Fribourg/Freiburg, Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire/Kantons- und Universitätsbibliothek
Fribourg's Cantonal and University Library owns a significant collection of manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages to the present day, archival holdings and incunabula. This collection comes primarily from the religious communities of Fribourg that were dissolved in 1848, notably from the Cistercians of Hauterive, from the Augustinian Hermits and the Jesuits of St. Michael in Fribourg, and from the Carthusians of La Part-Dieu. The collection includes 185 medieval manuscripts. Over time the collection was significantly expanded through purchases and donations, such as the manuscripts from the Capuchin Convent and those of the Société de lecture (formerly Société économique). The library’s website offers a complete and detailed presentation.
The work „Die vierundzwanzig Alten“ constitutes a sort of guide to Christian life, and, at the time of its composition, the author, Otto von Passau, belonged to the Franciscan convent of Basel. This copy was written in the second half of the 15th century in a dialect used in the upper Rhine region. Unfortunately, the spaces for illustrations at the beginning of the 24 speeches have been left blank.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
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
This late 13th century manuscript contains the part of the medieval bestseller Lancelot en prose that was given the provisional name of Agravain, for the Knight of the Round Table who revealed the illegitimate relationship between Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. This simple, neat copy, with gaps at the beginning and end, was decorated with alternating blue and red filigree initials. It is of unknown origin and has been attested in Hauterive since the 18th century.
Online Since: 06/18/2020
This small but extensive (198 ff.) prayer book is written in a variant of North German (Middle Low German). In accordance with the female form in many of the prayers, it was intended for a woman. With the exception of one full-page miniature depicting Christ as the gardener before Mary Magdalene (Noli me tangere), all illuminations have been removed. An ex-libris on the front pastedown informs us that this small manuscript was a gift to the Fribourg Library in 1891 from Franz Xaver Karker, canon of Wroclaw Cathedral.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
This document contains the cartulary and the tribute register of the Cluniac priory of Rüeggisberg in the canton of Bern, which was the first Cluniac priory in the German-speaking area and probably the oldest monastery in the Bernese area. The manuscript consists of two different parts, which were probably joined together in Bern at the beginning of the 16th century, or in 1484, when the priory was abolished and its assets were incorporated into the newly founded St. Vincent monastery of Bern. The first part (ff. 1-200 and 261-267) contains transcriptions made between 1425-1428 of various documents and bulls, and of the priory’s register of tributes, which in turn had been copied from even older cartularies. The second part (ff. 201-260) contains documents copied from the collegiate monastery of St. Vincent in Bern.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
A fragmentary gradual for the friars of the Order of the Hermits of Saint Haugustine, copied in 1539 by Jacobus Frank, who is depicted in the bottom margin of 51r. It contains many illuminations with coats-of-arms, mottos and monograms written by different hands from 1538 to 1594. Some of the illuminations have been excised and in some cases then glued back in the codex.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
This manuscript, copied in an unknown location during the first half of the fourteenth century, provides a beautiful example of a Cistercian antiphony with notes (only the Proprium de tempore is preserved here): an elegant script with widely spaced lines facilitates readability, the musical notes, in square notation, are organized according to a four-line system, and the text is richly decorated with fleuronné initials and droleries. Fragments from a twelfth-century Bible are bound into the beginning of the manuscript and are valuable witnesses for paleographical study of the earliest manuscripts produced by the Cistercians of Hauterive.
Online Since: 03/31/2011
Cistercian capitulary for the nuns of Fille-Dieu Abbey in Romont. In addition to the martyrology and the necrology, the manuscript contains the Rule of Benedict in French. The text was probably written at the Abbess's request and copied by Uldry Charbodat, the priest of Romont, who describes his work in a poem. In it he confirms that he received the parchment from Catherine de Billin (f. 107r). The Capuchin Apollinaire Dellion (1822-1899) donated the manuscript to the Fribourg library in 1879.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
This manuscript is composed of four parts. The first part (1-16) is from the 14th century and presents an abridged version of Usuard's martyrology. The second part (17-66), from the beginning of the 14th century, contains, among others, texts by Albertus Magnus and Pseudo-Robert Grosseteste. The third (67-164) and fourth parts (165-258), which can be dated to the 14th and 15th century, contain texts by Vincent of Beauvais and Peter Lombard, as well as legal writings. Before it was purchased by the Cantonal Library of Fribourg in 1900, the manuscript belonged to the clergy of Gruyères.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
A composite codex of paper produced at Fribourg in the first half of the 15th century. In the first part, in addition to some short texts in German, it contains the Cycle de la belle dame sans mercy by Alain de Chartier, Baudet Herenc and Achille Caulier, a French poem in octaves on courtly love written ca. 1424. The second part has a copy of another verse poem by Chartier: Le Livre des quatre dames.
Online Since: 10/04/2011
This paper manuscript, missing the beginning, contains the French translation of a compendium of the Legenda aurea by Jacobus de Voragine. Numerous ex-libris attest to changes in ownership among various persons in the area around Fribourg, among them Pierre Kämmerling the Elder († 1614) and Jean Muffat de Foncigny, resident in Fribourg (Switzerland).
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This missal from the diocese of Lausanne reflects the contents of manuscript Ms. 7 from the Franciscan monastery of Fribourg. The manuscript is decorated with elegant fleuronné letters in red, blue and green, and the page with the Te igitur is framed by a frieze of flowers with a bird holding a flower in its beak. The opposite side, which probably contained a miniature with the crucifixion, has been cut out. The missal was part of the collection of Karl Friedrich von Steiger (died 1982) and was purchased by the BCU Fribourg in 1991.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
This paper manuscript contains the Fribourg chronicle of the Burgundian Wars in German, inspired by the Kleiner Burgunderkrieg by Diebold Schilling (1477), but from the perspective of Fribourg. This chronicle, which for a long time had been forgotten, is attributed to Peter von Molsheim from Bern, who is to have written it at the behest of the Council of Fribourg. The initials and illustrations were not executed.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This manuscript contains the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. The Samaritan community, an Israelite community that still lives in the West Bank and the Israeli city of Holon, recognizes only these five books as holy scripture. The Hebrew text is written in Samaritan characters and features various cryptograms. One of them contains the name of the copyist, Ya'akov ben Yossef ben Meshalma, who completed his work in the year 901 of the Hegira (1495 AD) in Damascus. Some pages of this neat manuscript have stains (e.g., f. 132r, 170r), which were caused by a special ritual during which the parchment is touched with bare hand. The origin of this manuscript is partly unknown: it was sold in Cairo in 1902 and not until 2000 did it reappear in a private collection, whereupon the Cantonal Library of Fribourg acquired it.
Online Since: 12/10/2020