I'd never heard of the Codex Gigas before but I was reading up on the origin of the 'pact with the devil' trope and came across the story of how a monk who essentially wrote the Codex Gigas in one night after making a deal with the devil, and that this is why it contains a big illustration of the devil.
I become pretty fascinated with this thing, and after doing some research I can't really see any straight up answers about what the original reason behind the creation of this manuscript was, and in particular why the devil seems to be depicted so prominently.
Of course, for all I know, the depiction of the devil on manuscripts like this was commonplace, but everything I can read on the Codex seems to focus on this depiction, which makes me think it is notable for some reason or another. If such a prominent depiction is not that unusual, I'm interested in why there seems to be a satanic association with the document (conspiracy theories about missing pages etc).
I guess in large part my question can be broken into:
Anyway if anyone is familiar with this topic I'd be grateful for your insight.
The Codex Gigas ('big book') is in many respects not that interesting. Its main contents are the Vulgate bible, the Etymologies of Saint Isidore and the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, all of which were quite common texts in the Middle Ages. There's also some shorter miscellaneous text such as a calendar. It's a quality book with nice illuminations and illustrations, certainly more than average but far from being the most ornate text of the era. It really only has one completely unique aspect, which is its huge size. We don't know who had it made or why, so there's little clue as to why it was so big (of course, some codex has to be the biggest). It's known it was made at the Podlažice monastary in Bohemia, Czechia, and seems to have been for use there. It was created between 1204 and 1230 because it lists Procopius of Sázava as a saint (canonized in 1204) and among Bohemian kings, it does not note the death of King Ottokar I in 1230.
The famous devil image is immediately preceded by an idealized city. These two images are clearly related as they're not just adjacent, they have the same border. There's definitely a 'good-vs-evil' theme here. The city is typically interpreted as being the Kingdom of Heaven or the Heavenly Jerusalem. Thus the border surrounding the devil may represent Hell. The images are preceded by a five-page confession of sins by a clergyman for the sins he's committed (e.g. spending some of the alms he'd received on himself rather than the poor) and invoking a literal litany of saints.
The images are followed by three conjurations against various ailments such as fever, and two magic spells concerning theft.
Neither of those types of texts are uncommon, nor are the types of spells uncommon. Depicting the devil in medieval art was not uncommon or taboo and certainly not at odds with it being a Christian manuscript. (not least in the context that the image in, as a juxtaposition) For example, several miniatures (e.g. this one on f34r) in the near contemporary (~1240) De Braile Hours from England have a similar looking devil. (that particular one on f34r is Theophilus, the original 'selling his soul to the devil' story - one very popular in the 13th century)
It's not surprising that the book's massive size would give rise to tall tales about its origin like that, but that's really all that is, a bit of folklore.
I'm aware of there being a sensationalist National Geographic documentary about it, which I haven't really seen. I glanced at it but stopped watching when they made it out as if it was being secretly stored under a shroud in the deep-underground vaults where Kungliga Biblioteket keep their collections and access is strictly restricted, when I know that in reality it's in a purpose-built glass display case in a publicly accessible part of the library. I spend a lot of time at KB and see it all the time.I don't know what the internet is saying but it's certainly not a grimoire or black magic book. For starters those aren't bound together with the Bible, nor are they lavish expensive works like this.
To answer in short:
Why was it created? Well you've got the Bible, together with the most popular encyclopedia of the day, the most important non-Biblical history of Jesus's world, some medical texts, a calendar, some local history and some foreign alphabets.. Certainly a very useful all-around book for all your Medieval needs. (could perhaps also need Boëthius Consolations of Philosophy to really hit all the Medieval bestsellers)
It's mainly notable for its very big size, and yes, the striking large devil image. Apart from that, it's notable for the alphabets as they're quite old exmaples of Cyrillic and Glagolitic. Very little of the text is unique to the codex though, and much of that which is (e.g. confessions) isn't terribly interesting.
As it comes immediately after the confession, one theory about the heaven-hell/good-evil images is that they represent the fate of those who repent and those who don't. (Lindberg)
Why is there so much conspiracy around the Codex Gigas? I don't know. Maybe because of that documentary? When it comes to anything touching magic and paganism and romanticized subjects, there's a pretty big difference between what the internet says and what academics believe.
There's nothing surprising that some pages are missing in an 800 year old manuscript. Most of them are within the Bible portion, perhaps unsurprisingly as that makes up most of the book.
S.G. Lindberg, Codex Gigas, Biblis (1957), pp. 9-29
