The First Bible of Charles the Bald (9th-Century)

On Sunday, I illustrated an excerpt from Durandus with an image taken from a decorated Bible produced in the mid-ninth century, commonly known as the First Bible of Charles the Bald, who received it as a gift from one Vivien, count of Tours; it is also known as the Vivian Bible. (In French, ‘Vivien’, from Latin ‘Vivianus’ or ‘Bibianus’, is a men’s name, the female equivalent being ‘Vivienne.’ There is a Second Bible named for Charles, which has almost no decoration in it.)  It was produced in 845-46 in the scriptorium of the abbey of St Martin in Tours; Count Vivien was also the lay abbot of this famous institution, in keeping with an abuse which was very common in that era. The bible was presented to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Bald (born 823; reigned 843-77), partly as a way of thanking him for certain privileges which he conferred upon the abbey, as is mentioned in the last of the three dedication poems included within it. Here are pictures of all of the illustrated folios, and a sample of the other decorative elements, which are not very many. This is actually the very first item in the catalog of Latin manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

This folio decorated with gold letters on a purple background, which would have been incredibly expensive to produce, is the first dedicatory poem.

Only a handful of pages are illustrated like this one found near the beginning of the codex, in a style which is deliberately modeled after ancient Roman manuscripts. The upper band shows St Jerome leaving Rome for the Holy Land on the left; on the right, he is sitting down with a rabbi whom he is paying to teach him Hebrew. In the middle band, Jerome works on this great project of translating the Hebrew Bible into Latin, in the company of his scribes; note the presence of several women on the left, among whom would be St Paula and her daughter Eustochium, friends from Rome who helped him a great deal. On the bottom, Jerome hands out copies of his translations.

Medieval Bibles normally include a fair amount of prefatory material of various kinds; here, two sheets are dedicated to one of Jerome’s letters, written to a priest friend named Paulinus, about his translation work.

The beginning of Jerome’s own preface to the book of Genesis, with the sun, the moon, and the signs of the zodiac worked into the large letter P.

The chapter and verse system which we currently use for Bibles was not invented until the 13th century; here we see a list of the chapters of Genesis according to a different system which has 82, rather than the modern 50. Genesis is the only book of the Old Testament for which the chapters are listed within an elaborate framework like this.

This page shows episodes from the book of Genesis from the creation of Adam to the expulsion from the garden.

The first page of Genesis; most of the Bible has only text, with no decorative frame or letters as we see here.

Before the book of Exodus, Moses receives the Law on Mt Sinai, and presents it to the Israelites.

The beginning of the text of Exodus; small images of Moses being found in the basket of reeds are worked into the opening letter H.

The next illustrated page is right before the Psalter; King David is surrounded by six of the other composers of the Psalms named in many of their titles, and in the corners are figures representing the four cardinal Virtues.

An anonymous preface on the authorship of the Psalms, and St Jerome’s preface to his second revision of the older Psalter text. This revision came into common use in the Divine Office in the Carolingian period, and is therefore known (somewhat inexactly) as the Gallican Psalter, the text still used to this day in the Roman breviary.

The beginning of the Psalms.

Contrary to the common impression, St Jerome did not translate the entire Bible. In the New Testament, he revised an older text of the Gospels at the behest of Pope St Damasus I (366-84); none of the rest of it is his work at all. Here is the beginning of his letter to Damasus, in which he explains his work of revision.

A second preface which gives a general introduction to the Gospels and the common traditions concerning their authorship.

On this page is a Latin translation of a letter by Eusebius of Caesarea, in which he explains the tables which are shown on the next pages in beautifully decorative frames. These are known as the Eusebian Canons, a system for noting which passages of the Gospels are common to more than one of the evangelists, and which are unique to each one.
 

Immediately after the Canons is this image of Christ in majesty, surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists, the four major prophets, in the corners, the evangelists themselves.

The beginning of the Gospel of St Matthew.

A preface to the Pauline epistles attributed (falsely, I believe) to St Jerome, who, as I noted above, did not revise or translate them. The author or authors of the rest of the Latin New Testament are unknown to us.

A thematic concordance of the Pauline epistles.

All the episodes related to the conversion of St Paul.

The beginning of the epistle to the Romans.

Before the Apocalypse is this image compiled from several different parts of the book.

The beginning of a preface to the Apocalypse (also falsely attributed to St Jerome), more decorated than most of the other books, perhaps because Carolingians often used it as inspiration for their ideas about church architecture and decoration.

The chapter headings, and the beginning of the book.

At the very end of the book, another dedicatory poem, which mentions Count Vivian and the Emperor Charles by name...

and is followed by this image of the count with several of the monks of his abbey, presenting the book to the emperor and his court.