The white cope of Kunigunde

The group of Bamberg imperial robes also includes the white cope of Kunigunde (DMB Inv.No. 3.3.0002). Its gold embroidery did not originally adorn a semi-circular mantle, but a rectangular textile made of a white silk fabric (weft-faced compound twill) with a pointed oval pattern.

The 72 almost identically repeated embroidery elements, some of which are only preserved in fragments, show a ruler enthroned with a pendilia crown, loros, labarum and sphaira. Today, they are arranged in seven parallel rows, each offset from the other. At the level of the throne seat, there are inscription bars with different Latin words in between.

The imperial motifs, which combine Byzantine and occidental elements, and the inscriptions were made at the same time by a western workshop and were originally placed in horizontal rows. The embroidered "HEINRICI" confirms the connection to Heinrich II (973-1024, ruled 1014-1024).

Whether it was originally a rectangular mantle or a funerary cover for the emperor’s tomb can no longer be verified, since the embroidery was cut out of the original backing fabric and transferred to a red garment in a radial arrangement during the course of the Middle Ages. It is shown in this form during Bamberg’s ostensions of holy relics as the red cope of Kunigunde.

During a repair in 1478/1479, the Bamberg embroiderer Jörg Spiß added a shield with a picture of St. Kunigunde and the pearl-embroidered inscription "S. Cunegundis Pallium" as well as a clasp on the front with "Hortus conclusus". All this accentuates the veneration of Kunigunde (died 1033) in Bamberg, which is equal to that of Virgin Mary.

During the last restoration in 1956-1962, this combination was dissolved and an ahistorical cope was created, on which all the distinctive components were attached. An explanatory video tries to clarify the differences to the previous state.

Tanja Kohwagner-Nikolai