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. 133
Parchment · 657 (656) pp. · 15 x 8.6 cm · Cloister of St. Gall · around 800
Composite manuscript of Biblical-geographical and Biblical-historical content, including works by theologians Jerome and Isidor of Seville, the Cosmography of Aethicus Ister, and the history of an early pilgrimage to the Holy Land
This manuscript, still in its original Carolingian binding, consists of three parts and was written in Merovingian script by numerous hands, apparently in the late 8th and/or early 9th century, probably at the Abbey of St. Gall. It contains reliable versions of many onomastic texts, including copies of the work Liber de situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum by Jerome, the Cosmographia of Aethicus Ister, the chronicles of Isidore of Seville, Chronica maiora and Historia regum Gothorum, Vandalorum Sueborum, as well as an excellent version of the Itinerarium Antonini Placentini, an account of the pilgrimage of a citizen of Piacenza in about 560/570 to the Holy Land. (smu)
Parchment · 266 pp. · 20.5 x 15-15.5 cm · 10th century and 13th century and 11th century
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, Cathemerinon and Peristephanon · Aristotle · Boethius
A composite manuscript with three originally separate parts. In front, an incomplete copy of the works Cathemerinon (up to Book X) and Peristephanon (Books I and V) by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens from about 900, in the middle, a 13th/14th century Latin commentary on Aristotle's Perihermeneias, and at the end, a copy of the works De trinitate, De divinitate, De substantiis and Contra Nestorium by Boethius, made in about 1000. This codex is annotated with a multitude of Latin and Old High German glosses. (smu)
This copy of assorted works by Prudentius (348- after 405) is significant to textual history (it includes Kathemerinon, Peristephanon, Apotheosis, Hamartigenia, Psychomachia, Libri contra Symmachum; some works not transmitted in complete versions), produced in the middle 9th century in the Abbey of St. Gall. This copy contains numerous Latin and Old High German glosses. (smu)
Parchment · 458 pp. · 19 x 15 cm · Cloister of St. Gall · 10th century
Augustine: Speculum de scriptura sancta; Commentaries on the Letters of Paul to the Romans and the Galatians
This manuscript produced in the Abbey of St. Gall contains copies of works by the Church Father Augustine: Speculum de scriptura sancta and Commentaries on the Letters of Paul to the Romans and to the Galatians (Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistula apostoli ad Romanos; Expositio epistulae ad Galatas). Leaves added at the beginning during the 12th century contain the Lamentations of Jeremiah. (smu)
Parchment · 166 pp. · 16.5 x 13 cm · St. Gall · 9th/10th centuries
S. Augustini Epistola ad comitem
A copy of the Liber exhortationis ... ad quendam comitem by the patriarch Paul of Aquilaeia († 802) , written in or shortly after 900 at the Abbey of St. Gall. For a long time, this text was attributed to the church father Augustine. (smu)
Parchment · 404 pp. · 21 x 15.5 -16 cm · St. Gall · 10th century
Manuscript compilation from the beginning of the 10th century containing assorted short works by Augustine and numerous liturgical tracts
A three-part manuscript compilation, most likely written at the beginning of the 10th century. In the 11th century the monk Ekkehart IV. added numerous marginal and interlinear glosses. The contents of the first part include mostly works by Augustine (letters 214-216 to the Abbot Valentine; De libero arbitrio (On free will); the anti-arian piece Contra Felicianum Arianum de unitate trinitatis; De magistro (On the teacher). The second part contains assorted, mostly shorter, liturgical tracts (such as Ordo ecclesiasticus romanae ecclesiae qualiter missa celebratur; Ordo librorum catholicorum; De vestimentis sacerdotalibus). The third part contains a compilation of short canon law texts. (smu)
Parchment · 114 pp. · 20.5 x 14.7 cm · northern France (?) · 9th/10th century
Augustinus, de disciplina christianorum · Augustinus, Sermo de corpore et anima · Pseudo-Seneca, de moribus, et alia
An undecorated composite manuscript containing various short texts and textual excerpts from the writings of Augustine, John Chrysostom and Ambrosius Autpertus († 784) among others, together with the work, then attributed to Seneca, De moribus (145 moral proverbs, which were probably composed by a Christian living in Gaul). The codex was written in about 900 in a Carolingian minuscule, probably in northern France. The back portion contains, in a short selection from Moralia in Iob by Gregory the Great, a small Latin-Old High German textual glossary. (smu)
Parchment · 168 pp. · 24.2 x 17 cm · St. Gall · first third of the 9th century
Augustinus, De genesi contra Manichaeos
A copy of Augustine's work De genesi contra manichaeos, written in Carolingian minuscule during the first third of the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. The numerous glosses in Latin were added during the 11th century; frequent supposition of their attribution to St. St. Gall monk Ekkehart IV. appears questionable. At the end of the text is an apology by an inexperienced scribe. Original Carolingian binding. (smu)
Parchment · 60 pp. · 22.3-22.5 x 16.1-16.4 cm · St. Gall · 10th century
Augustinus, Sermones; Excerpta.
This 10th century composite manuscript produced at the Abbey of St. Gall contains the pseudo-Augustinian sermons De consolatione mortuorum, together with Augustine's sermon 172 and excerpts from the Augustinian works De cura pro mortuis gerenda, De octo Dulcitii quaestionibus and De civitate dei. (smu)
Parchment · 180 pp. · 25.3 x 18-18.5 cm · first quarter of the 9th century
Hieronymus, Commentarii in Matthaeum. De persecutione Christianorum (Ps.-Augustinus, Sermo LX ad fratres in eremo).
A copy of the exegesis of the Gospel of Matthew by the church father Jerome († 420) and his tract De persecutione Christianorum (On the Persecution of Christians), sometimes falsely attributed to Augustine as Sermon 60 of the Sermones ad fratres in eremo. The codex was made during the first quarter of the 9th century, probably not at the Abbey of St. Gall. (sno)
Parchment · 294 pp. · 25-25.2 x 16.6-16.8 cm · St. Gall · beginning of the 9th century
Augustinus, de X chordis · Alcuinus, de virtutibus et vitiis · Sermones anonymi.
This composite manuscript from the beginning of the 9th century, made up of two parts, was written at the Abbey of St. Gall and remains in its original Carolingian binding. The first part contains two works by the church father Augustine, the sermon De decem chordis and the text De disciplina christiana, as well as the work Adversus quinque haereses by Bishop Quodvultdeus of Carthage († 454). The second part contains, among various other short texts, a copy of the epitaph of Alcuin of York († 804), his book about virtues and vices De virtutibus et vitiis, dedicated to Duke Wido of Nantes, two sermons by Augustine as well as the so-called Dicta Bonifatii. Glosses were added here and there in both parts of the manuscript by the monk Ekkehart IV. during the first half of the 11th century; the codex shows signs of use through the 16th century. (smu)
Parchment · 276 pp. · 24.5-24.6 x 16.2-16.4 cm · St. Gall · 9th century
Augustinus de doctrina christiana, 1. IV.
An important copy of Augustine's work De doctrina christiana in terms of textual history, written during the second half of the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. In the 1930s fragments of the oldest Vulgate manuscript version of the gospels, from the 5th century, were removed from the binding of this manuscript. These fragments are now found, together with additional fragments of the same manuscript as well as fragments of other texts, in Cod. Sang. 1395. (smu)
Parchment · 320 pp. · 25.5 x 19.5 cm · Cloister of St. Gall · 10th/11th centuries
Composite manuscript containing true works of the Church Father Augustine and works falsely attributed to him
Copies of various works by Augustine and Pseudo-Augustinus, including De fide ad Petrum seu de regula fidei by Fulgentius von Ruspe, the works De divinatione daemonum and De natura boni by Augustine, numerious letters of Augustine, and selections from Augustine’s work De perfectione iustitiae hominis. Incudes glosses by St. St. Gall monk Ekkehart IV. (smu)
Parchment · 206 + 2 pp. · 25 x 16.5 cm · 12th and 14th century
Augustinus, Sermones
This manuscript is a collection of sermons by the church father Augustine, written by a 12th century hand. Two fragments are bound in at the end without pagination; they contain verses, exempla, allegories and similar short texts, written in a 14th century hand which also added numerous marginalia. (nie)
Parchment · 414 pp. · 23.5 x 15 cm · Cloister of St. Gall · 9th and 10th century
Composite manuscript containing books of pennance (Poenitentiale Capitula Iudiciorum, Poenitentiale Theodori, Poenitentiale Vinniani, Poenitentiale Sangallense simplex, Poenitentiale Sangallense tripartitum), texts by the Church Fathers, and more
This five-part composite manuscript contains, among other items, a number of books of pennance (Poenitentiale Capitula Iudiciorum, Poenitentiale Theodori, Poenitentiale Vinniani, Poenitentiale Sangallense simplex, Poenitentiale Sangallense tripartitum) and writings of the Church Fathers Augustine (including selections from De doctrina christiana, De patientia, Sermo 64 ad fratres in eremo), Gregory the Great, Cyprian, and Gregory of Nazianzus. (sno)
Parchment · 316 pp. · 25 x 19 cm · St. Gall · 10th century / 12th century / 9th/10th century
Augustinus, Expositio quarundam propositionum ex epistola ad Romanos; Augustinus, epistolae ad Galatos expositio; Lanfranc, Contra haeresim Berengarii; Hermas, Liber pastoris
This composite manuscript from the monastery ofSt. Gall consists of three originally independent parts. It contains 1) a 10th century copy of the exegesis of the Epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians by the Church Father Augustine; 2) a 12th century copy of the Contra haeresim cuiusdam Berengarii by Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury († 1079); as well as 3) a copy of the book "The Shepherd of Hermas" (Liber pastoris) by St. Hermas (2nd century A.D.), written in the second half of the 9th or the first half of the 10th century. (smu)
Parchment · 260 pp. · 24.5-25 x 19-19.3 cm · St. Gall · 9th century
Augustinus de utilitate credendi ad Honoratum, de natura boni, de VIII quæstionibus V. T., et alia.
Manuscript collection of Patristic works with selections from the works of Augustine (Retractationes, De octo quaestionibus ex veteri testamento, Enchiridion de fide, spe et caritate), Paschasius Radbertus (Epistola ad Paulam et Eustochium, erroneously attributed to the Church father Jerome), and Gregory the Great, in addition to the Life of the Martyr Quintinus, produced in the second half of the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. (smu)
Parchment · 138 pp. · 27-27.5 x 22.5 cm · St. Gall · 9th century
Augustine, Retractationes
Copy of the Retractationes (Revisions) by the church father Augustine (354-430), produced in the middle of the 9th century in the Cloister of St. Gall. In the Retractationes composed near the end of his life, around 426, Augustine provides a chronologically ordered history of the origins of 93 works he wrote over the course of his life, together with critiques of those works. (smu)