“Three Kings slip as it is written in gold letters at Cologne Cathedral."

[Three Magi] / [Epiphany amulet]. Der heilige Dreykönigzettel, oder Gebeth, so zu Kölln am Rhein in der Dom-Kirchen mit goldenen Buchstaben geschreiben und aufbewahrt wird. C † M † B Heilige drey Könige, Kaspar †, Melchor †, Balthasar †, bittet für uns jetzt und in der Stunde unsers Absterbens. S.l. [German lands]: s.n., s.a. [end of 18^th century]. [19.0 x 16.0 cm], [1] f. letterpress sheet, with woodcut. Folds, rather toned, small marginal losses, remnants of mounting and a mend on verso.

Unique copy of this 18^th-century German sheet of “The Holy Three Kings slip (Dreykönigzettel), or prayer, just as it is written in golden letters and kept in the Cathedral in Cologne on the Rhine.” The sheet is decorated with a (charmingly vernacular) woodcut of the Adoration of the Magi and carries the amuletic letters “C. M. B.” (“Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar”).

The text of the prayer—punctuated with numerous crosses—links the Three Magi with the three figures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and asks the six of them for their protection “now and in the hour of our death.”

“C. M. B.” amulets depicting the Three Magi paying homage to the Christ Child were popular in German lands in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The origin, meaning, and apotropaic qualities of the letters “C. M. B.” were in the Early Modern Period—and still remain—a matter of some debate.

During Epiphany it became a tradition to write in chalk on the door of one’s house the letters “C. M. B.” flanked by the numbers of the New Year, e.g., “20 + C. M. B. + 26.” A common explanation of these letters is that they stand for the Latin phrase “Christus Mansionem Benedicat” (“May Christ bless this house”), but they also came to be associated with the names of the Three Magi: Caspar, Melchior, & Balthazar.

The Brothers Grimm, for example, in the entry for “Dreikönigsabend” (“Three Kings Eve,” or “Twelfth Night”) in their Deutsches Wörterbuch (1852), remark that the “C. M. B.” sign warded off the devil and witches. Johann Baptist von Horix noted in the 1780s that a “Three Kings slip” (Dreikönig-Zettel) with the letters “C. M. B.”—no doubt much like the one offered here—was thought to protect against ghosts and Hexen and that such amulets could be traced back at least to the 16^th century (p. 9). In 1715, Placidus Taller published a popular sermon on the Epiphany in which he offered numerous rather fanciful interpretations of the letters “C. M. B.” and their association with the Three Magi.

This item is not located by OCLC or KVL. The piece was formerly part of the collection of Horst Heres, and an illustration of it appears in his excellent Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett, p. 93, ill. 139.

* Horst Heres, Das private Andachtsbild: Devotionale, Andenken, Amulett, p. 93, ill. 189; Placidus Taller, Einfältiger doch Wohlgemeinter Bauern-Pediger, Das ist, Fest-Tägliche Predigen Auf das gantze Jahr (1715), pp. 34-44; Johann Baptist von Horix, Viertes Sendschreiben eines Layen an seinen Freund, einen Weltgeistlichen, über das während der Jesuiterepoche ausgestreuete Unkraut verschiedene merkwürdige deutschgeistliche Geschichtsumstände enthaltend (1786); Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Bilder und Zeichen religiösen Volksglaubens, Abb. 86 (an analog); D. C. Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages.