This manuscript, probably written in Italy in the second quarter of the 15th century, contains the canonist Wilhelm Horborch's († 1384) collection of judicial decisions of the Rota Romana. The manuscript probably reached the library of the monastery of St. Gall along with other codices from the estate of St. Gall Abbott Kaspar von Breitenlandenberg (1442–1463), who had studied canon law in Bologna from 1439 until 1442 under Johannes de Anania.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
Universal chronicle from Saturn of Crete to Brenno, legendary Duke of Swabia (col. 3a-17a). This is followed by the Schwabenspiegel (mirror of the Swabians) with common law according to the first systematic order, in 79 sections up to article 343 (col. 17a-264b); and feudal law up to article 158 (col. 264b-347a). A table of contents for the entire manuscript can be found at the end (pp. 350-361).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
Schwabenspiegel (mirror of the Swabians), common law, articles 1-86 (col. 7a-58a), articles 155-219 (col. 59a-100b), and articles 220-377 (col. 101a-187b); after article 40, common law article 40§1 (col. 33a) from the Deutschenspiegel is inserted; the common law is followed by feudal law, articles 1-120 and 122-154 (col. 187b-284a) and article 159 (col. 284a-285a).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
The two-part paper manuscript transmits two theological works that, according to the colophons, were copied in 1392 and 1393. The works are Johannes Müntzinger's commentary on Rudolf von Liebegg's Pastorale novellum, a handbook of sacramental doctrine, and Konrad von Soltau's systematic explanation of the foundations of Christian belief, written in the form of a commentary on the decretal “Firmiter credimus”.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The flexible binding contains four manuscript parts, each of which transmits a commentary on selected Titles and Chapters of the first book of the Decretales Gregorii IX (Liber Extra). Parts I, III and IV are written in the hand of the St. Gall Monk Johannes Bischoff († 1495), who studied Canon Law at the University of Pavia in 1474–1476. He likely obtained Part II during his studies in Pavia.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The flexible binding covers ten codicological units containing texts that the St. Gall monk Johannes Bischoff († 1495) for the most part copied in his own hand or, for a smaller number, obtained during his studies of Canon Law at Pavia in 1474–1476. They include commentaries on individual Titles of the Decretales Gregorii IX (Liber Extra), the Liber Sextus and the Clementinae, discussions of legal procedure, torture, hereditary law, and other themes, an alphabetically-organized reference work on moral doctrine, as well as the public disputation of Johannes Bischoff.
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 two-part manuscript was written in Italy in the period between the middle of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century. It preserves writings concerning procedural law, among them the little known Ordo iudiciarius Quoniam ut ait apostolus, as well as finding aids and surveys on decretal law. The manuscript probably came into the possession of the St. Gall citizen Johannes Widembach († 1456) from a Canon from Zurich, and has been held by the Abbey Library at least since the 16th century.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
This manuscript, decorated with fleuronné initials and occasional pen drawings, was written in Italy in the second half of the 13th century or at the latest at the beginning of the 14th century. It preserves the Codex Justinianus (Books 1–9), the Great Gloss of Accursius associated with it, as well as many more glosses in the margins. The manuscript came to the Abbey Library at the latest in the 16th century via the two St. Gall citizens Conrad Särri and Johannes Widembach († around 1456).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
The paper manuscript contains three adaptations of the Libri feudorum, Lombard feudal law, and is composed of two parts. The first part, with Dullius Gambarinus's Margarita feudorum (pp. 1a–28a), was probably written in France in the first half of the fifteenth century. The second half contains Odofredus de Denariis's Summa feudorum (pp. 29a–60b) and Jacobus de Belvisio's Lectura super usibus feudorum (pp. 60b–144b) and was produced either in Italy or France in the fourteenth century. The second part of the manuscript contains annotations by the legal scholar Johannes Bischoff († 1495), a conventual of the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
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
The manuscript is composed of various fascicules, of which many carry at the end the ownership mark of Johannes Engler, canon of St. Leonhard (p. 140, 168, 304). After a calendar (pp. 4–24) comes the Summa rudium (pp. 25-140). The next quire (pp. 143–168) contains the synodal decrees of Marquart von Randeck, bishop of Constance (the decrees, and not the copy, date from 1407, p. 165). The remaining quires contain observations, sermons, a Latin-German vocabulary (pp. 290–304), recipes and calendar-related texts, as well as various spiritual and lay short texts. Among the latter are two collections of fables (pp. 141–144 and 266–275). The quires frequently start at the beginning of a text and often have blank pages at the end, a phenomenon that, along with the multiple ownership marks and worn outer leaves of quires, points to the individual quires being used for some time without a binding. Fifteenth-century leather binding, containing several bosses. On the pastedowns, the offset of a German-language charter can be seen.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
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 is a complete exemplar of Peter Lombard's four books of the Sentences (Libri quatuor sententiarum) (pp. 4-430), preceded and followed by a series of Latin verses, partially in leonine hexameter (pp. 3 and 430-431). This neat thirteenth-century copy in two columns is completely rubricated, and the margins likewise have in red ink the abbreviated names of the authors cited in the text. Citations are sometimes indicated by a long vertical red stroke, which occasionally ends with a fleuron. An elegant, red or red-and-black initial introduces the prologue (p. 4a) and the four books of the Sentences (pp. 8b, 126b, 237a, and 315a), as well the table of the chapters of books II and III (pp. 123 and 235a). The manuscript has a fifteenth-century wooden binding, typical of the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This composite volume, written between 1425 and 1425 in the Lake Constance regions, though not at the Abbey of St. Gall, contains Latin versions of a great many computistic/astronomical/cosmographical treatises, including the widely disseminated work De sphaera mundi by John of Sacrobosco and his arithmetical foundation work Tractatus de algorismo. The manuscript, organized according to the calendar, also contains illustrations: the twelve signs of the zodiac, a map of the winds, sketches of the ecliptics of the sun and moon, planets and constellations, a diagrammatic guide for bloodletting, a set of early medieval Terra Orbis-type world maps, and (on pages 265 and 266) twelve simple illustrations for the months with brief rhyming proverbs in German derived from the nature- and landscape-dominated everyday life of the people of the late middle ages.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
This volume contains the Manuale confessorumby the Dominican Monk Johannes Nider, born in Isny and later active in Nuremberg and Vienna (p. 3-124), the work De generatione et corruptione by Albertus Magnus, also known under the title Problemata Aristotelis (p. 129-168), the second Book of Aristotle's Physics In librum secundum physicorum (p. 169-212), the treatise De constellacione [siderum] in nativitate (p. 212-213), the late medieval collection of anecdotes and tales Gesta Romanorum (p. 258-453). The text on pages 129-213 is dated to 1459; pages 259-453 were completed on 30 August 1402 by the copyist Konrad Heinrich von Tettnang.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
A composite manuscript intended for teaching purposes, written in Mainz during the first half of the 11th century, possibly brought to St. Gall by the monk Ekkehart IV. Ekkehart IV. taught intermittently at the cathedral school in Mainz and added a great many glosses to this manuscript. The codex gathers together a number of texts used in school teaching, for example copies of the commentary of Boethius on Aristotle's De interpretatione, Cicero's Topica, the Geometry I by (pseudo?)-Boethius as well as additional works by Boethius, such as De differentiis topicis, De divisione, De syllogismis categoricis and De syllogismis hypotheticis. At the end of the volume are two brief texts by Ekkehart IV. about the Septem Artes Liberales, (on page 488) verses in praise of Boethius and (on page 490) an allegory based on the Septem Artes Liberales in the form of instructions to a goldsmith.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
A fifteenth-century wooden-board binding contains this manuscript composed of multiple parts. The original start of the miscellany, the part of the manuscript consisting of pp. 1–140, was probably removed in the ninenteenth century. Six codicological units remain, and, with the exception of Part IV, they all were copied in the fifteenth century. Part I (pp. 141–348) has, on pp. 141–198, Johannes de Fonte's florilegium Auctoritates Aristotelis (Lohr, p. 260) and, on pp. 199–346, Latin sermons, with the insertion of excerpts from the book of Proverbs (pp. 257–263). Part II (pp. 349–396) contains Latin texts on the Mass, confession, and penance, written in two columns on pp. 349a–396, including Ambrosius Autpertus' treatise De conflictu vitiorum on pp. 363a-383b (Bloomfield, Nr. 0455). Further Latin sermons appear in Part III (pp. 397–440b). Part IV (pp. 441–574) consists of an incomplete abbreviation in two columns of Guillelmus Peraldus' Summa virtutum (Bloomfield, Nr. 5775; Verweij, p. 111–110), which was copied in the fourteenth century. Part V (pp. 575–618) transmits Thomas Aquinas' treatise Collationes de decem preceptis (Bloomfield, Nr. 6071), which is decorated with a rather large pen drawing of a bishop on p. 600b. Part VI (pp. 619–638), a single gathering, is written in two columns and contains on pp. 619a–630b a Latin interpretation of the Pater noster by Johannes Münzinger (Adam, p. 160), on pp. 631a–634a Thomas Aquinas' interpretation of the Ave Maria (Expositio angelice salutationis) (cf. Rossi), on pp. 634b– 637a an interpretation of the responsory Missus est Gabriel, and finally on pp. 637a–638b a short text in another hand. Based on the stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer (p. 440b), the manuscript has been in the Abbey Library since 1553–1564 at the latest.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
This codex, written by several scribes, contains theological writings very different from one another in seven parts interrupted by empty pages. Part I: pp. 1–14 table of contents and pp. 17–124 the text of De decem praeceptis by Heinrich von Friemar, pp. 124 Septem dona sancti spiritus contra septem peccata mortalia, pp. 125–139 Tractatus de confessione et de peccatis mortalibus et venialibus, p. 139 Quid sit vera poenitentia et confessio, pp. 139–140 a theological note and further notes on p. 142, pp. 143–173 the treatise De proprietate ad canonicos regulares religiosa by the theologian, astronomer and church politician Heinrich Heinbuche von Langenstein (1325–1397) as well as pp. 177–186 a fragment of the Expositio regulae S. Augustini. Part II contains a fragment of De sacramento ordinis on pp. 187–199, pp. 199–257 Notabilia super Cantica Canticorum by Frater Johannes, followed on pp. 258–260 by the sermon Omnia parata sunt venite ad nuptias. Parts III (pp. 261–284), IV (pp. 285–316) and V (pp. 317–340) contain more sermons. Part VI consists of 14th and 15th century Sibyllenweissagungen in German, (Von Kung Salomo wishait, pp. 341–361) and a fragmentary letter (pp. 361–362). Part VII contains moralizations from the Historia septem sapientium on pp. 365–376. In a note on p. 379 Abbey librarian Ildefons v. Arx reports about the illness and death of the former Abbey librarian Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger in the year 1823. An entry in the top margin of p. 1 attests that the manuscript was already in the St. Gall monastery in the 15th century.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
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 contains the so-called Reformatio Sigismundi, a document about the reform of church and empire that was written anonymously in German in 1439 during the Council of Basel by an author who until today has not been reliably identified. The text was printed for the first time in 1476. The treatise presents reform proposals that emphasize the importance of pastoral care and that promote releasing secular clergy from obligatory celibacy and releasing bishops from exercising temporal power. The treatise also reports Emperor Sigismund's alleged vision, according to which a priest-king Frederick is said to have appeared to him with plans for the reform. In a colophon on p. 234, the writer gives his name as Petrus Hamer von Weissenhorn, chaplain in Kirchberg. He begins the chapters with red initials and decorates two of them with caricatures of bearded faces (p. 158 and 212).
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This manuscript, dated in two places to the years 1465 (p. 393) and 1467 (p. 181) and perhaps written by eight different hands, belonged to the Benedictine Convent of St. George near St. Gall and became part of the Abbey Library of St. Gall as part of an exchange around 1780/82. The codex, written entirely in German, contains the explanation of the Decalogue by Marquard of Lindau (pp. 3−176); the song Ain raine maid verborgen lag from Spiegelweise by Heinrich Frauenlob (pp. 177−181); instructions regarding attention during prayer, attributed to Thomas Aquinas (pp. 182−186); the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit by Henry Suso (pp. 195−393); reflections on consecration (pp. 394−399) and on the Sunday (pp. 399−402); as well an anonymous treatise on death (pp. 405−422). Several parchment fragments from an 11th/12th century St. Gall liturgical manuscript containing neumes were used in order to reinforce this manuscript.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript, written around 1500 by the Sisters of the third order of St. Francis at Wonnenstein near Teufen, not far from St. Gall, contains as an introduction a register (pp. 1−9) of manuscripts and printed works held in the convent library, compiled around 1500; it has a total of 110 entries. The majority consist of ascetic-edifying treatises; among them are Brother Conrad Nater's German translations of Bonaventure's Regula novitiorum (pp. 15−107), the German version of David of Augsburg's De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione (pp. 109−188), the Ermahnung zu einem wahren klösterlichen Leben by the Franciscan monk Heinrich Vigilis of Weissenburg (pp. 190−223), the treatise Die besessene Nonne Agnes (pp. 225−404), a treatise on the passion attributed to Bernardino of Siena (Lernung das lyden unsers lieben heren zu betrachten; pp. 406−475), revelations by the mystics Gertrude of Helfta and Christine Ebner (pp. 476−486), Bonaventure's Soliloquium in a shortened German version (pp. 496−713), as well as the treatise Vom Reuer, Wirker und Schauer by the so-called Kuttenmann (pp. 717−727). On 11 February 1782, the St. Gall Abbey librarian Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756−1823) acquired this manuscript, together with four other manuscripts (today Cod. Sang. 972a, Cod. Sang. 976, Cod. Sang. 977 and Cod. Sang. 991) from the community of Capuchin nuns at Wonnenstein.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This extensive prayer book, probably completed over time by a single hand, contains a treatise on the canonical hours (pp. 34–224) as well as a Marian office (the German version of the Officium parvum Beatae Mariae Virginis, pp. 225–343). These are accompanied by sermons and shorter treatises: at the beginning, texts on the sufferings of Christ, structured according to the seven petitions of the Lord's Prayer (pp. 1–33, the first page is missing); at the end of the manuscript appear the short treatise Von der seligen Dorfmagd (pp. 344–346), a fragmentary treatise on the twelve virtues of the sacraments (pp. 347–352), a sermon by Johannes Nider (pp. 352–362), another sermon (In unser Capel die erst bredig von gehorsami, p. 363–384), as well as shorter texts and textual fragments (pp. 385–396). A late-medieval entry (p. 390) gives a name (das buch hadt hanns petris auch ze len). Fifteenth-century red-leather binding, detached bosses, and missing clasps; the hand-marbled pastedowns attest to a modern restoration.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
At the time this work, Die 24 Alten, which was completed in 1386, was written, the Franciscan Otto von Passau was a member of the Minorite convent in Basel. This piece, a form of guide to the Christian life, was widely used in women's convents for reading aloud during meals. This manuscript was written by a swester Endlin, probably at the Franciscan nuns' convent of St. Leonhard in St. Gall.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
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
This manuscript, written in 1498, is from the library of the regular community of sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis at the lower hermitage (Untere Klause) of St. Leonhard, outside the city gates of St. Gall. The unknown principal scribe — she wrote up to p. 536 — asks future readers for an Ave Maria in two places (p. 201; p. 536). The manuscript contains: in the beginning a copy of the Schürebrand (pp. 10−201) that is significant in terms of textual history; in the middle (pp. 206−339) parts 1 and 3 of the treatise Von dreierlei Abgründen attributed to St. Bonaventure; and in the end (pp. 344−535) the treatise on the passion Extendit manum by Heinrich of St. Gall. The salutation to Mary (“Mariengruss”) added to the end of the manuscript (pp. 537−539) was written by another hand. After the Reformation and the dissolution of the community of sisters of St. Leonhard, the manuscript came to the library of the Benedictine nuns of St. George and finally in 1780/82 to the Abbey Library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript was written by the Benedictine Friedrich Kölner among others and was meant for the Hermitage of St. George; in addition to a translation of the life of St. Benedict (after Gregory the Great's Dialogi, Liber 2) and an excerpt from the Eucharist treatise of Marquard of Lindau, it contains an especially early version of prayers from the “Wilhelm-Gebetbuch” and the “Ebran-Gebetbuch” by Johannes von Indersdorf. Furthermore, it transmits several of the “Engelberger Predigten”, thus completing the collection contained in Cod. M 47 from the archive of the Convent of the Dominican sisters at St. Katharina in Wil. It bears mentioning that both of these manuscripts are based on an earlier model, to which also the manuscripts Cod. Sang. 1919 and Wil M 42, which were created about 50 years later, owe their (complementary) selection of „Engelberger Predigten“.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This parchment manuscript contains Latin sermons by Berthold of Regensburg († 1272) in a copy from the second half of the thirteenth century or the first half of the fourteenth century. It begins with the feast of St. Stephen Protomartyr (26 December; p. 1a) and stretches to the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (29 August; p. 181b). There then follow additional sermons and other texts, including two that bear the titles De passione (p. 197a) and De resurrectione (p. 199b) respectively. On p. 209 the text breaks off at the end of the right column. Then follows on pp. 210a–215a in a larger script what are apparently sermons on the Conversio sancti Pauli (p. 210a) and on the Purificatio beatae Mariae (p. 213a), although both of these feasts already appear in the original part (p. 23b and 31b). In the fourteenth century, another hand wrote a German text in the right column of p. 215 (Wilt du wizzen wie …). According to the note on p. 216, in 1433, the chaplain Jodocus Maiger gave this book to Nicholaus Jeuchin or Jenchin, parish priest of St. Mangen (a church outside of the city of St. Gallen). Worthy of note are the decorative, four-color stitching with a zig-zag pattern on p. 111/112, the pen drawing on p. 150a, as well as the library stamp of Abbot Diethlem Blarer, from the period 1553–1563 on p. 216. The wooden binding probably comes from the fifteenth century.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This manuscript, which originated probably in 1484 in the Convent of the Dominican Sisters of St. Katharina in St. Gall, constitutes the first (remaining) half-volume of a collection which, as indicated in the table of contents, originally comprised 151 sermons, organized according to the church year, and in all likelihood meant to be read daily at mealtime. Among others, it contains sermons by Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Nikolaus von Straßburg, Rudolf Goltschlacher, Meister Wilhelm, Felix Fabri (?), Jordan von Quedlinburg and several from the corpus of the „St. Georgener“ and „Engelberger Predigten“. Remarkably, regarding the inventory of “Engelberger Predigten”, Cod. Sang. 1066 is exactly complementary to Cod. Sang. 1919 and Wil M 42, which also originated in the Convent of the Dominican sisters of St. Katharina in St. Gall. Cod. Sang. 1919 and Wil M 42 are directly or indirectly based on the same model *C to which also cod. Sang. 1004 and Wil M 47, created 50 years ealier in the St. Gall Benedictine Monastery, owe their selection of Engelberger Predigten; in contrast, Cod. Sang. 1066 is based on a manuscript from text group *Y3, close also to Cod. 752(746) from the library of the Benedictine Monastery of Einsiedeln.
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This folio-volume contains an extensive sermon cycle, introduced by a sermon presumably by Rulmann Merswin (ff. 1ra–5vb: Leben Jesu / Von der geistlichen Spur), which here is ascribed to Tauler (as in Cod. Sang. 1015). The sermons that follow (ff. 5vb–235ra) are actually by Tauler. On ff. 85va–93va, under the rubric Von der drivaltikait, is the pseudo-Eckhartian composite treatise Von dem anefluzze des vaters; on ff. 235ra–241va are four letters of Henry Suso (Letters 3, 4, 6 and 7 of the Little Book of Letters), followed by another sermon. The manuscript, arranged in two columns, is carefully written, corrected in many places, and rubricated throughout. Each sermon is introduced by an ornate initial, usually five lines high, with very simple red and blue pen flourishes; a few initials are someone larger and more elaborately presented (e.g., f. 190vb). Well preserved late-fifteenth-century leather binding with decorative lines, five bosses on each side (only one on the back is missing) and two clasps. Two owner's marks on the front pastedown attest to the ownership of the book by the sisters of St. Leonhard cloister, and later by those of St. Georgen in St. Gall.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This large-format manuscript, which forms a unit with Cod. Sang. 1758, itself consists of two parts. The first part (p. 1-214) from 1473 (dating in the initial on p. 1) was completed in the 16th/17th century. Both parts, however, are not complete; furthermore, multiple pieces have been deleted and replaced with other pieces. The volume contains chants for the Mass – Proprium de sanctis, Commune sanctorum, Ordinarium missae (partially troped), Sequences and Tractus– in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") in a five line-system. Together with Cod. Sang. 1758, this codex presents the oldest systematic St. Gall records of sequences on a musical staff. Several pages have book decorations in the form of borders and initials, sometimes with figurative representations. Until 1930, the manuscript was kept in the choir library (first of the St. Gall monastery, later of the St. Gall cathedral).
Online Since: 10/07/2013
This large-format manuscript, which forms a unit with Cod. Sang. 1757, contains chants for the Mass – Proprium de tempore, Ordinarium missae (partially troped), Sequences and votive Masses - in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") in a four line-system. Multiple pieces have been deleted and replaced with other pieces. Together with Cod. Sang. 1757, this codex presents the oldest systematic St. Gall records of sequences on a musical staff. Several pages have book decorations in the form of initials (several exquisite filled initials, some with gold leaf) and borders. Heavy decorative fittings with animal heads and mythical creatures. Until 1930, the manuscript was kept in the choir library (first of the St. Gall monastery, later of the St. Gall cathedral).
Online Since: 10/07/2013
Composite manuscript with sermons and spiritual instructions, written around 1487 in the Dominican cloister St. Katharinen in St. Gall by the prioress Angela Varnbüeler. Among others, the volume contains a detailed sermon about Saint Clare of Assisi, into which is incorporated her vita; an open letter from a father to his spiritual children, attributed to a Franciscan monk; a sermon about suffering, death and the sacraments (an interpretation of John 16,21); and a meditation Von der Maß des gaistlichen Crutz, falsely attributed to Anselm of Canterbury.
Online Since: 10/07/2013
Dominican breviary for nuns, probably written in Southern Germany. The script and decoration follow 14th century models, but the presence of the saints St. Vincent Ferrer (canonized 1453/54) and St. Catherine of Siena (canonized 1461) suggest an origin not before the second half of the 15th century. Numerous initials with gold leaf and scroll ornamentation, illuminated borders on p. 21 and 168 (two dogs, misericordia and Justicia, hunting a stag, Verbum patris). This volume is from the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Katharina auf dem Nollenberg near Wuppenau (Thurgau); according to a note of ownership, it was the property of the convent at least since the 17th century. Since 1930 it has been a deposit of the episcopal library of St. Gall at the Abbey Library.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
An important copy, in terms of textual history, of the Reformatio Prediger Ordens by the Dominican Johannes Meyer (1422-1482) of Basel. This copy originated in the Dominican cloister of St. Katharina in St. Gall, written in 1483 by Sister Elisabeth Muntprat (1459-1531). This work, which was copied from a model belonging to the cloister of St. Katherine in Nurnberg, is a valuable source for the history of the Dominican order in the German speaking world.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
Compilation of mystical treatises, referred to as the Greith'scher Traktat for the first editor Carl Greith (1807 -1882, Bishop of St. Gall from 1862). The primary sources for the German text are Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso. The manuscript, which is defective at the end, is from the Convent of Dominican nuns of St. Katharina in St. Gall (later Wil), where it was probably written as well. Even the text itself may have been compiled by a scribe from the convent, based on a collection of texts. Since 1930 it has been a depositof the episcopal library of St. Gall at the Abbey Library.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
A collection of religious writings from the Dominican cloister of St. Katherina in St. Gall, written in the second half of the 15th century by the hand of an experienced woman scribe. The volume transmits a great number of sermon texts in versions important to textual history. It contains, among other things, seven so-called Engelberger Predigten, the oldest copy of Version B of the work De Nabuchodonosor by Marquard of Lindau († 1392), ten sermons by Johannes Tauler († 1361), an account of the life, works, and miracles of St. Dominic taken from the work Der Heiligen Leben, a tract attributed to Meister Eckhart: Vom klösterlichen Leben, and religious epigrams.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
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
Late medieval prayer book. The first part contains an incomplete Office of the Virgin (fol. 1r-45v) with variants for Advent and for the time period between Christmas and Candlemas (fol. 46r-51v), Absolutions, Benedictions, Orations and other short prayers (fol. 51v-68r). The Office of the Dead (fol. 69r-98v), including Vespers, Vigil, and prayers for the anniversaries of the deaths of priests, abbots and other deceased persons, is followed by prayers of indulgence (fol. 99r-111v). The beginning of the Office of the Virgin as well as possibly a calendar preceding it have been lost. The fact that the patron saints of St. Gall, St. Gall and St. Othmar (fol. 56r-56v; fol. 58r-58v), are the only saints mentioned other than Mary and St. Benedict suggests a provenience from the Monastery of St. Gall. The manuscript is written in Gothic script; it is decorated with numerous initials executed in gold leaf and with colorful vine scrolls in the margins of individual pages. The beginning of the Office of the Dead (fol. 69r) is adorned with a small miniature of a catafalque bordered by two Benedictine monks, one of which is holding a prayer book in his hands. The cut leather binding with the monogram S, created by a master whose name is unknown, is particularly noteworthy. The covers show the two Princes of the Apostles, Peter (front cover, with book and key) and Paul (back cover, with book and sword), surrounded by rich vine scroll ornamentation. The Abbey Library of St. Gall was able to acquire this manuscript in June 2006 at a Christie's auction in New York from the collection of the American brewer Cornelius J. Hauck (1893−1967) from Cincinnati (Ex Libris on the inside front cover).
Online Since: 09/23/2014
This volume is part of an antiphonary in three volumes that was produced in duplicate for the liturgy of Bern's Collegiate Church of St. Vincent, founded in 1484/85. The manuscript contains the entire winter portion of the Temporale, of the Sanctorale and of the Commune Sanctorum according to the liturgy of the Diocese of Lausanne. This volume is the duplicate of volume I, today held in the Catholic parish Saint-Laurent in Estavayer-le-Lac. Originally the volume was decorated with eight initials, of which only two remain (p. 71 and p. 429); they are attributed to the illuminator and copyist Konrad Blochinger, who also added corrections and annotations of the text to the other volumes of this group. After the introduction of the Reformation in the year 1528 and the subsequent secularization of the chapter, the entire group of antiphonaries was sold: four were sold to the city of Estavayer-le-Lac and were used there for the liturgy of the Collegiate Church of St. Lorenz; the other two — including this manuscript — reached Vevey under circumstances that remain unexplained. They are currently held in the historical museum there.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript contains the Psalms, ordered according to the arrangement of the liturgy of the hours, in Latin and each followed by the German translation. It was copied by two woman scribes, nuns in the Dominican Convent of St. Katharina in St. Gall. One hand is probably that of Angela Varnbühler. The binding consists of simple wooden tablets, covered in leather without any ornamentation, which is typical for the first phase of the St. Katharina scriptorium; it constitutes an additional element to attest to the origin of the manuscript.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This small volume contains various prayers in Latin, some of which are preceded by rubrics in German. All in one hand, without note of ownership; the limp vellum binding probably is original.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This work presents a guide to the Christian life in 24 speeches, each following a particular theme, put together using brief selections from more than 100 authors. In the late Middle Ages this was a favorite text for reading aloud at meals, especially the long and detailed life of Mary attributed to the “12th elder“, which combines the story of Christ's Passion with an account of the fate of Mary.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This manuscript contains a previously unknown copy of the German translation of De reparatione hominis, the principal work of the Franciscan Marquard of Lindau. In addition, it transmits several of the „Engelberger Predigten,“ thus completing the collection contained in Cod. Sang. 1919. It bears mentioning that both of these manuscripts are based on an earlier model, to which also the manuscripts Cod. Sang. 1004 and Wil M 47, which were created 50 years earlier, owe their (complementary) selection of „Engelberger Predigten“.
Online Since: 10/07/2013
Processionale copied by the Dominican nuns of the Convent of St. Katharina of St. Gall in the second half of the 15th century. The manuscript is written in textualis by the hand of the same nun who copied the Processionale M VIII, perhaps also the Processionale M VI as well as the manuscript which today has the signature Cod. Sang. 1914. It might be the manuscript ij nv́wi procesional, which was mentioned in the Chronicle (now Konventsbuch) in 1484 and which, according to the same source, was re-bound in the year 1485. The binding consists of simple wooden tablets, covered in leather without any ornamentation, which is typical for the first phase of the St. Katharina scriptorium; it constitutes an additional element to attest to the origin of the manuscript.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This manuscript contains a Dominican breviary preceded by a calendar with various necrological annotations. The codex was written by Cordula von Schönau, Dominican at the Abbey of St. Katharina in St. Gall, who signed the inside front cover and wrote the dated ex-libris on the first flyleaf. Cordula von Schönau's hand can also be found in Cod. Sang. 406 of the Abbey Library of Saint Gall, in Ms. 22 of the Leopold-Sophien-Bibliothek in Überlingen, and in Wil in Ms. 3 as well as in several parts of the “Schwesternbuch” (Book of sisters) and of the “Konventsbuch” (Chronicle).
Online Since: 10/04/2018
The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville appears in this St. Gall manuscript from the second third of the 9th century, which is characterized by reorgainizations of the text as well as numerous corrections and additions made during the same period. The schematic drawings are in color, and the flyleaf contains a fragment with Anglo-Saxon minuscule from the end of the 8th century.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This gradual is from the Dominican Convent St. Katharinental and represents one of the most important artworks of the Gothic period in Switzerland. Created around 1312 in the convent itself, it was probably illuminated in the area around Lake Constance. It contains more than 80 pen-flourish initials, more than 60 historiated initials and 5 I-initials, which consist of several historiated medallions. Several pieces of the last two I-initials, whose medallions were cut out and sold separately, are known today; they are dispersed among various museums and libraries. In addition to the initials, in the floral friezes there are represented numerous kneeling and praying Dominican nuns as well as other secular donors (e.g., 3v, 18v, 90r, 159v, 161r etc.). Until the 19th century, the gradual was in use in the convent; around 1820 it was ceded to an antiquarian book dealer in Konstanz, Franz Joseph Aloys Castell (1796-1844). After 1860 it was owned by the English collectors Sir William Amherst of Hackney and Sir Charles Dyson Perrins (1864-1958). Upon the death of the latter, his library was offered for sale through Sotheby's, and the manuscript was purchased by the Swiss Confederation with the support of the Gottfried Keller-Foundation and the Canton of Thurgau.
Online Since: 03/22/2017