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While both parts of this manuscript are more than a thousand years old, they were probably first bound together in the fifteenth century. They come from the monastery of Murbach and could have entered the Basel Franciscan convent with Conrad Pellikan. Like the few other surviving volumes from this convent, this collection of writings by the Church Father St. Augustine is not a typical Franciscan manuscript. Part one contains a copy of the catalogue-like De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, written around 429 and introduced by letters on the history of its composition, as well as a Regula ancillarum (Letter 211). Part two is one of the oldest witnesses of the 395 treatise on free choice (De libero arbitrio), although limited to book 1: Unde malum.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
In 1932, this small-format breviary was acquired in an English antiquary shop for the University Library of Basel. There is no medieval possession note, but the calendar and the content permit its definitive localization to the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen. Additional evidence for this provenance can be found in the somewhat later representations of the Passion story added somewhat later in the manuscript, as several of them feature a central depiction of Mary Magdalen with her ointment jar. The artistic full-page illuminations are probably to be understood in the context of the observance movement in medieval women’s monasteries. In the seventeenth century some German prayers were added, along with a contemporary possession note that proves that, at that time, the manuscript was still in the possession of the Dominican nuns.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
This richly illustrated parchment manuscript, a German-language private prayer book, was produced in 1489 in the Lake Constance area. The patron, identified as “H.M.” (78v) is most likely Hugo XV. zu Rothenfels und Wasserburg (ca. 1460-1519), his wife, Countess Anna von Montfort-Wasserburg-Rothenfels (ca. 1470-1531) is the addressee and owner, and she also gives the manuscript its current name. In 1977, the manuscript came to the University Library from the estate of the Basel collector August Meyer (1903-1977). In 2024, the manuscript was extensively restored and rebound.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The manuscript was produced in the second half of the thirteenth century and contains 92 parchment leaves with decoration and illuminations. It transmits Emperor Justinian’s Institutiones with its standard gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) and is richly decorated with, among others, vignettes, marginal drawings, and historical notes. The work was in the possession of Arnold zum Lufft, who gave it to the Basel Cordeliers. In addition to its juridical content the book includes heavily erased notes and illustrations that depict humoral theory.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The manuscript contains the German-language chronicle of Jakob Twinger von Königshofen, an appendix with the chronicle of Röttel, as well as additions concerning events from 1487 to 1497. Since the additions have various connections to the Basel convent of Augustinian Canonesses of Klingental, it is likely that the codex was in their possession. The convent was dissolved in 1557. The manuscript probably remained there and was found by the chronicler Christian Wurstisen (1544-1588), who moved into the empty convent a few years later. Wurstisen used the volume as one of the sources for his own chronicle.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The red-painted shelfmark and the binding suggest that this Priscian manuscript, from the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century, belonged to the small remaining collection of the Basel Cordeliers. It contains the Institutiones maiores (books 1-16 of the widely copied grammar book, without books 17, Syntax, or 18, the Ars minor) and some interesting fragments that likewise pertain to grammar and rhetoric and thus to the higher education of a good popular preacher. On the front pastedown is a note on the previous owners and the price of the book as part of a larger transaction, as well as a pen trial in German concerning a horse trade.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The calendar was produced in the Basel Charterhouse around 1424–1428. It contains 36 pages with various texts, tables, zodiac signs, lunar and solar eclipses, as well as information on day lengths and bloodletting times. Prior Heinrich Arnoldi made numerous additions and corrections, the last-mentioned date in the text is 1478. The volume is composed of paper, is rubricated, shows signs of wear and tear, and is bound with a limp parchment binding made from charters.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The current convolute was likely bound together in the seventeenth century. In all likelihood, the leaves inside were originally part of a larger volume; they belonged to the library of the Basel Charterhouse. In terms of content, they transmit the Paradisus animae by Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, copied in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
A composite manuscript produced in three phases from the end of the eighth century to after the middle of the ninth century. It was likely made in St. Avold near Metz for a chapel of the cathedral chapter. In the first part are gathered texts that were important for the pre- and early-Carolingian period in Metz, including the original version of Chrodegang’s Regula Canonicorum, various homilies, and a version of Theodolf of Orléans’ Capitularia. The second, better known part (from f. 52) contains one of the oldest witnesses to the text of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum. In 1632, the volume entered the collection of Bern from the property of Jacques Bongars.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The roll mounted on thin green tissue (silk?) is composed of 19 paper strips glued together. It comes from the second half of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century and was produced in an Iranian area (Timurids, Turkmen), as suggested by the floral tendril pattern on the background of 29 rectangles. The text copied on the roll consists of passages from the Koran (incomplete) and from a prayer. The text was copied in different colors (Red, Blue, Gold, Green, among others) in rectangles, squares and ribbons (Script: Nasḫ). The passages in large characters (ca. 4 cm high) in the rectangles are in turn composed of Koran passages in microscopic script (ġubār) (f. 5). This is characteristic of pieces from Iran from the sixteenth century onwards. In the first rectangle there are successive entries on a change of ownership in the year 957/1550. It is likely that the here-mentioned Sulṭān Sulaymān is Suleiman the Magnificent (reigned 1520–66), but it cannot be proven (f. 2). Martin Bodmer acquired the roll in 1961 from the estate of the famous antiquarian Martin Breslauer (1871-1940).
Online Since: 08/21/2025
This manuscript primarily preserves a collection of sermons that were copied in the fifteenth century and were intended to serve as models for preachers. Into that pre-existing codex were inserted a number of texts stemming from the beginning of courses at the University of Paris copied in the middle of the fourteenth century. These are principial lectures (principia) to the Book of Sentences of Petrus Lombardus and the Sacred Scriptures, but not only. They were most likely bound into this manuscript because of their resemblance to sermons. Four of the texts copied here have appeared in modern critical editions, but without taking recourse to this manuscript because it was unknown to the editors. These are: pseudo-Methodius' Epistola de Antichristo; Pope Clement VI (Pierre Roger)'s Collatio ("Salomon sedebit") approving the election of Charles IV; Humbert de Preuilly's Principium in metaphysicam; the Principium "Omnium artifex docuit me sapientiam," which has been ascribed to Bonaventure.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The first folder contains fragments of Latin texts: Avianus, Fabula, Avitus Viennensis, De Mosaicae historiae gestis, Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale, and Bernardus Silvestris, Cosmographia.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The second folder contains fragments of Latin texts: Matthaeus Vindocinensis, In librum Tobiae paraphrasis metrica, Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale, Ovidius, Epistola ex Ponto, a medical text and Galfridus de Vino Salvo, Poetria nova.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The third folder contains fragments of Latin texts: Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale, Petrus Riga, Aurora, Matthaeus Vindocinensis, In librum Tobiae paraphrasis metrica and Galfridus de Vino Salvo, Poetria nova.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The fourth folder contains fragments of Latin texts: Prudentius, Peristephanon, Ovidius, Ars amatoria, Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale, Beda, De arte metrica and a commentary on Terence.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The fifth folder contains fragments of Latin grammatical texts.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The sixth folder contains fragments of Latin texts of grammar.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The seventh folder contains fragments of Latin grammatical texts.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The eighth folder contains fragments of Latin texts: medical recipes, a vademecum, and an inventory of possesions.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
Cod. Sang. 1396 is one of the Abbey Library of St. Gall’s eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments). Between 1774 and 1785, the St. Gall monks Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger (1756–1823) and Ildefons von Arx (1755–1833) detached numerous fragments from bindings in which they had served for centuries as pastedowns, flyleaves, spine linings, and quire guards. Several fragments, including many in Cod. Sang. 1396, were also used as limp bindings for manuscripts or prints. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound into eight thematically-organized volumes and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. From 2012 to 2021 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1396 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same order, except for a few bifolia) in 32 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (without the empty paper pages). Citation form (example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1396.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1396, Folder 1, Pages 1-2). The ninth folder contains fragments of Latin medical texts.
Online Since: 08/21/2025