Codex Manesse

Herr Ulrich von Liechtenstein
[now where have I heard that name before?]

Meister Heinrich Frauenlob

Herr Kristan von Hamle

Herr Walther von Klingen

Graf Rudolf von Neuenburg

Herzog Heinrich von Breslau

Konradin von Hohenstaufen

Markgraf Otto IV. von Brandenburg

Meister Gottfried von Straßburg

Der Tannhäuser

Herr Goeli

Kristan von Luppin

Herr Friedrich von Hausen

Codex Manesse may well be the quintessential medieval manuscript. The parade of miniatures - gallant knights and comely maidens, chess, backgammon and falconry, jousting tournaments and heraldry, castles and court musicians - feature the types of (near) cliché imagery we all immediately identify with the period.

The manuscript was compiled in the early 1300s at the request of the Manesse family in an attempt to record the major figures of the minnesang - the German tradition of composing and performing love songs, similar to the provincial troubadours of France.

The 137 manuscript illustrations depict 12th and 13th century poets (minnesänger) in scenes reflective of their names or themes from their songs. They mostly came from the nobility - Dukes, Kings and Counts - but sometimes the minnesang included educated members of the middle and lower classes.

The Manesse brothers observed that the bourgeois classes of their time were gaining in power, partly as a result of the 13th century interregnum that had seen much of the authority of the Holy Roman Empire ceded to territorial rulers. New forms of literature - particularly the fables - were replacing the minnesang as the dominant oral and written tradition, so the motivating force behind the production of Codex Manesse was as a means to preserve the history of the declining Germanic troubadour culture. Codex Manesse remains, therefore, the most important primary source document for love songs of the middle ages in middle high German.

• The complete manuscript - 'Cod. Pal. germ. 848 Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse)' - is available from the University of Heidelberg.
• A selection of about seventy miniatures has been posted to Wikimedia (the origin of the images above).
• The wikipedia article on Codex Manesse references a 3-part article (in Portuguese) by R da Costa from 2003 that undertakes an iconographic analysis of the manuscript: one [trans.]; two [trans.]; three [trans.].

Codex Manesse

Herr Ulrich von Liechtenstein
[now where have I heard that name before?]

Meister Heinrich Frauenlob

Herr Kristan von Hamle

Herr Walther von Klingen

Graf Rudolf von Neuenburg

Herzog Heinrich von Breslau

Konradin von Hohenstaufen

Markgraf Otto IV. von Brandenburg

Meister Gottfried von Straßburg

Der Tannhäuser

Herr Goeli

Kristan von Luppin

Herr Friedrich von Hausen

Codex Manesse may well be the quintessential medieval manuscript. The parade of miniatures - gallant knights and comely maidens, chess, backgammon and falconry, jousting tournaments and heraldry, castles and court musicians - feature the types of (near) cliché imagery we all immediately identify with the period.

The manuscript was compiled in the early 1300s at the request of the Manesse family in an attempt to record the major figures of the minnesang - the German tradition of composing and performing love songs, similar to the provincial troubadours of France.

The 137 manuscript illustrations depict 12th and 13th century poets (minnesänger) in scenes reflective of their names or themes from their songs. They mostly came from the nobility - Dukes, Kings and Counts - but sometimes the minnesang included educated members of the middle and lower classes.

The Manesse brothers observed that the bourgeois classes of their time were gaining in power, partly as a result of the 13th century interregnum that had seen much of the authority of the Holy Roman Empire ceded to territorial rulers. New forms of literature - particularly the fables - were replacing the minnesang as the dominant oral and written tradition, so the motivating force behind the production of Codex Manesse was as a means to preserve the history of the declining Germanic troubadour culture. Codex Manesse remains, therefore, the most important primary source document for love songs of the middle ages in middle high German.

• The complete manuscript - 'Cod. Pal. germ. 848 Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse)' - is available from the University of Heidelberg.
• A selection of about seventy miniatures has been posted to Wikimedia (the origin of the images above).
• The wikipedia article on Codex Manesse references a 3-part article (in Portuguese) by R da Costa from 2003 that undertakes an iconographic analysis of the manuscript: one [trans.]; two [trans.]; three [trans.].

Filipino Costumes

Un Yndio Natural

Una Joven, Mestiza

A guardia de Vino

(an officer to look after the government monopolies, such as arrack and tobacco)

A Damsel Going to Early Mass

A Manila man

Una Yndia Natural, de Filipina

Un Mestizo Chino

A señorita walking to church in the daytime

A Spanish Mestiza of Manila

A country girl

An Old Woman

Rich mestizo

A Mandaya Woman

"Note the silver "patina" on her breast, and the load of armlets. The Mandaya women blacken their front teeth by holding a quid of tobacco and strongly acidic leaves between teeth and lips."
[IN: 'The non-Christian peoples of the Philippine Islands' by DC Worcester, 1913, among the Cornell University South East Asia Visions Collection]

Costumes des Habitans de Manille

[IN: 'Atlas du Voyage de la Perouse, no. 42', 1797 by Jean-Francois de Galaup, Comte de La Perouse. Drawing by JM Moreau; engraved by P Triere. [source]

All the images above (apart from the last two) come from a watercolour album from about 1841, online at NYPL. (there are a few more there I've not posted) The first half of the pictures above are displayed at full size. All of the NYPL images have been extensively background cleaned.

Incidentally, a few of the men are wearing the national male costume of the Philippines: Barong Tagalog (the female counterpart is called Baro't saya {Barbie or anime(!)})

Further Filipino costume illustrations: Skyscraper city forum and The Impact of Spanish Rule in the Philippines from the Tagalog language and cultural resources site at the University of Northern Illinois.

It's obviously an old site, but the People of the Philippines exhibition from the Museum of Anthropology at the California State University, East Bay, has some useful information, particularly about the distribution of ethnic groups across the Philippines.

I added costumes to the delicious tags recently.

Added later: See this article on the Boxer Codex (1595) that is said to depict the Tagalogs, Visayans, Zambals, Cagayanons and Negritos of the Philippines in vivid colors.

Filipino Costumes

Un Yndio Natural

Una Joven, Mestiza

A guardia de Vino

(an officer to look after the government monopolies, such as arrack and tobacco)

A Damsel Going to Early Mass

A Manila man

Una Yndia Natural, de Filipina

Un Mestizo Chino

A señorita walking to church in the daytime

A Spanish Mestiza of Manila

A country girl

An Old Woman

Rich mestizo

A Mandaya Woman

"Note the silver "patina" on her breast, and the load of armlets. The Mandaya women blacken their front teeth by holding a quid of tobacco and strongly acidic leaves between teeth and lips."
[IN: 'The non-Christian peoples of the Philippine Islands' by DC Worcester, 1913, among the Cornell University South East Asia Visions Collection]

Costumes des Habitans de Manille

[IN: 'Atlas du Voyage de la Perouse, no. 42', 1797 by Jean-Francois de Galaup, Comte de La Perouse. Drawing by JM Moreau; engraved by P Triere. [source]

All the images above (apart from the last two) come from a watercolour album from about 1841, online at NYPL. (there are a few more there I've not posted) The first half of the pictures above are displayed at full size. All of the NYPL images have been extensively background cleaned.

Incidentally, a few of the men are wearing the national male costume of the Philippines: Barong Tagalog (the female counterpart is called Baro't saya {Barbie or anime(!)})

Further Filipino costume illustrations: Skyscraper city forum and The Impact of Spanish Rule in the Philippines from the Tagalog language and cultural resources site at the University of Northern Illinois.

It's obviously an old site, but the People of the Philippines exhibition from the Museum of Anthropology at the California State University, East Bay, has some useful information, particularly about the distribution of ethnic groups across the Philippines.

I added costumes to the delicious tags recently.

Added later: See this article on the Boxer Codex (1595) that is said to depict the Tagalogs, Visayans, Zambals, Cagayanons and Negritos of the Philippines in vivid colors.