Forbidden History - The Devil's Bible

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

In this episode, we follow the 800-year history of a medieval Bible manuscript, famous for its giant illustration of the Devil contained within its pages. We recount its journey across Europe as it changes hands between emperors and queens, and the history it sees along the way – as well as the cursed legends that follow it. Cast List: Dominic Selwood: A historian, barrister, bestselling author, novelist and frequent contributor to national newspapers including The Independent, The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph Janina Ramirez: A cultural historian, broadcaster and author based at the University of Oxford Tony McMahon: A former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian Elin Andersson: A specialist in ancient manuscripts and an expert on the Devil’s Bible, based at the National Library of Sweden Scott Sophos: Prague-based historian and teacher Dr Andrew Boakye: Lecturer in Religions & Theology at the University of Manchester  Peter Stanford: Writer, editor, journalist and presenter, known for his biographies and writings on religion and ethics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. 1648. Bohemia. What is now, Czechia. It's a humid October morning. Smoke rises in the distance, the remnants of a besieged city. Along the banks of the River Elbe at Army marches, their boots catching in the squelchewel.

mud. They carry extravagant relics, paintings, telescopes, bronze statues, and uncut diamonds, but most prominently, books, thousands of them. This is the entire lifetime collection of the mad, Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II. Now the spoils of the Swedish Army and its leader, Queen Christina. The 30 years war has devastated Europe, and in its last battle, Prague has fallen and been looted for all its treasures, including Rudolph's most prized possession. Two soldiers, their legs shaking from exertion, jointly balance on their shoulders, a giant manuscript. Three feet tall and eight inches thick, its vellum pages made from the skins of 160 donkeys, bejeweled and bound in wood. This is the legendary Devil's Bible.

And this is only one chapter in its 800-year legacy. The Devil's Bible is one of the most striking, unusual, and memorable books in existence. Incredibly important people wanted the Devil's Bible. Why would they want it? Well, because it is extraordinary. This isn't just an exercise in recording a text. This is an artwork. Given the continued mystery around its authorship, it's little wonder that people have believed down the centuries,

that this book has some kind of awesome power and that it is cursed and that it is capable of a malign influence. You're listening to Forbidden History, the podcast series that explores the past's darkest corners, sheds light on the lives of intriguing individuals, and uncovers the truth buried deep in history's most controversial legacies. This is The Devil's Bible. The Devil's Bible has a mysterious legacy that entangles history with devilish myth. In the Swedish National Library, behind a thick glass casing and lit by soft white lights, sits the Codex Giga's, the Devil's Bible. Speaking from where it resides in the treasury room is Elin Anderschen,

a specialist in ancient manuscripts and an expert on this unique book. This is definitely one of the strangest books in our collection here. Its origins are covered in mystery, for whom was it made, who paid for this. Why would they make such an enormous manuscript? Already in the Middle Ages, this book was known as one of the seven wonders of the world. Although it now resides in Stockholm, this mammoth manuscript originated in Chequia, formerly known as Bohemia. It was plundered from Prague by the victorious Swedes in the 1600s during the 30 years' war. On the ground in Prague, its historian Scott Safos to tell us more about its origins.

Technically, the Devil's Bible, also formerly known as the Codex G-GES, is what we consider to be the largest illuminated manuscript that we have on record. An illuminated manuscript is something that would have been worked on for decades by a series of illustrators and monks. To unveil the intricate details of this astonishing book is author and historian, Dominic Selwood. The medieval world loved creating large, ostentatious Bibles, but the Devil's Bible is in a category of its own and is by far and away the largest medieval manuscripts

that we know. In terms of its size, it's three foot long and it weighs 175 pounds. It's got 310 sheets of vellum, and it's one of the more expensive books, and you know that because it's got pictures in it. In addition to containing a complete Bible, this book also holds medical texts, history, and encyclopedias, as well as magical formula, including how to perform an exorcism. On page 290, there appears the image that gives this book its terrible nickname,

a full-scale rendition of Satan himself. The image of the devil is powerful and very striking. Firstly, because of its size, it's a full-page image in a very large book, and secondly because of the way the devil is depicted. Traditionally, Lucifer, of course, was the most beautiful, beautiful of all angels, but that is not what we see here. This devil is a monster. He has two arms and legs, but four fingers and four toes on each.

He has red horns and he has two red tongues coming out of either side of his mouth, indicating his duplicity and that he is the father of lies. He crouches there against a desolate background, showing the waste ground and emptiness of hell. This is an image of the devil and hell that is meant to terrify. Giving us context to this ghoulish illustration is Dr. Andrew Boace from the University of Manchester. There's no basis for the depiction of the devil, as you see in the devil's Bible, in the actual biblical text itself. These notions of the devil as a demon with horns and a pitchfork and a forked tail is really based on legend and on medieval ideas of ghouls and goblins. From the University of Oxford, Dr.

and Nina Ramirez. Bohemia would have had traditions, folklore, legends that go back into pre-Christian times connected with the natural world. We're actually seeing a Christianity that is adapting earlier, older pagan ideas and formulating them in their own specific way. The devil actually would have been quite important to people in 13th century Europe, largely because this was an era when people still believed that misfortune, Any kind of bad luck, illness, disease may still have had some kind of demonic origin. So in many ways, fear of the devil was no different from the fear of God. To help us further understand the medieval mindset is journalist and author Peter Stanford.

Often we use the word medieval as if it just means people are rather stupid and believed all sorts of completely crazy things. I mean, they believed them for a reason. They believed them because they were terrified of death. if you live in a society that's racked by war, armies charging through your land, plagues, racking things, your children are all dying early. You have a much more apocalyptic view of life, really. In the medieval mind, the world split very easily between good and bad.

The devil's Bible continues to unveil more about medieval Christian values. Dominic's Selward again. It's very easy just to focus on the devil in the devil's Bible, but in fact, he has a context. He's part of a diptic. pictures, if you open the Bible, the two facing pages are heaven and hell, heaven on the left and the devil hell on the right. It's the core duality at the heart of Christianity. It's salvation and its perdition. A chilling reminder to medieval Christians to follow their God.

But this illustration has inspired more than just faithfulness in believers. It has also provoked tales of a demonic nature and belief that the book is cursed. The myths surrounding the book starts at its creation, which is shrouded in mystery. The book was written between 1204 and 1230, and most people think that one of the names in the book, Herman Inclusus, is the name of the author. He was a monk, and Inclusus means shut in, so he was some kind of recluse.

Could a manuscript as grand as the devil's Bible truly only be the efforts of one reclusive Benedictine monk? To shed light on this mystery is author and historian, Tony McMahon. A Bible of this size and this complexity would have normally been a common endeavor by several monks in the scriptorium of an abbey or a church. But it's the commonalities and style throughout this Bible that suggests that incredibly it could have been the work of one man. Forensic handwriting experts have assessed all the pages in the manuscript and have found that it would have taken one person up to 30 years to complete. But what's so extraordinary in this manuscript is the handwriting doesn't change. If you or I tried to sit down and write out all of the Bible,

and we started when we were in our 20s and we finished when we were in our 50s, our handwriting would change. Why does the handwriting not change in this across the piece? In Prague, Scott Safos has more extraordinary revelations. There is absolutely no error in the writing of it. manuscript. Very often in the illuminated manuscripts you will find blotted ink, you will find misspelled words. The handwriting in the Codex Giga is uniform and was done by the same person, which lends a bit of credibility to the cursed legend.

Due to these enigmas, down the centuries, many have theorized the book as a demonic origin. The story goes that he was a very, very sinful and wicked monk and he was sentenced to be walled up, immured for his sins. And he begged that if he could create the most beautiful book in 24 hours that he be spared this punishment. So he was allowed to start the book. But as the night wore on and the candles guttered low, he found that he had no chance of finishing it in time. And so the story goes that he prayed to the devil and he made a deal with the devil. And the devil came and finished the book for him. And that is why the devil left his own fingerprint, his picture in the Bible when it was discovered fully complete at dawn.

The birthplace of this Bible, supposedly the small Bohemian monastery of Podliziche, was destroyed not long after the book was completed, furthering the legend of its curse. By the early 1400s, this region was in the midst of religious turmoil. Tony McMahon and Peter Stanford tell us more. Bohemia was one of those parts of Europe where the Catholic Church struggled to retain control. It was a fulcrum of heresy. You have this extraordinary figure in Bohemia, Jan Hus, who was a great reformer of the church in lots of ways.

He felt it was corrupt. He felt it had lost sight of what was being written in the scriptures. The Hussites agitated among the people to reject the Catholic Church and its teachings and its priests and its Pope. Really radical ideas, massively popular, massively popular. So for having been incredibly devout when it first got Christianity, Bohemia now was the can

of cauldron of radicalism. The monastery of Paudla Ziche burned down during these early religious wars. But fortunately, the popularity of this book would save it from a fiery demise. The grand said Let's Monastery saw a financial opportunity within the devil's Bible and acquired it from Podla Zichet before its destruction. The way monasteries made their money was people going on pilgrimage, walking to them. So if you had the choice between going to X monastery down the road, had a pretty small Bible with all familiar illustrations in it, or going to the monastery

where the devil's Bible was drawn, which has this extraordinary picture of the devil in there, and it's really, really big. You know, you might be more tempted to go there. The Bible's new home was fantastically rich, but Sedlets had a macabre secret. Medieval monasteries could grow very wealthy, and one of the main ways they did this was through burying people. If a monastery could attract local wealthy people to come and be buried in their graveyard, they would require that on that person's death they gave their goods to the monastery. Sedlets found a particularly good way of doing this in 1270 when their abbot, Abbot Henry, went to Jerusalem and brought back some sacred holy earth from Golgotha,

from where Christ was crucified, and he spread this in the monastery graveyard. After that, everybody in the region wanted to be buried at Sedlets. As history went on, however, this lucrative model would backfire. In the middle of the 14th century, the bubonic plague struck the kingdom and wiped out half of Europe's population, spelling disaster. On that event, Sedlet simply didn't have enough space for the bodies, so a decision was made to remove bodies from the existing burial ground and combine them with current ones and create an ossary,

which is where the bones would be stored. Sedlet's ossary is still there, and it's quite unlike almost anywhere else on the planet. There are pyramids of bones, cupboards of bones, a chandelier with all the bones of the human body, skulls and bones arched across the ceilings and following the columns of the traceries of the roofs. It's a cathedral of death that's been curated for 700 years. The monks of Sedluts decided to reorganize the bones

and created one of the most spectacular yet gruesome chapels in the world. It's difficult to convey just how ghoulish Sedlats is. You're going into this space where there are real human bones arranged into patterns and chandeliers and kind of furniture and strange designs and that's all around you, real death. Osiris are a curiosity for us today, I think. We've become very disconnected in the modern age with the dead. So go back to earlier centuries, earlier millennia.

It would not be uncommon to have the remains of your ancestor, for example, a skull perhaps, displayed in your home. When you see them displayed in an osseury, they are acting as Memento Mori. The concept of Memento Mori is central to Christianity. The idea that while you are alive, be aware, you will be dead, and look to your soul.

If you want forgiveness, if you want to be resurrected in heaven, or you want to go to hell, you make that final decision during your life. It can be argued that this macabre sensibility sensibility is also reflected in the image of Satan within the devil's Bible. A striking reminder to believers of what could be awaiting them in death if they chose not to live a good life.

Whatever its original purpose, the manuscript continued its turbulent journey across Europe, capturing the attention of the rich and powerful. It was sent from Sedlitz to the famous Brevnov Monastery in the Bohemian capital of Prague. It stayed in the hands of the mummer. for three centuries, until it came to the attention of the most important collector in Europe, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Back in Prague, Scott Sapphoz. There are some say that Rudolf II was a combination of a absolutely brilliant ruler and a bit of a madman.

He suffered from what was referred to then as melancholia, or what we would refer to as clinical depression. Rudolph was an avid collector. He would isolate himself among his collection. He would stare at a piece of work for hours, lost in thought and his melancholy. Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor, is actually a really important person in European history. Because of the time he was living, his collection and the sorts of studies that were undertaken on it formed a basis for what became the scientific revolution. Rudolf was one of the most colorful rulers in Europe and controversially moved the capital of the Holy Roman Empire from Vienna to Prague.

But in his desire to make this city the cultural and scientific center of Europe, he strayed into dangerous territory. He was a rather flamboyant figure, obsessed with the occult and with alchemy. He was hanging out with the likes of Nostradamus and Dr. John D. who was Elizabeth I, in-house astrologist. Always looking for a new piece to add to his collection, Rudolph soon turned his attention to the treasures of the nearby Brevnov Monastery. Rudolf was determined to get his hands on the devil's Bible,

and given the fact that that monastery in Bohemia was conveniently within his realms, within the Holy Roman Empire, he basically bullied the monks into handing it over. Brevnov Monastery loaned the Devil's Bible to the Emperor, but soon his empire would begin to crumble. The latter part of Rudolph's reign was racked with revolt and war with the Ottoman Empire. He became a paranoid recluse, and his titles were slowly stripped away by his brother Matthias. Now, Rudolph blamed his downfall on many, many people. But one thing he did was to blame the people of Prague. He said to the people of Prague, I brought you this glory and this is how you treat me.

And many, many people say that the curse against Prague upon Rudolph's deathbed is what led to the 300 years of conflict following his death, including the 30 years' war.

Between 1618 and 1648, the 30 years' war saw bloody warfare between most of the great powers of Europe, with up to eight million casualties. On the 25th of July, 1648, in the last climactic showdown of this devastating era, troops of the Swedish Empire, led by Queen Christina, besieged Prague.

Attacking from the west of the Bolteva River, the Swedes overpowered the garrison and flung them into the water. On the other side, citizens and students barred the gates of the old town, took up arms, and valiantly stopped any Swedish troops that charged over the infamous Charles Brin. The siege went on for months with hundreds of casualties, the Swedes entering and looting various parts of the city. In October, word reached both sides that a peace treaty had been signed, ending the Thirty Years' War. But only a day later, the Swedes struck again in the hunt of treasure. Wanting to go home rich men, they went straight for Rudolph's prized collection. The Swedes looted Prague where this Bible was kept.

And they sought out libraries and colleges, private collections, to find books to bring back to Sweden. It was a very planned attack. They knew exactly what they were looking for. The Devil's Bible was one of the mini-objects sacked by Queen Christina's army during the Thirty Years' War. And the weight of the Bible was so great that legend-stated. that it took two of Queen Christina soldiers to carry it back to Stockholm. Rudolph II and Queen Christina were essentially very modern monarchs.

They were openly bisexual, they were open to all kinds of ideas, they were extremely tolerant and learned, and they both wanted to get their hands on the devil's Bible. Why? Maybe because it challenged the consensus, maybe because it was a bit dangerous. Made Queen elect by the death of her father at only six years old, Christina was educated like a prince at the late King's wishes. Officially crowned at 18, she was a queen known for her extreme wit and intelligence that stunned Europe.

Queen Christina was an incredibly well-educated woman who had a habit of looting other people's libraries during military campaigns. And she was so clever, so wise that she was known as the Minerva of the North after the Roman goddess of wisdom. She also challenged gender stereotypes at the time by dressing in a very masculine manner, which certainly raised a lot of eyebrows. In 1654, less than 10 years into her rule, Christina sent shockwaves through her nation by suddenly and mysteriously abdicating. Why is still debated to this day. But many historians suspect religion was at the heart of it. She was for a long time a controversial figure in Sweden because she converted to Catholicism,

as Sweden was a strictly Protestant country for hundreds of years. But lately, she has been rehabilitated as a model for female liberation, you could say, because she followed her heart, her head. She converted to the Catholic faith and left Sweden for another life. Renouncing the throne of the staunchly Protestant nation, Christina left Sweden to live the rest of her days in Rome as the guest of the Pope. Before she left, she took many of her beloved books, but not the Devil's Bible. You might wonder why Queen Christina decided not to take the Devil's Bible with her

to the Vatican in Rome, to the very center of Christianity. But maybe that's the point that the Pope, that the Catholic Church didn't want what was essentially a, a satanic authored Bible in the Vatican. The Devil's Bible remained in Stockholm at Trey Corner Castle, but the violent history of this book had followed it from Bohemia to Sweden. The Devil's Bible was kept at the Royal Library in the Royal Council of Stockholm, and in 1697 there was a huge fire breaking out, destroying the whole building. And this affected the Royal Library and the Royal Archives as well.

And in that library, there were around 24,500 books and 14,000 manuscripts, and only a quarter of them survived. But one of the survivors was the Devil's Bible. The Trey Kornar Castle was destroyed and was replaced by the Baroque Stockholm Palace. The Devil's Bible itself was saved, but not without cost. The story goes that staff threw it out of the the window. And unfortunately, maybe because the book is cursed, it lands on somebody's head outside,

seriously injuring them. After its incredible escape from the flames, the Bible traveled between various places in Stockholm until it came to rest where it is today in the National Library. Despite making it to the modern era, stories of demonic encounters continued to persist. And in the 1850s, there was a story published about caretaker at the library who fell asleep at work and when he woke up at midnight he saw the devil's Bible whirling around in the air leading a crazy dance of books around it he lost his mind and never came back to his senses as the story goes

but why is it that so many spooky stories surround this one book for their final thoughts here are our experts the human mind is incredibly fertile and loves imagining stories around unusual things. The devil's Bible is genuinely very unusual, so it should come as no surprise that there are a whole raft of stories and legends that surround it. And that may even be why it was created in the first place. One can well imagine that the illustrator who sat there with the Bible with a blank page on his scriptorium desk thought a full-size devil will really get people talking.

And it has. Culturally speaking, we're still so interested in the devil, primarily because I think most of our worldviews still somewhere at their heart contain some element of this notion of good versus evil. It's so much easier to think of a malevolent force, some evil that has agency rather than thinking that the human mind can conjure up some of the depravities that the world has seen. Some people throughout history have claimed that this book is cursed. It's not strange when you think about this image of the devil that sets the imagination running. But I think this book has been extremely blessed because we still have it after 800 years. Most manuscripts from the medieval period have been lost, reused, turned into scrap. That it has survived as extraordinary, that things will have happened around it is inevitable.

I don't go in necessarily for this idea of a legend associated with the devil. I think there's a very obvious reason why that image occurs where it does. But I do think there is something extraordinary about the fact this thing got made at all. It would have taken so much scholarship, so much dedication, and so much patience to create it. It is an extraordinary achievement. From its conception at the hands of a single man, Herman the recluse in medieval Bohemia, to a plague-addled monastery decorated with chandeliers of bones.

From the heart of the Holy Roman Empire besieged by war, to escaping a rampaging fire that swept a historic Swedish castle. By grace of God, or maybe by the blessings of someone else. The Devil's Bible has survived eight centuries of turmoil to tell its story today. It seems this mighty book will fascinate us for many more generations to come. Who was Christina, Queen of Sweden, who once owned the Devil's Bible? For a deep dive into her fascinating life, listen to our extra episode, Forbidden Fruit, available now on all your favorite podcast platforms. This is an audio production by Like a Shot Entertainment, presented by Bridget Lappin.

Executive producers, Danny O'Brien and Henry Scott. Story producer Maddie Bowers, assistant producer Alice Chudder. Thank you for listening.