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The manuscript called “Evangelia ad Missas” contains the Gospel readings for mass during the course of the year according to the Cistercian liturgy. It was written in the second half of the 12th century and is thus older than the Cistercian Wettingen Abbey, which was founded in 1227. It is not known in which monastery this manuscript was written and decorated with multi-colored initials with scroll ornamentation.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
The Cistercian Collectarius dates from the third quarter of the 13th century. It contains liturgical prayers for the whole year. The manuscript's place of origin is unknown; several historical notes indicate that it was used early on in Wettingen. The calendar contains entries of commemorative days for the monastery's founders, and the short Notae dedicationum Wettingenses report on the founding and the equipping of the monastery.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
This volume contains Kundschaften, that is, witness statements or reports on alleged crimes. It also has on the last pages an (incomplete) list of these reports.
Online Since: 12/11/2024
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.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This hefty volume, written by two hands, is made up of multiple texts having the same, although not entirely uniform, layout with pen-flourished initials in the so-called Upper-Rhine Style, similar to the two volumes of Nicolas of Lyra, B IV 3 und B V 5, which also came from the Basel Dominican Convent, but not from the same workshop. Johannes von Effringen, Prior of the Convent in 1347, was likely the first owner. Gerhardus, the first of the two scribes, copied multiple works of the church father Augustine: his commentary on the Psalms, the Confessions in 13 books, but also other, smaller writings, some of which are no longer ascribed with certainty to Augustine. A corrector worked through these texts and marked the improvements in a small cursive in the margin, so that the scribe could, in a further step, carefully write them neatly and erase the notes, which did not happen throughout. The text of the second, anonymous, scribe is nearly flawless and written more beautifully. It consists in a commentary on Jeremiah by Jerome, the translator of the Bible.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
Little is known about Albin of Clairvaux, also Albuinus of Gorze or Albuinus Eremita, except that around the year 1000 he produced a compilation of moral-theological writings dedicated to a Parisian canon Arnoldus and to Archbishop Heribert of Cologne (999-1021). The present copy is from the 11th or 12th century and is bound in soft leather, which originally was probably long enough to completely cover the book, but so narrow that the body of the block protrudes above and below. In the 15th century it was the property of the Carthusian monastery of Mainz, and it came to the Basel University Library as part of the Remigius Faesch collection.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This manuscript assembles about 700 documents from the years 814-1242, which concern the administration of the Chapter and the Cathedral of Lausanne. The compilation of the cartulary began around 1202 and was completed in 1242; 5 files, dated 1250-1294, were added later. The material structure of the manuscript is very complex because of numerous additions to the original core, which corresponds to the Livre censier du Chapitre cathédral de Lausanne of about 1202. The manuscript contains various texts: the Annals of Lausanne, a topographic cartulary, a chronological register, two chronicles, an urbarium, the Chronicle of the Bishops of Lausanne and the Cathedral's necrology. The author of this valuable collection is Conon d'Estavayer (before 1200-1243/1244), who became Dean of the Cathedral in 1202. From 1216 until 1242, he directly supervised the editing of the manuscript and the organization of the documents.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
Manuscript CB 59 brings together in one contemporaneous binding three manuscripts that were produced independently of one another. All three show the influence of Alemannic dialect and all three were produced at the end of the 15th entury. They offer a selection of sermons in written form, originally composed by Meister Eckhart or others in the circle of the Rheinish Master of mysticism. The first part could have been completed in an atelier in Constance or Ravensburg, it belonged to the Carthusian House of Buxheim. Threads, meant to serve as bookmarks, may be found sewn into the paper leaves.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This collection of hagiographical texts was written by various hands in the second third of the 13th century, probably in Hauterive. The presence of certain texts indicates a Cistercian origin (Vita of St. Robert of Molesme, the author Geoffroy de Hautecombe) and, based on our knowledge of medieval Hauterive, a regional origin (the Vita of St. Theodore, Bishop of Sion; the Vita and the Miracula of Saint Nicholas of Myra; the Vita of St. Elizabeth of Hungary; the Passio of Saint Maurice and his companions by Eucherius of Lyon). The end of the book contains a collection of texts related to confession. The last one of these attests a little know activity of the monks: the pastoral care of the Cistercian nuns. The manuscript remains in its original cover which, although damaged, is still well recognizable: a cover with wide flaps that cover the edges of the book.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This manuscript contains predominantly hagiographical texts, written in various hands at the beginning of the 13th century. One could reasonably propose that it originated at Hauterive. Without doubt, the text at the beginning of the collection was most important for the monks, a Vita of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (the Vita prima), which takes up the greatest part of the manuscript. Also worth noting is a text quite surprising in a monastic context: the Liber locorum sanctorum terrae Jerusalem at the time of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem by Fretellus of Nazareth († after 1154). Another particularity of the manuscript is its binding with flaps that show traces of metalwork in the shape of a star.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
The colophon at the end of the manuscript establishes with certitude that it was copied at the Cistercian abbey of Hauterive during the thirteenth century. Its author, or the one who commissioned the work, dobutless wanted to “gather together the works of two Cistercian authors who exercised important functions in the region: Henry, Abbot of the neighboring monastery of Hautcrêt, and Amadeus, bishop of the diocese of Lausanne” (from Ciardo). Henry, whose biography is still a subject of debate, chose the learned title Pentaconthamonadius (“the fifty-first”) to designate a sermonary composed of 17 groups of three sermons intended for the liturgy of the White monks. Amadeus of Clermont, a Cistercian monk who became bishop of Lausanne (1145-1159), is the author of eight homilies in honor of the Mother of God, which achieved lasting success as liturgical texts because used in the breviary of the diocese of Lausanne.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This miscellany manuscript contains texts from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the fifteenth century in 12 parts, and belonged to Jean Joly (Guardian of the Fribourg Franciscan Convent, 1467-1469, 1472-1478, 1481-1510). The first part of the manuscript consists in a bull of Pope Benedict XII, dated to 1337. The volume essentially contains papal bulls and constitutions as well as statutes of Franciscan Order and determinations of particular provinces of the Franciscan order. A formerly chained volume, it has wooden boards covered with dark brown leather.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
This manuscript was deposited in the Bibliothèque de Genève in 2007 by the priests of the Congregation of St. Francis de Sales (at the Institut Florimont in Geneva). This composite manuscript unifies two previously separate texts: a copy of Prician's Institutiones Grammaticae made during the 11th or 12th centuries in Italy, and the Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liébana. The latter is illustrated with 65 miniatures; this 11th century copy was probably written in southern Italy, judging by the Beneventana and Carolingian minuscule scripts used. This previously unknown Beatus manuscript discovered in Geneva adds to the 26 illuminated exemplars already on record.
Online Since: 11/03/2009
This manuscript is a cartulary that was created for the Cluniac priory of Romainmôtier (canton of Vaud) and that was probably copied at the monastery. It consists of two chronologically distinct parts that were united at an unknown time. The first part is from the 12th century and consists of 77 documents, introduced by a preface that recounts the most important events from the history of the institution. The second part was copied around the end of the 13th century and contains 80 documents, most of which date back to the years 1270-1286.
Online Since: 03/29/2019
This book of hours, donated to the library of the Academy of Lausanne in 1779, is a typical example of such devotional books from the late Middle Ages. The calendar is for use in Paris: each day has its saint assigned to it, without any of them being highlighted. The masculine form of address of the Obsecro te could have been for a book of hours made for the book market as much as it could designate the actual recipient of the manuscript. Some prayers in French, such as the XV joies de Notre Dame, Les sept requêtes à Notre Seigneur, and a prayer to the Holy Cross, conclude the work. All illuminations marking the beginning of each of the Offices, probably full-page decorations, have disappeared. The only remaining traces of book decoration can be found in the margins and in the decorated initials in the secondary divisions of the same Offices.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
Given the liturgy and the presence of the Office for the Saint, this breviary originated in St. Lebuinus Church in Deventer (Netherlands). It belonged to Swibert de Keyserswerth (died after 1551), paternal grandfather of the Dutch organist and composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621).
Online Since: 04/09/2014
Gradual dating from the 12th century, used by the Prémontré order at the Abbey of Bellelay.
Online Since: 04/26/2007
Jean Germain Fidèle Bajol is both the author and the copyist of this history, in Latin, of the bishops of Basel. He dedicated his text to Bishop François Xavier de Neveu (pp. 7-11), whose coat of arms is depicted immediately before the dedication (p. 6). The text consists of eight biographies in order: Jean Conrad de Roggenbach (pp. 13-14); Guillaume Rink de Baldenstein (pp. 15-16); Jean Conrad de Reinach-Hirtzbach (pp. 17-23); Jacques Sigismond de Reinach-Steinbrunn (pp. 24-27); Joseph Guillaume Rinck de Baldenstein (pp. 28-33); Simon Nicolas de Montjoye d'Hirsingue (pp. 34-39); Frédéric Louis François de Wangen-Geroldseck (pp. 40-45); Franz Joseph Sigismond de Roggenbach (pp. 46-55); François-Xavier de Neveu (pp. 56-61). The carefully-produced copy is clearly structured: a rubric gives the name of the bishop, then the text follows in a single column inside a pencil-drawn frame, with the dates in the margin. The last date indicated, 1803 (p. 60), provides the terminus post quem for the completion of the volume.
Online Since: 05/31/2024
Although this manuscript's paper title page announces “Éphémérides de la ville de Porrentruy, commencées en janvier 1855, Vautrey prêtre” (p. V3), it only refers to the first eight pages of this thick volume (pp. 1-8). The largest part of the work contains “Notes sur l'ancien Évêché de Bâle” (pp. 9-473), followed by excerpts from the “Annales du monastère d'Augiae divitis” (Reichenau) taken from a Latin manuscript that belonged to the Benedictines of Delle (pp. 476-502). Alongside various ecclesiastical functions, this volume's author, Louis Vautrey (1829 Porrentruy – 1886 Delémont) accomplished a significant body of historical work, as witnessed, for example, by the publication in two volumes of the Histoire des évêques de Bâle (1884-1886), which at least in part relies on the current manuscript.
Online Since: 12/14/2022
This codex contains the Gospel of Luke with the Glossa ordinaria. The manuscript, bound in a Romanesque binding, was probably written towards the end of the 12th century, possibly also at the beginning of the 13th century. It is unclear whether it was written in St. Gall. The decoration consists of two initials with scroll ornamentation. On p. 1 there is a red Q with green and blue filling, whose tail is formed by a dragon; on p. 2 there is an F framed in red and filled in gold, with green scrolls with blue filling.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
Bible manuscript from the time of Hartmut, Vice-abbot ca. 850-872 and Abbot 872-883, containing books of the Old Testament (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus - also called Sirach, Job, Tobit). A volume of the so-called "Grosse Hartmut-Bibel".
Online Since: 06/12/2006
A composite manuscript consisting of two distinct parts: 1) a 9th century St. Gall copy of the commentary of Jerome on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes and the commentary of Bishop Justus of Seu de Urgel (Urgelitanus) on the Song of Songs, 2) a collection of manuscripts of mainly patristic content, including excerpts from the works of Jerome, Benedict, Eucherius and Augustine. The manuscript, still in its original Carolingian binding, is also called the Egino-Codex and is supposed to have been produced in about the year 800 at the cloister of Reichenau by a group of Veronese scribes who had settled on the island of Reichenau together with their former (Veronese) bishop (796-799) Egino after he stepped down from his office.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
A copy of the exegesis of the Old Testament prophets Joel and Micah by the Church Father Jerome († 420). This codex, created during the 9th century at the abbey of St. Gall, still retains its original Carolingian binding.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
Copies of Jerome's letter to Ktesiphon (Letter 133) and his Dialogus adversus Pelagianos, the work De vita christiana, ascribed to Pelagius and the work Altercatio Ecclesiae et Synagogae, incorrectly ascribed to Augustine. Produced at the Abbey of St. Gall during the second half of the 9th century, most likely under Abbot Grimald (841-872). Retains the original Carolingian binding; contains corrections in the hand of St. St. Gall monk Notker Balbulus († 912).
Online Since: 11/04/2010
Commentary on the Epistle of John by the Church Father Augustine. This copy was produced in St. Gall around the first third of the 9th century and remains in its original binding. On p. 1-4 and 239-241, it also contains readings for the liturgy.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
Commentary on the liturgy of the Mass and of the church year by Rupert of Deutz (Rupertus Tuitiensis, around 1070-1129). This copy is written by a single hand in a neat 12th century script; the binding is from the middle of the 15th century with a bookmark made of string attached to the headband. On p. 226 and on the cover, the text by Rupert of Deutz is falsely attributed to the Venerable Bede.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
The manuscript consists of two codices bound together (part 1: pp. 1-198; part 2: pp. 199-210), written by several hands. At least the first, older part was probably produced in St. Gall. It contains various various glossaries (Latin-Latin as well as Latin-Old High German) of the Bible, of hagiographic texts (Abdias, Historica Apostolica; Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Martini), grammatical works (Priscian, Institutio de arte grammatica; Donat, Ars grammatica), and writings by Christian authors (Prudentius; Sedulius; Sedulius Scottus, De greca), furthermore glossaries of herbs, a medical paper, and an incomplete astronomical treatise.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
Copies of the Ambrosiaster (commentaries by a Pseudo-Ambrosius on the letters of the apostle Paul), produced in the second half of the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
A martyrology by Hrabanus Maurus, possibly written in Mainz or Fulda, produced shortly after 843. This codex is very likely the presentation copy given to Abbot Grimald of St. Gall (841-872); however, the presentation dedication is missing from the front matter.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Computational/scientific compilation manuscript with numerous tables, schematics, and texts about calendar computation, produced in the monastery of St. Gall around the end of the 9th century and beginning ot the 10th. The volume also includes a St. Gallen calendar and the Annales Sangallenses brevissimi (a short history of St. Gall). Two early medieval maps of the world (terrae orbis or T-O maps) precede the work De temporum ratione by the Venerable Bede.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
This breviary was written in bastarda by a single hand, probably belonging to a choir monk of the Abbey of St. Gall. In addition to the usual parts of a full breviary (Calendar, Psalterium feriatum, Proprium de tempore [incomplete], Proprium de sanctis and Commune sanctorum), it also contains Marian prayers, the liturgy for compline and the vigil of the dead, a Cursus B. M. V., suffrages, and further prayers.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
Part I of The conferences (Collationes patrum I-X) composed by John Cassian († about 435). This copy was made in St. Gall in the first half of the 9th century.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
This German-language manuscript gathers together a series of strongly mystical stories and prayers. The first two thirds (pp. 1–259) are taken up by three translations of texts by Elisabeth of Schönau, all of which have as their object St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins. Then follows the legend of St. Cordula (pp. 260–264). The remaining texts, with the exception of an excerpt from Mechtild of Hackeborn (pp. 295–302) are all prayers, mostly addressed to Mary and often with extensive instructions for the prayer. The book is rubricated throughout, and it has two simple pen-flourished initials (p. 1, 162); the rubric on p. 1 is written in a display script. Inside the book can be found a bookmark made of four thin cords knotted at the top. The binding comes from the fifteenth century and is decorated with stamps and decorative lines. In 1794, Ildefons von Arx purchased the manuscript from the collection of the dissolved convent of Poor Clares of St. Dorothea of Freiburg im Breisgau (ownership marks p. 1 and p. 320; purchase note, p. 1).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This parchment manuscript transmits on pp. 3–87 Geoffrey of Vinsauf's Poetry nova, a guide, written in over 2,000 hexameters, to composing poems. The hexameters are arranged in 25 verse-lines in the center of the page, and accompanied by contemporarily-produced commnetaries and glosses. The script, a simplified textualis, dates from the second half of the thirteenth or the first half of the fourteenth century (contrary to Scherrrer). The stamp of Abbot Diethlm Blarer (1553–1564) appears on p. 9 and p. 88; p. 1 bears the former shelfmark S. n. 312, as well as a note on content by Pius Kolb; p. 2 has a note by Franz Josef Mone from 1819. The half-leather volume reveals a romanesque board-binding.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
This volume contains a single text, a German-language intepretation of the Song of Songs, of which 25 manuscript witnesses are currently known. This extensive text is probably not based on a Latin model and its structure becomes decreasingly systematic. Although it is based on passages from the Song of Songs, it does not contain an actual commentary, but is divided into three books: teachings on faith (Book 1, pp. 8–241), a monastic doctrine of virtue (Book 2, pp. 241–431), and discussions of sins, penance, etc. (Book 3, pp. 443–512). An extensive table of contents precedes the text (pp. 5–7). A colophon at the end of the second book (p. 431) states that this part of the manuscript was completed in 1497. The whole manuscript is written and rubricated in the same hand. According to an entry on p. 1, the manuscript came from a convent in Freiburg (Liber S. Galli Emptus 1699 Friburgi); Scarpatetti suggests Adelhausen (Dominican nuns). On an inserted piece of paper can be read a note about the profession of Sisters Margret Boshartin, Kattrin Ferberin and Anna Branwartin in Constance in 1511 and 1514; on the back there is a fragment of a letter (?). Half-leather binding contemporary to the text, with striped and stamped decoration and clasps. To the headband is affixed a braided, two-colored bookmark.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript from 1467, which first belonged to the convent of the Poor Clares at Freiburg in Breisgau and was transported to the Abbey of St. Gall in 1699, contains, in addition to some Latin texts, many tracts for spiritual instruction in German translation. These include an Ars moriendi, the Cordiale de quattuor novissimis by Gerard van Vliederhoven, the so-called Hieronymus-Briefe(Letters of Jerome) translated by John of Neumark (ca. 1315-1356), the Spiegelbuch, a dialogical text in rhymed verses on living life properly, the trials of worldly life and everyday tribulations, with about twenty colored pen sketches, and a version of the legend of the Three Kings by John of Hildesheim (1310/1320-1375). The manuscript also contains some additional pen sketches: a unicorn (p. 87), images representing two Apostles (p. 107; Paul and John?), a man and a woman in secular dress, and a stag and a wild boar (p. 513). There are imprints in Carolingian minuscule on front and rear inside covers (rear inside cover: Hrabanus Maurus, De computo).
Online Since: 10/04/2011
This folio-size manuscript contains a single text, the Gemahelschaft Christi mit der gläubigen Seele (redaction: Es spricht ain haidischer maister es sy besser und nützer), an extensive and still-unedited book of monastic edification. The anonymous author may have been an Augustinian Hermit; his readership largely consisted in female religious communities. Indeed, the present manuscript comes from such a community; based on a comparison of scripts, it was copied and dated by Angela Varnbühler, the chronicler and long-time prioress of the convent of St. Catherine in St. Gall (colophon on p. 842/843). In the run-up to the Reformation, the librarian Regula Keller sent this manuscript and another (today lost) to the women's community in Appenzell, as reported by the letter accompanying the shipment that is pasted on p. 2. From there, the codex went to Wonnenstein Cloister, and in 1782 to the Abbey Library (ownership entry by P. Pius Kolb on p. 4). Two entries from 1584 attest that a certain Hans Bart had das Buoch gelernet (p. 1 and p. 845). The manuscript is laid out in two columns and rubricated throughout. A bookmark and a single leaf from a post-incunable breviary printed in the workshop of Erhard Ratdolt in Augsburg are inserted. Between pp. 839 and 840 many leaves have been removed (loss of text). Unadorned leather binding, contemporary with the text, with two clasps (one lost). On the wooden boards the offsets of two German-language charters are visible.
Online Since: 09/22/2022