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"An art historian and a Germanist examine the pictures and text in the four densely illustrated manuscripts of the Sachsenspiegel that were produced in the century following its composition by Eike von Repgow. This is the first extensive study of these famous picture books in English. Using critical frameworks based on performative and feminist theory, the authors give detailed consideration to the social differences reshaped and maintained by text and image. Eike's project, realized in the early 1220s, was concerned with Christianizing secular law, and promoted peaceful interaction between diverse groups, including Saxon men and women, Jews, and Slavic Wends, and he mandated the provision of guardians for the young, the handicapped and the judicially impaired. Yet the later images variously support or subvert his text; changing emphases in the pictures accord with changing attitudes to women and Jews in the period of productionof these works, between c. 1300 and 1365. A burgeoning book culture in the fourteenth century carried Eike's law into the town halls at a time when market churches were being constructed in the judicial and economic hub of German cities, even as synagogues disappeared from town centres during the pogroms. This market complex became part of the material culture of the law. A final chapter traces the popularity and dissemination of the Sachsenspiegel picture-books up to 2010."--(Provided by publisher.)
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