Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

16-27Abbess Uta dedicating her codex to

the Virgin, folio 2 recto of the Uta Codex,from

Regensburg, Germany, ca. 1025. Tempera on

parchment, 9 85 –  51 – 8 . Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,

Munich.

The Uta Codexillustrates the important role that

women could play both in religious life and as

patrons of the arts. The dedicatory page shows

Uta presenting her codex to the Virgin Mary.

in 970. Carved in oak and then painted and gilded, the six-foot-tall

image of Christ nailed to the cross is both statue and reliquary

(a shrine for sacred relics; see “Pilgrimages and the Cult of Relics,”

Chapter 17, page 432). A compartment in the back of the head held

the Host. A later story tells how a crack developed in the wood of

Gero’s crucifix but miraculously healed. Similar tales of miracles are

attached to many sacred Christian objects, for example, some Byzan-

tine icons (see “Icons and Iconoclasm,” Chapter 12, page 326).

The Gero crucifix presents a dramatically different concep-

tion of the Savior from that seen on the Lindau Gospels cover

(FIG. 16-16), with its Early Christian imagery of the youthful Christ

triumphant over death. The bearded Christ of the Cologne crucifix

is more akin to Byzantine representations (FIG. 12-23) of the suffer-

ing Jesus, but the emotional power of the Ottonian work is greater

still. The sculptor depicted Christ as an all-too-human martyr.

Blood streaks down his forehead from the (missing) crown of

thorns. His eyelids are closed, and his face is contorted in pain.

Christ’s body sags under its own weight. The muscles stretch to

their limit—those of his right shoulder and chest seem almost to

rip apart. The halo behind Christ’s head may foretell his subsequent

Resurrection, but all the worshiper can sense is his pain. Gero’s cru-

cifix is the most powerful characterization of intense agony of the

early Middle Ages.

UTA CODEXOttonian artists carried on the Carolingian tradi-

tion of producing sumptuous books for the clergy and royalty alike.

One of the finest is the lectionary produced at Regensburg, Germany,

for Uta, abbess of Niedermünster. The Uta Codex illustrates the im-

portant role that women could play both in religious life and as pa-

trons of the arts during the early Middle Ages. Uta was instrumental

in bringing Benedictine reforms to the Niedermünster convent,

whose nuns were usually the daughters of the local nobility. Uta her-

self was well known in Ottonian royal circles. Near the end of her life,

she presented the nunnery with a luxurious codex containing many

full-page illuminations interspersed with Gospel readings. The lec-

tionary’s gold, jewel, and enamel case also survives, underscoring the

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426 Chapter 16 EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE