This manuscript contains a collection of prayers in Bohemian; eight prayers are attributed to Johannes of Neumarkt (around 1310-1380), an early representative of Bohemian humanism. The manuscript is decorated with several red and blue initials. An image of the Arma Christi used to be glued onto f. 39r, of which only residue remains.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
This large-format antiphonary, with rich fleuronné decoration from the second quarter of the 14th century, contains the chants of the Office from Pentecost to the beginning of Advent. It was written for the St. Leonhard Monastery of Augustinian canons in Basel and only came to Muri Abbey in modern times.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
The Italian Dominican Jacobus de Varagine, known as the author of the Legenda aurea, wrote not only lives of the saints, but also extensive cycles of sermons. This collection from the first half of the 14th century contains about 340 sermons for all Sundays and holidays of the church year. In 1553 it came to the library of Muri Abbey.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This composite manuscript about medicine is from Upper Italy and contains three incunabula with works by the doctor Antonio Guainerio, who was active in Pavia. It also contains a part in manuscript from the 1470s with treatises on infertility, on urine, and on stomachache, supplemented by several short recipes and a medical consultation for the humanist and diplomat Marcolino Barbavara.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This breviary from the second half of the 14th century contains the texts for the Divine Office for the entire liturgical year. According to the wording of the prayers and the rubrics in German, it was meant for a convent of Benedictine nuns; several antiphons suggest the area around Engelberg Abbey and Muri Abbey.
Online Since: 03/29/2019
This 14th century parchment volume is of Franciscan origin and consists of two different parts. The first part is an incomplete cycle of sermons for the feasts of the Lord and the feasts of the saints; the second part contains the Moralia by the Parisian philosopher Francis of Meyronnes.
Online Since: 03/29/2019
This extensive breviary, with rubrics in German, was produced around 1300 for a convent of Dominican nuns. Over the next two centuries, various hands added new rhymed offices to the end, most of them to Dominican saints. In the 17th century, the breviary was the property of Wurmsbach Abbey, a convent of Cistercian nuns on Lake Zurich.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This monastic breviary was written in the second half of the 14th century for a Benedictine monastery; judging by the antiphons, it was perhaps written for Muri Abbey. At the end, a later hand added paper leaves to the parchment manuscript and entered the Offices of the Virgin and of Martin. In the 16th century, this breviary was the property of the Benedictines of Muri.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
Composite manuscript from the second half of the 14th century. The main part contains the Historia scholastica by Petrus Comestor (1r-235v), augmented with various texts about the genealogy of Christ. The manuscript contains numerous graphic representations and illuminated initials which indicate provenance from Basel. The many holes in the parchment are artfully patched with embroidery. The manuscript originated in the Cistercian Monastery Maris Stella, Wettingen.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
The first volume of the three-part so-called "Wettinger Graduale", made in Cologne for a cloister of Augustinian hermits, transferred from Zurich to the Cistercian cloister of Wettingen after the Reformation. The illuminated initials in this first volume are the work of the "Old Master of the Gradual" (Willehalm-Meister).
Online Since: 11/04/2010
The second volume of the three-part so-called "Wettinger Graduale", made in Cologne for a cloister of Augustinian hermits, transferred from Zurich to the Cistercian cloister of Wettingen after the Reformation. The illuminated initials in this second volume are the work of the "Younger Master of the Gradual" (Willehalm-Meister).
Online Since: 12/17/2015
The third volume of the three-part so-called "Wettinger Graduale", made in Cologne for a cloister of Augustinian hermits, transferred from Zurich to the Cistercian cloister of Wettingen after the Reformation. The illuminated initials in this third volume, like those in the second (MsWettFm 2) are the work of the "Younger Master of the Gradual".
Online Since: 11/04/2010
This extensive breviary lists the texts for the Liturgy of the Hours throughout the church year for the Cistercian Order. The calendar of saints and the rank of the feasts correspond to those from the last third of the 13th century. Based on the script, this breviary can be dated to the early 14th century. It remains unclear since when the manuscript was in use at Wettingen Abbey.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
Copy of privileges, orders, seasonal contributions and records pertaining to the cloister holdings of Königsfeld. Compiled at the time of Queen Agnes of Hungary (ca. 1281-1346).
Online Since: 04/14/2008
Early history of the Benedictine abbey of Muri, composed in about 1160. Only one copy from the end of the 14th century has been preserved. It contains a comprehensive record of assets received as well as a genealogy of the early Habsburgs.
Online Since: 04/14/2008
Postil on Genesis and Exodus, written in 1396 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with 52 quarter- to half-page colored pen and ink drawings. This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 2-6 and 10-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Postil on Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, written in 1397 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with 23 mostly half-page, partly colored pen and ink drawings. This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 1, 3-6 and 10-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Postil on Jeremiah, Daniel, Maccabees and Judith, written in 1393 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with 53 half- to whole-page, partly framed colored pen and ink drawings. This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 1-4, 6 and 10-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Postil on Isaiah and the Twelve Minor Prophets, probably written between 1393 and 1396 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with two schematic drawings of the sun dial that illustrates the miracle of the healing of Hezekiah, This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 1-5 and 10-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
Postil on the Gospel of Matthew and on the treatise on chess by Jacobus de Cessolis, written in 1392 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with 13 single-column colored pen and ink drawings. This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 1-6 and 11-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
Postil on the Gospels of John, Luke and Mark as well as on Tobias and Baruch, written in 1392-1393 by the Freiburg priest Rüdiger Schopf, decorated with 3 whole-page, partly colored pen and ink drawings. This manuscript is part of a multi-volume, richly illustrated copy of the Bible commentary Postilla super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra, which the secular priest Rüdiger Schopf from Memmingen created for the Carthusian Monastery of Freiburg between 1392 and 1415. In 1430 the work, to which A II 1-6, 10 and 12-13 belong as well, was sold to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This 14th and 15th century Ashkenazi copy of the Sefer Moreh Nevukhim (Guide to the Perplexed) by Moses Maimonides is the Hebrew translation of the work made in 1204 by Samuel ben Judah Ibn Tibbon (1150-1230). This copy also includes a preface from the commentary to the Moreh Nevukhim by Shem Tov ben Joseph ben Shem Tov, a 15th century Spanish rabbi and vigorous defender of Aristotelian and Maimonidean philosophy. In the 16th century, this manuscript was owned by Johann Buxtorf II, and used as the base for the latter's Latin edition of the Doctor Perplexorum (Basel, 1629).
Online Since: 03/19/2020
These 21 leaves with Conrad of Gelnhausen's Epistula concordiae originally were part of a composite manuscript of theological content from the Dominican monastery of Basel. The text was written in Paris in 1397 by Heinrich Jäger from Ulm. The content takes up a proposal elaborated at the suggestion of King Charles V of France for the resolution of the Great Schism of 1378; Conrad of Gelnhausen proposes the convocation of a general council.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This manuscript of university lecture notes on the Sentences of Peter Lombard was written by Heinrich von Weinfelden in Vienna in 1399/1400, during his studies at the university there. Together with its writer, this volume went to the Dominican Monastery of Basel, where it became part of the library.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This manuscript was produced in the Southern Alemannic-speaking region around 1370; it contains the corpus of exempla of the “Alemannischen Vitaspatrum”, one of the most important collections of hagiographic texts in its original form. A treatise compiled of mystic texts is added at the end, into which is inserted the gloss "Von dem überschalle”. The origin of this manuscript is unknown.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
Since the 13th century the Quatuor libri sententiarum, a collection of teachings of the church fathers on important theological problems compiled by Peter Lombard in the middle of the 12th century, had the status of a textbook in theological faculties. The texts were an essential part of basic studies and were intensively interpreted in lectures and commentaries. This 14th century manuscript from the chained library of the Dominican Convent of Basel contains commentaries by Henry de Cervo, William of Ockham, Jakobus of Altavilla and others.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
A large part of this manuscript was written by the Dominican Heinrich von Rheinfelden (†1433 or later) of Basel during his student days in Vienna in the late 14th century. The codex contains diverse theological writings of early Viennese theologians (the University of Vienna was founded in 1365). Among them are highly regarded authors such as Henry of Langenstein (†1397), as well as authors such as the theologians and university rectors Stefan von Enczensdorf (†1405) or Johannes von Russbach (†1417), of whom no texts are known other than the ones in this manuscript. Heinrich von Rheinfelden himself must have brought the codex to the Dominican monastery in Basel, where it was signed into the library; as part of the holdings of that library, it became part of the University Library Basel after the Reformation.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
This Greek manuscript contains the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. The main hand, rushed and cursive, very often distances itself from the archaicizing forms of the traditional minuscule used in Byzantine copies of the Bible. The codex received its current Byzantine binding perhaps from the monastery of Saint John Prodromos of Petra in Constantinople and was purchased in that city in the fifteenth century by John of Ragusa, delegate from the Council of Basel. John bequeathed the volume on his death to the Dominicans of Basel. Erasmus used it for his first edition of the Greek New Testament (1516).
Online Since: 09/26/2024
In 1482 Jakob Lauber, the librarian at the time, began to compile a loans register for the holdings of the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. This register was continued after Lauber's tenure until 1527. The loans register was set up according to the shelfmark letters A to I, and it even was possible to record volumes on loan that had no shelfmark. Borrowed books were listed with the exact shelfmark under the corresponding letter; after the book's return, the entry was crossed out.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This hefty volume, written by two hands, is made up of multiple texts having the same, although not entirely uniform, layout with pen-flourished initials in the so-called Upper-Rhine Style, similar to the two volumes of Nicolas of Lyra, B IV 3 und B V 5, which also came from the Basel Dominican Convent, but not from the same workshop. Johannes von Effringen, Prior of the Convent in 1347, was likely the first owner. Gerhardus, the first of the two scribes, copied multiple works of the church father Augustine: his commentary on the Psalms, the Confessions in 13 books, but also other, smaller writings, some of which are no longer ascribed with certainty to Augustine. A corrector worked through these texts and marked the improvements in a small cursive in the margin, so that the scribe could, in a further step, carefully write them neatly and erase the notes, which did not happen throughout. The text of the second, anonymous, scribe is nearly flawless and written more beautifully. It consists in a commentary on Jeremiah by Jerome, the translator of the Bible.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
The parchment manuscript, decorated with filigree and Lombard initials, originally belonged to the Carthusian Monastery of Mainz and reached the Carthusian Monastery of Basel via several stations. It contains Thomas Aquinas' Summa contra gentiles, written between 1259 and 1265. This manual for Christian missionaries offers philosophical arguments for Christianity and is especially designed for the conversion of Muslim and Jewish believers of other faiths; it is the only scholastic work to have been translated from Latin into Hebrew.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
This pecia manuscript produced by numerous hands contains, with minor omissions, Thomas Aquinas's Quaestiones disputatae (De malo is missing) as well as eleven Quodlibeta (no. 12 is missing, as is part of no. 8). The manuscript originated at the Dominican cloister in Basel and belonged to Johannes and Hugo von Münchenstein, both of whom were priors at the Basel cloister for a time. The pastedowns contain records of the 1440 Council of Basel.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
The Legenda aurea by the Dominican Jacobus de Voragine (about 1228-1298) is one of the most widely known spiritual collections of the Middle Ages. This 14th century manuscript from Bologna preserves it along with further legends of the saints. The codex is written in a regular Italian Gothic script and, as a matter of routine, is carefully decorated; a large lacuna in chapter 45 (legend of St. Michael) was augmented by a 15th century hand. The volume belongs to the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This manuscript was produced in the Upper Rhine Region and was previously owned by Hugo and Johannes Münch of Münchenstein, two priors of the Basel Dominican Convent. It is a copy of the Franciscan Nicolaus of Lyra's Postilla super Psalmos. The dating of 1323 at the end likely refers to the exemplar or to the work itself, and not to this copy. The same scribe produced another volume of Lyra's work (Basel, UB, B V 5), with the same diagnostic pen-flourished initials, with which the same artist decorated some folio volumes from the Cistercian abbey of Pairis currently in the ZHB of Lucerne (P 13 fol.:1, 3 and 4; volume 2 burned in 1513 in St. Urban), which Hugo von Tennach copied in 1338–1340 under commission from a rich canon of the collegial of Basel, Peter von Bebelnheim.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This manuscript from the Dominican Monastery of Basel contains Quodlibeta and Quaestiones by Nicholas Trivet and Thomas Sutton, two important exponents of the Dominican School of Oxford at the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century. The thin parchment has numerous small defects as well as mended tears in some places; the sixth quire is bound incorrectly. The interior wooden boards of this formerly chained book (liber catenatus) are covered with fragments.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This volume from the Dominican Monastery of Basel contains the second part (Macula to Zona) of the Distinctiones sacrae scripturae by Maurice O'Fihely (Mauritius Hibernicus), an alphabetical list of biblical terms along with their various meanings and interpretations. In addition, fragments from two lives of Dominic – one by Constantinus de Urbe Vetere as well as one by Theodoricus de Apolda – are inserted in the front cover or as a flyleaf.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Composite manuscript from the Dominican Monastery of Basel, written in the 14th century by a single hand. This former liber catenatus contains a commentary on the Hohelied (Song of Songs) by Thomas Aquinas' student Giles of Rome (Ægidius Romanus, ca. 1243-1316), a commentary by the Dominican Nicolaus de Gorran (1232-ca. 1295) on the Canonical Epistles, as well as the Postilla on Ecclesiastes secondarily attributed to John of Sancto Geminiano.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
Exegetical manuscript consisting of various parts and written by a variety of hands at the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century. The volume consists of parchment of varying quality; a tear on leaf 27 is carefully sewn up with white and green silk. Especially the third part of the manuscript contains notes and corrections. This former liber catenatus is from the Dominican Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This manuscript, a collection of theological texts, from the Dominican Monastery of Basel, consists of various parts; it alone transmits the complete Latin translation of Fließenden Lichts der Gottheit by Mechthild of Magdeburg. The manuscript is remarkable not only because of its age (around or shortly before 1350), but also because of the numerous marginal notes, which reveal knowledge of the German version of the text, with which this copy of the Latin translation of Das fließende Licht was being compared.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This parchment manuscript, perhaps produced in Basel, transmits the descriptions of the lives of the “Alemannischen Vitaspatrum” in the arrangement of a not-identified Peter der Mul. This manuscript from the third quarter of the 14th century belonged to the library of the lay brothers of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel; however, given its age, it certainly was not created there.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
The greatest part of this manuscript consists of two texts by Rudolf von Biberach – Sermones super cantica and De VII itineribus aeternitatis. They were originally created in the 14th century as two separate pieces; later they were bound together into the current volume at the Carthusian monastery of Basel, whose library owned the manuscript from the 15th century on. Still in the 14th century, a German translation of De VII gradibus contemplationis was added as a supplement to the second part. Probably only at the time of binding the manuscript was the beginning of the Abstractum-Glossars added as a last page, bound in upside down; the transcription of this text also dates from the 14th century and therefore could not have been produced at the monastery.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
Copied by the same hand as the Postilla super Psalmos from the same library (B IV 3), this volume, with Nicholas of Lyra's postils on New Testament texts, on the Acts of the Apostles, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse, is also decorated with pen-flourished initials in the so-called Upper-Rhine Style, and had the same previous owners, Hugo and Johannes Münch of Münchenstein, members of the Basel Dominican Convent and contemporaries of Nicholas of Lyra. Hugo, attested several times as Prior of the Convent, and Nicholas, probably both died in the same year, 1349, while Johannes, Hugo's younger brother, was still prior in 1365.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This manuscript from the Carthusian monastery of Basel, whose shelfmark was changed several times, consists of three originally independent parts. The first, homiletic, part contains a series of Sermones and interpretive Expositiones on the Gospel readings of the day. The second part consists of a treatise on the ten commandments by the Augustinian Hermit Heinrich von Friemar (1245-1340) and an anonymous commentary on the Latin version of the Physiologus Theobaldi. In the third part of the manuscript, in addition to instructions for leading a God-pleasing life, there is a dispute between angel and devil about the seven deadly sins.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This codex contains high quality excerpts of nearly all known Latin writings by the Dominican Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260 – ca. 1328), which are available overall in no more than a dozen manuscripts. Although the scribe, who probably belonged to the circle of the Dominican Monastery of Cologne, seems to have compiled the excerpts “mechanically and without understanding” (Koch), the texts are of high quality. The manuscript was purchased in 1386 by the Westphalian priest Gottschalk Kamenschede, who later donated it to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This manuscript from the lay library of (the Carthusian Monastery of) Basel transmits two texts from the Teutonic Order: the legend in rhyme “Martina” by Hugo von Langenstein, as well as the “Littauer” by Schondoch. The “Martina” survives only in this manuscript and is considered the oldest sacred poetry of the Teutonic Order. As a third text, the codex contains the “Mainauer Naturlehre.”
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript for regular use consists of four parts; it contains material for preparing sermons, including a register of sermon topics, an extensive corpus of legends and more than 100 exempla. The manuscript shows various signs of use and, on the back, it still has a title label from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, where it was held in the 15th and 16th century.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This small-format parchment volume from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel is composed of three originally separate fascicles. The first is decorated with three initials (1r, 53r, 58r) and contains the Stimulus dilectionis by Eckbert of Schönau along with prayers, Penitential Psalms and a Litany of the Saints. This is followed by the fragment of a prayer book, which is missing the beginning as well as the end. The third part contains a compilation from Bonaventure's Soliloquium and Hugh of St. Victor's De vanitate mundi. The heavy soiling of pp. 24-53 (Agenda defunctorum and Penitential Psalms) should be noted; it indicates intensive use of this part of the codex.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This manuscript originally consisted of at least two books, as can still be seen from the separate original foliation. The first part was written in the 13th century by several very similar hands; it contains numerous sermons, among others some by Gilbertus Tornacensis and Bonaventure. The second part, written by a main hand from the 14th century, contains a vast collection of exempla of various origins. This plain manuscript belonged to the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, as confirmed by numerous notes of ownership, two old title labels and various old shelfmarks.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This small-format parchment volume contains the seven penitential psalms as well as three more psalms in Hebrew. It was owned by the Amerbach family and later probably passed into the hands of Johann Buxtorf (the elder?). The manuscript is decorated in a restrained manner with ornamental initials and pen sketches in the blank spaces; the text is vocalized.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
This small-format parchment manuscript is known as the “Basler Liederhandschrift”; it transmits German and Latin texts in verse and prose, which are primarily spiritual in character and in part are supplemented with musical notation. Among them are texts by Konrad of Würzburg and Walther von der Vogelweide, among others. This manuscript was written around 1300; in the 15th century it was in the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, and in the 17th century it was the property of Remigius Fäsch, a collector from Basel.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This small-format composite manuscript contains numerous pieces of mysticism, such as sermons, treatises (excerpts), instructions and sayings by, among others, Meister Eckhart, Heinrich von Ekkewint and Johannes von Sterngassen. The volume was written by two different hands; the first of these complains in red ink on f. 379r that anyone unable to write could have no idea how torturous such work is. A note of ownership by abbey librarian Georg Carpentarius (around 1487-1531) and the old shelfmark E xxvi associates the manuscript with the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. As most of the German-language manuscripts at the monastery, it was part of the lay brothers' library.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
This composite volume, originally composed of ten fascicles, was at least partly written in the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. One of the writers is Hans Lesser, a brother from St. Gallen. The small-format manuscript was part of the library of the lay brothers of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel and contains various German-language prayers and devotional texts, some of which refer explicitly to the lay brothers of the Carthusian Monastery.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
Like C I 1, this 14th century legal manuscript was produced in Bologna and was owned by Arnold Zum Luft (1453-1517). It contains the Digestum novum with Accursius' glosses, i.e., the fourth and last part of the corpus of the Digest of ancient Roman legal literature. The manuscript is richly decorated with title miniatures and figure initials.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This manuscript, written by several Northern Italian hands, contains the Lectura super codicem by the legal scholar Guilelmus de Cugno or Cuneo, who gave lectures in Toulouse in 1316-1317. The original must have been divided into quires, at least there are annotations in the manuscript that are similar to those of the pecia system. In 1383, this volume was owned by a converted Jew in Trier; later it became part of the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This 14th century parchment manuscript contains the commentaries of the legal expert and canonist Johannes Andreae (around 1270-1348) on the Liber Sextus Decretalium Bonifacii, the third part of the Corpus iuris canonici. The volume came into the possession of the Carthusian monastery of Basel during the Council (1431-1449).
Online Since: 09/26/2017
For efficiency, writings of law and canon law were often copied using the pecia system, where a model was divided into quires and distributed to several copyists. In the same manner, this commentary on the decretals by ”Abbas antiquus“, only later identified as Bernardus de Montemirato, was created in three pieces. The sparingly decorated manuscript is written in a littera bononiensis and was owned by the library of the Carthusian monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript, a composite manuscript of legal content, has as its main text the Summa super rubricis decretalium by the Italian legal scholar Godefridus de Trano (deceased 1245). This is a textbook on the Compilation of Decretals commissioned by Pope Gregory IX, which was widely distributed. The text is decorated with five small figure initials, probably of French origin.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This incomplete liturgical psalter was made between 1335 and 1350 in Naples. The unusual decorations are the work of the artist Christoforo Orimina. Because the manuscript contains three different coats of arms, the original owner (a member of the Angevin court in Naples) can not be definitively named. After changing hands many times during the 19th and 20th centuries, the manuscript was acquired in 1968 by the owner of the collection "Comites Latentes" ("Hidden Friends") held by the Bibliothèque de Genève.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
This manuscript is a hagiographic compilation in French prose which recounts the lives of the apostles, martyrs, confessors and saints. Some of the accounts are attributed to Wauchier de Denain. The manuscript is dated to the first quarter of the 14th century; it was decorated by the Papeleu Master and the illuminator Mahiet and notably contains more than eighty historiated initials.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
One of the earliest manuscript exemplars of the version of the Tanhuma midrash text known among scholars as the "printed text" (first printed in Constantinople, 1520-22), as distinguished from the version first edited and printed by Solomon Buber in Vilnius, 1885. Copied probably somewhere in the Orient around the 14th century, the Hebrewscript is Oriental semi-cursive.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
This manuscript, although incomplete due to leaf loss, contains the Alexander novel by the German-Bohemian poet Ulrich von Etzenbach (c. 13th century). The text was written in 1322, presumably in Bavaria or Austria judging by the dialect characteristics. The elaborate decoration with initials at the beginning of the individual books shows Upper Rhine characteristics as they also appear in Lower Austria at the beginning of the 14th century. In the margins, there are numerous 19th century explanations of words as well as annotations by Johann Jakob Spreng (1699-1768), who copied the manuscript in the 18th century.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
This manuscript from the first half of the 15th century contains the German Chronicle by Jakob Twinger von Königshofen (chap. 1-3, 5) and the Anonymous Bernese Chronicle (truncated due to loss of pages). Both texts are preceded by a comprehensive table of contents. The manuscript later was the property of the Amerbach family.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This Eusebius manuscript is from the 14th century and was already part of the holdings of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel under Heinrich Arnoldi (prior between 1449 and 1480). The manuscript is made of high quality calfskin vellum; it is carefully written and rubricated, in part with pen-flourish initials. The manuscript contains various 14th and 15th century additions; the binding is from the 19th century.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This manuscript, of French origin, came to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel after having been the property of Johannes Heynlin. The massive volume contains Aristotle's six works on logic, some with commentary, which were assembled into the so-called “Organon“ only after the time of Aristotle. The decoration and science are complementary: each of the books of the main text begins with an elaborate ornamental initial; the commentary, if there is one, is grouped closely around the main text and is mostly unadorned.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This slender parchment volume from the Dominican Monastery of Basel contains Books I-V of De vegetabilibus et plantis by Albertus Magnus. This work – actually in seven books, two of which are missing here – represents a small part of the extraordinarily extensive opus by the Doctor of the Church and universal scholar, whose fame was surpassed soon after his death by that of his student Thomas Aquinas. The worn binding shows traces indicating that this was a liber catenatus.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This 14th century manuscript, possibly produced by means of the Pecia System, contains the Super ethica and De causis et processu universitatis by Albertus Magnus. The Pecia System is a method for the quick handwritten reproduction of an original: instead of copying the text as a whole, it is divided into several sections so that several scribes could simultaneously work on creating a copy. This volume belonged to the Dominican Johannes Tagstern and thus became part of the chained library of the Dominican Convent of Basel.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This copy of the Summa Logica, produced in Oxford during William of Ockham's lifetime, comes from the remnants of the Franciscan library in Basel. Listed as a previous owner is Otto of Passau, then perhaps a more famous author, but today nearly forgotten. In any case in cypher (f. 121r). After the Franciscan Ockham's Summa of logic, the volume also contains a list of charges against him at the papal curia in Avignon, as well as short reports on the individual points. The text of this manuscript, along with the readings of a second Basel collective volume from the fourteenth century (which probably did not come from the Franciscan convent), which still has its original binding (F II 24), was used in the twentieth century for the critical edition. Its binding was replaced in the nineteenth century.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
The composite volume F II 29 consists of seven parts: Parts I-III (ff. 2-99), IV (ff. 100-121), and VI-VII (ff. 181-237) contain commentaries on Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas: Super libros Physicorum; Super libros Posteriorum Analyticorum; Super libros De Anima; Part V (ff. 122-180) contains the commentary by Adam of Buckfield on Aristotle's Metaphysica Nova. The manuscript comes from the Domincan convent in Basel (ownership note f. 179vb).
Online Since: 03/22/2012
This composite manuscript of mainly astrological-astronomical content includes a journal of weather observations kept over seven years, the so-called Basler Wettermanuskript. It records meteorological observations in daily entries from January 1, 1399 until March 21, 1406, without a single gap. Towards the end of the journal, the entries become more schematic, until finally they transition to tables of the positions of the planets with only occasional comments on the weather. The volume is from the Dominican Convent of Basel.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This manuscript of collected works consists of four originally independent parts: Part I contains the writing of Hervaeus Natalis, Part II super sex principia originally written by Albert the Great, Part III texts by Peter of Auvergne and Part IV two anonymous texts - which may only transmitted in this manuscript - and the tract De medio demonstrationis by Aegidius Romanus. The manuscript was produced at the Dominican convent in Basel.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
This composite manuscript of content related to astronomy consists of three independently created parts with leaves of different sizes and varying layouts. They were produced by several scribes in the 13th and 14th centuries. The texts describe instruments for observing the sky and treat the planetary orbits, which are also represented in astronomical drawings. This composite manuscript belonged to the chained library of the Dominican Convent of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
The parts of this volume, originally bound separately, were bound together in the Basel Franciscan library. They contain different works of Cicero and the Englishman Geoffroy of Vinsauf's Poetria novella and were produced in Italy. There are many indications of previous owners, but none have been identified with certainty. One of the parts belonged to Niccolò dei Salimbeni – probably not the rich young man in Dante's Inferno, but perhaps one of his descendants in Siena. Another part once cost the father of a certain Nicholaus de Monleone 5 ducats and 30 shillings. Finally, the value of the whole volume was set at 320 Swiss Francs by the Zurich experts, who were assigned to prepare a division of property after the 1833 split of the Canton Basel.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This manuscript transmits various Latin-German vocabularies, among them the Mammotrectus by the Italian Franciscan John Marchesinus, which was written around 1300. This manuscript, written around 1400 by a certain Ulrich Wachter, was purchased for the Carthusian monastery of Basel in 1430.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This small-format, almost square 14th century Ovid manuscript contains the Heroides accompanied by the commentary of William of Orléans (Guilelmus Aurelianensis, around 1200). An older erased note of ownership suggests a French origin; Johannes Heynlin bequeathed this manuscript to the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This composite manuscript from the Basel Dominican Convent, one of several from the estate of Johannes Tagstern, was rebound in 1952 and contains texts on optics and geometry, such as the Dietrich of Freiburg's treatise on rainbows, with several clear, compass-and-ruler-drawn schemata. The first part was written on parchment in the fourteenth century, while the other, newer parts can be dated more precisely on the basis of the watermarks of the paper used to the end of the fourteenth century or to the beginning of the fifteenth century, that is, to the period in which the previous owner, Tagstern, is attested on the last page (f. 157v) as a member of the Dominican Convent.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
This volume contains texts that are related to late medieval, early humanistic school practice; i.e. on the one hand, works intended for school practice (grammars, word lists) and on the other hand, theoretical treatises of didactic-pedagogical content. This volume, bound at the Carthusian monastery of Basel, brings together several originally independent parts. The first part, the prose version of Alexander of Villedieu's versified grammar, is from the Carthusian monastery of Mainz and was donated to the Carthusian monastery of Basel. The last part, the grammar of Giovanni Sulpizio, here in a version printed by Johannes Amerbach, came to the monastery library as a gift from the printer.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
These five bifolia with fragments from The Song of the Nibelungs are from a mid-14th century manuscript; they were preserved because they were reused as binding material. Discovered in 1866 by a clergyman from Fanas/Prättigau, they came into the hands of the Basel philologist Wilhelm Wackernagel and today are part of the Basel University Library. The leaves show restrained rubrication; the margins are decorated with occasional reddish-brown pen and ink drawings (particularly in the shape of dragons and dragon-like creatures).
Online Since: 10/10/2019
This bifolium from a late Medieval mystical manuscript has been preserved as a book cover. It contains parts from the “Sieben Vorregeln” and from the “Spiegel der Tugend” by the Franciscan David of Augsburg (c. 1200-1272) as well as a section from the “Geistlicher Palmbaum” (from the “Palmbaumtraktaten”?). The fragment shows clear signs of wear due to its secondary use.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
These fours strips of parchment were detached from a vocabulary manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. They had been used as reinforcing strips in the host volume. Laid out side by side, the strips constitute a part of a scroll of German Sangsprüche. The texts are nine verses by Marner, three verses by Konrad von Würzburg, and eight verses by the Kanzler. The texts were written down around 1300 in the East Alemannic speaking region; the fragments probably were repurposed only a short while later, since the host volume can be dated to 1400.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Three leaves from different manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud from the 14th and 13th century respectively, used as binding material. Two of the leaves contain fragments from the Mishnah Berachot from the Order Zeraim; the third leaf comprises a piece of the Tractate Avoda Zarah from the Order Nezikin, which regulates the relations between Jews and non-Jews and which discusses the problem of idolatry (“foreign worship”).
Online Since: 06/25/2015
The manuscript was produced in multiple phases. The first two thirds, from the first decade of the fourteenth century, contain a fragment of the world chronicle ascribed to Baudouin d'Avesnes, and its illuminations can be attributed to a painter from the circle of Renaud de Bar in Metz. The last third, produced up to the middle of the fourteenth century, is composed of different devotional texts of a still poorly-studied corpus. Many of these texts can be found in other manuscripts that today can be found in Bern, Paris, and Metz, and can be ascribed to the later convent of the Celestines in Metz. This volume, which in 1570 was still in private hands, came to Bern in 1632 through Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 09/26/2024
Guillaume de Marchaut was one of the most important poets and composers of the middle ages in France. His work is represented in the collection of the Burgerbibliothek Bern by a manuscript of the highest quality: the 13 column-width miniatures and many of the initials are polychromatic and accented with gold leaf. Notation provided with some of the songs makes this manuscript, easily datable by its scribal colophon, important to the study of music history.
Online Since: 12/20/2012
This late 13th or early 14th century fragment of a French Trouvère manuscript probably was once part of the same codex as Paris, BN français 765. It contains 20 chansons, among them 14 by Thibaut de Champagne; all chansons are attested in a parallel version. 14 songs include square notation.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This composite manuscript consists of three parts and was probably written in Picardy. The manuscript contains a rare legend of St. John, the Prophecies of Merlin, and the Tale of the Seven Sages of Rome; it was probably written for private use. Once owned by Isabel d'Esch, a member of one of the most important families of Metz, as can be determined from notes of ownership, the volume came to Bern in 1632 from the holdings of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
Late 13th century songbook from Lorraine (Metz?); the manuscript has empty staves throughout. It contains 524 trouvère songs by anonymous as well as by named authors and includes various genres, religious texts and many songs that are transmitted only in this source.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
Remnants of a manuscript of the Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach. In August 1928, Hans Bloesch detached it from codex Mss.h.h.XIV.144.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Single leaf of a large-format manuscript of Gregory the Great's Moralia in Hiob, possibly made in Germany. Provenance and acquisition of the fragment are unknown
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Single leaf from a manuscript of unknown provenance containing Gregory the Great's Moralia in Hiob. The fragment arrived in Bern in 1632 as part of a printed volume (MUE Bong IV 251) that had been the property of Jacques Bongars; it was probably removed from the host volume in the 1930s.
Online Since: 07/02/2020
Remnants of a manuscript of the Arabel by Ulrich von dem Türlin, which constitutes the backstory to the Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach. Purchased by the Burgerbibliothek in 1937 from Hans Peter Kraus, antiquarian book dealer in Vienna.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
Bifolium of a small-format manuscript with a prayer ascribed to Augustine, as well as a Biblical index that matches the content of Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 706. The fragment probably formed the end of this manuscript, and came to Bern in 1632 as part of the bequest of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
A fragment composed of two independent parts. The oldest part contains a commented version of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. Around the outside of the quire is a later bifolium (f. 1, 11), written in French with a legal or ecclesiastical list of names. This fragment came to Bern in 1632 as part of the bequest of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Bifolium with juridical excerpts (on rights of succession) probably from the Novellae of the Corpus Iuris Civilis. This fragment came to Bern in 1632 as part of the bequest of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Bifolium of a Hebrew (Babylonian) Talmud probably produced in Germany. Hermann Hagen probably detached the fragment before 1875 from his own collection. The relation to Jacques Bongars is unclear.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Sixteen leaves (= two whole quires) from a manuscript probably produced in France and containing Bernard of Pavia's Summa decretalium. In 1632, the fragment, illuminated in the Cistercian style, came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Single leaf from a manuscript probably copied in Eastern France. The unfinished leaf of Augustine's De adulterinis coniugiis was probably later used as flyleaf of a manuscript containing Isidore's Etymologies. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Four bifolia (= 1 quire) of a manuscript that contained the treatise De eruditione religiosorum by (Pseudo-)Humbert of Romans, which recently was ascribed to Guilelmus Peraldus. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Single leaf of a lectionary from the French area. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Former flyleaf of Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 111, an anthology with saints' lives from the Cistercian abbey of Pontiffroy (Moselle départment). In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars and was detached from its host volume probably between 1854 and 1875.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Four bifolia (=1 quire) of a manuscript of French origin; it possibly consists of parts of the third book of a (World?-) Chronicle. The text, which is primarily compiled from Livy and Orosius, has not yet been identified and concerns events in Roman history from ca. 400 to 49 BCE. In 1632, the fragment came to Bern as part of the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 07/12/2021
Fragment of a 14th century French Trouvère manuscript. It contains 18 jeux-partis (17 with the participation of Jehan Bretel) and a fragment of the Prise amoureuse by Jean Acart de Hesdin; all chansons except for one are attested in the parallel version. The songs have been transmitted without notation.
Online Since: 06/14/2018