"O gentle Christ give to thy Christ long to live
That devoted to Thee he may not lose the use of time."
Besides, two angels on either side Christ precipitately bestow on the
Emperor the spear and sword of a temporal sovereignty. Round the Emperor
are the words: "Ecce coronatur divinitus atque beatur. Rex pius
Heinricus proavorum stirp(e) polosus," all which can scarcely refer to
anything but his German Empire.
The expression, "give to thy Christ," is an allusion to the Hebrew usage
of calling the king the "anointed" or the "Christ."
Besides the interest possessed by this MS. as a monument of the art of
its own time, it has a special value resting in the fact that its
illuminations were copied from the famous Emmeram Golden Gospels of
Charles the Bald, written by Linthard and Berenger, and sent as a
present to Regensburg. Another illumination in it, representing the
enthronement of the Emperor, is extremely interesting as showing how the
later artist renders the work of the earlier one. The general
composition is precisely the same, the lower figures in the same
attitudes and bearing the same insignia. But in the details of costume,
and in the significant position of the Emperor, there are alterations.
In the miniature of the Emmeram Gospels the two angels above are simply
winged messengers of the usual biblical type; in the Missal they are
cloaked and crowned and bear horns in their hands. In the older MS. the
two crowned figures with horns on either side wear simple mural crowns;
in the later one they are regal like those of the Emperor. The details
also of the canopies are different. But the remarkable difference is
that while Charles the Bald is beardless and bears nothing in his hands,
merely sitting as if addressing an assembly, Henry II. holds in his
right hand a sceptre and in his left an orb and cross. Here is a
distinctly new feature with a meaning. Here are the symbols of authority
in the Emperor's own hands, and not merely in those of his
attendants.[27] These two MSS. are worthy of careful study.
[27] See p. 92.
In another Missal in the library at Bamberg is a miniature of the
Emperor presenting the book to the Virgin. In the great Evangeliary
presented by the Emperor Henry II. to the Cathedral of Bamberg there is
a grand picture of the Emperor and his consort the famous saint
Cunegunda being crowned by Christ, with SS. Peter and Paul standing at
the sides. Here also, as in the Carolingian MS. already mentioned, are
the nations bringing tribute, but not in the same order. Here Germany
stands upright between two figures of Gaul and Rome, while six others
appear simply as busts (Munich, Cimel. 60. 4456).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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