Behold the Codex Gigas (aka “Satan’s Bible”), the Largest Medieval Manuscript within the World

Bar­achieve with the dev­il and it’s possible you’ll wind up with a gold­en fid­dle, tremendous­nat­ur­al gui­tar-play­ing ability, or a room stuffed with gleam­ing alchem­ized straw.

Whoops, we mis­at­trib­uted that final one. It’s actu­al­ly Rumpel­stilt­pores and skin’s doing, however the by-morn­ing-or-else lifeless­line that dri­ves the Broth­ers Grimm favourite is just not dis­sim­i­lar to the ulti­ma­tum posed to dis­graced medieval monk Her­man the Recluse: professional­duce an enormous guide that glo­ri­fies your monastery and contains all human knowl­edge by solar­rise, or we brick you up Cask of Amon­til­la­do-style.

Why else would a guide as high-mind­ed because the Codex Gigas (Latin for Big Ebook) con­tain a full-page glam­our por­trait of the dev­il garbed in an ermine loin­material and cher­ry purple claws?

Per­haps it’s the Thirteenth-cen­tu­ry equiv­a­lent of “intercourse sells.” What wager­ter strategy to maintain your guide out of the stay­der bin of his­to­ry than to incorporate an eye-catch­ing glimpse of the Prince of Darkish­ness? Hedge your bets by posi­tion­ing a splen­did imaginative and prescient of the Heav­en­ly Metropolis direct­ly oppo­website.

Notable illus­tra­tions apart, the Codex Gigas holds the dis­tinc­tion of being the most important extant medieval illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­script on the planet.

Weigh­ing in at 165 lbs, this 3‑foot-tall sure whale required the skins of 160 don­keys, on the fee of two pages per don­key. (Ten pages devot­ed to St. Benedict’s guidelines for monas­tic life had been lit­er­al­ly lower from the person­u­script at an unknown date.)

It’s loads.

A Nation­al Geo­graph­ic doc­u­males­tary con­clud­ed that the sprawl­ing man­u­script would’ve required a min­i­mum of 5 years of full-time, sin­gle-mind­ed labor. Extra like­ly, the work was unfold out over 25 to 30 years, with var­i­ous authors con­tribut­ing to the dif­fer­ent sec­tions. In addi­tion to a com­plete Bible, the “Satan’s Bible” contains an ency­clo­pe­dia, med­ical infor­ma­tion, a cal­en­dar of saints’ days, Flav­ius Jose­phus’ his­to­ries The Jew­ish Battle and Jew­ish Antiq­ui­ties and a few prac­ti­cal recommendation on exor­cis­ing evil spir­its.

The actu­al let­ter­ing does appear to return right down to a sin­gle scribe with very neat hand­writ­ing. Consultants on the Nation­al Library of Swe­den, the place the Codex Gigas has come to a relaxation after cen­turies of adven­tures and mis­advert­ven­tures, iden­ti­fy it as Automobile­olin­gian minus­cule, a pop­u­lar and excessive­ly leg­i­ble fashion of medieval script. Its uni­type dimension would’ve required the scribe to rule every web page earlier than type­ing the let­ters, after which 100 traces a day would have been a rea­son­in a position purpose.

You possibly can take a look in your­self on the Library’s net­website, the place the whole work is view­in a position in dig­i­tized type.

Cer­tain­ly the dev­il is a good place to start out, although his seem­ance might strike you as a bit com­i­cal, giv­en all of the fuss.

Start your explo­rations of the Codex Gigas right here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Temporary His­to­ry of Mak­ing Offers with the Dev­il: Nic­colò Pagani­ni, Robert John­son, Jim­my Web page & Extra

The Medieval Ban In opposition to the “Satan’s Tri­tone”: Debunk­ing a Nice Delusion in Music The­o­ry

How Illu­mi­nat­ed Medieval Man­u­scripts Had been Made: A Step-by-Step Have a look at this Beau­ti­ful, Cen­turies-Outdated Craft

See Beau­ti­ful Pages from a Medieval Monk’s Sketch­guide: A Win­dow Into How Illu­mi­nat­ed Man­u­scripts Had been Made (1494)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an creator, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.