Ratmann Sacramentary



The Ratmann Sacramentary is an illuminated liturgical manuscript, which was produced in 1159 by a monk-priest named Ratmann and given to the cloister of St. Michael's in Hildesheim for the high altar.

Ratmann is probably the same as the Ratmann who appears in a deed of 1178 as the abbot of the cloister. The sacramentary is richly decorated, including a miniature, which shows Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim, the founder of the cloister, receiving the sacramentary from Ratmann, alongside the Archangel Michael (the patron of the cloister). Bernward was not canonised until well after the production of the sacramentary, but a provincial synod in Erfurt had permitted local veneration of him in 1150.

Around 1400 someone erased the original text and rewrote it. The high romanesque miniatures and illuminated initials from the twelfth century were retained, however. Such a reinscription of a manuscript, maintaining the contents and its liturgical function is extremely unusual. The manuscript is now kept in the Hildesheim Cathedral Museum.

The Stammheim Missal is a sister manuscript.