The Abbey Library of St. Gall is one of the oldest monastic libraries in the world; it is the most important part of St. Gall’s Abbey district UNESCO world heritage site. The library’s valuable holdings illustrate the development of European culture and document the cultural achievements of the Monastery of St. Gall from the 7th century until the dissolution of the Abbey in the year 1805. The core of the library is its manuscript collection with its preeminent corpus of Carolingian-Ottonian manuscripts (8th to 11th century), a significant collection of incunabula and an accumulated store of printed works from the 16th century to the present day. The Abbey Library of St. Gall was a co-founder of the project e-codices. With its famous Baroque hall, where temporary exhibitions are hosted, the Abbey Library of St. Gall is one of the most visited museums in Switzerland.
St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 339
Parchment · II + 650 pp. · 34.2 x 17.8 cm · St. Gall · around 1000 / around 980
Calendar, Gradual, Sacramentary
Antiphonary, dating from around the year 1000, with Calendar and Gradual (written and provided with fine neumes probably by the monk Hartker), Ordo Missae and Sacramentary. An invaluable monument of music history. (smu)
Parchment · I + 799 + I pp. · 24.5 x 17.5 cm · St. Gall · third quarter of the 11th century
Calendar, Gradual, Sacramentary
Superbly crafted Sacramentary of St. Gall from the time of Abbot Norpert of Stablo (1034-1072) for the celebration of the Mass. With Calendar, Gradual and Sacramentary, illustrations include five full-page, high-quality miniatures of the principal feast days of the liturgical year (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost). (smu)
Parchment · 738 pp. · 25.8 x 19.3 cm · St. Gall · around 1070
Calendar, Sacramentary
Superbly crafted St. Gall sacramentary from the time of Abbot Norbert of Stablo (1034-1072) for the celebration of the Mass, containing a calendar of saints, a list of incipits of the spoken and chanted texts for the Mass on the principal feast days of saints and the sacramentary itself, which is illustrated with four splendid full-page miniatures, two full-page initials and numerous smaller initials. (smu)
Parchment · 844 pp. · 23.5 x 17.5 cm · St. Gall · 10th century / 11th century
Calendar, Lectionary, Gradual, Sacramentary
Earliest complete extant gradual of St. Gall. The different parts of the manuscript date from different periods. Illustrated with numerous initials and several pen drawings (especially in the Sacramentary part). (smu)
This plenary missal, produced in St. Gall, which contains all chants and prayers of the Mass, consists of the following parts, written partly in the 11th and partly in the 14th century: liturgical calendar; sequences (without melodies); gradual; Masses (with prayers, readings, and chants for the Proper of the Mass); Canon of the Mass; sacramentary; lectionary. On p. 232 (opposite the Te igitur), there is a full-page picture of the crucifixion with two kneeling monks. (sno)
Parchment · 182 pp. · 27.5 x 19.5 cm · St. Gall · 12th century
Sequentiary, Calendar and Sacramentary
Sequentiary containing sequences without neumes by Notker Balbulus (pp. 1-14), a calendar (pp. 15-20) and a sacramentary (p. 21-182), beginning on p. 21 with a beautiful initial ‘M’ (a vine scroll contoured in red on a blue and green background) and from p. 22 the Canon of the Mass with a Te igitur-initial with the Crucifixion. (dor)
Parchment · A-B + 280 pp. · 20.5 x 13.5 cm · Zürich · 14th century
Missal
This missal was most likely written for the Grossmünster of Zürich (from a comparison with the Grossmünster’s Liber Ordinarius); it contains the proprium de tempore, proprium de sanctis (with the major feasts of Zürich), commune sanctorum and votive masses. The chants are written in smaller letters throughout, but only on a few pages do they appear together with melodies in neumatic notation. The canon missae (pp. 73–83) begins with a simple drawing of a canon. With that exception, the decoration is limited to at most two-line red lombards. (sno)
Parchment · A–B + 480 pp. · 19 x 13.5 cm · Strasbourg (?) · 1st quarter of the 14th century
Missal
According to the particularly venerated saints in the calendar (pp. 6–17, the months are in the wrong order), this missal, written on fine parchment, belonged to a convent of Dominican women dedicated to St. Agnes. The canon missae (pp. 193–204) is introduced by a high-quality drawing, whose similarity to the depictions of the crucifixion in the Dominican convent of Constance has been emphasized in the art-historical literature. But it is unlikely that the manuscript was produced in the Diocese of Constance, since, among others, Gallus and Otmar are missing from the calendar; rather, the calendar points to a Strasbourg provenance. The missal is richly decorated with red and blue pen-flourished initials. On p. 18 there is an Exorcismus salis et aquae; following the Commune sanctorum there appear votive masses (pp. 426–446) and sequences (pp. 447–461). The manuscript was in St. Gall since the sixteenth or seventeenth century at the latest (possession note on p. 5). (sno)
Parchment · 550 pp. · 22.7 x 16.5 cm · St. Gall · 10th century
Lectiones. Psalterium.
Lectionary from the Abbey of St. Gall with numerous sermons on various Gospel selections by the church fathers, produced by a number of different hands in the 10th century in St. Gall. This little studied volume also contains benedictions and oratory prayers. Appended at the back (in small script in two columns) is a Psalter. The manuscript has become extremely soiled with intensive use; it features assorted addenda and supplements from the 11th and 12th centuries. (smu)
Parchment · 376 pp. · 23 x 14.5 cm · Chur · around 800
Gelasian Remedius-Sacramentary
The incomplete Gelasian Remedius-Sacramentary, composed in Chur in about 800, at the time of the Chur Bishop Remedius, one of the most important liturgical texts from that time, containing the prayers used by bishops or priests during the Mass and administration of the sacraments, at the same time also one of the masterpieces of Retro romansh scribal culture in the Carolingian age, decorated with numerous fantastic initial capitals, still influenced by Irish models. Verifiably present in the monastery of St. Gall by about 850. (smu)
Parchment · 124 pp. · 23 x 13.5-14 cm · St. Gall (?) · 8th century
Orationes; Statuta Liturgica et Monastica
This collection of liturgical manuscripts includes the oldest known example of a Collectarium (containing prayers intended to be sung by a choir on major holy days) and various Statuta liturgica et monastica, written in Alemannic minuscule script during the second half of the 8th century at the Abbey of St. Gall (or certainly in the Lake Constance area). (smu)
Parchment · 58 pp. · 22.5 x 14.5 cm · Chur (?) · 8th-9th century
Sacramentarium Gelasianum
This fragment of a Sacramentary of Rhaetian provenance (the Sacramentarium Gelasianum) is important in terms of liturgical scholarship; it was produced near the end of the 8th century in Chur and was recorded shortly thereafter among the holdings of the Abbey of St. Gall. The manuscript is closely related to the Sacramentarium Gelasianum of Codex 348, also of Rhaetian origin. (smu)
Parchment · 186 pp. · 16–17 x 11–12.5 cm · St. Gallen (?) · 13th and 14th century
Gradual; Sequences
The manuscript is bound in a cardboard binding of the eighteenth/nineteenth century. It has two parts written at different times. The first part (pp. 3–120) begins with a fragmentary gradual (it starts on the Wednesday after the Third Sunday in Advent), written in the thirteenth century. The melodies are noted in staffless neumes. Following the Sundays after Pentecost, the part concludes with alleluia-verses (pp. 118–120). The second part (pp. 121–186), containing sequences without melodies, comes from the fourteenth century. In two parts of the codex is bound a quire from a gradual probably written in the thirteenth/fourteenth century: pp. 11–26 (in the middle of the introitus to the feast of the Holy Innocents), the propers for the first Sunday of Advent to the first Sunday after Christmas; pp. 159–174 (in the middle of the All Saints’ sequence), the chants for the period from the Wednesday after the first Sunday of Lent to Holy Saturday. (sno)
Parchment · 178 pp. · 18.5 × 13.4 cm · Cloister of St. Gall · 11th century
Mess-Ordo
Praeparatio ad missam (p. 2-63) and Benedictiones (p. 66-177), written by a single hand. This undecorated liturgical manuscript contains scarcely any corrections or later additions and shows slight signs of usage. (dor)
Parchment · 237 pp. · 36.5 x 26.1 cm · St. Gall · 1463-1491
Missale
Pontifical missal of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491). The manuscript consists of two parts: the first part (p. 5-102) was written by the Wiblingen conventual Simon Rösch, the second part (p. 103-236) was perhaps not added until after the death of Abbot Ulrich Rösch. Only the prefaces (p. 83-102) have melodies in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") on 5 lines. There is also the abbot’s coat of arms (p. 5) and an image of the crucifixion with medallions of the four evangelists (p. 70). Several pages have book decorations in the form of borders and initials, sometimes with gold leaf. (sno)
Parchment · 178 pp. · 28 x 12.5 cm · St. Gall · around 922-925
Cantatorium
The so-called "Cantatorium of St. Gall", the earliest complete extant musical manuscript in the world with neume notation. It contains the solo chants of the Mass and constitutes one of the main sources for the reconstruction of Gregorian chant. Written and provided with fine neumes in the monastery of St. Gall between 922 and 926. Bound in a wooden box with an ivory panel on the front cover, most likely Byzantine c. 500, depicting scenes from the fight of Dionysos against the Indians. The ivory panel was once the possession of Charlemagne. (smu)
Parchment · 34 pp. · 25.5 x 8 cm · St. Gall · 12th century
Hymni (XXVII) Sangallenses in processionibus
A St. Gall Processional from about 1150, carried in processions, both within the cloister itself and also around the surrounding area which now comprises the city of St. Gall; bound in a long wooden protective case to protect it from the effects of the weather. It contains hymns and litanies to be sung during processions, most of them composed by the monks of St. Gall during the 9th and 10th centuries; includes neumes. (smu)
Parchment · 142 pp. · 29.5-30 x 19.5 cm · first half of the 12th century
Gradual
Gradual from St. Gall, dating from the first half of the 12th century. It contains the solo chants of the Mass, with finely executed neumes and some illuminated initials. Preceded by a Calendar with necrological notes from the monastery of St. Gall dating from between the 13th and 15th century and at the lower margins a catalogue of relics from the 14th century. (smu)
Paper · 335 pp. · 30.5 x 21.5 cm · Dominican Cloister of St. Gall (Elisabeth Muntprat) · 1483
Plenary from the Dominican Cloister of St. Gall
German language lectionary with the Epistles and Gospel readings according to the Church year (Proprium de tempore; Proprium de sanctis and Commune sanctorum) from the Dominican Cloister of St. Katharina in St. Gall, copied in the year 1483 from a model belonging to the Cloister of St. Katherine in Nurnberg by Elisabeth Muntprat, one of the convent’s most diligent scribes. Texts from the manuscript were read aloud during the Dominican nuns’ meals. Several colored woodcuts are pasted into the manuscript, which came to the Abbey Library of St. Gall around 1780. (smu)