With its unusual chain and half a meter high binding made of pigskin, wood and metal, it is an imposing appearance.
And at 15 kilograms, it is anything but lightweight.
But the inner values count even more: Hildegard von Bingen's giant codex is one of the most valuable medieval manuscripts.
A codex as an encyclopaedically organized complete edition of Hildegard's writings is a highly unusual, unique publication for the Middle Ages.
It consists of 481 parchment sheets written on both sides.
Oliver Bock
Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis and for Wiesbaden.
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For the most part, the codex was probably created during Hildegard's lifetime and was only completed after her death - probably before 1187.
He is thus the legacy of the nun, church doctor and monastery founder, who was canonized in 2012.
Hildegard von Bingen is still considered to be one of the most remarkable and influential women of the Middle Ages, and the Giant Codex as the complete work of her writings is a key for today's research.
To be on the safe side to Dresden
A key that seemed lost after World War II. After the escalation of the Allied bombing war, the Wiesbaden State Library no longer seemed safe enough to store the manuscript. The codex has been stored in the formerly newly founded "Public Library of the Duchy of Nassau" since the secularization of the Eibingen Benedictine monastery in 1814. That was also a refuge at that time after the mother monastery on the Binger Rupertsberg was plundered by Swedish troops in 1632. In the middle of the Second World War, this time it should not only go over the Rhine to be on the safe side, but also in the safe of the Girozentrale Sachsen in Dresden.
This solution is said to have caused head shakes even then, and the historian and archivist Christiane Heinemann cannot understand the decision to relocate the cultural property to the center of a city that is undoubtedly also threatened by bombs. While other manuscripts, including Hildegard's smaller Scivias Codex, have been lost to this day and may have been lost, the giant codex survived the Dresden bomb inferno in February 1945 and even the looting by Soviet soldiers.
After the end of the war, the Allies became interested in the cultural assets. As early as August 1945, a report had been submitted to the military government in Wiesbaden, according to which “the total value of the manuscripts housed in Dresden should amount to at least five million Reichsmarks. A replacement is completely impossible, since all of them are one-offs. "
After Heinemann's research, the new head of the Nassau State Library, Franz Götting, made a committed effort to have the Codex returned.
However, numerous attempts failed, and the negotiation path was initially unsuccessful.
Then Margarethe Kühn stepped on the scene: a scientist who lives in West Berlin and works at the East Berlin Institute “Monumenta Germaniae Historica”, who wanted to turn her life around by joining the St. Hildegard Abbey.
From then on she dedicated herself to regaining the central legacy of Hildegard von Bingen.
A cinematic story
How she took the giant code from Dresden to East Berlin under a pretext, then carted it to her West Berlin apartment in a handcart and, thanks to the contacts with an American officer's wife, he found his way back to the abbey in 1948 on an Allied train and a few months later to the Wiesbadener Landesbibliothek finds is a film-worthy story. A kidnapping story from the Eastern Zone, published by Heinemann as the 94th publication of the Historical Commission for Nassau.
In order to deceive the Dresden Ministry of Culture, which demanded the return after seven months of borrowing and could no longer be put off, an outwardly similar book was sent back to the East in the original metal case of the Giant Codex. But the experts at the Ministry of Popular Education did not fall for that, although the characteristic chain that originally served as a connection to the reading table was attached to it.
At times the Eibingen sisters feared that they would have to give the treasure back after the dizziness had been exposed. The giant code threatened to become a political issue in the Cold War. Kühn and her superior who covered them spoke of a mistake and looked for a negotiated solution. A legal aftermath followed, the East Berlin public prosecutor initiated an investigation against Kühn.
In August 1950 it was discontinued because the accused was accused of an oversight and no intention of enrichment.
In addition, the Ministry of Public Education received an "Eastern handwriting that has been relocated to the West" as compensation.
A criminal act is therefore not recognizable.
That, too, was not entirely based on actual events.
But the goal was achieved.
“Aunt Hilde”, the code word for the codex that Kühn had agreed upon for letters with the Eibingen Abbey, was finally back.
Christiane Heinemann: The giant code of Hildegard von Bingen. Lost, found, saved. Paths of Destiny 1942 to 1950. Volume 94 of the Historical Commission for Nassau. Available in regional bookshops.