A Romanesque treasure from the late 11th century

The Orlach Missal is a richly illuminated and musically notated missal, dating from the late 11th or early 12th century – a Romanesque masterpiece from the cultural region of Swabia and Franconia. As a ‘Missale notatum’, it contains all the instructions, texts and chants required for the celebration of Holy Mass throughout the liturgical year. Manuscripts of this calibre and quality are extremely rare on the market – the Orlach Missal ranks among the most significant surviving examples of medieval book art and liturgy.

Content and liturgical purpose

The codex is structured according to the classical organisation of a missal. The Temporal contains the Mass texts for each day of the liturgical year, organised around the feasts of Christmas and Easter. The Sanctoral follows the course of the year according to the feasts of the saints, whilst votive Masses for specific intentions appear at the end. The introduction features an exceptionally ‘rich’ calendar, offering a wealth of information on the manuscript’s original and subsequent liturgical use – additions were made to it over a period of more than three centuries.

Based on its palaeographic characteristics and the style of the fine pen-and-ink drawings, the missal can be dated to the very end of the 11th century or the beginning of the 12th century. It is written in upright German Carolingian minuscule, in a single, regular hand.

A work linked to three dioceses

The manuscript’s original liturgical purpose points to Augsburg: the original calendar solemnly mentions the feast of the dedication of Augsburg Cathedral on 28 September – an entry that cannot be coincidental, whilst a corresponding mention for Würzburg is absent. The calendar as a whole reflects the Augsburg tradition, whilst sharing many saints with the neighbouring dioceses of Würzburg and Constance.

The missal was therefore probably produced in an abbey situated on the border of the Diocese of Augsburg, within the cultural region bordering Swabia and neighbouring Lower Franconia. Stylistically, the codex can be linked to the former Abbey of Ellwangen (Diocese of Augsburg); the neighbouring Abbey of Zwiefalten, founded in 1089 by William of Hirsau and Bishop Adalberon of Würzburg, is another possible place of production. Overall, the Orlach Missal forms part of the significant Benedictine reform movement that emerged at the end of the 11th century from Hirsau Abbey and its influential abbot, William.

The name ‘Orlach Missal’

The codex takes its name from the small parish church of Orlach (Lower Franconia, Diocese of Würzburg, district of Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg), to which it was liturgically attached in the late 12th century and around 1200. Later entries in the calendar bear direct witness to this: the feast of the dedication of the church at Orlach, consecrated to Saint Kilian, ‘the Apostle of Franconia’, as well as the specific mention of parishioners from Orlach and the neighbouring village of Zottishofen.

The manuscript is also linked to the even more modest Chapel of St Margaret in Altenberg, south of Orlach, whose foundation in 1067 by Bishop Adalberon of Würzburg is commemorated in an added note. Leaves inserted in the 15th century (c. 1450) relate directly to the veneration of Saint Margaret and Saint Kilian – the patron saints of Altenberg and Orlach. Other additions suggest that the codex was also used, from the late 13th or 14th century onwards, in a Franciscan context.

Decoration and illustration

The Orlach Missal is distinguished by its delicate pen-and-ink drawings in red and brown ink. Two remarkable features are worth highlighting:

a large and impressive Romanesque ornate initial ‘V’ with zoomorphic elements, whose scrolls converge to form a grotesque mask and which is crowned at the top by four animal heads (eagle, lion, bear and probably a fox) (fol. 19);

a large historiated initial ‘T’ depicting the Crucifixion, introducing the ‘Te igitur’ at the beginning of the Mass canon, depicting a scene of the Crucifixion between Mary and John (fol. 37).

Analysis of the decoration reveals close affinities with Upper Rhenish illumination, particularly with the centres of the influential Diocese of Constance. There are striking stylistic parallels with the famous three-volume Passionary from Zwiefalten Abbey (Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. bibl. 56–58) as well as with a lectionary-epistolary (Vatican, BAV, Pal. Lat. 497), produced for the Abbey of Sankt Georgen in the Black Forest.

The music

Many liturgical passages are accompanied by interlinear neumatic notation – St Gallen neumes (diastematic, without lines), supplemented in the 15th century by horseshoe notation (Hufnagelnotation) on the inserted folios. Only a small part of this musical corpus has been studied to date: in 2003, Julia Gehring presented an initial scholarly study and transcribed 23 Alleluia melodies for the Sundays after Pentecost. An in-depth study of the music contained in the codex has yet to be carried out – the Orlach Missal thus also offers a vast field for future research.

Size, binding and condition

The codex comprises 232 parchment leaves and measures approximately 285 × 220 mm (binding 305 × 230 mm). It is bound in a 16th-century German pigskin binding on bevelled wooden boards, cold-stamped with a central medallion within concentric frames, with brass clasps. Traces of intensive liturgical use – from its origins in the late 11th century through to the late 15th century – are visible in the period repairs and signs of wear, bearing witness to the book’s living history.

Provenance

The Orlach Missal boasts an exceptional collection history. Following its early origins in Swabia and its subsequent use in Lower Franconia, it belonged to the famous collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872), the legendary English antiquarian and book collector (lot 11909). Having been sold at the Bibliotheca Phillippica auction at Sotheby’s on 26 November 1975, it came into the possession of the British Rail Pension Fund – one of the first large-scale experiments in treating art as a financial investment – and subsequently entered the renowned collection of J. Paul Getty Junior (1932–2003) at the Wormsley Library. After a period in an Austrian private collection, it is now held in a private European collection.

Source: Sotheby’s, ‘A Romanesque Treasure: The Orlach Missal’ – auction catalogue for the Orlach Missal by Sotheby’s as part of a private treaty sale. For the music, see Julia Gehring, *Studie zum Orlacher Missale*, 2003.