Lorsch codex
Encyclopedia
Lorsch
Lorsch is a town in the Bergstraße district in Hesse, Germany, 60 km south of Frankfurt. Lorsch is well known for the Lorsch Abbey, which has been named a World Heritage Site.-Location:...
, Germany. It consists of 460 pages in large format containing more than 3800 entries. It is important because it details the gifts given to the monastery and the possessions belonging to it, which thus gives some of the first mention of cities of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
in central Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, and in particular in the Rhein-Neckar region. Over one thousand places are named.
No original of the Lorsch codex is known; however, the Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n State Archive
Archive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
is where the codex is housed today. The codex as it exists now is handwritten in Carolingian minuscule
Carolingian minuscule
Carolingian or Caroline minuscule is a script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Roman alphabet could be easily recognized by the literate class from one region to another. It was used in Charlemagne's empire between approximately 800 and 1200...
, and there is an illuminated
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...
drop capital
Initial
In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning...
– a huge "D" – on the first page.
Literature
- Codex Laureshamensis. Das Urkundenbuch des ehemaligen Reichsklosters Lorch, Neustadt/Aisch 2003 (Bavarian State Archive 1 special publication) ISBN 3-921635-71-3 facsimile edition
- Karl Josef Minst: Lorscher Codex deutsch. Urkundenbuch der ehemaligen Fürstabtei Lorsch, 5 Bde., Lorsch 1966/72 Lorsch (translation)
- Karl Glöckner: Codex Laureshamensis, Darmstadt 1929-1936, reprint 1963 (definitive edition) Online as facsimile at ALO
See also
- History of GermanyHistory of GermanyThe concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul , which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the...
- High Middle AgesHigh Middle AgesThe High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
- ManuscriptManuscriptA manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...