Codex Germanicus Monacensis 312 Facsimile Edition

Codex Germanicus Monacensis 312 is an illustrated collection of divinatory texts copied on paper in the Augsburg region between 1450 and 1473. Written largely by Konrad Bollstatter, the manuscript brings together systems for interpreting chance, dreams, love, spiritual destiny, and the changing fortunes of human life.

A Book Governed by Fortune

Its central texts belong to the tradition of the Losbuch, or book of lots. Readers arrived at answers through regulated acts of chance, often involving dice, numbers, diagrams, or sequences of consultation. Among the manuscript’s contents are a dice book for lovers, a spiritual dice book, an extensive Losbuch, and a short dream book. Sacred instruction, entertainment, and practical divination coexist within the same volume.

An Illustrated Structure of Chance

Numerous drawings transform abstract procedures into visible pathways. Tables, wheels, figures, and symbolic images guide the reader from one stage of consultation to the next. The page thus becomes an interactive field in which text and image direct movement, calculation, and interpretation. Its East Swabian German language and direct, functional presentation place learned traditions within an accessible vernacular setting.

The Hand of Konrad Bollstatter

An explicit dated to 1450 identifies Bollstatter and records his work while serving in the chancery of Count Ulrich of Oettingen. This autobiographical trace gives the manuscript unusual immediacy, linking its varied contents to the career of a named fifteenth-century scribe.

Between Play and Belief

The codex reveals a culture in which chance was rarely considered meaningless. Dice, dreams, and rotating fortune could become instruments for confronting uncertainty. In its pages, curiosity and devotion meet, illuminating the medieval desire to discover order within the unpredictable.