Codex Gigas

Codex Gigas, medieval illuminated manuscript known for its full-page illustration of the Devil opposite a full-page illustration of heavenly Jerusalem. It is thought to be the largest surviving medieval codex. The manuscript comprises the Bible (Old and New Testaments) and an assortment of other ancient historical, scholarly, and religious writings. The Codex Gigas was likely written in Bohemia in the early 13th century, and it is now housed in the National Library of Sweden. A legend about Satan’s role in the manuscript’s creation, along with its striking illustration of the Devil, led to its nickname “Devil’s Bible.”

Physical description

The Codex Gigas is a massive manuscript measuring nearly 36 inches (91 cm) long, 20 inches (51 cm) wide, and 9 inches (23 cm) thick, with an imposing weight of roughly 165 pounds (75 kg). It consists of 310 leaves of parchment (620 pages in total) believed to have been made from the skins of an estimated 160 livestock animals (calves, donkeys, or a combination thereof). It is bound in white leather over thick wooden boards. Both the front and back covers are fitted with four decorative metal corner pieces, each containing two griffins and a raised knob for the book to rest on, as well as a raised knob in the center and blind-stamped decorations. Two additional fittings on the back have raised parts with holes, possibly used to chain the manuscript to a piece of furniture.

Textual content

The Codex Gigas is a book of books. The Old and New Testaments constitute about half of the text, and the manuscript includes five other significant books of history and ancient knowledge. Two works by Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, History of the Jewish War (75–79 ce) and The Antiquities of the Jews (93 ce), are found between its covers. Roman Catholic theologian St. Isidore of Sevilla’s Etymologies (6th–7th century), a popular encyclopedia at the time, adds to the codex’s comprehensiveness with a wide variety of subjects such as philosophy, geometry, grammar and rhetoric, and cooking. A medical section includes the Ars medicinae (“Art of Medicine”), the essential medieval medical textbook. Of special note is the inclusion of Cosmas of Prague’s Chronica Boemorum (“Chronicle of the Bohemians”), a history of Bohemia written in about 1100, which is a significant source for Czech historiography. The codex once contained the Rule of St. Benedict, but for an unknown reason those pages were excised from the manuscript.

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Beyond those more sizable works in the codex, there are a number of smaller writings and jottings. Just after the illustration of the Devil is a collection of three spells to cure disease and fever and two magic formulas for catching thieves. Just before the Devil drawing is a churchman’s confession of a lengthy list of sins. A letter from St. Jerome to Pope Damasus I is included in the compilation. There is also a calendar of saints’ feast days and death dates of significant figures in Bohemian history. Summaries of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin alphabets in the beginning of the codex are accompanied by the Cyrillic and Slavic (Glagolitic) alphabets, which were added to the codex in the 14th century. The manuscript also has numerous other scribbles and notes, especially jottings of names of people in medieval times who stopped by to see the massive book and its Devil.

Artistic content

From a visual perspective this illuminated manuscript is a work of art. The script for most of the text is Carolingian minuscule, a popular script from the 9th to the 12th century that was no longer the standard by the time the Codex Gigas was composed in the 13th century. There are 77 elaborately illuminated initial capital letters decorated with animals, flowers, vines, and spirals. There are six full-page initials: two in the Old Testament portion and one before each of the Gospels in the New Testament. Marginal illustrations are found in the reproduction of The Antiquities of the Jews, including a portrait of its author, Josephus, and a depiction of two orbs representing the creation of heaven and earth.

The illustration of the Devil for which the codex is famous shows a demonic creature with large horns, a lolling forked tongue, white eyes set in a green face, many sharp teeth, and claws on its hands and feet. The Devil appears on the recto (right) side of folio 290 (often listed as page 577), and on the opposing verso (left) page, visible alongside the Devil when the book is fully opened, is an illustration of heavenly Jerusalem, also called New Jerusalem. Here the final abode of souls redeemed by Christ in heaven is depicted as an intricate urban environment. The juxtaposition of these two full-page drawings is often interpreted as indicating the choice between good and evil, salvation and damnation.

Creation: Legend and history

According to legends that circulated in the Middle Ages, the Codex Gigas was created by a monk in Podlažice who sinned and was sentenced to death by immurement—live entombment in a walled enclosure. To atone for his sins, he vowed to write in one night the biggest book in the world. He found himself unable to complete the feat, but the Devil came to his aid. The Devil’s portrait is included as an acknowledgment of demonic assistance. Variations on this legend suggest that the monk had broken his monastic vows, that the creation of the book in a single night was a deal offered by the monastery’s abbot, and that the book was intended to glorify his monastery. In return for the book and his life, the monk pledged his soul to the Devil. The monk then prayed to the Virgin Mary, who offered to save him, but he died before she could. This narrative of devilish deals closely resembles the tales of Theophilus the Penitent and Faust.

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The Codex Gigas’s true origin and authorship are unknown. A mention of one “Hermanus monachus inclusus” (“Herman the confined monk”) in the obituary section has led to speculation that the monk’s name was Herman, but such a claim is dubious. Scholars believe that the manuscript was written by one scribe in Bohemia between the years 1204 and 1230. Estimates for the time it took to complete range from 5 to 30 years. The earliest known owner of the manuscript is the Podlažice Benedictine monastery in Bohemia, which is indicated by a note on the first page; however, it is not known if the writer belonged to that monastery.

Provenance: From Bohemia to Sweden

The Codex Gigas’s record of ownership, while incomplete, is a twisting narrative in its own right. It was acknowledged as a wonder of the world very early and became a prized possession that passed through many hands. A note on the first page states that the Podlažice monastery’s monks pawned the manuscript to Bohemia’s Sedlec Cistercian monastery in 1295. Later that year, or possibly in 1296, the Benedictine monastery in Břevnov, west of Prague, bought it back into Benedictine hands from the Sedlec monastery. The codex moved again when the Břevnov monks relocated to Broumov in 1420 at the start of the Hussite Wars.

In 1594 Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who had a keen interest in books and the occult, borrowed it for his private collection in Prague—he never returned it. In 1648, when the Swedish army captured Prague near the end of the Thirty Years’ War, troops took the Codex Gigas with them back to Stockholm as looted treasure. There Queen Christina placed it in the library in the Royal Palace.

In May 1697 a catastrophic fire broke out at Stockholm’s Tre Kronor Royal Palace, which spread to and consumed the majority of the Royal Library. To save the Codex Gigas, someone threw it out of a window. Legends state that it landed on and injured someone below. The fall caused the manuscript’s binding to tear. The palace was rebuilt, and the Codex Gigas was moved to the new library there in 1768. In 1819 a new binding for the manuscript was made by a Swedish bookbinder. Another new royal library was constructed in Humlegården beginning in 1871, and when it opened on January 1, 1878, the Codex Gigas was moved there by sleigh. The manuscript spent a brief sojourn back in Prague from September 2007 to January 2008, when it was on loan to the National Library of the Czech Republic for an exhibition.