A compilation of religious and ascetic content from the 15th century containing dicta, exhortations and sermons from saints and doctors of the church, treatises on the Sacrament, the Lord's Prayer etc. (by Meister Eckhart, David von Augsburg, Berthold von Regensburg and the Engelberg homilist, among others), the so-called St. Gall Christmas Play (St. Galler Weihnachtsspiel, also known as St. Galler Spiel von der Kindheit Jesu) as well as a commentary on the book of Daniel by Nicolaus of Lyra. (smu)

Online Since: 12/12/2006

This composite manuscript was written for the quasi-monastic community of women of St. Georgen above St. Gall (see ownership note on p. 3); it contains numerous shorter and longer texts by Marquard von Lindau and other authors known by name as well as anonymous authors, among them: pp. 5-13: Marquard von Lindau, Deutsche Predigt; pp. 25-46 and 51-69: Marquard von Lindau, Von der Geduld; pp. 76-102: anonymous catechetical treatise Von einem christlichen Leben; pp. 149-260: Rulman Merswin, Neunfelsenbuch; pp. 261-262: Volmar, sermon; pp. 262-263: Stimulus amoris, German (excerpt); pp. 268-379: Marquard von Lindau, Auszug der Kinder Israel; pp. 381-404: Marquard von Lindau, De fide, German; pp. 405-447: Heinrich von St. Gallen, sermon cycle on the Acht Seligkeiten. About one third of the pages were written by the reform monk Friedrich Kölner (or Colner) from Hersfeld Abbey in Hesse, who was active at St. Gall Abbey from 1430 to 1436. He was the confessor for the sisters of St. Georgen. The remaining parts were written by several other hands in the 15th century. (sno)

Online Since: 10/08/2020

This undecorated manuscript in Swabian–Alemannic was written by two hands and contains numerous German-language ascetic-mystical texts, among them the treatise De contemptu mundi (pp. 3−6), various sermons (pp. 7-33), salutations to Mary, prayers, exempla and sentences by church teachers (pp. 33-46), the legend of St. George (pp. 69-105), the first eight fables from the collection Edelstein by Ulrich Boner (pp. 116-129), the treatise Die besessene Schwester Agnes (pp. 131-215), and a mention of the ten commandments, each accompanied by a humorous rhyme (p. 108). The manuscript probably originated in the convent of the female Capuchins of the third order in Wonnenstein near Teufen; it became part of the Abbey Library of St. Gall in 1782 (cf. Cod. Sang. 1285, p. 12). (smu)

Online Since: 10/08/2015

This manuscript, written around 1500 by the Sisters of the third order of St. Francis at Wonnenstein near Teufen, not far from St. Gall, contains as an introduction a register (pp. 1−9) of manuscripts and printed works held in the convent library, compiled around 1500; it has a total of 110 entries. The majority consist of ascetic-edifying treatises; among them are Brother Conrad Nater’s German translations of Bonaventure’s Regula novitiorum (pp. 15−107), the German version of David of Augsburg’s De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione (pp. 109−188), the Ermahnung zu einem wahren klösterlichen Leben by the Franciscan monk Heinrich Vigilis of Weissenburg (pp. 190−223), the treatise Die besessene Nonne Agnes (pp. 225−404), a treatise on the passion attributed to Bernardino of Siena (Lernung das lyden unsers lieben heren zu betrachten; pp. 406−475), revelations by the mystics Gertrude of Helfta and Christine Ebner (pp. 476−486), Bonaventure’s Soliloquium in a shortened German version (pp. 496−713), as well as the treatise Vom Reuer, Wirker und Schauer by the so-called Kuttenmann (pp. 717−727). On 11 February 1782, the St. Gall Abbey librarian Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756−1823) acquired this manuscript, together with four other manuscripts (today Cod. Sang. 972a, Cod. Sang. 976, Cod. Sang. 977 and Cod. Sang. 991) from the community of Capuchin nuns at Wonnenstein. (smu)

Online Since: 06/25/2015

This manuscript was written in 1499 (cf. dates p. 174 and 519) by a Sister of the Third Order of St. Francis at Wonnenstein near Teufen, not far from St. Gall. It contains a copy of the Schürebrand, a 14th century spiritual treatise from the circle of the Friends of God of Strasbourg (pp. 2-174); the first and third parts of the treatise Von dreierlei Abgründen (pp. 176-313), attributed to St. Bonaventure; and the Passion treatise Extendit manum by Heinrich von St. Gallen (pp. 315-519). The scribe asks for an Ave Maria on p. 519. In 1782, St. Gall Abbey librarian P. Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756-1823) acquired the manuscript together with four other manuscripts (today Cod. Sang. 972a, Cod. Sang. 973, Cod. Sang. 977 and Cod. Sang. 991) from the Community of Capuchin nuns of Wonnenstein. (sno)

Online Since: 10/08/2020

This extensive prayer book, probably completed over time by a single hand, contains a treatise on the canonical hours (pp. 34–224) as well as a Marian office (the German version of the Officium parvum Beatae Mariae Virginis, pp. 225–343). These are accompanied by sermons and shorter treatises: at the beginning, texts on the sufferings of Christ, structured according to the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer (pp. 1–33, the first page is missing); at the end of the manuscript appear the short treatise Von der seligen Dorfmagd (pp. 344–346), a fragmentary treatise on the twelve virtues of the sacraments (pp. 347–352), a sermon by Johannes Nider (pp. 352–362), another sermon (In unser Capel die erst bredig von gehorsami, p. 363–384), as well as shorter texts and textual fragments (pp. 385–396). A late-medieval entry (p. 390) gives a name (das buch hadt hanns petris auch ze len). Fifteenth-century red-leather binding, detached bosses, and missing clasps; the hand-marbled pastedowns attest to a modern restoration. (mat)

Online Since: 09/22/2022

Coming from the women’s convent near the church of Sankt Leonhard in Saint Gall (p. 4), this paper manuscript transmits two works by Richard of Saint Victor (ca. 1110-1173), considered as forerunners of fourteenth-century “speculative mysticism”. The first text, Benjamin maior (pp. 4a-97a), is also known under the name of De contemplatione [eiusque commendatione], as it appears on the label glued to the spine of the codex. Each of the five books starts with a painted initial that is larger than those introducing the paragraphs and extends into the margins. Then follows the same author’s Benjamin minor (pp. 97a-144a). The volume was copied by a single scribe who, while not leaving a name, copied a colophon common to many manuscripts: Explicit iste liber sit scriptor crimine liber. The last two columns of this volume (pp. 144b-145a) were copied by a different hand, which transcribes two chapters from the De spiritu et anima (inc.: Nobilis creatura est anima…, PL 40, col. 807-809), a text that was for a long time attributed to Augustine, but in fact dates to the twelfth century. The gothic binding dates from the 14th or 15th century. The wooden boards were covered with reused pieces of leather. (rou)

Online Since: 05/31/2024

At the time this work, Die 24 Alten, which was completed in 1386, was written, the Franciscan Otto von Passau was a member of the Minorite convent in Basel. This piece, a form of guide to the Christian life, was widely used in women's convents for reading aloud during meals. This manuscript was written by a swester Endlin, probably at the Franciscan nuns' convent of St. Leonhard in St. Gall. (ber)

Online Since: 11/04/2010

This manuscript from 1467, which first belonged to the convent of the Poor Clares at Freiburg in Breisgau and was transported to the Abbey of St. Gall in 1699, contains, in addition to some Latin texts, many tracts for spiritual instruction in German translation. These include an Ars moriendi, the Cordiale de quattuor novissimis by Gerard van Vliederhoven, the so-called Hieronymus-Briefe(Letters of Jerome) translated by John of Neumark (ca. 1315-1356), the Spiegelbuch, a dialogical text in rhymed verses on living life properly, the trials of worldly life and everyday tribulations, with about twenty colored pen sketches, and a version of the legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim (1310/1320-1375). The manuscript also contains some additional pen sketches: a unicorn (p. 87), images representing two Apostles (p. 107; Paul and John?), a man and a woman in secular dress, and a stag and a wild boar (p. 513). There are imprints in Carolingian minuscule on front and rear inside covers (rear inside cover: Hrabanus Maurus, De computo). (sno)

Online Since: 10/04/2011

This manuscript contains three substantial treatises in German. At the beginning there is the life of Archbishop Johannes of Alexandria (pp. 5−83), written by Anastasius Bibliothecarius. It is followed by the edifying treatise Die vierundzwanzig Alten oder der goldene Thron der minnenden Seele by Otto of Passau (pp. 87−544) and the History of the Three Kings (Historia trium regum) by John of Hildesheim (pp. 546−602). The treatise by Otto of Passau is illustrated with 25 colored pen and ink drawings, outlined in red and extending the width of the column. The History of the Three Kings begins with a full-page miniature (p. 546), which shows the three Magi visiting the infant Jesus. The scribe and the illustrators of this manuscript, which possibly originated in the circle of the community of lay brothers of St. Gall, are unknown; stylistic characteristics suggest the Konstanz book illumination of Rudolf Stahel. The manuscript is dated to the year 1454 in three places (p. 93 as an inscription in a picture; p. 544; p. 602). In the 15th century the manuscript was the property of the community of lay brothers of the Monastery of St. Gall (who did not know Latin); in 1618 the manuscript was still in the library of the community of lay brothers. At least since 1755 it has been attested in the main library of St. Gall Abbey. (smu)

Online Since: 06/25/2015

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