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Psalter, produced in the second half of the 9th century, possibly in northern France. Following the Psalms, which were heavily annotated with commentaries in later centuries (mainly the 14th and 15th centuries), the Psalter is followed by the Canticles as well as a fragment of a Litany of the Saints not produced at St. Gallen. The beautifully illuminated initial capital of the first Psalm (Beatus vir) on page 1 is strongly influenced by Irish models.
Online Since: 12/09/2008
Bible manuscript from the time of Hartmut, Vice-abbot ca. 850-872 and Abbot 872-883, containing a copy of the Hebrew Psalter: one volume of the so-called "Kleine Hartmut-Bibel".
Online Since: 06/12/2006
The Wolfcoz Psalter – one of St. Gallen's earliest examples of illuminated initials of the highest quality.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Old High German translation and commentary on the Psalms by the monk Notker the German of St. Gall, dating from around the year 1000. This 12th century copy from Einsiedeln is the only extant complete copy.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
The Golden Psalter (Psalterium aureum) of St. Gall, written and illuminated with 17 miniatures, either in the West Franconian empire (Soissons?) or in the monastery of St. Gall with the participation of West Franconian scribes and illuminators.
Online Since: 06/12/2006
The Folchart Psalter, a masterpiece of late Carolingian illumination.
Online Since: 09/14/2005
Produced in the thirteenth century, this Psalter shows evidence of heavy use. An “instructions for use” found on the back pastedown calls for the Psalter to be left in the choir so that every sister can read it. Thus, the Psalter came from a convent of women. Since St. Catherine is particularly emphasized in the calendar, it could have belonged to the convent of Dominican women of St. Catherine in St. Gall. Decoration consists of red and blue pen-flourished initials. In addition, the liturgical eight-part division as well as the three-part division of the Psalter are highlighted with larger painted initials, which are partially adorned with silver and gold ink. Following the Psalms, starting on p. 240, are the biblical Cantica, Credo, Te Deum, Symbolum Athanasianum and a litany. A few leaves were replaced in the fifteenth and fourteenth/fifteenth century (pp. 95–98, 257–264). Two quires of a breviary in the same hand as pp. 257–264 are bound to the litany (pp. 269–288). In the same hand, an incomplete calendar (July to December) with names of the month in German precedes the Psalter (pp. 1–12). Originally the calendar probably consisted of two quires, of which only the last leaf of the first quire and the complete second quire remain. On the front pastedown is glued the bookplate of Prince-Abbot Beda Angehrn (abbot 1767-1796).
Online Since: 12/14/2022
The manuscript is defective at the beginning and at the end; the Psalter begins in Ps. 4,5. The psalms are followed on p. 203-218 by the Old Testament canticles for the Lauds (without Canticum Moysis I) and two New Testament canticles, the Benedictus and the Magnificat. The Pater noster, which follows on p. 218, breaks off in the middle of the text. This small-format Psalter is written on parchment of inferior quality. The pages are heavily worn and often damaged.
Online Since: 10/08/2020
Short Psalter from the early 14th century, produced in the now dissolved west English Abbey of Malmesbury, with calendar and All Saints Litany, illustrated with artful initials and margin borders composed of leaves, flowers, animals and human heads. Acquired by the Cloister of St. Gall since 1500 at the latest, the volume was "augmented" at this location by the addition of some recipes for medical preparations.
Online Since: 12/23/2008
A glossed psalter from the monastery ofSt. Gall, dating from the middle of the 9th century.
Online Since: 12/31/2005
Lectionary from the Abbey of St. Gall with numerous sermons on various Gospel selections by the church fathers, produced by a number of different hands in the 10th century in St. Gall. This little studied volume also contains benedictions and oratory prayers. Appended at the back (in small script in two columns) is a Psalter. The manuscript has become extremely soiled with intensive use; it features assorted addenda and supplements from the 11th and 12th centuries.
Online Since: 12/21/2009
The manuscript contains the readings for the nocturns of matins, the nightly office, on Sundays, feast days and weekdays. It includes the proprium de tempore from the first of Advent to the end of the ecclesiastical year (including the saints' feasts between Christmas and Epiphany). As the Matutinale does not have four readings per nocturn on Sundays, as was the practice in the Order of Saint Benedict, but only three, it cannot have been originally written for the Abbey of St. Gall. On the margins of p. 233/234 appear numerous additions from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the feast of the Trinity. Decoration consists of red lombards and simple initials, partially with incipient pen-flourishes (e.g., p. 75). The parchment has numerous holes, some of which have stitches. Numerous pages are trimmed below the text block. Strips from an eleventh-century liturgical manuscript are bound around the first and last quire of the codex as reinforcement (the back half of the strip around the last quire is paginated as p. 414/415). On the front board appears the offset of a page of a thirteenth-century psalter; on the back board, the offset of an eleventh-century sacramentary (?).
Online Since: 12/14/2022
This manuscript probably was written at the behest of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491). The manuscript's principal part consists of a Psalter with the Psalms in biblical order, as well as several liturgical rubrics, antiphons (partly only with the Initium), and hymns, followed by the Pater noster, the Credo, biblical Cantica, the Te Deum, a litany und more Cantica. The final part, from fol. 135v, consists of a hymnal, which also contains a Sequence (Cantemus cuncti melodum). Antiphons and hymns have melodies in German plainsong notation("Hufnagelnotation") on 4 or 5 lines. Numerous erasures and additions, as well as other signs of usage, attest to intensive use of the manuscript. Several pages have book decorations in the form of initials with vine scrolls; a figure initial can be found on fol. 1v (a man fighting a dragon and a bird of prey).
Online Since: 10/07/2013
This manuscript was written at the behest of St. Gall Abbot Ulrich Rösch (1463-1491) (dating on f. 227r: 1467). Its content corresponds substantially to that of Cod. Sang. 438: a Psalter with the Psalms in biblical order, as well as several liturgical rubrics, antiphons (partly only with the Initium) and hymns are followed from f. 148v by Cantica, and from f. 172v by a hymnal. Antiphons and hymns have melodies in German plainsong notation ("Hufnagelnotation") on 4 or 5 lines. Numerous erasures (sometimes extending over several pages) and additions, as well as other signs of usage, attest to intensive use of the manuscript. Several pages have book decorations in the form of initials with vine scrolls; a figure initial can be found on f. 104v (David with a harp).
Online Since: 10/07/2013
This small volume contains liturgical fragments. They come from six different manuscripts (overwhelmingly breviaries/psalters), of which sometimes multiple leaves, sometimes only a few lines survive. The first fragment (ff. 12r-34v) is written in Latin, but has German rubrics, which suggests a breviary for private use. As a note on f. Ar in his own hand indicates, Ildefons von Arx likely assembled this volume.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This small prayerbook contains four large textual units, of which three could be called Marian prayers. A short psalter that connects the first verse of each psalm with an Ave Maria (pp. 5–35), an extensive litany of saints (pp. 37–68), the “Joys of Mary” (pp. 69–180), and another short psalter that is structured like the first text, except that throughout it uses a different Psalm verse instead of the initial verse (pp. 180–200). The manuscript is entirely written by a skilled hand and contains rubrics and initials in red and blue ink. The text is preceded by two full-page illuminations (p. 2 Enthroned Virgin and Child, p. 3 the Flagellation of Christ). The mention of St. Abundius of Como (p. 56) suggests a possible place of origin for the codex. Thus Scherrer suggests that it could have been copied in Italy for Benedictines; Scarpatetti thinks that it was produced in or for a lay chapter or a women's convent. On p. C can be found a likely post-medieval ownership mark by a certain Jodokus Graislos in Greek script. In the eighteenth century, the book received its current, unadorned binding and an ownership mark of the St. Gall-dependent convent of St. Johann im Thurtal (p. 1), whence the manuscript came to the Abbey Library.
Online Since: 09/22/2022
Most likely intended for the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Catherine in St. Gall, this tiny psalter (11 x 8 cm) reveals its Dominican use already in the calendar (ff. 2r-7v), which includes Dominican saints, such as Thomas Aquinas and Peter Martyr. Copied in a single column of textualis by a regular hand, the text is punctuated by alternating red and blue initials, sometimes with pen flourishes, and in different sizes according to the textual divisions (psalm, verse). In addition to Latin notes, the margins contain instructions in German on how to recite the Psalms. After the litany of saints and prayers (ff. 151r-159v), a paper quire has been added, dating from the end of the fifteenth century and containing hymns (ff. 160r-170v).
Online Since: 09/22/2022
This tiny psalter, which was written for a Dominican Convent, begins with a fragmentary calendar (ff. Er-Iv; one leaf, containing the months of January and February, has been removed). After the Psalms (ff. 1r-182v) there follows the Old and New Testament Cantica (ff. 183r-193r) and the Athanasian Creed Quicumque vult (ff. 193r–194v) as well as a fifteenth-century addition of a litany (ff. Ur–Wr). Red and blue initials, some with pen-flourishes, make up the book's ornamentation. The flyleaves come from older recycled parchment, and the pastedowns are made up of fragments from a fifteenth-century charter. Since Catherine of Siena does not appear in the calendar, the psalter likely was produced before 1460. The manuscript was in the Abbey Library by the eighteenth century at the latest.
Online Since: 04/25/2023
This Psalter contains the psalms in liturgical sequence with antiphons, followed by biblical canticles and a hymnal. The codex was written in 1545 (colophon f. 102v) by the organist and calligrapher Fridolin Sicher (1490-1546) by order of Prince Abbot Diethelm Blarer (1530-1564). Large parts were rewritten by numerous later hands, probably after the reform of the liturgy following the Council of Trent. The Psalter contains several figurative initials by an unknown illuminator.
Online Since: 06/23/2014
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. 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 endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The twenty-second folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments from two psalters dating from the ninth and tenth century.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Cod. Sang. 1397 is one of eight fragment volumes (that is, volumes that contain exclusively fragments) of the Abbey Library of St. Gall. 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 endleaf guards. At an advanced age, Ildefons von Arx had the fragments bound in eight thematically-organized bindings and dedicated these in 1822 to his friend Johann Nepomuk Hauntinger. Chiefly in the twentieth century, researchers found additional, small fragments in bindings, from which they were then removed and added to the existing fragment volumes or into the collection of fragments. From 2005 to 2006 the extensive fragment volume Cod. Sang. 1397 was disbound for conservation reasons. The fragments were rebound (in the same sequence) in 23 folders (“Ganzpapierbroschuren”). The new, now authoritative pagination begins with 1 in each folder and includes only the fragments (and not the empty paper leaves). To be cited (for example): St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1397.1, pp. 1-2 (= Cod. Sang. 1397, Folder 1, pages 1-2). The twenty-third folder of Cod. Sang. 1397 contains fragments from five manuscripts, chiefly psalters, from the tenth to the twelfth century.
Online Since: 09/06/2023
Psalter/Breviary for a Dominican women's convent. On pp. 1-12 it contains a calendar of saints with many female saints and several rare saints. The presence of saints from St. Gall and Constance suggests that the volume was created in the Diocese of Constance. On pp. 390-393 there are instructions for prayer in German. Noteworthy are thirteen miniatures and initials in gold leaf. This volume is from the convent of Dominican nuns of St. Katharina auf dem Nollenberg near Wuppenau (Thurgau); according to a note of ownership, it was the property of the convent at least since the 16th century. Since 1930 it has been a deposit of the episcopal library of St. Gall at the Abbey Library.
Online Since: 12/14/2018
German Psalter, complete except for one missing leaf at the end: Psalms (pp. 1-164), canticles (pp. 164-178). With few figured initials (dog p. 1, fish p. 141, p. 153 and p. 157). The volume is from the St. Katharinen Convent of Dominican nuns in St. Gall; whether it was written there cannot be determined for certain. Since 1930 it has been in the Abbey Library as a deposit of the episcopal library of St. Gall.
Online Since: 10/08/2015