The ornately stitched repairs spanning the margins of this illuminated page were added at some point after the manuscript was completed. On a practical level, they served to reduce distortion of the parchment. But the decorative quality and bright colors of their execution transform the stitches from mere repair into art: at once an aesthetic exercise and an act of devotion.
Dedication of the Church, in “Berthold sacramentary,” Weingarten, Germany, 1215–1217, MS M.710, fol. 127. Purchased by J. P. Morgan (1867–1943), 1926.