Manuscripts

The heart of St.Gallen Abbey Library is its unique collection of manuscripts. Not only is the quantity impressive, but this collection is above all remarkably coherent and complete. Today it enables us to reconstruct the intellectual and cultural life of the abbey from the Early Middle Ages until dissolution in 1805. It is complemented in important ways by the charters and other administrative documents in the Abbey Archives, which are also extraordinarily complete.

The first indications of independent manuscript production in St.Gallen date back to the middle of the 8th century during the time of founding abbot Othmar and his successor Johannes (719–759 and 759–782). From the 8th to the 11th century, the Benedictine Abbey of St Gall was one of the leading cultural centres in Europe. Creative monks – illuminators like Wolfcoz and Folchart, poets, scholars and artists like Notker the Stammerer, Tuotilo and Notker the German – have entered the annals of European cultural history.

The manuscripts are accessible for research. Some are presented for interested visitors in the Baroque Hall at annual exhibitions focusing on different topics.

The manuscripts, more than 2100 of them, are ordered by theme. The running shelf numbers collate the books according to this principle. The weakness of this system is well illustrated by the manuscripts added more recently from Codex 1094 onwards, as they can no longer be «inserted» by theme among the older holdings.

Manuscript numbers
1 – 84 Bible manuscripts
85 – 337 Church Fathers and ecclesiastical writers
337b – 546 Liturgical manuscripts and prayer books
547 – 669 Vitas, secular history, geography
670 – 749 Canonical, Roman and Germanic law
750 – 762 Medicine
763 – 815 Dogmatic and ascetic literature
816 – 849 Philosophy and mathematics
850 – 913 Roman classics, scholiasts and grammaticians, Latin and German dictionaries and literature
914 – 925 Rules of Orders
936 – 1014 Ascetics
1015 – 1081 Homilies
1082 – 1093 «Antiquities», heraldry
1094 – 1725 No thematic order, books of the 15th–18th centuries
1716 – 1984 Supplementary holdings; acquisitions 1875–1980
1985 – 2092 Primarily prayer books and devotional literature of the 18th and 19th centuries
2093 – 2112 Miscellaneous; purchases and gifts

Manuscripts from Zürich

The Abbey Library also has forty manuscripts in its care following a dispute over cultural assets with Zürich in 2006, and these are now loaned on terms set out in a joint agreement. They have been digitised and can be viewed online. The manuscripts are as follows:

a) Medieval manuscripts
Ms. A 135 Sammelhandschrift des St.Galler Mönchs P. Gall Kemli mit seinem Bücherkatalog, 15. Jhd.
Ms. A 152 Kuchimeister, Chronik Kloster St.Gallen, 15. Jhd.
Ms. C 10i Passionarius maior (Heiligenleben), 9./10. Jhd.
Ms. C 12 Sog. «Zürcher Psalter», 820/30
Ms. C 43 Sacramentarium triplex, 920/30
Ms. C 60 Lektionar aus dem Kloster St.Gallen 900/910
Ms. C 62 Sammelband mit u.a. Thebaïs des Statius, 10.–12. Jhd.
Ms. C 74a Quintillian, Institutio retorica, 10./11. Jhd.
Ms. C 77 (Lektionar Comitis) Epistel und Evangelien, 900/910
Ms. C 78 Sammelhandschrift 9.–15. Jhd. aus dem Kloster St.Gallen, mit u.a. Alkuin-Texten, dem Aachener Karlsepos, dem Carmina Sangallensia
Ms. C 80 Sammelhandschrift mit u.a. Alkuin-Texten, kanonistischen Texten, 9.–13. Jhd.
Ms. C 98 Notker der Deutsche, althochdeutscher Rhetorik- und Dialekt-Traktat, 11. Jhd.
Ms. C 100 Walther von Châtillon, Alexandreis, 14. Jhd.
Ms. 101 Sammelhandschrift des St.Galler Mönchs P. Gall Kemli 15. Jhd.
Ms. 121 Sammelband mit Texten des Isidor von Sevilla, von Beda Venerabilis und Notker dem Deutschen, 11. Jhd.
Ms. C 129 Sammelband mit u.a. Liber hermeneumatum, 9. Jhd.
Ms. C 150 Sammelband des St. Galler Mönchs P. Gall Kemli, 15. Jhd.

b) Early Modern manuscripts
Ms. B 73 Ausgabenbuch des St.Galler Abtes Otmar Kunz (1564–1577), 16. Jhd.
Ms. B 96 Glaubenslehren aus der Vita des Gallus, 17. Jhd.
Ms. B 115 Übersetzung von zwei französischen Texten Mabillons durch P. Hermann Schenk ins Lateinische, um 1700
Ms. B 118 Konvertitenliste der Fürstabtei St.Gallen 1640-1697
Ms. B 124 P. Chrysostomus Stipplin, Ius canonicum, 17. Jhd.
Ms. B 131 Ausgaben-Buch 1706 eines fürstäbtisch-sanktgallischen Beamten
Ms. B 134 Wunder am Altar «Maria im Gatter» 1470–1520, Abschrift von 1608
Ms. C 106 Vorlesungen Vadians, geschrieben durch den St.Galler Münsterorganisten Fridolin Sicher 1523/24
Ms. D 74 Ermahnungen an die Fratres juniores im Kloster St.Gallen, 1633
Ms. D 76 Handschrift der Sammlung P. Ulrich Aichhaim, um 1670. Carmina
Ms. D 76a Handschrift der Sammlung P. Ulrich Aichhaim, um 1670. De studiis
Ms. D 76b Handschrift der Sammlung P. Ulrich Aichhaim, um 1670. Affixiones
Ms. D 76c Handschrift der Sammlung P. Ulrich Aichhaim, um 1670. De studiis
Ms. D 77 Handschrift der Sammlung P. Ulrich Aichhaim, um 1670. Versus heroici
Ms. D 77b Handschrift der Sammlung P. Ulrich Aichhaim, um 1670. Carmina
Ms. D 147 Lateinische Redeübungen von St.Galler Novizen, 1660/61
Ms. D 155 Lateinische Predigten eines St.Galler Mönchs 1674–1691
Ms. D 199 Lateinische Gedichte für den Augsburger Bischof Marquard von Berg, verfasst an der Universität Dillingen von St.Galler Mönchen 1577
Ms. D 217 Festschrift aus dem Kloster St.Gallen: Übersetzung des Marienpsalters ins Griechische, 1661
Ms. D 219 P. Chrysostomus Stipplin, Gedichte auf die Heiligen jeden Tages, ca. 1630
Ms. D 221 Lateinische Gedichte des St.Galler Mönchs Athanasius Gugger, um 1654
Ms. D 227 P. Gallus Schindler, Mönch des Klosters St.Gallen: Übersetzung der Regula Benedicti ins Griechische, um 1670
Kartensammlung Karte der Fürstabtei St.Gallen um 1700 mit Aufschrift «Ex Bibliotheca Abb. S. Galli»

The dispute between St.Gallen and Zürich over cultural assets

A summary of the main points covered by the settlement to the dispute with Zürich over cultural assets in 2006:

St.Gallen recognises that Zürich has acquired the full ownership, together with all derived rights, of all cultural assets which, as a result of the events of 1712, came into the possession of institutions in Zürich and the Swiss National Museum, regardless of the circumstances of acquisition. Zürich recognises the relevance to the identity of St.Gallen and the region around Lake Constance of these indigenous products of art (writing, painting, book illumination) and science, which had been created and collected in the Abbey Library at St.Gallen since the Early Middle Ages. St.Gallen recognises that these cultural assets have, in the almost 300 years that they have spent in Zürich, contributed to the cultural identity of the Central Library and been well conserved, cared for and catalogued there. Zürich will make for St.Gallen Abbey Library a faithful replica of the terrestrial and celestial globe belonging to the Zürich Central Library Foundation now in the National Museum. The Canton of Zürich will donate to St.Gallen the Vita vetustissima Sancti Galli currently in the Zürich State Archives. Zürich will lend St.Gallen 35 of the cultural assets belonging to the Zürich Central Library Foundation for an indeterminate duration. This loan cannot be terminated for at least 38 years, i.e. before 2044. The manuscripts arrived in St.Gallen on 25 September 2006. St.Gallen Abbey Library will make high-quality digital images of all the loaned manuscripts for the Zürich Central Library Foundation.

These loan conditions were set out in a jointly formulated agreement. The selection of cultural assets to be loaned long-term to St.Gallen was performed on the basis of the key criterion relevance to the identity of St.Gallen, in particular the following aspects:

1) independent intellectual and artistic accomplishments of monks in St.Gallen in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern era,
2) liturgical manuscripts specifically reflecting St.Gallen’s calendar of saints and order of worship,
3) the oldest texts written or copied in St.Gallen.