When the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II died 1000 years ago, on July 13, 1024, he left behind a rich legacy of books. New book tells the story.

Henry II (973 – 1024) inherited Bamberg castle from his father, the Bavarian Duke Henry the Quarrelsome, in 995. At his marriage in 999, he endowed his wife Kunigunde with the castle and the town below. However, after it became apparent that their marriage would remain childless, Henry and his wife grew particularly fond of Bamberg; in 1007, they elevated Bamberg to a diocese. During the rest of their reign, the imperial couple continued to shower it with generous gifts. Numerous donations of villages, land and churches secured the material foundations of the diocese.

Between 1002 and 1012, the Babenberg church was replaced with a newly built double-choir cathedral with eight altars, flanked by the Benedictine monastery of St. Michael and the collegiate foundation of St. Stephen on neighbouring hills. Healing relics and valuable church treasures increased the fame and splendour of the new diocese. In 1020, Pope Benedict VIII even travelled to Bamberg in 1020 to consecrate St. Stephen. During his lifetime, Henry II, who had been destined for a clerical career and thus educated at Freising, Hildesheim, and Regensburg was appointed deacon.

However, Bamberg still lacked a monastic scriptorium to produce the magnificently furnished and carefully edited codices required to enhance the schools and celebrate the liturgies. The emperor, therefore, used every means possible to obtain books. A foundation was laid with works that his predecessor, Emperor Otto III, had acquired in Italy and transferred to Bamberg. Henry then commissioned workshops in Regensburg, Seeon and Reichenau to create precious illuminated books to celebrate mass, ensuring a lasting memory of the ruler long after his death. He also persuaded monasteries throughout his entire domain to give important standard texts to the new diocese of Bamberg.

Henry thus succeeded in quickly expanding the Library of Bamberg Cathedral into an outstanding collection of works from all areas of knowledge. It had an excellent collection of biblical texts, writings of the Church Fathers and younger theologians, legal sources, history books and works of ancient authors, and philosophical, natural history and medical treatises.

One hundred sixty-five of the approximately 350 to 450 codices Henry II brought to Bamberg in his lifetime have survived the turmoil of war, fires and unfavourable storage conditions. Later, they escaped the clutches of book collectors hunting for rarities.

It was not until the secularisation of 1803 that a profound upheaval occurred. When the Electorate of Bavaria took over the Bishopric of Bamberg, church rule ended, and the movable property also fell to the House of the Wittelsbachs. Luckily, though, only six top items were transferred to Munich. The rest of the books donated by Henry remained in Bamberg, where they continue to be regarded as the most precious treasure of today’s State Library. In 2003 and 2013, three codices were even particularly distinguished by being included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World: the Bamberg Apocalypse with its incomparable cycle of 50 miniatures from the Reichenau painter’s workshop (Msc.Bibl.140, cat. no. 9), the Song of Songs and the Book of Daniel with double-page picture prologues from the same scriptorium (Msc.Bibl.22, cat. no. 2) and the Carolingian ‘Lorsch Pharmacopoeia‘, the oldest medical manuscript in Europe (Msc.Med.1, cat. no. 42).

The 1000th anniversary of Emperor Henry II’s death is a welcome opportunity for the State Library to present a selection of 50 codices in a book publication in pictures and text. The selected manuscripts comprise about a third of the holdings that came to Bamberg during Henry’s lifetime and have survived. They were the subject of early scientific work in the 18th century and have been intensively described and researched over the past 200 years. The sheer abundance of publications reflects the central importance of the manuscripts.

New book

As part of the exhibitions mounted to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Henry II, the Library has published a beautiful coffee-table book presenting 50 of the most outstanding volumes deriving form this unique collection. The list of codices is based on Friedrich Leitschuh’s manuscript catalogues from the early 20th century, which are arranged thematically by subject groups and chronologically within these; it forms the basis of the order of the descriptions in this catalogue. The art-historical indexing of the illuminated manuscripts was carried out by Gude Suckale-Redlefsen from 1986 to 2003, while the information on each book illustration is taken from her descriptions and paired with the splendid new photos from the hand of Gerald Raab.

The book offers a portrait of the Emperor accompanied by a translation into German of the texts concerning the death of the emperor, a presentation of his Library and its preservation for 1000 years, an exploration of the liturgical texts, and the two parts of the Library holdings, the secular and the religious texts.

The book also works as a catalogue presenting the digital exhibition on the Bavarikon titled “Emperor Henry II- a Man of Power and a Saint”.
This digital exhibition tells the story of Henry and his family, his election as first king and then emperor, the times in which he lived, the history of the Diocese of Bamberg, the imperial coronation, his library, his marriage and much more.

Des Kaisers neue Bücher. Mittelalterliche Handschriften der Bamberger Kaiser-Heinrich-Bibliothek in 50 Porträts
By Christof Rolker and Bettina
Reichert Verlag 2024

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The State Library’s digital collections, in which all manuscripts from the Kaiser Heinrich Library have been available online since 2010 , have established themselves as the Library’s most frequently visited internet offering and enable convenient and free subsequent use by research and cultural mediation – including virtual exhibitions on bavarikon, the Free State of Bavaria’s online portal for the presentation of art, culture and treasures of knowledge, and the Google Arts & Culture platform.

 

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