Felix Lope de Vega y Carpio (1562-1635), author of many comedias de santos, finished this Historia de Barlán y Josafat, comedia in three acts and in verse at home „En Madrid a primero de febrero de 1611.“ This complete manuscript contains numerous corrections and revisions by the author. This story of a conversion is more than an authentic Christian legend (then attributed to Saint John of Damascus) — it is above all a Christianized story. In the prince, who first gives up his palace in order to learn about the plagues of the world and then leaves his throne for the meditative life of an ascetic, one certainly recognizes Buddha. The edifying Christian story, set at the banks of the Ganges, is nothing other than an adaptation of Vie du Bodhisattva, a 2nd-4th century Sanskrit text, which over centuries was translated and adapted first by the Manichaeans, then by the Arabs, Georgians and Byzantines, until it finally reached the far distant people of the Western World: Lope de Vega's work thus (without the author's having been aware of this) is part of one of the most impressive chains of intellectual transmission in history. (duc)

Online Since: 12/17/2015

This necrology was compiled in 1611 from older books of the dead at the behest of Prince-Abbot Bernhard Müller (1594-1630); it replaces the necrology in Cod. Sang. 452. The records were continued until 1847. In addition to abbots, monks and lay brothers from the monastery, the register also lists persons who were admitted into the confraternity as benefactors of the monastery. Later entries indicate the year of death, occasionally also the place of death or of burial. The age of the deceased is mentioned only in exceptional cases. The last pages (pp. 126-131) contain directions for Masses for the dead and similar forms of commemoration of the dead. According to a note by Franz Weidmann (p. 1), after the secularization of the monastery the manuscript temporarily was in the possession of Fr. Aemilianus Hafner, who gave it to the library in 1840. (sno)

Online Since: 09/23/2014