It is thought that this is the manuscript shown to Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor when he visited Echternach with his mother Gisela of Swabia (d. 1043), which so impressed him that he commissioned similar works from the abbey, notably the Golden Gospels of Henry III, which he presented in 1046 to Speyer Cathedral, the burial-place of his dynasty. The manuscript was at the Abbey of Echternach in today's Luxembourg until the French Revolutionary wars. During the War of the First Coalition, Luxembourg was conquered and annexed by Revolutionary France, becoming part of the "département" of the Forêts in 1795. The monastery was seized and sold, and most of the monks fled, carrying the manuscript and other portable treasures with them. It was one of a group of three manuscripts and five incunabula sold to Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg in 1801. It remained in the collection of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which was turned over to a foundation after World War I, until after World War II. It was decided to sell it but the then duke was keen to keep it in Germany, and the German Federal government and the provinces or Länder contributed the funds jointly, with Bavaria in the lead, as its new home was to be the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, where it remains.