Sankt-Johanner Codex Facsimile Edition

The Sankt-Johanner Codex is an illustrated compendium of Christian religious verse maxims, songs, theatrical works, saints' lives, and veterinary recipes. Andony Johann Lang created the book over many years, spanning 1808 to 1813, in the small town of Mosonszolnok in northwestern Hungary. He made it to serve as a family reference book, to be consulted regularly for spiritual guidance. Its fifty-one full-page illustrations depict episodes described in the Bible and other Christian themes.

The manuscript is valued as an example of a commonplace book reflecting the spiritual interests of a working-class family and for its preservation of the local dialect of German. It is also witness to a massive endeavor undertaken almost entirely by one determined person.

Andony and His Book

We do not know who Andony was; he was either a laborer in saltpeter manufacturing or a farmer. If the former, he may have learned some of the skills needed to produce his paints from his work experience. He was certainly proud of his creation. He identified himself fully in two inscriptions (pp. 220 and 292) and included his monogram in most of the illustrations.

Bible Stories in Contemporary Guise

The illustrations embrace subjects both familiar and obscure. Pictures of Noah's Ark, Jacob's Ladder, the Good Shepherd, the Ascension, and the Adoration of the Magi (pp. 11, 13, 134, and 681) are joined by the Good Shepherdess and the Allegory of the Egg (pp. 321 and 405).

Andony sets many scenes in his own time, depicting the figures in contemporary garb. For example, the Tower of Babel appears as a typical western Hungarian double house topped by a tapering tower under construction: the house and the spire feature corner details like that of local architecture. Andony shows the biblical builders in the typical dress of contemporary laborers (p. 37).

Picturing Local Stagecraft

One illustration shows a contemporary performance of a Christmas play, details of which are recorded in the manuscript. Among the figures is the man who operates the manufactured star that leads the actors playing the Magi. He holds aloft the star that is—according to the text—decorated with red and gold paper and illuminated from within by a lamp (p. 671).

Looking Back to the "Spiritual Lottery"

Andony copied most of the manuscript's text from Der geistliche Glückshafen by Jacob Bohr, published in two editions in the early seventeenth century. This collection of more than 1,000 short rhyming religious maxims and songs on biblical themes (most beginning with the words eins, zwei, or nichts) captured the imagination of Andony, who rendered its content in his local dialect. The manuscript owes its nickname to the town of Sankt-Johanner, where it was discovered. It is bound in leather-covered wood boards with two metal clasps.