The Osterspiel von Muri (Easter Play of Muri) is the oldest known rhyming dramatic piece in German. The author is unknown. Linguistic analyses lead to the conclusion that the work originated in the middle or western region of the area where high Alemannic was spoken. The surviving portion of the Osterspiel indicates a true spoken drama, without Latin or musical elements.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
This guide brings together two 15th century collections that were created independently of one another. The first, longer one is from the area around Rottweil, while the second, shorter one is from the area around Muri. Both provide models for formulating purchases and obligations, collateral and sureties, donations and inheritances, and they both contain letters dealing with the courts.
Online Since: 03/29/2019
In the 15th century, one of the most popular devotional works was the guide to Christian life by the Basel Franciscan Otto von Passau, entitled “Die vierundzwanzig Alten”. Around 170 manuscripts and fragments thereof have survived. Many are from nuns' convents or were meant for lay brothers. This manuscript from Hermetschwil Convent was copied by Sophie Schwarzmurer of Zurich, who later became Mother Superior.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This manuscript was written in 1445 by the prolific scribe and later prior of the Dominican Monastery of Basel, Albert Löffler, shortly before entering the order. Its content illustrates Löffler's academic and religious education: it contains Latin texts of spiritual character, such as the Speculum artis bene moriendi now attributed to Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl, the Pilgerbuch der Seele zu Gott by Bonaventure, and the Speculum ecclesiae by Hugh of Saint-Cher, as well as the hugely popular Liber de ludo scacchorum by Jacobus de Cessolis, one of the first Latin treatises on chess. The manuscript also contains two German texts: a treatise on perfection and a catalog of questions to examine whether, after death, a sick person's soul may expect eternal life.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
German translation of the postil on the Psalms by Nicholas of Lyra (deceased 1349), probably created during his lifetime. The commentary on the Psalms, earlier attributed to Heinrich von Mügeln, is the work of an anonymous writer, not yet historically ascertained, the so-called “Österreichischer Bibelübersetzer“ (Austrian translator of the Bible). In his translation of the original, he abbreviates the text and supplies additions. This copy from the library of the Carthusian monastery of Basel dates to the middle of the 15th century; the miniatures are part of the Vullenhoe group.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This manuscript from the library of the lay brothers of the Carthusian monastery in Basel consists of various parts that are bound together. It was meant as a devotional book for the lay brothers and contains various basic texts in German translation, among them a Rule of Saint Benedict, a life of Saint Benedict, as well as various prayers that address either the lay brothers of the Carthusians or the lay brothers of the Benedictines.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
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
Around 1510, Georg Carpentarius, Carthusian of Basel, translated the statutes of his order's lay brothers from Latin into German. At the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, the text was considered an autograph by the translator. It was held in the library of the lay brothers.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
This composite manuscript in German is from the Convent of Dominican nuns of St. Maria Magdalena “an den Steinen” in Basel, which was reformed in 1423; most of the manuscript was probably written there as well. In addition to two sermons, a treatise and a miracle of Mary, the manuscript mainly contains legends: Elizabeth of Hungary, Jerome, Francis, Vincent, Ignatius, Julian and Basilissa, Paul of Thebes and Anthony.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This late medieval book of devotion and prayer is named for its first owner, Margret Zschampi, Dominican at Klingental Convent in Basel. It is a typical manuscript for edification, in German, as they were customarily used and written at the end of the Middle Ages for private devotion, especially in women's convents and in lay communities. Margret Zschampi donated the manuscript to the Carthusian monastery of Basel, where it became part of the library for lay brothers. As part of this Carthusian library, the devotional book reached the university library of Basel in 1590. This is the only completely preserved known manuscript from the Dominican Convent of Klingental.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This obsequiale, written by Prior Jacob Lauber in his own hand, governs the Office of the Dead at the Carthusian Monastery in Basel. The inserted prayers (among them the Lord's Prayer in Latin and in German) as well as the chants with musical notation are situated in a liturgical context.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
This paper manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel contains ordinaries for priests (among them an address in German to the lay brothers), deacons and subdeacons, instructions for the office of the sacristan, as well as a number of shorter and longer pieces of liturgical music. Among the latter, otherwise all in Latin, there is a German version of the sequence Ave praeclara maris stella (135r-135v) written by Sebastian Brant. This manuscript was written by Thomas Kress, the last Carthusian in Basel (†1564), at the beginning of his monastic career (more precisely: in the third year of his period of profession, cf. 102v).
Online Since: 12/14/2018
This manuscript, written mostly in German, consists of various parts, all of which probably date from the same time, the end of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century. This codex belonged to the library of the lay brothers of the Carthusian monastery in Basel and may have been written, at least in part, in this same monastery. Among the texts in this devotional book are the exemplum of the pious [female] miller, the “Guten-Morgen-Exempel” often attributed to Meister Eckhart, a recounting of the history of the Carthusian order, as well as various sermons, prayers, sayings and exempla.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This German devotional book was written by a single hand; it is from the library of the lay brothers of the Carthusian Monastery in Basel. In addition to the Office of the Virgin, which is at the beginning and takes up about half of the manuscript, this codex also preserves various prayers and other devotional texts.
Online Since: 03/22/2018
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
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 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 manuscript was the property of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel; in a German translation, it transmits the legend of the Three Magi by John of Hildesheim, the legends of the Desert Fathers known as the “Vitaspatrum“ and the Athanasian Creed.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
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
The Imperial Chronicle is the most successful 12th century German text. This fragment from Basel is from the first quarter of the 13th century and contains version B in Alemannic. The remaining three bifolia - one single bifolium and one fascicle of two bifolia — had been used as binding manuscript waste; the single bifolium served as inner cover for manuscript A III 30 from the Dominican Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
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
Nikolaus Meyer zum Pfeil, city clerk of Basel, owned a large collection of incunabula of mostly German entertainment literature and himself copied a number of manuscripts, such as this Melusine by Thüring von Ringoltingen in 1471. The paper manuscript contains 38 colored pen and ink drawings, which apparently are by two different painters. Because sheets were lost, the current text has gaps; it is unclear whether illustrations were lost as well.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This slim volume belonged to Remigius Faesch (1595-1667), jurist and rector of the University of Basel; together with his vast collection of art and curios, the book became part of the university library in the 1820s. As noted by Remigius Faesch in his catalog under the Libri manuscripti in 4º antiqui, the codex contains “Etliche Teutsche Sermon unn Predigen”, mostly by the Dominican preacher and mystic Johannes Tauler (1300-1361).
Online Since: 10/10/2019
The Edelstein contained in this manuscript consists of 100 fables, composed around 1330 by the Bernese Dominican Ulrich Boner; the fables were taken from various Latin sources and were translated by Boner into Swiss Dialect. The script and the typical characteristics of the layout with spaces for never-executed illustrations indicate a work from the late phase (approximately about 1455-1460) of Diebold Lauber's workshop in Hagenau in Alsace, a work that had been prepared to be completed at the request of a buyer.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
Manuscript CB 59 brings together in one contemporaneous binding three manuscripts that were produced independently of one another. All three show the influence of Alemannic dialect and all three were produced at the end of the 15th entury. They offer a selection of sermons in written form, originally composed by Meister Eckhart or others in the circle of the Rheinish Master of mysticism. The first part could have been completed in an atelier in Constance or Ravensburg, it belonged to the Carthusian House of Buxheim. Threads, meant to serve as bookmarks, may be found sewn into the paper leaves.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This 14th century codex is one of seven surviving manuscripts that preserve in its entirety the Eneasroman (Romance of Aeneas) by Heinrich von Veldeke, one of the most important pioneers of Middle High German poetry. This work by Veldeke is the first courtly romance written in Middle High German and is an adaptation of the Old French Roman d'Eneas, originally written in about 1160.
Online Since: 07/31/2007
A collection of homiletic and pastoral texts dated with the years [14]52, [14]54 and [14]55, which came to Einsiedeln from the Lake Constance area. The main work are those by Nikolaus von Dinkelsbühl: Sermones de sanctis, De tribus partibus poenitentiae, De indulgentiis, De oratione Dominica; a collection of writings in Latin by Marquard von Lindau OFM; and texts by Jordanus von Quedlinburg OESA: Sermones de communi sanctorum, Sermones ad religiosos et religiosas.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This manuscript contains several works by Prudentius and was written by various scribes. The test is surrounded by mostly interlinear glosses; most of these are in Latin, some are in Alemannic dialect.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
This manuscript was produced in the Convent of Dominican Sisters of St. Verena in Zurich in 1449. In addition to the life of Benedict following Gregory's Dialogi, in a unique translation that seems to exist only in this codex (according to Werner Williams-Krapp), the manuscript contains translations of three more legends of 13th century Dominican saints. These as well are attested only in this codex, have practically never been studied, and have not even been edited. First there is one of three versions of the translation of the Vita S. Dominici by Dietrich of Apolda; then there is the translation of Thomas Agno de Lentino's Legenda maior about the Inquisitor Peter of Milan (also know as Peter Martyr or Peter of Verona), who was killed in 1252; attached to this is the bull of his canonization issued by Pope Innocent IV in 1253. It is noteworthy that the translation of the bull also contains a legend of Peter which, according to Regina D. Schiewer, is independent of the one by Thomas Agno. If the translations of these legends into Alemannic that are contained in Cod. 671 were in fact created around 1300, as assumed by Schwierer, then the (abbreviated?) version of the translation of the life of Dominic contained in Cod. 671 would constitute the earliest proof of the presence of the revelations of Mechthild of Magdeburg in Southwestern Germany, as the final chapter of the fifth book of the life of Dominic (cf. fol. 80v-82r) is based on excerpts from the Latin translation of Das Fließende Licht der Gottheit.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
With his brief "Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit,” the Dominican Henry Suso (1295-1366) created a work that was widely distributed in the late Middle Ages. This manuscript is part of the collection of the women's cloister of St. Andrew in Engelberg; together with cod. 141, it is a very early witness of the text.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
The origin of this Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit attributed to Henry Suso (1295-1366), is unknown; perhaps it originated in a Franciscan environment in the Western Alemannic region. This text may have been created about a century after the very early witnesses in codd. 141 and 153.
Online Since: 12/18/2014
The Frauenfeld history Bible (“Historienbibel”) was completed in about 1450 in the atelier of Diebold Lauber at Hagenau (Alsace) and revised somewhat later. It contains 80 illustrations, each showing the work of three separate hands. It was probably in the possession of the Cloister of Augustinian Canons at Kreuzlingen beginning in the 16th century.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
This composite manuscript was produced between 1460 and 1470 in the region of Lake Constance. Perhaps it was held for some time by the Ittingen Charterhouse near Frauenfeld. It contains late medieval sacred and profane texts, which were published for the first time in part based on this manuscript, such as Die fünf Herzeleid Mariä, the Frauenfelder Passionsgedicht and a prose recension of Wolfram's Willehalm, as well as an excerpt from the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit by Henry Suso.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
Around 1220 Konrad Fleck translated the romantic novel "Flore et Blancheflor", written in 1160 by an unknown Provençal poet, into High Alemannic. The complete work consists of about 8,000 verses. Several fragments of an early copy of Fleck's translation have survived in the parish archives of Frauenfeld. The parchment pieces had been used as a cover for a tribute register from the prebend of St. Michael.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
This manuscript contains a collection of computistic and astronomical texts, as well as medical recipes in German (Alemannic) and Latin. Among the identified texts there are excerpts from the Buch der Natur by Konrad von Megenberg. Spaces intended for decorations and perhaps for illustrations have remained blank.
Online Since: 06/22/2017
As its first, larger part, this book contains a print: Hortulus animae, Lyon: Johannes Clein for Anton Koberger, 1513. Joined to this is a collection of private prayers. The manuscript is from a convent of Dominican nuns.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript, a plenarium, was donated to Hermetschwil Abbey in 1430 by Götz Vasnacht, patron of Zufikon. The first part of the book was severely damaged, probably deliberately: individual pages are missing, some pages are cut out halfway, and a deep cut goes through several quires.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript contains a collection of classical descriptions of lives of monks in a High Alemannic translation. It was written by Jos of Ulm. He dated the completion of his work 30 September 1451.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript contains the Historia trium regum by John of Hildesheim in a High Alemannic translation. It dates to the first quarter of the 15th century and still retains its original binding. In the beginning and after leaf 8, parts of the text are missing.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript was written by Johannes Molitor of Winterthur and is dated 2 December 1432. It contains German translations of the Gospels for Sundays and the most important feast days. It belonged to Veronika von Hettlingen, mother superior of Hermetschwil Abbey from 1498 until 1507.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This thin, small book (28 leaves) contains prayers relating to individual words of the Ave Maria. It is from the 15th century and is written in High Alemannic dialect.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript contains a tract on the Passion in the High Allemanian language, consisting of a collection of materials from the four Gospels, the apocryphal Gospel of Jacob and Ps.-Anselm of Canterbury. The manuscript was written in 1494 by Barbara Grünenbächin, a person of unknown origin, not listed as a member of the choir at Hermetschwil. It belonged to the monastery of Hermetschwil and was recorded in the catalog there as of 1697.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This small booklet contains the “Dialogue with Mary,” attributed to Anselm of Canterbury. The end is missing. Hermetschwil Abbey owned two versions of this work (v. Cod. membr. 33).
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript, in which two scribes identify themselves (Konrad Wa, administrator from Bremgarten, and Johannes Bürgler from Uri), contains a collection of prayers, mostly formulated for a female worshipper.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This small, thin booklet contains a series of prayers for personal use by a woman.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript contains texts for the Liturgy of the Hours. It was probably created at Muri Abbey and was meant for the Hermetschwil nuns' convent. Fol. 125v shows one of the few remaining prints of the “Teigdruck” (paste print) technique: Barbara with a palm branch and a tower.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This manuscript consists of two originally separate parts: The first part contains various prayers; the second part, dated 16 November 1517, contains the “Grosse Gebet der Eidgenossen” (the great prayer of the Swiss confederates).
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This book, from the time around 1400, contains prayers and treatises for personal prayer. It has a limp binding of red leather.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This collection of prayers, which was in use in the Hermetschwil nuns' convent since the 17th century, was dated 20 May 1505 by the hand of a second scribe. Earlier it was the property of Peter Affeldranngel and Elsbet Lötter from Zug.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This prayer book from the first quarter of the 15th century, written in High Alemannic dialect, contains among other items the Hundred Meditations (“Hundert Betrachtungen”) by Henry Suso and an extract from the Eucharistic tract of Marquard von Lindau.
Online Since: 06/22/2010
This manuscript is a collection of German-language prayers, written mostly for a female worshipper. The idiom is High Alemannic.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This collection of prayers and treatises was written by Rudolf Schilling and is dated to 1493. An intercessory prayer mentions Duke Sigmund of Habsburg.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This prayer book presumably is from the Bickenkloster St. Klara in Villingen. In addition to prayers, it contains various reflections and sermons, among them two new year's addresses by Ursula Haider for the years 1496 and 1500.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This prayer book from the third quarter of the 15th century contains prayers and treatises. It was used by the Hermetschwil conventual Margareta Attenriet († 1581).
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This prayer book is from the first quarter of the 16th century and was meant for a woman. It contains primarily prayers to Mary and the Liturgy of the Hours for the Passion of Christ.
Online Since: 12/20/2016
This manuscript is originally from Fraumünster Abbey in Zurich. It contains the dialogue with Mary, attributed to Anselm of Canterbury, in Alemannic dialect.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This prayer book contains prayers in High Alemannic dialect. They are directed to saints, are dedicated to the deceased or contemplate the Passion of Christ.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
The book was written by Sister Dorothea Schermann at the Gnadental Convent of the Poor Clares (Basel) and is dated 1 July 1515. It contains the Marian Psalter and the Marian litany in Low Alemannic.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
This volume, quite extensive given its small format, contains, in addition to a calendar, several treatises about the Eucharist. The text ist written mostly in Alemannic dialect. The calendar mentions several saints important to the Deutscher Orden (Teutonic Order). The manuscript has been in Hermetschwil Abbey since 1619.
Online Since: 11/10/2016
The first part of this manuscript contains works by and about the mystic Elisabeth von Schönau (d. 1164) as translated into Alemannic: Liber visionum, Prophetia Elisabethae, Adiuratio conscriptoris, Liber viarum Dei, Liber revelationum de sacro exercitu virginum Coloniensium, Epistolae, Visio Egberti de Ursula, Epistola Eckeberti ad cognatas suas de obitu dominae Elisabeth. The second part contains the mystical tract by Mechthild von Magdeburg (d. 1282), Das Liecht der Gotheit in an Alemannic re-translation from the Latin. This is the only known textual witness of this version.
Online Since: 12/21/2010
This Officium parvum BMV was written by Johannes Höfflin and is dated to June 9, 1478.
Online Since: 10/08/2015
This spiritual handbook contains assorted German texts: a translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus and a communion devotion together with Dominican funeral rites and mystic texts about Christ's Passion. The manuscript originated in the third quarter of the 15th century in the area of the Upper Rhine and was originally the property of the Dominican convent in Bern (Inselkloster St. Michael). After the Reformation, at the end of the 16th century, the manuscript was acquired by the Solothurn City Library (Bibliotheca civitatis).
Online Since: 12/21/2009
TThis southern german manuscript is a collection of medical texts that include, in addition to the Artzneibuch (Book of Nutrition) by Ortolf von Baierland and extracts from the Thesaurus pauperum by Petrus Hispanus,a complete separate text on healing as the Corpus of cloister medicine as well as assorted versions of the Wacholderbeertraktat (Juniper berry tract), extracts from Bartholomeus, the Antidotarium Nicolai and much more. These texts were assembled between 1463 and 1466 by Reichenau physician Hans Stoll. The codex is listed in the first catalog of the Solothurn City Library of 1766/1771.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This composite manuscript was compiled around 1560 in Obwalden; a Hans Werb is named as writer. In addition to medieval mystical texts (Rulman Merswin, Neunfelsenbuch; Henry Suso, Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit), it contains other spiritual texts such as prayers, meditations, prophecies, legends (among others about Nicholas of Flüe) and copies of contemporary pamphlets.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
The Solothurn Legendary is the earliest example of a collection of legends in the German language. This manuscript was written during the second quarter of the 14th century in a Dominican cloister, possibly in Töss (near Winterthur) or in Oetenbach (Zurich). The manuscript was acquired by Solothurn in the 17th century.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This German book of meditations and prayers for Dominican nuns was produced at the Inselkloster St. Michael in Bern. It contains, inter alia, numerous excerpts from the writings of Gertrud of Helfta and Mechthild of Hackeborn. Most of it was written in 1507 by Sister Luzia von Moos. Beginning in the 17th century the manuscript is known to have been in the possession of the Solothurn family Gugger; at the beginning of the 19th century it was obtained by the Solothurn City Library.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This manuscript, which was produced in the Upper Rhine area in 1457, contains a remarkably independent translation of the biblical Books of Wisdom, the oldest German translation of several works by Seneca, and a translation, also independent, of the teachings on the ‘cura domestica' by the Pseudo-Bernhard of Clairvaux. It is not known how this volume came to Solothurn, but it has been part of the holdings of the Solothurn City Library since the 18th century already.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
The Solothurn history Bible (“Historienbibel”) was created in 1460 in the workshop of Diebold Lauber in Hagenau (Alsace). This prestigious piece of work may have been comissioned by Solothurn City Clerk Hans vom Stall (1419-1499). In 1763 the book was acquired by the Solothurn City Library as a part of the von Staal family library.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This Rudolf von Ems manucript originated in the same area of Zurich that produced the Manessische Liederhanschrift (Manesse Song Script). It represents one of the most accomplished examples of south German book decoration from the time around 1300, with excellent miniatures illustrating the Chronicle of the World by Rudolf von Ems and the Stricker's epic poem about Charlemagne and his military campaign in Spain.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This two-volume, large format history Bible (“Historienbibel”) is illustrated throughout in an artistic style characteristic of the workshop of Diebold Lauber in Hagenau. This history Bible is traceable to Constance in the third quarter of the 15th century; some defects were repaired in St. Gall in the early 17th century – one of the early conservation efforts undertaken in this city.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
This two-volume, large format history Bible (“Historienbibel”) is illustrated throughout in an artistic style characteristic of the workshop of Diebold Lauber in Hagenau. This history Bible is traceable to Constance in the third quarter of the 15th century; some defects were repaired in St. Gallen in the early 17th century – one of the early conservation efforts undertaken in this city.
Online Since: 05/20/2009
The Speculum humanae salvations is a work consisting of texts and illustrations of Biblical content. Each double page of the opened book shows four images, which usually juxtapose one scene from the life of Christ with three prefigurations from the Old Testament. In the present manuscript, this order has not been sustained consistently. The Latin text source has been translated into German verses, which earlier were erroneously attributed to Konrad von Helmsdorf. The Speculum is preserved as a composite manuscript of manuscripts and printed works; several pages are missing in the beginning.
Online Since: 06/23/2016
A parchment double leaf containing a fragment of a Passion Play in German, including neumes. It can be dated to approximates the first third of the 14th century. It was likely used as a paste-down in a 14th century rebinding of the 10th/11th century Cod. Fab. XI and was cut down for this purpose, so that a portion of the text was lost. The subsequent detachment of the fragment caused an additional loss of text.
Online Since: 03/22/2012
Collection of liturgical works, containing texts from the 9th to 12th centuries and an illustration of Pacificus of Verona's star clock.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
A composite manuscript consisting of two distinct parts: 1) a 9th century St. Gall copy of the commentary of Jerome on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes and the commentary of Bishop Justus of Seu de Urgel (Urgelitanus) on the Song of Songs, 2) a collection of manuscripts of mainly patristic content, including excerpts from the works of Jerome, Benedict, Eucherius and Augustine. The manuscript, still in its original Carolingian binding, is also called the Egino-Codex and is supposed to have been produced in about the year 800 at the cloister of Reichenau by a group of Veronese scribes who had settled on the island of Reichenau together with their former (Veronese) bishop (796-799) Egino after he stepped down from his office.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This copy of assorted works by Prudentius (348- after 405) is significant to textual history (it includes Kathemerinon, Peristephanon, Apotheosis, Hamartigenia, Psychomachia, Libri contra Symmachum; some works not transmitted in complete versions), produced in the middle 9th century in the Abbey of St. Gall. This copy contains numerous Latin and Old High German glosses.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
An impressive palimpsest-manuscript (with pages containing duplicate texts) of the oldest known texts of the Old Testament books of Ezekiel, Daniel and the Minor Prophets. Upper script in Retro-Romanish minuscule from the time around 800 (from Rätien or St. Gall): sermons of Caesarius of Arles (470/71-542), further homilies and sermons, tracts, prayers and lessons. Lower, sometimes difficult to read script in Roman half uncial from northern Italy: fragmentarily preserved Latin bible texts from the Old Testament books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Copy of the first part of the work Collectanea ex Augustino in epistolas Pauli, a compilation of works by the church fathers (mainly those of Augustine) by the scholar Deacon Florus of Lyon († about 860), produced in the second half of the 9th century in the monastery of St. Gall, with numerous glosses written by the monk Ekkehart IV. (about 980 - 1060) in the 11th century. This volume includes commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
Manuscript of collected texts, includes two Bible glossaries, a Psalter glossary, and a directory explaining Hebrew and Greek names, produced in about 900 at the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
A three-part composite manuscript containing texts from the 9th century: (1) Canons from the collection of the diocese of Mainz under Hrabanus Maurus, (2) a Biblical glossary, (3) a copy of the Synonyma by Isidore of Seville. Part 1 was apparently produced in Mainz (in about 850), the other two parts at the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
Copies of the Ambrosiaster (commentaries by a Pseudo-Ambrosius on the letters of the apostle Paul), produced in the second half of the 9th century at the Abbey of St. Gall.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Book of hours of high-quality production and stylistically well-written (pp. 1-193, following four paper flyleaves). The miniature on p. 24, representing St. Veronica with the veil, is particularly noteworthy. Christ's face was later damaged. A full-page miniature on p. 163 is at the beginning of the Office for the Dead. The manuscript's initials are decorated with gold leaf, as well as the pages with miniatures - for example pp. 24, 38, 52 and 132 - containing figural decorative elements such as representations of animals. In the 16th century the manuscript seems to have reached the Eastern Alemannic-speaking area and have come to St. Gall.
Online Since: 06/13/2019
A manuscript compilation from the second half of the 9th century, produced in the south German region, not at the Abbey of St. Gall. It contains the life story of Saints George, Felix and Regula, and Michael, the so-called Reichenau and Murbach “Briefformeln” (letter-forms), the Book of Pennance (Poenitentiale) by Pseudo-Cummean as well as selections from a grammar book.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
A German language edition of the life history of the St. Gall patron saints Gallus, Magnus, Otmar and Wiborada. Includes color portraits of saints Wiborada and Otmar (the latter bound into the wrong location in the manuscript; the portraits of Gallus and Magnus have been lost). The manuscript also includes a German translation of the Proverbs ("Sprüche der Altväter") as well as some brief spiritual texts for nuns, written down and most likely translated into German by Friedrich Kölner (or Colner), a Reformist monk originally from the cloister of Hersfeld in Hessen, who was a member of the Cloister of St. Gall between 1430 and 1436.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
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
Composite manuscript from a lay community of St. Gall (from Scarpatetti, p. 137), partly written and compiled around 1505 by the St. Gall Conventual Joachim Cuontz († 1515). The two most substantial parts of the manuscript are the life and miracle of St. Anne (pp. 49-137) and an incunable (Inc. Sang. 995; Hain 12453) bound together with the manuscript of the German version of the Passio S. Meinradi, decorated with 37 woodcuts and printed between 1496 and 1500 by Michael Furter in Basel (pp. 141−195). The manuscript furthermore contains medical advice, for instance on the use of St. Benedict's thistle or a remedy for the plague (pp. 15−21; p. 138); translations of sequences into German (pp. 5-9); numerous prayers and exempla, especially to Mary, Anne and Joachim (pp. 25-44); as well as a letter, surviving in fragments, from Silvester, provost of the Monastery of the Augustinian canons of Rebdorf in Eichstätt to the sisters of the Convent of Pulgarn in Upper Austria, regarding poverty in the convent (pp. 44-48).
Online Since: 06/25/2015
The paper manuscript was copied in a rapid cursive by Friedrich Kölner during his stay at the monastery of St. Gall between 1430 and 1436. It contains first the lives of the Apostles in the German translation of the summer part of the Golden Legend (pp. 6-269). There then follow, also in German, the sermon Von den Zeichen der Messe, composed by the Franciscan Berthold of Regensburg (pp. 269-284), Die Legende von den Heiligen Drei Königen, composed by Johannes von Hildesheim (pp. 284-389), a Pilatus-Veronika-Legende (pp. 389-400), a Greisenklage (pp. 400-402), and finally the Fünfzehn Vorzeichen des Jüngsten Gerichts (pp. 402-403). According to Cod. Sang. 1285, p. 11, the manuscript entered the possession of the Abbey Library as part of the acquisition of manuscripts by Johann Nepomuk Hauntiger, which took place between 1780 and 1792.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
German version of the life of Jesus according to the four gospels, in an Alemannic recension. With colorful initials and 21 filled initials, drawn in pen and usually colored. The scribe and probably also first owner, Rudolf Wirt, gives his name at the end of the text on p. 463 as well as the date of the completion of the manuscript on January 9, 1467. The volume originated in one of the women's cloisters of St. Gall and came to the St. Gall Abbey Library between 1780 and 1792.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
Legendary of St. Gall: contains, among other items, the German lives of the St. Gallen Saints Gallus, Magnus, Otmar and Wiborada, illustrated with 142 vivid images.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
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
A copy of the work Bellum Judaicum (the Jewish War) by the Jewish author Flavius Josephus (1st century AD), produced in the 9th century, probably not at the Abbey of St. Gall, by the hands of eight different scribes.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
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
Universal chronicle from Saturn of Crete to Brenno, legendary Duke of Swabia (col. 3a-17a). This is followed by the Schwabenspiegel (mirror of the Swabians) with common law according to the first systematic order, in 79 sections up to article 343 (col. 17a-264b); and feudal law up to article 158 (col. 264b-347a). A table of contents for the entire manuscript can be found at the end (pp. 350-361).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
Schwabenspiegel (mirror of the Swabians), common law, articles 1-86 (col. 7a-58a), articles 155-219 (col. 59a-100b), and articles 220-377 (col. 101a-187b); after article 40, common law article 40§1 (col. 33a) from the Deutschenspiegel is inserted; the common law is followed by feudal law, articles 1-120 and 122-154 (col. 187b-284a) and article 159 (col. 284a-285a).
Online Since: 12/18/2014
A copy of Aristotle's Categoriae (Categories) and De interpretatione (On interpretation) in Latin with commentaries by Boethius, with translation into Old High German and additional commentaries by St. St. Gall monk and teacher Notker the German († 1022); written during the 11th century at the Abbey of St. Gall. In addition, the manuscript includes copies of two works by Cicero, the Topica and De optimo genere oratorum.
Online Since: 04/15/2010
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
A copy of a commentary on the first four books of the work De consolatione philosophiae by Boethius († 524), written by many hands in the Abbey of St. Gall near the end of the 10th century or the beginning of the 11th century. The manuscript contains a multitide of Latin and Old High German glosses, of which the Old High German glosses are written in the so-called bfk-Geheimschrift (secret script).
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Parts I, II and IV of a four-part manuscript in German of collected materials containing cloister rules (including the Benedictine Rule), prayers, and short spiritual texts. A comparative study of the script indicates that the volume was written by Benedictine monk Friedrich Kölner (Köllner, Cölner, Colner), who lived at the Abbey of St. Gall between 1429/30 and 1439. Part III, or the model on which it was based, was dedicated to Anna Vogelweider, a sister in the Cistercian women's cloister of Magdenau in Lower Toggenburg, according to an annotation which was later stricken through. This Anna was likely the aunt of a certain Sister Els (Elsbeth?), named in the record of a donation, from the women's community of St. George.
Online Since: 03/31/2011