The Vendôme Coffret before the Holy Tear
The inscription on the coffret’s side, HEINRICO NITKERUS DAT (Nitker gives [this] to Henry), suggests a role in a gift exchange between Nitker, the bishop of Freising and Henry III, King of Germany and later Holy Roman emperor. Scholars date the donation between 1039 and 1043 due to a second inscription on one of the coffret short sides: HEINRICUS REX NITKERUS EPS (Henry king, Nitker bishop). Nitker’s episcopal consecration took place in 1039 and Henry III, who became king of Germania in 1039, was crowned emperor in 1043.
![HEINRICO NITKERUS DAT (Nitker gives [this] to Henry)](https://scalar.usc.edu/works/la-trinit-de-vendme/media/Heinrico%20Nitkers%20Dat.jpeg){kind=link}
The sumptuous materials and workmanship of the Vendôme coffret affirmed the prestige of the Freising diocese and the close relationship between the bishop and king. Very little is known about bishop Nitker. The anonymous vita of his nephew, Ulrich of Zell, provides most of the biographical information known about Nitker. He was born to an established merchant family in Regensburg. His brothers were close to the Imperial court, and Henry III was the godfather to his nephew Ulrich. However, the brothers fell out of favor with Henry III then they changed their loyalty to Henry’s rival, the Hungarian king Bretislav. Nikter seems to have had no prior connection to Freising’s cathedral chapter before Henry III named him the successor to bishop Egilbert in 1039. The Gesta Episcoporum of Freising, a chronicle of the Freising Bishops, is the most direct source of information on Nitker. The original manuscripts are now kept in Munich, in the Staatsbibliothek and the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv.
In the twelfth century, Conrad the Sacristan composed a history of the Freising bishops, in which a portrait of Nitker appears on the same folio as Henry III (Munich, BayHStA HL Freising 3c, fol. 111v--see full manuscript here). An abbreviated Gesta appears in two additional manuscripts. The first, (Munich, BayHStA HL Freising 3a, Freising, 0824--see full manuscript here) dates to the twelfth century. The second manuscript contains folios appended to the end of a ritual (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 6427--see full manuscript here) dating to the thirteenth century. Although short and written in a later hand, the brief entry affirms that Nikter received the episcopal office from Henry and it lists the conformations of privileges and land Nitker confirmed with the king. None of the Gesta entries mention the coffret/portable altar or any other liturgical objects Nitker many have given to the Freising church.
