The Saint-Sever Beatus: An Illustrated Commentary on the Apocalypse (Part 4)

This is the fourth part of an ongoing series on the Saint-Sever Beatus, an illuminated manuscript of the 11th century produced at the abbey of Saint-Sever in southwestern France. The primary text which it illustrates, and for which it is named, is a commentary on the book of the Apocalypse written by Saint Beatus of Liébana, a monk who lived in northern Spain in the 8th century; for further details, see part 1. This article covers the illustrations from chapters 12 to 16. The next post will complete the book, and a sixth one will give the images from the second text in the book, St Jerome’s commentary on the prophet Daniel. 

This image is the surviving half of an illustration of chapter 12, the vision of the woman clothed with the sun who gives birth to a child, of the great dragon, and St Michael’s battle against him.

Chapter 13, 11: “And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns, like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon.”

A table with the eight names of the Antichrist, arranged in a grid in which the syllables that comprise them are repeated very frequently. The inscription in the gold band reads as follows: “Octo nominibus nuncupabitur in septem regna que est bestia (cum septem capita et decem cornua serpens). – By eight names shall he be called in tthe seven kingdoms, who is the beast with seven heads, and the serpent with ten horns.” The text that is missing at the lower right is known from other Beatus manuscripts...

such as the Valcavado Beatus, produced in the year 970 at the monastery of Our Lady in Palencia, Spain. It is not immediately apparent how this table is be be used, but apparently, each letter of the eight names is assigned a numerical value, which when put together in a certain order amount to the number of the beast mentioned in Apocalypse 13, 18.   

Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

A decorative element on the opposite side of the preceding page.

The eight names are then arranged under these eight arches; the tables underneath them are apparently supposed to enable one to figure out who the Antichrist is by some kind of numerological calculation. It is interesting to note that the names are mostly gibberish, but one of them is “Genseric”, the name of the Vandal king who led the sack of Rome in 455. 

Another purely decorative element on one side of a page of text.

Chapter 15, 1-3: “And I saw another sign in heaven, ... seven angels having the seven last plagues. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had overcome the beast, and his image, and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, and singing the canticle of Moses, the servant of God, and the canticle of the Lamb...”

Chapter 15, 5-7: “... and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened, and the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues... and one of the four living creatures (the eagle in this depiction) gave to the seven angels seven golden vials, full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.”

Chapter 16, 2: “And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth, and there fell a sore and grievous wound upon men, who had the character of the beast; and upon them that adored the image thereof.”

Chapter 16, 3-4: “And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and there came blood as it were of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea. 4 And the third poured out his vial upon the rivers and the fountains of waters; and there was made blood.”

Chapter 16, 8: “And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and it was given unto him to afflict men with heat and fire”

Chapter 16, 10: “And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom became dark...” (At the lower left, a decorative element, with a lion and its indistinctly drawn prey.)

Chapter 16, 5-7: “And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon that great river Euphrates; and dried up the water thereof, that a way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun.”

Chapter 16, 13: “And I saw from the mouth of the dragon, and from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs”