THE BIBLE OF THE POOR (BIBLIA PAUPERUM)

Did you know that the Golden Bible originated in the first years of the 15th century in the Netherlands and its purpose was to underline the connections between the Old and New Testaments?

Officially it is called Biblia Pauperum, meaning the “Bible of the Poor”, yet this illuminated codex, with almost 100 miniatures decorated in silver and gold, was definitely not destined for the common people of the Late Middle Ages.

The purpose of a Biblia Pauperum was to underline the connections between the Old and New Testaments, and thus to contradict heretical movements such as that of the Cathars or Cathari, a Christian sect that flourished in western Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. 

The Cathari professed a neo-Manichaean dualism—that there are two principles, one good and the other evil, and that the material world is evil. Similar views were held in the Balkans and the Middle East by the medieval religious sects of the Paulicians and the Bogomils; the Cathari were closely connected with these sects.

The Golden Bible contains 93 images spread across 31 folios. Each of the Golden Bible’s seventy pages contains a scene from the New Testament in the centre, with two scenes from the Old Testament on both sides.

The Golden Bible's layout is unique to any other surviving codex. Each leaf was originally folded into three parts, with sewing between the first and second miniatures so it could be easily folded, thereby giving the illusion that The Golden Bible was a normal codex.

Since the folios were originally folded twice and readers would have to unfold each page individually to be able to see the pictures in all their splendour and intensity, probably painted by the same artist who crafted the Hours of Margaret of Cleves (a Book of Hours made for Margaret of Cleves (1375–1412), the wife of Albert, duke of Bavaria, with prayers and texts for private devotions and that contains a Calendar, the Hours of the Virgin, the Short Hours of the Holy Spirit, the Seven Penitential Psalms, the Litany of the Saints and, finally, the Office of the Dead).

The Golden Bible originated in the first years of the 15th century in the Netherlands, The Hague, which by then had developed into an independent centre of the arts. It is unclear how the codex reached England, where it was donated to the English King George III (b. 1738, d. 1820) and bequeathed to the British Library by his successors in 1823, where it currently resides.

Image Credit: Creazilla

Sources:

https://www.medievalists.net/2020/03/medieval-manuscripts-golden-bible/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cathari

https://gulbenkian.pt/museu/en/works_museu/hours-of-margaret-of-cleves/