Gerona Beatus - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gerona Beatus is a 10th century illuminated manuscript

Illuminated manuscript

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

currently housed in the museum of Girona Cathedral, Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

, Spain.

The manuscript contains two separate documents: the Commentary on the Apocalypse

Commentary on the Apocalypse

Commentary on the Apocalypse was originally an eighth century work by the Spanish monk and theologian Beatus of Liébana. Today, it refers to any of the extant manuscript copies of this work, especially any of the 26 illuminated copies that have survived. It is often referred to simply as the Beatus...

by Beatus of Liébana

Beatus of Liébana

Saint Beatus of Liébana was a monk, theologian and geographer from the Kingdom of Asturias, in modern northern Spain, who worked and lived in the Picos de Europa mountains of the region of Liébana, in what is now Cantabria and his feast day is February 19.-Biography:He created an important...

, a late eighth century manuscript popular in medieval SpainSo popular, that twenty-six illustrated copies have survived, dating from the late 9th to the early 13th centuries. and Jerome’s

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

commentary on the Book of Daniel

Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

.Daniel is rich in eschatological prophecy, so the inclusion of Jerome’s commentary with Beatus’ work makes sense on a thematic basis. It includes 284 extant folios, each measuring 400 mm by 260 mm, copiously illustrated with 184 surviving miniatures, and has been described as one of the most richly decorated of the Beatus Commentaries, and one of the best documented.

History

From inscriptions at the conclusion of the text, it is clear that the manuscript was commissioned by an Abbot Dominicus, and was completed on July 6, 975, most probably at the monastery

Monastery

Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

at Tábara

Tábara

Tábara is a municipality located in the province of Zamora, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 950 inhabitants...

.Based largely on Emeterius signing his names as scribe and illuminator to another Beatus Commentary (Cod. 1097B at the National Historical Archives in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

), and stating that it was made at Tavara. The scribe is identified as Presbyter

Presbyter

Presbyter in the New Testament refers to a leader in local Christian congregations, then a synonym of episkopos...

Senior, and, unusually, the names of its two illuminators are included: Ende, painter and servant of God and Emeterius, monk and presbyter.The Latin used for "painter", (de)pintrix, is the feminine form.Per the medieval habit of citing names in descending order of importance, it has been concluded that the more important of the two illuminators was a woman, one of the few named female artists of the Middle Ages.

Style

The manuscript is described as containing:

...a heavily ornamental spirit, a strong tendency to the two-dimensional, a stylized approach to concrete reality which had an almost surreal air, and an unbroken luminous quality to the paint, all of them qualities we can find in a similar fashion in numerous other Mozarabic Beatus manuscripts too...certain details, such as the robes worn by a horseman or the bridle of a horse, still betray Islamic features.

Several of the manuscript’s images indicate an extensive knowledge of Islamic iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

, despite the general style reflecting artistic developments in northern Europe. It has been suggested that this indicates the purpose of the original Commentaries was in opposition to Islamic rule, and a direct criticism of the Mozarab

Mozarab

The Mozarabs were Iberian Christians who lived under Arab Islamic rule in Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and culture...

Symbolism

The meaning of the symbols and iconography contained within the manuscript have been the subject of much debate.

Most interesting in this context, is an image of a mounted figure, in Islamic dress, spearing a snake. The meaning of the rider is part of a larger debate, taking place since the early 1990s, over the purpose behind Beatus’s compilations and their popularity throughout Christian Spain in the succeeding centuries.

Anti Islam interpretation

The image seems out of place, given that the snake is typically a symbol of Satan in Christian iconography. It can, however, also represent wisdom,As drawn from Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples to be "cunning as serpents," Matthew 10:16. forcing the viewer to ask whether the mounted figure is a Mudejar

Mudéjar

Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity...

, destroying the embodiment of Christian wisdom, or a Mozarab

Mozarab

The Mozarabs were Iberian Christians who lived under Arab Islamic rule in Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and culture...

, destroying evil: which points to a rather complex and ambivalent view of Mozarabs at the time. To further complicate interpretation, the idea of the Christian as a "cunning serpent" was prominent in the Cordovan martyrs’ movement.Werckmeister, p.103-105

Political interpretation

The manuscript can be regarded as an incitement of Christian resistance to Muslim rule in the south; the Christian eschatology predicting the fall of the godless kingdoms and the resoration of captive Israel resounded strongly with the Asturians, who by the time of Beatus had only recently gained enough strength to take a stand against Al-Andalus and claim the old Visigothic kingdom as their heritage.

In the image of the rider and snake, the snake appears to be unharmed, indicating the rider to be unambiguously Islamic, and the image is an exhortation to Christians in Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...

not to fear martyrdom.Werckmeister, p.103-105.

In that context [of the Christian stand-off with Islam], his commentary on the apocalyptic visions of John the Divine took on the nature of a political book, since its contents...could be applied directly to the contemporary struggles against those who were perceived as the heathen. The richly illustrated codices...thus articulated an ideology which was at once nationalist and theological.

However, all of Beatus’s sources were composed prior to the rise of Islam in Spain, and, while it may have been possible for a reader to interpret the events of the Apocalypse in reference to Islam, there is a marked absence of contemporaneous anti-Islamic rhetoric.Klein p. 228. Indeed, ...simple proximity to Islam by no means guaranteed Christian attention to it. In the case of Spain, the earliest attempts to comprehend Islam date from almost a century after the conquest, well after the manuscript's production.

Anti-adoptionism

Beatus is famous for his support of Asturian opposition to the doctrine of Adoptionism

Adoptionism

Adoptionism, sometimes called dynamic monarchianism, is a minority Christian belief that Jesus was adopted as God's son at his baptism...

, proclaimed by the bishop of Toledo

Elipando

Elipando was a Spanish archbishop of Toledo and theologian. He was one of the founders of the Adeoptivi sect....

and declared by Asturias

Kingdom of Asturias

The Kingdom of Asturias was a Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula founded in 718 by Visigothic nobles under the leadership of Pelagius of Asturias. It was the first Christian political entity established following the collapse of the Visigothic kingdom after Islamic conquest of Hispania...

as heresy, and it has been suggested that the manuscript reflects his orthodox

Orthodox

Orthodox may refer to:In music:* Orthodox , album by the Czech death metal band KrabathorIn science:* File manager#Orthodox file managers in computing* Orthodox seed, seed which may be preserved via drying or freezing...

stance against the doctrine. To the Asturians, Adoptionism was a form of compromise with the Islamic invaders and Beatus, who later composed a tract attacking Adoptionism directly, may be believed to express some of the same thought in his Commentaries.Schapiro p. 328.

The first edition compilation was completed prior to the Adoptionist controversy, and it is therefore unlikely that Beatus intended the manuscript to stand as an indictment of the doctrine.

Milleniary fears

Beatus’s own chronological computations placed the end of the sixth age of the world, and the start of the events of the Apocalypse, in the year 800. It seems likely that the possible approaching end of the world was the impetus behind the production of the manuscript.Klein pp. 223–224. Klein quotes Maius, the artist of the Morgan Beatus

Morgan Beatus

The Morgan Beatus is an illuminated manuscript with miniatures by the artist Magius of the Commentary on the Book of the Apocalypse by the eighth-century Spanish monk Beatus, which described the end of days and the Last Judgment...

, who had written in the colophon

Colophon (publishing)

In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...

that he painted the pictures so the learned may fear the coming of the future judgement and of the world’s end. For Klein, this is a fairly strong proof of millennialist anxieties.