Codex Seffken

The Codex Seffken, properly the Wappenbuch von den Ersten (German for "armorial of the foremost"), is a armorial manuscript of the late 14th century. It is a pa…

Codex Seffken
Codex Seffken
Library of the Herold society, Berlin
folio 3r
Datelate 14th century
Size77 leaves
AccessionB.109

The Codex Seffken, properly the Wappenbuch von den Ersten (German for "armorial of the foremost"), is a armorial manuscript of the late 14th century. It is a paper folio with six coats of arms to a page, many of them left unexecuted or unidentified.[1] It is held by the Berlin heraldic society Herold under the shelfmark B.109 and is cited in heraldic scholarship by the siglum ERS.[2] Gustav Adelbert Seyler described it in 1895 as the oldest known heraldic manuscript after the Zürich armorial.[3]

Name

The usual name derives from an inscription on the edge of the block of leaves, which Count Rudolf von Stillfried-Rattonitz read as Wappenbouch von den Sefken, mistaking the letter sequence Erssten for Seffken.[4] The reading was corrected in 1892 by the heraldist Carl Teske and the librarian Antonius van der Linde, who took the disputed characters for Erssten, a reading supported by the contents of the book, understood to present the foremost lineages.[5]

Rediscovery and dating

The manuscript was offered for sale in about 1855 to Stillfried-Rattonitz, who was outbid by a purchaser he was never able to identify. His public appeal for its whereabouts, published in 1871 in the Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit, went unanswered. In November 1891 Seyler received the book on approval from a South German antiquarian and identified it from a specimen sheet the count had copied. He then had it bought for the Herold society's library.[4]

Two expert opinions drawn up at The Hague in 1857 and 1859 accompanied the manuscript. The first dated the paper from its three watermarks, a P, a fleur-de-lis and a bull's head, which were attested only between 1380 and 1399. The second, by M. F. A. G. Campbell of the Royal Library at The Hague, observed that plate 27 gives the arms of Van Hornes as those of the bishop of Liège, and narrowed the date to the episcopate of Arnold van Hoorn, which Campbell placed in 1379–1389.[1]

The Herold society had the manuscript reproduced by hand by the heraldic artist Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt and published it in 1893 with a preface and notes by Seyler.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Seyler, Gustav Adelbert (1893). "Vorwort und Einleitung". In Hildebrandt, Adolf Matthias (ed.). Wappenbuch von den Ersten genannt "Codex Seffken". Der Urschrift aus dem Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts getreu nachgebildet (in German). Berlin. p. 6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ Clemmensen, Steen (2006). "Abbreviations and references". Ordinary of Medieval Armorials. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  3. ^ Seyler, Gustav Adelbert (1895). "Das Wappenbuch von den Ersten, genannt Codex Seffken". Illustriertes Handbuch der Ex-Libris-Kunde (in German). Berlin: J. A. Stargardt. p. 91.
  4. ^ a b Seyler, Gustav Adelbert (1893). "Vorwort und Einleitung". In Hildebrandt, Adolf Matthias (ed.). Wappenbuch von den Ersten genannt "Codex Seffken". Der Urschrift aus dem Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts getreu nachgebildet (in German). Berlin. p. 5 (left column).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Seyler, Gustav Adelbert (1893). "Vorwort und Einleitung". In Hildebrandt, Adolf Matthias (ed.). Wappenbuch von den Ersten genannt "Codex Seffken". Der Urschrift aus dem Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts getreu nachgebildet (in German). Berlin. p. 5 (right column).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Hildebrandt, Adolf Matthias, ed. (1893). Wappenbuch von den Ersten, genannt "Codex Seffken". Der Urschrift aus dem Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts getreu nachgebildet (in German). With a preface and notes by Gustav A. Seyler. Berlin: J. A. Stargardt.
  • Digitized 1893 facsimile edition at the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Wikimedia Commons logo Media related to Wappenbuch von den Ersten at Wikimedia Commons

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