Ada Gospels - UNESCO Memory of the World

The UNESCO Commission includes documented testaments of exceptional value for human history in the list of the UNESCO Memory of the World Program.

The Ada Gospels in Trier have such an exceptional value. It is considered as the magnum opus of a small, but very important group of magnificent manuscripts, which were grouped together under the name “Charlemagne’s Court School“. All of these manuscripts together were declared as a UNESCO Memory of the World in May 2023. They are a unique testament to the political, cultural and ecclesiastic self-perception of the Carolingian era.

The Ada Gospels as a leading manuscript contains four gospels in Latin, written in two columns entirely in gold, and has precious borders. The four full-page portrait representations of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are world famous, because they show Charlemagne's Court School at the height of its artistic development.

Why is Charlemagne (747 - 814) so special? Not only was he a Frankish king, whose empire included wide swathes of Western Europe following victorious war campaigns and spanned from the Elbe to the Ebro in Spain. After the deposition of the last Western Roman emperor in 476 by Odoacer, he was the first ruler to regain imperial honours. He proudly had himself given the title of the “new Constantine” at the court of Aachen.

Emperor Constantine the Great resided in Trier as the Western Roman Emperor. The imposing Constantine Basilicawas his throne room. You've got to see it!

Charlemagne ambitiously promoted the renewal of the Frankish Empire, which was focused not only on law and administration, but also included the sciences, the arts and the Christian religion. He especially valued the heritage of antiquity. The Ada manuscript clearly draws on Roman architecture and art. In this way, it reflects Charlemagne’s claim to power as the rightful successor to the Western Roman emperors. Also take a look at the late-antiquity cameo with Emperor Constantine and his family on the book cover!

To achieve his ambitious goals, Emperor Charlemagne founded a court school in his favourite imperial palace in Aachen and gathered scholars and academics there from across Europe. This court school’s tasks included producing precious manuscripts, which were not only meant for the imperial court, but also served as precious gifts, such as the Ada Gospels.

The patron of the precious manuscript was a woman, about whom we only have a name: Ada. She was presumably a relative or close confidant of Charlemagne. No documents about her remain and the name was not exactly rare. So it does not make much sense to speculate about her.

The Ada manuscript made its way to the Trier abbey St. Maximin presumably as a donation of the imperial house. The rich Benedictine monastery had already received many gifts and had not only been favoured by the Carolingians, but also by Merovingian rulers.

If you are travelling along the Mosel, you will often find historical buildings with the designation “Maximiner Hof”. These were all properties owned by the rich Trier abbey!

The origins of St. Maximin go back to early Christian times: The Romans buried their deceased in front of the gates of the city, including important Christians. There was a burial ground in front of the Porta Nigra where a tomb was constructed in the mid 4th century for the first Trier bishops Agritius, Maximin and Paulinus. This later became a church and then later on the monastery St. Maximin nearby, named after Maximin, the second Trier bishop.

The tomb is long gone, but walls of the former abbey church of St. Maximin are still resting on early Christian stone sarcophagi. You can visit this exceptional excavation site on a guided tour.

Otherwise very little is left of the once very impressive monastery complex. The remains of the bishop Paulinus rest in the nearby Baroque church of St. Paulin, which was constructed according to the plans of the famous architect Balthasar Neumann and is truly impressive. You've got to see it!

According to legend, the St. Maximin abbey was founded thanks to a donation by St. Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. The tomb of his father, Constantius Chlorus, is also said to have been located in the burial ground in front of the Porta Nigra.

The precious gilded book cover of the Ada Gospels is adorned by a late antiquity cameo – a cut stone -, which shows Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena along with his family. This symbolises Charlemagne's claim to power as the “new Constantine” on the one hand, while on the other it recalls the founding legend of the mighty St. Maximin abbey. Even if the book cover was refaced in 1499, the stone very likely comes from the original time when the gospel book was created.