The Schwabenspiegel manuscript was commissioned in 1410. It contains a collection of land and feudal laws that were in effect during the late middle ages in southern Germany and what is now the German speaking part of Switzerland. Additional content bound in this volume includes the biblical books of Kings and Maccabees as well as a first German translation of the Handfeste, the Fribourg City Law of 1249. An unusual item found in this manuscript is a miniature of the Flag of Fribourg, which appears here for the first time as we know it today, in the colors black and white.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
This miscellany has five parts written by several hands (Part I: pp. 1–50; Part II: pp. 51–86; Part III: pp. 87–110; Part IV: pp. 111–254; Part V: pp. 255–316). At the beginning of the first part is a sermon De dignitate sacerdotale, using Is 60:8 as its thema (pp. 1a-2b) and quaestiones on the sacraments (pp. 3a-40a). Each individual quaestio is identified by a red Q-lombard, sometimes with a face drawn in it (p. 18, 21a). In the colophon (p. 40a) Conradus Jud from Zürich (Thuregum) in Uznach names himself, having finished the copying of the quaestiones on the 8 January 1410, in the first hour. There then follow two sermons De dedicatione (pp. 40a-44a) and De dignitate sacerdotale (pp. 44a-50b). The second and third parts both contain sermons De tempore (pp. 51a-85b). The fourth part contains sermons by Nicolas of Lyra, Postilla super evangelia: the text transmitted here begins with twice III, 1 (Hamesse II, 254, Nr. 14807) on p. 111a and 113a. In between, on p. 112, is a table showing the readings for summer and advent. Early New High German glosses on p. 184 describe the semantic field of ‘expression of lament' (“Ausdruck von Trauer”). The text of the Postilla abruptly ends on p. 240a. Pages 241-254 have only outlines for the columns. There then follows the fifth part containing the Liber de informatione electorum by Nicolaus Andreae de Civitate Theatina (Hamesse I, 7, Nr. 115) (pp. 255a–314b). The volume contains a great many manicules (p. 13, 14, 17, 34, 51, 55, 60, 65, 73, 90, 142, 152) and marginal titles, especially numberings. There are detailed marginalia on p. 78, 79, 214 and 255, as well as a later addition on pp. 84b-85b that also has marginalia. Page 86 and 300 are completely empty. The leaf pp. 299-300 is only one-column-wide. On the endpaper p. 316 there is a charter text dated 1553, June 15, bound upside-down, which mentions the Knight Hospitaller Johannes Wick and the priest Thomas Molitor of the diocese of Constance. On the back pastedown is an offset from a two-column grammatical text (late thirteenth or early fourteenth century) complete with blue and red pieds-de-mouches. Page 50b is stamped with the 1553-1564 St. Gallen library stamp of Abbot Diethelm Blarer. There is a table of contents added by the St. Gallen librarian Jodokus Metzler which he pasted on the inside of the front board. The volume has a wooden board binding and is covered in light-coloured leather with two reinforced patches left where there used to be leather straps on the front cover.
Online Since: 09/06/2023