Richard Fay
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 Posted: Tue 07 Nov, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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Hello all!
| Jared Smith wrote: |
My personal impression is that is more of a snapshot of historical fame and importance of late 13th to mid 14th century German kingdom. |
Most of my sources state that the Manesse Codex is an early 14th century manuscript ( Including Richard Barber's The Knight and Chivalry and Christopher Gravett's German Medieval Armies 1000-1300, to name a couple of sources). I checked the internet, and found that the Universitatbibliothek Heidelberg (University Library, Heidelberg) has a site (in German, but translatable by the browser translator with some interesting and funny results) that has a complete facsimile of the Codex Palatinus Germanicus 848 Grosse Heideleger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse). They have some nice internet images of plates from the Manesse Codex. They give a date of 1305 to 1340 for the manuscript, which seems to fit the styles of the arms and armour and clothing shown in many of the plates. Many of the figures are of important personages from an earlier time, but just like the various medieval bibles (like the Maciejowski Bible), they show the individuals in arms and armour and clothing of the time the manuscript was made. Keep in mind, too (and I think you may have mentioned this) that medieval manuscripts could be made over several years, and contain images representing that time span. (The Romance of Alexander in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is a good example of that: the first plate that shows armed men (fol. 21 verso) is clearly of a very early 14th century date, but most of the rest of the plates (from fol. 42 verso on) are a bit later, probably early-mid 14th century. The Bodleian Library has the complete manuscript online, too, but it's so large that it's a terror to navigate through.)
It's easy enough to find the University of Heidelberg's site with the codex, just search for "Manesse Codex". Here's the address I found:
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/cpg848
Since I mentioned it, here's the address for the Romance of Alexander at the Bodleian Library, Oxford:
http://image.ox.ac.uk/show?collection=bodleia...=msbodl264
I hope this was useful information!
Stay safe!
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did! I'm going to recite poetry!"
Prince Andrew of Armar
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This is a standard topic
