In the first half of the 13th century, a novice of a poor Czech monastery wrote a book, which, due to its enormous size, was called Codex Gigas, which in Latin means “Giant Codex”. Later they began to call it “The Book of the Devil”, considering that the author of the book is Satan himself. And there were prerequisites for such a bold conclusion.
Monk and devil
Legend has it that the hermit monk from the Benedictine monastery in the Czech town of Podžalice committed a serious sin. For sin, the brethren decided to brick him up alive in the wall, but Herman promised the monks that in one night he would write a book that would glorify the monastery.
He kept his word and by sunrise he finished a book called "Codex Gigas" or "The Devil's Bible." The manuscript weighed 74 kilograms, and 160 donkey skins were used to create it. The book is 90 cm high, 49 cm wide, and 22 cm thick. According to legend, Herman made a contract with Satan, who did all the work for him.
A drawing of the devil from Codex Gigas.
The codex contains the only full-length medieval depiction of the devil. The illustration is located on page 290 and stands out from the rest of the illustrations. It has a different color and style, and the page itself is darker than the others. The members of the mystical version of the origin of the book believe that this is a kind of mark of the lord of hell.
Promotional video:
One of the inked pages.
On the devil's thighs is a bandage made of ermine skins - a symbol of royal power, which is unthinkable impudence for the Middle Ages. It remains a mystery why the monk was allowed to leave such a defiant drawing. Eight pages immediately after the portrait of the devil are filled with ink and the scientists have not been able to find out the meaning of what was written on them. There are 640 pages in the code, but 624 have come down to us, and the missing sheets were torn out of the book and destroyed in the Middle Ages.
One author
The book is a collection of all the knowledge that the Benedictine Order had in the XIII century. In it you can read the texts of the Bible, the works "Antiquities of the Jews", "The Jewish War" by Josephus Flavius, the medieval encyclopedia "Etymology" of Isidore of Seville, medical treatises, the New Testament and instructions in repentance. Next is a portrait of the devil, descriptions of the rituals of exorcism, "The Czech Chronicle" by Kozma of Prague and the calendar.
The graphological examination confirmed that the text of the code and all illustrations were drawn by the hand of one person. For a scribe of the Middle Ages, it was considered the norm to rewrite 100 lines of text a day. Assuming continuous work with a six-hour daylight hours, it would take a monk 30 years to create a codex.
History of the Code
Interestingly, the monastery in Podlažice was considered a poor monastery with a small number of brethren, and writing any book, especially such as the codex, cost a lot of money. Where did the poor monks get the parchment, paint and ink? Due to financial difficulties, the brethren sold the codex to the Sedlece monastery. Subsequently, the folio passed to the new owners several times and as a result ended up in the Bruma monastery.
In the 16th century, a mysterious book attracted the attention of mystics, and everyone started talking about a manuscript written by Satan himself. The codex was investigated by Christopher Schlichting, a student of Paracelsus, and by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, who transported the manuscript to the Prague Castle.
During the Thirty Years' War, the Swedes took Prague by storm and removed the codex as a trophy. Since 1646, The Book of the Devil has been kept in the Royal Swedish Library in Stockholm. Despite its size and a large number of owners, the manuscript has been perfectly preserved. Today, all the pages of the mysterious book have been digitized and published in the public domain. There are other examples of the relationship between man and the devil preserved in history. The Inquisition accused the French priest Urbain Grandier of making a pact with Satan for the sake of wealth and power over women.
A digital copy of the Gigas Codex can be viewed here.