Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek
The Abbey Library of Einsiedeln is rightfully considered a typical monastery library. Around the Holy Scripture as its center point are arranged the spiritual, theological sciences in an inner circle, around these in an outer circle are arranged all other sciences, from history, philosophy and jurisprudence to the natural sciences and medicine. Such comprehensive breadth was already documented in manuscripts from the early days of the monastery, as well as in ones from the so-called historical collection of the post-Reformation period, and the same remains true today for the modern library. The abbey library’s collection today includes about 1,200 manuscripts (of these about 580 are from before 1500), 1,100 incunabula and early printed works (until 1520), and 230,000 printed volumes from the 16th to the 21st century. Numerous current journals and periodicals offer the most up-to-date research from a large variety of disciplines.
"De consolatione philosophiae" by Boethius and the life of St. Wolfgang by Otloh of St. Emmeram make up this two-part codex. One part was written in Einsiedeln, the second may have been written in Strassburg.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This Einsiedeln codex contains the letter of Alexander to Aristotle, the life of Charlemagne by Einhard, and an account by Eberwinus of the life of the hermit Simeon of Trier. This manuscript, which was written during the first third of the 10th century and the second half of the 11th century, could have been produced in St. Gallen, or else in western or southern Germany.
Online Since: 07/31/2009
This is a composite manuscript containing works with philosophical and rhetorical content. At the beginning are translations by Boethius of Aristotle's Categories and the Peri Hermeneias; these are followed by a piece called De Dialectica and Cicero's Topica with In Topica Ciceronis, the commentary by Boethius.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
This codex is a particularly important manuscript of collected texts. Especially important are the Inscriptiones Urbis Romae and the Itinerarium Urbis Romae. The Ordo Romanus XXIII for use on Good Friday, transmitted only in this manuscript, is also notable. Additional contents of this codex include a selection from the Notae of Marcus Valerius Probus, the Gesta Salvatoris (Evangelium Nicodemi), Varia Poemata and a text entitled De inventione s. Crucis. There is no information about how the manuscript traveled to Pfäfers and then on to Einsiedeln (most likely during the 14th century).
Online Since: 11/04/2010
This manuscript consists of two parts, bound together for the first time during the 14th century in Einsiedeln and annotated by Heinrich von Ligerz. The first part (1-137), which contains three works by Priscian and one by Rufinus, was probably produced during the 9th/10th centuries in Switzerland or Germany. The second part (139-318) contains works by Isidore and is in part a palimpsest. It was written during the 8th/9th centuries in northern Italy or Switzerland, probably in the same scriptorium as Cod. Sang. 908.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
This manuscript contains Eusebius of Caesarea’s Historia ecclesiastica. Based on the script as well as several marginal notes, it can be placed in Southern Germany, perhaps in the area of Lake Constance. It is certain that the manuscript has been in Einsiedeln since the 14th century, as attested by numerous annotations by Heinrich von Ligerz, as well as two drawings by the same hand (p. 133 and 211).
Online Since: 04/09/2014
This manuscript, written in Rhaetian minuscule, contains selected chapters of the ecclesiastical history of Eusebius of Caesarea.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
This is actually a manuscript of collected texts, since, in addition to the incomplete Imago mundi by Honorius Augustodunensis, it also contains other texts by unnamed authors such as: Nomina XI regionum, Divisio orbis terrarum, De anima, De anima humana, De origine animarum, De anima mundi, De origine animarum and ends with the Epistola Alexandri ad Aristotelem.
Online Since: 08/12/2010
Boethius (c. 476-c. 525), one of the earliest scholars of late antiquity and most influential of thinkers, in logic as well as in philosphy and theology, is the author of the works reproduced in this codex, De arithmetica et geometria and De musica. Both works were recognized during the middle ages as foundation works of the quadrivium. The manuscript was produced in Einsiedeln in the 10th century.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
Contains works of Isidore of Seville: Libri originum (I-III e V-XX), De natura rerum, and letters exchanged between Isidore and Braulio of Zaragoza. The manuscript was assembled from an assortment of fragments that had been removed in the 19th century from law volumes held by the library of the chancery of St. Gerold in Vorarlberg. This volume was assembled at the request of Abbot Frowin of Engelberg (1143-1178), as indicated by dedicatory verses on f. 1r.
Online Since: 12/19/2011
The manuscript is a collection containing fragments of the comedies of Terence, from two lost manuscripts of the 10th century (ff. 3r-26v and ff. 28r-55v, respectively ε and η in editions), plus some fragments from a third manuscript (ff. 56r-57v), including portions of Terence’s Phormio and a hymn to St. Nicholas. The size, legibility and state of preservation vary in different fragments. Some missing leaves from the second manuscript (η) are preserved in the collection of fragments St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek 1394 (pp. 115-120).
Online Since: 12/17/2015
The fragments assembled in this collection were removed from their previous volumes by P. Gall Morel in 1858 and bound together into this volume in 1860. They consist of fragments from sequences (two volumes), hymn melodies (such as those still sung to this day in Einsiedeln), three Gloria melodies (the third of which is attributed to Pope Leo IX), three liturgical plays as well as the Novem modi by Hermannus. This manuscript is important to music history, as it is the first instance in Einsiedeln where the neumes are set upon four (incised) staff lines; the form used here represents the Alemannic choral dialect.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
This antiphonary was written by order of Abbot Johannes I of Schwanden for the liturgy of the Hours of the monastic community of Einsiedeln. Together with Cod. 611-613, this manuscript attests to the introduction of Guido of Arezzo’s (Guido Monaco’s) system of musical notes with square notation.
Online Since: 04/23/2013
It is highly likely that this codex is the original transcription of the neumed manuscript in the hand of Guido von Arezzo commissioned by Abbot Johannes I of Schwanden shortly before 1314. The calligraphic copies found in the other "Schwanden codices" were then produced following this source. Evidence of heavy use indicates that these manuscripts remained in use into the 17th century, that is, until the liturgical reform of the Council of Trent. The forms used are from the Alemannic choral dialect, which is still sung in Einsiedeln today.
Online Since: 11/04/2010
German Psalter. The psalms are preceded by rubrics that indicate the occasion when the psalm should be recited. The manuscript also contains several canticles, the Te deum and the Litanies of the Saints. The names in the litanies indicate a Benedictine origin. The manuscript was written in 1421 by Othmar Ortwin. In 1839 it was purchased by the Einsiedeln monk and librarian P. Gallus Morell from the Cistercian Wurmsbach Abbey on Lake Zürich.
Online Since: 03/17/2016
This manuscript containing the Legenda aurea by Jacobus de Voragine is the second-oldest manuscript copy of this work, written within the lifetime of the author; it is dated 1288. The codex also contains the first known transmission of the so-called Provincia or Purgatory addendum. The proposal by A. Bruckner that the Abbey of Rheinau is the location of origin is not supported by any indications in the codex itself. It was most likely written in the southern German region (within the community of Augustinian hermits).
Online Since: 11/04/2010
This manuscript was produced in the Convent of Dominican Sisters of St. Verena in Zurich in 1449. In addition to the life of Benedict following Gregory’s Dialogi, in a unique translation that seems to exist only in this codex (according to Werner Williams-Krapp), the manuscript contains translations of three more legends of 13th century Dominican saints. These as well are attested only in this codex, have practically never been studied, and have not even been edited. First there is one of three versions of the translation of the Vita S. Dominici by Dietrich of Apolda; then there is the translation of Thomas Agno de Lentino's Legenda maior about the Inquisitor Peter of Milan (also know as Peter Martyr or Peter of Verona), who was killed in 1252; attached to this is the bull of his canonization issued by Pope Innocent IV in 1253. It is noteworthy that the translation of the bull also contains a legend of Peter which, according to Regina D. Schiewer, is independent of the one by Thomas Agno. If the translations of these legends into Alemannic that are contained in Cod. 671 were in fact created around 1300, as assumed by Schwierer, then the (abbreviated?) version of the translation of the life of Dominic contained in Cod. 671 would constitute the earliest proof of the presence of the revelations of Mechthild of Magdeburg in Southwestern Germany, as the final chapter of the fifth book of the life of Dominic (cf. fol. 80v-82r) is based on excerpts from the Latin translation of Das Fließende Licht der Gottheit.
Online Since: 03/22/2017
This very small manuscript contains treatises on music by various Italian and French authors, among them Marchettus of Padua (f. 1-44), Johannes de Muris (f. 83-104v), and Prosdocimus of Beldomandi (f. 51-55, 75-82). It was written in Northern Italy at the beginning of the 15th century.
Online Since: 12/13/2013
Christus und die Minnende Seele ("Christ and the Courting (or wooing) Soul"); Henry Suso, life and works. This manuscript was a gift from a married couple, Ehlinger-von Kappel (Constance) to the Dominican convent of St. Peter in Constance, and from there it probably came to Einsiedeln via the Rheinau Abbey after its dissolution.
Online Since: 04/26/2007