Sub-project: The Virtual Abbey Library of Saint Gall
January 2008 - December 2009
Status: Completed
Financed by: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (http://www.mellon.org/)
Description: As of the end of 2009, over 300 manuscripts written before the year 1000 and held by the Abbey Library of St. Gall had been made available on e-codices. The web application had also been further developed using the most up to date informatics tools, allowing users to gain access to the website database faster and more easily. Financial support for this sub-project was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (New York).
All Libraries and Collections
A copy of the Life of the Saint and Pope Gregory I. by Johannes Diaconus (825-880/882), produced at the Abbey of St. Gall around the year 900.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
A manuscript compilation written in the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. The manuscript contains, among other items, the Lives of monastic father Antonius (by Athanasius), Paulus, Hilraion and Malchus (all by the church father Jerome), 12 homilies (Predigten) of Caesarius of Arles, additionals tracts by Caesarius and by Pseudo-Caesarius as well as the dicta of Martin of Braga addressed to Polemius entitled De correctione rusticorum3. The manuscript contains a very large number of quill tests, including two alphabetical verses (“Adnexique globum…” and “Ferunt ophyr…”) and a scribal saying: Scribere discce puer…
Online Since: 12/21/2009
A German language edition of the life history of the St. Gall patron saints Gallus, Magnus, Otmar and Wiborada. Includes color portraits of saints Wiborada and Otmar (the latter bound into the wrong location in the manuscript; the portraits of Gallus and Magnus have been lost). The manuscript also includes a German translation of the Proverbs ("Sprüche der Altväter") as well as some brief spiritual texts for nuns, written down and most likely translated into German by Friedrich Kölner (or Colner), a Reformist monk originally from the cloister of Hersfeld in Hessen, who was a member of the Cloister of St. Gall between 1430 and 1436.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The oldest German language version of the life history of St. Gall patron saint Notker Balbulus († 912), produced by Hans Conrad Haller (1486/90-1525), a member of the St. Gall religious community, for the Benedictine nuns of the Cloister of St. George above St. Gall in the year 1522. With decorated initials and borders. Following the vita are German prayers as well as a German translation of the tract Exhortationes ad monachos ("Von der geistlichen Ritterschaft der Mönche" or the "Exhortations to Monks") by Abbot Johannes Trithemius of Sponheim (1462-1516).
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Manuscript collection produced at the monastery of St. Gall, containing the oldest known surviving version of the Casus sancti Galli by the monk Ratpert, in a copy from about 900. Additional longer texts, written down between the 9th and 13th centuries contain sermons by the early Church fathers, a register of the abbots of St. Gall from the 7th through the 13th centuries, hymns, and excerpts from the Collectio Canonum by Pseudo-Remedius as well as the Micrologus by Bernold of Konstanz.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The Carolingian world history written by Bishops Frechulf of Lisieux in the oldest surviving copy, produced in 825/830. Written in the scriptorum of Lisieux, this item had already been obtained by the monastery of St. Gall by 850/860.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
A copy of the excerpts made by Junianus Justinus from the lost history of the world (Historiae Philippicae) by the Roman historian Pompeius Trogus, produced in the 9th century, probably at the Abbey of St. Gall. At the end of the text is the famous Old High German St. Gallen scribal verse: Chumo kiscreib filo chumor kipeit.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
A copy of the Alexanderroman (Romance of Alexander) by physician, translator and poet Johannes Hartlieb (1468) of Munich. This is the exemplar that Hartlieb had produced for Duke Albrecht III. of Bavaria (1451-1460) and his wife Anna of Braunschweig by calligrapher Johannes Frauendorfer of Thierenstein in the year 1454, using a professional Bastarda script. It is illustrated with 45 six-by-thirteen-line fully colored initials, possibly by the hand of Bavarian miniaturist Hans Rot. Decorations include numerous simple and intricate vine borders with acanthus leaves, in which a wide variety of animals frolic, and in which one can find many of the flowers of the region. The Romance of Alexander remained one of the most popular prose romances in the German language until 1500.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
A copy of the work Bellum Judaicum (the Jewish War) by the Jewish author Flavius Josephus (1st century AD), produced in the 9th century, probably not at the Abbey of St. Gall, by the hands of eight different scribes.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
A copy made in 1520 of the so-called “Klingenberger Chronik” (Klingenberg Chronicle) originally composed in 1450. It is the history of the Appenzell Wars (1401-1429) and of the Old Zurich War (1440-1446) from the point of view of the losing side: the eastern Swiss nobility. Illustrated with several color sketches of battle scenes and coats of arms. In addition this codex contains copies of legal documents, chronological notes, songs, and in the very front an incompletely preserved 1520 Strasbourg print edition by Sebastian Brant (1457/58-1521) of the biographies of Roman emperors Titus and Vespasian. This volume was obtained by the Abbey Library of St. Gall from Glarus humanities scholar Aegidius Tschudi (1505-1572) in 1768.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The oldest copy of the Chronicle of Konstanz by Gebhard Dacher, made between 1458 and 1472 by the author himself and illustrated with a series of colored pen sketches, among them the oldest known view of the city of Konstanz. Obtained by the Abbey Library of St. Gall in the 18th century, at the latest.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
An early copy of the so-called Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, also called the false Decretals, or Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore, from the Abbey of St. Gall, produced in the second half of the 9th century. This text consists of a a wide-ranging collection of falsified papal letters and papal decrees from late antiquity. Numerous—real—letters of Pope Gregory I are found in the rear of the codex.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
A two-part codex containing a copy of the Acts of the Second Council of Constantinople (553), likely written by St. St. Gall monk Notker Balbulus (d. 912) himself between 887 and 893, together with a 9th century Abbey of St. Gall copy of materials assigned the title Quaestiones Hebraicae in I-II Regum, I Paralipomenon, which includes a commentary written by the church father Jerome on the first two books of Kings and a fragmentary commentary on the Old Testament books of Chronicles.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
A canon law manuscript from the first half of the 9th century, produced in the southern German-speaking region, probably in Bavaria. It contains, among other items, versions of the so-called Collection canonum Vetus Gallica with an appendix, Charlemagne's Capitulary of Herstal, the so-called Excarpsus Cummenai and, under the title De triduanis ieiuniis consuetudine, an incomplete copy of a set of guidelines for fasting.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
Composite manuscript of juridical and theological content from the 10th century, probably from the Abbey of St. Gall. The codex contains, in addition to many other texts, the capitulary of bishop Hatto of Basel and bishop Theodulf of Orléan, the Poenitentiale of one Pseudo-Egbert, the provisions of the Council of Nicea (325), works by Alcuin, including his tract De virtutibus et vitiis as well as a copy of the Admonitio Generalis of Charlemagne from 789.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
A collection of juridical works from around 900, not produced in the Cloister of St. Gall, but in a thus far unidentifiable scriptorium in the eastern Frankish empire. The two most important texts in this manuscript compilation are a copy of the "Bussbuch" (Book of Penances) by Bishop Halitgar of Cambrai († 830) and the important law collection Collectio LIII titulorum.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
Manuscript compilation consisting mainly of canonical content from the second quarter of the 9th century, probably not written in the monastery of St. Gall, but evidently present in the Abbey Library of St. Gall after 850. The manuscript contains, among other items, the Capitular Document Collection of Bishop Martin of Braga († 579), numerous sermons (including sermons by Caesarius of Arles as well as many attributed to the early Church father Augustine), a copy of the books of penance attributed to Bede and Egbert and excerpts from the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Impressive law manuscript from the Carolingian period, produced in the third quarter of the 9th century, presumably in Reims. It contains the Capitular document collection of Abbot Ansegis of Fontenelle († 833) as well as the forged Capitularies of a certain Benedict Levita. The manuscript was loaned to Etienne Baluze in Paris in 1673/74.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Carolingian collection of statutes produced in western France in Latin in the first quarter of the 9th century, includes the Lex Romana Visigothorum (collection of Roman laws enacted by the west Gothic King Alarich II.), the Lex Salica (book of Germanic law of Chlodwig, founder of the Frankish kingdom), and the Lex Alamannorum (foundation law of the Alamanni from the beginning of the 8th century). This item reached the monastery of St. Gall early on, was later removed, and was recorded as being in the possession of the scholar Aegidius Tschudi (1505-1572) during the 16th century. It was sold by his heirs in 1768 to the Abbey Library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The incompletely preserved Edictum Rothari is the oldest extant copy of the early medieval law of the Lombards as decreed by King Rothari (636-652) in 643. This earliest known copy, dating from 670/680 and originating in Bobbio (?) has been preserved only as fragments divided between the Abbey Library of St. Gall, the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe, the Zentralbibliothek in Zurich and the Zurich cantonal archives. The largest portion of the fragments, which were bound together in the present volume by Abbey Librarian Ildefons von Arx in 1822, is found at the Abbey Library of St. Gall. In 1972, the fragmental parchment leaves of the Edictum Rothari owned by the Abbey Library of St. Gall were rebound into a new volume, in a fashion that does not exactly follow conservational guidelines, together with black and white photos of the fragments that are in Karlsruhe and Zurich. The photos were then removed from this by restorer Martin Strebel in 2008. At the same time, this manuscript, which is significant to the history of law, was rebound using the latest book restoration techniques, thanks to the Friends of the Abbey Library of St. Gall, which covered the costs of the work.
Online Since: 07/31/2009