In the December 2023 issue of Modern Language Quarterly, I published an article that is the first to examine the circumstances surrounding and production of a renowned manuscript facsimile of the Rupertsberg Scivias, the most celebrated copy of the visionary text by Hildegard von Bingen. That manuscript facsimile was copied by three nuns of Eibingen Abbey and illuminated by the artist Josepha Knips between 1927 and 1933. You can access a copy of the article here. Sonja Drimmer, “Hildegard’s Scivias in Weimar Germany: Media Theory by Hand,” Old ‘New Media’ and Literary Studies before 1960, ed. András Kiséry and David Nee, special issue Modern Language Quarterly 84.4 (2023): 443–464.“
My main concern in that article was to take seriously the the 20th-century scribes’ and artist’s labor as articulating a theory about reproduction and mediation by comparing it to an influential debate about the role of replicas and facsimiles in public education (known as the “Hamburg Facsimile Debate”), which took place precisely as these women were producing their facsimile. Despite a paucity of textual material outlining the manuscript producers’ ideas about these subjects, the facsimile itself, I argue, reveals not simply their methods but also the theory guiding these methods—that is, a methodology.
However, there is one extensive textual document that does tell us something alongside the traces of the scribes’ and artist’s work. That document is the colophon inscribed on a final leaf in the facsimile. I discuss this colophon in my article and include a picture of it, but due to the word limit, I was unable to publish my full translation. To my knowledge this colophon has only been reproduced in subsequent facsimiles of the Rüdesheimer facsimile, but nowhere else.
My translation follows immediately below, and I include my transcription of the original Latin below that. If you would like to use it for your work or teaching, cite it as follows: “The Colophon in the Rüdesmeimer Codex of Hildegard von Bingen's Scivias,” translation by Sonja Drimmer. https://sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2024/1/19/the-colophon-in-the-rdesmeimer-codex-of-hildegard-von-bingens-scivias. January 19, 2024.
My thanks to Joy Elisabeth Reeber for reading and offering corrections to my translation.
Colophon. Rüdesheimer Codex. Rüdesheim am Rhein, Abtei St.Hildegard, Hs.1.
TRANSLATION.
This codex contains the most accurate, most true likeness, in both word and picture, of that glorious book, Scivias, which the very Abbess of Rupertsberg at Bingen St Hildegard herself composed and wrote.
This most precious original work held in the sacred building of St-Rupert at Bingen, which was devastasted and destroyed by Swedes in 1632 AD, was deposited in Eibingen monastery. Then after the first building of St-Hildegard of Eibingen was desecrated by secular use in 1804, it was joined to the public library “Aquas Mattiaca” [the Wiesbaden Kurhaus, which bears those words on its entablature over the entrance] where it is kept to this day.
The reverend mistress Regintrudis Sauter, who occupies the thirty-second position as abbess of the monastery at Eibingen after St. Hildegard wanted this excellent work of her own holy fore-mother restored in the first and truest form of the pictures/tablets and letters according to the exemplum by her very own skilled daughters.
His Majesty Ferdinand, Emperor of Bulgaria, most August Lord, gave the parchment and pigments necessary for accomplishing/completing this work as a gift of the greatest princely munificence and nobility, out of the closeness of his connection to the Reverend Lady Maria Benedicta, a sister of this convent, who was born a duchess of Württemberg and was [then] called/dedicated [to the same].
The ingeniously designed and ornamented binding of this book was made with elegance by hand by craftsmen at the Abbey of Maria Laach, completed by means of the singular, true method in the office of the Herder Verlag in Freibourg.
This most serious work (i.e. copy?) of the original as though [it had been] created and fashioned anew finished within the span of a year and six months to the 25th anniversary of Reverend Mistress Regintrudis Sauter’s Abbacy on the 8th day of September in 1933, the jubilee year of our redemption, celebrated with the highest joy and with most intimate devotion.
This divine work is a gift of God, thanks be to God.
Colophon. Rüdesheimer Codex. Rüdesheim am Rhein, Abtei St.Hildegard, Hs.1.
original text.
Hic codex continet accuratissimam et in verborum contextu et in miniaturis picturisque verissimam imaginem incluti illius libri, quem ipsa Abbatissa monasterii in monte Sancti Ruperti ad Bingum quondam siti Sancta Hildegardis scripsit et inscripsit Scivias.
Pretiosissimum huius operis archetypum sacris aedibus S. Ruperti ad Bingium anno Domini 1632 a Suecis pervastatis atque destructis in monasterium Eibingense delatum est. Unde postquam prius aedificium Sanctae Hildegardis Eibingense ad usum saecularem anno Domini 1804 profanatum est, bibliothecae ad Aquas Mattiacas publice institutae adjiunctum est, ubi adhuc asservatur.
Domna Reverenda Regintrudis Sauter, prima redintegrati monasterii Eibingensis Abbatissa, quae trigesimum secundum post sanctum Hildegardem huius coenobii obtinet locum abbatialem, hoc eximium Sanctae Proavia suae opus in prima verissimaque tabularum litterarumque forma ad exemplum reddi voluit per suas ipsius filias artifices.
Membrana et colores ad opus perficiendum necessarios dono dedit summa cum principis munificentia ac liberalitate Sua Maiestas Ferdinandus, Bulgagorum Imperator, Augustissimus Dominus propinquitate coniunctus cum Reverenda Domna Maria Benedicta, huius monasterii moniale, quae ducessa de Württemberg nata est et nuncupata.
Huius libri tegumentum ingeniose compositum atque ornamentum elegantiaque manu fictum est ab artificibus Abbatiae B.M.V. ad Lacum, singulari vero arte confectum est in officinis Editionis Herderianae Friburgensis.
Gravissimum hoc opus archetypi quasi denuo creandi atque formandi moniales Eibingensis intra sex mensium et anni spatium ad vigesimumquintum anniversarium Reverendae Dominae Reginstrudis Sauter Abbatissae die 8 Septembris anni iubilaei redemptionis nostrae MCMXXXIII celebratum summo cum gaudio intimaquae devotione perfecerunt.
Est Donum Dei hoc opus divinum Deo gratias.