The Claim
Known as the “Devil's Bible,” the Codex Gigas is the largest surviving medieval manuscript in the world, weighing roughly 165 pounds and containing a full Latin Bible alongside historical texts and a famous full-page illustration of the devil. Legend holds it was written in a single night by a monk sentenced to be walled up alive for breaking his vows, who made a desperate bargain with the devil to finish it by dawn.
The Evidence
- The manuscript's genuinely uniform handwriting throughout, suggesting a single scribe.
- Its enormous scale, estimated to have required an entire herd of donkey skins for its vellum pages.
- The prominent, unusual full-page devil illustration, unlike typical religious manuscripts of the era.
The Official Story
Paleographers estimate the entire manuscript, given its length and consistency, would realistically have taken a single skilled scribe something like 20 to 30 years of dedicated work to complete, not one night. The devil legend likely developed later, inspired directly by the manuscript's own striking devil illustration rather than any real event.
File Notes
The Codex Gigas survives today in Sweden's National Library, seized as war booty during the Thirty Years' War in 1648, and remains a genuine highlight for visitors, devil legend or not.