The Codex Gigas is also known as the bible of the devil because of the large illustration of the devil inside and the legend surrounding its creation. Considered to have been created in the early 13th century in the monastery of the Benedictine Podlažice in Bohemia (the modern Czech Republic).
Today is preserved in the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.
The Codex Gigas is committed in a wooden folder covered with leather and metal ornate carvings. It has 95 cm width, 50 cm height and 25 cm thick, is the largest known medieval manuscript. With a weight of 74,8 kg, the Codex Gigas comprises 310 parchment sheets allegedly made from the skins up to 160 mules or perhaps calves. Initially contained 320 sheets, although some of them were then removed. It is unknown who removed the pages or why, but it seems likely that they contained the monastic rules of the Benedictines. Another version of the story about the missing pages is as follows:
On Friday, May 7, 1697, a fierce fire broke out at the Royal Castle in Stockholm, and Royal Library was burned extensively. The Codex Gigas was rescued from the flames by throwing it from a window. The Codex injured a bystander, obviously by the impact, some of the leaves flutter away and are still missing to this day.
In September 2007, after 359 years, the Codex Gigas returned to Prague on loan from Sweden until January 2008, and was available to the Czech National Library.
The Codex Gigas is believed to have been created by Hermann, an enclosed monk in the Benedictine monastery at Podlažice near the Czech town of Chrudim. The monastery was destroyed in the 15th century during the revolution Hussites. (heretical battalion).
References to recordings of The Codex Gigas ends in the year 1229.
A look in the travelogue of this unique medieval book, shows that the Benedictine monastery and the monks of the blackorder were forced to sell the Codex Gigas, which was later purchased by the monastery Cistercians Sedlec and ironically by the monks of the white order. Then it returned again back to the Benedictine monastery in Brevnov. During the storm of hostilities of Hussits ,however, the Benedictine monks of Břevnov took refuge in the fortified monastery in Broumov taking with them a number of valuable objects, including the Codex Gigas. The book vigilantly guarded in the monastery until passed into the famous collections of Rudolph II. From there to the end of the war of thirty years, that transfered away as an important part of the spoils of war in Sweden.
As a unique heirloom of historical and religious significance which was sought after.
According to legend which began already in the Middle Ages, the author was a monk who broke their vows of monasticism thus sentenced to enwalling alive. To avoid this harsh penalty he promised to create in a single night a book to glorify the monastery forever, including all human knowledge until then.
Near midnight he was confident that he will never be able to complete this task alone, so he made a special prayer, which is not addressed to God, but the fallen angel Lucifer, asking him to help him finish the book in exchange for his soul. The devil completed the manuscript and the monk added the devil's picture out of gratitude for his help.
In tests to recreate the project, estimated that in order to reproduce only the penmanship, without the pictures or the decoration, someone had to write for 5 consecutive years without a break.
About half of the Codex Gigas is the whole Latin Bible in the Vulgate version, except for the books of Acts and Revelation. By series exist in Codex Gigas: Genesis, Isaiah-Daniel? Hosea-Malachi; Job? Samuel and Kings? -Psalms Song of Songs; Solomon learned; Wisdom of Jesus; Esdras; Tobit; Judith? Esther; and Maccabees.
Between Testaments is Antiquities Josephus' Jewish and De Bello iudaico, as etymology encyclopedia of Isidore of Seville and medicine Hippocrates, Theophilus, Filaret, and Constantine. After a blank page, the New Testament begins with Matthew-Acts, the first disclosure of James, and the Roman Jewish. After the image of the devil, Cosmas of Prague Chronicle of Bohemia, o katalogos the brothers of the monastery Podlažice, and a calendar with necrology, magical formulas and other local files around the Codex Gigas.
The entire document is written in Latin. It also contains Hebrew, Greek and Slavic alphabets (Cyrillic and Glagolitic).
The manuscript includes color in red, blue, yellow, green and gold. Capital letters elaborately illuminated, frequently across the page. The code has a uniform appearance and the nature of writing is unchanged throughout olo text, without showing signs of age, illness or dispose taken by the author. This may lead to the belief that the entire book was written in a very short time.
H front includes a unique image of the devil, about 50 cm. Just opposite the devil is a full-page illustration of the kingdom of heaven, contrasting to unlike images of Good and Evil. Several pages are written on vellum blackened and have a very gloomy character, somewhat different from the rest of the Codex Gigas. The reason for the variation in coloring is that the code pages are from parchment and scratched dried animal skin, which gets dark when exposed to ultraviolet light. Through the centuries, the pages most often was lighter coloured, but today they have developed this guide darker color.
The details of the Devil.
After the image of the devil is a page dedicated to the avoidance of evil spirits and diseases. On this page there are three invocations and two spells, which probably intended as a protection from the devil and not as an invocation because of the controversy with the previous page.
Deliberate further away from demonic connection is a picture of the kingdom in heaven, which is placed before the demon and spells.
Lack of additional demonic content makes it appear that the image of the devil is present only as a symbol, and not as an object of worship.
Codex Gigas tends to leave a dark print in the regions that it was hosted.
The Sedlec Ossuary (Czech: Kostnice v Sedlci) is a small Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints (Hřbitovní kostel Všech Svatých) in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose bones have in many cases been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel.
In the mid 14th century, after the Hussite Wars an during the Black Death, many thousands were buried in the abbey cemetery, so it had to be greatly enlarged. The curse of the Bible of Satan seems to be the reason of the continuous disasters, Hussites and plague, that stroke the city and filled the cemetery of the city, according to folklore.