THE GOSPEL OF SAINT FRANCIS

The Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597, a manuscript from 1462 born in Weihenstephan

The Gospel of St. Francis: a manuscript born where beer was also made

Imagine a Benedictine monk hunched over a table, intent on illuminating one of the pages of this manuscript. After hours of work, tired, he stops to rest his hand and eyes while sipping a nice beer.

There is a curious, almost amusing detail that is worth starting with.

In Weihenstephan, in the hills of Freising, beer and manuscripts have shared the same landscape for centuries. In the Benedictine monastery where the Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597 was written in 1462, tradition records a hop garden as early as the 8th century, and in 1040, the official right to brew and sell beer was granted to Abbot Arnold.

The anecdote may raise a smile, but it offers a concrete window into the monastic Middle Ages. The monastery was a place of prayer, study, work, hospitality, agricultural production, and preservation of memory. In the same context in which the monks chanted the Divine Office and copied liturgical books, a wisdom derived from the earth, malt, hops, and patience also developed.

This is where our journey into the so-called Gospel of Saint Francis begins: a fifteenth-century Bavarian illuminated manuscript, now preserved at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich with the shelfmark Clm 21597.

Beer, wine and monasteries: not a caricature, but a civilization of work

The scene of the monk enjoying a beer during a break must naturally be read in the context of the Middle Ages. In Benedictine monasteries, beer and wine were part of daily life as food, agricultural products, economic goods, and tools of hospitality.

In the medieval world, beer, especially its lighter versions, could be part of the daily diet. It was nutritious, linked to the cultivation of cereals, and made more stable by fermentation and the process of preparing the must. Wine, beyond its nutritional and medicinal value, occupied a central place in Christian life, because it was linked to the celebration of the Eucharist.

Furthermore, a certain percentage of alcohol acted as a disinfectant and made these drinks safer, from a food point of view, than simple water.

Pilgrims, wayfarers, the poor, the sick, and men passing through the monasteries would come to visit. Offering bread, soup, wine, or beer was a concrete expression of hospitality, a fundamental aspect of Benedictine spirituality.

For this reason, the reference to Weihenstephan's brewing tradition tells us much more than a simple curiosity. It helps us understand the world in which the Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597 was born: a world in which prayer, manual labor, cultivation of the land, food production, study, and book copying were part of the same orderly vision of life.

Why we called it “Gospel” in the video

In the video, we chose the word "Gospel" for simplicity's sake. It's a straightforward definition, capable of drawing the listener immediately to the heart of the work. From a cataloguing perspective, however, the correct title is Lectiones evangeliorum pro divino officio in festivitatibus per annum.

We are therefore faced with an evangelical lectionary: a collection of readings from the Gospels, designed for the Divine Office and the feasts of the liturgical year. The book was intended for proclamation, listening, and the life of the monastic choir. Each page held a text and prepared a voice, a rite, a sacred time.

Clm 21597 is dated 1462, written in Latin on parchment and belongs to the full maturity of late Gothic Bavarian miniature painting.

Weihenstephan: a monastery between land, liturgy and culture

Weihenstephan, located on the hill overlooking Freising, Bavaria, was a monastic center with a long history. Its origins date back to the early Middle Ages; over the centuries, the community became fully absorbed into the Benedictine sphere and developed a strong religious, economic, and cultural identity.

The monastery should be imagined as a living organism. The monks prayed, administered lands, produced food, welcomed guests, guarded relics and memories, formed a community, and transmitted culture. In this world, the scriptorium, the place of writing and book production, was one of the most precious workshops.

In the 15th century, as printing with movable type began to spread, Bavarian monastic scriptoria retained a surprising vitality. Illumination continued to be a necessary language, especially in liturgical books, where the form of the page contributed to the dignity of the rite.

The sober beauty of Bavarian miniature

The decoration of the Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597 belongs to the late Bavarian Gothic style. It is rich, elegant, and restrained. Historiated initials are reserved for the major solemnities; the smaller sections are punctuated by filigree initials in red and blue. The text is surrounded by plant borders, acanthus leaves, vines, flowers, and small animals.

The palette is clear: intense blues, lacquered reds, bright greens, with a measured use of gold leaf. The figures are slender, the draperies broken, the faces oval and serene: signs of a language still profoundly Gothic, yet open to greater pictorial attention.

The manuscript's strength lies in its balance. The codex combines liturgical functionality, monastic decorum, and refined visual culture, without losing the sobriety inherent in the Benedictine environment.

The rarest detail: “oil” miniatures on parchment

The most striking feature of Clm 21597 is the presence of miniatures executed in oil on parchment. This is a rare occurrence in the context of 15th-century European miniature painting. Book illumination was typically done with tempera and water-based pigments; oil, on the other hand, belonged to the world of panel painting.

Here, book and painting meet. The images acquire chromatic depth, luminous softness, and a consistency closer to painting than to traditional miniatures. Within a liturgical manuscript, a window opens onto fifteenth-century Flemish and Northern European painting.

This makes the manuscript particularly fascinating. Clm 21597 is a testament to monastic tradition and, at the same time, an example of technical experimentation: a bridge between parchment and panel, illumination and painting, the rule of the scriptorium and the search for a new luminosity.

A medieval manuscript that spans time

In an age dominated by speed, a medieval manuscript like the Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597 invites us to slow down. A page, an illuminated initial, a decorated margin, a trace of gold: every detail leads us to imagine the hand that wrote, the monastic community that listened, the Benedictine monastery of Weihenstephan that preserved it.

Once completed, a manuscript begins another journey. It moves through time and space, changes hands, changes places of preservation, enters libraries, archives, collections, and institutions. Each passage leaves a trace: a note, a signature, a letter, a stamp, a sign of ownership.

CLM 21597 also tells this material story. Created in Bavaria in 1462, linked to the liturgical and artistic culture of Weihenstephan, it preserves clues to its subsequent journey. Among these are a letter and the stamps of the Medici Library in Florence, where the codex remained for a time. These are precious signs, as they transform the manuscript into a witness to the European circulation of ancient books.

Every stamp, every note, and every documentary trace adds a voice to the work's biography. The illuminated manuscript thus becomes a historical object spanning centuries, territories, and institutions, carrying with it religious memory, sacred art, monastic culture, and the history of book collecting.

The Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597 is all this: an evangelical lectionary, a work of art, a fragment of Bavarian Benedictine civilization, a witness to late Gothic miniature painting, and a manuscript still capable of moving those who observe it today.

Antiquus and the memory of beauty

With the project The Gospel and Saint Francis: the Word that Becomes Life, Antiquus proposes an encounter between the facsimile of the Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597 and the image of Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, made on 23 kt gold leaf.

It is a dialogue between book and image, text and testimony, sacred art and spirituality. The manuscript preserves the Word; Saint Francis reveals its life. Together, they recount one of the most profound insights of the Christian tradition: beauty as a gateway to mystery.

For collectors, scholars, and lovers of illuminated manuscripts and sacred art, this work represents a precious opportunity to bring a fragment of Europe's great book culture back into their home, library, or meditation space—a culture of parchment, gold, writing, silence, liturgy, and masterful craftsmanship.

In upcoming catalog additions, Antiquus will also feature some of the most significant individual leaves from Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597: pages selected for their iconographic value, decorative power, and evocative power. It will thus be possible to approach this illuminated manuscript through a single image, a detail, a page capable of revealing the soul of the work.

Whoever chooses a facsimile or an Antiquus map chooses to preserve a memory, make room for beauty and bring back into the present a sign of monastic civilization, late Gothic miniature and European sacred art.

Every ancient manuscript asks a simple and radical question: what is really worth preserving?

The Lectiones evangeliorum Clm 21597 responds with the silent strength of its pages: the Word, beauty, memory.

Discover the work on Antiquus

Visit the Antiquus catalog and discover the project "The Gospel and Saint Francis: The Word That Becomes Life." Also, keep an eye out for upcoming additions to the most significant individual leaves of Lectiones evangeliorum CLM 21597.