ABSTRACT
The Ottonian emperors rank among the greatest royal patrons of the arts. In the manuscripts written at their command in the monasteries of Reichenau, Echternach, Trier or Regensburg they appear enthroned in state or receiving their crowns, like Byzantine emperors, from the hands of Christ. No Genesis manuscript, Psalter or complete Bible with comparable decoration, survives, though Ottonian Germany did make one supremely important contribution to the typological tradition of Biblical illustration, the great bronze doors of St. Michael’s, Hildesheim, cast for Bishop Bernward early in the eleventh century. The scriptoria of eastern France were similarly influenced by the brilliant Ottonian schools; and even closer affinities linked the South with Catalonia and Spain. The same attitude is even more emphatically expressed in a series of manuscripts from the neighbouring territory of northern Spain, the style of which is as remarkable as the subject-matter.
