This quarto volume brings together various texts, mostly shorter in length, of which the bulk are spiritual essays and prayers, including: a treatise on the Passion (pp. 4–38), prayers on the Passion (pp. 68–84), prayers for the canonical hours (pp. 88–91), a treatise on the Fall (pp. 92–107), and another on the quattuor gemitus turturis (pp. 112-159); a Biblia pauperum indicates numerous saints and for what emergencies they can be invoked (pp. 160–193). Among the spiritual texts, there are also a few in German (e.g., pp. 218–220, 238). Two letters concern St. Gall: one is addressed to Abbot Eglolf (pp. 40–43), another to monks who have fled to St. Gall (pp. 85–88). Additional texts treat the Council of Constance and monastic reforms; also here there is a reference to St. Gall (pp. 239–250). The last quire is composed of parchment leaves and could have come from the fourteenth century; it contains a grammar and medical texts (pp. 251–266). The manuscript has a limp binding; for guards was used a German-language parchment charter, of which the year 1415 and the name of a ulrichen leman burger ze arbon are still legible. (mat)

Online Since: 09/22/2022

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). Folders 10-14 and 18-32 contain fragments of late-medieval charters, whose texts are incomplete to various degrees. The contents of the charters are indicated in the registers of Karl Wegelin (1803–1856), who examined most charters during his period as Abbey Archivist of St. Gall (1834–1856). The register's content is reproduced with the orthography and wordflow unchanged, and only exceptionally in abbreviated or modified form. In contrast to Karl Wegelin, who only reports the year, the date is presented, when possible, on the basis of the charter text. The abbreviation P.L. (=Philipp Lenz) indicates supplemental free-standing observations on the content. The descriptions do not mention the old numeration scheme in blank ink, which Karl Wegelin probably introduced. If a charter fragment has no explicit dating, the script is described and dated. Measurements give height x width at the maximal point of the documents, according to the reading direction, and thus independent of the direction the charters were bound. The eleventh folder contains fragments of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Latin documents, mainly concerning ecclesiastical matters and originating from the Diocese of Constance. (len)

Online Since: 08/21/2025