Strata: How Many?
The largest medieval manuscript, the Codex Gigas—otherwise known as the “Devil’s Bible”—measures 3 feet tall and 1.6 feet wide. It is comprised of 310 parchment leaves on which both the Old Testament and New Testament are penned, as well as works by Josephus, a history of Bohemia, several medical texts and other compositions. How many scribes participated in transcribing the texts in the Codex Gigas?
Answer: One
A single scribe wrote the Codex Gigas—or the “Devil’s Bible”—the largest surviving medieval Latin manuscript.1 This scribe is also responsible for all of the manuscript’s decorations—from the elaborate initials to the full-page illustrations.
While the identity of the scribe and exact origin of the manuscript are unknown, it has been ascertained that the Codex Gigas was made in Bohemia (modern day Czech Republic) in the early thirteenth century, possibly at the Podlažice Monastery since there is a note in the manuscript that records the transfer of the manuscript from the monks of Podlažice to those at Sedlec in 1295.
The full-page portrait of the devil that appears in the Codex Gigas earned it the name the “Devil’s Bible” and spawned many interesting legends about this manuscript. According to one medieval legend, a monk of Podlažice, who had been sentenced to vivisepulture—being buried alive—for punishment of his sins wrote the Codex Gigas in one night with the supernatural help of the devil:
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