COLLECTION NAME:
Rylands Collection
Record
Image Number:
Bookreader German MS 2
Reference Number:
German MS 2
Parent Work Title:
Deutsches Stammbuch
Alternative Parent Work Title:
Armorial
Translated Parent Work Title:
Book of German Families
Creator:
Cranach, Lucas, 1515-1586
Creator Role:
Artist
Date Created:
1565
Description:
Deutsches Stammbuch (Book of German Families) is a sixteenth-century armorial manuscript containing over 1,800 coats of arms of princes and nobles of the Holy Roman Empire on 178 paper leaves, with pagination in ink, in parallel with a foliation in pencil. The illustrations are labelled with, clear and legible Fraktur script, painted in gouache (opaque watercolour paint) on paper, in iron gall ink. The present manuscript, was produced in the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger for Elector August of Saxony, and that it was copied from an earlier armorial of circa 1500 which was kept in Cranach’s workshop, probably as reference material. This older armorial was part of a late fifteenth century tradition of south German heraldic manuscripts, but also had connections to the Habsburg dynasty and to Emperor Maximilian’s second wife Bianca Maria Sforza of Milan (1472–1510) in particular. The reconstructed content of this original armorial offers significant new perspectives on late medieval understandings of the social and political structure of the Holy Roman Empire and on the relationship between women and heraldic knowledge. It opens with the arms of Bianca Maria (p. 1), followed by an unusual collection of the arms of princely ladies of the Holy Roman Empire (pp. 2–5). The subsequent pages contain a range of material which could be labelled ‘historical-didactic’, such as the arms of famous and legendary figures who embodied particular virtues. The contemporary European order is then represented by Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492–1503), Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III (1415–93), his son Maximilian (1459–1519) and grandson Philip the Handsome (1478–1506) (pp. 19–23), followed by Italian and other European dynasties and rulers (pp. 24–35). The remainder is dedicated to the Holy Roman Empire, represented at first by the seven electors and so-called ‘Quaternionen’, quartets of arms representing different ranks, offices and estates (pp. 36–49). Leading prelates and princes of the Empire (pp. 50–76) are bookended by an imperial herald (p. 77) and the arms of the counts of Görz (p. 78). After this introduction, the main body of the armorial cycles through the regions and territories of the German-speaking Empire, beginning with Habsburg-ruled Tyrol (pp. 79–96). Both Tyrol and the Wettin lands in Saxony and Thuringia (pp. 101–85) are presented with arms representing the princes’ titles and claims at the head of a territorial nobility with a regional structure. Princes continue to play a prominent role, but are also intermingled with associations of lower nobles as we pass through Bavaria (pp. 192–206), Swabia (pp. 211–31), the Rhineland (pp. 232–67) and Franconia (pp. 271–85). There are smaller regional-territorial units for Hessen (pp. 287–95), Braunschweig-Lüneburg (pp. 297–302), Mecklenburg (pp. 305–7), Pomerania (pp. 311–13) and Brandenburg (pp. 315–20), ahead of Silesian dukes and notable Bohemian and Austrian nobles (pp. 325–35, 338–40) and ‘Frisian counts’ (pp. 341–2). Throughout the manuscript the paper bears the same watermark showing the Saxon electoral arms: the crossed swords of the office of imperial arch-marshall impaling the crancelin of the duchy of Saxony on a shield with small scrolls at its upper corners and a central finial shaped like the spade in modern playing card suits. The sole exception is a blank bifolium inserted at the front, which has a watermark from the town of Eger (present-day Cheb in the north-western Czech Republic). The binding of the manuscript further suggests that we are dealing with the armorial produced by Cranach’s workshop in 1565. Bound in tooled and gilded white leather, the upper cover is dominated by a large electoral Saxon coat of arms, although this is clearly a later insertion in place of the original decoration. The remainder of the decoration on both covers (the original leather being intact on the lower cover) is very much in the style of Wittenberg bookbinding in the mid-sixteenth century, using designs produced by rolls (some featuring decorative foliage, others allegorical figures) and stamps to create multiple borders around a central motif produced by pressing a larger plate into the leather. The lower cover is stamped within the central plate with the date 1565 and the initials ‘P. T.’ These particular initials are associated by bookbinding researchers only with the binder Paul Thiele, who was working in Wittenberg between the 1550s and 1575. Given that the manuscript was still unfnished in early December 1565 it seems unlikely that it was actually bound in this year, but the binding could well have been commissioned while the painting of the armorial was still ongoing.
Language Code:
ger
Language:
German
Subject:
Nobility--Germany--Heraldry
Subject:
Nobility--Germany--Genealogy
Subject:
Heraldry--Germany
Category of Material:
Manuscripts
Sub-Category:
Codex
Technique Used:
Handwriting
Technique Used:
Painting (image-making)
Technique Used:
Gold tooling
Medium:
Ink
Medium:
Watercolour (paint)
Support:
Paper
Support:
Leather
Creation Site:
Germany
Time Period Covered:
15th -16th Century CE
People Covered:
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, 1415-1493
People Covered:
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1459-1519
People Covered:
Bianca Maria, Empress, consort of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, 1472-1510
People Covered:
August, Elector of Saxony, 1526-1586
People Covered:
Alexander VI, Pope, 1431-1503
Item Height:
440 mm
Item Width:
290 mm
Current Repository:
The University of Manchester Library, U.K.
Provenance:
Lindsay family Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, former owner
Rights Holder - Image:
The University of Manchester Library
Rights holder - Work:
The University of Manchester Library
Access Rights:
References:
● F. Taylor, Supplementary Handlist of Western Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library (Manchester, 1937), pp. 37-43
References:
● Ben Pope, ‘The Empress, the Elector and the Painter: The Armorial of Bianca Maria Sforza, Copied for August of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Younger (Manchester, John Rylands Library, German MS. 2)‘, in: Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 94.2 (2018), pp. 1–49
Date Captured (yyyy-mm-dd):
2018-08-14
Image Creation Technique:
Digital capture by The University of Manchester Library
Date Image Added (yyyy-mm):
2018-09
Metadata Language:
eng-GB
Collection Code:
Rylands