Each of these iconographic choices relate to ideas about gift-giving pro anima. While gift exchange took many forms in the Middle Ages, the medieval offering pro anima specifically served to negotiate social and spiritual bonds between donors and at least two recipients: the earthly religious communities that took ownership of the gift and the heavenly community of saints to whom the gift was dedicated. The goal was to set into motion mechanisms and actors that would guarantee the donor a place in heaven. That process was structured around the idea that mankind might gain eternal rewards by making offerings to the divine. The gift pro anima is thus fundamentally preoccupied with the donor’s salvation and draws particular charge from the early medieval liturgical habit of linking offerings to the consecration of the Eucharist and from the praxis of memoria.98 The painting depicts Bernward as both the Mass celebrant and the founder of Saint Michael’s, surrounded by the products of his artistic patronage; it memorializes the bishop’s exceptional patronage, placing him simultaneously before the altar of the monastic foundation where he would be buried and at the threshold of the heavenly church, the bishop’s hoped-for eternal reward. Achieving that reward requires the commemorative and intercessory prayers of the monks of Saint Michael’s. The dedicatory painting effects the symbolic transformation of the Bernward Gospels itself into treasure, both to fix a personal moment and to stabilize the bishop’s image and presence in the monks’ memory for present and succeeding generations.
While the dedication opening of the Bernward Gospels sets into motion mechanisms for fixing the bishop’s image in the monks’ memory, the manuscript’s succeeding illuminations shape that picture in ways specific to episcopal concerns. A significant theme develops from the related content of paintings that appear in each of the four gospels. These portray episodes from the lives of the saints Matthew, Mark, and John the Baptist. In the case of the two evangelists, the paintings show the key moments in which Matthew and Mark entered Christ’s ministry (fols. 18v and 75v; plates 5 and 8). A more extensive cycle is devoted to the Baptist.1 Six scenes present stories about John, more than are devoted to any other figure in the manuscript except Christ. Two of these episodes appear frequently in medieval art because they involve Christ: the Visitation (fol. 111v; plate 11) and the Baptism (fol. 174v; plate 15). The remaining four scenes, however, are rarely represented. One shows the naming of John the Baptist (fol. 111v; plate 11) and another the Baptist preaching (fol. 75r; plate 7), while two vignettes serve to narrate how Zacharias learned, and doubted, the prophecy of John’s miraculous conception (fol. 111r; plate 10).
Matthew’s gospel is illustrated with four main scenes that run across three sequential sides of vellum (fols. 18r–19r; plates 4–6). While the first painting depicts Christ’s Nativity (fol. 18r), the next picture portrays two consecutive gospel episodes from Matthew’s life (fol. 18v; fig. 11). Above, Christ calls Matthew to his service, and below, Christ dines with Matthew at the house of Levi. Directly across from these paintings is Matthew’s author portrait; it is paired with the evangelist’s symbol, the man, which appears in an independently framed space above, depicted within a medallion and inside a garden framed by a ciborium-shaped structure (fol. 19r; fig. 11). Matthew is depicted as a youth, with unbearded face and full, wavy brown hair. The heavily ornamented background takes the form of a curtain.
The illustrations in Mark’s gospel consist of five scenes presented in sequence. The first page (fol. 75r; plate 7) depicts John the Baptist preaching (above) and Christ calling his first four disciples (below). On the second page appears the gospel episode known as the Noli me tangere (above), which will be discussed in chapter 4, and a single scene from the life of Mark (below) in which an older man hands Mark a book (fol. 75v; plate 8 and fig. 12). The scene relates to the gospel’s prologue, which explains how Mark entered Christ’s service by becoming a student of the apostle Peter.2 The picture shows Peter charging Mark to write (or perhaps dictating to Mark) his gospel. Directly across from this painting is the evangelist’s portrait and symbol, the lion, which, like Matthew’s, appears in a separate scene within a garden setting and is framed by architecture (fol. 76r; plate 9 and fig. 12). Mark’s author portrait shares some characteristics with Matthew’s, most notably in the evangelists’ poses. Yet there are also important differences, such as the fact that Mark is portrayed as a mature man with long beard and widow’s peak and the fact that the background consists of a simple flat pattern of multicolored stripes rather than a curtain.
Neither the illustrations for the gospel of Luke nor those for the gospel of John include episodes from their lives. Instead, the portraits of Luke and John are paired with pictures of Christ; he appears in the space above the evangelists in conjunction with their symbols, the ox and the eagle (fols. 118v and 175v; plates 13 and 17, and see figs. 25 and 26). In contrast to the portraits of Matthew and Mark, the portraits of Luke and John each appear on the verso rather than recto of a bifolium, and they face text rather than narrative scenes. While there are certain compositional similarities between the paintings of these last two evangelists, most notably the tilted footstools and the combined scroll case and inkstand to the figures’ right, the pictures differ from each other in significant ways. Like Matthew, Luke appears as an unbearded youth with long brown hair and sits in front of a curtain. In contrast, John is portrayed as the visionary author of Revelation. He is an older man with a flowing grayish tan beard and hair and adopts a contemplative pose. As in the portrait of Mark, the painting’s background is a flat repeating pattern of ornament.
Medieval exegetes and illuminators often treated the evangelists in pairs, and it is also not unusual for theologians to single John out from the other evangelists for having a particularly penetrating spiritual insight.3 Yet the usual grouping links Matthew to John because both were contemporaries of Christ, while Mark and Luke belonged to the following generation, being disciples, respectively, of the apostles Peter and Paul.4 Instead, the Bernward Gospels employs compositional devices that relate Matthew to Mark and Luke to John; simultaneously, youthful portrait types and the motif of a curtain connect the portraits of Matthew and Luke, while older portrait types and a flatly patterned background link the portraits of Mark and John.
These choices mark a departure from the manuscripts that served as models for the Bernward Gospels.5 A Carolingian gospel book to which the Bernward Gospels bears a close relationship (Prague, Kapitulni Knihovna, Cim. 2) pairs Mark’s portrait with a painting of Mark accompanied by Peter (fols. 82v–83r; fig. 13) and Luke’s portrait with a picture of Luke accompanied by Paul (fols. 125v–126r; fig. 14). Mark and Luke each appear, then, with the apostle who taught him. The equivalent arrangement in Matthew pairs the evangelist’s portrait with the scene of Christ calling Matthew to his service (fols. 23v–24r; fig. 15), and in John, the evangelist is presented