DAVID WHITTON
IN about 1175 a magnificent set of the Gospels was copied at the Saxon monastery of Helmarshausen. It was destined for another church, St Blasius, which had quite recently been founded at Brunswick by Henry the Lion, greatest of German nobles, who was duke of Saxony and Bavaria. Brunswick was his principal residence in Saxony--there he built a palace which outshone even those of his sovereign, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa--and the new Gospels for his church were sumptuously illustrated. One of its illustrations featured the duke himself, with his English wife, Matilda. Each knelt in humility before Christ, who was in the act of placing crowns upon their heads. The crowns formally signified their dedication to Christ's service, but the picture implied other statements as well. The very character of the portrait carried exalted connotations; dukes and their consorts were not normally so portrayed, though kings were. Those who missed this point could not but have observed that the picture placed an unusually great emphasis upon Henry and Matilda by presenting them on almost the same scale as Christ himself. Other elements reinforced this emphasis. Each held a cross, which recalled the duke's acquisition of a fragment of the True Cross. Above them there stood, on Henry's side the saints to whom he had
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