has traveled. Uh. The Codex Gigus has been
dated as likely being written between twelve o four and
twelve thirty, And this dating range is based on a
couple of pieces of information. So, first is the appearance
of the Bohemian st Procopius, and Procopius appears on the
calendar segment of the text, and he wasn't canonized until
(14:41):
twelve oh four, so we know that's the earliest possible
date that this could have been started. On the other
end of the timeline is the death of Bishop Andreas
of Prague, and that's mentioned in the codex as well,
and UH he died in twelve three. The death of
Bohemian king Ottakar the first is not listed. He died
(15:01):
in twelve thirty. So it's believed that the manuscript was
finished sometime between those two notable deaths, and the Codex
was written in Bohemia, as evidenced by the fact that
the Chronicle of Bohemian and the History of It uh
and the calendar's listing of notable check figures. So those
are the clues that that was the origin point. We've
(15:24):
had some episodes about books that were really notable, but
they sat kind of in an unknown, unappreciated corner for
a long time until someone happened upon them. Not the
case with this one. Almost from the beginning of its life,
the Codex Gigas was recognized as a marvel and it
represented the knowledge of the Benedictine order in Bohemia. There
(15:46):
is a note in the codex which indicates that the
book was first kept in the Bohemian Benedictine monastery at Polos,
which I am probably butchering and I apologize. Uh. This
has led us some conclusions that the book must have
been written there, but if it was, would have been
even more of a marvel, really, because there is no
evidence that that monastery ever produced another medieval manuscript, so
(16:06):
it would have been this random outlier that kind of
appeared out of nowhere. One monk who's often named as
the likely scribe for this book is the is Herman,
the Recluse. Another is Soba Slause, which is written in
one of the book's margins as part of a prayer
to the Virgin Mary. But the writing of that note
differs a lot. It's pretty significant from the rest of
(16:28):
the manuscript, so probably someone added that later, regardless of
who wrote it and whether or not it originated at
that particular monastery, in need of funds that Benedicting monastery
pond it to the Cistercian monastery at Setlitz in twelve nine,
another Benedicting monastery at Brevnov to possession of the codex
(16:51):
via the work of an app An abbot named Beavor
working on behalf of Bishop Gregory of Prague. There's actually
some confus usual on this point, because Gregory did not
become Bishop of Prague until the following year, but was
clearly named in that position with the twelve ninety date. Yeah,
there have been theories about why that could have been
(17:13):
the case, and some just chalk it up to, oh,
I'm sure whoever wrote that note just got the year wrong,
but we don't really know. What we do know is
a while later, in fourteen twenty, the monks at Brevnov
had to evacuate their monastery when the Hussite War began
and they went to Brumov, and apparently they took the
book with them, And our evidence that we know that
the book traveled there with them, uh comes in the
(17:35):
form of a letter written by a Mr. Johannes Froneberg,
who saw the book while he was visiting Brumov in
fourteen seventy seven. And described it in a letter to
someone else, so we know it was there. At that
point in the fifteen hundreds, that became customary for visitors
to the Brumov Monastery to enter their names into the codex,
so it turned into kind of a guest book and
(17:56):
historical record. For example, we know that Ferdinand the first
King of Bohemia stayed at the monastery when traveling to
Prague because his visit was recorded in the codex. And
Rudolph the second Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia,
who we did an entire episode on a while back,
(18:17):
took a great interest in the codex. He was so
fascinated by the book that he actually wanted to take
it with him to Prague, and eventually a deal was
struck with Abbott Martin of the Brevnov Monks and with
the prior of Brumov Monastery overseeing things. The book was
handed over to Rudolph the Second as a loan. The
massive volume headed the Prague on March fourth, and it
(18:41):
reached the Royal royal household there sometimes shortly after March six.
Along the way, starts and stops were noted and people
signed it as it passed through their towns. Rudolph the
Second secretary and other acquaintances studied the manuscript with great interest.
You may recall from our episode on Rudolph the Second
(19:01):
that he was into the occult, so anything with even
a minor whiff of supernatural intrigue was hugely exciting to him.
In the end, Rudolph the Second was a little bit
of a weasel in this lone deal. He never returned
the book to the monks. Instead, he had it cataloged
as one of his many treasures, and the entry that
(19:23):
details it as part of Rudolph the Seconds collection includes
this mention of the devil having worked on it, so
that sort of further this rumor about its origin points
uh and before we get to sort of where it
ends up and stays for quite some time. Do you
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where we left off, Roodolf the second had kind of
decided that the Codex Gigus was his and he had
it entered into his election catalog. And near the end
of the Thirty Years War, which took place between the
Protestants and the Catholics. We talked about that in some
other episodes as well. Prague was invaded by Swedish forces
on July sixteenth, sixteen forty eight, and the treasures of
(21:14):
Prague were looted, and that included the Codex Gigas. Rudolph
the Second was no longer in power at that point,
but his huge collection was still part of, you know,
sort of Prague's treasures. Swedish forces moved really quickly to
inventory and pack up all the items they had taken,
because anything that hadn't been carted away by the end
of the war was going to have to be returned
(21:35):
to its rightful home so quick. Christina of Sweden, who
we've had a previous episode on, had her men ship
all the goods they could to the Baltic coast. Yes,
she just wanted them to get everything out of Prague
as quickly as possible because she wanted to keep all
those spoils. Uh and the Codex, along with many other items,
spent the winter of sixteen sixteen forty nine in the
(21:56):
fortress at Domits after the war ended in October of sixteen,
and this, along with the rest of the booty, finally
reached Stockholm in May of sixteen forty nine. When Christina's
librarian cataloged the many books taken from Prague, the Kodex
ky Gas was the first item on the list. But surprisingly,
when Christina abdicated took many of her books with her,
(22:20):
the codex was left behind and remained at the castle. Yeah,
we don't know why if it was just because it
was large and unweeldy, although she would have had a
huge you know, uh, presumably considering all of the other
things she took with her, she would have had things
that could carry something that size. But we don't know
why she left it behind. She took a lot of
art with her, so yes, uh. In six seven, the
(22:44):
castle in Stockholm had a fire, which could have been
disastrous and it could have wiped out the record of
the Codex forever, except it was saved because somebody hucked
it out a window to get it away from the fire.
The manuscript and in some versions of the tale that
are not substained jadd A person below. Uh, we're damaged
by this desperate rescue effort. And after the fire, the
(23:06):
manuscript was recataloged again and kept in the Royal Library,
and the custom of visitors signing it continued. In seventeen,
Joseph Debruski of Prague's Royal Society of Sciences visited Stockholm
and he saw the codex. While researching possible items of
check significance in Sweden, he published the first really detailed
(23:26):
report on the manuscript. A comprehensive Swedish account of the
manuscript was written in eighteen eleven by Lorenzo Hammers Gold.
Throughout the years since these two works, many historians and
theologians have studied and written about the manuscript at length. Yeah,
those are usually the two instances where it stops being
(23:48):
about this may have been about the devil. This is
you know, it's it's not so much any of the
legends around it. And they really kind of just do
a detailed analysis. They write out how the script was written,
They write out, you know, details about sizing and the
ruling and possible meanings of things. But those are really
the big two that they uh that are often referenced
as like when it really became something that was significantly
(24:11):
documented and recorded. And we mentioned earlier in the podcast
that the book was rebound and repaired in the early
eighteen hundreds, and the man who did that work was
named Samuel Sloman, and he was paid a total of
seventy eight weeks dollar for the job. A copy of
his invoice is kept in the Royal Library of Sweden.
And there's a sort of charming comparison in the notes
(24:32):
on the National Library of Sweden's site about this book
about the money that Salmon was paid for his work
on the Codex, and it states, quote, this is difficult
to relate to modern currency, but in eighteen twenty a
cow could cost forty five reeks dollar, and this gives
some idea of the value of Sonoman's work. I love
(24:54):
that it's measured in how much cows would cost. Because
of the enormous sighe at the Codex, it would seem
like an unwieldy thing to actually study or read. But
there's evidence that the so called Devil's Bible did see
some practical use. We know that it would have been
normal for both the Old and New Testaments, who have
been read daily in a monastery, and it stands to
(25:14):
reason that the missing pages of the Rule of Saint
Benedict would have had practical application as well, and it
was also common for Benedictine monks to care for the sick.
There are actually several Benedictine monasteries throughout Europe that have
been recognized for their medical knowledge and their teaching throughout
the centuries, so the medical text and the Codex may
(25:35):
have had very practical uses in those endeavors. There are
also some actual indications of use, so we don't have
to depend on the presumption of the book's importance in
the context of normal monastic pursuits. And the margins of
the manuscript at various points of interest. Is the Latin
word nota in a different script than the scribe used
several thirteenth century prayers are also written in the margins,
(25:58):
and there are also musical notations and notes about songs
that would normally accompany a mass that have been kind
of jotted at the bottoms of various pages of the calendar,
so we know people were actually using this and touching
it and making notes in it like they would almost
any other book. While the Kodax Gigas has been on
display in both New York and Berlin. In two thousand seven,
(26:22):
it went home to Prague for a little while. The
largest medieval manuscript we know of was loaned to the
Czech Republic by Sweden to be displayed from September twenty,
two thousand seven until January six, two thousand eight, and
it drew pretty huge crowds, uh, despite the fact that
it was kind of limited in how you could see it.
(26:43):
Only sixty people per hour could be admitted to the
room where the book was displayed, and visitors were only
allowed to stay for ten minutes each to catch a
glimpse of the book, which was in its specially designed case,
so obviously people could not interact with it. But what's
very sort of telling is the book was opened to
one particular page for display, and of course that was
(27:05):
where on the one side is the illustration on the
left of Heavenly Jerusalem, and on the other is the Devil.
Of course, so that is the Codex Gigus. Do you
also have listener mail, I suppose so absolutely do. This
is from our listener Miles, and it is about our
narcolepsy episode and he wrote this one only the first
(27:26):
one had aired and he says thank you for producing
an episode dedicated to narcolepsy. I'm a twenty eight year
old male in Melbourne, Australia who was diagnosed with the
condition plus cataplexy four years ago. My symptoms started with
my face feeling funny in a faintness coming over me
whilst laughing. I spent a week in hospital after collapsing
in the bush after an attack. After many tests, I
(27:47):
was sent home and told I was depressed. I recall
one doctor being annoyed at me for constantly falling asleep
whilst they were trying to monitor my brain for epilepsy.
Refusing to accept that diagnosis, I turned to Google and
I correctly diagnosed myself. I have an excellent specialist who
I keep in touch with, and I manage the condition
as best I can. Finally, I became a podcast history
(28:08):
stuff addict as a result of this condition, as I
find that listening to something interesting keeps my brain alert
while I work on my computer all day. Before being diagnosed,
I was going totally crazy. I was like a drunk
lunatic with a temper all the time, and it's a
miracle that my partner Jane stayed with me while I
get by with our ecalepsy is a real drag. It's
impossible to convey to people the feeling of a sleep attack,
(28:30):
and I find the hardest thing about being ourcaleptic is
that very few people understand the severity of the condition
and how consistent it is. Not an hour passes without
me having to think about what I'm eating, and while
when I'll be sleeping, being up beat, thinking ahead and
getting to work are the hardest things. Looking forward to
part two. Thank you so much, Miles, because I feel
like this is an insight into it that like we
(28:51):
can never provide, we can do all the research we
can uh and even throughout Tracy and I recording today,
I have my computer in front of me and I
have seen a couple of other email is popping up
with the notifications in the corner about the narcolepsy episode,
and one I opened during a break and it was
another person kind of discussing how hard it is to
live with So I'm very thankful that we have kind
of some some additional insight to inform that those podcast
(29:14):
episodes and kind of what it's really like. So thank
you so much, Miles. I really do appreciate you sharing
your story with us. If you would like to write
to us, you can do so at history podcast at
how stuff works dot com. You know so hook up
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(29:35):
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You can also visit us at miss in history dot
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If you would like to research a little bit more
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(29:55):
our parents site, how stuff Works. Type in the word
codex into the search term, and you will get an
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some other codexes. I don't know if that's the correct
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(30:15):
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how stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff works dot com.
Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from hot
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and hey Tracy.
We have not done a historical manuscript episode in a while.
I know we haven't, uh. And the Voyage Manuscript episode
(00:23):
that we did was very, very popular, but part of
that is because it is mysterious and people are constantly
trying to decode and crack it. The one that we're
talking about today comes with a little bit of mystery,
but I would say less than the Voyage Manuscript. But
unlike the Voyage Manuscript, we do know what this one says. Uh.
And this episode is actually one that I started a
while back, and then I just got derailed and wanted
(00:45):
to work on something else for the podcast instead, and
so I put it in a file that's like things
that I have started but not finished, and then recently
our listener Chatelaine wrote in to suggest it, so I
felt like it was time to dig it out of
cold storage and give it another look. So we're going
to talk about uh, what's called the Codex Gigas, and
you'll hear different pronunciations Tracy and I kind of combed
(01:05):
the the internet looking for various pronunciations to find the
right one, and we got so many different ones that
it actually became downright comical, as we would sit here
and go, no, look, this dude says it this way.
So we're just gonna go with gigas. We'll leave it there.
So the name, uh codex g Gas gives do him
about one of the notable features of this book. It
means giant book, because this thing is truly enormous. Yeah,
(01:29):
it is eighty nine by forty nine centimeters. Uh so
for an alternate measurement, that's about thirty five by nineteen inches,
so about a yard long. It contains three parchment leaves
which may be calf skin, plus two paper and leaves. Uh.
It's sent to weigh about as much as an average human.
I've seen numbers like one eight so somewhere in there.
(01:52):
The pages are arranged in two columns. There are a
hundred and six lines in each column. There are numbers
on the page, but the probably were added later. On
the same hand that wrote out the foliation also included
the date of fifteen sixty one, which is way after
the book was written, and the codex is bound in
(02:13):
leather covered wood. The manuscript was rebound in eight nineteen,
and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but
based on the notes at the time, the current wooden
boards that are used in its binding are the originals.
Notations around that rebinding suggests that the cover board had
a split down the center which had to be repaired,
and that may have been the impetus to have it
(02:34):
rebound at that point. There are also metal pieces at
the corners of the cover and some of these appear
to be replacements of earlier adornments. And there are several
long sections of text in the Codex Gigus. The first
is the Old Testament, The next is the Antiquities, written
by Flavius Josephus of the first century. The third text,
(02:54):
which is also by Flavius Josephus, is the Jewish War.
Next is an Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, which was
written by Saint Isidore of Sevilla of Spain in the
sixth century, and after the encyclopedia is a section on
medical information, and then there is the New Testament. The
texts of the Old and New Testaments are what's known
(03:16):
as the Vulgate version, with two notable exceptions. The acts
of the apostles in the Book of Revelation are both
from an earlier biblical translation, the Vetis Latina. And the
last long section of the book is the Chronicle of Bohemia,
which is the first history of Bohemia that we have
on record, and this was written by Cosmas of Prague,
who lived from ten forty five to eleven twenty five approximately.
(03:40):
Because this is the first Bohemian history, it's a really
significant work. In addition to all of that other stuff,
there are several short pieces in the book as well.
One is written on penitence, one on exercising demons, and
there's a calendar that lists saints and famed Bohemians commemorated
on various Saints days. There was also at some point
(04:03):
a guide to monastic life in this big tone, called
the Rule of St. Benedict, but this portion has been removed.
The leaves have actually been cut out of the codex.
It's normal for medieval manuscripts to have illustrations all through,
and this is also two of the codex. One is
a simple portrait of the writer Josephus. There are also
(04:23):
pictures of Heaven and Earth contained within circular frames. At
the beginning of the Book of Genesis. There are fifty
seven initial letters in the text of the Codex that
are colorful and feature these vines spindling off of them,
and they appear at the beginning of each book of
the Bible, and also at the start of the Chronicle
of Bohemia, which was written, as we said, by Cosmos.
(04:44):
And this is important to note because it indicates the
pride and importance placed on this history of Bohemia. The
vines that are stylistically consistent throughout the illustrated letters appear
to be a canthus, and they are depicted as growing
in spirals round and in and out from the letters themselves.
On some of the letters, there are tiny animals, such
(05:05):
as birds that can be seen tucked in around the vines.
They're pretty these are pretty charming. The eye that opens
the Book of Esther features a squirrel on top of
it and it's eating a nut. It's so cute. I
almost feel slightly guilty referring to this, you know, important
medieval tome by going it's so cute. But the squirrels
(05:25):
very cute. The animals are darling. Yeah, there are a
lot of like medieval illuminations that that lend to themselves
to either cute or comical interpretations. There's some great blog
posts and tumblers and things floating around about various little charming, cute,
adorable segments of greater medieval illuminations. Yeah, all of these
(05:49):
little details are just they're super charming. Uh. One of
only two full page pictures in the book is a
depiction of Heavenly Jerusalem, and this features two tall towers
on either side of the page and a foundation wall
at their bases which appears to be made of stone,
And there are multiple smaller structures that are stacked in
(06:09):
this stylistic way to represent a dense city. And opposite
this illustration is what's perhaps become the most famous attribute
of the Codex Gigus, other than its massive size, which
is an illustration of the Devil. The portrait of the
devil is framed in exactly the same manner as the
image of Heavenly Jerusalem. Similar towers to the ones in
(06:30):
the Jerusalem painting are featured on either side of this
full body painting of the Devil. The devil is depicted
in what looks like a jumping position with his bent
legs tucked up partially underneath him. He has a greenish
blue face and spectacular red and yellow talents coming out
from his fingers and toes. And this image of the
(06:50):
devil is so eye catching that it has actually earned
the book the nickname the Devil's Bible. And as you
may suspect that this moniker has led to some sensation
analism around it. Yeah, when we were when we were
doing our looking into how to say the name, I
saw possibly the most sensationalized historical TV special I've ever seen,
and I'm not even gonna say what network it was from.
(07:12):
There have been a few, so it's not there's not
one one guilty party on that one. The vast majority
of the codex was written in a medieval script called
the Carolingian minuscule. The style came into being in the
ninth century, and it was popular through the twelfth century.
Then it kind of fell out of favor until it
was revived in the fifteenth century. And one of the
(07:35):
more fascinating aspects of this book is that researchers who
have studied it for many, many years have come to
the conclusion that one single scribe wrote an embellished the
entire book. And it appears that the person who wrote
out this text was very well trained, but had developed
a pretty unique style that makes the work distinctive. Uh.
And some of the pieces that I read, they've said, like,
(07:56):
we would know if we saw this work, this person's
work anywhere else. However, this is the only manuscript that's
known to have been the work of this person. This
this is pretty mysterious. Really, we have no evidence at
all of the works on which this scribe would have trained.
It's estimated that a medieval scribe would average roughly a
(08:16):
hundred lines a day, and so, factoring in the careful
ruling on each text page and the text itself, the
decoration pieces, all of that, it's um it's estimated that
this work would have taken between ten and twenty years
to complete. At an absolute minimum. Longer estimates suggests that
it could have been the work of a lifetime. Yeah,
(08:39):
you'll see different sort of breakdowns of how people estimate
how this would go. And they'll say, like you'll see
five years sometimes, but usually that is qualified as just
to write the text out. That doesn't include the marking
the pages with the ruling first and doing all the
other things and kind of designing it and pre planning
(09:00):
how it was all going to be laid out, because
this isn't haphazard at all. It really is a very
well designed and laid out book. Uh. The five years
is usually just for the writing, and then they add
in all the illustrations, and that's how they usually get.
Somewhere between ten and twenty years is the minimum amount.
Because of this single scribe fact and the nickname of
the Devil's Bible. As I said, there have been some
(09:21):
interesting theories around the codex and its creation, and there
have been some variations. One of the most popular involves
the idea that a monk sold his soul to the
devil to gain the time needed to complete the work.
But that's kind of a newer variation. Uh. One version
of that theme hints at a disgraced monk that's locked
away to do the work as a sort of penance.
(09:43):
Like he says he will do it in one night,
and according to this legend, he did so in a
single night, but he required the assistance of the devil
himself to do it. Uh, And so he kind of
made a deal with the devil that way. So that
he could achieve this ridiculously lofty goal he had set
and claimed he would achieve. That version actually traces all
the way back to medieval times. That's not a modern
(10:04):
invention around this book. That story has been going on
for hundreds of years, so very early in the book's life,
it had some crazy, uh drama attached to it. Yeah. Well,
it's it's a little odd to me that there is
this this drama because there were like some really ourd
expressions of religious piety in the in the medieval period,
(10:27):
like this is when there would be people who literally
walled themselves up into a tiny, tiny cloister in the
walls of a church. And so spending ten to twenty
years minimum of your life in a pious writing of
of a text does not strike me as that odd
in that context. So it's funny to me that there
(10:48):
are so many descriptions of what might have what might
have happened. Yeah, And I think a lot of that
kind of just comes from the the portrait of the
devil and sort of the largeness. I think it was
just sort of a really unique book from the get go,
and so people naturally kind of built up stories around it. Yeah,
One of these weird stories is that the manuscript is
(11:09):
written on the hide of a hundred and sixty donkeys,
and that they're Satanic images throughout. But this, similar to
the one about selling yourself to the devil, also pretty sensationalized. Yeah,
there are Again I didn't use it as one of
my sources. I watched a little bit of another kind
(11:29):
of very sensational documentary where they were saying, never in
any other Bible have there been images of demons and
talk of this sort of exorcism. And I'm like, it's
all one big religious Texas sort of you know, the
sort of exorcism stuff does not seem out of place
when you considered what this was, So it's kind of
(11:51):
you know, again, those are sensationalized. But before we get
to our next section, which is going to talk about
sort of the journey that this codex has been on
throughout its eight hundred year or so life, Uh, do
you want to pause for a word from a sponsor.
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com slash history. So uh to talk about sort of
the history of where this book has been and where
(14:19):
this manuscript has traveled. Uh. The Codex Gigus has been
dated as likely being written between twelve o four and
twelve thirty, And this dating range is based on a
couple of pieces of information. So, first is the appearance
of the Bohemian st Procopius, and Procopius appears on the
calendar segment of the text, and he wasn't canonized until
(14:41):
twelve oh four, so we know that's the earliest possible
date that this could have been started. On the other
end of the timeline is the death of Bishop Andreas
of Prague, and that's mentioned in the codex as well,
and UH he died in twelve three. The death of
Bohemian king Ottakar the first is not listed. He died
(15:01):
in twelve thirty. So it's believed that the manuscript was
finished sometime between those two notable deaths, and the Codex
was written in Bohemia, as evidenced by the fact that
the Chronicle of Bohemian and the History of It uh
and the calendar's listing of notable check figures. So those
are the clues that that was the origin point. We've
(15:24):
had some episodes about books that were really notable, but
they sat kind of in an unknown, unappreciated corner for
a long time until someone happened upon them. Not the
case with this one. Almost from the beginning of its life,
the Codex Gigas was recognized as a marvel and it
represented the knowledge of the Benedictine order in Bohemia. There
(15:46):
is a note in the codex which indicates that the
book was first kept in the Bohemian Benedictine monastery at Polos,
which I am probably butchering and I apologize. Uh. This
has led us some conclusions that the book must have
been written there, but if it was, would have been
even more of a marvel, really, because there is no
evidence that that monastery ever produced another medieval manuscript, so
(16:06):
it would have been this random outlier that kind of
appeared out of nowhere. One monk who's often named as
the likely scribe for this book is the is Herman,
the Recluse. Another is Soba Slause, which is written in
one of the book's margins as part of a prayer
to the Virgin Mary. But the writing of that note
differs a lot. It's pretty significant from the rest of
(16:28):
the manuscript, so probably someone added that later, regardless of
who wrote it and whether or not it originated at
that particular monastery, in need of funds that Benedicting monastery
pond it to the Cistercian monastery at Setlitz in twelve nine,
another Benedicting monastery at Brevnov to possession of the codex
(16:51):
via the work of an app An abbot named Beavor
working on behalf of Bishop Gregory of Prague. There's actually
some confus usual on this point, because Gregory did not
become Bishop of Prague until the following year, but was
clearly named in that position with the twelve ninety date. Yeah,
there have been theories about why that could have been
(17:13):
the case, and some just chalk it up to, oh,
I'm sure whoever wrote that note just got the year wrong,
but we don't really know. What we do know is
a while later, in fourteen twenty, the monks at Brevnov
had to evacuate their monastery when the Hussite War began
and they went to Brumov, and apparently they took the
book with them, And our evidence that we know that
the book traveled there with them, uh comes in the
(17:35):
form of a letter written by a Mr. Johannes Froneberg,
who saw the book while he was visiting Brumov in
fourteen seventy seven. And described it in a letter to
someone else, so we know it was there. At that
point in the fifteen hundreds, that became customary for visitors
to the Brumov Monastery to enter their names into the codex,
so it turned into kind of a guest book and
(17:56):
historical record. For example, we know that Ferdinand the first
King of Bohemia stayed at the monastery when traveling to
Prague because his visit was recorded in the codex. And
Rudolph the second Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia,
who we did an entire episode on a while back,
(18:17):
took a great interest in the codex. He was so
fascinated by the book that he actually wanted to take
it with him to Prague, and eventually a deal was
struck with Abbott Martin of the Brevnov Monks and with
the prior of Brumov Monastery overseeing things. The book was
handed over to Rudolph the Second as a loan. The
massive volume headed the Prague on March fourth, and it
(18:41):
reached the Royal royal household there sometimes shortly after March six.
Along the way, starts and stops were noted and people
signed it as it passed through their towns. Rudolph the
Second secretary and other acquaintances studied the manuscript with great interest.
You may recall from our episode on Rudolph the Second
(19:01):
that he was into the occult, so anything with even
a minor whiff of supernatural intrigue was hugely exciting to him.
In the end, Rudolph the Second was a little bit
of a weasel in this lone deal. He never returned
the book to the monks. Instead, he had it cataloged
as one of his many treasures, and the entry that
(19:23):
details it as part of Rudolph the Seconds collection includes
this mention of the devil having worked on it, so
that sort of further this rumor about its origin points
uh and before we get to sort of where it
ends up and stays for quite some time. Do you
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(20:52):
where we left off, Roodolf the second had kind of
decided that the Codex Gigus was his and he had
it entered into his election catalog. And near the end
of the Thirty Years War, which took place between the
Protestants and the Catholics. We talked about that in some
other episodes as well. Prague was invaded by Swedish forces
on July sixteenth, sixteen forty eight, and the treasures of
(21:14):
Prague were looted, and that included the Codex Gigas. Rudolph
the Second was no longer in power at that point,
but his huge collection was still part of, you know,
sort of Prague's treasures. Swedish forces moved really quickly to
inventory and pack up all the items they had taken,
because anything that hadn't been carted away by the end
of the war was going to have to be returned
(21:35):
to its rightful home so quick. Christina of Sweden, who
we've had a previous episode on, had her men ship
all the goods they could to the Baltic coast. Yes,
she just wanted them to get everything out of Prague
as quickly as possible because she wanted to keep all
those spoils. Uh and the Codex, along with many other items,
spent the winter of sixteen sixteen forty nine in the
(21:56):
fortress at Domits after the war ended in October of sixteen,
and this, along with the rest of the booty, finally
reached Stockholm in May of sixteen forty nine. When Christina's
librarian cataloged the many books taken from Prague, the Kodex
ky Gas was the first item on the list. But surprisingly,
when Christina abdicated took many of her books with her,
(22:20):
the codex was left behind and remained at the castle. Yeah,
we don't know why if it was just because it
was large and unweeldy, although she would have had a
huge you know, uh, presumably considering all of the other
things she took with her, she would have had things
that could carry something that size. But we don't know
why she left it behind. She took a lot of
art with her, so yes, uh. In six seven, the
(22:44):
castle in Stockholm had a fire, which could have been
disastrous and it could have wiped out the record of
the Codex forever, except it was saved because somebody hucked
it out a window to get it away from the fire.
The manuscript and in some versions of the tale that
are not substained jadd A person below. Uh, we're damaged
by this desperate rescue effort. And after the fire, the
(23:06):
manuscript was recataloged again and kept in the Royal Library,
and the custom of visitors signing it continued. In seventeen,
Joseph Debruski of Prague's Royal Society of Sciences visited Stockholm
and he saw the codex. While researching possible items of
check significance in Sweden, he published the first really detailed
(23:26):
report on the manuscript. A comprehensive Swedish account of the
manuscript was written in eighteen eleven by Lorenzo Hammers Gold.
Throughout the years since these two works, many historians and
theologians have studied and written about the manuscript at length. Yeah,
those are usually the two instances where it stops being
(23:48):
about this may have been about the devil. This is
you know, it's it's not so much any of the
legends around it. And they really kind of just do
a detailed analysis. They write out how the script was written,
They write out, you know, details about sizing and the
ruling and possible meanings of things. But those are really
the big two that they uh that are often referenced
as like when it really became something that was significantly
(24:11):
documented and recorded. And we mentioned earlier in the podcast
that the book was rebound and repaired in the early
eighteen hundreds, and the man who did that work was
named Samuel Sloman, and he was paid a total of
seventy eight weeks dollar for the job. A copy of
his invoice is kept in the Royal Library of Sweden.
And there's a sort of charming comparison in the notes
(24:32):
on the National Library of Sweden's site about this book
about the money that Salmon was paid for his work
on the Codex, and it states, quote, this is difficult
to relate to modern currency, but in eighteen twenty a
cow could cost forty five reeks dollar, and this gives
some idea of the value of Sonoman's work. I love
(24:54):
that it's measured in how much cows would cost. Because
of the enormous sighe at the Codex, it would seem
like an unwieldy thing to actually study or read. But
there's evidence that the so called Devil's Bible did see
some practical use. We know that it would have been
normal for both the Old and New Testaments, who have
been read daily in a monastery, and it stands to
(25:14):
reason that the missing pages of the Rule of Saint
Benedict would have had practical application as well, and it
was also common for Benedictine monks to care for the sick.
There are actually several Benedictine monasteries throughout Europe that have
been recognized for their medical knowledge and their teaching throughout
the centuries, so the medical text and the Codex may
(25:35):
have had very practical uses in those endeavors. There are
also some actual indications of use, so we don't have
to depend on the presumption of the book's importance in
the context of normal monastic pursuits. And the margins of
the manuscript at various points of interest. Is the Latin
word nota in a different script than the scribe used
several thirteenth century prayers are also written in the margins,
(25:58):
and there are also musical notations and notes about songs
that would normally accompany a mass that have been kind
of jotted at the bottoms of various pages of the calendar,
so we know people were actually using this and touching
it and making notes in it like they would almost
any other book. While the Kodax Gigas has been on
display in both New York and Berlin. In two thousand seven,
(26:22):
it went home to Prague for a little while. The
largest medieval manuscript we know of was loaned to the
Czech Republic by Sweden to be displayed from September twenty,
two thousand seven until January six, two thousand eight, and
it drew pretty huge crowds, uh, despite the fact that
it was kind of limited in how you could see it.
(26:43):
Only sixty people per hour could be admitted to the
room where the book was displayed, and visitors were only
allowed to stay for ten minutes each to catch a
glimpse of the book, which was in its specially designed case,
so obviously people could not interact with it. But what's
very sort of telling is the book was opened to
one particular page for display, and of course that was
(27:05):
where on the one side is the illustration on the
left of Heavenly Jerusalem, and on the other is the Devil.
Of course, so that is the Codex Gigus. Do you
also have listener mail, I suppose so absolutely do. This
is from our listener Miles, and it is about our
narcolepsy episode and he wrote this one only the first
(27:26):
one had aired and he says thank you for producing
an episode dedicated to narcolepsy. I'm a twenty eight year
old male in Melbourne, Australia who was diagnosed with the
condition plus cataplexy four years ago. My symptoms started with
my face feeling funny in a faintness coming over me
whilst laughing. I spent a week in hospital after collapsing
in the bush after an attack. After many tests, I
(27:47):
was sent home and told I was depressed. I recall
one doctor being annoyed at me for constantly falling asleep
whilst they were trying to monitor my brain for epilepsy.
Refusing to accept that diagnosis, I turned to Google and
I correctly diagnosed myself. I have an excellent specialist who
I keep in touch with, and I manage the condition
as best I can. Finally, I became a podcast history
(28:08):
stuff addict as a result of this condition, as I
find that listening to something interesting keeps my brain alert
while I work on my computer all day. Before being diagnosed,
I was going totally crazy. I was like a drunk
lunatic with a temper all the time, and it's a
miracle that my partner Jane stayed with me while I
get by with our ecalepsy is a real drag. It's
impossible to convey to people the feeling of a sleep attack,
(28:30):
and I find the hardest thing about being ourcaleptic is
that very few people understand the severity of the condition
and how consistent it is. Not an hour passes without
me having to think about what I'm eating, and while
when I'll be sleeping, being up beat, thinking ahead and
getting to work are the hardest things. Looking forward to
part two. Thank you so much, Miles, because I feel
like this is an insight into it that like we
(28:51):
can never provide, we can do all the research we
can uh and even throughout Tracy and I recording today,
I have my computer in front of me and I
have seen a couple of other email is popping up
with the notifications in the corner about the narcolepsy episode,
and one I opened during a break and it was
another person kind of discussing how hard it is to
live with So I'm very thankful that we have kind
of some some additional insight to inform that those podcast
(29:14):
episodes and kind of what it's really like. So thank
you so much, Miles. I really do appreciate you sharing
your story with us. If you would like to write
to us, you can do so at history podcast at
how stuff works dot com. You know so hook up
with us on Twitter at Miston History and on Facebook
dot com slash misst in History. We're on Tumblr at
mist in history dot CoML dot com and on Pinterest
(29:35):
at pinterest dot com slash mist in History. This codex
episode is another one that I look forward to. Pinning, pinning, pinning. Uh.
You can also visit us at miss in history dot
spreadshirt dot com if you would like some cool missed
in History merchandise like t shirts and bags, et cetera.
If you would like to research a little bit more
about what we talked about today, you could go to
(29:55):
our parents site, how stuff Works. Type in the word
codex into the search term, and you will get an
article called top ten rare books, which we'll talk about
some other codexes. I don't know if that's the correct
way to pluralize that, but you should go visit it
and read that article. You can also visit us at
our home on the web, which is missed in History
dot com, where you will find our entire back catalog
(30:15):
of episodes. There are show notes for any of the episodes.
In the last couple of years, we also have the
occasional blog post, so come and visit us there at
missed in History dot com and visit our parent company,
how stuff Works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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