Speaker 1: Have you ever encountered a book so profoundly mysterious, so
utterly unlike anything else, that it makes you question, well,
the very limits of human endurance and maybe the strange
winding path's history can take.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, We're not just talking about some old manuscript here.
We're talking about an ancient artifact, steeped in a legend
so wild it seems impossible, right, a physical object whose
creation just challenges our understanding of medieval capabilities, filled with
contents so bizarre, so unsettling, and a history just riddled
with these truly inexplicable events. It is, by all accounts,
just a magnificent enigma.
Speaker 2: It truly is. The sheer scale of the questions surrounding
this artifact, combined with its tangible, undeniable presence in our world,
it makes it uniquely compelling. It's not merely a book.
It's a profound window into the anxieties, the beliefs, and frankly,
the extraordinary ambitions of a bygone era. It forces us
to ask what human drives, what societal pressures, what astonishing
levels of dedication could bring such an object into being?
Speaker 1: Precisely, and that's our mission today. We're embarking on a
true deep dive into this incredible manuscript, will meticulously unpack
its many layers, carefully distinguishing between the verifiable facts and
the rich, captivating folk lore that has woven itself around
it over centuries. It's quite a tapestry, it really is,
and as we do, we'll uncover the profound implications it holds,
not just for understanding human perseverance, but for how history
itself is often written, remembered, and well embellished through the ages.
Let's begin our deep dive by truly grasping the colossal
physical presence of this incredible manuscript and where it resides today.
So we are diving into the heart of a colossal enigma,
a book that quite literally stands above all others. Today,
this extraordinary volume makes its home in the National Library
of Sweden, a veritable treasure trove of knowledge nestled in Stockholm.
Speaker 2: A beautiful library too.
Speaker 1: I bet, and this is just any library. It's one
of the largest book collections on Earth, boasting an astonishing
catalog of over eighteen million individual items.
Speaker 2: Eighteen million, it's hard to even conceive of that.
Speaker 1: Number, right. Many of these are incredibly rare undeniably valuable
and profoundly significant to human history. But even amidst this
vast and venerable archive, one book commands attention unlike any other.
And when I say it stands above all others, I
mean that in the most literal sense.
Speaker 2: It's no exaggeration at all. Its physical dimensions alone are
enough to make you gasp you approach its display, and
you're not just looking at a book, You're confronting a monument.
Speaker 1: A monument, Yeah, that's a good word for it.
Speaker 2: The sheer scale is an immediate testament to the monumental,
almost inconceivable effort involved in its creation. It truly redefines
what a book could even be in the medieval period.
Speaker 1: It certainly does. We are speaking, of course, of the
Kodex gigas key agist. Yeah, a name derived from Latin
meaning giant book, and boyd, does it live up to
that title with an almost audacious confidence. Imagine if you will,
a book that stands nearly a meter tall. That's almost
three feet towering. It's so substantial that weighs as much
as a fully grown adult man, tipping the scales at
a hefty seventy five kilograms.
Speaker 2: Seventy five kilos. That's around one hundred and sixty five
pounds exactly.
Speaker 1: And to give you an even clearer sense of its magnitude,
if you were to painstakingly unfurl all of its pages
and lay them flat edge to edge.
Speaker 2: Which you wouldn't obviously, but hypothetically.
Speaker 1: Right, hypothetically, the total writing surface area would be large
enough to completely cover an entire public swimming pool.
Speaker 2: Wow, that really puts it in perspective, a swimming pool's
worth of pages.
Speaker 1: It's massive. This is, without a shadow of a doubt,
the largest medieval manuscript still in existence. Its origins traced
back to the early thirteenth century, meticulously crafted over eight
hundred years.
Speaker 2: Ago, which places it firmly in an era when such
monumental works were incredibly rare exceptions, not the norm at.
Speaker 1: All, and its age only amplifies its seek and value.
Speaker 2: Does it absolutely to consider that such a massive and
intricately detailed artifact has not only survived centuries of upheaval, war,
natural disaster, but has also been meticulously preserved to this day.
It's remarkable in itself, even before we begin to delve
into the very unusual nature of its contents. It speaks
to a recognition of its unique importance, probably from the
moment it was conceived, and.
Speaker 1: The contents, Oh, the contents, they are truly something else,
a collection that defies easy categorization and often well explanation.
Like many books of its kind from that era, its
primary and most voluminous inclusion is the Complete Latin Bible.
Speaker 2: Standard enough, though a huge.
Speaker 1: Task in itself, absolutely simply copying the entire Bible by
hand was in itself an immense undertaking, a lifetime's work
for many scribes, given the sheer volume of scripture and
the meticulous accuracy required. Yet with the Codex Gigas, given
its truly colos dimensions, it became clear that once the
sacred texts were complete, there was still an astonishing amount
of vellum pages left over.
Speaker 2: And this is where it gets particularly intriguing, isn't it.
Most monastic scriptoria, when tasked with creating a Bible, would
typically focus solely on that sacred text. The very act
of copying scripture was considered a form of devotion, a
painstaking labor. However, the creators of the Codex Digas clearly
had a broader vision, reflecting perhaps a more holistic approach
to knowledge that you saw in some monastic traditions, right.
Speaker 1: Because monasteries weren't just about prayer exactly.
Speaker 2: There were also intellectual hubs where all manner of texts,
from the spiritual to the incredibly practical, were painstakingly copied, studied,
and preserved. So in that sense, some of the additions,
while extensive, do align with a kind of wide ranging
intellectual pursuit common in certain learned circles of the era.
Speaker 1: You're right, some of these editions at first glance, they
appear relatively normal for a comprehensive medieval compendium. You'll find
extensive medical texts offering insights into early medicinal practices, as
herbal remedies, even rudimentary anatomical knowledge.
Speaker 2: Of the time, fascinating stuff in its own right.
Speaker 1: Totally, there are detailed obituaries chronicling the lives and deaths
of individuals connected to the monastery, providing invaluable genealogical and
historical data. And then there's a complete encyclopedia, a truly
ambitious attempt to gather and organize all human knowledge known
at the time, from cosmology and natural history to philosophy
and practical crafts.
Speaker 2: A medieval library in a single volume.
Speaker 1: Essentially precisely, this would have been an unparalleled repository of
information for its era.
Speaker 2: Indeed, the presence of an encyclopedia of this scale suggests
a real aspiration towards comprehensive knowledge, reflecting the intellectual curiosity
and systematic approach to learning that characterize the best of
medieval scholarship. It speaks to a deep belief in the
value of accumulated wisdom, not just spiritual elimination.
Speaker 1: But then as you turn the pages, the tone shifts
and you begin to hit the truly unsettling elements. Ah,
here we go took away amongst the pages of this
towering tome, or not just vague references, but actual detailed magic.
Speaker 2: Spells, spells like actual instructions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, actual formulas. We're not talking about benign charms here.
These are formulas that defy easy categorization, hinting at practices
that certainly veered into the realm of the forbidden for
the average monk. And then, perhaps most startlingly, there's a detailed,
step by step set of instructions on how to carry
out an exorcism.
Speaker 2: An exorcism manual bound with the Bible.
Speaker 1: Think about that for a moment. A manual for expelling
demonic entities bound within a book that otherwise contains the
Holy Bible. It's almost jarring juxtaposition.
Speaker 2: Isn't it jarring? Is putting it mildly. The inclusion of
these particular elements is highly, highly unusual. While medieval society
certainly held strong beliefs in magic, the demonic, the power
of spiritual intervention, such texts were often treated with extreme caution,
even suspicion within mainstream ecclesiastical stars.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't just leave them lying around exactly.
Speaker 2: They were either guarded closely or outright condemned to have
them bound within the same singular volume as the Holy Bible.
And in such explicit detail it speaks volumes. It suggests
a very unique context for its creation, or perhaps a
very particular, even clandestine interest on the part of its
original creators or early owners. It blurs the lines between
sacred scripture and what many would have considered dangerous, maybe
even heretical knowledge.
Speaker 1: It gets even more bizarre, even more transgressive, because then
there's this on one of its monumental pages. There's a
half meter tall full page depiction of the devil.
Speaker 2: Himself half a meter. That's huge for an illustration.
Speaker 1: Huge. It's not a small marginal doodle or some symbolic representation.
This is a massive, imposing, intricately detailed, and utterly striking
illustration of Satan.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: To call this illustration unusual would be the understatement of
the thirteenth century. Seriously, when you consider the vast body
of medieval manuscripts that exist, tens of thousands can be
found in libraries around the world today, not a single
one of them contains anything even remotely.
Speaker 2: Like this, Nothing comparable at all.
Speaker 1: Nothing. The sheer size of the depiction, the almost unsettling
detail in the devil's form, and the monumental decision to
include a full page illustration of such a figure within
what is predominantly a sacred text. It's not merely irregular,
it's absolutely unprecedented.
Speaker 2: What's truly fascinating here is how the single illustration just
shatters all typical conventions of medieval manuscript art. These books
were primarily commissioned by religious institutions, wealthy patrons, royalty, largely
for devotional, liturgical, or scholarly purposes. The iconography was usually
carefully controlled, designed to inspire piety, reinforce doctrine, instruct not
that exactly. A full page graphic depiction of the devil
of this magnitude isn't just an anomaly. It profoundly hints
at a deliberate, perhaps even provocative intention behind its inclusion.
It immediately sets the Codex gig Us apart, fueling the
centuries of speculation and fascination that have surrounded its origins.
It's a visual challenge to the very idea of a
holy book.
Speaker 1: Absolutely given its immense physical size, the Codex Gigas was
always destined to be a famous book, a true marvel
of medieval craftsmanship and endurance. But this bizarre, almost shocking
illustration of the devil has elevated it to near legendary status,
earning it a chillingly fitting nickname, the.
Speaker 2: Devil's Bible, a name that sticks.
Speaker 1: It really does, and it naturally makes you wonder who
put it there and why. The simple, frustrating answer is, well,
we don't know for sure, but there is a theory, or,
as you might prefer to call it, a.
Speaker 2: Legend, ah the legends.
Speaker 1: You see, it isn't just the book itself that has
miraculously survived the last eight centuries. Passed down along with
it is a seriously creepy tale that attempts to explain
its truly baffling origins. So let's set the scene. Imagine
yourself transported back eight hundred years to a remote austere
Benedictine monastery, nestled deep in what was then the ancient
land of Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Within
its quiet, echoing walls, a monk found himself condemned.
Speaker 2: To deaths condemned, okay.
Speaker 1: His crime was described only as terrible and unspecified, its
details lost to the mists of time, making it all
the more ominous. But this was no ordinary execution. The
punishment awaiting this condemned monk was one of the most
brutal and final medieval sentences imaginable immurement.
Speaker 2: Immurement for our listeners, that was a truly horrific form
of medieval capital punishment, literally walling.
Speaker 1: In, walling in, like bricking someone up.
Speaker 2: Exactly the condemned was bricked up, alive inside a small,
confined space, often within the very walls of a building,
and left to slowly perish from starvation or suffocation.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's horrific.
Speaker 2: It truly is. The sheer brutality and psychological torment of
this punishment underscored the extreme gravity of the monk's alleged transgression,
whatever it may have been. Such a sentence was reserved
for the most severe crimes of the against the monastic
order itself, or maybe deeply blasphemous acts. This context vividly
highlights the absolute desperation of the monk's situation. It forces
him to consider truly desperate measures.
Speaker 1: Quite understandably, the monk wasn't overly thrilled about that prospect.
Facing such an agonizing and ignominious end, in a last
desperate attempt to earn his freedom and perhaps secure a
form of eternal legacy for his monastery, he made an audacious,
almost preposterous vow.
Speaker 2: Okay, what did he promise?
Speaker 1: He declared that with his single final night on earth,
he would craft a book. But not just any book.
He promised to create a mighty tone containing all human knowledge,
a kind of thirteenth century version of Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: If you will, all human knowledge in one night, in a.
Speaker 1: Single night, a complete companion of everything known to man
at that time.
Speaker 2: Wow. This raises an immediate and critical question. What level
of existential desperation drives an individual to make such an
utterly audacious and frankly humanly impossible promise to conceive of writings,
such a massive and comprehensive work in the span of
mere hours without sleep or any modern aid. It's so
far beyond human capacity that it immediately signals that something
extraordinary or perhaps truly supernatural, will be required to fulfill
such an oath. It's the ultimate hail Mary pass, isn't
it a last desperate gamble against an inescapable fate?
Speaker 1: Exactly that very night, with the ominous threat of amurement
hanging over him, the monk got straight to work. He
began riding quill scratching against vellum. But it couldn't have
taken him long to realize he might have well, he
might have overpromised a bit, with the whole write and
entire compendium of all human knowledge in a single name,
just a bit. Faced with this impossible self imposed deadline,
consumed by despair and a terrifying certainty of his impending doom,
he fell to his knees. But this time his prayer
was not offered up to god it No. In his
ultimate abject despair, he set a special delivery, first class
post straight to the underworld. He prayed to.
Speaker 2: Satan Uh the pivotal moment, the shift from the divine
to the diabolical. It illustrates the monk's utter abandonment of
conventional faith, driven by the overwhelming pressure of an impossible
task and the fear of a brutal death. It's the
ultimate faustian bargain, set against that grim medieval backdrop where
the line between salvation and damnation was so starkly drawn.
This act, in the popular imagination, seals his fate and
explains the book's.
Speaker 1: Darker elements, and, according to the legend, Satan duly appeared.
A deal was struck, a classic deal. In exchange for
the monk's immortal soul, the devil, with his infernal speed
and knowledge, fashioned the greatest book the world had ever seen,
creating it as promised before the first rays of dawn
touched the monastery walls. That book, so the story goes,
was the Kodex Gigis.
Speaker 2: And the illustration.
Speaker 1: The legend concludes that the infamous devilish illustration, that striking
half meter tall depiction of Satan himself was supposedly added
by the monk afterwards, not as a warning, not as
a condemnation, but as a chilling tribute to the book's true,
unholy author.
Speaker 2: A truebute chilling is right.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. Okay, So I know
what many of you might be thinking right now, a
book penned by the devil?
Speaker 2: Really Yeah, it does sound a bit much.
Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you're probably a healthy skeptic
by nature, especially when it comes to tales involving supernatural entities.
But here's the thing. Debunking the otherworldly or as you
might prefer, underworldly origins of this remarkable book is actually
trickier than you might initially assume. How So, because many
aspects of the kodeks Gigas' story, the physical characteristics of
the book itself and its historical journey, are honestly, profoundly baffling,
and it all begins with the sheer act of its creation.
Speaker 2: Indeed, while the human mind inherently seeks logical, rational explanations
for phenomena, the unique peculiarities of the Kodek's Gigas genuinely
challenge straightforward dismissals. Scientific and historical anomalies present an intriguing
counter narrative to outright skepticism, forcing us to delve deeper
than surface level explanations.
Speaker 1: List put this in context. Writing a book in the
Middle Ages was absolutely no joke understatement. It was an
incredibly time intensive, physically grueling, and intellectually demanding job that
required a mastery of many different skills. You had to
be a skilled writer, of course, possessing beautiful penmanship and
an unwavering hand. You need to be an artist capable
of intricate illuminations and delicate.
Speaker 2: Illustrations falsi talented, basically told.
Speaker 1: For religious texts, you had to have a deep theological
understanding to copy sacred texts with absolute accuracy, knowing even
a single misplaced word could alter meaning. And surprisingly, you
even needed a grasp of chemistry.
Speaker 2: Chemistry for writing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ink wasn't something you simply purchased off a shelf.
It had to be meticulously prepared from natural pigments like
soot for black, crushed insects for red, or ground minerals
for blue, and carefully mixed with bind and the vellum itself.
The pages of the book needed extensive preparation.
Speaker 2: Ah, Yes, the vellum. The production of parchment was an intensive,
multi step process. Animal skins, in this case believed to
be calf skin, would be cleaned, soaked in lime, scraped
to remove hair and flesh, stretched tightly on frames.
Speaker 1: Sounds laborious, oh it was.
Speaker 2: And then painstakingly rubbed with pummice to create a smooth, durable,
and uniform writing surface. It was a smelly, laborious process
requiring skilled labor and considerable resources. For a book of
this size, demanding an estimated one hundred and sixty individual calf.
Speaker 1: Skins one hundred and sixty cas.
Speaker 2: That's the estimate. The sheer, logistics and cost involved would
have been astronomical. It represented an enormous investment of both
time and.
Speaker 1: Material precisely for all these complex reasons, the physical demands,
the artisanal skills, the cost of materials, the time investment.
The vast majority of medieval manuscripts were not solo endeavors.
Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
Speaker 1: They were written by several monks working collaboratively over months,
sometimes even years, in dedicated workshops known as scriptoria.
Speaker 2: For our listeners, a typical medieval scriptorium was essentially the
publishing house of its day. Imagine a dedicated writing room,
often bustling, a team effort, a real team effort. Scribes
meticulously copying text, illuminators adding intricate decorations and illustrations, parchment
prepares creating the writing surfaces, even binders assembling the finished choirs.
They had work in concert over extended periods. It was
a true industrial scale operation for its time, a division
of labor ensuring accuracy, consistency, and timely completion. This collaborative
model was essential for creating monumental.
Speaker 1: Works, which makes sense.
Speaker 2: So the very idea of one person managing every single
painstaking step for a book, the size of the Codex
Gigas it fundamentally defies that traditional communal model of medieval
book production.
Speaker 1: But the Codex Gigas is different. Researchers have painstakingly studied
every inch of this great books pages, analyzing the script,
the unique properties of the ink, the overall stylistic elements,
and they've come to a genuinely mind blowing conclusion. The
largest medieval manuscript in existence was written in its entirety
by a single.
Speaker 2: Scribe, one person, the whole thing, just.
Speaker 1: One person, and not just any scribe, but one with uncommon,
almost unparalleled skill and endurance. Think about that, in the
days before the printing press, every single word had to
be copied out by hand, letter by letter, painstaking work
physically and mentally demanding, absolutely exhausting to even contemplate and
understandably missing words, spelling errors, accidental emissions, other mistakes were
extremely common. The inherent human element was always there. Yet
the Codex Gigis is this colossal manuscript, thousands of pages long,
filled with complex texts, and it contains virtually no significant
errors at all.
Speaker 2: No errors in a book that size written by hand.
That surprising is putting it lightly.
Speaker 1: Especially when you consider just how long it must have
taken to write the thing. Estimates vary, but most experts
believe it would have taken a single author anywhere from
twenty to thirty years of daily concentrated labor.
Speaker 2: Twenty to thirty years.
Speaker 1: That's the estimate daily work. That is a mind boggling
level of scholarly endurance. Actually, it's more than just mind boggling.
It's borderline impossible for one person to maintain such consistent,
perfect output over such a sustained period.
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture. This level
of sustained consistency and quality across decades for a single
individual scribe is truly baffling, bordering on the superhuman. You
might say, we're talking about an unwavering output at an
exceptional quality level, day in and day out, year after year.
It profoundly challenges our understanding of human physical and mental limits,
particularly in an arrow without modern aids or comforts.
Speaker 1: Exactly, it raises the.
Speaker 2: Question what extraordinary confluence of physical stamina, mental discipline, and
perhaps an almost obsessive motivation could drive someone to such
a feat.
Speaker 1: And it isn't just the eerie lack of errors that
stands out here is the astonishing, almost uncanny consistency of
the handwriting itself from start to finish.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, the handwriting consistency.
Speaker 1: And that is extremely hard to explain. On a timescale
of decades, a scribe's eyesight would inevitably change right, Their
physical strengths would wax and wane, Their fine motor control
would likely degrade or revolve.
Speaker 2: Health fluctuates, skill levels change exactly.
Speaker 1: All of these factors inevitably have an impact on a
person's handwriting. The impact maybe small or maybe large, but
either way a forensic handwriting analyst would absolutely expect to
be able to spot those subtle changes. To see the
passage of time reflected in the script.
Speaker 2: You'd expect some variation, it's only natural.
Speaker 1: But with the Codex Gigus, the script on page one
is utterly indistinguishable from the script on page six to twenty,
despite presumably having been laid down decades earlier.
Speaker 2: Indistinguishable after potentially decades, that's what.
Speaker 1: The analysis shows. It's as if time had no effect
on the scribe, or as if the writing process occurred
in some compressed, impossible timeframe.
Speaker 2: This is where the anomaly truly crystallizes into something profoundly unsettling.
Handwriting is an intensely personal and inherently variable characteristic. The
human body changes, and so does the hand's ability to
maintain perfect uniformity over such an extended period makes sense.
The absolute lack of any discernible variation in script the
unwavering hand. It suggests a level of precision that is
frankly almost alien to typical human capabilities, especially those of
a medieval artisan operating under less than ideal conditions. It
speaks to a singular, almost machine like dedication.
Speaker 1: So you put all of this together, the incredible, almost
unimaginable size of the manuscript, the astonishing fact that it
was written entirely by a single scribe, and the consistent,
almost perfectly accurate quality of the penmanship throughout, and we're
left with a genuine, profound mystery. Whoever made this thing
was not just skilled, They were operating at a level
that appears borderlines superhuman. Dare I say it perhaps even supernatural?
Speaker 2: It certainly fuels the legends.
Speaker 1: It does, And this matters because it doesn't just entertain
us with a good story. It forces us to question
the very limits of human capability and the nature of
historical evidence itself. What are we truly capable of when
driven by an extreme purpose, and how do we discern
truth and fact when the circumstances seem to defy all
conventional logic. It truly expands our understanding of human potential. Okay,
so I wouldn't blame you if you're still firmly settled
in Camp skeptic after hearing that, or perhaps you shifted
to Camp deeply intrigued.
Speaker 2: Eh somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: Perhaps fair enough, But don't rush to any hasty conclusions
just yet, because there's more. Take a closer look at
this particular image we're sharing. Do you notice anything strange
about this specific page? Let's see, the Codex Gigas is
written on vellum, that durable, specially prepared caskin parchment. Vellum
typically presents as an off white, creamy color, exactly like
the vast majority of pages found within the Kodex.
Speaker 2: Gigas right, the usual parchment look.
Speaker 1: Well, most of them, As you can clearly see in
this image, the page containing that truly disturbing depiction of
the devil is starkly different. Uh. Yes, it's much darker.
Speaker 2: Significantly darker than the rest, almost as though it's been
blackened by intense heat or, perhaps, as the legend suggests,
by hell fire itself.
Speaker 1: That's quite a distinct difference.
Speaker 2: Now. It's true that the book did miraculously survive a
major castle fire centuries ago. More on that dramatic escape
in a moment, but so far as we know, its
pages had never been directly burnt in that specific, localized
way beforehand.
Speaker 1: It's a striking visual detail, isn't it? One that immediately
invites speculation, especially when juxtaposed with the book's notorious nickname
and its dark reputation. Definitely, the discoloration appears to be
a physical manifestation, a tangible echo of its sinister legend.
It's the kind of detail that makes you lean in closer,
searching for a deeper explanation.
Speaker 2: Then there are these two very distinctive metal fittings, almost
like hinges, deeply embedded on the back cover of the
Codex Gigas fittings.
Speaker 1: What were they for?
Speaker 2: Scholars widely believe these were once used to physically attach
the colossal book to a table or lectern enshuwing. It
remained fixed in place at all.
Speaker 1: Times, ah to chain it down exactly. Now, I'm no librarian,
but what kind of book, even a priceless one, needs
to be kept chained down? A chain book, especially when
adorned with such a prominent devil illustration and featuring a
strangely darkened page. It certainly conjures up a kind of
monster book of monsters vibe, doesn't it?
Speaker 2: It adds to the creepy factor. Certainly.
Speaker 1: Skeptic or not, you've got to admit it's all a
bit unsettling.
Speaker 2: The practice of chaining books, while historically common for valuable volumes,
takes on a subtly different symbolic weight. When considering the
Codex Gigus, it speaks not only to its immense material
value safeguarding against theft or damage, but also perhaps to
latent apprehension about its perceived power or influence. It implies
something important, something that perhaps needed to be restrained.
Speaker 1: Restrained. Yeah, and the creepiness, or, perhaps more accurately, the
profound mystery, doesn't stop with inexplicably charred looking pages and
physical restraint, because the eight hundred year history of this
ancient tome is almost as enigmatic as the book itself.
Speaker 2: The provenance is murky.
Speaker 1: Very going right back to the beginning and putting possible
devilish authorship to one side for a moment, nobody actually
knows where this giant book came from. The first confirmed
owners of the Codex Gigas were the monks of a
small Benedictine monastery called Pudlages in Bohemia.
Speaker 2: Okay, so maybe they made it there.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what historians assumed for a long time. In fact,
many older sources still make that claim, but it turns out,
after closer scrutiny, they're probably wrong.
Speaker 2: Really, why think about it?
Speaker 1: Eight hundred years ago, a book like the Codex Gigas
would have been incredibly difficult, costly, and time consuming to produce.
Beyond the prodigious labor of a master scribe. The sheer
raw materials alone we mentioned one hundred and sixty animals for.
Speaker 2: The vellam a massive undertaking, and.
Speaker 1: The giant, intricate binding could only have been produced by
a master craftsman, someone at the very top of their
demanding trade. This was a highly ambitious project, and it
would have cost not just a small fortune, but a
truly great, big one, a monumental expenditure. Yet, according to
researchers at Sweden's National Library, historical records confirmed that Podligi's
monastery was by all accounts extremely poor throughout its history.
Speaker 2: Ah so they couldn't have afforded it exactly.
Speaker 1: It simply would not have had the financial resources nor
the specialized craftsmen to commission or execute a project of
this magnitude, let alone housed the dozens and dozens of
caves required for its pages. So the question remains an
enduring mystery. Who did make it? The answer is we
have absolutely no idea.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a pretty big gap for such a famous object.
Speaker 1: Isn't it more than a little bit odd? The Kodeks
Gigas was a very famous book right from the start.
At one time it was widely considered to be the
eighth Wonder of the World, a marvel spoken of across Christendom.
And yet for such a prominent and celebrated artifact, nobody
knows who made it or where it truly came from.
It's almost as though, as the legend suggests, it appeared
from nowhere overnight.
Speaker 2: This historical ambiguity creates a powerful void, doesn't it, a
vacuum easily filled by legend and speculation. Without clear factual
anchors or provenance, the narrative surrounding the book becomes far
more susceptible to myth making. It transforms a remarkable artifact
into an almost mythical object, allowing its story to drift
from the mundane reality of human creation into the extraordinary
realm of.
Speaker 1: The supernatural, a perfect breeding ground for stories.
Speaker 2: It's a testament to the human imagination's power to fill
in the blanks.
Speaker 1: So the Codex Gige's bounced around several monasteries during the
first few hundred years of its existence, often traded or
transfer as a valuable asset or a sacred trust, but
it never truly stayed hidden. By the late sixteenth century,
its growing reputation for being an extraordinary, if not infamous
artifact a ship book with unusual contents and a rumored
dark origin, caught the attention of none other than the
Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second.
Speaker 2: Ah Rudolph the Second, a fascinating figure.
Speaker 1: Totally a world renowned art collector with a particularly unhealthy,
almost obsessive interest in alchemy, astrology, and the occult. He
amassed one of the most remarkable collections of curiosities, scientific
instruments and esoteric texts in Europe.
Speaker 2: A real Renaissance man in a very specific occult focus way.
Speaker 1: You could say that with its exquisite illumination, even that
of the devil and its whispered Satanic origins, the Kodex
Gigas was precisely what he craved, perfectly aligned with his unique,
somewhat eccentric tastes, so he acquired it. Actually, to be
more accurate, he basically seized it in fifteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: Seized it, not borrowed.
Speaker 1: More like, strongly encouraged its transfer. It quickly became the
undisputed jewel of what is now considered to have been
one of the greatest and most unusual art collections ever assembled.
Speaker 2: Rudolph the Second's profound fascination with the occult and his
relentless pursuit of such unique artifacts truly aligned with a
broader intellectual current of the Late Renaissance. It was a
period where the lines between emergent science, artistic expression, and
mysticism were often deeply blurred. Great minds sought knowledge through
both empirical observation and esoteric practices.
Speaker 1: His fervent desire for the Kodex Gigis reflects its perceived
symbolic power, its whispered connection to forbidden knowledge, far beyond
its mere material or scholarly value. Wasn't just a book
for him, It was an object of profound, almost magical significance.
Speaker 2: But he wasn't able to enjoy his new prize for long, because,
not long after acquiring the Devil's Bible, Rudolph the Second's
mental state began to precipitously decline. He lost his mind.
Speaker 1: The timing is certainly.
Speaker 2: No it is striking a remarkable coincidence at the very least,
but what's even more intriguing is the specific nature of
Rudolph's insanity. He was prone to severe, debilitating bouts of
paranoia and inexplicable rage, often withdrawing into himself for long
periods wow and during these terrifying episodes, he frequently claimed
to have been literally possessed by the Devil, experiencing vivid, tormenting.
Speaker 1: Visions possessed by the Devil, just like the book's legend.
Speaker 2: Coincidence perhaps either way, apparently it's pretty tricky to effectively
rule half of Europe while simultaneously believing you were possessed
by the Lord of Darkness.
Speaker 1: I can imagine, because in the end, Rudolph the Second
became such a severe liability to his empire that his
own brother Matthias overthrew him in sixteen eleven. The deposed
emperor was then locked away in Broadcastle, confined within its walls,
along with the Kodex, Gigas, and the rest of his
magnificent but now silent collection. He died there just nine
months later, his mind still clouded by his delusions.
Speaker 2: What a tragic end. The historical aunt of Rudolph the
Second's mental decline and his family's drastic response paints a
vivid picture of the political implications of perceived instability in
a sovereign ruler. The Codex's presence within his collection during
this period of personal and political turmoil inadvertently but powerfully
ties it to a dramatic and tragic episode of royal history.
It imbused the book with a dark aura, associating it
with madness and downfall in the popular imagination, regardless of
the actual cause.
Speaker 1: It certainly as another layer to the legend. So the
Kodekski Giess was subsequently put into storage within the castle,
where would remained for several decades, almost forgotten, amidst the
swirling chaos of the Thirty Years War.
Speaker 2: A devastating conflict for Central.
Speaker 1: Europe absolutely from sixteen eighteen to sixteen forty eight. But
a book like this, with its immense size and notorious reputation,
was never destined to remain packed away in a box
for long. Like Rudolph, the second, Queen Christina of Sweden,
who ascended to the throne in sixteen thirty two, was
a famous patron of the arts.
Speaker 2: Queen Christina, yes another fascinating ruler, highly intelligent.
Speaker 1: Brilliant and highly educated with the special, almost insatiable interest
in books, especially rare and valuable ones. During the latter
part of the Thirty Years War, her victorious generals realized
they could gain significant favor with their young, intellectually curious
queen by sending her valuable artwork, particularly rare books, which
they seized as spoils of war, from collections all across Europe.
Speaker 2: Ah the spoils of war a time honored tradition.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, indeed, and as they scoured the libraries and palaces
of defeated foes, one book stood above all others in
terms of its fame and perceived value. No book in
all of Christendom was more valuable, more coveted than the
Codex Gigis.
Speaker 2: At this point, the Codex Gigis had clearly transcended its
original religious and scholarly functions to become a strategic asset,
a potent symbol of power, conquest and intellectual triumph. Its
acquisition by Queen Christina highlights the profound extent to which
cultural artifacts, particularly those with such an assis stablished reputation,
could become coveted prizes of war. It wasn't merely about collecting.
It was about asserting cultural dominance and validating military success.
Speaker 1: So in sixteen forty eight, the Swedish Army launched a
daring attack on the city of Prague. This proved to
be the very last significant action of the entire.
Speaker 2: Thirty Years War, the final act of the war.
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets truly astonishing. Historical records suggest
that a primary motivation of this entire final assault was
specifically to loot Rudolph the Senkin's magnificent collection and the
Codex gig Is.
Speaker 2: In particular, seriously an attack motivated by looting this specific book.
Speaker 1: That's what the records indicate. Think about that countries have
quite literally waged war, invested massive military resources and lives
for this thing. It was a grand cultural theft, a
deliberate act of war aimed at acquiring intellectual and symbolic treasures. Wow.
Speaker 2: This elevates the Codex gig Us from a mere manuscript
to an object of geopolitical significance, a target of military strategy.
It was seen as so immensely valuable, so essential for
a royal collection aspiring to intellectual and cultural supremacy, that
military action was explicitly shaped by the desire to acquire it.
It truly underscores the perceived power and prestige of such
an artifact in that era.
Speaker 1: Incredible, isn't it so. Queen Christina eventually stored the Kode's
Gigas in her magnificent royal castle in Stockholm known as
trey Kroner meaning three crowns.
Speaker 2: Trey Kroner, a famous landmark.
Speaker 1: Mighty castle had stood as a symbol of Swedish power
and resilience for around four centuries at that point, but
fewer than fifty years after the arrival of the Kodex
in sixteen ninety seven, disaster struck.
Speaker 2: Oh no, don't say.
Speaker 1: Almost the entire thing burned to the ground in a catastrophic.
Speaker 2: Freak fire, the whole castle, oh, the loss devastating.
Speaker 1: It consumed much of the Royal Library, destroying seventy five
percent of its priceless books, a monumental, irreplaceable loss of
historical and cultural treasures. Yet, despite the fact that it
weighed seventy five kilos and was probably by then securely
chained to a desk which would admit it incredibly difficult
to move quickly, the Codex Gigis miraculously survived.
Speaker 2: It survived the fire.
Speaker 1: How that's the million dollar question.
Speaker 2: This raises an important question that resonates through history. What
makes an object so profoundly valuable that extraordinary, almost impossible
efforts are made to save it, even in the midst
of a raging catastrophe. The decision to prioritize the Codex
gigis to rescue it against all Oz speaks volumes about
its perceived worth and unique status at that very critical moment,
regardless of the daunting physical challenges involved.
Speaker 1: As for precisely how it survived, rumor has it, and
this is one of my favorite parts of the story,
go on. In the chaos and panic of the raging inferno,
some incredibly quick thinking or perhaps desperately reckless individual managed
to literally hurl the massive book out of a window
as the flames raged.
Speaker 2: Threw it out the window, a seventy five kilo book.
Speaker 1: Apparently potentially striking an unfortunate bystander on its descent. It's
a dramatic, almost cinematic exit for such a dramatic book.
Speaker 2: Ah, you couldn't make it up.
Speaker 1: Now. Historians are still divided on whether that part about
the poor saw it actually happened, but there is undeniable
damage to the book's binding that is remarkably consistent with
a fall from a significant height.
Speaker 2: Really damage consistent with a fall?
Speaker 1: Yes, lending is surprising credibility to the thrown from a
window theory. And now before we move on, for a
random but fascinating linguistic tidbit that connects directly to the
grim aftermath of this very fire.
Speaker 2: Ooh, I like these.
Speaker 1: After Trey Croner Castle burned down, the fire marshal on
duty was found guilty of negligence for not discovering the
conflagration earlier and preventing such immense destruction.
Speaker 2: Uh Uh, that sounds bad for him.
Speaker 1: It was for his punishment he was subjected to a
brutal military disciplinary practice. He was forced to run between
two rows of people while being savagely clubbed, whipped, and
punched from all sides.
Speaker 2: Good grief, That sounds horrific.
Speaker 1: It was a tortuous ordeal that tragically proved fatal. Now
there's a good chance you've never heard this admittedly somewhat
bizarre and brutal form of military punishment, but I'm willing
to bet you know what it's called.
Speaker 2: Let me guess running the Gauntlet.
Speaker 1: Spot on running the gauntlet. Despite the fact that the
actual practice died out almost two hundred years ago, the
name lives on as a common idiom describing a severe
trial ordeal.
Speaker 2: Wow, I never knew that's where the phrase came from.
Linked to this fire.
Speaker 1: It is a stark reminder of the harsh realities and
consequences in that era and the immense value placed on
the safety of such treasures. Anyway, the books that did
survive the tree Kroner conflagration were eventually re housed in
the brand new Swedish National Library, where the code ekskigis
can still be found to this day. It's a silent
witness to centuries of history. Right, Okay, let's take stock here.
I think it's fair to say at this point that
this is one profoundly strange and captivating book.
Speaker 2: Strange and captivating, Yes, that sums it up well.
Speaker 1: The unknown origin, the uncannily skilled scribe, the strangely black
in pages, the mad Emperor, the wars waged for its possession,
its miraculous survival from a devastating fire. The list of
peculiarities goes on and on. It certainly has all the
makings of a dark, enduring legend, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, it's a truly compelling narrative, almost too perfect in
its dramatic arc. But, and this is a crucial distinction
in a deep dive like ours, just because something seems
unexplainable or has a captivating, almost supernatural story built around
it doesn't necessarily mean it is truly supernatural or defies
all logic. The human mind, after all, is remarkably adept
at connecting disparate events, filling in knowledge gaps, and weaving
them into a cohesive, dramatic narrative that satisfies our innate
desire for a good story. Our challenge is to peel
back those layers exactly so.
Speaker 1: While the legend of a book panned by the devil
certainly makes for thrilling fireside tales, let's face it, most
of us would agree that literal infernal authorship is probably well, it's.
Speaker 2: Probably a safe assumption.
Speaker 1: Yes, So what's really going on here? How we explain
all the peculiarities of this strange and wonderful story. Let's
start with one of the visually creepiest elements, those strangely
blackened pages, particularly the devil page.
Speaker 2: Okay, the darkened page. What's the non hellfire explanation.
Speaker 1: You might have guessed that the Codex happen to be
open on that specific page during the fire at trey Kroner,
and that's why it appears charred. But the truth is
actually even simpler and perhaps more poetic than that. You
see when you expose vellum, the prepared animal skin to
sunlight over extended periods, it naturally develops a distinctive dark
patina over time, a sort of natural.
Speaker 2: Tamming ah light exposure makes sense under.
Speaker 1: Normal circumstances that patina would be relatively uniform across an
entire book, especially when it's kept closed most of the time,
protecting its pages. But since one particular page of the
Codex kigas the Devil's Illustration, is so much more famous
and visually striking than all the others, it has had
far more than its fair share of sunlight exposure over.
Speaker 2: The centuries, because everyone wanted to see.
Speaker 1: That page exactly, being opened and displayed countless times for
curious eyes. It's almost poetic, really. The pages of the
Devil's Codex weren't blackened by hell fire. They were simply
stained by centuries of human fascination.
Speaker 2: That's a great explanation. It's a prime example of how
a perfectly plausible scientific and historical explanation can elegantly dismantle
a supernatural theory yet still leave us with a profound
sense of wonder at the object's historical impact and the
continued fascination it commands. The physical evidence itself tells a
story not of the demonic, but of enduring human curiosity
and reverence for a unique artifact.
Speaker 1: Well said, Now, the fact that the Codex was apparently
kept chained down at all times, it's even easier to explain.
Speaker 2: Away the monster book chains, right.
Speaker 1: It certainly gives this story that monster book of monsters vibe,
implying something sinister need to be contained. But it turns
out it was actually just standard practice for incredibly valuable
books in that era.
Speaker 2: Really, chaining books was called common, very common.
Speaker 1: This is a time when even normal everyday books were
immensely valuable objects, pains takingly copied by hand and therefore
quite rare. It wasn't at all unusual for entire libraries,
especially monastic or university libraries, to have their most prized
volumes chained to their shelves to prevent theft or unauthorized.
Speaker 2: Removal security measures.
Speaker 1: Essentially exactly, the Codex Gigis was, as we've established, basically priceless,
considered an eighth wonder of the world, so keeping it
under literal lock and key, or in this case securely
chained down just made practical economic sense. It was about
protection and preservation, not containment of an evil spirit.
Speaker 2: This provides crucial historical context that is often missing in
popular narratives. Without understanding the common norms and practices of
the medieval period, a modern interpretation of chained books could
easily lead to sensationalized misinterpretations. It vividly illustrates how critical
it is to view historical objects through the precise lens
of their own time and prevailing societal practices.
Speaker 1: Makes perfect sense. Then this poor old Rudolph the.
Speaker 2: Second Ah, Yes, the mad Emperor.
Speaker 1: He did indeed go insane not long after acquiring the Kdex.
That part of the story, based on historical records is
absolutely true. But then again, he wasn't the only Habsburg
ruler to misplace his marbles, as it were the Habsburg's right,
this was, historically speaking, one of the most famously inbred
royal families in all of human history, a lineage notorious
for their extremely tight and often problematic gene pool. You've
probably already heard of the characteristic Habsburg jaw. Oh.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Habsburg jaw very distinctive, A.
Speaker 1: Distinctive often elongated lower jaw and prominent chin that was
so pronounced it became almost a physical identifier for the family,
passed down through generations like an undeniable hereditary mark.
Speaker 2: Genetics played a huge role, huge.
Speaker 1: Due to generations of inner marriage and limited genetic diversity,
all sorts of disabilities, both mental and physical, commonly played
that bloodline. So while the timing of Rudolph's descent into
madness in conjunction with his acquisition to the Codex is
certainly a fascinating.
Speaker 2: Coincidence, it's likely not causal.
Speaker 1: Exactly. His mental state can be more accurately explained by
genetics and family history rather than direct demonic possession.
Speaker 2: This effectively debunks the direct causal link between the book
and his madness, re situating his mental decline within the
context of known historical biological factors. It serves as a
potent reminder not to assign supernatural or simplistic causalities when
complex medical or genetic explanations are historically available.
Speaker 1: Right, don't jump to the spooky explanation first.
Speaker 2: The human tendency to seek dramatic connections can sometimes obscure
the more intricate truths.
Speaker 1: As for the rest of the dramatic history. The Codex
was indeed one of the very few books to survive
the devastating fire and Trey Croner Castle. But this isn't
necessarily a miracle.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 1: It simply makes perfect sense to save the most valuable
objects first in a christ even if they do weigh
a ton. Faced with a devastating, rapidly spreading fire, people prioritize.
Speaker 2: Triage, basically save the most important thing.
Speaker 1: And the Codex Gigas was known to be the most
valuable single item in the entire library. And finally, nobody
knows who made it because, as we discussed, it's eight
hundred years old. And let's be honest, the Middle Ages
aren't exactly known as the Golden Age of comprehensive record keeping.
Speaker 2: Records get lost, things weren't always written down exactly detailed.
Speaker 1: Providence for every single artifact of that age is exceptionally rare.
If you're starting to notice a pattern here. That's because
there absolutely is one. The strange sensational stories that surround
the Codex certainly lend the great book an irresistible air
of mystery, a captivating a lure that draws you in.
But examine any one of them a little closer, and.
Speaker 2: There's a perfectly reasonable, non supernatural explanation just waiting to
be uncovered.
Speaker 1: Spot up.
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, this pattern
highlights a fundamental aspect of how historical narratives are often
shared and amplified by human intrigue, a fascination with the dramatic,
and crucially, the lack of comprehensive historical records. The gaps
in our knowledge, combined with the innate human desire for compelling,
almost mythical story, often give rise to legends that, while
not factual, contribute immensely to an object's enduring mystique and
cultural power. It's a fascinating symbiotic interplay between reality, perception,
and the stories we tell ourselves.
Speaker 1: But and this is the crucial point for a deep dive,
just because no infernal intervention is required to explain how
the Codex gigas came to be. That doesn't mean there
is no profound mystery to this tall tale.
Speaker 2: Ah okay, what's the remaining mystery?
Speaker 1: Then? In fact, it shifts the mystery from the supernatural
to the truly astounding human. Because if Satan didn't pen
the Codex Gigis with his own clawed hand, if it
wasn't a product.
Speaker 2: Of dark magic, then a person did it.
Speaker 1: Then that means a regular old sack of meat homost
Apien's like you or me somehow managed it. And that
in itself is perhaps the most astounding, the most mind boggling,
and the most inspiring revelation.
Speaker 2: Of all that. Human achievement is the real miracle here, because.
Speaker 1: The book you see before you is undeniably the life's
work of one truly remarkable individual. It's a testament to dedication, skill,
and sheer human endurance that is almost incomprehensible in modern terms,
a singular feat of medieval willpower and meticulous artistry.
Speaker 2: This is where the focus truly shifts from external supernatural
forces to the extraordinary, almost unimaginable capabilities of an individual.
The real mystery then becomes one of human potential. How
did one person achieve such an almost unimaginable commitment to
produce such a monumental work, especially within the challenging constraints
of a medieval context. It forces us to reconsider the
very definition of human limits.
Speaker 1: As for who that individual was, the ultimate identity of
this superhuman scribe, well, we still don't know for sure,
but it turns out that the manuscript itself, along with
the very legend we've been discussing, may hold a tantalizing clue.
Speaker 2: A clue within the book itself.
Speaker 1: Yes, the second page of the Codex Keigis contains, amongst
other things, an obituary note for a monk named Herman.
Speaker 2: Incluse, Herman Incluse, meaning.
Speaker 1: That roughly translates to Herman the Recluse in English. There's
a good chunk of scholarly speculation involved here, of course,
but many scholars believe that this stay at home Herman
may indeed have been the original singular author of the.
Speaker 2: Codex Hermann the Recluse. It fits the profile of someone
undertaking a massive solitary project. The archival clue, seemingly minor
at first glance, provides a tantalizing, if incomplete lead the
presence of such a personal note, whether directly identifying the
author or simply a person intimately associated with the manuscript's
earliest history, grounds the legend in a tangible, if still ambiguous,
human connection. It offers a whisper of identity in a
story otherwise defined by its anonymity.
Speaker 1: But since we're already speculating, let's take things one step further,
because it turns out there's more than one way of
translating the Latin word inclusive.
Speaker 2: Oh what else could it mean?
Speaker 1: While recluse is certainly a valid interpretation, it can also
quite literally mean confined or inclosed.
Speaker 2: Confined like the monk in the legend.
Speaker 1: Exactly So, is it possible that the heart of the
legend is true at least in part? Could the Codex
Gigas have been written not by a monk facing literal
live in Tumen, but over many decades by a monk
named Hermann who committed some terrible, perhaps unmentioned crime for
which he was locked.
Speaker 2: Away, locked away confined, not.
Speaker 1: Inside a monastery wall, sealed in alive, but perhaps confined
to a simple cell, a place of solitary contemplation and penitence,
where he dedicated his entire remaining life to this monumental
act of penance and creation, like the legend is a
kind of folk memory.
Speaker 2: That's a really compelling idea. It ties the legend and
the likely reality together. This raises a truly profound question,
how do powerful legends evolve from concrete historical facts and
what does that process tell us about our deep seated
human need for compelling narratives, for drama, for meaning in
the unexplained. The confined Monk theory provides a deeply human,
utterly poignant explanation for the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Codex.
It transforms a supernatural tale into a profound story of resilience, penance,
unimaginable dedication, and the redemptive power of sustained solitary labor.
Speaker 1: It feels more real somehow.
Speaker 2: It speaks to our desire to find meaning and drama
in the unexplained, to craft a narrative that resonates with
human emotion, even if it requires a slight embellishment of
the raw historical truth. It's a powerful illustration of how
the truth can be just as, if not more compelling,
than the most outlandish fiction. It also forces us to
consider the immense psychological fortitude required to undertake such a solitary,
lifelong task in a confined space. What would that daily
existence have been like? The isolation, the repetitive motion, the
unwavering focused day after day, year after year. It's almost
as incredible to imagine as the demonic pact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, decades of that. Wow. The truth is we'll likely
never know for sure. The heroes and villains of this
great tale have been dead for close to a millennium,
and the definitive answers are lost to the mists of time.
But regardless of who put quill to paper all those
years ago, whether driven by divine inspiration, desperate human will,
or even as the legend suggests, a sinister pact, the
Kodex Gigess is undeniably one of the greatest books ever conceived.
It stands as a literary cathedral, a monumental work built
one word at a time, one meticulously prepared page at
a time, by an almost unbelievably talented and dedicated individual.
It's a testament to the enduring power of creation and
the captivating a lure of a truly great mystery.
Speaker 2: Well, it's either that an unparalleled feat of human endurance
and artistry, or it's the debut novel of the Devil himself,
an infernal masterpiece. I'll let you decide which ending you prefer.
And as you ponder that, consider how many other stories
we tell, how many deeply embedded legends persist in our
collective consciousness, that might have a kernel were found human truth,
obscured by the fascinating dramatic narratives we so eagerly construct
around them. The search for knowledge, after all, is often
as much about understanding ourselves as it is about uncovering
historical facts.