The manuscripts in this display case were produced around 250 years apart, during which the cultural traces of late antiquity faded and the era of the High Middle Ages with its new social and cultural challenges began.

For example, the 'Trier Apocalypse' [12] and the 'Stuttgart Illuminated Psalter' [13] (from St. Germain-des-Prés), which were created in the Carolingian period in the West Franconian Empire, still refer back in part to early Christian, probably Roman, archetypes in their imagery, thus building bridges between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

In contrast, the 'Evangeliary of Otto III' stands at the transition between the Early and High Middle Ages. [14], which marks a high point in Ottonian book illumination from the famous school of painting at Reichenau Abbey, and the 'Commentary on the Apocalypse' by Beatus of Liébana [12] from Gascony, which differs significantly in terms of painting style, coloration and pictorial design and was surprisingly created only a few years later.

We enter the art of the High and Late Middle Ages with three codices from the Gothic period, which span the arc between the writing and painting workshops of northern Italy [16] and central Germany [18] from the 13th century, as well as the temporary working group of international book artists appointed to the Prague court by King Wenceslas IV around 1400 for his Bible project [17].

These manuscripts enter new dimensions of opulent book design, particularly in terms of their splendid book decoration, and in this way reflect the claim to power and prestige of their patrons.

While the manuscript of the 'New Testament' and the 'Landgrave Psalter' remain entirely within the usual and long familiar range for these types of text, the Wenceslas Bible also sets new standards in this respect. It is the first German-language translation of the Latin Vulgate (the version of the Latin Bible widely used in the Middle Ages), which is not a retelling but translates the text word for word into the vernacular.

At the turn of the 13th century, the doctrinal theological material and themes that had previously dominated literature were increasingly replaced in the German-speaking world by novelistic tales such as Wolfram von Eschenbach's 'Willehalm' [20]. These texts were generally written in the vernacular and not in Latin. This was the book market's response to the growing interest of the non-clerical, urban-patrician and aristocratic public in the use and purchase of books.

Over time, texts that today would be classified as 'non-fiction' also became increasingly important. For example, the 'Book of Treasures' written in French around 1260 by Brunetto Latini, Dante's teacher [19]. In this encyclopaedia, Latini compiled both geographical and natural history as well as philosophical and theological knowledge of the time and drew on topics from politics and rhetoric.

The art of hunting, on the other hand, is the subject of the 'Hunting Book of the (fictitious) King Modus' [21], the first 'non-fiction' book on hunting in French, which was written in 1370 by the Norman nobleman Henri de Ferrières for his peers.