BP-2026.009.1
Codex Gigas
- Claim
- 0 of 5
Nothing is claimed to happen to anyone. - Evidence
- 2 of 5
One retelling, publication or sale listing. - Provenance
- 3 of 3
An unbroken chain to the event it is named for.
These three figures are kept separate and are never combined into a single score. How grave the claim is, what it rests on, and whether the object can be traced are different questions. How the register reads them.
Asserted
Accounts attributed to a source. The register does not adopt them.
Nothing is claimed to happen to anyone. The claims attached to this object concern only how it was made. A monk sentenced to be walled up alive is said to have promised to write the largest book in the world in a single night, and, when the night was half gone, to have called on the devil for help and pledged his soul. Books are said to have been seen dancing in the air with this volume at their head.
- P19
visible movement
- E5
a non-human entity attributed to it
index v0.8: Non-human entity attributed
- E9
able to leave the object
- H6
made with the help of an entity
- H8
maker harmed during or after making
- H19
unlawfully obtained
- H20
previously held by an institution
- H21
associated with a named legend or figure
Recorded
Established by the register, or received with the object.
File
- Register number
- BP-2026.009.1
- Entry type
- Object entry
- Opened
- 2026-09-16
- Coded against
- Claim Index v0.8
Object
- Type
- illuminated manuscript
- Materials
- vellum, ink, pigment, wood, leather
- Date
- between 1204 and 1230
- Origin
- Bohemia
- Whereabouts
- held by an institution, Stockholm
Custody
No custody record has been entered.
On what grounds
Published retellings. Evidence is capped at 2: the only source for the movement claim is a collection of humorous anecdotes published in 1858.
Counter-indications
What weighs against the claim. These are never subtracted from a figure; the lowest applicable ceiling is applied instead.
- CI2
sources conflict on the event
- CI7
an ordinary explanation has been offered
- CI8
the only source for one claim has a fictional purpose
The manuscript is written throughout in one uniform hand, which is consistent with a single scribe working over twenty to thirty years.
Register findings
- MT21
assigned keeper
- MT26
exhibited publicly
- MT28
has appeared in broadcast
- MT29
catalogued by another register
- MT24
the holder publicly rejects the claim
The national library that holds it states on its own website that the legend has no basis in reality.
Note. The manuscript was thrown from a window during a palace fire in 1697 and is said to have struck someone below. Damage to the binding confirms the fall. Neither event is coded: nothing in the sources attributes either to the object's alleged working, and the register codes only what is attributed.