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Information about the conscription of troops. It names several cities along the Nile (among them Elephantine, Herakleion, Oxyrhynchus) that had to supply soldiers for the Persian commander Šērag. This document, written in Middle Persian (Pahlavi) on parchment, dates from between 619 and 629 AD, the time of the Sassanid occupation of Egypt.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
The manuscript contains the second part of the Chronicle of Eusebius in the Latin translation and continuation of Jerome. The tables, generally laid out as double pages, are in the majority of cases condensed onto a single page. The book decoration is a superb example of pre-Carolingian manuscript illustration from the Frankish Empire and Northern Italy. From the detailed information on the title page, one can deduce that the text was written in 699; the Bernese Chronicle of Eusebius therefore is Switzerland's oldest dated manuscript.
Online Since: 09/23/2014
This Merovingian composite manuscript, which was created in Bourges, originally consisted of six independent parts, which were written by different, often not very practiced hands in various phases. Most of the close to thirty individual pieces are texts from grammatical, patristic, computistic and medical works. The longer pieces are interspersed with further excerpts, partly written in Tironian notes. One quaternio from the only partially preserved third part is today held in Paris (BN lat. 10756). Noteworthy is the palimpsest in the fifth part, whose undertexts were probably written in Italy in the 7th century and in the second half of the 5th century respectively.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
Fragment of a manuscript in uncial script containing medical texts; it was probably written in Spain and came to the library of Chartres Cathedral perhaps via Italy. The remaining parts are preserved in Paris BN lat. 10233. Based on an entry by the Bernese librarian Samuel Hortin, the fragment in all likelihood came to Bern in 1632 as part of the Bongarsiana collection.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
This volume of 25 leaves was produced between 1910-1916 to preserve eight fragments from five Greek parchment manuscripts. The fragments, almost all palimpsests, had been found around 1896 in the binding of an unidentified Syrian gospel from Harput (Anatolia). A: Fragm. 1-2 (4th century ex / 7th century in): parts of ch. 15 of Didascalia apostolorum; B: Fragm. 3-4 (6th century): parts of ch. 3-4 of First Epistle of Paul to Timothy; C: Fragm. 5, in extremely poor state of preservation: contents and dating unknown; D: Fragm. 6 (7th century): parts of the prologue and the beginning of the scholia on book 24 of the Iliad; E: Fragm. 7-8 (7th century): parts of Psalms 108, 114 and 115. The content of the writing on the lower parts of the palimpsests is neither known nor dated.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
This manuscript contains sermons by Augustine in uncial script, written by a single hand in the late 7th or early 8th century. The outer leaf of each quire (quinio) is parchment, while the remaining leaves are papyrus. These 53 leaves (8 quires) were unbound from a volume originally containing 30 quires (between 304 and 308 leaves). 63 additional leaves (8 quires) are held in Paris (Paris, BnF, lat. 11641); one additional leaf, originally between f. 26 and f. 27, constitutes St. Petersburg NLR, Lat.F.papyr. I.1; all other leaves have been lost. During the 9th century the volume was part of the library of Florus of Lyon, who added numerous marginalia to the manuscript in his own hand.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
These 63 sheets written in uncial script on papyrus and parchment contain several letters and several homilies by Augustine of Hippo. The manuscript was clearly written in France, possibly in Luxeuil or Lyon, at the end of the 7th century or the beginning of the 8th century. The volume originally consisted of at least 30 quires in all, including these 63 sheets, which belonged to quires 4-11. An additional seven quires constitute Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, lat. 16. The fragmentary surviving 8th quire included a single now separated sheet, St. Petersburg, NLR, Lat.F.papyr. I.1, which was originally between f. 26 and f. 27.
Online Since: 07/04/2012
This manuscript from the island monastery of Iona (Hy) in Scotland contains the oldest and best surviving version of the biography of the Irish saint Columba, composed between 608 and 704. In this work, Adamnan, the ninth abbot of Iona, tells the life story of monastery founder Columba (Columcille in Old Irish), who lived from 519/522 to 597. This manuscript can be dated to the time between the writing of the original text and the death of Iona's Abbot (or Bishop) Dorbbene in the year 713. It is the oldest codex containing a single biography in Latin, and is among the few datable manuscripts written in the Insular script during the 7th and 8th centuries.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Sermons of Bishop Maximus of Turin († between 408-423): one of the most important manuscript copies from the time around 700, possibly produced in the Cloister of Luxeuil in Burgundy, in a Merovingian Uncial script. It is among the oldest books held by the Abbey Library still preserved in their original forms and bindings.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
42 fragmentary leaves containing an extremely early copy of portions of the four books of the Dialogs of the church father Gregory the Great, produced in north-eastern France in a Merovingian chancel script from the time around 700. Additional fragments from this Dialog manuscript can be found in the Zentralbibliothek (Central Library) Zürich (Ms. C 184) and in St. Paul in Lavanttal.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The sole papyrus manuscript held by the Abbey Library of St. Gall. The 23 pages, written after 650 in southern France, contain the closing of the second chapter of the Synonyma of Isidore of Seville as well as two exhortations aimed at monks. After being preserved over a very long period in a wooden case, these 23 pages were mounted between two glass plates in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin in 1899/1900.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
The incompletely preserved Edictum Rothari is the oldest extant copy of the early medieval law of the Lombards as decreed by King Rothari (636-652) in 643. This earliest known copy, dating from 670/680 and originating in Bobbio (?) has been preserved only as fragments divided between the Abbey Library of St. Gall, the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe, the Zentralbibliothek in Zurich and the Zurich cantonal archives. The largest portion of the fragments, which were bound together in the present volume by Abbey Librarian Ildefons von Arx in 1822, is found at the Abbey Library of St. Gall. In 1972, the fragmental parchment leaves of the Edictum Rothari owned by the Abbey Library of St. Gall were rebound into a new volume, in a fashion that does not exactly follow conservational guidelines, together with black and white photos of the fragments that are in Karlsruhe and Zurich. The photos were then removed from this by restorer Martin Strebel in 2008. At the same time, this manuscript, which is significant to the history of law, was rebound using the latest book restoration techniques, thanks to the Friends of the Abbey Library of St. Gall, which covered the costs of the work.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
"The king of palimpsests": parchment fragments from late antiquity that were erased and reused at a later time, sometimes more than once. The scholarly significance of the palimpsests normally lies in the older texts. Some works have only been preserved as palimpsests. This volume, compiled by the librarian Ildefonse of Arx before and after 1800 from single fragments found in the abbey library, contains among many other texts the oldest known copy of the Mulomedicina of Vegetius (5th century), the only known poems and prose by Flavius Merobaudes (5th century) and the so-called "St. Gallen oracles", or "Sortes Sangallenses" (6th century).
Online Since: 12/12/2006
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
This papyrus fragment contains 29 lines in uncial script, without spacing between words, written in the late 7th or early 8th century. The text includes a portion of Augustine's homily 351 (c. 3.6: … agitur in stadio sumus …; cf. PL 39, col. 1542 to c. 4.7: … exserat seueritatem suam, cf. PL 39, col. 1543). This single sheet was originally part of a volume of at least 30 quires, containing homilies and letters by Augustine. Surviving quires are: 4-11 (containing 63 sheets + 1 sheet) and 24-30 (53 sheets), the former currently constituting Paris, BnF lat. 11641, the latter Bibliothèque de Genève, lat. 16. This particular sheet was originally the second bifolium in the 8th quire (Quinio), and would properly take its place between f. 26 and f. 27 in Paris BnF 11641. The marginalia on the verso side were made by the hand of Florus of Lyon († ca. 860).
Online Since: 07/04/2012
"Codex Florus dispersus” contains a virtual reconstruction of a manuscript of letters and sermons by Augustine. It was written by a single hand in a late 7th or early 8th century uncial script. The manuscript evidently originated in France, perhaps in Luxeuil or in Lyon. Originally the manuscript contained at least 30 quinions (at least 300 leaves), of which 117 leaves remain today. One part with 63 leaves from the original quires 4-11 is currently held in Paris (BnF, lat. 11641); after leaf 26 there could be inserted a single leaf which currently is held in St. Petersburg (NLR, Lat.F.papyr. I.1). Another part with 53 leaves from the original quires 24-30 is being held in Geneva (Bibliothèque de Genève, lat. 16). The outer leaf of each quire (quinio) is parchment, while the remaining leaves are papyrus. During the 9th century the volume was part of the library of Florus of Lyon, who added numerous marginalia to the manuscript in his own hand. "sine loco", codices restituti, Cod. 1 contains a virtual reconstruction of the surviving pieces in their original order.
Online Since: 12/15/2014