The manuscript comes from the last quarter of the fifteenth century and is divided into two parts. The first part contains Latin sermons by Johannes von Gmunden (1380–1442) and others, while the second part has predominantly Latin tools for Biblical exegesis by Bindus Senensis († 1390) and Alexander de Villa Dei (1170–1250). Jacobus Brun owned the manuscript in the fifteenth/sixteenth century; in the sixteenth century, it belonged to U. or V. Knoll, probably Ulrich Knoll of St. Gallen, chaplain in Zurich, as well as to Rudolf Hofmann, chaplain in Zurich, Bremgarten, and Baden. (ron)

This paper manuscript contains the Vocabularius utriusque iuris, an alphabetically-ordered reference work of ecclesiastical and Roman law. It was written by Johannes Franz of Leipheim and finished on 23 October 1467. Johannes Frantz von Leipheim was a scribe in the service of Martin Rentz von Wiesensteig (d. 1503), who was active at the University of Heidelberg. Since the eighteenth century, the manuscript was in the possession of the Cistercians in Wettingen. (ron)

This 15th century Missale speciale contains the formulas for the Mass for the highest holidays of the church year (Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Michaelmas, All Saints' Day and the dedication of the church) as well as for the Mass for the dead and for several votive Masses. This compilation was suited for worship service in a chapel. An image of the crucifixion of Christ has been removed from this manuscript. (gam)

In 1474 Adam Keuten, since 1467 parish priest at the Hofkirche in Lucerne, compiled a large-format volume with the Proprietates rerum naturalium moralisatae, an encyclopedia in seven parts about the most important fields of creation, followed by allegorical interpretations of natural phenomena. The volume also contains a medical treatise, several short works about the Eucharist, and a longer treatise about the Mass. (gam)

This composite manuscript consists of an incunable from Freiburg i. Br. from 1494 and two parts in manuscript, which were copied in 1498 and 1499 by Brother Johannes Bengel, Conventual at Alpirsbach Abbey in the Black Forest. The three texts on scholastic logic are by Peter of Spain and by Petrus Tartaretus, a contemporaneous Parisian philosopher whose mnemonic device, a logical figure called pons asinorum has also been copied. (gam)

This monastic breviary was written in the second half of the 14th century for a Benedictine monastery; judging by the antiphons, it was perhaps written for Muri Abbey. At the end, a later hand added paper leaves to the parchment manuscript and entered the Offices of the Virgin and of Martin. In the 16th century, this breviary was the property of the Benedictines of Muri. (gam)

This guide brings together two 15th century collections that were created independently of one another. The first, longer one is from the area around Rottweil, while the second, shorter one is from the area around Muri. Both provide models for formulating purchases and obligations, collateral and sureties, donations and inheritances, and they both contain letters dealing with the courts. (gam)

This liturgical book (Epistolare Cisterciense) can quite accurately be dated to around 1173 based on the script and on the succession of festivals described therein. This volume of epistles ist the second oldest manuscript among the Wettinger codices; by all indications, it was given to Wettingen Abbey as a gift from its mother house, Salem Abbey, on the occastion of its new founding in 1227. (mul)

Manuscript of collected works including texts by Wasmodus de Homberg, Lampertus Episcopus Argentinensis, Johannes Mulberg and Felix Hemmerlin regarding the Beguine conflict and a tract by Benedictus de Asinago on poverty. (pel)

This missal is the oldest surviving document in the Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden; it is owned by the parish St. Mauritius in Appenzell. It was probably created for a church in the Diocese of Constance, its exact origins, however, are unknown. The missal is also important to the history of the region of Appenzell because it contains the only surviving copy of the deed of foundation of the parish of Appenzell from the year 1071. The volume contains separate parts (calendar, gradual, sequentiary, sacramentary, lectionary). The calendar is particularly rich in saints' days, although none is rubricated as a patron saint's day. (fre)

This miscellany with saints' lives, sermons, and a small collection of Marian miracles was produced at the end of the fourteenth century in the eastern-Alemannic linguistic area. Most of the legends come from the German-language version that has been ascribed to the Zürich Dominican Marquard Biberli (ca. 1265 - ca. 1330), and which is otherwise only transmitted by the manuscript S 451 of Solothurn. In the fifteenth century at the latest, the volume was bound from two originally independent units, each of which was produced by a single, different, scribe. The medieval provenance of the volume is unknown; in the eighteenth century, it belonged to the “Bibliotheca Bruckeriana” (probably Johann Heinrich Brucker, 1725-1754) and was purchased by the University Library in 1808. (stu)

Postil on the Gospel of Matthew and on the treatise on chess by Jacobus de Cessolis, written in 1392 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with 13 single-column colored pen and ink drawings. This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which ‬A II 1-6 and ‬11-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. (gam/flr)

Since the 13th century the Quatuor libri sententiarum, a collection of teachings of the church fathers on important theological problems compiled by Peter Lombard in the middle of the 12th century, had the status of a textbook in theological faculties. The texts were an essential part of basic studies and were intensively interpreted in lectures and commentaries. This 14th century manuscript from the chained library of the Dominican Convent of Basel contains commentaries by Henry de Cervo, William of Ockham, Jakobus of Altavilla and others. (gam/flr)

The volume is composed of three originally separate parts that were copied in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth century. From their various provenances, they came to the Basel Charterhouse and were bound together. The volume contains allegorical expositions of the Old and New Testament, theological texts, poems, sermons, as well as a work on agriculture by Palladius, complemented with glosses, recipes, and additional information. (stu)

This volume with Quaestiones by the Viennese theologian Iodocus Gartner (attested between 1424 and 1452) was owned by Albertus Loeffler (middle of the 15th century); it was part of the chained library of the Dominican Monastery of Basel. (flr)

This paper manuscript, transferred from the Basel Charterhouse to the University Library in 1590 contains (from f. 15r) a complete annual cycle of sermons, which begin with a biblical passage (the pericope) as a theme, which first has an extensive, literal explanation, and then follows, in a second ‘spiritual' part, with a heavily Neoplatonic, mystical-contemplative reading. The Latin text, more suitable for advanced self-study, occasionally contains interspersed German: translations of specific terms, probably for further use in popular sermons. (mag)

A German Psalter, written in 1485 by Johannes Waltpurger, perhaps in Augsburg. The ornamental page decorated with vine scroll with the beginning of the first prologue is almost identical to one in a Cambridge manuscript by the same scribe. The back pastedown, glued to the cover, depicts a landscape showered in blood. It is not clear how this manuscript came to Basel. (gam/flr)

This small-format manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel contains prayers to and about the saints and martyrs Margaret of Antioch, Barbara of Nicomedia and Catherine of Alexandria. The Meditationes were composed by the Carthusian Henricus Arnoldi of Basel; the small-format manuscript was written by his fellow monk Johannes Gipsmüller. (mue)

Two Metaphysics from the library of the Basel Charterhouse: Aristotle's Metaphysics in the thirteenth century Greek-Latin translation by William of Moerbeke, copied personally by the previous owner of the manuscript Johannes Heynlin von Stein, and the so-called Metaphysica by Avicenna/Ibn-Sīnā, in the twelfth-century Arabic-Latin translation produced at Toledo, copied by an otherwise unknown Wilhelm Hartung von Offenburg, probably on commission from Heynlin. The paper in both parts is the same; the different watermarks support the hypothesis that the manuscript was produced at Paris in the third quarter of the fifteenth century and came to Basel with Heynlin, but it is likely was first bound after his entry into the Basel Charterhouse. (mag)

Latin Bible, designed as a pandect (i.e. in one volume), following the recension of Alcuin of York. Several copies of these Alcuin Bibles, manufactured in the scriptorium of St. Martin of Tours, have survived; with their finely graded hierarchy of scripts and harmonious proportions, they are considered monuments of Carolingian book production. (mit)