Uta Codex 1025
The Uta Codex is an illuminated manuscript created by nuns at the command of the abbess Uta. This expensive manuscript is made of animal skin pages. It is one of the most beautiful and complex of the Ottonian manuscripts. Included in the dedication pages is an illustration of the abbess Uta dedicating the codex to the Virgin Mary. This shows the important role that women played during the Early Medieval time period in both religious life and as patrons of the arts.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI am a great fan of the Uta Codex and am doing research on it, though little information exists on it.
A few corrections:
The codex was officially finished in 1020, 1025 was the presentation date. The manuscript was, also, not created at the monastery where-which Abbess Uta presided. The actual scribe(s) are unknown but the illuminations are (scholarly) attributed to the Frenchman, Hartwic, who relocated to the neighboring (male) monastery in Regensburg. Finally (personal opinion), the fact that a woman commissioned the codex is one reason that shows clearly the importance of women in the patronage of early Christian Art. However, that she [Abbess Uta] commissioned a work that set the bar so high, so early in the history of illuminated manuscripts is also another avenue to explore. And, that the codex contains among, if not the most, comprehensive and complex textual Gloss (comments in the form of lessons on the margins of the pages), suggests further, that Abbess Uta was far more important than once thought. It was the Abbess that dictated what exactly should be displayed in the manuscript, and hoe it was to be displayed.
This is not one of those anonymous e-slams, I just wanted to offer a little bit of info on a manuscript that has little information out on it, though it should have far more!
(Uta! Uta! Uta!)
Cheers!