This manuscript was written in the years 1521 and 1522 by the copyists Regina Sattler, Dorothea von Hertenstein and Elisabeth Schaigenwiler in the Dominican Cloister St. Katharina in St. Gall; it is the only manuscript to transmit the spiritual works of the Dominican Monk Wendelin Fabri (around 1465 - after 1533), who was born in Pforzheim. Between 1510 and1518, while Spiritual (chaplain and confessor) at the Dominican Cloister Zoffingen in Constance, for reading aloud during meals at the cloister, he created spiritual treatises about the Eucharist, about the five loaves of barley bread of the religious and about the fruits of the Holy Mass, the collations of the seven O-Antiphons, as well as the treatises Villicatorius and Prudentia simplex religiosorum. The manuscript came to the monastery library of St. Gall between 1780 and 1782; at the end of the 16th century, it had still been at the Dominican Cloister St. Katharina in Wil. (smu)

Online Since: 12/13/2013

This folio-size manuscript contains a single text, the Gemahelschaft Christi mit der gläubigen Seele (redaction: Es spricht ain haidischer maister es sy besser und nützer), an extensive and still-unedited book of monastic edification. The anonymous author may have been an Augustinian Hermit; his readership largely consisted in female religious communities. Indeed, the present manuscript comes from such a community; based on a comparison of scripts, it was copied and dated by Angela Varnbühler, the chronicler and long-time prioress of the convent of St. Catherine in St. Gall (colophon on p. 842/843). In the run-up to the Reformation, the librarian Regula Keller sent this manuscript and another (today lost) to the women’s community in Appenzell, as reported by the letter accompanying the shipment that is pasted on p. 2. From there, the codex went to Wonnenstein Cloister, and in 1782 to the Abbey Library (ownership entry by P. Pius Kolb on p. 4). Two entries from 1584 attest that a certain Hans Bart had das Buoch gelernet (p. 1 and p. 845). The manuscript is laid out in two columns and rubricated throughout. A bookmark and a single leaf from a post-incunable breviary printed in the workshop of Erhard Ratdolt in Augsburg are inserted. Between pp. 839 and 840 many leaves have been removed (loss of text). Unadorned leather binding, contemporary with the text, with two clasps (one lost). On the wooden boards the offsets of two German-language charters are visible. (mat)

Online Since: 09/22/2022

The main copyist of this paper manuscript has covered almost the entirety of the pages with his tiny, compact script, full of abbreviations, only leaving a thin blank margin (more than 50 lines per page). The gatherings sometimes vary in size for the same text. The first of these texts consists in the Sermones de tempore by the Paris Master John of Abbeville (pp. 3-182). It is followed by the commentary on the decalogue by the Augustinian Hermit Henry of Friemar the Elder, De decem praeceptis (pp. 183-233). A series of anonymous sermons, for example on Saint Bernard (p. 239), the Assumption (p. 253), or on the decapitation of John the Baptist (p. 288), fill the remainder of the codex. An excerpt from the Elementarium logicae (inc.: [F]inis logici principalis est scire discernere…) by William of Ockham is inserted between these sermons (pp. 291-293). The manuscript belonged to the Abbey Library of Saint Gall at the latest by the time of Abbot Diethelm Blarer, as indicated by his stamp, which dates to between 1553 and 1564 (p. 300). (rou)

Online Since: 05/31/2024

This manuscript contains the work Die 24 Alten oder der goldene Thron der minnenden Seele (completed around 1386) by the Franciscan Otto of Passau. This work, a sort of guide to Christian life in sentences, is addressed to laymen, to lay brothers in monasteries, and to nuns. According to a colophon on p. 512, this manuscript was written by the reformist monk Friedrich Kölner (or Colner), who came from Hersfeld Abbey in Hesse and was active at the Monastery of St. Gall between 1430 and 1436; it was intended for the monastic women's community of St. Georgen above St. Gallen, whose confessor he was. (sno)

Online Since: 06/18/2020

The single copyist of this paper manuscript provides the dates in which the copy was completed in May and June 1398 (p. 187 and 448). The first part of the volume (pp. 3-187) contains a series of anonymous sermons on John the Baptist, the Virgin, the dedication of a church, etc. Some pages that follow have material for other sermons whose beginning is missing (pp. 189-204), followed by a series of blank pages (pp. 205-220). The second dated part includes a treatise on the five senses and various sermons, as stated by an explicit (p. 252), then more sermons, one of which is in German (pp. 258-259). The codex has been at the Abbey of Saint Gall since at least the fifteenth century, as indicated by the ownership note (p. 1). Among the numerous quire guards, sixteen are from a Hebrew manuscript in a square Ashkenazi script of a Talmudic text from the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century (see the description by Justine Isserles, Books within books, 2024). The other fragments, in Latin, come from a fourteenth-century charter. (rou)

Online Since: 05/31/2024

The main text of this manuscript, which shows signs of intense use, is the Rule of St. Benedict in a German translation (pp. 3-107). Based on a comparison of the script with that of Cod. Sang. 546, this text was written by the St. Gall monk Fr. Joachim Cuontz († 1515). According to a 1504 note of ownership on p. 1, the manuscript belonged to the monastic women's community of St. Georgen above St. Gallen. On pp. 120-121 there is an admonition to the sisters to keep the Rule, also written by Fr. Joachim Cuontz. In between and after, there are short texts by other hands: pp. 108-112 an instruction on how to pray the "Heavenly Rosary" following on pp. 112-117, a spiritual song for rosary meditation in 13 verses with the promise of indulgence (Inc. gott vater in dem höchsten tron), p. 118 an exhortation to the sisters to be vigilant (according to 1 Pt 5:8-9) and to ask for blessings, pp. 123-125 a dictum and the rhyming prayer of Nicholas of Flüe (ain guotti hailsamy lerr von bruoder clausen in schwitz, Inc. bruoder klaus von underwalden, and bruoder klausen gewonliches gebett, Inc. O min gott und min schöpfer nim mich und gib mich gantz zuo aigen). On p. 126 there are notes of ownership (?), on p. 128 (according to Paul Staerkle, Die Handschriften des ehemaligen Klosters Wiborada zu St. Georgen, in: Die hl. Wiborada, vol. 2: Die Verehrung der Heiligen, St. Gallen 1926, p. 84) a register for the transport of sand from 1477-1487, "which stipulates some services from the quarry donated to the church for the new church construction” ("der einige Dienstleistungen aus dem der Kirche geschenkten Steinbruch zum neuen Kirchenbau festsetzt”). (sno)

Online Since: 06/18/2020

The monk Friedrich Kölner (also Colner), originally from Hersfeld Abbey in Northern Hesse, was active at the Monastery of St. Gall between 1430 and 1436; together with several confreres, he introduced internal reforms there. At this time Friedrich Kölner also served as confessor for the quasi-monastic community of sisters of St. Georgen above St. Gall. For them he translated numerous texts from Latin into German. The texts in Cod. Sang. 998 are primarily about virginity and chastity. The volume contains numerous sentences of the church fathers in Alemannic with Middle German reflexes; texts by Bernard of Clairvaux are frequent. In addition the volume contains translations of books I and II (pp. 67-139; pp. 141-187) of Imitatio Christi by Thomas à Kempis, various sermons and excerpts, translated into German, from the treatise for novices by David of Augsburg De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione secundum triplicem (pp. 291−299 and pp. 319−338). (smu)

Online Since: 10/08/2015

This manuscript contains the German-language treatise on Corpus Christi by the “Mönch von Heilsbronn”, a monk of the Cistercian monastery of Heilsbronn located between Nuremberg and Ansbach, who probably lived in the 14th century. The small-format manuscript with a limp vellum binding comes from St. Leonhard Convent near St. Gall and was later owned by the community of women of St. Georgen above St. Gall. (sno)

Online Since: 10/08/2020

This manuscript, which features two ownership notes from the community of sisters of St. Georgen above St. Gall (probably from the period around 1500) on p. 3, contains two spiritual texts from the 13th and 14th century, respectively. They are a translation into German of instructions regarding the Rule of his Order by Humbert of Romans, Master General of the Dominican Order († 1277) (pp. 5–295), and an Upper German version of the work Die geistliche Hochzeit (Brulocht) by the Flemish theologian Jan von Ruusbroec († 1381) (pp. 296–482). (smu)

Online Since: 06/22/2017

This manuscript, written in 1498, is from the library of the regular community of sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis at the lower hermitage (Untere Klause) of St. Leonhard, outside the city gates of St. Gall. The unknown principal scribe — she wrote up to p. 536 — asks future readers for an Ave Maria in two places (p. 201; p. 536). The manuscript contains: in the beginning a copy of the Schürebrand (pp. 10−201) that is significant in terms of textual history; in the middle (pp. 206−339) parts 1 and 3 of the treatise Von dreierlei Abgründen attributed to St. Bonaventure; and in the end (pp. 344−535) the treatise on the passion Extendit manum by Heinrich of St. Gall. The salutation to Mary (“Mariengruss”) added to the end of the manuscript (pp. 537−539) was written by another hand. After the Reformation and the dissolution of the community of sisters of St. Leonhard, the manuscript came to the library of the Benedictine nuns of St. George and finally in 1780/82 to the Abbey Library of St. Gall. (smu)

Online Since: 06/25/2015

This manuscript was written by the Benedictine Friedrich Kölner among others and was meant for the Hermitage of St. George; in addition to a translation of the life of St. Benedict (after Gregory the Great’s Dialogi, Liber 2) and an excerpt from the Eucharist treatise of Marquard of Lindau, it contains an especially early version of prayers from the “Wilhelm-Gebetbuch” and the “Ebran-Gebetbuch” by Johannes von Indersdorf. Furthermore, it transmits several of the “Engelberger Predigten”, thus completing the collection contained in Cod. M 47 from the archive of the Convent of the Dominican sisters at St. Katharina in Wil. It bears mentioning that both of these manuscripts are based on an earlier model, to which also the manuscripts Cod. Sang. 1919 and Wil M 42, which were created about 50 years later, owe their (complementary) selection of „Engelberger Predigten“. (nem)

Online Since: 04/09/2014

The five parts of this manuscript were written by various scribes, among them the St. Gall Conventual Hans Conrad Haller (1486–1525), who was calligrapher, priest and, from 1523 until 1525, librarian of the monastery of St. Gall; he wrote various works such as a missal and other spiritual literature, as well as a life of Notker Balbulus. In Cod. Sang. 1006 Haller frequently left colophons, e.g., on p. 531 and p. 540. The five parts of the manuscript contain the following texts: part I (pp. 13–45) Prayers on the Passion and – partly in fragments – liturgical plays, among them the Ludus ascensionis on pp. 33-44. Part II (pp. 46–65) a prayer to St. Dorothea, which, according to the scribe, was translated from the Latin and written down in 1430 (pp. 61-62). Part III (pp. 66-80) Der Seele Klageby Heinrich der Teichner. Teil IV (pp. 81–95) liturgy of the hours on the Passion of Christ. Part V (pp. 96-762) a wide variety of devotional texts such as prayers and meditations, among them on pp. 188-190 Ein babst lag uurmals an dem tod, pp. 406–486 St. Anselmi Fragen an Maria and pp. 508–524 a German Salve Regina in rhyme. (nie)

Online Since: 12/14/2018

This volume consists of two manuscripts brought together, the first in parchment dating from the end of the thirteenth century and paginated in black ink from 7 to 118, the second in fifteenth-century paper and paginated in red pencil from 1 to 144. Judging by the binding, they were brought together in the nineteenth century, the period when the librarian of the Abbey of Saint Gall, Franz Weidmann, described the diverse contents of these two manuscripts on the first flyleaves (pp. 1-2). The first manuscript, probably copied in the south of France, contains a Latin poem, Certamen animae, composed by Raimond Astruc (pp. 7-95 in black ink), followed by another piece by the same author, Epistola de consolatione (pp. 95-98 in black ink). Letters of Charles I of Anjou, some verse texts concerning his victories, and moral satires (against the vices of the world, or against the religious orders) round out this first part (Delisle 1916). According to a note, a former Jesuit turned Reformation preacher in Montbéliard gave this manuscript to Bartholomäus Schobinger in Saint-Gall in 1598 (p. 5 in black ink). The second part of Cod. Sang. 1008, copied by a single fifteenth-century scribe, begins with the text by the Carthusian Heinrich Eger de Kalkar, De puritate conscientiae (pp. 1-17 in red pencil). A dialogue in Latin prose between Death and Master Polycarpus, Colloquium de morte (Pirożyńska 1966), follows (pp. 18-25 in red pencil). Then come meditations on the Passion of Christ (pp. 26-47 in red pencil), meditations of Saint Anselm (pp. 48-67 in red pencil), and, further, Bonaventure’s De institutione novitiorum (pp. 116-139 in red pencil). (rou)

Online Since: 05/31/2024

This small and thick paper codex is comprised of around a dozen codicological units and contains many texts copied by several different hands between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It contains sermons and various treatises such as the Speculum boni et mali (pp. 1-48), the Speculum monachorum (pp. 62-65), Jean Gerson’s Opus tripartitum (pp. 73-122), the De malitia mulierum (p. 463-475), texts on the mass – one of which is an exhortation to say mass (pp. 122-144) –, the Visiones Pauli (pp. 159-167), some exempla (pp. 297-328), a computus (p. 353-390), as well as a series of letters. Some manuscript fragments serve as quire guards. Among these should be noted the remarkable presence of uncial fragments from the seventh or eighth century (p. 84-s1-2, 180-s1-3, 204-s1-3, 224-s1-3, 288-s1-3, 304-s1-3), all from a Psalter. Likely, they come from the same manuscript as that described by A. Allgeier (1929), dated to the end of the seventh century (CLA 7, n° 985), and certain more important fragments of which are in Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1395.17 (former Cod. Sang. 1395, p. 370-391. (rou)

Online Since: 05/31/2024

Around 1500, this composite manuscript of theological-mystical content, which may have originated in Northern Bavaria and have been completed in the area of Lake Constance, was the property of the spiritual community of Franciscan sisters at the lower hermitage (Untere Klause) of St. Leonhard, west of the city of St. Gall, which was dissolved in the wake of the Reformation. This volume contains more than thirty mostly anonymous sermons, treatises and excerpts of treatises of Dominican character. Among them are Eberhard Mardach's open letter Von wahrer Andacht (pp. 83–116), a sermon by Johannes Tauler (pp. 129−156), the treatise Liebhabung Gottes an den Feiertagen by Thomas Peuntner from the year 1434 (pp. 232−237), excerpts from the Auslegung der zehn Gebote by Marquard of Lindau (pp. 238–245), the beginning of the prologue and three chapters of the anonymous Theologia deutsch (also called Der Frankfurter; pp. 287–297) that was published in print in its entirety for the first time by Martin Luther in 1518, as well as excerpts from a German version of Der Minnebaum (Arbor amoris; pp. 323–331), which differs significantly from other manuscripts. (smu)

Online Since: 06/22/2017

The manuscript is entirely copied by the Hersfeld reform monk Friedrich Kölner, who was active in the monastery of St. Gall from 1430 to 1436. Among other things, he took over the spiritual care of the women’s community of St. Georgen. The manuscripts written by him, of which twelve survive, were produced chiefly for this group of recipients, and this can be assumed for the present manuscript, which is in a handy octavo-format. It contains an extensive sermon cycle, introduced by a sermon presumably by Rulmann Merswin (pp. 2–22: Leben Jesu / Von der geistlichen Spur), which Kölner ascribes to Johannes Tauler (the same combination of texts can be found in Cod. Sang. 1067). The forty sermons that follow are actually by Tauler (pp. 22–557). Under the rubric Von der drivaltikait on pp. 134–147 appears the pseudo-Eckhartian composite treatise Von dem anefluzze des vaters. Tauler’s Lenten discourses are missing; instead Kölner refers to two letters by Johannes von Schoonhoven. Although these are not contained in the present volume, they are available in Kölner’s own translation in St. Katharina in Wil, Klosterarchiv, Cod. M 47, another manuscript that Kölner probably wrote for the women in St. Georgen. The single-column manuscript is densely written and thoroughly rubricated. The unadorned binding was restored in 1992; the book block shows signs of numerous medieval reparations as well. (mat)

Online Since: 09/22/2022

This manuscript transmits sermons for the liturgical year and was copied by a regular hand in a thirteenth-century gothic minuscule. It is incomplete at the beginning and the end. The sermons, numbered in the upper margin, run from VII (Dominica iiii. in quadragesima) to LXXXVIII (In vigilia epiphanie domini). At the beginning of each sermon there is a simple two-line-high red initial and a rubricated title indicating the day on which the sermon was to be read. On the basis of the stamp of the Abbot Diethelm Blarer (p. 410), the manuscript was present in the library of St. Gall since at least the middle of the sixteenth century. The cardboard binding, covered in blank parchment and adorned with green-silk ribbons as clasps, dates from the eighteenth/nineteenth century. (rou)

Online Since: 09/22/2022

This parchment manuscript has two collections of sermons on saints. The first is ascribed to the Dominican Peregrinus de Oppeln (pp. 3-250), whose name appears in the rubrics at the top of the winter (p. 3) and summer (p. 131) parts. The second collection, copied by a hand contemporary to the first, contains sermons by Jacobus de Voragine (pp. 251-346). That these authors were dominican is reflected in the importance given, for example, to Saint Catherine of Siena by Peregrinus (three sermons are dedicated to her, pp. 239-250), or to Saint Dominic by Jacobus de Voragine (two sermons on pp. 288-290, 311-315). On the other hand, the saints that are specific to the collection of Peregrinus, prior provincial of Poland, such as Adalbert, Wenceslas, or Hedwig, have been omitted. The copy has been made with care and is decorated systematically with pen-flourished initials. Contemporary annotations summarize the content of certain sermons, occasionally in schematic form. The ex libris (p. 351) indicates that before entering the Abbey Library, at the latest under the abbacy of Diethelm Blarer (whose stamp, dated to between 1553 and 1564, appears on p. 347), this manuscript belonged to Angela Varnbüler (1441-1509), prioress of the Dominican convent of Saint Catherine in Saint Gall (Mengis 2013, n° 52). (rou)

Online Since: 05/31/2024

This parchment manuscript contains Latin sermons by Berthold of Regensburg († 1272) in a copy from the second half of the thirteenth century or the first half of the fourteenth century. It begins with the feast of St. Stephen Protomartyr (26 December; p. 1a) and stretches to the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (29 August; p. 181b). There then follow additional sermons and other texts, including two that bear the titles De passione (p. 197a) and De resurrectione (p. 199b) respectively. On p. 209 the text breaks off at the end of the right column. Then follows on pp. 210a–215a in a larger script what are apparently sermons on the Conversio sancti Pauli (p. 210a) and on the Purificatio beatae Mariae (p. 213a), although both of these feasts already appear in the original part (p. 23b and 31b). In the fourteenth century, another hand wrote a German text in the right column of p. 215 (Wilt du wizzen wie …). According to the note on p. 216, in 1433, the chaplain Jodocus Maiger gave this book to Nicholaus Jeuchin or Jenchin, parish priest of St. Mangen (a church outside of the city of St. Gallen). Worthy of note are the decorative, four-color stitching with a zig-zag pattern on p. 111/112, the pen drawing on p. 150a, as well as the library stamp of Abbot Diethlem Blarer, from the period 1553–1563 on p. 216. The wooden binding probably comes from the fifteenth century. (len)

Online Since: 04/25/2023

The largest part of this manuscript contains sermons copied in two columns by multiple scribes (pp. 1-144). The various homilies are sometimes introduced by rubrics and small, alternating red-and-blue initials. The last part (pp. 145-157) is smaller in size (19 x 17 cm) and is copied for the most part in a single column; it contains leonine verses and versified sayings. Possessed by the St. Gall Abbey Library since at least the mid-sixteenth century (see the stamp of Abbot Diethlem Blarer, p. 120), the manuscript was rebound in the seventeenth/eighteenth century in a binding of blank parchment glued on cardboard, which closes with green silk laces. (rou)

Online Since: 09/22/2022