"
Besides the interest possessed by this MS. as a monument of the art of
its own time, it has a special value resting in the fact that its
illuminations were copied from the famous Emmeram Golden Gospels of
Charles the Bald, written by Linthard and Berenger, and sent as a
present to Regensburg. Another illumination in it, representing the
enthronement of the Emperor, is extremely interesting as showing how the
later artist renders the work of the earlier one. The general
composition is precisely the same, the lower figures in the same
attitudes and bearing the same insignia. But in the details of costume,
and in the significant position of the Emperor, there are alterations.
In the miniature of the Emmeram Gospels the two angels above are simply
winged messengers of the usual biblical type; in the Missal they are
cloaked and crowned and bear horns in their hands. In the older MS. the
two crowned figures with horns on either side wear simple mural crowns;
in the later one they are regal like those of the Emperor. The details
also of the canopies are different. But the remarkable difference is
that while Charles the Bald is beardless and bears nothing in his hands,
merely sitting as if addressing an assembly, Henry II. holds in his
right hand a sceptre and in his left an orb and cross.
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