Monday, July 11, 2011

Weekend News on the theft of the Codex Calixtinus

The main local newspaper El Correo Gallego is reporting that the police are investigating a set of footprints found inside the Cathedral's archive, and are working on theory that thief or thieves came into the church during regular hours, hid somewhere until it closed, and used the cover of night to steal the famous 12th-century manuscript.

The Spanish newspaper El Pais interviewed the chief prosecutor of Galicia, Carlos Varela, who believes that their would be "high demand" on the international market for the manuscript, but Spanish scholar Xosé Ramón Barreiro disagrees, and believes that the culprit may have taken the Codex as a "prank." Whatever the motive, if caught, the person would face up to five years in jail for the crime.

Time Magazine's report on the theft includes some quotes from medieval scholar Richard Oram, who says "Any expert or even someone with basic knowledge would be able to instantly identify [the Codex], and know that it was stolen," he says. "So it would be impossible to sell."