Guta-Sintram Codex Facsimile Edition

Made for the house of Augustinian canonesses at Schwarzenthann in Alsace in 1154, the Guta-Sintram Codex is an important witness to close collaboration between men and women in medieval Christian religious scriptoria. The book is a product of the scribe Guta, an Augustinian canoness of Schwarzenthann, and the illuminator Sintram, a canon from the Augustinian house at Murbach. Elegantly illuminated with three dedication miniatures, nine calendar headings, and twenty-six lively historiated, inhabited, and decorated initials, the manuscript is vital evidence of the scribal activity of religious women.

A compendium of all the texts necessary for life at Schwarzenthann, the Guta-Sintram Codex includes a necrology (names of deceased members of the communities of Schwarzentheim and Murbach in calendar order), a collection of Mass homilies, the Augustinian rule with commentary, and a customary (a guide to daily life in the institution).

Picturing Sponsorship and Authority

The Guta-Sintram Codex boasts three frontispieces. The first illustrates the papal confirmation of privileges on the Augustinian house at Murbach (fol. 2r). The next shows Guta and Sintram paying homage to the Virgin Mary, to whom they dedicate their manuscript (fol. 4r), and the last is a portrait of Saint Augustine flanked by canons and canonesses (fol. 5r). Painted by Sintram in an elegant Romanesque style, the frontispieces visually affirm the status of the codex within the history of Murbach-Schwarzenthann.

Care of Body and Spirit

Also significant is the illumination of the necrology, every surviving month of which is decorated with an illustrated heading that spans across an opening. In addition to a richly decorated KL monogram, each heading includes the sign of the zodiac, the labor of the month, and a banderole with pharmaceutical recipes and medical advice. The necrology thereby provides a guide to the physical health of the canonesses of Schwarzenthann.

A Blessing from the Virgin Mary

The miniature that introduces the dedicatory text shows the manuscript's principal creators, identified by inscriptions, presenting the book to the enthroned Virgin, to whom the house at Schwarzentheim was dedicated. She speaks directly to them, her words on a scroll she holds aloft, promising the two of them eternal rest (fol. 4r).

Collaboration in an Augustinian Scriptorium

The codex is written in Transitional Script, mostly in two columns, except for the copies of documentary texts, which are written in a Documentary Script (fols. 2r-v and 4r-v). In her statement of scribal authorship, Guta credits Sintram for his contribution to the manuscript. Sintram was certainly the manuscript's illuminator and may have been its second scribe. It seems that Guta and Sintram worked together closely.

A Fortunate Survival

The Guta-Sintram Codex was used at Schwarzenthann into the fourteenth century, as attested by additions to the necrology, but its later history is undocumented. The codex found its way to the Murbach Augustinian house by the early eighteenth century. The manuscript's present binding of brown leather over boards with metal furnishings dates from 1682 or 1689, when it was probably at Murbach. Murbach was secularized in 1786. How and when the book entered the Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire remains unknown.