Word And Image by William Diebold

Author:William Diebold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2000-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

37 David composing the Psalms. Vivian Bible. Tours, c. 845. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, ms. lat. 1, fol. 215v. Photo: Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

This typological series in the Vivian Bible extends beyond David and Christ and takes us up to the making of the manuscript itself. The miniature on the Bible’s last page shows a group of monks from the monastery at Tours presenting the Bible to Charles the Bald [38]. This image relates the Carolingian king Charles to the Old Testament king David. Both rulers are flanked by armed guards, and in both miniatures female personifications bearing palms appear in the upper corners. The two kings also have identical crowns and, most strikingly, identical facial features. It is not surprising that Charles and David are visually linked, for the two were also associated verbally: Many Carolingian rulers, starting with Charles’s grandfather Charlemagne, had tried to connect themselves to David; in the Vivian Bible itself several poems address Charles as “David.” In this case, the pictorial message repeats and strengthens the verbal message.

Of course, if Charles the Bald in the Vivian Bible looks like David, he also looks like Christ. Is it possible that Charles is meant to be associated with God? The very question seems blasphemous. It is one thing for the earthly Carolingian ruler to relate himself to the earthly Old Testament king. It seems quite another for Charles to connect himself to the divine King of Kings. If this typology is present in the Vivian Bible it is understated, so we cannot be sure if Charles really was meant to be seen as another Christ. But the king/Christ analogy is explicit in another early medieval manuscript, a gospel book made around 1000 for the Ottoman king Otto III [39].

Most luxury Carolingian and Ottoman gospel books opened with a miniature of Christ in majesty and, at first glance, this miniature seems to fit the expected pattern. A figure is enthroned in the heavens, crowned by God and flanked by the symbols of the evangelists. A mandorla surrounds the throne, and two crowned figures carrying flags bow their heads in fealty. The throne itself is supported by a female personification, probably of the earth, and at the bottom of the miniature are two armed guards and two tonsured clerics. Amazingly, all indications to the contrary, this figure is not Christ but Otto III (he is named in an inscription on the facing page). Although it is not surprising to see earthly powers, such as the crowned men with pennants, the armed guards, or the clerics, pay the Ottoman monarch obeisance, since medieval rulers were thought to be both archpriest and archking, it is unique to see a human king surrounded by the symbols of the evangelists, who otherwise accompany only the divine ruler, Christ. It is even more surprising that this miniature of Otto in majesty replaces the expected image of Christ in majesty, which is nowhere to be found in the manuscript. Otto is depicted here in Christ’s place, not simply as Christ-like.

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