Basel, Universitätsbibliothek
This small-format manuscript in Latin is from the Carthusian monastery of Basel; in particular, it treats the Passion of Christ. The devotional image on the front pastedown takes up this topic, as do the texts, which are by, among others, Ludolph of Saxony, Bonaventure and Eckbert of Schönau. The manuscript’s first text, a long devotional text De vita et passione Iesu Christi, may have been written by Heinrich Arnoldi, Carthusian of Basel.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This small-format parchment manuscript is known as the “Basler Liederhandschrift”; it transmits German and Latin texts in verse and prose, which are primarily spiritual in character and in part are supplemented with musical notation. Among them are texts by Konrad of Würzburg and Walther von der Vogelweide, among others. This manuscript was written around 1300; in the 15th century it was in the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, and in the 17th century it was the property of Remigius Fäsch, a collector from Basel.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
This small-format parchment manuscript is from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, where it was completed in 1478 by the scribe Johannes Gipsmüller. The numerous devotional texts on various female saints have mostly been passed down anonymously; some – such as those on Margareta, the patron saint of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel – can probably be attributed to Heinrich Arnoldi. The codex is decorated with full-page illustrations of saints treated in the text as well as numerous initials, the latter in a variety of styles.
Online Since: 12/10/2020
This small-format composite manuscript contains numerous pieces of mysticism, such as sermons, treatises (excerpts), instructions and sayings by, among others, Meister Eckhart, Heinrich von Ekkewint and Johannes von Sterngassen. The volume was written by two different hands; the first of these complains in red ink on f. 379r that anyone unable to write could have no idea how torturous such work is. A note of ownership by abbey librarian Georg Carpentarius (around 1487-1531) and the old shelfmark E xxvi associates the manuscript with the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. As most of the German-language manuscripts at the monastery, it was part of the lay brothers' library.
Online Since: 10/10/2019
This small-format composite manuscript is decorated simply; it is from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel, probably from the library of the lay brothers. It is written in various 15th century hands and contains Penitential Psalms, meditations, liturgical texts, a spiritual treatise, prayers and poems to Mary; judging by the signs of wear, the manuscript was used intensively.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This composite volume, originally composed of ten fascicles, was at least partly written in the Carthusian Monastery of Basel. One of the writers is Hans Lesser, a brother from St. Gallen. The small-format manuscript was part of the library of the lay brothers of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel and contains various German-language prayers and devotional texts, some of which refer explicitly to the lay brothers of the Carthusian Monastery.
Online Since: 12/12/2019
This small-format manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel contains prayers to and about the saints and martyrs Margaret of Antioch, Barbara of Nicomedia and Catherine of Alexandria. The Meditationes were composed by the Carthusian Henricus Arnoldi of Basel; the small-format manuscript was written by his fellow monk Johannes Gipsmüller.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
In 1932, this small-format breviary was acquired in an English antiquary shop for the University Library of Basel. There is no medieval possession note, but the calendar and the content permit its definitive localization to the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen. Additional evidence for this provenance can be found in the somewhat later representations of the Passion story added somewhat later in the manuscript, as several of them feature a central depiction of Mary Magdalen with her ointment jar. The artistic full-page illuminations are probably to be understood in the context of the observance movement in medieval women’s monasteries. In the seventeenth century some German prayers were added, along with a contemporary possession note that proves that, at that time, the manuscript was still in the possession of the Dominican nuns.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
This richly illustrated parchment manuscript, a German-language private prayer book, was produced in 1489 in the Lake Constance area. The patron, identified as “H.M.” (78v) is most likely Hugo XV. zu Rothenfels und Wasserburg (ca. 1460-1519), his wife, Countess Anna von Montfort-Wasserburg-Rothenfels (ca. 1470-1531) is the addressee and owner, and she also gives the manuscript its current name. In 1977, the manuscript came to the University Library from the estate of the Basel collector August Meyer (1903-1977). In 2024, the manuscript was extensively restored and rebound.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
The first part of this composite manuscript from the Carthusian Monastery of Basel contains Aristotle’s writing on the soul, De anima, in William of Moerbeke’s translation, copied in Paris in 1459 by the scholar Johannes Heynlin. The main text, decorated with artistic initials with gold leaf as well as fleuronné initials, is closely surrounded by commentary in marginal and interlinear glosses, written in a small, compact semi-Gothic script. Bound into this volume as the second part is Aristotle’s De animalibus, printed in Venice in 1476; this text’s uncharacteristic lack of decoration at least raises the question of whether it was also part of Heynlin’s library.
Online Since: 06/25/2015
This legal manuscript was owned by the Basel jurist Arnold Zum Luft (1453-1517). The manuscript was produced in Bologna in the second half of the 13th century and contains the Digestum vetus, the first part of the tradition regarding existing laws, dating from late antiquity, together with the explanatory glosses compiled by Franciscus Accursius. In addition to Arabic and Roman numerals, the manuscript also presents a vigesimal numeral system.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
Like C I 1, this 14th century legal manuscript was produced in Bologna and was owned by Arnold Zum Luft (1453-1517). It contains the Digestum novum with Accursius’ glosses, i.e., the fourth and last part of the corpus of the Digest of ancient Roman legal literature. The manuscript is richly decorated with title miniatures and figure initials.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This manuscript, written by several Northern Italian hands, contains the Lectura super codicem by the legal scholar Guilelmus de Cugno or Cuneo, who gave lectures in Toulouse in 1316-1317. The original must have been divided into quires, at least there are annotations in the manuscript that are similar to those of the pecia system. In 1383, this volume was owned by a converted Jew in Trier; later it became part of the library of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 06/14/2018
This 14th century parchment manuscript contains the commentaries of the legal expert and canonist Johannes Andreae (around 1270-1348) on the Liber Sextus Decretalium Bonifacii, the third part of the Corpus iuris canonici. The volume came into the possession of the Carthusian monastery of Basel during the Council (1431-1449).
Online Since: 09/26/2017
Canonistic manuscript with Dominicus de Sancto Geminiano’s Lectura super librum sextum Decretalium. This volume was written in 1439 by Johannes Berwenstein for Peter Zum Luft, who was teaching at the university of the Council of Basel and who later left his extensive book collection to his nephew Arnold Zum Luft.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
This manuscript from the second quarter of the 15th century contains the Lectura super Clementinas by Johannes de Imola; it is from the extensive library of the Basel jurist Arnold Zum Luft (1453-1517). This volume, originally a catenatus, contains initials by the same hand as in C I 21.
Online Since: 09/26/2017
For efficiency, writings of law and canon law were often copied using the pecia system, where a model was divided into quires and distributed to several copyists. In the same manner, this commentary on the decretals by ”Abbas antiquus“, only later identified as Bernardus de Montemirato, was created in three pieces. The sparingly decorated manuscript is written in a littera bononiensis and was owned by the library of the Carthusian monastery of Basel.
Online Since: 12/14/2017
The manuscript was produced in the second half of the thirteenth century and contains 92 parchment leaves with decoration and illuminations. It transmits Emperor Justinian’s Institutiones with its standard gloss (Glossa Ordinaria) and is richly decorated with, among others, vignettes, marginal drawings, and historical notes. The work was in the possession of Arnold zum Lufft, who gave it to the Basel Cordeliers. In addition to its juridical content the book includes heavily erased notes and illustrations that depict humoral theory.
Online Since: 08/21/2025
From 1470 until 1475, Jakob Lauber, later the head of the Carthusian Monastery of Basel and its richly endowed library, attended lectures by the famous decretist Peter Andlau at the newly founded University of Basel; this is attested by his lecture notes on the Conclusiones Clementinarum and the Liber sextus of Boniface VIII from the year 1471.
Online Since: 03/19/2015
This manuscript, a composite manuscript of legal content, has as its main text the Summa super rubricis decretalium by the Italian legal scholar Godefridus de Trano (deceased 1245). This is a textbook on the Compilation of Decretals commissioned by Pope Gregory IX, which was widely distributed. The text is decorated with five small figure initials, probably of French origin.
Online Since: 03/22/2018