It follows from the fact that the Bernward Gospels includes a painting showing Mark with Peter, but not the equivalent picture of Luke with Paul, that this scene has meaning beyond the mere tracing of Mark’s religious lineage to Peter in order to authenticate his writings. The portrayal of Peter with Mark takes as its primary subject the circumstances under which the evangelist entered Christ’s service, which he performs by writing his gospel. The representation dramatizes the communication between the scene’s protagonists. Set at a distance from one another, but sharing the same long bench that spans the entire miniature, Peter and Mark turn to each other. Peter extends the book with his left hand and makes a speaking gesture with his right hand. Mark turns both palms up in order to receive both the codex and Peter’s words. In contrast to equivalent paintings in Byzantine art and the Carolingian model (Prague, Kapitulni Knihovna, Cim. 2, fol. 82v; fig. 13), where both the titulus and picture show Mark to be subservient to Peter, in the Bernward Gospels painting, Peter and Mark have equal weight.15 That difference underscores the point that the Ottonian painting is less about Mark’s inspiration or about lending authority to his gospel than it is about Mark’s participation in Christ’s ministry. What the Calling of Matthew and Peter’s charging Mark to write about Christ have in common is that both present the key moment when the evangelists began to serve Christ. Matthew is an apostle chosen by Christ, and Saint Peter, one of Christ’s foremost disciples, prompted Mark to write his text. Their service includes bearing witness to Christ, and through that witness, the evangelists enter into a privileged relationship with Him.
It is probable that at least the latter two themes also inform the decision to pair the portraits of John and Luke with visions of Christ, a point to which I shall return at the end. The portrait of John appears in conjunction with a painting of the Ascension that follows an iconographic type first developed in Anglo-Saxon England during the tenth century. In his study of this so-called disappearing Christ imagery, Robert Deshman offered one explanation for John’s vision, suggesting that it, together with John’s contemplative pose, demonstrated this evangelist’s superior spiritual understanding.16 While this observation helps illuminate the Bernward Gospels program, on the surface it does not immediately explain why a second vision would be depicted above the portrait of Luke, who is not generally considered a visionary, nor how these two miniatures relate to the episodes drawn from Matthew’s and Mark’s lives.
The two visionary miniatures may best be understood through the scenes illustrating the life of John the Baptist. Of twenty narrative pictures in the gospel book, six present John in different guises that articulate linked themes. These scenes are half-page miniatures that open the painting cycles of the last three gospels. The gospel of Mark depicts John addressing Jewish priests (fol. 75r, above; plate 7); the gospel of Luke illustrates John’s infancy (fols. 111r and 111v; plates 10–11); and the gospel of John presents the Baptist in his best-known act from the gospels, baptizing Christ (fol. 174v, above; plate 15).
A significant focus of these paintings is the typological relationship between the Baptist and Christ. The first picture is a rarely illustrated scene of the Baptist preaching (fol. 75r, above; fig. 17). John stands before a group of men whose pointed caps, along with the foremost figure’s staff and costume, mark them as Jewish priests.17 He wears a tunic girded with a golden sash that drapes over his left shoulder and wraps around his waist in the manner required of medieval deacons when they participated in the Mass.18 These details echo aspects of the painting below, which shows Christ calling the first disciples (fol. 75r, below; fig. 17).19 In these paired scenes, Christ and the Baptist stand one above the other, each proselytizing to a group of exactly four men. Both adopt the same pose—head tilted and holding a book in the left hand while gesturing with the right—and have the same halo, which, in contrast to those of the other figures, incorporates white dots in its borders. In addition, the two plants that flank John are prominent framing elements that appear throughout the manuscript primarily in association with Christ. For example, in the manuscript’s Noli me tangere (fol. 75v, above; plate 8), this motif frames Christ’s empty grave. In two paintings of the Crucifixion, as well as the pictures of the Raising of Lazarus and Ascension (fols. 118v, 174v, 175r, and 175v; plates 13 and 15–17), the same motif accompanies Christ himself.
Ornament both associates and differentiates the two scenes, visually presenting a similarity of form that simultaneously highlights difference (fol. 75r; plate 7). Broad horizontal bands of color articulate both pictures’ backgrounds; a gold and purple palette sets off Christ, while slightly paler hues appear behind John the Baptist. The water under the Baptist flows from the mouth of a personification of the river Jordan, whose head is aligned with Christ below, evoking a trope discussed by numerous medieval writers, including Hrabanus Maurus, that identified the flow of water from Paradise as the image of Christ flowing from God’s fountain and hence also as the Word of God irrigating the Church.20 The typological relationship established between the Baptist and Christ, together with this latter detail, places John between the Old Law, to which he preaches, and the New Law of Christ, for whom he “prepares the way” (Mark 1:1–8). It also places the Baptist in the company of Christ’s followers, the first of the Christian priesthood. Indeed, John is linked in this painting not only to Christ but also to his disciples, who wear variations on the Baptist’s costume; the strips of gold that border their tunics echo the shape and material of John’s sash.
The illustrations in Luke’s gospel continue to present the Baptist as a type for Christ and for the Christian priesthood. Four scenes illustrate the Baptist’s infancy as it is described in the text’s opening verses.21 The first page shows two consecutive moments from the prophecy of John’s miraculous conception, which parallels Christ’s (fol. 111r; plate 10 and fig. 18). In the painting above, John’s father, the priest Zacharias, enters the inner sanctum of the Jewish temple to perform the incense offering. There the archangel Gabriel announces to him the coming of the Baptist. Zacharias expresses his skepticism and, because of this doubt, loses his voice. That event appears below.
The second page presents two scenes: the Visitation and John’s naming (fol. 111v; plate 11 and fig. 19). In contrast to the usual pictorial convention for the Visitation, in which Mary and Elizabeth embrace, the codex emphasizes Mary’s spoken response to Elizabeth’s greeting: the Magnificat (Luke 1:40–56), whose lines culminate in the interpretation of Mary’s conception as the fulfillment of the divine plan foretold in the Old Testament. To the right is a throne from which hangs a votive crown; these are conventional motifs drawn from Annunciation imagery. Below, standing next to his wife, Elizabeth, Zacharias displays a vertical scroll marked “Iohann[nes] e[st] nom[en] eius,” indicating with these words that his son will be named John. In another instance of the idiosyncratic iconography of the Bernward Gospels, Zacharias is depicted holding a tablet engraved with the word “Benedictus,” a reference to his canticle (Luke 1:68), which begins by emphasizing Christ’s Incarnation as the Redeemer and concludes with a description of John’s service to prepare the way for Christ.
The infancy cycle articulates the ways in which the Baptist’s birth is a sign of Christ’s impending advent and shows John to be a type for Christ. It also refers to the liturgy of the hours. The Magnificat and Benedictus were important hymns recited daily