Codex Vindobonensis 751
Encyclopedia
The Codex Vindobonensis 751, also known as the Vienna Boniface Codex, is a ninth-century codex
, comprising four different manuscripts, the first of which is one of the earliest remaining collections of the correspondence of Saint Boniface
. The codex is held in the Austrian National Library
in Vienna
.
—Boniface had been appointed archbishop of Mainz
in 745, and the copyist used originals of the letters available there. The codex was later moved to Cologne
, where it was marked (on 166v) as belonging to the library of the Cologne Cathedral
.
The modern history of the codex begins in 1554 when Kasper von Niedbruck, who had entered the service of Maximilian II
in that year, found the manuscript in Cologne and brought it to Vienna. Von Niedbruck collected materials to aid with the composition of the Magdeburg Centuries
(a comprehensive church history first published in 1559), and gathered many manuscripts for the Imperial Library, which he allowed Matthias Flacius
and his collaborators to copy. As indicated in von Niedbruck's correspondence, the codex was sent to George Cassander
after September 1755. Next mention of the codex is in the catalog entry by Hugo Blotius, the first librarian of the Imperial Library, in 1597. Correspondence between Sebastian Tengnagel of the Imperial Library and Johann Pistorius
, confessor to Rudolf II
, indicates that the codex was in Prague
, whence Tengnagel had sent it to Nicolaus Serarius in Mainz who used it to publish his edition of the Boniface correspondence (1605). Corrections and notes in the hands of Tengnagel and Blotius prove that they had already worked on copying and editing the correspondence before the codex was sent to Prague.
It is not known when the codex returned to Vienna, though it was there by 1802, when the German historian Georg Heinrich Pertz
read it. It was used also by Philipp Jaffé
(who published an edition of the correspondence in 1866), and, according to the visitors log in Vienna, between 27 October and 20 November 1882 it was studied almost daily by Wilhelm Diekamp
. The codex later traveled to Berlin
, where Michael Tangl used it for his own edition (published 1916), and to Essen
, where it was exhibited in 1956.
, librarian for Maria Theresa, and preserves nothing of the old cover. It is made of cardboard covered with white parchment and stamped *17*G*L*B*V*S*B*55*, that is, Gerardus Liber Baro Van Swieten Bibliothecarius, 1755.
The first page shows the remains of what appears to have been an ornamented "E". In the top-left corner is barely visible a small person walking left and holding something long in the right hand.
The four parts of the codex are:
from the mid-ninth century. The manuscript is written by a single scribe, with the exception of the two last pages, which are written in a different though contemporary hand. The few corrections (that there are few indicates the quality of the scribe's work) are done by three hands—first, that of the copyist; second, that of a different, contemporary corrector, who made seven corrections; and besides some minor early corrections, the third hand is that of Sebastian Tengnagel.
, Boniface's successor in Mainz. For these, which were not found in the x or y codices, the copyist must have had access to the originals in Mainz. An odd insertion is a poem by an unknown cleric to Aldhelm, and four poems by Aldhelm, followed by a selection from Isidore of Seville
's De ecclesiasticis officiis and a few prayers (40-48r).
s, and adds some other typographical oddities, such as majuscules and what appear to be copies of the sender's addresses and signatures and even drawings of the holes and strings used to close a letter (for instance, 63r, for a letter by Lullus).
Two additional oddities are a palindrome
on 39v added to the end of a letter, "METROHOCANGISSITISSIGNACOHORTEM", a puzzle that has not yet been solved—and the palindrome is written in a vertically mirrored way as well. This example is cited as the kind of poetic and literary game popular in Aldhelm's time and thereafter. Folio 34r contains a line in Old English: "Memento saxonicum uerbum: oft daedlata dome foreldit sigi sitha gahuem suuyltit thiana." The line is listed in the Anglo-Saxon Corpus as "A Proverb from Winfrid's Time" (Winfrid was Saint Boniface's original name), and is cited as the earliest English poetic proverb, and was translated by Elliot V.K. Dobbie as "Often a sluggard delays in his [pursuit of] glory, in each of victorious undertakings."
Codex
A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...
, comprising four different manuscripts, the first of which is one of the earliest remaining collections of the correspondence of Saint Boniface
Saint Boniface
Saint Boniface , the Apostle of the Germans, born Winfrid, Wynfrith, or Wynfryth in the kingdom of Wessex, probably at Crediton , was a missionary who propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century. He is the patron saint of Germany and the first archbishop of Mainz...
. The codex is held in the Austrian National Library
Austrian National Library
The Austrian National Library , is the largest library in Austria, with 7.4 million items in its collections. It is located in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna; since 2005 some of the collections are located in the baroque Palais Mollard-Clary...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
History of the codex
The section containing the Boniface correspondence dates from the ninth century, and was most likely copied in MainzMainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
—Boniface had been appointed archbishop of Mainz
Archbishopric of Mainz
The Archbishopric of Mainz or Electorate of Mainz was an influential ecclesiastic and secular prince-bishopric in the Holy Roman Empire between 780–82 and 1802. In the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, the Archbishop of Mainz was the primas Germaniae, the substitute of the Pope north of the Alps...
in 745, and the copyist used originals of the letters available there. The codex was later moved to Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, where it was marked (on 166v) as belonging to the library of the Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral
Cologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and the administration of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site...
.
The modern history of the codex begins in 1554 when Kasper von Niedbruck, who had entered the service of Maximilian II
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian II was king of Bohemia and king of the Romans from 1562, king of Hungary and Croatia from 1563, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation from 1564 until his death...
in that year, found the manuscript in Cologne and brought it to Vienna. Von Niedbruck collected materials to aid with the composition of the Magdeburg Centuries
Magdeburg Centuries
The Magdeburg Centuries is an ecclesiastical history, divided into thirteen centuries, covering thirteen hundred years, ending in 1298; it was first published from 1559 to 1574. It was compiled by several Lutheran scholars in Magdeburg, known as the Centuriators of Magdeburg. The chief of the...
(a comprehensive church history first published in 1559), and gathered many manuscripts for the Imperial Library, which he allowed Matthias Flacius
Matthias Flacius
Matthias Flacius Illyricus was a Lutheran reformer.He was born in Carpano, a part of Albona in Istria, son of Andrea Vlacich alias Francovich and Jacobea Luciani, daughter of a wealthy and powerful Albonian family...
and his collaborators to copy. As indicated in von Niedbruck's correspondence, the codex was sent to George Cassander
George Cassander
George Cassander was a Flemish theologian.-Life:Born at Pittem near Bruges, he went at an early age to Leuven. He was teaching theology and literature in 1541 at Bruges and shortly afterwards at Ghent...
after September 1755. Next mention of the codex is in the catalog entry by Hugo Blotius, the first librarian of the Imperial Library, in 1597. Correspondence between Sebastian Tengnagel of the Imperial Library and Johann Pistorius
Johann Pistorius
Johann Pistorius was a German controversialist and historian. He is sometimes called Niddanus from the name of his birthplace, Nidda in Hesse.-Life:...
, confessor to Rudolf II
Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolf II was Holy Roman Emperor , King of Hungary and Croatia , King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria...
, indicates that the codex was in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, whence Tengnagel had sent it to Nicolaus Serarius in Mainz who used it to publish his edition of the Boniface correspondence (1605). Corrections and notes in the hands of Tengnagel and Blotius prove that they had already worked on copying and editing the correspondence before the codex was sent to Prague.
It is not known when the codex returned to Vienna, though it was there by 1802, when the German historian Georg Heinrich Pertz
Georg Heinrich Pertz
thumb|Georg Heinrich PertzGeorg Heinrich Pertz , was a German historian born at Hanover.From 1813 to 1818 he studied at the University of Göttingen, chiefly under A. H. L. Heeren...
read it. It was used also by Philipp Jaffé
Philipp Jaffé
Philipp Jaffé was a German historian and philologist. The Schwersenz native, despite discrimination against his Jewish religion, was one of the most important German medievalists of the 19th century....
(who published an edition of the correspondence in 1866), and, according to the visitors log in Vienna, between 27 October and 20 November 1882 it was studied almost daily by Wilhelm Diekamp
Wilhelm Diekamp
Wilhelm Diekamp was a German historian.Soon after his birth, his parents moved to Münster in Westphalia, where he made his collegiate studies . From 1872 to 1875 he studied theology at Würzburg and at Münster...
. The codex later traveled to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where Michael Tangl used it for his own edition (published 1916), and to Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
, where it was exhibited in 1956.
Contents
It is not known when the four codices that make up Vindobonensis 751 were bound together—certainly before 1554. Also unknown is what the original cover looked like; the current cover is the work of Gerard van SwietenGerard van Swieten
Gerard van Swieten was a Dutch-Austrian physician.Van Swieten was born in Leiden. He was a pupil of Hermann Boerhaave and became in 1745 the personal physician of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. In this position he implemented a transformation of the Austrian health service and medical...
, librarian for Maria Theresa, and preserves nothing of the old cover. It is made of cardboard covered with white parchment and stamped *17*G*L*B*V*S*B*55*, that is, Gerardus Liber Baro Van Swieten Bibliothecarius, 1755.
The first page shows the remains of what appears to have been an ornamented "E". In the top-left corner is barely visible a small person walking left and holding something long in the right hand.
The four parts of the codex are:
- The Boniface collection (1-78)
- Texts from the New TestamentNew TestamentThe New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
: Acts of the ApostlesActs of the ApostlesThe Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
, the Epistle of JudeEpistle of JudeThe Epistle of Jude, often shortened to Jude, is the penultimate book of the New Testament and is attributed to Jude, the brother of James the Just. - Composition :...
, and First Epistle of PeterFirst Epistle of PeterThe First Epistle of Peter, usually referred to simply as First Peter and often written 1 Peter, is a book of the New Testament. The author claims to be Saint Peter the apostle, and the epistle was traditionally held to have been written during his time as bishop of Rome or Bishop of Antioch,...
. - A glossaryGlossaryA glossary, also known as an idioticon, vocabulary, or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms...
of the Old and the New Testament in GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... - Various homileticHomileticsHomiletics , in theology the application of the general principles of rhetoric to the specific department of public preaching. The one who practices or studies homiletics is called a homilist....
texts and documents related to canon lawCanon law (Catholic Church)The canon law of the Catholic Church, is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation. It lacks the necessary binding force present in most modern day legal systems. The academic...
Script
The handwriting of the Boniface collection is a careful Carolingian minusculeCarolingian minuscule
Carolingian or Caroline minuscule is a script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Roman alphabet could be easily recognized by the literate class from one region to another. It was used in Charlemagne's empire between approximately 800 and 1200...
from the mid-ninth century. The manuscript is written by a single scribe, with the exception of the two last pages, which are written in a different though contemporary hand. The few corrections (that there are few indicates the quality of the scribe's work) are done by three hands—first, that of the copyist; second, that of a different, contemporary corrector, who made seven corrections; and besides some minor early corrections, the third hand is that of Sebastian Tengnagel.
The Boniface correspondence
The Vienna Codex is one of the three oldest codices containing the Boniface correspondence; those three contain the entirety of the known correspondence. The oldest is Cod. lat. Monacensis 81112 (1), still from the eighth century. The Cod. Carlsruhensis, Rastatt 22 (2) is a bit younger than the Vienna Codex (3). Michael Tangl proposed that the letters that those three codices have in common come from a common ancestor: 1 and 2 were copied from a lost codex y, and y and 3 were copied from a lost codex x.Collectio pontificia and collectio communis
A striking difference between the Vienna Codex and the others is that the Munich and the Karlsruhe Codex contain the so-called collectio pontificia, the letters to and from the various popes with whom Boniface dealt, which is lacking in the Vienna Codex. All three contain the so-called collectio communis, the letters written to and from others, besides popes (the terminology is Tangl's). But to the collection communis the Vienna Codex adds a great number of other letters, esp. those written to and by LullusLullus
Saint Lullus was the first permanent archbishop of Mainz, succeeding Saint Boniface, and first abbot of the Benedictine Hersfeld Abbey.-Monk to archbishop:...
, Boniface's successor in Mainz. For these, which were not found in the x or y codices, the copyist must have had access to the originals in Mainz. An odd insertion is a poem by an unknown cleric to Aldhelm, and four poems by Aldhelm, followed by a selection from Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
's De ecclesiasticis officiis and a few prayers (40-48r).
Scripts and symbols
An odd characteristic of this codex is that the scribe in the continuation of the correspondence, after the Aldhelm poems and the Isidore letter and now copying directly from the archive in Mainz, also copies a number of graphic and other symbols, such as crosses and Chi RhoChi Rho
The Chi Rho is one of the earliest forms of christogram, and is used by Christians. It is formed by superimposing the first two letters chi and rho of the Greek word "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ" =Christ in such a way to produce the monogram ☧...
s, and adds some other typographical oddities, such as majuscules and what appear to be copies of the sender's addresses and signatures and even drawings of the holes and strings used to close a letter (for instance, 63r, for a letter by Lullus).
Secret code
A final and idiosyncratic element is the occurrence of a secret code in four places in the manuscript. Boniface had acquainted a number of his co-workers on the continent with a way of writing that adopted a coded alphabet, derived from other scripts including Greek majuscules, uncial script used by Anglo-Saxon scribes, and even runes (on 4v the rune for "M", and the rune "ur" for "V". An additional coded element is employed on 39v, where the adapted alphabet reads "FUFBNNB", where the vowel ("A") is replaced by the following consonant ("B"), rendering "FUFANNA", the name of an abbess.Two additional oddities are a palindrome
Palindrome
A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction, with general allowances for adjustments to punctuation and word dividers....
on 39v added to the end of a letter, "METROHOCANGISSITISSIGNACOHORTEM", a puzzle that has not yet been solved—and the palindrome is written in a vertically mirrored way as well. This example is cited as the kind of poetic and literary game popular in Aldhelm's time and thereafter. Folio 34r contains a line in Old English: "Memento saxonicum uerbum: oft daedlata dome foreldit sigi sitha gahuem suuyltit thiana." The line is listed in the Anglo-Saxon Corpus as "A Proverb from Winfrid's Time" (Winfrid was Saint Boniface's original name), and is cited as the earliest English poetic proverb, and was translated by Elliot V.K. Dobbie as "Often a sluggard delays in his [pursuit of] glory, in each of victorious undertakings."