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
Dating from the first half of the 11th century, this is the oldest surviving lectionary from Pfäfers Abbey; it probably was created in the monastery's scriptorium.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
This volume, assembled in the 14th century from four originally separate pieces, probably was the missal for the chapel at St. Margrethenberg (Sampans) above Pfäfers. The chants in parts 1 (1r-63v, 12th century), 2 (64r-77v, 13th-14th century) and 4 (129r-131v, 12th century) contain neumes, part 3 (78r-128v, 14th century) is in square notation.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
This manuscript was produced at the monastery of Pfäfers before ca. 1020 and contains the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I. A guard-leaf containing an important fragment of a Passion Play in German from the early fourteenth century has been removed during a recent restoration.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
Composite manuscript of hagiographic character containing the lives of Saints Colomban, Eustacius, Gall, Otmar, Nicholas of Myre, Augustine, Meinrad, Walburga, Sigismond, Alexis, and Aper as well as a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew by Remigius of Auxerre.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
Bible manuscript from the time of Hartmut, Vice-abbot ca. 850-872 and Abbot 872-883, containing books of the Old Testament (Ezekiel, Daniel and the minor prophets): one volume of the so-called "Kleine Hartmut-Bibel". Includes a malediction upon thieves by the owner.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
A composite manuscript with two unrelated parts: 1) an incomplete copy of the Somnium Scipionis section of the work De re publica by Marcus Tullius Cicero, written in the Abbey of St. Gall during the 10th century, followed by a 10th century St. Gall copy of the commentary originally written by the Roman author Macrobius of late antiquity in about 430/440 and widely disseminated during the middle ages. A fragment of this manuscript may also be found in Cod. Voss.lat.qu. 33 (fol. 58) in the library of the Rijksuniversiteit in Leiden; 2) a St. Gall copy of the seven Catholic Letters (3 written by John, 2 by Peter, one by James, one by Jude) with a learned scholarly commentary from the 12th century.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript was written in a flowing fourteenth-century textualis and decorated with rubrics and red lombards. The same hand has numbered the quires in red ink, in the bottom-right corner at the beginning of each quire: II (p. 23) to XXXIX (p. 731). The pagination contains a significant error: 1–501, 511–742; pp. 614–615 are empty. The manuscript transmits the winter part of a breviary, namely (pp. 1-559) the Proprium de tempore from the first Sunday of Advent to Pentecost and Trinity, as well as (pp. 559–742) the Proprium de sanctis from the feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle (30 November) to the feast of Saint Pancras (12 May), including the feast of Saint Wiborada (pp. 716-725). The manuscript shows no traces of its users nor of any additions. On the final page (p. 742) appears the library stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer from 1553–1564. The binding, featuring wooden boards with a red leather cover, dates to the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This paper manuscript contains short readings (capitula), collects (collectae), prayers, hymns, antiphons, and responsories for the office throughout the year, including the common of Saints. Probably in the fourteenth century, this “extended collectar” was written in a flowing textualis and then rubricated. In many places, the manuscript shows heavy traces of use in the form of worn, browned margins. On p. 25 can be found the library stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer from 1553–1564. The wooden-board binding dates to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. On the inner boards can be seen offsets of Hebrew fragments.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
The manuscript contains antiphons, verses, and responsaries, followed by sequences. The chants are accompanied by square notation on four red lines. The script, a small textualis, comes from a fourteenth-century hand. The manuscript and binding (with leather-covered wooden boards) are kept to the smallest possible format.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This substantial manuscript contains a Benedictine breviary. According to Scarpatteti, a professional copyist produced this in a Benedictine monastery, either in Savoy or in Italy, given some mentions related to Montecassino. The script, a rotunda, and the decoration, consisting of red and blue initials with blue and violet pen flourishes, betray the same transalpine origin. In addition, a fourteenth-century note written in Italian confirms this provenance (p. 8). Although the manuscript is only first officially attested in a catalogue of the St. Gall library in 1827, the insertion of the first pages in paper suggests that it was there at least from the fifteenth century (A-H). Indeed, beyond to adding various notes, a fifteenth-century copyist completed the fragmentary calendar and inserted into it the name of Notker, who was venerated in St. Gall (p. H).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This small manuscript contains the summer part of a breviary, copied in an elegant textualis, probably in France, as suggested by the entries in the fragmentary calendar (for example, the anniversary masses for the King of France and for the Countess of Blois). At the end of the codex (f. 261v), annotations in German, written probably in the fourteenth century, and others from the fifteenth century relative to St. Gall (ff. 174v-175r) indicate that, early on, it was present in the German-speaking region and in St. Gall. Various reasons, including the script of one of the later hands, suggest that, at a very early date, the manuscript belonged to the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Gall.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
A composite manuscript, produced for the most part during the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. In addition to some shorter texts with computistic-chronological, homiletic and liturgical content, the manuscript contains as its main elements a copy of the Book of Pennance (Poenitentiale) by Bishop Halitgar of Cambrai († 830), excerpts from the rule of Fructuosus of Braga (7th century), and the tract De duodecim abusivis saeculi, a work by an unknown Irish author, long attributed to Cyprian of Carthage.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript has a binding with large and striking metal bosses; following a 15th century list of saints (f. Iv−IIv), it contains first the Latin Legenda Aurea by Jacobus de Voragine († 1298; f. 4r−262v) and then the so-called Provincia appendix, also in Latin (f. 263r−301r), which also contains short descriptions of the lives of the St. Gall patron saints Saint Gall and Saint Othmar. Later additions include blessings and reflections (f. 302v−304v). A note by an unknown scribe on f. 302v begins with the verses: Qui me scribebat, R nomen habebat. Finito libro sit laus et gloria Christo… This manuscript was written by several (three?) hands; the book decoration consists of Lombard initials that extend over three lines. The decoration ends on f. 210v; however, space has been reserved for additional initials.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
This manuscript, probably produced in the 14th century in the area around Lake Constance, contains a copy of the main part of the Legenda Aurea by Jacobus de Voragine (pp. 5−691), as well as small parts of the so-called Provincia appendix (p. 691−701). On the last three pages a sermon for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (June 29) has been added. The area of Lake Constance is suggested by remains of a document glued to the front and back inside covers (probably parts of the writing “Konstanz”) and also by an ownership note on p. 704 dated to the late 15th or the early 16th century from a community of sisters near Stammheim (Vnnser frouwen ze niderstamhem ist das …). This could refer to the community of Beguines of Haslen in the municipality of Adlikon in the Zürcher Weinland (wine country of Zurich), which was dissolved during the Reformation. This volume has been the property of the library of the monastery St. Gall at least since the middle of the 18th century.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
This manuscript contains the Chronicle of the Popes by Martin of Opava († after 1278) on pp. 3-95. The chronicle goes as far as Boniface VIII; the names of the five following popes are added at the end by a later hand. This is followed by sermons for saints' days (pp. 96-206), and then, on pp. 207-224, excerpts from Martin of Opava's Chronicle of the Emperors, with an anonymous continuation up to Henry IX [VII] (1313). A 14th century fragment of an ascetic tract is bound into the front (pp. 1a-2b). The book decoration is limited to simple pen-flourish initials (pp. 105, 107, 184).
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This 13th century manuscript is of unknown origin. It contains (front pastedown-p. 185) an abridged version of Wernher von Schussenried's Decretum Gratiani from 1207, followed by two ordines iudiciarii, i.e. writings on the Roman-canonical process, which were produced in the last quarter of the 12th century by the two Englishmen Richard de Mores (pp. 186-271) and Rodoicus Modicipassus (formerly attributed to an Otto Papiensis; pp. 276-380). In the margins of the abridged version of the Decretum Gratiani (front pastedown-p. 35), the influential 1216 Ordo iudiciarius by the jurist Tancred of Bologna was added as a third procedural document, but was left incomplete.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This 14th century manuscript contains Burchard of Strasbourg's Summa casuum (pp. 3-264). Probably added in the same century were two short letters from a Franciscan from Freiburg im Breisgau to a pastor in Schönau and Todtnau to clarify canonical questions (p. 264) and a document form for obtaining absolution from the Abbot of St. Trudpert in the Black Forest (p. 265).
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This manuscript contains Burchard of Strasbourg's Summa casuum (pp. 3a-274a), followed by a short explanation of the effectiveness of indulgences (pp. 274a-275b). The script, a textualis, suggests the 14th century. The binding seems to be one of the rare bindings in the Abbey library with a board attachment in romanesque technique.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
This manuscript consists of three parts. The first part (p. 1-90) with the summa of penitence or of confessions by Heinrich von Barben (pp. 3-90), is written in textualis and, according to the colophon (p. 90), it was completed on February 24, 1309. The second part (pp. 91-146) contains a catalog of questions for confession (p. 91a-145a), written in a 13th or 14th century textualis, which was supplemented in the 15th century with information on the solution of legal abbreviations (pp. 145a-145b). The third part (pp. 147-206) contains a collection of documents and formulas from Northern Germany (pp. 147a-205b), written in the 14th century by two different hands in a semi-cursive minuscule and in a cursive book hand. The three-part manuscript can likely be found in the catalog of St. Gall Abbey from 1461.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
The manuscript begins with the important summa of confession by the Dominican Raymond of Peñafort († 1275), the Summa de poenitentia together with its fourth book, finished in 1235 with the title Summa de matrimonio. According to the colophon on p. 246b, Johannes Meyer von Diessenhofen copied the text from 26 August to 8 November 1395. Immediately, or shortly, thereafter, the same hand copied two confessors' manuals of the Dominican John of Fribourg († 1304) along with a few small additions. The Libellus quaestionum casualium concerns cases that are not treated or only summarily discussed in Raymond of Peñafort's Summa de poenitentia. The concise Confessionale was tailored to the practical needs of confessors.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
A representative copy of the decretals of Pope Gregory IX (Pope 1227-1241) in a Gothic-rotunda script from Italy. The text of the decretals is surrounded on each page by the so-called Glossa Ordinaria, a juridical commentary by the canon law specialist Bernardus de Botone of Parma († 1266), which has been written to encircle the main text. The commentary in turn has been extensively edited and glossed at a later time. Each of the five parts is decorated with a scene portraying its content.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This four-part manuscript was written primarily in the second half of the 13th century or in the first half of the 14th century in Italy and perhaps partly in France. It preserves the Tres libri Codicis (Books 10–12 of the Codex Justinianus) including the glosses, the Libri feudorum, the corresponding Glossa ordinaria , as well as other lesser writings. Particularly valuable are the pre-Accursian glosses to the Tres libri Codicis, which have been preserved partly in their original form. The manuscript came to the Abbey Library at the latest in the 16th century via the St. Gall citizen Johannes Widembach († around 1456).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
This manuscript of predominantly scholastic texts from the area of the University of Paris is bound in a well-preserved original Kopert (limp vellum) binding. Among others it contains an alphabetical register of the Sentences of Peter Lombard; the 14th century library catalog of the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz in Lower Austria, preserved only in this manuscript (pp. 107-112); the work Quaestiones parvorum librorum naturalium by the French philosopher and logician Jean Buridan (Johannes Buridanus; † shortly after 1358), completed in August 1374 and correspondent to Aristotle's writings (Parva naturalia) (pp. 121-253); as well as the text Collectio errorum in Anglia et Parisiis condemnatorum (pp. 254-264).
Online Since: 12/20/2012
The manuscript is composed of several units and includes many texts with varying content. The first part (pp. 1-106), in paper, contains a synodal book (pp. 1-81), as well as the Auctoritates sanctorum (pp. 82-105), which, according to the colophon (p. 105a), were copied by Johannes Gaernler in 1378 or 1379. Below the colophon is a drawing, perhaps made by the copyist, representing a man (a king?) holding a cup in hand. Several parchment quires follow (pp. 107-224) with sermons, provisions for penance, etc., dating partly from the thirteenth century and partly from the fourteenth. The end of the manuscript, in paper (pp. 225-471), includes, alongside the penitential of Johannes de Deo (pp. 284-315), sermons, as well as ascetic and theological texts, which were copied in the fourteenth century (pp. 316-471). According to a note of possession (p. 471), the manuscript, or at least its last part, was in the Abbey of St. Gall at the end of the fifteenth century at the latest. The binding has a beautiful interlace pattern on the spine.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript contains the 14 so-called Hermetschwiler Predigten on pp. 1-140; it is a 13th century cycle of sermons in High Alemannic, for which this manuscript is the only textual witness. The text is defective in the beginning and at the end. This is followed on pp. 141-214 by the German-language treatise on Corpus Christi by the “Mönch von Heilsbronn”, a monk from the Cistercian Heilsbronn Abbey located between Nuremberg and Ansbach, who probably lived in the 14th century. Pp. 214-252 contain more spiritual speeches. At least from the 19th century on, the volume was at the Benedictine Convent Hermetschwil (Aargau). Since 1930 it has been a deposit of the episcopal library of St. Gall at the Abbey Library.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
German Psalter, complete except for one missing leaf at the end: Psalms (pp. 1-164), canticles (pp. 164-178). With few figured initials (dog p. 1, fish p. 141, p. 153 and p. 157). The volume is from the St. Katharinen Convent of Dominican nuns in St. Gall; whether it was written there cannot be determined for certain. Since 1930 it has been in the Abbey Library as a deposit of the episcopal library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 10/08/2015