Two framed illustrations from the medieval Codex Manesse. One illustration depicting "The Triangle of the Sacred Sisterhood," the other illustration depicting Otto IV.

Overall Size: 18 x 14 in. 

Sight Size: 12 x 8 in. 

#5035 . 

The Codex Manesse (also known as Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift or Pariser Handschrift) is a Liederhandschrift (manuscript containing songs), the single most comprehensive source of Middle High German Minnesang poetry, written and illustrated between c. 1304 (when the main part was completed) and c. 1340 (with the addenda). The codex was produced in Zürich (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) for the Manesse family, the most wealthy merchant family in the city. With 137 miniatures in beautifully illumined German script, the “portraits” are an invaluable window into life in the Empire at the time. The entries are ordered approximately by the social status of the poets, starting with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, Kings Conradin and Wenceslaus II, down through dukes, counts and knights, and finally to commoners. Most of the poems are Minnesang, but there are also other genres, including fables and Spruchdichtung (didactic poems). The house of Manesse declined in the late 14th Century, selling their castle in 1393. The fate of the codex during the 15th Century is unknown, but by the 1590s it had passed into possession of Baron Johann Philipp of Hohensax (two of whose forebears are portrayed in the codex). After 1657 it was in the French royal library, from which it passed to the Bibliothèque Nationale, where the manuscript was studied by Jacob Grimm in 1815. In 1888 it was sold to the Bibliotheca Palatina of Heidelberg. The first critical editions of the Codex Manesse appeared in the early 19th Century, and the codex is so foundational to Minnesang scholars that it is often simply referred to by the abbreviation “C.”

Commensurate with age.