Manuscript Stolen from a Spanish Cathedral

Time Magazine takes note of the theft of the priceless one-of-a-kind Codex Calixtinus.

From the piece...

The illuminated Codex was apparently removed from the cathedral archives on July 5 and reported missing to police the following day. At a press conference on Thursday, the cathedral deacon, José María Díaz, said that only he and two other archivists had access to the manuscript and that one of them had last seen the document on June 30 or July 1. Although the Codex was taken without signs of forced entry, Díaz said, "We have been victims of a terrible attack."

Written in the mid-1100s under the auspices of Pope Calixtus II, the Codex is about the apostle St. James, whose remains are believed to have miraculously washed up on the coast of northwestern Spain. The town that houses his tomb, which became known as Santiago de Compostela (Santiago means "St. James" in Spanish), was transformed in the Middle Ages into a major pilgrimage site — the third most important, after Jerusalem and Rome — for Christians from all over Europe. Indeed, book five of the Codex is a sort of a Michelin guide to Santiago, helpfully instructing pilgrims on the best routes to take and the poisonous rivers to avoid. "It is one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages and of incalculable value," says Jesus Tanco, a St. James expert at the University of Navarra.