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. 422
Parchment · 248 pp. · 26.8 x 18 cm · St. Gall · first half of the 9th century
St. Gall Lectionary and Homilary
Lectionary and homilary for the period from Pentecost to the last Sunday after Pentecost, meticulously written by a variety of hands at the monastery ofSt. Gall in the first half of the 9th century. (smu)
Parchment · 440 pp. · 27 x 20.5 cm · St. Gall · 10th century
Lectionarium homiliarum
The summer portion of a Lectionarium officii containing scripture lessons to be sung by a choir, produced during the 10th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. (smu)
Parchment · 636 pp. · 29-29.5 x 21 cm · St. Gall · middle of the 9th century
Expositio libri comitis
An incomplete copy of the Expositio libri comitis, a selection of Epistle and Gospel readings organized according to the Church year composed by the Benedictine monk Smaragdus of St. Mihiel (near Verdun; † ca. 840), produced near the middle of the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. (smu)
Parchment · 181 pp. · 29.8 x 20.8 cm · St. Gall (?) · 10th-11th century
Lectionarium homiliarum
Lectionary for the period from Christmas through the second Sunday of Lent, with 32 homilies (Predigten) for Sundays and feastdays, written mostly by the church fathers (Ambrosius, Augustine, the Venerable Bede, Fulgentius and Leo the Great, among others), most likely produced at the Abbey of St. Gall in the 10th or early 11th century. The name of one scribe, Egilolfus, added later, can be found on page 85 of the manuscript. The front pages of the manuscript are in exceedingly poor condition, having suffered water damage. The text breaks off on page 177, in the course of a tract by Leo the Great. (smu)
Parchment · 290 pp. · 28-28.5 x 18 cm · 9th century
Liber scintillarum
A copy of the Liber scintillarum, a text originally written in about 730 by the monk Defensor of Ligugé (near Poitiers), produced during the 9th century, not at the Abbey of St. Gall. The 81 chapter Liber scintillarum is a florilegium (anthology) of maxims and sayings attributed to God and the saints, derived from the Bible and the writings of the church fathers. The last part of the volume contains fragments of lessons from the monastic liturgy of the hours (lectiones), as well as aphorisms. (smu)
Parchment · 306 pp. · 31.5 x 22 cm · St. Gall · 12th century
Homiliae dominicales per aestatem
This manuscript, written by several hands, contains a total of 66 sermons, most of them by Bede and Gregory the Great, a few by Augustine and Jerome, and occasionally ones by Ambrose, Fulgentius, John Chrysostom, Maximus, Origen and by unknown authors. Some homilies are reproduced in their entirety, others in excerpts. Four strips of the Edictum Rothari were removed from the binding; today they are held in the Abbey Library of Saint Gall with the shelfmark Cod. Sang. 730. Imprints of these fragments are visible on the inside cover. (nie)
Parchment · 338 pp. · 33.5 x 24.2 cm · Cloister of St. Gall · 10th/11th centuries
Lectiones nocturnales
Lectionary. The first part, written in the 11th century, contains readings for the nocturns of the matins (for the entire church year, beginning with the first of Advent; first de tempore, then de sanctis). Readings from the gospels are indicated only by short text incipits and are augmented with homilies primarily by church fathers (among others Origen, the Venerable Bede, Gregory the Great). The second part, written in the 12th century, begins on p. 184 and contains readings from the Old and New Testaments for weekdays and holidays in ordinary time throughout the liturgical year. The manuscript contains several multi-line initials, among them a representational initial of a composite animal on p. 12. (sno)
Parchment · 168 pp. · 34 x 26 cm · St. Gall · 12th century
Lectiones homiliarum nocturnales
This entire codex was written by a single scribe. It contains a collection of readings for the nocturns. The sections are introduced by red majuscules. Several marginal notes were added in the 13th century. On the inside covers, imprints of fragments from the Gospel of Luke in the oldest version of the Vulgate still remain visible. The imprints are from two leaves that were detached in 1932 and that since then have been held, together with other fragments from this Vulgate manuscript, under the shelfmark Cod. Sang. 1395. (nie)
Parchment · 706 pp. · 41 x 30 cm · St. Gall · third quarter of the 9th century
Homiliary (Proprium de sanctis)
Deluxe manuscript with numerous outstanding, perfectly executed initials and an excellent image of dedication (Saint Augustine), containing mostly sermons for the principal saints' days. (smu)
Parchment · 588 pp. · 36.5-37 x 27.5 cm · Chelles (Paris) · around 810
Expositio libri comitis
An incomplete copy of the Expositio libri comitis, a selection of Epistle and Gospel readings organized according to the Church year, composed by the Benedictine monk Smaragdus of St. Mihiel (near Verdun; † ca. 840). This copy produced at the women's cloister of Chelles Abbey near Paris was produced in about 810 and is the oldest known surviving copy. (smu)
Parchment · 412 pp. · 37.5 x 25.5–26 cm · 13th century
Matutinale
The manuscript contains the readings for the nocturns of matins, the nightly office, on Sundays, feast days and weekdays. It includes the proprium de tempore from the first of Advent to the end of the ecclesiastical year (including the saints’ feasts between Christmas and Epiphany). As the Matutinale does not have four readings per nocturn on Sundays, as was the practice in the Order of Saint Benedict, but only three, it cannot have been originally written for the Abbey of St. Gall. On the margins of p. 233/234 appear numerous additions from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the feast of the Trinity. Decoration consists of red lombards and simple initials, partially with incipient pen-flourishes (e.g., p. 75). The parchment has numerous holes, some of which have stitches. Numerous pages are trimmed below the text block. Strips from an eleventh-century liturgical manuscript are bound around the first and last quire of the codex as reinforcement (the back half of the strip around the last quire is paginated as p. 414/415). On the front board appears the offset of a page of a thirteenth-century psalter; on the back board, the offset of an eleventh-century sacramentary (?). (sno)
Parchment · 295 (296) pp. · 37 x 25.5 cm · Ittingen · first half of the 13th century
Lectionary for the Matins and antiphonary
This codex, written in the 13th century, contains a lectionary for Matins for the saints’ days and an antiphonary for the entire liturgical year. The antiphonary bears the title In nomine domini incipiunt antiphone secundum morem Marbacensis ecclesie. Nevertheless, this is probably not a manuscript from the reformed monastery of Marbach in Alsace. Based on the offices, which indicate a connection with St. Gall, it must rather be assumed that the manuscript originated in the monastery of the Canons Regular of St. Lawrence in Ittingen, which belonged to the monastery of St. Gall, but which followed the Consuetudines of Marbach. The fly leaf (p. 2/1) contains a large part of the Office of St. Gallus, probably from a manuscript from the 10th/11th century. Readings as well as chants (the latter ones with neumes) are recorded. The order of the responses and antiphons does not match that of the Hartker antiphonary, Cod. Sang. 391. (sno)
Parchment · 193 ff. · 34.3-34.7 x 25.2-25.5 cm · second half of the 15th century (1463–1491?)
Psalter with antiphons and hymns, hymnal
This manuscript probably was written at the behest of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491). The manuscript’s principal part consists of a Psalter with the Psalms in biblical order, as well as several liturgical rubrics, antiphons (partly only with the Initium), and hymns, followed by the Pater noster, the Credo, biblical Cantica, the Te Deum, a litany und more Cantica. The final part, from fol. 135v, consists of a hymnal, which also contains a Sequence (Cantemus cuncti melodum). Antiphons and hymns have melodies in German plainsong notation("Hufnagelnotation") on 4 or 5 lines. Numerous erasures and additions, as well as other signs of usage, attest to intensive use of the manuscript. Several pages have book decorations in the form of initials with vine scrolls; a figure initial can be found on fol. 1v (a man fighting a dragon and a bird of prey). (sno)
Parchment · 104 pp. · 37.2 x 26.3–26.8 cm · St. Gall · around 1555
Vesperale
The pontifical vesperal of St. Gall Abbott Diethelm Blarer (1530–1564) contains the prayers, psalms with antiphones and responsories, as well as hymns for the high holidays of the church year. Except for the incipits of the antiphones of the Magnificat, which are written in German plainsong notation (“Hufnagelnotation”) on five lines, the manuscript contains no melodies. The scribe of this volume was Father Heinrich Keller (1518–1567), subprior of the Monastery of St. Gall. The book’s decoration - 20 historiated initials and several richly decorated borders with pictures - is the work of an unknown artist from the region of Lake Constance, who also illuminated Cod. Sang. 357 and 442. (sno)
Parchment · 235 ff. pp. · 42.3 x 32.5-33.5 cm · 1467
Psalter with antiphons and hymns, hymnal
This manuscript was written at the behest of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491) (dating on f. 227r: 1467). Its content corresponds substantially to that of Cod. Sang. 438: a Psalter with the Psalms in biblical order, as well as several liturgical rubrics, antiphons (partly only with the Initium) and hymns are followed from f. 148v by Cantica, and from f. 172v by a hymnal. Antiphons and hymns have melodies in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") on 4 or 5 lines. Numerous erasures (sometimes extending over several pages) and additions, as well as other signs of usage, attest to intensive use of the manuscript. Several pages have book decorations in the form of initials with vine scrolls; a figure initial can be found on f. 104v (David with a harp). (sno)
Parchment · 159 pp. · 18.2 x 13.2 cm · Monastery of St. Gall (Fr. Heinrich Keller) · around 1555
Ritual from the post-Reformation Monastery of St. Gall
Ritual for the personal use of Prince-Abbot of St. Gall Diethelm Blarer (1530−1564; cf. his coat of arms on p. 8 and the stamp for his personal library on p. 7); written by the St. Gall monk Heinrich Keller (1518−1567) and illustrated around 1555 by an unknown illuminator from the area of Lake Constance. The St. Gall manuscripts Cod. Sang. 357 and Cod. Sang. 439 were illuminated by this same artist at the same time. The small-format volume contains liturgical texts on the administration of the sacrament of baptism (pp. 9-107), on the readmission of a woman into the circle of believers after giving birth (pp. 107-114), on marriage (pp. 114-141), as well as on the distribution of wine on October 16th, the feast day of Saint Gall, the founder of St. Gall (pp. 144a-154). (smu)