This rather hefty tome (weighing nearly 17 Kilos) compiled around 1200 contains copies in Latin of major works of world-, church- and ethnic history; examples include the History of the World by Orosius, the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius of Caesarea, the Summa of Biblical history (Historica Scholastica) of the early Parisian scholastic Peter Comestor († ca. 1179), the history of the first crusade by Robert of Reims, the history of the Langobards by Paulus Diaconus, the History of the English Church and People by the Venerable Bede, and Einhard's Life of Charlemagne.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
A collection of vitae of 13 saints, among them – preserved only here – the vita of St Germanus of Moutier-Grandval in the canton of Jura, Switzerland, written by Bobolenus of Luxeuil ca. 690. A copy from the early 10th century.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
Sulpicius Severus (ca. 363-420), Vita of Saint Martin of Tours. One of the most elaborate hagiographic texts in the St. Gallen library.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
A collection of lives of ancient Roman saints (among them Sebastian, Agnes and Emerentia, Agatha, Lucia, Blandina) as well as a copy of the Vita of Saint Vedastus, Bishop of Arras, by Alcuin of York. The manuscript contains the sermon De ieiunio (On fasting) by St. Ambrose. The codex was written in about 900, most likely at the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Contains, among other items, the most reliable texts of the vitae of saints Richarius, Dionysius, Gregory the Great, Leodegarius, Vedastus, Nazarius, Mark the Evangelist, Kosmas and Damian.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
A carefully crafted copy of the life stories of St. Gall patron saints Gallus, Otmar and Wiborada from the first half of the 12th century, written in a late Carolingian minuscule script and ornamented with several elaborately decorated oversize initials.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Hagiographic manuscript collection containing the lives of numerous saints, especially the Benedictine saints, written and compiled in the Cloister of St. Gall between the 10th and 13th centuries. Among other items it contains the lives of saints Remaclus, Gangold, Willibrord (originally written by Alcuin of York), Ulrich of Augsburg (originally written by Abbot Bern of Reichenau) and Magnus (older and newer lives). Between the newer and older versions of the lives of Magnus is a pen sketch of the healing of a blind person in Bregenz on the Bodensee.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
A careful copy of the Vita of St Sylvester (Pope, 314-335) and the legend of the finding of the Cross by Helena, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, written in the monastery of St. Gall around 900.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
Contains, among other items, the only extant version of the Life of Saint Ambrose, composed by an unknown monk from Milan around 870, and the principal manuscript of Seneca's (1 BC - 65 AD) Apocolocyntosis, a satirical pamphlet on the Roman emperor Claudius (41 - 54 AD).
Online Since: 12/31/2005
This rather plain (in comparison to Codices 560, 562 und 564) copy of the lives of St. Gall's patron saints Gallus and Otmar by Reichenau Abbot and scholar Walahfrid Strabo, was made in the 10th century at the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
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
The St. Gall Passionarium novum: a large-format manuscript containing the lives of early Christian, early German and Carolingian saints, written in the cloister at St. Gall during the 9th and 10th centuries. This volume includes the oldest known, and indeed the best surviving copies of the life histories of saints Meinrad, Odilia, Hilarius, Trudpert, Verena, Leodgar and Pirmin.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
A manuscript compilation written in the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. The manuscript contains, among other items, the Lives of monastic father Antonius (by Athanasius), Paulus, Hilraion and Malchus (all by the church father Jerome), 12 homilies (Predigten) of Caesarius of Arles, additionals tracts by Caesarius and by Pseudo-Caesarius as well as the dicta of Martin of Braga addressed to Polemius entitled De correctione rusticorum3. The manuscript contains a very large number of quill tests, including two alphabetical verses (“Adnexique globum…” and “Ferunt ophyr…”) and a scribal saying: Scribere discce puer…
Online Since: 12/21/2009
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
The bulk of this manuscript is constituted by lives of the Apostles taken from the Elsässische Legenda Aurea, an important Upper German rendition of James of Voragine's Legendary (pp. 1–259, largely identical to the abridged legendary in Cod. Sang. 594). There then follows the mystical treatise Christus und die sieben Laden (pp. 260–277). The last two quires (pp. 281–328) contain a collection of spiritual, mostly mystical excerpts (Meister Eckhart, Jan van Ruusbroec) and, on the final pages, an indulgence prayer intended to be recited before an image of St. Gregory (indulgence promise dated 1456, pp. 326–328). Several pages before this prayer, there is an explicitly-connected accompanying prayer (pp. 319–320). Scarpatetti believes the scribe was Sister Endlin of the Franciscan convent St. Leonard in St. Gall. Later, the manuscript came into the possession of Johannes Kaufmann (ownership marks, p. 1, p. 277, and on the upper piece of the book block), and, even later, it belonged to a lay brother of the monastery of St. Gall (p. 328). Simple red initials provide the only decoration. The binding is red-colored pigskin of the fifteenth century, with clasps and with six of ten original bosses still in place. Some fragments used as quire guards can be seen (e.g., p. 52/53).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The paper manuscript from the second half of the fifteenth century contains three saints' lives in German: St. Benedict (pp. 1-57), St. Gall (pp. 63-294) and St. Otmar (pp. 299-372). While the first of these three lives is the German version taken from the Dialogues of Pope Gregory I, the two that follow resemble, at least partially, the translations of the Benedictine Friedrich Kölner. The texts are carefully copied in a single column by a single scribe and decorated with simple initials painted in red. The brown-leather binding, dating from the fifteenth/sixteenth century, is blind-stamped. At the latest by the sixteenth century, this copy belonged to the community of lay brothers of the abbey of St. Gall (p. 374).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The oldest German language version of the life history of St. Gall patron saint Notker Balbulus († 912), produced by Hans Conrad Haller (1486/90-1525), a member of the St. Gall religious community, for the Benedictine nuns of the Cloister of St. George above St. Gall in the year 1522. With decorated initials and borders. Following the vita are German prayers as well as a German translation of the tract Exhortationes ad monachos ("Von der geistlichen Ritterschaft der Mönche" or the "Exhortations to Monks") by Abbot Johannes Trithemius of Sponheim (1462-1516).
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 manuscript contains German-language lives of the saints: the “Lives of the Fathers” (Vitaspatrum) (pp. 5a–482a), the Life of Saint Meinrad (pp. 482a–501b) and the Life of Saint Fridolin, a translation of the Latin Vita of Fridolin written by Balther von Säckingen (pp. 502a–541a). The main scribe of this codex was Johannes Gerster, citizen of Säckingen, who identifies himself on p. 361 and p. 541, each time including a date. Several pen drawings: tree with blossoms and fruit (p. 361), young man in secular clothing (p. 482), sketches of dragons (p. 528 and p. 541), rosette (p. 541). In the 17th century, this manuscript was in the possession of the Convent of the Poor Clares in Freiburg i. Br. (note p. 3); only in the 18th century was it purchased for the Monastery of St. Gall.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
Collection manuscript, 15th century, from the Dominican convent of St. Katharina in St. Gall. This German-language manuscript is made up of five fascicles and contains a treatise on the Passion of Christ (“Vierzig Myrrhenbüschel vom Leiden Christi‟): the story of the foundation of the Dominican convent of St. Katharinental near Diessenhofen; the "Diessenhofener Schwesternbuch" and the "Tösser Schwesternbuch"; the legends of saints Elizabeth of Hungary, Margaret of Hungary, Ida of Toggenburg and Louis of Toulouse as well as a short excerpt from the Liber specialis gratiae of Mechthild of Hackeborn in German translation.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
This manuscript, probably written in the Benedictine Allerheiligen Abbey in Schaffhausen, contains, besides many shorter, often later added texts, a number of German-language lives of the saints (Maurice and the Theban Legion, Mary Magdalene, Elizabeth of Hungary), meditative texts (on Maundy Thursday, on the Passion of Christ, the Steinbuch of a certain Volmar), and the Book of Founders of Allerheiligen Abbey. The latter is a free adaptation of the 12th century legend of the founding of the Abbey on the Rhine. Using the cut leather (cuir-ciselé) technique, an artist cut central figures of the foundation legend (probably St. Benedict, Eberhard of Nellenburg, Burkhard of Nellenburg, Wilhelm of Hirsau?) into the front and back of the cover. On p. 204, there is a pen sketch of the saints Benedict and Bernard. At an unknown date, the manuscript came into the possession of the scholar Aegidius Tschudi of Glarus and, together with his literary estate, was bought by the Monastery of St. Gall in February 1768.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This manuscript, named after the person who commissioned it, Abbot Franz Gaisberg (abbot 1504-1529), contains assorted historiographic and hagiographic texts: a history of the abbots of St. Gall with coats of arms, epitaphs of St. Gall abbots and monks, the history of the St. Gall abbey (Casus sancti Galli) for the years 1200-1232 by Konrad von Fabaria, the anonymous Vita of Notker Balbulus († 912), together with a copy of the records of his beatification process in 1513 and the legends of saints Constantius, Minias, and Roch. The codex was written by the organist and calligrapher Fridolin Sicher of the St. Gall Abbey (1490-1546).
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This manuscript contains the Historia Regum Britannie by Geoffrey of Monmouth (around 1100-1154) (pp. 3-121, Incipit Prologus in brittannicam hystoriam); excerpts from the Collectanea rerum memorabilium by Solinus (pp. 122-128), and the Epistola presbiteri Johannis, the so-called Letter of Priester John (pp. 128-130), all in Latin. The volume is mentioned in the library catalog of 1461.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
This is a copy, significant in terms of textual history, of the Historia Longobardorum (History of the Langobards) by the Langobard monk and author Paulus Diaconus († 797/799), who was active in Montecassino. It was written in northern Italy, possibly in Verona, around 800 by a variety of hands. The volume has been at the monastery of St. Gall since the 9th century already.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
This extensive volume was copied at the turn of the thirteenth to fourteenth century by a single hand with a somewhat varying ductus. It contains a thematically ordered compilation of short examples and observations on virtues and vices (pp. 3–658) that may have been taken from Etienne de Bourbon or Humbertus de Romanis. This summa is made accessible by an index (pp. 659–661), written in a later hand, which hand also completed the foliation. The manuscript is rubricated throughout and contains two-line red and blue lombards. On the front flyleaf can be found a fragment of a charter from 1295. The red-leather binding has the remains of a medieval clasp.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Manuscript compilation containing a collection of fables (Ulrich Boner's Edelstein), decorated with simple pen drawings, farcical stories – preserved only here – by the so-called "Swiss Anonymous" as well as chronicle notes on the history of Zurich and Glarus.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
The Cantonal Secretary of Schwyz Hans Fründ († 1469), originally from Luzern, wrote a chronicle of the Old Zurich War in about 1447. This carefully written copy illustrated with the flags of the cantons of the Confederation was made by Rorschach chaplain and former Schwyz schoolmaster Melchior Rupp in the year 1476. The manuscript, in the final pages of which are transcribed certain records and documents from the years 1446 through 1450 related to the Old Zurich War, made its way into the possession of Glarus scholar Aegidius Tchudi (1505-1572) and from there, in the year 1768, into the Abbey Library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
A copy made in 1520 of the so-called “Klingenberger Chronik” (Klingenberg Chronicle) originally composed in 1450. It is the history of the Appenzell Wars (1401-1429) and of the Old Zurich War (1440-1446) from the point of view of the losing side: the eastern Swiss nobility. Illustrated with several color sketches of battle scenes and coats of arms. In addition this codex contains copies of legal documents, chronological notes, songs, and in the very front an incompletely preserved 1520 Strasbourg print edition by Sebastian Brant (1457/58-1521) of the biographies of Roman emperors Titus and Vespasian. This volume was obtained by the Abbey Library of St. Gall from Glarus humanities scholar Aegidius Tschudi (1505-1572) in 1768.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
German translation of a history of the First Crusade (1095/96-1099; Historia Hierosolymitana), composed by the monk Robertus Monachus from Reims. Written and illustrated with 22 colored pen drawings in the year 1465. As an appendix, the manuscript also contains around 9000 verses from the Österreichische Reimchronik (rhymed chronicle of Austria) by Ottokar of Steiermark describing the siege and destruction of the Crusaders' fortress in Akkon in the year 1291.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
Collection of council decisions and papal decrees up to the 8th century, an important St. Gallen copy from the 9th century.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
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 paper manuscript brings together various texts of pastoral theology on the sacraments, and particularly on confession, as well as commentaries on the doctrine of the faith as well as sermons. Among these texts are the Summula de summa Raimundi of Magister Adam [Adamus Alderspacensis] (pp. 99–138) and the Liber Floretus (pp. 139–151), both written in verse. The scribe identifies himself as Johannes in a colophon on p. 138. The manuscript presents numerous annotations from the hand of the learned and wandering St. Gall monk Gallus Kemli (1480/1481).
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This paper manuscript contains a commentary on Magister Adam's (Adamus Alderspacensis) Summula de summa Raimundi. A hand from the first half or middle of the fifteenth century prepared this copy in a book cursive script. Occasional pen-drawings decorate the text. Based on the binding, the manuscript has been in the Abbey of St. Gall since 1461 at the latest.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
The confessors' manual of Magister Simon borrows extensively from Raymond of Peñafort's Summa de poenitentia and Summa de matrimonio. The text contains an indictment that suggests an origin in the Diocese of Paris around 1250 or a little later. According to the ownership note on p. 1, the manuscript, written in two hands in the second half of the thirteenth century or the first half of the fourteenth century, entered the Abbey library of St. Gall by 1478 at the latest.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript from the 2nd half of the 12th century preserves the Abbreviatio Decreti "Quoniam egestas", an abridged version of the Decretum Gratiani, complete with glosses. The text represents the oldest datable record of the study of the Decretum Gratiani in France. The script and book decoration indicate that the manuscript was probably produced in Engelberg during the time of Frowin. Since 1461, it has been at the monastery of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
This extensive manuscript miscellany was written by the secular priest Matthias Bürer. According to the numerous colophons, he finished the copies of the texts in the period from ca. 1448 to 1463 in Kenzingen (Baden-Württemberg) and in many places in Tyrol. The manuscript transmits among other things several theological treatises, a confessors' manual, two mirrors of confession, an ars moriendi (“the art of dying”), the Acts of the Apostles with the Glossa ordinaria, sermons, as well as Books II–IV of Pope Gregory the Great's Dialogues. After the death of Matthias Bürer in 1485, the manuscript went, along with other books, to the Abbey of St. Gall, in accordance with a 1470 agreement.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This ecclesiastical law manuscript contains a collection of papal decretals generally known as the Breviarium extravagantium or Compilatio prima, compiled by Bernhard of Pavia, the first decretalist, in about 1189-1190. In addition to older glosses of unspecified origin, on some pages next to the two columns of the Textus inclusus there are extracts taken from the first review of a set of glosses by Tankred of Bologna, which he issued in about 1210-1215. The text, the initials, and the glosses date from the end of the 12th century or possibly the beginning of the 13th century in France.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
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
The so-called Wandalgarius manuscript containing the Lex Romana Visigothorum, the Lex Salica and the Lex Alamannorum. An important legal manuscript, written and decorated with numerous colored initials and a miniature of a crowned lawgiver in the year 793 by the cleric Wandalgarius in Lyon. It contains the laws of the Visigoths (Lex Romana Visigothorum), the Salian Franks (Lex Salica) and the Alemanni (Lex Alamannorum). It is the oldest precisely dated manuscript in the Abbey Library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/12/2006
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
This parchment manuscript contains the Institutiones Iustiniani (pp. 3a–91a), that is, the manual of Roman Law produced in 533 under the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian, as well as the Libri feudorum (pp. 91b–125b), that is, Lombard feudal law, each of which accompanied by the Glossa ordinaria, the standard apparatus, compiled by Accursius. The texts and their surrounding glosses were produced in the 14th century, and probably in France. Based on the annotations of the legal scholar Johannes Bischoff († 1495), a conventual of the Abbey of St. Gall, this manuscript was in the Abbey of St. Gall since at least the last quarter of the fifteenth century.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
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
A compendium of 39 medical texts by known and unknown authors, produced in the second half of the 9th century, most likely in northern Italy, already obtained at an early date by the Abbey Library of St. Gall. This codex includes—sometimes in unique exemplars—an alphabetically ordered Greek-Latin herbal glossary, the treatise De re medica by one Pseudo-Plinius (Physica Plinii), and a longer medical tract entitled Liber Esculapii.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
This miscellany begins with a few short medical texts: pp. 5–6 Johannicius (Hunain ibn Ishāq), Isagoge ad Techne Galieni (a reworking of Galen's Ars Parva, in the Latin translation of Constantinus Africanus), § 1–9; pp. 6–7 and 8 have a few verses from the Regimen sanitatis salernitanum, a didactic poem in hexameter on medicine; pp. 7–8 contains a short text on the proportions of combined medicatons, inc. Gradus est sedecupla proporcio; pp. 9–10 a text on bloodletting, with the title in red De flebotomia, inc. In flebotomia quedam generales condiciones sunt; pp. 10–11 a Latin-German glossary of plant names, with the rubric title Nomina herbarum, inc. Plantago Wegerich; pp. 11–12 a text on uroscopy, the beginning of which a later hand in the margin indicates with in the margin with the title De urinis, inc. Si urina alba fuerit. Pages 12–14 are written in a later hand and contain, contrary to Scherrer, not further medical material, but rather an exemplum or exempla from the Vitaspatrum (In vitas patrum legitur quod quidam interrogavit senem quare cogitaciones prave inpedirent oraciones [?]). After the medical part comes on pp. 15–89 a Latin version of the Lumen animae, a collection of natural history exempla for preaching. On the margins of the page appear small diagrams concerning the contents of the chapter as well as additions to the authorities named in the text. The Lumen animae is the only text in the manuscript to begin with a larger red initial and ends on p. 89 with the rubric colophon Finito libro sit laus et gloriae Christo. The next two pages (pp. 90–91) contain, among other things, calendar verses and a text on the planets. Pages 92–97 have a Latin version of the “Letter from Heaven” or the “Sunday Letter”, a letter supposedly that fell from heaven concerning the celebration of Sunday, inc. Incipit epistola dei de celo vere missa petro apostolo ab omnibus diebus dominicis qualiter sit colendus dies dominicus. A prayer follows on pp. 97–98, inc. O dilecte Iesu Christus, felix est qui te amat. The final pages (pp. 98–101) contain further exempla written in the same later hand as pp. 12–14, inc. Legitur quod quedam mulier […] venisset ad beatum Hillarionem pro sterilitate tollenda. The manuscript is bound in a grey cardboard binding from the eighteenth century; the earlier parchment binding with a spine label bearing the shelfmark 758 survives, but it has been cut apart and stapled to the first and last quires, respectively (p. 3 and between p. 24-25; p. 102 and between p. 88-89).
Online Since: 12/20/2023
This manuscript is predominantly written in one hand, but with different layouts (lines per page). It chiefly contains excerpts that an anonymous Cistercian gathered together from theological and philosophical works, as stated by the rubric on p. 7 (Incipit libellus exceptionum collectarum de diversis operibus cuiusdam fratris ordinis Cysterciensis). The text begins on page 7 with Omnes naturaliter scire protestante philosopho. The rubrics in the margin and in the text indicate themes such as intercession (De suffragiis ecclesie, p. 19), christology (De nativitate domini, p. 25; De plenitudine gratie Christi, p. 27; De voluntate Christi, p. 31; De passione Christi, p. 33), purgatory (De acerbitate purgatorii, p. 88), memory and reason (De memoria, p. 124; De dignitatibus rationalis creature, p. 135), and virginity (De virginitate, p. 372). The chapters come at least in part from Ps.-Albertus Magnus, Compendium theologicae veritatis. The first pages (pp. 1–6) contain a text on free will, clearly connected to Peter Lombard's Sententiae, Book 2, inc. Liberum arbitrium est facultas rationis et voluntatis, qua bonum eligitur gratia assistente vel malum eadem desistente. The library stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer, from 1553–1564, appears on p. 422. The binding is made of a dark leather cover, over which a lighter leather sleeve with overhanging edges has been placed to protect the bookblock.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
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 volume brings together two codicological units copied independently from each other in different periods. The first part (pp. 1-158) includes the first three books of the Sentences by Magister Bandinus (pp. 1-154), the author of an abridged version of the eponymous work by Peter Lombard (Libri quatuor sententiarum). Here taking the place of the fourth book is a short treatise on women, De muliere forti (pp. 154-158). Several fourteenth-century hands produced this copy. The second part (pp. 159-234) of this codex contains a treatise on baptism, dating from the twelfth century (pp. 160-234). On the basis of the stamp of the Abbot Diethelm Blarer (p. 158), the first part was present in the library of St. Gall since at least the middle of the sixteenth century. This two-part manuscript received its current cardboard binding probably towards the end of the eighteenth century or at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Ildefons von Arx wrote the table of contents (p. V1).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The manuscript contains the Sentences of Magister Bandinus, author of an abridged version of Peter Lombard's Libri quatuor sententiarum. As Ildefons von Arx observes (p. 1), the text is identical to that of Cod. Sang. 769 except that this copy has the fourth book, dedicated, like that of the Lombard, to the sacraments (pp. 147-186). Copied in two columns, rubricated and decorated with simple red initials at the beginning of chapters, the text has been revised, corrected, and completed by additions.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Sermons form the bulk of this moral-theological miscellany. It is written by multiple hands. The initials have not been added to the first, fragmentary text, written in a single column (pp. 29–74). The next text, written in two columns, has the title De purificatione written in the top margin, and begins Sanctificavit tabernaculum suum [1 Par 22,1] Altissimus… (pp. 79a–102b). The confessionary De septem viciis, with the incipit Superbia est tumor… (pp. 105–120), is written in one column and illuminated elaborately with six black and red word trees with geometric patterns on the branches (pp. 107, 109, 111, 113, 115 und 120) as well as the ten commandments, circled, along with their contraries on p. 117. This is followed by the didactic poem on virtuous living, Modus vivendi secundum deum, written in a single column (pp. 121-124). There is then a letter from a Master Samuel to a Rabbi Ysaak, allegedly translated by a Spanish friar called Alfonsus Boni Hominis. The text is written in a single column on pp. 125-153. The Sermones de sanctis by the Cistercian Konrad von Brundelsheim (Soccus) that follow are written, frequently corrected and annotated, in an early gothic book cursive on pp. 173-389. The first initial is red, the others either were never added or in brown, some with strapwork inclusions on p. 218, 247 and 323. There is a tab on p. 219 and a manicule on p. 266. Michael of Massa's Tractatus de passione Domini (Version Angeli pacis…) with allegorical introduction and dialogues (pp. 389-470) is the last text. The colophon of the last part dates the work's completion to 8th March 1427 (p. 470). The shelfmark plate “T 17” on the wooden board binding with leather cover and a plaited endband corresponds to the records in the 1461 library catalogue of St. Gallen. It therefore suggests that this volume was likely compiled and bound in the mid-fifteenth century. The St. Gallen librarian Jodokus Metzler glued a table of contents onto the inside front pastedown. Pages 1-8, 17-24 and 169-172 contain only the ruling lines for a two-column commentary with extensive marginal gloss, but no text. Other pages are completely blank, without even a page layout: 9–16, 25–28, 49–54, 75–78, 103–104, 155–168 and 471–483. There is an entry made on p. 484. The leaf pp. 53-54 is loose. There was a loose, reused fragment with a hand drawn onto it between p. 180 and 181.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
The first quire transmits various texts written non-uniformly (pp. 5-20). After a short, one-column text De excommunicatione (p. 22) is Jean Gerson's De audienda confessione (pp. 23a–70a). There then follow two works ascribed to Augustine in the Middle Ages, namely De spiritu et anima (cap. I-XXXIII on pp. 70a–92b) and Speculum (pp. 92b–109b); Bernard of Clairvaux's De gratia et libero arbitrio (pp. 110a–138a); Bonaventura's De compositione hominis exterioris under the title Speculum monachorum (pp. 139a–154a) and Lucius Annaeus Seneca's De quattuor virtutibus cardinalibus (pp. 154a–166b). Pages 23a-109b are written in a two-column textualis with red headings and blue and red alternating pen-flourished initials as well as pieds-de-mouche. On pp. 110a-166b only red ink was used for such highlights. Between pp. 6 and 7 a slip of paper with writing is pasted in. On the lower margin distinctiones are often added (pp. 30–34, 72–76, 82–85, 111, 113, 121). Within the ruling lines of column 138a is a number-matrix. In column 138b there is a pen trial (ANNO with flourishes). There is a fair amount of marginalia. The pasteboard binding from the 17th or 18th century has a white leather cover with doubled scudding decoration as well as two green laces. The table of contents was added by Pius Kolb (p. 1).
Online Since: 09/06/2023
The Summa de virtutibus et vitiis by Guilelmus Peraldus is the primary content of this volume (pp. 9a-290b). This principal text is in two-columns in very small textualis script (50 lines per side), with red, blue and red and blue pen-flourished initials as well as tendril extenders. A small collection of sermons was added on the empty leaves in the fourteenth century (pp. 291a-296b). There is a table of contents on pp. 5a-7b with some page numbers added later. The volume is designed for easy reference: red side-titles and red column numbers are original. At the beginning and end are alphabetical indices (pp. 3a-4b and 297a-298b) written by a hand likely from the fifteenth century. On p. 298 the St. Gallen library stamp 1553-1564 of Abbot Diethelm Blarer can be seen. Marginal titles and marginalia have been added by various hands. On the front pastedown (p. 2!) is the title Summa virtutum. The pasteboard binding is covered by brown leather. The endband is finished in red and green.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
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 miscellany of Aristotelian logic and dialectics (AL 1160) was produced as a single work and written by various hands in textualis. It was then commented in the margins by various hands, sometimes with multiple hands in the same comment. The first part comprises the Isagoge by Porphyry (pp. 1-17), Aristotle's Categoriae (pp. 17-46) and De interpretatione (pp. 46-63) in the translation of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, the anonymous twelfth-century Aristotelian compilation Liber sex principiorum (pp. 63-78) and Boethius' own De divisione (pp. 78-96). The second part begins with Boethius' De differentiis topicis (pp. 97-148). The third part contains Boethius' translation of Aristotle's Topica (pp. 149-287). This is followed by Boethius' translation of Aristotle's De sophisticis elenchis (pp. 288-322). The fourth part begins with Boethius' translation of Aristotle's Analytica priora (pp. 323-392). The remainder of p. 392 is ruled but otherwise empty. Page 393 is completely blank. Page 394 was used for notes. The fifth part contains the Latin translation of Aristotle's Analytica posteriora (pp. 395-434). The volume has a green (or blue) cover decorated with large rhombi (ink or scudding decoration). The endband is finished in a natural shade of blue. The volume originally had two eyelet fastenings with simple holes stamped through the bottom board. There are multiple names noted on the top pastedown: dasz buch ist [getilgt] wirt oder sinez bruoder [sic] […] Rug Hanns […] Jacob Wirt von Sant Gallen […] Maister Cuonrat […]. Page 41 is stamped with the 1553-1564 St. Gallen library stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer. Numerous details have been added: manicules (p. 36, 93, 276, 302, 352, 416, 432 und 434), topical diagrams (p. 132), a tournament scene (p. 241), a banderole with the year ·1·5·6·7· written on it (p. 244, 245), nudes (p. 254, 432, rear pastedown), vignettes (p. 300), a secant (p. 350), Aristotelian categories (p. 354, 366) as well as crowns (rear pastedown).
Online Since: 09/06/2023
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
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 composite manuscript from the 11th century, possibly written at the Abbey of St. Gall. The main content of the codex consists of commentaries by Boethius on Cicero's Topica and on the Isagoge by the neoplatonic philosopher Porphyrius († after 300), Porphyrius's Isagoge itself and assorted other texts. Among these are, for example, small pieces by Walahfried Strabo (Regulae metricae; a letter with the incipit Domino meo benedictus salus et vita) and by Marius Victorinus, a 4th century Roman scholar (De generatione divina).
Online Since: 04/15/2010
A painstakingly annoted copy of the work De natura animalium tractatus XIX by Aristotle, in the Latin version by the scholar Michael Scotus († ca. 1235), written during the 13th century, with an opening "I" initial, partly decorated in gold, showing a man sitting before a book. In 1453 this manuscript was owned by one Johannes Kalf from Wangen (in Allgäu); bound in a Kopert (limp vellum) binding.
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
Copy of De consolatione philosophiae by Boethius, produced in the 10th century in the monastery of St. Gall, with various Latin and Old High German glosses.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The first part of the manuscript transmits on pp. 3–44 the Canones in motibus caelestium corporum, instructions for use and an explanation of the tables that follow, along with an addition in the same script and gathering on pp. 44–46. In the second part follows on pp. 47–203 the Tabulae Toletanae. These are tables to compare various computations of time, on the calculation of planetary movements and eclipses, on spherical astronomy and with repertories of stars and places. The small script, between a Gothic minuscule and a simplified textualis, dates rather from the second half of the thirteenth century or the first half of the fourteenth century (contrary to Scherrer), and the tendency of the round terminal s to finish below the line suggests Italian origin. On p. 204 there is a Zodiac, the Marian hymn Gaude virgo gratiosa (AH 9, p. 54) and a further, roughly contemporary text. According to the entry N. 102 on p. 3, the manuscript came to the Abbey Library in 1768 as part of the legacy of Ägidius Tschudi (1505–1572). The cardboard binding with leather-reinforced spine and corners, along with the paper bifolia that serve as pastedown and flyleaves (pp. 1/2 and p. 205/206), come from the decades around 1800.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
This manuscript, probably not written in St. Gall, contains Cicero's Topica on pp. 1-21 (defective at the end), and Boethius' commentary on that work on pp. 21-216. On the inside of the front cover, one can discern the negative impression of a page from the Edictum Rothari (Cod. Sag. 730, p. 17).
Online Since: 12/13/2013
School manuscript from the monastery of St. Gall, containing Cassiodorus'Institutiones saecularium litterarum (an educational book on the "Septem Artes Liberales").
Online Since: 12/31/2005
This manuscript (also called the “St. Galler Epenhandschrift”) is written in two columns in a very uniform manner by three anonymous primary scribes and four secondary scribes; it offers a fine version of a unique collection of Middle High German heroic and knightly poetry. It contains “Parzival” (pp. 5−288; version D) by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Song of the Nibelungs (pp. 291−416; version B) with the following lament (pp. 416−451; version B), the poem “Karl der Grosse” (pp. 452−558; version C) by der Stricker, the verse narrative “Willehalm” (pp. 561−691; version G) by Wolfram von Eschenbach, as well as five sung gnomic verses by Friedrich von Sonnenburg (p. 693; version G). Until 1768, when the manuscript was purchased by the Monastery of St. Gall, this volume certainly also contained fragments of the epic poems “Die Kindheit Jesu” by Konrad von Fussesbrunnen and Unser vrouwen hinvart by Konrad von Heimesfurt. These two works were removed from the manuscript of epic poems before 1820 and are now held in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin (mgf 1021) and the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe (Cod. K 2037), respectively. The manuscript, illustrated with 78 uniformly executed initials by unknown artists from the miniature painting school of Padua, was commissioned by a wealthy client who was interested in Middle High German epic poems. The first owner known by name was the Swiss polymath and universal scholar Aegidius Tschudi (1505−1572) from Glarus, whose estate of manuscripts the Monastery of St. Gall was able to acquire in 1768.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
This manuscript, written in 1499 under the schoolmaster Cunradus Reuschman of Lindau (note on p. 488), contains predominantly works by ancient writers, as well as several works by 15th century Italian authors. All texts have commentaries, and the more important works are generally preceded by an argumentum. Often there are several pages left blank between the texts. In the margins, there are several simple pen sketches (pp. 498–501, 504, 511, 513; on p. 706 and 712 sketches of maps of the world). P. 3 contains a full-page pen sketch of the city of Troy. The individual texts are: Publius Baebius Italicus, Ilias latina (pp. 5–51); Virgil, Georgica (pp. 57–146); Horace, Epistolae (pp. 148–230); Horace, Carmen saeculare (pp. 231–234); Lactantius, De ave Phoenice (pp. 234–241); Persius, Satires (pp. 245–282); Margarita passionis, inc. Cum prope pasca foret (pp. 283–288); Seneca, De providentia (pp. 289–298); Augustinus Datus, Elegantiolae (pp. 323–361); Carmen de dolo et astutia cuiusdam mulieris, inc. Summe procus caveat ducatur ne mala coniunx (pp. 362–365); hymns (pp. 366–388); Parvulus philosophiae moralis (pp. 395–417); Dominicus Mancinus, De quattuor virtutibus (pp. 419–488); Hieronimus de Vallibus, Jesuida (pp. 491–514); Matthaeus Bossus, Oratio in beata coena domini (pp. 515–524); Ps.-Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Comoedia Poliscena (pp. 539–549); Terence, Andria (pp. 563–621); Virgil, Bucolica (pp. 629–660); Horace, Ars poetica (pp. 661–678); Horace, Epodes (pp. 679–692); Ps.-Virgil, Moretum (pp. 692–694); Ps.-Ovid, Remedia amoris, inc. Qui fuerit cupiens ab amica solvere colla (pp. 694–695); Ps.-Ovid, De arte amandi, inc. Si quem forte iuvat subdi sapienter amori (pp. 695–698); a treatise on punctuation, De kanone punctorum (pp. 699); Virgil, Aeneis, lib. 1 and 3 (pp. 701–726 and 741–760); Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae (pp. 765–802); Sallust, De bello Iugurthino, incomplete (pp. 803–804); Seneca, Epistolae morales (pp. 812–853).
Online Since: 10/04/2018
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan, 39-65 AD), "De bello civili" (also known as the "Pharsalia"). Epic poem on the civil war between Pompey and Caesar (48 - 45 BC).
Online Since: 06/12/2006
This codex consists of four independently produced parts, probably not written in St. Gall: 1. Horace, Odae (incomplete at the end, with some glosses); 2. Lucan, Pharsalia (incomplete at the end, heavily glossed; 3. Sallust, De coniuratione Catilinae (complete) and De bello Iugurthino (with some chapters missing); 4. Ovid, Amores (incomplete at the end, heavily glossed) and a page from the Metamorphoseon.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This codex contains the best-known work by the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius, his epic poem about the war of the Seven Against Thebes (Thebais), along with metrical argumenta on lib. II–IV. Two quires containing lib. IV, V. 578 – lib. VII, V. 30 (between pp. 75 and 76) are missing, as well as a bifolium with lib. IX, 671–751 and lib. X, 5–84 (between pp. 128 and 129 as well as 132 and 133). The beginnings of the books and of the metrical argumenta (p. 3, 21, 40, 58/59, 92, 112, 132, 173) are accentuated with initials, partly in two colors (red/green). There are numerous marginal and interlinear glosses, mainly from the 12th and 13th century. On pp. 196–197, probably in the same hand, is the Planctus Oedipodis, Inc. Diri patris infausta pignora (Oedipus' lament about the death of his sons). The poem comprises 21 rhyming stanzas of four lines each, the first of which has neumes on a staff of four lines. This form of notation argues against the manuscript's originating in St. Gall.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
Ovid's Pontics constitute the only text of this gothic-minuscule manuscript copied by a single thirteenth-century hand. Divided into four books in modern editions, the 46 letters, poetic elegies related to the poet's exile in Tomis, here follow without interruption. Simple initials painted in red distinguish the letters from each other until p. 66; afterwards, there are only the blank spaces for the initials that were not produced. In addition to maniculae in the margins, there are numerous interlinear and marginal glosses, which more or less date to the same period as the text's script.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Manuscript compilation consisting mainly of grammatical texts, written in a variety of hands in about 800 in the monastery of St. Gall. Some of the texts in this codex are the oldest extant versions, and the text of the anonymous treatise De scansione heroyci versus et specie eorum is the only known surviving version in the world. Grammars include the Ars major and Ars minor by Donatus, a complilation of the two Donatus grammars by Peter of Pisa, the work De metris des Mallius Theodorus, the Ars grammatica by Diomedes, and both De arte metrica and De schematibus et tropis by the Venerable Bede.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Manuscript compilation from the St. Gallen scriptorum, dating from around 800 and containing numerous grammatical treatises.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
This fourteenth-century paper manuscript has the oldest work written by Conrad of Mure (ca. 1210–1281), the magister of the chapter school and canon of the Zürich Grossmünster. The Novus Graecismus is a school encyclopedia (with a focus on grammar and vocabulary) in verse, of which eleven fourteenth- and fifteenth-century copies survive (ed. A. Cizek, München, 2009). The text itself is a reworking of Eberhard of Béthune's Graecismus, produced at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Abbey Library of St. Gall's copy, written in a dense cursive on a single column, is incomplete. It includes the preface (inc.: Notitiam gramatice saltem… p. 3), book I (pp. 4–100) and 80 verses of book II (pp. 100–106), that is, two of the work's ten books. Parchment quire guards with fragments of text reinforce the codex (p. 18, 46, 70, 94). The manuscript has a modern cardboard binding with a printed fragment.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
The parchment manuscript contains Alexander of Villedieu's Doctrinale with the commentary of Master Bertholdus Turicensis. The colophon (p. 123) states the name of this commentator from Zurich, and of the copyist, a certain “Hermannus”, but nothing more is known about them. The volume, laid out in two columns, is carefully articulated: every hexameter of the Doctrinale is generally divided into paragraphs of one or more verses and is copied in a larger size than the commentaries that follow. This commentary is more or less as long as the verses and is moreover full of abbreviations, unlike the text being commented. Elegant pen-flourished initials, typical of upper-Rhine illuminations of the beginning of the fourteenth century, appear throughout this copy. The seal of abbot Diethelm Blarer (p. 59) confirms that the book was at the Abbey Library since 1553–1564 at the latest.
Online Since: 12/20/2023
School manuscript for the St. Gall monastery school, containing the Greek grammar by Dositheus and a prose version of Aratos of Soloi's didactic poem Phainomena which is illustrated with a pen drawing.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
The Irish Priscian manuscript of St. Gallen: a copy of the Latin Institutiones Grammaticae by the grammarian Priscian of Caesarea (6th century) with over 9000 glosses, among them 3478 in the Old Irish language. The basis for the reconstruction of the Old Irish language. Contains numerous elaborate pen initials. Written in an Irish scriptorium (Bangor?, Nendrum?) around 845.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
The oldest book in the German language, the so-called "Abrogans" manuscript from around 790, containing the earliest German translation of the Lord's Prayer and Credo.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
This quarto volume brings together various texts, mostly shorter in length, of which the bulk are spiritual essays and prayers, including: a treatise on the Passion (pp. 4–38), prayers on the Passion (pp. 68–84), prayers for the canonical hours (pp. 88–91), a treatise on the Fall (pp. 92–107), and another on the quattuor gemitus turturis (pp. 112-159); a Biblia pauperum indicates numerous saints and for what emergencies they can be invoked (pp. 160–193). Among the spiritual texts, there are also a few in German (e.g., pp. 218–220, 238). Two letters concern St. Gall: one is addressed to Abbot Eglolf (pp. 40–43), another to monks who have fled to St. Gall (pp. 85–88). Additional texts treat the Council of Constance and monastic reforms; also here there is a reference to St. Gall (pp. 239–250). The last quire is composed of parchment leaves and could have come from the fourteenth century; it contains a grammar and medical texts (pp. 251–266). The manuscript has a limp binding; for guards was used a German-language parchment charter, of which the year 1415 and the name of a ulrichen leman burger ze arbon are still legible.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This manuscript contains as its main text (pp. 1-180) the so-called Waldregel, an Early Modern High German translation of the Regula solitariorum (rule for hermits), which was written in the 9th or 10th century by the monk Grimlaicus, who probably was from Lorraine. The Waldregel is supplemented by further texts on the topic of the hermit's life and poverty: pp. 180–222 Hie fachet an ein ander buoch von der bewerung einsidliches lebens …, Inc. Die muoter der heilge kristenheit het zweyerhand geistlicher lüte; pp. 222–277 Dz ander buoch von bewerung armuot, Inc. Gelobet sy got vnser herre vnd got iesus cristus; pp. 277–284 [sermon] Inc. Fünf stuk sind dar inne begriffen. On pp. 285–289, prayers have been recorded. The decoration consists of simple red Lombard initials, on p. 1 and 3 with green pen-flourish. Except for the prayers, the manuscript is a copy of Cod. Sang. 930. It was the property of the hermitage of the church of St. George outside the walls of St. Gall. Three spiritual women who lived there in the 1430s are depicted in simple pen and ink drawings on the back pastedown.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
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 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
The five parts of this manuscript were written by various scribes, among them the St. Gall Conventual Hans Conrad Haller (1486–1525), who was calligrapher, priest and, from 1523 until 1525, librarian of the monastery of St. Gall; he wrote various works such as a missal and other spiritual literature, as well as a life of Notker Balbulus. In Cod. Sang. 1006 Haller frequently left colophons, e.g., on p. 531 and p. 540. The five parts of the manuscript contain the following texts: part I (pp. 13–45) Prayers on the Passion and – partly in fragments – liturgical plays, among them the Ludus ascensionis on pp. 33-44. Part II (pp. 46–65) a prayer to St. Dorothea, which, according to the scribe, was translated from the Latin and written down in 1430 (pp. 61-62). Part III (pp. 66-80) Der Seele Klageby Heinrich der Teichner. Teil IV (pp. 81–95) liturgy of the hours on the Passion of Christ. Part V (pp. 96-762) a wide variety of devotional texts such as prayers and meditations, among them on pp. 188-190 Ein babst lag uurmals an dem tod, pp. 406–486 St. Anselmi Fragen an Maria and pp. 508–524 a German Salve Regina in rhyme.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
The largest part of this manuscript contains sermons copied in two columns by multiple scribes (pp. 1-144). The various homilies are sometimes introduced by rubrics and small, alternating red-and-blue initials. The last part (pp. 145-157) is smaller in size (19 x 17 cm) and is copied for the most part in a single column; it contains leonine verses and versified sayings. Possessed by the St. Gall Abbey Library since at least the mid-sixteenth century (see the stamp of Abbot Diethlem Blarer, p. 120), the manuscript was rebound in the seventeenth/eighteenth century in a binding of blank parchment glued on cardboard, which closes with green silk laces.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
The manuscript was written in a textualis probably in the second half of the thirteenth or the first half of the fourteenth century. The old foliation runs from I to CLXXXIII and from CCLXV to CCLXXX (pencil foliation: 184–209). The current foliation is A–B in pencil and then I–CLXXXIII in red ink, and finally 184–216 in pencil. The table of contents, inserted in the fourteenth century on the last, separate gathering (fol. 211r–214v) uses Roman numerals from I to CCLXXVIII without gaps. This shows that several quires were lost at some point after the production of the table of contents, a fact that was already noted on the table of contents in the fifteenth century with “vacat”. The surviving leaves transmit, in the first place, sermons of Berthold of Regensburg († 1272) on Sundays and the Feasts of Saints (fol. Ir–CLXXIIIIv) and then – owing to the mentioned loss of leaves – only the end of his sermon on the common of saints (fol. 184r–184v). In between and afterwards are other sermons (Sermones ad religiosos, Sermones ad speciales) or spiritual texts by the same hand, although at the end (fol. 209r–210r) by another hand. According to the table of contents, there follow (fol. 214r–215v) further entries, probably from the fourteenth century, including a few in the German language. According to the ownership mark Liber sancti Galli on fol. Br, the codex was in the Abbey of St. Gall in the fifteenth century at the latest.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This manuscript contains around a third of the text of Jacobus of Voragine's Legenda aurea, where some texts appear twice. The first part (pp. 1–267) begins with Advent and ends with All Souls' Day and the consecration of a church. The title written over the first text (Sermo de adventu domini, p. 1) is misleading and has led to the misidentification of the manuscript's contents as sermones. The second part (pp. 271–665) begins with Matthias (24 February) and ends with Thomas (21 December). This collection has been supplemented with a few texts from the so-called Provincia-Appendix (Oswald, Ulrich, Pelagius, Verena, Gallus, Otmar, Konrad), which have been added at the appropriate place in the ecclesiastical year. Between the two parts (pp. 267–270) can be found seven short exempla, the first three of which are based on texts from the Verba seniorum. Two scribes took part in producing the manuscript. The change in hand on p. 382/383 (at the end of a quire, but in the middle of a word) is accompanied by a change in decoration; while in the preceding part only a few multi-line red initials are adorned with simple red pen-flourishes, in the following part the pen-flourishes are two-color (red/blue), more luxuriant and finer. The pen-flourishes resemble those in the manuscript Fribourg, BCU, ms. L 34, but in comparison is somewhat less refined. Noticeable in the first part are found multi-color decorative stitching and holes filled with needlework (p. 55/56, 75/76, 115/116, 123/124, 131/132, 143/144 und 147/148). On the upper margin of pp. 7–664 can be found an old foliation (III–CCCXXXI). The cardboard binding, covered in blank parchment and adorned with green-silk ribbons as clasps, dates from the eighteenth/nineteenth century.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
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 manuscript predominantly contains sermons. It begins (pp. 1–279) with the Speculum ecclesiae by Honorius Augustodunensis (around 1080 – 1150/1151). This is followed by 20 verses each on virtues and vices in Leonine hexameter (pp. 279–281), each followed by a brief explanation in prose. On the otherwise blank p. 282, there is a pen and ink drawing of the Apostle Paul. Following on pp. 283–411, there are the Sermones by Mauritius de Sulliaco (Maurice de Sully, around 1120 – 1196), with a list of chapters and a prologue on p. 283. On pp. 411-414, there is a commentary on the Apostles' Creed (Inc. Quo nomine vocatur hec doctrina apostolica symbolum, Expl. latine dicitur vere fideliter fiat). The very short text on p. 415 deals with Communion for the excommunicated (Inc. Communicans excommunicato, Expl. ad correctionem communicabis excommunicato).
Online Since: 03/22/2018
St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch's (1462-1491) book of heraldry, containing 1,626 coats of arms of prominent people from the laity and the clergy, mostly from the southern region of Germany. This heraldic book was probably prepared in the Heidelberg workshop of Hans Ingeram for an unknown customer from the area between the Neckar River and the Upper Rhine. In the 1480s St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch purchased the volume and had numerous coats of arms from Swiss and German border areas added in the back pages; these were drawn by Winterthur artist Hans Haggenberg. One of the most important heraldic record books of the 15th century.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
Book of heraldry by the universal scholar Aegidius Tschudi (1505-1572) of Glarus, produced at some point between 1530 and 1572. It contains more than 2,000 coats of arms of the aristocratic families of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Many of the coats of arms include genealogical explanations in Tschudi's hand.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
The Carolingian Plan of St. Gall is the oldest surviving architectural drawing of the Western world, and thus it is a monument of European cultural history. It consists of five pieces of sheep parchment, sewn together, and later folded to quarto format. On the front, there is an orginal plan of a monastery complex with 52 buildings, 333 explanatory annotations in Latin, and a letter of dedication. Probably based on models, it was created at Reichenau under Abbot Heito or Erlebald for (Abbot?) Gozbert of St. Gall (819 or around 827/830); annotations were added by the Librarian Reginbert and a younger brother. On the formerly blank back side (and on the erasure at the lower left on the front), was added the Vita beati Martini episcopi based on Sulpicius Severus (created in St. Gall at the end of the 12th century).
Online Since: 03/20/2014
This manuscript was written by the St. Gall monk Jakob an der Rüti (1562-1615), probably for private use. The first part (f. 1r-125r) contains responsories for the principal feast days of the liturgical year with melodies in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") and often with directions for processions. These are followed by directions regarding the location of certain Vespers (f. 126r-128r), more directions on the order of processions f. 128v-136v), melodies for the doxology (f. 139r-140v), directions for the Vespers of the boy abbot (abbas scholasticus) on the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist and on the eve of the Feast of the Circumcision (f. 140v-147v), as well as prayers for processions (f. 150r-155v). Jakob an der Rüti decorated the manuscript with several somewhat clumsy pen sketches and borders (full-page decoration f. 1r, 58v-59r and 77v-78r, also representations of figures in initials). On f. 126r he gives his name in initials (F.I.A.R.), on f. 125r his name is written out (erased, legible under UV-light: Per me fratrem Jacobum An der Rüti …um Anno 1582).
Online Since: 06/23/2014
The manuscript was bought in the year 1779 by the St. Gall monk Gall Metzler (1743-1820), parish priest in Ebringen near Freiburg, which was owned by St. Gall. It contains liturgical instructions for the church year, divided into two parts (de tempore and de sanctis). Written in German, its stated aim is to avoid ‘vnwißenheit' (ignorance) in liturgical matters. Information on collects has been left out both for reasons of space and because only priests needed this information. This may indicate that the manuscript was intended for nuns (the masculine form is, however, retained throughout). It remains to be seen to what the source text mentioned in the prologue – ‘Index' – refers.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
The manuscript contains a number of normative texts from the Cistercian nuns' convent of Günterstal, written partly in German and partly in Latin. It begins with a treatise on simony, in Latin and German, which was written by ‘brůder Johannes' and dedicated to ‘der erwurdigen frowen von Mulhein', presumably Veronica von Mülheim, who was abbess of the convent from December 1504 until her death in May 1508. Johannes may have been a monk from Tennenbach, the Cistercian monastery which had responsibility for the cura animarum of the nuns. The rest of the manuscript contains a number of translations of normative texts from the Cistercian order, including the Liber definitionum and the Ecclesiastica Officia. Their use for nuns is highlighted by the German translations and the inclusion of only relevant chapters. Many of these were also transmitted in the Cistercian nuns' convent of Lichtenthal, near Baden-Baden. Although the convent was never formally reformed, the manuscript points to reforming impulses in the early part of the sixteenth century. The manuscript was bought in 1782 by the St. Gall monk Gall Metzler (1743-1820), parish priest in Ebringen near Freiburg, which was owned by St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/17/2015
Abbot Otmar Kunz's (1564−1577) small format prayer book, with several pages of rich decoration (flowers, vines, animals), was written and illustrated in 1574 by unknown artists. Especially noteworthy are two full page miniatures. On p. 4, Abbot Otmar Kunz, dressed in ceremonial regalia, kneels in a landscape with a city, hills and trees, above him is God with the terrestrial globe and with his hand raised in blessing. On p. 10, the St. Gall abbot, dressed in a simple monk's habit, kneels with Mary and John beneath the Cross of Christ. The prayer book contains (from p. 11 on) the so-called 5 Passion Psalms (Ps 22, 31, 55, 69, 109). These are followed by the 15 Gradual Psalms, the vigil for the deceased, as well as the 7 Penitential Psalms with the Litany of the Saints. After the death of Abbot Otmar, a scribe with the initials FVF added a prayer (pp. 105−109); probably this was Brother Ulpianus Fischer from Überlingen, who joined the Abbey of St. Gall in 1583. In 1594, the former abbot's prayer book belonged to St. Gall monk Georg Spengler († 1609), who was born in Wil. In 1599 the manuscript received its current binding with blind stamp decoration.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
Collected Fragments Volume II from the Abbey Library of St. Gall ("Veterum Fragmentorum manuscriptis codicibus detractorum collectio tomus II"). Among other texts, this volume contains 110 smaller and larger single leaves from the oldest Vulgate version of the Gospels, produced in northern Italy (Verona?) in about 410/420, fragments of Psalm manuscripts in Latin and in Greek from the 7th and the 10th centuries respectively, and a large number of Irish fragments from the Abbey Library dating from the 7th through the 9th century, including a picture portraying Matthew the Evangelist with his emblems (p. 418), a full-page decorated cross (p. 422) and a "Peccavimus" decorative initial (p. 426).
Online Since: 07/31/2009
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The first folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments with musical notation from six liturgical manuscripts, and, at the beginning, a fragment with a commentary on the Metaphysics (p. 1-2). The fragments date from the tenth/eleventh to the thirteenth century.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The third folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments with musical notation from seven liturgical manuscripts from the eleventh to the thirteenth/fourteenth century.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The seventh folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments with musical notation from five liturgical manuscripts from the twelfth to the fourteenth century.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The eighth folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments with musical notation from five liturgical manuscripts from the eleventh/twelfth to the thirteenth century.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The ninth folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments with musical notation from seven liturgical manuscripts from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and from a printed breviary.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The thirteenth folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments from five liturgical manuscripts from the eleventh to the thirteenth century.
Online Since: 09/06/2023