St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek
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.
A highly important poetry manuscript containing the works of the Reichenau scholar and Abbot Walahfrid Strabo (809/10-849). In addition to a wealth of short poems of both a spiritual and a worldly nature, the volume also includes verse legends about both the Cappadocian martyr Mammes (De vita et fine Mammae monachi) and the Irish Abbot Blathmac (Versus Strabi de beati Blaithmaic vita et fine), the Dream-vision of Reichenau monk Wetti (Visio Wettini) and the poem De imagine Tetrici, a discussion of the now lost statue of Theoderich the Great on horseback, which Charlemagne had moved from Ravenna to his palace in Aachen. The manuscript was produced in the Abbey of St. Gall during the second half of the 9th century.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
Commentary notes (most of them explanations written for use in teaching) about the 16 Satires of the Roman poet Juvenal (about 60-140), preceded by 460 verses in hexameter (most of them from the Satires) and a mixed glossary from the Satires of Juvenal. The St. Gall copy was made in the second half of the 9th century.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
This manuscript contains all 16 satires by the ancient poet Juvenal, in the order 1-14, 16, and 15. Satires 1-3 and 10-14 are glossed (among them 7 Old High German glosses); for satires 3 and 14 only the beginning is glossed, for satire 10 only the end, which is probably due to the fact that these glosses were added to the respective quires before the manuscript was bound.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
Notker the German, Old High German translation and commentary on De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella; two commentaries on the gospels from the 12th and 13th century; a translation from Latin into Old High German plus commentary on the first two books of Martianus Capella's († 439) work The Marriage of Philology and Mercury by the St. Gall monk Notker the German written in the 11th century. The two commentaries on the gospels date from the 12th and 13th centuries. The Martianus Capella part is a palimpsest, for the most part written over an older, barely legible text of the Institutiones Grammaticae of Priscianus of Caesarea.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
This parchment manuscript transmits on pp. 3–87 Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetry nova, a guide, written in over 2,000 hexameters, to composing poems. The hexameters are arranged in 25 verse-lines in the center of the page, and accompanied by contemporarily-produced commnetaries and glosses. The script, a simplified textualis, dates from the second half of the thirteenth or the first half of the fourteenth century (contrary to Scherrrer). The stamp of Abbot Diethlm Blarer (1553–1564) appears on p. 9 and p. 88; p. 1 bears the former shelfmark S. n. 312, as well as a note on content by Pius Kolb; p. 2 has a note by Franz Josef Mone from 1819. The half-leather volume reveals a romanesque board-binding.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
Manuscript compilation consisting mainly of grammatical texts, written in a variety of hands in about 800 in the monastery of St. Gall. Some of the texts in this codex are the oldest extant versions, and the text of the anonymous treatise De scansione heroyci versus et specie eorum is the only known surviving version in the world. Grammars include the Ars major and Ars minor by Donatus, a complilation of the two Donatus grammars by Peter of Pisa, the work De metris des Mallius Theodorus, the Ars grammatica by Diomedes, and both De arte metrica and De schematibus et tropis by the Venerable Bede.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Manuscript compilation from the St. Gallen scriptorum, dating from around 800 and containing numerous grammatical treatises.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
The Vademecum (personal handbook) of Walahfrid Strabo (ca. 808-849), Abbot of Reichenau. It is one of the few known autographs of a prominent figure to survive from the early Middle Ages. It contains diverse texts and images by numerous hands, written between ca. 825 and 849, among them a labyrinth (on page 277) and different alphabets (pages 320/321), one in runes.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
Excerpts from the works of Isidore of Seville, from the Etymologiae and the work De officiis, written in about 900, not at the Abbey of St. Gall, possibly in France. At the end is a scribe's verse in which the scribe calls himself Aurelianus.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This parchment manuscript contains on pp. 1–188 books 17 and 18 of Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae (ed. Keil, v. 3, pp. 107–278, l. 12). Then follows the third book of Donatus’ Ars maior on pp. 189–204 (ed. Keil, v. 4, pp. 392–402), and the Pseudo-Priscian treatise De accentibus on pp. 205–223 (ed. Keil, v. 3, pp. 518–528). The entire grammatical manuscript is written in the same fourteenth-century textualis. The beginning each of the four texts, on p. 1, 115, 189, and 205, is marked by a 10-18-line painted initial with gold, blue, white, red, dark-red or green; the first initial is historiated, depicted a teaching scene, and the third initial is heavily damaged. For the rest, there are simple red and blue pen-flourished initials throughout. The Institutiones grammaticae are accompanied by numerous glosses and commentaries written in ink by several fourteenth-century hands. On p. 189 the glosses are less numerous and have been made with dry point. On p. 118 and 224 can be found the stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1553–1564), on p. 1 appears the former shelfmark D.n. 241 along with a note on content by Pius Kolb. Before p. 1, a fragment in paper contains the remains of two long entries. The wooden-board binding has a half-leather cover.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
Manuscript compilation with mostly grammatical content, produced during the second half of the 9th century in the Abbey of St. Gall. It contains, among other items, copies of the Ars maior by Donatus, the Ars grammatica by Honoratus, the work Ars de verbo by Eutyches, the Ars grammatica by Diomedes, and Book I of the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
The manuscript transmits a treatise on Latin grammar, apparently missing its beginning. According to Bursill-Hall (p. 229), this is an anonymous commentary on Priscian’s Institutiones grammaticae. The two-column text is divided only by occasional capitals in the same ink as the text. The small minuscule script dates to the thirteenth century (contrary to Scherrer). The parchment leaves often have irregular margins and their size varies from gathering to gathering. On p. 145 can be found the stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1553–1564). On p. 3 Pius Kolk wrote the former shelfmark D. n. 268 and a note on the content. The cardboard binding with leather-reinforced spine and corners, along with the paper pastedowns and flyleaves (pp. 1/2, 148/149) come from the decades around 1800.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
This fourteenth-century paper manuscript has the oldest work written by Conrad of Mure (ca. 1210–1281), the magister of the chapter school and canon of the Zürich Grossmünster. The Novus Graecismus is a school encyclopedia (with a focus on grammar and vocabulary) in verse, of which eleven fourteenth- and fifteenth-century copies survive (ed. A. Cizek, München, 2009). The text itself is a reworking of Eberhard of Béthune’s Graecismus, produced at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Abbey Library of St. Gall’s copy, written in a dense cursive on a single column, is incomplete. It includes the preface (inc.: Notitiam gramatice saltem… p. 3), book I (pp. 4–100) and 80 verses of book II (pp. 100–106), that is, two of the work’s ten books. Parchment quire guards with fragments of text reinforce the codex (p. 18, 46, 70, 94). The manuscript has a modern cardboard binding with a printed fragment.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
The colophon of this manuscript names the author and title of the work, Eberhard of Béthune’s Graecismus, as well as the name of the scribe Johannis Czepilwicz and the date that the copy was completed, 9 August 1386 (p. 150). The Graecismus is a long grammatical poem (more than 4,000 verses) written ca. 1212, and its main sources are the grammarians of antiquity such as Donatus and Priscian. The Graecismus circulated widely. The author of this copy on parchment, Johannis Czepilwicz, seems to be the same as a canon of the Augustine house of S. Maria virginis in Arena in Breslau/Wrocław. Except for a large, decorated first initial, lightly damaged (p. 3), the decoration is limited to rubricated letters and a few initials whose form anticipates fifteenth-century letters with cadels. Given the presence of the stamp of the abbot Diethelm Blarer (p. 25), the manuscript was at the Abbey Library since 1553-1564 at the latest. The manuscript has a limp parchment binding with a spine reinforced in leather.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
On pp. 2–73, this codex contains a total of 153 letters by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus († 402/403), a Roman politician from late antiquity; they are one letter from lib. IX, 10 letters from lib. IV, 44 from lib. V, 18 from lib. VI, 40 from lib. VII, 36 from lib. I and 4 from lib. II. Following the numbering of the edition MGH Auct. ant. 6,1, they are the following letters: IX, 142 (20); IV, 16 (17), 57 (58) – 60 (61), 63 (64), 66 (67) f., 69 (70), 72 (73); V, 3–5, 8, 13, 19 (18), 21 (20), 23 (22), 29 (27) f., 34 (32), 36 (34), 38 (36), 41 (39), 44 (42) – 47 (45), 49 (47) – 51 (49), 53 (51), 55 (53), 57 (55) – 60 (58), 65 (64), 67 (65) f., 68 (66), 70 (68) f., 73 (71), 75 (73), 77 (75) – 80 (78), 84 (82) f., 89 (87), 91 (89) f., 96 (94); VI, 3, 13, 17 (18), 22 (23), 28 (29), 31 (32), 45 (46), 47 (48), 55 (56), 60 (61) f., 65 (66), 72 (73) – 74 (75), 78 (79) – 80 (81); VII, 2f., 9, 11, 16, 19, 21f., 22, 25, 33, 44, 47, 49, 51–54, 56, 60f., 66f., 71–73, 78, 80, 85, 88 (87), 92 (91) – 94 (93), 98 (97) f., 102 (101), 105, 107, 109, 114, 117; I, 28 (22), 31 (25) – 34 (28), 36 (30) – 77 (71), 79 (73) f., 82 (76) – 84 (78), 86 (80), 88 (82), 90 (84) – 93 (87), 96 (90), 99 (93) f., 105 (99), 107 (101); II, 1, 3, 6, 8. Each letter begins with a red majuscule corresponding to two lines. The manuscript concludes on pp. 73–79 with fictional correspondence between the Roman philosopher Seneca and Paul the Apostle.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
Manuscript compilation containing the works of Abbot Bernard of Reichenau (about 978- 1048; Abbot 1008-1048): a fragmentary copy of a long dedicatory codex, delivered by Bernard to King Heinrich III on the occasion of the Synod of Konstanz in the year 1043. Also contains the Epistola de tonis (on psalmodic musical tones), sermons for the high holy days of the Church year, sermons about St. Mark, the patron saint of Reichenau, hymns, sequences dedicated to Saints Ulrich, Gereon, and Willibrord, the holy office devoted to St. Ulrich, and a large collection of letters. Many of the works in this manuscript are the sole surviving exemplars from the second third of the 11th century.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
A significant poetry manuscript from the second half of the 9th as well as the 10th century, produced at the Abbey of St. Gall. Among other items it contains copies of the poem Mosella by Ausonius which recounts a trip on the Rhine and Mosel rivers, a poem in hexameter by Walahfrid Strabo on the life and death of the Irish saint Blathmac (Versus Strabi de beati Blaithmaic vita et fine) and the work De ieiunio quattuor temporum (the so-called Calixtus Letter).
Online Since: 12/23/2008
The parchment manuscript contains Alexander of Villedieu’s Doctrinale with the commentary of Master Bertholdus Turicensis. The colophon (p. 123) states the name of this commentator from Zurich, and of the copyist, a certain “Hermannus”, but nothing more is known about them. The volume, laid out in two columns, is carefully articulated: every hexameter of the Doctrinale is generally divided into paragraphs of one or more verses and is copied in a larger size than the commentaries that follow. This commentary is more or less as long as the verses and is moreover full of abbreviations, unlike the text being commented. Elegant pen-flourished initials, typical of upper-Rhine illuminations of the beginning of the fourteenth century, appear throughout this copy. The seal of abbot Diethelm Blarer (p. 59) confirms that the book was at the Abbey Library since 1553–1564 at the latest.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
School manuscript for the St. Gall monastery school, containing the Greek grammar by Dositheus and a prose version of Aratos of Soloi's didactic poem Phainomena which is illustrated with a pen drawing.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
A copy of the 16 books of the Grammar of Priscian of Caesarea (Priscianus maior), written in Carolingian minuscule at the turn of the 8th to the 9th century, probably in northern Italy (Verona?). The manuscript came into the possession of the Abbey of St. Gall during the 9th century under Abbot Grimald.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
The Irish Priscian manuscript of St. Gallen: a copy of the Latin Institutiones Grammaticae by the grammarian Priscian of Caesarea (6th century) with over 9000 glosses, among them 3478 in the Old Irish language. The basis for the reconstruction of the Old Irish language. Contains numerous elaborate pen initials. Written in an Irish scriptorium (Bangor?, Nendrum?) around 845.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
The Vocabularium of Salomon, a 1070-page long alphabetical encyclopedia from the Carolingian period, written in a variety of hands in about 900, probably not in the monastery of St. Gall. The work has not survived in its complete form (entries beginning with Aa through Ab and Y and Z are missing). Generally attributed by the Abbey of St. Gall's internal historiography to the learned Abbot Salomon (890-920), the work is probably based on a Liber Glossarum from the French Abbey of Corbie.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Manuscript compilation for the monastery school of St. Gall, written by the monk Winithar.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
"The king of palimpsests": parchment fragments from late antiquity that were erased and reused at a later time, sometimes more than once. The scholarly significance of the palimpsests normally lies in the older texts. Some works have only been preserved as palimpsests. This volume, compiled by the librarian Ildefonse of Arx before and after 1800 from single fragments found in the abbey library, contains among many other texts the oldest known copy of the Mulomedicina of Vegetius (5th century), the only known poems and prose by Flavius Merobaudes (5th century) and the so-called "St. Gallen oracles", or "Sortes Sangallenses" (6th century).
Online Since: 12/12/2006
The oldest book in the German language, the so-called "Abrogans" manuscript from around 790, containing the earliest German translation of the Lord's Prayer and Credo.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
The Abba-Ababus-Glossar in palimpsest form, one of the oldest manuscripts in the Abbey Library which survives in book form. This glossary, in which each Latin word is explained using another, was apparently written over older texts from the 5th century in the Cloister of Bobbio. The texts underneath, which vary in legibility, include fragments of the Psalms and of the book of Jeremiah from the Old Testament as well as extracts from works by the grammarian Donatus and the Roman poet Terence. Includes a miniature of a speaker in declamatory pose.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The Vocabularius sancti Galli – an Old High German glossary written by a missionary 150 years after the death of St Gallus. A manuscript compilation in small format written around 790 in Germany as a kind of diary by a scribe educated in the Anglo-Saxon tradition containing texts treating missionary, theological and educational questions. The glossary, which comes at the end of the manuscript, is arranged thematically rather than alphabetically.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
The most historically significant exemplar of the Benedictine Rule from the time after 810.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
The oldest capitulary from the monastery of St. Gall, containing, among other items, a martyrology, a necrology, the annals of St. Gall and several rules for monks.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
The Latin-Old High German Rule of St Benedict, one of the oldest monuments of the Old High German language.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
Manuscript compilation with mainly historical content, written for the most part in Latin and German, mostly by Gall Kemli, the wandering monk of St. Gall († about 1481). The manuscript contains, among many other texts, the Benedictine Rule, Latin and German riddles and proverbs, the only known copy of a Middle Rheinish Passion play in German from the 14th century, and a sort of curriculum vitae of the scribe Kemli.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
An important copy, in manuscript historical terms, of the Rule of St. Basil the Great (church father; 329-379) in a Latin translation by church father Rufinius (about 345-410), produced in the cloister of St. Gall by many hands during the second half of the 9th century. In addition to two shorter texts, the manuscript also contains an excerpt from the work De institutis coenobiorum by John Cassian († 430/35).
Online Since: 12/23/2008
This composite manuscript from the Monastery of St. Gall is significant in terms of textual history; it contains copies of monastic texts regarding reform movements of the first half of the 15th century. Among other texts it contains the Consuetudines Sublacenses (pp. 1−19), the Consuetudines of a Cistercian monastery in Bohemia (pp. 26−74; Directorium et consuetudines monasterii de Nepomuk ord. Cist. in Bohemia), general and liturgical directives for monastic life (pp. 74−87), disparaging remarks by a monk from Hersfeld staying in St. Gall about the reform efforts of the general chapter (pp. 98−108), as well as the Consuetudines Castellenses (pp. 113−258). The latter contain liturgical directives for the worship service as well as rules for daily life in and for the organization of the monastic community of Kastl in the Upper Palatinate (Bavaria). Later these Consuetudines circulated widely and influenced monastic life in many other monasteries in Southern Germany, including in St. Gall. Cod. Sang. 928 is the only manuscript to preserve the original prologue about these reforms by Abbot Otto Nortweiner of Kastl (1378−1399). The manuscript’s original limp vellum binding was restored in the 19th or early 20th century with severe alterations to the original substance of the codex.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
This quarto volume brings together various texts, mostly shorter in length, of which the bulk are spiritual essays and prayers, including: a treatise on the Passion (pp. 4–38), prayers on the Passion (pp. 68–84), prayers for the canonical hours (pp. 88–91), a treatise on the Fall (pp. 92–107), and another on the quattuor gemitus turturis (pp. 112-159); a Biblia pauperum indicates numerous saints and for what emergencies they can be invoked (pp. 160–193). Among the spiritual texts, there are also a few in German (e.g., pp. 218–220, 238). Two letters concern St. Gall: one is addressed to Abbot Eglolf (pp. 40–43), another to monks who have fled to St. Gall (pp. 85–88). Additional texts treat the Council of Constance and monastic reforms; also here there is a reference to St. Gall (pp. 239–250). The last quire is composed of parchment leaves and could have come from the fourteenth century; it contains a grammar and medical texts (pp. 251–266). The manuscript has a limp binding; for guards was used a German-language parchment charter, of which the year 1415 and the name of a ulrichen leman burger ze arbon are still legible.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript contains as its main text (pp. 1-199) the so-called Waldregel, an Early Modern High German translation of the Regula solitariorum (rule for hermits), which was written in the 9th or 10th century by the monk Grimlaicus, who probably was from Lorraine. The Waldregel is supplemented by further texts on the topic of the hermit’s life and poverty: pp. 199–256 Hie vachet an ain ander buoch ainsidelliches lebens vnd von siner bewaerung …, Inc. Die muoter der hailigen cristenhait hat zwayer hand gaistlicer lüt; pp. 256–326 Das ander buoch von bewärung der armuot, Inc. Gelobet sy got vnser herr iesus cristus; pp. 326–334 Hie nach ain bredige, Inc. Fünf stuk sint dar inn begriffen. According to the explicit on p. 335, these four parts are consolidated under the title Waldregel, although only the first part until p. 199 goes back to the Regula solitariorum. On pp. 337–419 there follows a Spiegel der geistlichen Zucht. This is a translation of the booklet for novices by the Franciscan David of Augsburg († 1272). Prayers were added on pp. 420-422. For the most part, this codex was written by Father Johannes Hertenstein (OSB); it was the property of the hermitage in Steinertobel, not far from St. Gall. A copy of the first four texts can be found in Cod. Sang. 931.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This manuscript contains as its main text (pp. 1-180) the so-called Waldregel, an Early Modern High German translation of the Regula solitariorum (rule for hermits), which was written in the 9th or 10th century by the monk Grimlaicus, who probably was from Lorraine. The Waldregel is supplemented by further texts on the topic of the hermit’s life and poverty: pp. 180–222 Hie fachet an ein ander buoch von der bewerung einsidliches lebens …, Inc. Die muoter der heilge kristenheit het zweyerhand geistlicher lüte; pp. 222–277 Dz ander buoch von bewerung armuot, Inc. Gelobet sy got vnser herre vnd got iesus cristus; pp. 277–284 [sermon] Inc. Fünf stuk sind dar inne begriffen. On pp. 285–289, prayers have been recorded. The decoration consists of simple red Lombard initials, on p. 1 and 3 with green pen-flourish. Except for the prayers, the manuscript is a copy of Cod. Sang. 930. It was the property of the hermitage of the church of St. George outside the walls of St. Gall. Three spiritual women who lived there in the 1430s are depicted in simple pen and ink drawings on the back pastedown.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
Several scribes contributed to the writing of this small-format manuscript between 1437 and 1443, among them Gallus Kemli, the wandering monk of St. Gall (1417−1481). The manuscript with the spine label Miscellanea Regularia Liturgica et Medica is preserved in its original binding; in addition to the Consuetudines Sublacenses, it contains more reformist writings from the late medieval reform movements of Subiaco and Melk. These writings include prayers of grace at meals which vary throughout the church year according to the feast days (pp. 99-117), numerous liturgical texts and calendar calculations. At the back there are medical treatises, among them (p. 480) mnemonic aids regarding bloodletting (pp. 569-571), and the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Secretum Secretorum, a sort of encyclopedic secret doctrine with oriental characteristics that has been preserved in numerous manuscripts. The table of contents on the inside front cover was written between 1774 and 1780 by Fr. Magnus Hungerbühler (1732−1811), while he was abbey librarian.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
Parts I, II and IV of a four-part manuscript in German of collected materials containing cloister rules (including the Benedictine Rule), prayers, and short spiritual texts. A comparative study of the script indicates that the volume was written by Benedictine monk Friedrich Kölner (Köllner, Cölner, Colner), who lived at the Abbey of St. Gall between 1429/30 and 1439. Part III, or the model on which it was based, was dedicated to Anna Vogelweider, a sister in the Cistercian women's cloister of Magdenau in Lower Toggenburg, according to an annotation which was later stricken through. This Anna was likely the aunt of a certain Sister Els (Elsbeth?), named in the record of a donation, from the women's community of St. George.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This little manuscript contains a series of ascetic texts, copied in a single column by a single scribe. It begins with a text of the pseudo-Bernard de Clairvaux, the Formula honestae vitae (pp. 1-11a). Then follows the first book of David of Augsburg, De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione, which often circulated independently under the name Formula novitiorum (inc.: Primo semper debes considerare ad quid veneris…; [pp. 11a-63]). Next come three sermons, on the Last Judgment, the Song of Songs, and contempt for the world, respectively (pp. 64-83), followed by a list of chapters by the Abbot Bernard [of Clairvaux] on the Song of Songs (inc.: Incipiunt capitula Bernahardi [!] abbatis in cantica canticorum [pp. 83-84]). The poem Quinquaginta bona proverbialia occupies pages 85-94 (Morawski, p. XXXVIII), followed by the hymn, missing its first lines, De forma vivendi monachorum (AH, vol. 33, n° 220; p. 95-101). The final two texts are related to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: first a poem on his life (inc.: Anno milleno centeno cum duodeno…; Walther, Initia 1162; pp. 102-105) and then an incomplete poem on his miracles (inc.: Gaude claustralis contio…; p. 106). The limp binding is made with a fragment from a missal. On the top cover is glued a label with an old shelfmark corresponding to those from the 1461 manuscript catalogue of the monastery library (Cod. Sang. 1399, pp. 1-8), and indication that this volume was at Saint Gall’s abbey by that date at the latest. The stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer, from between 1553 and 1564, appears towards the end of the manuscript (p. 101).
Online Since: 05/31/2024
This codex, written by several scribes, contains theological writings very different from one another in seven parts interrupted by empty pages. Part I: pp. 1–14 table of contents and pp. 17–124 the text of De decem praeceptis by Heinrich von Friemar, pp. 124 Septem dona sancti spiritus contra septem peccata mortalia, pp. 125–139 Tractatus de confessione et de peccatis mortalibus et venialibus, p. 139 Quid sit vera poenitentia et confessio, pp. 139–140 a theological note and further notes on p. 142, pp. 143–173 the treatise De proprietate ad canonicos regulares religiosa by the theologian, astronomer and church politician Heinrich Heinbuche von Langenstein (1325–1397) as well as pp. 177–186 a fragment of the Expositio regulae S. Augustini. Part II contains a fragment of De sacramento ordinis on pp. 187–199, pp. 199–257 Notabilia super Cantica Canticorum by Frater Johannes, followed on pp. 258–260 by the sermon Omnia parata sunt venite ad nuptias. Parts III (pp. 261–284), IV (pp. 285–316) and V (pp. 317–340) contain more sermons. Part VI consists of 14th and 15th century Sibyllenweissagungen in German, (Von Kung Salomo wishait, pp. 341–361) and a fragmentary letter (pp. 361–362). Part VII contains moralizations from the Historia septem sapientium on pp. 365–376. In a note on p. 379 Abbey librarian Ildefons v. Arx reports about the illness and death of the former Abbey librarian Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger in the year 1823. An entry in the top margin of p. 1 attests that the manuscript was already in the St. Gall monastery in the 15th century.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This composite manuscript from the Monastery of St. Gall, written and compiled by several hands in the 15th century, contains (in addition to shorter texts and numerous blank pages): excerpts in alphabetical order of Latin writings by church fathers regarding various theological concepts (De abiectione – De voto; pp. 3−179); the work Soliloquium by the Franciscan theologian and philosopher Bonaventure (1221−1274; pp. 181−266); a copy of the anonymous work Stella clericorum that was often adopted in the 15th century (pp. 291−319); the work Speculum peccatoris falsely attributed to Augustine (pp. 339−354); the sermon Corde creditur ad iustitiam by Thomas Ebendorfer (pp. 355−361); the Capitulare monasticum III of 818/819 (pp. 363−367); a not quite complete copy of a letter from Theodomar, Abbot of Montecassino, to Charlemagne (pp. 369−373); and the Consuetudines Fuldenses from the 10th/11th century in the Redactio Sangallensis-Fuldensis (pp. 374−404). The wood binding is covered with red leather; on p. 361 three is a note by the scribe: per me syfridum pfragner.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
This volume contains a single text, a German-language intepretation of the Song of Songs, of which 25 manuscript witnesses are currently known. This extensive text is probably not based on a Latin model and its structure becomes decreasingly systematic. Although it is based on passages from the Song of Songs, it does not contain an actual commentary, but is divided into three books: teachings on faith (Book 1, pp. 8–241), a monastic doctrine of virtue (Book 2, pp. 241–431), and discussions of sins, penance, etc. (Book 3, pp. 443–512). An extensive table of contents precedes the text (pp. 5–7). A colophon at the end of the second book (p. 431) states that this part of the manuscript was completed in 1497. The whole manuscript is written and rubricated in the same hand. According to an entry on p. 1, the manuscript came from a convent in Freiburg (Liber S. Galli Emptus 1699 Friburgi); Scarpatetti suggests Adelhausen (Dominican nuns). On an inserted piece of paper can be read a note about the profession of Sisters Margret Boshartin, Kattrin Ferberin and Anna Branwartin in Constance in 1511 and 1514; on the back there is a fragment of a letter (?). Half-leather binding contemporary to the text, with striped and stamped decoration and clasps. To the headband is affixed a braided, two-colored bookmark.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This paper manuscript, copied in the fourteenth century by many hands, is a collection of spiritual texts. It has two fifteenth-century ex libris of the Abbey Library (p. 1), as well as the stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer, from between 1553 and 1564 (p. 64). On the top pastedown appears a table of contents contemporary to the fifteenth-century half binding in red leather. An excerpt from the Stimulus amoris (III, 17) starts the book (pp. 1-9). It is followed by a widely-copied book by the Franciscan Bonaventure, De triplice via, also known under the title Incendium amoris (pp. 10-25), and then a treatise on the eight beatitudes (pp. 25-36). Passages from John Chrysostom’s De reparatione lapsi appear in two different places in this manuscript (pp. 41-54 and 186-193). Hugh of Saint Victor’s Soliloquium de arra animae, also widely copied in the Middle Ages, follows on pages 54-64 (Goy 1976, n° 94). Finally, this volume contains the Speculum humanae salvationis (pp. 65-171), extended with two of its three non-typological chapters, De septem stationibus passionis Christi (pp. 171-177) and De septem tristitiis B. V. Mariae (pp. 177-185). Contrary to normal practice, this text is not illustrated; even the fact that it is rhymed is hardly observable, since it is copied continuously.
Online Since: 05/31/2024
This manuscript in its original limp vellum binding contains as its main part (pp. 1-88; index p. 93) alphabetically ordered excerpts in Latin from writings by church fathers on various theological concepts (De abiectione – De voto). These are followed by shorter texts. On p. 89 there is a little-know characterization of peoples and tribes (especially from regions within Germany) in Medieval Latin verses; it is titled Versus de provinciis and it begins with Roma potens, reverenda Ravenna, Britannia pauper. Pp. 90-92 preserve a letter from a Parisian university teacher (Epistola cuiusdam egregii magistri parisiensis) about the evil of property, followed by an interpretation of the Lord's Prayer in Latin (pp. 94-100) and by more spiritual-ascetic texts in Latin (pp. 106-112) and in German. The table of contents on the inside front cover was written by Fr. Jodocus Metzler (1574−1639), longtime abbey librarian.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
This paper copy of the Speculum humanae salvationis (pp. 1-174), dated 30 April 1388, was produced in Wil by Johannis Phister de Gossow, who stated in the colophon (p. 174ab) that, having finished his work, he was off to play (ludere eat). A second text (pp. 178a-190b), produced by a scribe contemporary to the first, bears the rubric title De passione domini and finishes the manuscript. Before entering the possession of the Abbey Library of Saint Gall, at the latest during the abbacy of Diethelm Blarer (whose stamp from between 1553 and 1564 appears on p. 192), the codex belonged to Ulrich Varnbüler, burgomaster and imperial bailliff of Saint Gall from 1481 to 1490, as indicated by the ex libris written on the first page of the volume. On the front and back pastedowns of the original leather binding can be found the offsets of a manuscript, from which narrow strips of parchment served to protect the quires of the codex.
Online Since: 05/31/2024
This composite manuscript likely is from Rhenish Franconia or from the Upper Rhine area and came into the possession of the Abbey of St. Gall in 1699, probably from the Convent of Poor Clares in Freiburg im Breisgau (like, for example, Cod. Sang. 985). The manuscript contains a large number of different sermons and mystical-ascetic texts, especially from the 13th and 14th centuries. Among them are, for instance, the treatise Von der Minne (pp. 7−19) attributed to Johannes Hiltalingen from Basel, the so-called sünde-version of the pseudo-Albert work Paradisus animae (pp. 62−68 and pp. 195−196), ten sermons passed down under the name of Bertold of Regensburg (pp. 70−104), the interpretation of the Lord's Prayer Adonay, gewaltiger herre (pp. 109−192), or the allegory Es ist ein hoher Berg (pp. 211−250) attributed to Johannes Tauler.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
This manuscript contains the so-called Reformatio Sigismundi, a document about the reform of church and empire that was written anonymously in German in 1439 during the Council of Basel by an author who until today has not been reliably identified. The text was printed for the first time in 1476. The treatise presents reform proposals that emphasize the importance of pastoral care and that promote releasing secular clergy from obligatory celibacy and releasing bishops from exercising temporal power. The treatise also reports Emperor Sigismund’s alleged vision, according to which a priest-king Frederick is said to have appeared to him with plans for the reform. In a colophon on p. 234, the writer gives his name as Petrus Hamer von Weissenhorn, chaplain in Kirchberg. He begins the chapters with red initials and decorates two of them with caricatures of bearded faces (p. 158 and 212).
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This only surviving copy of the prose story Frau Tugendreich was written by an unknown author in the circle of Emperor Maximilian I in the second decade of the 16th century. The text is a mixture of a ‘Zeitroman’ (a novel giving a critical analysis of an age) and a debate about the value of women or the lack thereof. An external narrative frame presents a discussion between a young narrator beholden to the courtly ideal and his more experienced master, who clings to a traditional view of women, about the value, significance and conduct of women. Unfortunately from p. 196 on, essential parts of the text have been lost due to missing pages. This copy, written in East Swabian dialect by scribe A. S. (p. 219), is dated 1521.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
This manuscript, dated in two places to the years 1465 (p. 393) and 1467 (p. 181) and perhaps written by eight different hands, belonged to the Benedictine Convent of St. George near St. Gall and became part of the Abbey Library of St. Gall as part of an exchange around 1780/82. The codex, written entirely in German, contains the explanation of the Decalogue by Marquard of Lindau (pp. 3−176); the song Ain raine maid verborgen lag from Spiegelweise by Heinrich Frauenlob (pp. 177−181); instructions regarding attention during prayer, attributed to Thomas Aquinas (pp. 182−186); the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit by Henry Suso (pp. 195−393); reflections on consecration (pp. 394−399) and on the Sunday (pp. 399−402); as well an anonymous treatise on death (pp. 405−422). Several parchment fragments from an 11th/12th century St. Gall liturgical manuscript containing neumes were used in order to reinforce this manuscript.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This composite manuscript in Northeastern Swiss-Alemannic dialect was probably written for the community of the sisters of St. Georgen above St. Gall; it contains numerous shorter and longer texts by known and unknown authors, among them: pp. 1−106: Thomas à Kempis, 3rd book of the Imitatio Christi; pp. 106−123: Bonaventure, excerpts from the work De triplici via; pp. 124−126: preacher of St. Georgen, sermon Geistliche Blume; pp. 126−134: Meister Eckhart (attributed), treatise Von der Vollkommenheit; pp. 135−166: Johannes Tauler, sermon on Mt 13,8 and other sermon excerpts; pp. 167−181: two anonymous sermons Vom Leiden und Meiden; pp. 184−259: treatise from the “Schwester Katrei"; pp. 259−268 anonymous didactic dialog with Timothy’s questions to Paul; pp. 271−372: Johannes of Neumarkt, excerpts from the 3rd so-called Jerome letter; pp. 377−407: Marquard of Lindau, Job-treatise; pp. 409−434 and pp. 472−481 (wrongly bound together by a bookbinder): Das Buch des Lebens by an anonymous author; pp. 435−442: excerpts from Meister Wichwolt (Cronica Alexandri des grossen Königs); pp. 446−448: Ps.-Bertold of Regensburg, Bertold’s ten lessons for a spiritual sister. About half of the texts were written by the Reformist monk Friedrich Kölner from Hersfeld, who was active at St. Gall Abbey from 1430 until 1436; the other parts were written in the 15th century by three other hands.
Online Since: 03/17/2016