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.

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.

[2] 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.