Gisela of Kerzenbroeck

Gisela of Kerzenbroeck or Gisela von Kerssenbrock (died by 1300) was a nun in the northern German city of Rulle who probably worked most of her life writing and illustrating manuscripts, as well as being choirmistress.

Codex Gisle

Gisela de Kerzenbroeck is documented only as the creator of what is now known as Codex Gisle or "Gradual of Gisela von Kerssenbrock", a gradual made for the Cistercian convent of Rulle near Osnabruck in Westphalia, and now in Osnabruck. The following words are inscribed in a fourteenth-century charterhand on the first folio:

The venerable and devout virgin Gisela de Kerzenbroeck wrote, illuminated, notated, paginated, and decorated in gold letters and beautiful images this extraordinary book in her own memory, in the year of the Lord 1300. May her soul rest in peace. Amen.

This inscription was added after Gisela’s death, although possibly some considerable time after, judging from the style of the manuscript .

The manuscript contains 52 historiated initials, two of which include portraits of Gisela, marked with tituli.

References

(all in German)

• Beer, Ellen J., Gotische Buchmalerei: Literatur von 1945 bis 1961 (Fortsetzung und Schluß), Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, Vol. 28, H. 1/2 (1965), pp. 134-158, Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH, Munchen & Berlin, JSTOR
• Osnabruck, Gymnasium Carolinum und Bischofliches Generalvikariat, MS C. Dolfen, Codex Gisle (Berlin, 1926)
• R. Kroos, ‘Der Codex Gisle I. Forschungsbericht und Datierung’, Niederdeutsche Beitrage fur Kunstgeschichte, 12 (1973), pp. 117-34
• H. Feldwisch-Drentrup and A. Jung, Dom und Domschatz in Osnabruck (Stuttgart, 1980), pp. 32 and 68
• Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Stadt im Wandel: Kunst und Kultur des Burgertums in Norddeutschland 1160-1659 (Braunschweig, 1985), no.1084, pp.1246-49 by R. Kroos.

Further reading

• Singing with Angels: Liturgy, Music and Art in the Gradual of Gisela von Kerssenbrock by Judith H. Oliver, BREPOLS, 2007