{"id":21,"date":"2022-04-01T23:10:37","date_gmt":"2022-04-02T03:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/marginalization\/?page_id=21"},"modified":"2022-06-01T10:17:36","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T14:17:36","slug":"garrett-ms-72","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/marginalization\/garrett-ms-72\/","title":{"rendered":"Garrett MS 72"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bookmaking on the Margins of Society<\/h1>\n
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A painted and jeweled cover initially deceives the reader into thinking they are about to gaze upon a richly illuminated codex. The cover, however, is a 19th century addition, possibly incorporating medieval elements. Nevertheless, the contents it guards are equally as precious as any gilded manuscript, for it contains the earliest edition of Rabanus Maurus’ work, copied at his monastery during his abbacy. The survival of early medieval manuscript editions contemporary to their authors is a remarkable rarity.<\/p><\/div>\n

Rabanus Maurus, Commentary on Matthew
\n<\/em>Manuscript, Germany (Fulda), ca. 840
\nRepairs, Germany (Xanten), 1400s
\nFaux-treasure binding, Germany, 1800s<\/p>\n

This hefty volume is a learned manuscript that has been significantly reworked since its first creation in the early Middle Ages. These layers give us an opportunity to learn about shifting attitudes and purposes associated with books and bookmaking both in and after the Middle Ages. What initially was born as the product of a learned society living on the margins became an object of reverence, and that reverence later turned into fetishization.<\/p>\n

The original part of this codex is a copy of Rabanus Maurus’ Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew,\u00a0<\/em>authored and copied during the mid 9th century. This part of the object is significant due to it being a surviving witness to the intellectual activities of the Abbey of Fulda\u2014one of the foremost centers of learning during the Carolingian Renaissance. Its author, as well as the process of its making, reveal intriguing, if paradoxical, stories of life on a monastic community at the margins of society.<\/p>\n

The contents of the text are just as intriguing as the object itself, especially how it deals with the subject of poverty in Jesus’ ministry. The Gospel of Matthew is famous for containing a variation of one of the beatitudes that declares “blessed are the poor\u00a0in spirit<\/em>” (Mt. 5:3). Unlike Luke, which does not add the modifier “in spirit,” the gospel of Matthew de-emphasizes poverty as a social issue and religious virtue. Jesus’ own humble origins are glossed over in this gospel. In his commentary, Rabanus reasoned that the gospeler did not refer to physical poverty. “He added in spirit<\/em>, so that you may understand humility, not the suffering [of poverty].” Furthermore, he argued that through the Holy Spirit, all Christians, even if they were rich, could experience the same sense of humility as the poor. In this way, Rabanus underscored the potential for this scriptural text to marginalize the materially poor by placing religious communities (which were wealthy and powerful in Rabanus’ time) at the center.<\/p>\n\n\t\t