Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

mark for quality products (Piccard, “Ochsenkopf-Wasserzeichen”,
25).
Two watermark pairs found in the Klosterneuburg manuscript
can also be found in Codex 4390, dated 1427, of
the Austrian National Library, Vienna: the watermarks
AT5000–146_219, AT5000–146_220 and AT5000–146_163
are found in absolutely identical form in Codex 4390 and to
AT5000–146_364 exists a variant in Codex 4390 (Ill. IV 8a).
As well, all of the watermarks in Codex 146 (with the exception
of AT5000–146_109, which is found in only a single
sheet) can be found in Klosterneuburg manuscripts.
Of the manuscripts that use partially paper with the same
watermarks as in Codex 146, three (Vienna ÖNB, Cod.
4390 and Cod. 5287, as well as Klosterneuburg, Cod. 474)
contain dates in the text of the manuscripts themselves.
These dates fall in the period between 1427 and 1432, and
thus, if they were used as a basis for dating Codex 146, it
would be classified as being “about 1430”, a premise that
comes very close to the manuscript’s actual date. Hence this
confirms the reliability – as seen in many other examples –
of dating manuscripts by means of their watermarks.
As mentioned above, Piccard estimated four years as
being the maximum time period that normal paper with
identical watermarks was used (Piccard, Wasserzeichenforschung,
11). However, after an examination of the
watermarks in the WZMA collection (Haidinger, Datieren
mittelalterlicher Handschriften, 18–20), in about a third of
the cases this time period is longer. For instance, the
Bull’s head AT5000–146_163, found in an identical form in
both Klosterneuburg, Cod. 474 (dated 1432) and Vienna,
ÖNB, Cod. 4390 (dated 1427), shows that the time
period paper with this watermark was used was at least six
years.
A.H. (C.P.-K.)
IV 9
Klosterneuburg, Stiftsarchiv, Gb 11/1
1437
Origin: Klosterneuburg
Of the manuscripts whose watermarks have been examined
for the WZMA data bank, in about a dozen, “left over paper”
has been found – single pieces of paper where identical
watermarks have otherwise only been found in documents
that are considerably older. In most such manuscripts,
only a few sheets, or several quires, of older paper
are found. There are very few cases known in which an entire
manuscript was written on paper a few decades old.
One example, however, is the manuscript C-2, dated 1460,
in the Vienna Erzbischöfliches Diözesanarchiv, Kirnberger
Bibliothek der Wiener Dompropstei, which is written on paper
that as yet has otherwise only been detected in manuscripts
dating between the years 1429 and 1440.
The 1437 Klosterneuburg Grundbuch Gb 11/1, dated
1437, is also such a document. It is written on paper that is
otherwise only found in manuscripts that have mostly been
dated to “around 1410”. That some of these older manuscripts
even contain paper that is younger than that found
in the Grundbuch, written twenty years later, can also be
64
seen by comparing the watermark pairs of the Grundbuch
holding the sigla A and B with the respective watermarks in
the Klosterneuburg Codex 533. The watermarks AT5000–
533_22 and AT5000-GB11_1_33 are absolutely identical.
Although the impression on folio 21 of Codex 533
(AT5000–533_21) and that on folio 3 of the Grundbuch Gb
11/1 (AT5000-GB11_1_3) are slightly different, it is without
a doubt that they were created by the same wire figure; the
left wire outlining the bell-shaped watermark has moved a
few millimetres outward, probably having worked its way
loose as a consequence of the mechanical demands made
on the mould and wire figure during the papermaking
process.