Sub-project: Collaborative Projects
January 2010 - June 2011
Status: Completed
Financed by: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (http://www.mellon.org/)
Description: The main aim of this second Mellon funded project phase was to strengthen the function of e-codices as an international platform for research on manuscripts from Swiss collections. A “call for collaboration” was published on our website in June 2009, in which scholars were invited to suggest manuscripts for digitization. From among more than 150 proposals submitted, our internal evaluation process allowed us to select 60 manuscripts for digitization. Types of collaboration varied greatly, from writing new scholarly manuscript descriptions to developing tools for online manuscript study, to building connections with other virtual manuscript library websites.
All Libraries and Collections
The third volume, now missing materials from the end, of a codicologically heterogeneous composite of fascicle groups and individual leaves containing copies of sermons in German, assembled near the end of the 14th century or early in the 15th century for use in the women's cloister of St. Andreas at Engelberg. Together with Cod. 335, this is the oldest textual witness for the body of works known as the "Engelberger Predigten" (formerly the "Engelberger Prediger"). Scribes have been identified as the latter Johannes von Bolsenheim, Prior of Engelberg, and the clerk of Lucerne and lay prebendary Johannes Friker, who died in 1388. The Benedictine nuns of St. Andreas took the two complementary volumes Cod. 335 and Cod. 336 (a third volume may have been lost) as well as Cod. 337 and at least 24 additional manuscripts with them to their new location at Sarnen; these have been held in the library of Engelberg Abbey since 1887.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
The collection of nine Easter sermons in German from the body of works known as the "Engelberger Predigten" (früher "Engelberger Prediger") found in the Cod. 337 copy, which was probably made between 1415 and 1420, provides additional content to that found in the sermon collection in Engelberg Codices 335 and 336. In 1615 the Benedictine nuns of St. Andreas took this volume as well as Cod. 335, Cod. 336 and at least 24 additional manuscripts with them to their new location at Sarnen; these have been held in the library of Engelberg Abbey since 1887.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
Paper manuscript with colored pen sketches from 1396. The Passion tract follows the Vita Christi by Ludolf von Sachsen (of which it is the first German version), the liturgical tract follows Marquard von Lindau. Produced by Nicholaus Schulmeister, clerk of Lucerne from 1368 to 1402, for Lucerne patrician widow Margaretha von Waltersberg. After her death the codex was to be inherited by the nuns. It remained in their possession until 1887 and since then has been held in the library of Engelberg Abbey.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
Antiphonary for Franciscan use, dating from the late 13th or early 14th century (after 1260), but representing the earliest Franciscan edition. Contains the chants (text and music) for the entire year for the liturgical Office, including the feast for Anthony of Padua in its proper position and an added Office for Corpus Christi in a different hand (f. 157r-159v).
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This manuscript with philosophical and theological content was written by assorted hands on paper; the 5 codicological parts contain 11 tracts by various 14th century authors, including 6 unique texts. The parts were produced between 1370 and 1410 and were re-ordered various times before the codex was bound in its current order, probably at the beginning of the 15th century in Fribourg. One of the scribes, who was also the owner and redactor of the volume, was Fredrich von Amberg (about 1350/60-1432), who lived from 1393-1432 in the Franciscan cloister in Fribourg and served two terms as guardian there. Friedrich was able to assemble these copies of the texts by either copying or purchasing them while studying in Strassburg, Paris, and Avignon.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
The Roman de la Rose is a poetic work of approximately 22,000 octosyllabic verses. The first part of this allegorial romance (over 4,000 verses) was written by Guillaume de Lorris in about 1230, and it was completed by Jean de Meun some forty years later. Although the work was originally conceived as a courtly tale, the second part disgresses on a wide variety of themes and expressly criticizes the myth of the rose according to Guillaume de Lorris. The Testament is a poem consisting of 544 four-line alexandrine monorhyme stanzas expounding the spiritual development of Jean de Meun.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This manuscript contains sermons by Augustine in uncial script, written by a single hand in the late 7th or early 8th century. The outer leaf of each quire (quinio) is parchment, while the remaining leaves are papyrus. These 53 leaves (8 quires) were unbound from a volume originally containing 30 quires (between 304 and 308 leaves). 63 additional leaves (8 quires) are held in Paris (Paris, BnF, lat. 11641); one additional leaf, originally between f. 26 and f. 27, constitutes St. Petersburg NLR, Lat.F.papyr. I.1; all other leaves have been lost. During the 9th century the volume was part of the library of Florus of Lyon, who added numerous marginalia to the manuscript in his own hand.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This manuscript from the 9th century contains Book IV of the De compendiosa doctrina by Nonius Marcellus, a Latin grammarian who lived in the 4th century AD. The corrections which have been added to the text are ascribed to Lupus von Ferières. The existence of a brief text in Tironian notes and of a book catalog (a list of 21 titles) led earlier researchers to believe that the manuscript originated in Fleury-sur-Loire, but the most recent investigations indicate a connection with the cloister of Fulda in Germany
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This manuscript contains a tract on the Passion in the High Allemanian language, consisting of a collection of materials from the four Gospels, the apocryphal Gospel of Jacob and Ps.-Anselm of Canterbury. The manuscript was written in 1494 by Barbara Grünenbächin, a person of unknown origin, not listed as a member of the choir at Hermetschwil. It belonged to the monastery of Hermetschwil and was recorded in the catalog there as of 1697.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This codex dates to the first half of the 14th century and contains a copy of Roman de la Rose, an Old French allegorical dream vision by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun composed in the 13th century. This copy, which is one of more than 300 that survive in full or in part, is heavily annotated and shows evidence of extensive use by several different readers.
Online Since: 01/21/2011
This volume contains St. Bonaventure's Legenda maior of St. Francis, the Vita beati Antonii and two documents regarding the Portiuncula indulgence. The manuscript was written by Elisabeth von Amberg (ff. 1-127) and Katherina von Purchausen (ff. 129-176) in the year 1337. It is decorated with an initial portraying St. Francis as a knight (f. 4r) and a vignette showing the bestowal of the Stigmata (f. 77v). The appearance of the name of St. Clara in the text suggests that the codex was written in a cloister of the Poor Clares, perhaps the Paradise. It came into the posession of the Capuchin cloister in Frauenfeld at the beginning of the 17th century and has been held in the provincial archive of the Capuchins in Lucerne since 1848.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
The first part of this manuscript contains works by and about the mystic Elisabeth von Schönau (d. 1164) as translated into Alemannic: Liber visionum, Prophetia Elisabethae, Adiuratio conscriptoris, Liber viarum Dei, Liber revelationum de sacro exercitu virginum Coloniensium, Epistolae, Visio Egberti de Ursula, Epistola Eckeberti ad cognatas suas de obitu dominae Elisabeth. The second part contains the mystical tract by Mechthild von Magdeburg (d. 1282), Das Liecht der Gotheit in an Alemannic re-translation from the Latin. This is the only known textual witness of this version.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This small 12th century prayer book, the oldest in the German language, was written for a woman. It contains various prayers in German and Latin, including the famous "Mary Sequence of Muri" ("Mariensequenz aus Muri"), the oldest known German language version of the Latin sequence model, the Ave preclara maris stella. During the 19th century the manuscript was linked to Queen Agnes (ca. 1281-1364), who had lived in the Cloister of Königsfeld. It is listed in the manuscript catalog of the monastery of Muri as of 1790.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
Antiphonary with musical notation whose text transmits the Sion Ordinal, contains the winter portion of the Proprium de tempore and, as an appendix, the Officium Defunctorum. This two-part parchment codex was probably written in the year 1347 by the same hand that produced Codex Ms. 2, held by the Sion Chapter Archive.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This manuscript, the end of which is damaged, belongs to the genre of giant Bibles created in central Italy between the mid-11th and mid-12th centuries in the context of the Gregorian reform. In the form that we know it today, this manuscript presents the first volume of a complete Bible which was composed of two separate and independent volumes. The second volume is missing at this time. The giant Bible of Sion contains the first part of the Old Testament according to the Vulgate: the Octateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth), the books of Kings, the Major Prophets, the twelve Minor Prophets, Job, and in the last part an incomplete selection of Psalms (Ps. 1-93:22a). This Bible has been held since its creation in the Cathedral Chapter Archive of Sion, to which it was probably presented by Bishop Ermenfroid (1055-1087/1092), who was among the leading figures behind the Gregorian reform in the dioceses of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This manuscript of a systematic collection of Canon Law, created in Lyon in the context of the Carolingian church reform that took place around 800. This collection is named the "Dacheriana" after its primary editor, the Frenchman Jean-Luc d'Achéry. It was written in a Carolingian minuscule during the first half of the 9th century and is the oldest manuscript held by the library of the Chapter Archive of Sion, where is has been held since at least the 16th or 17th century (ownership mark on fol. 2r).
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This small-format volume from the 11th century combines a calendar, a gradual with neumes, and sung parts of the Mass with a sacramentary containing the prayers of the Mass. It was likely written in the Abbey of St. Gall; in the late middle ages it was moved to the chapel of Peter and Paul in Rotmonten near St. Gall. Numerous entire leaves and parts of leaves containing decorated initials have been cut out.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This collection of works was produced during the third quart of the 15th century, under the influence of early humanism, in one of the southwestern German states. It contains German and Latin texts from the late middle ages as well as some interlinear and marginal glosses. The newer works by humanist authors include contributions by Petrarch, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II), Hieronymus de Vallibus and Antonio Barzizza.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
Heinrich Schlüsselfelder's work, Blumen der Tugend, a collection of brief instructive tales, is derived from an Italian model. The author, originally from Nürnberg, translated them into German in 1468 in Italy. The paper is of Italian manufacture; the Lombard initials, the binding stamp and what remains of the fasteners are all of Italian design. For illustrations Schlüsselfelder used early Italian copperplate engravings portraying the cardinal virtues and a unicorn; slightly later he, or a reader, illustrated the text with color-washed pen sketches in the margins.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
A copy of the commentaries of the church father Jerome († 420) on chapters 14 through 18 of the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, written at the Abbey of St. Gall in the 9th century. On the first and last pages are pen tests from the 11th through 15th centuries, including three Old High German proverbs from the compendium of dialectic De partibus logicae by St. St. Gall monk and teacher Notker the German, a blessing for pigs and a recipe for ink. On the inside of front and back covers are impressions in the glue left by portions of text from the Edictum Rothari (Cod. Sang. 730), which were once attached to the wooden cover of this manuscript.
Online Since: 06/22/2010