Aarau, Aargauer Kantonsbibliothek
The medieval and early modern collection of the Cantonal Library of Aargau’s manuscript department is home to numerous valuable rare and unique items. The often beautifully illustrated manuscripts come mainly from the private library and collection of the family of magistrates of Zurlauben from Zug, which was purchased by the canton in 1803, and from the libraries of the Abbeys of Muri and Wettingen, which were secularized in 1841. One of the most important medieval manuscripts in the Cantonal Library’s collection is the so-called Easter Play of Muri, which is estimated to have originated around 1250. Although it is only a fragment, it is considered the oldest surviving rhyming dramatic piece in German. The Cantonal Library has several manuscripts that are outstanding from an art history perspective, among them the three elaborately illuminated volumes of the Wettinger Gradual, dated 1330-1335. Also from Wettingen Abbey is the important three-volume Swiss Illustrated Chronicle by Abbot Christoph Silberysen (1542–1608).
Henry Suso’s Buchlein der ewigen Weisheit is a fourrteenth-century devotional and meditational work, written in High Alemannic dialect. Meliora Muheim (d. 1630), later Prioress of the convent of Hermetschwil, acquired the parchment manuscript from a Zürich bookbinder in 1598 (Ir).
Online Since: 12/11/2025
This small manuscript, written in Latin, comes from the fourteenth century. It contains chiefly a Compendium theologiae moralis, which comprises 224 chapters on the foundational concepts of the doctrine of the faith and on leading a Christian life. The origin of the manuscript is unknown.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
This parchment manuscript was written in Latin in the second half of the thirteenth century. Cistercian in origin, it belonged to the Cistercian Abbey of Wettingen since the beginning of the eighteenth century. The manuscript shows contemporary corrections as well as additions from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
The scribe Johannes produced this parchment and paper manuscript in the second half of the fifteenth century in High Alemannic dialect. The ownership mark has been erased; there is no evidence for the hypothesis of Albert Bruckner that the manuscript belonged to a convent of women.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
The production of this liturgical manuscript on parchment dates to different centuries. The first part was written in the last third of the thirteenth century, while the second part contains additions dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth century. The Latin codex belonged to the Cistercian abbey of Chaalis in Northern France. In the seventeenth century, the manuscript entered the possession of the Cistercian Abbey of Wettingen.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
This Lectionarium officii is a parchment manuscript written in Latin after the mid-thirteenth century. Its origin is unknown, but in the seventeenth century the codex entered the possession of the Cistercian abbey of Wettingen.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
Written in Latin at the beginning of the fourteenth century, this parchment manuscript contains the Compendium theologicae veritatis by Hugh of Strasbourg (1210-1270) as well as the Quaestiones super quatuor libros Sententiarum of William de Rothwell, OP (ca. 1260). Probably at Wettingen in the fifteenth century, in the eighteenth century the manuscript was owned by the Cistercian Order in Wettingen.
Online Since: 12/11/2025
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
Pontifical rites for Johannes Feierabend, Abbot of the Cloister at Muri from 1500 through 1508. On July 12, 1507 Pope Julius II conferred the pontifical upon Abbot Johannes Feierabend and his successors.
Online Since: 11/03/2009
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 15th century Missale speciale contains the formulas for the Mass for the highest holidays of the church year (Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Michaelmas, All Saints' Day and the dedication of the church) as well as for the Mass for the dead and for several votive Masses. This compilation was suited for worship service in a chapel. An image of the crucifixion of Christ has been removed from this manuscript.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
The history of the early Christian church by the Greek church father Eusebius of Caesarea was translated into Latin by Rufinus of Aquileia and continued until the end of the 4th century. In this manuscript from the second half of the 13th century, each of the eleven books of church history begins with distinctive multicolored initials.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This 12th century manuscript with commentaries on the four Gospels is probably from Alsace. This is suggested by the history of the founding of the Benedictine monastery of St. Faith in Sélestat, added on the last pages. In 1530, the manuscript was owned by Johannes Schornegg, parish priest in Muri.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
In 1474 Adam Keuten, since 1467 parish priest at the Hofkirche in Lucerne, compiled a large-format volume with the Proprietates rerum naturalium moralisatae, an encyclopedia in seven parts about the most important fields of creation, followed by allegorical interpretations of natural phenomena. The volume also contains a medical treatise, several short works about the Eucharist, and a longer treatise about the Mass.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
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 composite manuscript consists of an incunable from Freiburg i. Br. from 1494 and two parts in manuscript, which were copied in 1498 and 1499 by Brother Johannes Bengel, Conventual at Alpirsbach Abbey in the Black Forest. The three texts on scholastic logic are by Peter of Spain and by Petrus Tartaretus, a contemporaneous Parisian philosopher whose mnemonic device, a logical figure called pons asinorum has also been copied.
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
First volume (Temporale) of the two-volume gradual with liturgical songs that Abbot Laurentius of Heidegg from Muri Abbey purchased from the convent of canonesses at Säckingen in 1532, after the furnishings of Muri Abbey, along with the liturgical books, were destroyed in the Second War of Kappel. The abbot had the large pen-flourish initial at the beginning painted over with the miter, the abbatial crozier, his own coat of arms and that of the abbey.
Online Since: 10/04/2018
Second volume (sanctorale) of the two-volume gradual, which Abbot Laurentius of Heidegg from Muri Abbey purchased from the convent of canonesses at Säckingen in 1532, after the furnishings of Muri Abbey, along with the liturgical books, were destroyed in the Second War of Kappel. The abbot had the large pen-flourish initial at the beginning painted over with the miter, the abbatial crozier, his own coat of arms and that of the abbey.
Online Since: 10/04/2018